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Kivi Kivi drives her Fiesta to the red brick mansion on top of the hill, pulls beneath the carriage port, notes the lean of the roof, starts to back out, and then, laughing at herself, shuts the ignition off. Today, after all those years of days, is probably not the day the roof will fall! It is her second visit to the Ugric mansion. Built at the turn of the century, it now sits, in nineteen ninety-three, at the center of forty creek-dissected, wooded acres twelve miles north of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Uninhabited for a decade, it is marginally surrounded by vanishing farms. The realtor, a middle-aged, balding man whose breasts present as shifting peaks beneath his polo shirt, meets Kivi at the doorway and says, "Like last time, the first two floors are unboarded, but not the third." I'd like to look alone today, if that's ok," Kivi says. "Sure," the realtor replies, handing her a flashlight as he slides down the wall to sit on the floor. "Take your time. I'll be here if you need me." Kivi, shrugging off the realtor's stare from behind, walks down the hall and enters the kitchen. A huge brick oven, its enameled door askew on a single rusted hinge, covers most of one large wall evoking the spirits of children and dogs, gathered on cold winter nights, among the aromas of venison roast, baked squash, yeasty bread, and fragrant pies. In the bay of a window a spider dashes from a corner, runs along its web, wraps a wasp in silk and carries it away. "Wonderful, wonderful!" Kivi whispers. "Take out wasp!" Passing through a swinging door, Kivi enters the dining room. Golden light from a bank of stained glass windows ignites a phoenix that shrieks resurrection from above a fallen fireplace. Kivi traces the phoenix's feathers with her fingertips then passes under an archway into the living room where she lays on the floor, hands behind her head, and studies the ceiling. Michelangelo's Il Peccato Originale, copied from the Sistine Chapel, adorns the dome above her. Genius. Pure genius. But why the snake as woman, I've always wondered? Strange. But genius just the same ... someone from town could restore it. Kivi dozes off, wakes up minutes later, shakes her head, makes an irritated face, says out loud: "Got to start getting some sleep, there, Kivi girl. What if you'd been driving?!" Down the hall again, realtor staring again, Kivi shrugs again. She climbs loose stairs to the second floor landing where four closed doors, three small and plain, one large and
ornate, confront her. The large door opens to a huge bedroom, separated from a sun parlor by a pair of wide French doors. Into the parlor. She sniffs, tilts her head, sniffs again. The scent of dry straw. She looks for the
source. Decides it comes from the chaise, its wicker unspun by time, that froths in a corner of the room. Sharp sounds turn her to the left; a giant oak, grown ominously close to the house, taps a breezy welcome on a window
pane. CharlieWindsong, wet and aglow, is loving her by ember light. She hyperventilates, gets dizzy, and sits on the edge of the tub as the movie of CharlieWindsong reels upon the screen of her mind. Scene 1. Wiesbaden, Germany. Oktoberfest on the square. Twenty-three years old. Teaching English and Art to American military brats. Good kids, sweet kids, loving kids.... But not enough. Need grown-up love. Head love. Body love. Companion love. Way too jumpy these days. Half insomnia-mad. Still hearing mother's screams at night, trapped and burning in her car a hundred miles away. Ok, Kivi. Be here now! Crowd's gathering, musicians and folk dancers warming up. Wondering if I'll meet anybody today, when, just like that ... this guy-tall, rawboned, crewcut, reeking of maleness, grayest eyes ever, sits down on the grass, hands me a pilsner, and says, "I'm Charlie, Charlie Parker of Freshwater, Texas, ma'am." His little boy smile makes me want to kiss him right away. I gulp and reply, "Kivi, Kivi of Lapland and Michigan, sir." [Interior close up of my atria wriggling in seductive semaphore.] |
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Copyright© 2000, 2008 by George Simone or Monte Fowler All rights reserved. |
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