The Last Time I Was Me. Cathy Lamb

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СКАЧАТЬ but the water is actually made up of different colors, clear colors, but colors all the same, and beneath the surface is a whole other life.

      I bent my knees and submerged myself completely in the river, except for my cell phone. I closed my eyes, life blocked out, the current gently pushing me this way and that. When I couldn’t hold my breath another second, I stood up again. Dripping wet, I got out and headed toward Rosvita’s, picking up the almost empty wine bottle I’d left on the grass.

      I thought about Charlie’s call. I didn’t want to work, but life is filled with all of these jolly, money-sucking surprises, isn’t it?

      For example, I didn’t know at that wet moment that I was going to buy a decrepit, sagging home in desperate and sad need of immediate and extensive repairs in the next weeks. That was a money-sucker.

      I did know that dealing with Slick Dick was going to be another herculean money-sucker.

      I went to Rosvita’s back porch, stripped naked, then climbed up the stairs to my room. There were no other guests, and Rosvita was out visiting a friend in Portland who was a bacteriologist.

      As soon as I was dry and dressed I headed to The Opera Man’s Café to get myself pancakes, as I did at least five times a week. Call it therapy. Call it coming to terms with my pancake past. I couldn’t get enough.

      For the first time in years I actually felt like I was making a few friends. The people in The Opera Man’s Café smiled at me when I brought my sorry self in, waved me over, talked to me in a normal tone about normal stuff as if I was a normal person. I often ate with them and their good cheer always warmed me as much as the coffee.

      Bring on the syrup.

      CHAPTER 7

      “He should die,” Rosvita declared several evenings later, as we drank cognac in front of her fire. “Dan Fakue, owner of the infested, teaming, steaming migrant camps, should die.” She thudded her mug of cognac down on a little wood table next to her. Rosvita believes that cognac should be drunk from a mug, no need to shortchange yourself.

      “There are so many germs doing their germy thing there. For sure there is Cryptosporidiosis. That is a disease caused by itty-bitty microscopic parasites, crawling and twisting in the intestines. The intestines. It can be spread through feces. Feces!”

      Yuck. What a vision.

      Rosvita counted off on her fingers all other diseases she thought one might acquire in a migrant camp. I settled deeper into my cushy red chair, put my feet up on a leather footrest, and had a nice long drinkie. We had flipped off all the lights so we could “rest our eyes.”

      “Plus, there are children living there, children.” She shoved both fists up in the air. She did not wear gloves in her own home because she believed not a single germ lived or flourished there. “And I know something very creepy and illegal is going on there, very creepy, but I can’t get the women to tell me anything. I speak a little Spanish, but not much.”

      I nodded. Rosvita was correct. She spoke a little Spanish, but not much. She had no idea, however, how absolutely awful her accent was with the little Spanish that she knew. I could barely understand her Spanish myself and I knew it backward and forward. I could see why a conversation with Rosvita would be a might challenging.

      “I can smell it,” she said.

      “You can smell something creepy or illegal? That’s not too surprising, Rosvita. It should be illegal to live in squalor. What’s the creepy part?” I tilted my cognac up to my lips again.

      “I don’t know,” she muttered, twining her fingers, her black hair shining in the firelight. She was wearing a kimono. Red and black with a dragon on it. “I don’t know, but I know that pissant Dan and something’s up. He’s hiding something. I’ll bet he has paraphilia. That’s someone who has strange sexual desires and behaviors. He’s a dirty, germ-filled devil.”

      I nodded. “He’s definitely the devil.” We both settled back in silence in our chairs.

      I had seen Dan Fakue at the grocery store the other day. He was built like an old tank with fat, thickened shoulders, a bulging stomach, and the meanest face I’d ever seen. It looked like a combination of slug, bulldog, and vomit. He gave me a Boob-Waist-Butt Look (BWBL) and smirked at me as if he thought a flaming passion would overwhelm me because of his physical analysis and I would be sure to hoppity-hop-hop into bed with him, legs spread, ankles grooving in the air.

      I stopped, staring at him from the top of his head to his toes, stopping at his nipples, his stomach, and his penis area. I gave him the once-over again-and laughed. Nice and loud.

      He bunched up his fists like he was going to slug me. I was holding two gallons of milk, which I held up like I might heave them at his gnarly face. We stared at each other for a while until this weird light came into his eyes and I knew he was a demented man who liked to dominate feisty women and he would find it pleasurable to “tame” me, so to speak.

      “Forget it,” I said aloud. “I don’t date men who force their employees to live in miniscule sewage-infested pits of hell.”

      Dan the Migrant Devil, as I’d instantly dubbed him, looked surprised that I spoke, then recovered himself. “I didn’t ask you for no date, lady.”

      “I know. I was giving you the chance never to waste your breath in future.”

      He looked furious again. I do love my smart mouth.

      “Do you want to go to hell?” I asked.

      “When we die, we die, woman. There ain’t no hell and there ain’t no heaven.”

      I nodded. “You’re so very wrong. I hope you like heat. Scratch that. I hope you like feeling as if your body is boiling. Scratch that. I hope you like catching on fire because you are going to hell when you die for the appalling way that you’re treating your workers.”

      “Hey, fancy pants, I don’t give a flying fu-”

      “Please don’t swear,” I told him.

      He gave me a look of disgust, his face red, a vein throbbing in his neck like a pulsing snake. “Stay out of my business.”

      “No.” I swung the milk gallons back and forth.

      “What?”

      “I said, no. No no no. I won’t stay out of your business as long as you’re abusing people.”

      He laughed. It was a mean, sticky, black and gooey laugh that made my skin crawl. “All right. Go for it. Try to shut me down. Happened before, it’ll happen again, and I’ll win. But it’ll be fun to see more of you. A lot more.” He gave me the slimy, gooey look. Up and down (BWBL).

      When he was done, I did the same. I cocked my head, got down on my haunches, set down the milk, and stared right, straight at his groin. I laughed. I laughed and laughed. Laughed at his groin. Laughed until I cried. (Tears come easily to me now, I might have mentioned.) “Is that it? Is that it?” I held up two fingers three inches apart.

      “It’s more than you’ve ever seen!” His face was splotchy red, making his yellow teeth look all the yellower. “I ain’t had any complaints in that department.”

      Wasn’t СКАЧАТЬ