Sunday, August 12, 2012

ROW 80 SUNDAY AUGUST 13 CHECK IN DAY 32 - JC’S DAY


I live with a man. Okay, now that you’ve all recovered, picked your jaws up off the floor, told the cat, and went “well! I never!” I have to say this: I love this man whole-heartedly, completely, without reason and would die for him, Truthfully. He has had a terrible life. JC is from west Texas and has a wonderful drawl and a colorful way of speech. He’s not the type to go out of his way to tell knee-slappers, or shaggy-dog stories, but in a non-calculated way, he places his comments perfectly, leaving me breathless with laughter. He can tell a story so prosaically, that has the depths of tragedy. I mourn for hours at times.

He never finished grade school; according to him, he can barely read. He learned to read by reading the Bible, which he know Chapter and Verse. He is almost Old Testament in the depth and breadth of his knowledge. He is righteous and steadfast. He is good and wants to help people who hurt and really need it and he is protective, but prudent. He has moral limits he will not cross. He thinks he is not “smart, but has common sense which he does, but because he doesn’t read well, he feels not smart .” He is one of the smartest men I have ever met.

I am liberal. I am so liberal, I am an anarchist. I read and understood at a post-Graduate English level at the age of 15. I am righteous and mercurial. I want to help. He and I work so well together and watch the folks here and decide who might need a hand up. Plus, we have a bunch of fun.

This day started as many others do, with the hopes, speculations and trepidations of a Bus Ride for JC. Ah yes, First, the inevitable 1 minute equals 7 years. This means that JC must leave the house around August 9, 1872. I hope he set the alarm early enough. So, off he goes. I sleep on and miss Garfield’s assassination and the turn of the Century, the 20th, I mean.

JC comes home from his appoitnment around 10:30 on August 9, on 2012; he must have taken the wormhole home, and plops down. I’m doing something different. Pounding madly on the keyboard as if possessed, typing drivel or doing my latest form of side-splitting cyber vandalism; it’s all pretty much the same thing.

“What do you make of this?” JC asks… and he proceeds to tell me about the ride home. Some cat got on the bus had pointed at JC’s shoes. And mumbled "Shoes," JC wor just plain, blakc lace-ups, kind of like running shoes, only black. The dude mentioned “shoes” and looked at JC. JC looked around the bus; the riders looked at him.  JC looked at the dude. The dude looked back at the shoes and mumbled “shoes” again. JC shrugged and said, “Okay.” The guy proceeded to get down on the floor and pick each one up and one, by one, rub his face all over the bottoms. “What in the hell? Do I have shit on them?” JC asked no one who answered. Guy gets up and sits down.

Of course, JC can’t wait to get home and tell me about this squirrel. We sort of have a running competition about who runs into the biggest loon on the bus. So far. JC’s got me on points No one’s asked to smell my purse or underarms yet. If someone asks to smell my panties, it’ll be the last thing that person ever asks in existence. Ever.

We proceed to go sit on the front porch and watch the stupid world of Nebraska Avenue go by. Here comes Jo-Jo (either “Jo-Jo, the Ho” or “Jo-Jo The Dog-Faced Girl, if I’m feeling particularly ugly that day.) She is being led by one of the newer denizens of the homeless shelter. The homeless shelter is an amalgam or payors, felons and people sent there from the state. Jo-Ho gets an SSDI check. She had a stroke, most likely due to her excessive drinking which has not abated since. Anyway, she is being “led” by a newbie, a woman. Usually it’s a man. Jo-Jo has all the grace and charm of a 58-year old cheerleader who pissed herself 58 years ago after being dragged face-down through a gravel-pit. She has the voice, face and outfit to prove it. I have never seen this woman sober, not even ever. She was at one time a registered nurse and her kids will no longer see her. Your tax dollars at work and this makes me MAH.

“Look, Jo-Jo has a new “helper”” JD says to me nonchalantly. I kind of glance over that way. I get a dim impression, my eyes being kind enough to allow for such a marvelous visage.
JC continues on, “You know for someone so feeble and ill, there is certainly nothing wrong with the hinge in her elbow…” This is all said placidly, with the nonchalance of “nice day out. Do you want someeggs?”

I laugh, then I start to wheeze. The reason I wheeze is because of JC's “demonstration.” I look over to see the frantic motion of right elbow going up and down 90 degrees from chair arm to mouth. The motion says it all. “Nothing wrong with her smoking elbow either.” Motion repeated on left side. I fall out of chair. How many ways do I love this man? This is just one of them.


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