Authors: James Seloover
The Trouble Way
The Trouble Way
James Seloover
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2014 by James D. Seloover
Cover art copyright © 2014 by James D. Seloover
ISBN:
ISBN-13:
The Trouble Way
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are from the author’s imagination. Any similarities to actual events or persons, living or dead, are coincidental
.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Dava
. I will love you until all of my numbers are used up.
Dream
When Bella was three, she fell into the ice-caked Raccoon River and died. I was watching her at the time. I saw as she climbed on the sparkling mound of snow, lean over the iron railing to look at the ice-flow, lose her footing, and tumble into the river. “Papa …hep you,” she said in her little voice as I felt her fingertips touch mine and watched her eyes disappear from sight. I looked over the side and saw her clinging to a floating branch. Something caught my eye and I looked down. Sitting on the bleach white snow like someone placed him there to take his photo was Lonesome, the fuzzy brown stuffed puppy she gave me for my birthday. She named him Lonesome. She couldn’t pronounce her “Ls,” so she said Yonesome. She was working on “Ls” by practicing saying “yong yegs.” She would say, “Long, long, long, then, yong yegs.
d Jake Forest and Bella
A yong, yong, yong time ago.
2008-201
3
“
Papa, I want you to call me Bella,” my little sweetie said. She was sitting on my lap. We both had dolls in our hands and we were playing family.
I don
’t know where she came up with the name, “Bella.” It may have been from a story she had heard or maybe it was someone she knew at pre-school. She liked to play that we were a make believe family and wanted me to pretend that her name was Bella. She knows that I am not really her grandfather but she wants to always pretend that I am. When we meet someone new, she insists that I tell them I am her grandfather. She always calls me Papa, unless we are playing dolls, then I’m Daddy.
I often wished I were someone else. Maybe not someone else, rather a different sort of person. A better one, more like Bella.
I met most all of Bella’s friends at her preschool and some of them weren’t very nice to my little sweetie. One of her friends who she considers a best friend sometimes ignores her. One time, when my baby wanted a hug before she went home, her best friend pushed her away then ran, leaving Bella standing looking down at her shoes. Bella overlooked those shortcomings and always said good things about her friends. Bella is like that. That’s what I want to be like -- but it’s hard.
So, who am I to argue with a little girl who, when I pick her up at preschool, runs top-speed toward me from whatever far reaches of the playground, with outstretched arms, yelling at the top of her little voice,
“Paaaapaaaaaaa,” until she collides full speed into my legs, jumps into my arms, then informs every kid that we pass in the playground: “This is my Papa.” So, “Bella” is just fine with me and I’ll refer to her that way as long as she wants me to.
The running and hollering
“Paaaapaaaaaaa” came to a rude end on the day I walked into her preschool and into the room where the four-year-olds were sitting at desks or in front of the teacher listening to her read a story. First, one teacher’s helper saw me and hollered to the second assistant, “Tell Bella, her Papa is here.” The second assistant, the one in the room with all the four-year-olds, yelled, “Bella, your Papa is here.” Bella looked up and saw me as I looked around the coat rack, and, as if on cue, hollered, “Paaaapaaaaaaa,” followed by a screech that only a four-year-old can produce, and got up and ran through the maze of tables and chairs and children until she came slamming into my legs.
I bent to pick her up but before I could, the weighty head mistress, bound to her feet and screaming as loud as Bella had screamed said,
“Stop … stop right there Missy,” and began to shatter Bella’s enthusiasm by telling her that something she had been doing for more than a year will not be tolerated any longer. Now when I go to pick up Bella, no more “Paaaapaaaaaaa.” I get a look and she slowly stands and walks to me and gives me a big hug. I could tell she was crushed by the embarrassment of the tongue-lashing she got from that horrible oppressive teacher in front of all her classmates. How could she have done such a thing to such an enthusiastic little sweetie who was excited to see her Papa?
On that day when she received that horrible reprimand, we couldn
’t leave the outer classroom because Bella buried her head in my shoulder and wouldn’t look up or talk. I sat on the edge of the counter with her hugging my neck and her head on my shoulder for a good five minutes.
“
It’s okay sweetie, you didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “Please talk to me honey.”
She sniffed and I could tell she was silently crying, trying not to make any noise, as if she would get another tongue-lashing. It was no use, her fragile feelings had been crumpled. She remained that way until we got into the car.
Lately she had been buckling her own seatbelt. “I can do it my own self,” she would say if I tried to help her, but this time, she didn’t say a word and let me buckle her in. Her arms limp, her hands resting on her legs and her eyes were focused on her shoes. I fed the seatbelt through the guides and reached over her lap and secured the buckle. I gave her a kiss on the head and got into the driver’s seat.
“
Did you have a fun day at school today with all of your friends?” I looked in the rearview mirror and could only see the top of her head. She didn’t talk the entire way home.
I carried her into the house and we sat in my over-stuffed lounge chair where she just hugged me. We stayed that way for about twenty minutes without speaking. We were both shattered. So, we held each other close and gave each other comfort; I needed it as much as she did.
“You are the best granddaughter in the whole wide world,” I said. “It’s okay to holler to me sometimes but just not in the classroom, Sweetie.”
“
No. I’ll holler when I come to see you at your house. Not at school and not at my house, and not in restaurants -- just at your house,” she finally said. She had been thinking all that time and came to the conclusion as to when it would be alright to yell Papa to me.
“
That would be great, Honey. I love you so much, and when you holler Papa to me it makes me feel really, really special.”
So, it was set and we would follow what she wanted to do. It sounded like a pretty sound decision and Bella came to that conclusion all on her own. Once Bella has something set in her mind, there is no changing it.
I hope that head mistress is satisfied.
It came to me that I didn
’t even remember the head mistress’s name. “What is your teacher’s name, Bella? I’m sorry, I forgot.”
“
It’s Mrs. Ashoff.”
I didn
’t hear her very well because she wasn’t quite over her embarrassment. So I said, “Ashoff?”
“
No, Mrs. Ashoff,” she said.
“
Is it Ashoff,” I said again, still not sure if I heard right.
“
No, Papa, it’s Mrs. Ashoff,” she said again.
Then it sank in. It was Mrs. Ashoff. I got the Ashoff right; I left off the Mrs. part. Sometimes, Bella makes me smile.
A few weeks after the Mrs. Ashoff reprimand incident, I went to Bella’s preschool to pick her up and saw her sitting with her best friend. She looked at me and stood and screamed as loud as a four-year-old can, “Paaaapaaaaaaa.” She ran through the maze of tables and collided with my legs and gave me that wonderful hug.
“
You have to use your inside voice. Remember, Sweetie?” I tried to shush her.
“
Mrs. Ashoff isn’t here today,” Bella said.
I gave Bella an extra-long Grandpa squeeze for her insight but remained silent.
Bella and I were best friends since we met. She doesn’t know it, but she was my best friend the day after she was born, the first day I saw her. She latched on to my finger with her long little toes and would not let go.
“
You are going to be my best friend in the whole wide world,” I whispered to her while she nestled in her blanket in my arms.
Bella looked straight into my eyes and I knew she would be.
I remember telling her that and when she was older, around three I think, I told her what I had said when she was just a few days old.
“
Papa, I can’t be your best friend.”
“
Why can’t you be?” I asked.
“
We can’t be best friends, you are too old,” she said.
“
What can we be then?”
“
You can be my best Papa in the whole wide world.”
“
Okay, you have a deal, and you’ll be my best granddaughter in the whole wide world.”
“
Okay,” she said.
Several weeks after Bella was born, her mom, Polly Wriggle, decided to move to an apartment in a better neighborhood. Priscilla and I were to meet at Polly
’s apartment at noon to help her with the move. Polly drove into the parking lot fifteen minutes late and parked by an over-flowing dumpster next to a shed; she hadn’t thought to pick up boxes and had to run out and get some. Polly and Priscilla were to do the packing and it was my task to hold Bella while they moved in and out of the apartment with the packed boxes and loaded the U-Haul.
I hadn
’t been to her second floor apartment before then and was surprised at how disorganized Polly was, being a nurse in training and all. There was shit scattered from hell to breakfast. It appeared from the mound of dirty dishes overflowing the double sink as if the dishes hadn’t been washed for more than a week. I caught a glimpse of a roach skittering from under the dish drainer and off of the counter.
Dirty clothes and shoes were everywhere with a huge pile tossed in a heap in her closet. I wasn
’t snooping; the door on the closet wouldn’t close for all the dirty laundry. I could see that she was unlikely to be getting her cleaning deposit back once the landlord saw the apartment. The only ones likely to miss Polly as a tenant were the roaches.
I sat in my Toyota truck with the heater full on. I held Bella cuddled in a soft cozy-warm blanket. Bella opened her eyes a few times and looked to see if I had a grip on the situation. Apparently satisfied, she wiggled her tiny body a moment and went back to sleep. When I was holding her, I always felt there was something I could do to make her more comfortable and I snuggled the fuzzy blanket around her cheeks.
At that time Priscilla was not yet my wife. We weren’t a legal couple for quite a long time. Priscilla and I just said we were married because we are cousins and we have lived so long together that it’s just easier for all concerned. It is illegal in the state we live in for us to get married. Gays can get married but not cousins.
The fact that we weren
’t married sort of rankled Polly for some odd reason. I think it was her “holier than thou” relatives; her loony aunt Dolly more so than anybody else.
Maybe it was her nut, brother, Wally. Hell, he wouldn
’t even allow her to say that she was going to the bathroom in his presence. You were just supposed to get up and disappear for a while but not mention where you were going. If Polly didn’t follow her brother’s rules, he would pout the remainder of the visit and refused to talk.
Polly was not married to Bella
’s daddy so she really had no room to judge Priscilla and me. The fact is, the man of her dreams was Polly’s co-worker. And, as more came to light of this man, it seems he had children with four other women; one also a co-worker of Polly and happened to be pregnant by him at the same time as Polly.
She told her relatives that Priscilla and I were married so we played along. I don
’t know what she told the old relatives about her Man’s extended family. I doubt that her dream man was ever present at any of their family gatherings. The truth is, neither were Priscilla and I. We were good, dependable domestics over the past five years; apparently that doesn’t qualify one for an invitation for a family dinner. Kind of ironic Polly wouldn’t have made the connection; a bit of reverse discrimination, possibly.
Eventually, Priscilla and I eloped to Colorado and got legal, where it isn
’t against the law for cousins to marry.
I
’ve known Priscilla since I was nine or ten when I watched her emerge from a 1950 green Ford camper when she came to live in Oregon. My dad and her dad were going to be partners in what turned into a short-lived commercial fishing enterprise.
After about a year in Oregon, Priscilla disappeared over the hill in the back of the same camper and, except for a couple of meetings, we lost track of each other. Before we seriously connected again, somewhere around forty or fifty years had passed. I don
’t know. Who can remember trivial stuff like the number of years having past anyway. Bella would just say it happened a yong, yong, yong time ago. She has a little trouble with her L’s.
When you think of it, it is not all that odd for Bella to want to be called Bella … after all, look at the people around her. We
’re all a half-bubble off plumb, as my Mom used to say. Well, some are, some less so. But a big chunk of the people I know are a whole lot more off than that. Polly sure is. It took me a while to realize that. She got progressively more unstable as time passed. It took Polly a while to realize she needed some help and went to a doctor. Since then, Polly has relied on some sort of pills to keep on an even keel. Priscilla and I could always tell when Polly missed a few days of taking her meds.
I
’ll fill you in on Polly Wriggle’s downward spiral to her eventual selfish, small self. It was a gradual affair; Priscilla and I didn’t see it coming until it was too late. Each level of her unstable behavior became the new normal so it was hard to tell she progressively dropped a notch. We were comparing her behavior with the most recent level while we should have been looking back years rather than weeks. I’m still trying to get it straight in my mind as to what nudged Polly over the edge. This period turned out to be the “not happy” part of our lives. I got that phrase from Bella. She was warning me of a particular part of a movie we were watching, the not happy part. I don’t believe that Polly is even aware of the horrific damage she has inflicted. It was far worse than what Old Mrs. Ashoff from Bella’s preschool did. Mrs. Ashoff’s unkind reprimand is no comparison with the damage Polly caused.