Chapter 35

The small woman in the corner of the cellar screamed and lunged toward the open cellar door.  Ari’s grab at her only succeeded in tearing off a worn work-shoe as she shot up the stairs in one giant leap and was gone. “My God!” he said after her, “this is my house.”  He dropped the icy shoe and looked to the corner.  There, beside two stacked fruit crates, was a worn baby mattress, the obvious place of rest for the old lady.  A rusty Coleman stove lay before the mattress like a miniature coffee table, dressed only by a single tin cup.  He looked inside.  Empty, save for a much-used tea bag.  A frozen bag of McDonalds French fries under the stove completed his impression of the intruder. 

He was calmer now, but he shivered.  The cellar door was still open.  He could believe that was the cause of the trembling, but what he couldn’t resolve was why a moment of rage at the stranger had so quickly changed to a sense of remorse, pity…  whatever it was.  That, he couldn’t understand.   He reached down and picked up the shoe.  His chest suddenly felt constricted.  He wasn’t feeling good right now.  He wasn’t feeling good at all.  For Ari, at this moment, this place, this time, the look and feel of the icy leather was cathartic, suddenly catapulting him from this place of cherished echoes and once protected memories into another dimension.  Holding the frozen leather was like his fingers had just touched the keyboard of a three dimensional screen on his computer, engulfing him in a swirling tornado of remembered images; fragmented images that had become his trademark; impressions he had convinced himself were born of gifted wisdom, but now were being ravaged from their place of grounding and ripped and torn into ever smaller pieces.  They swirled upward into a dark cloud of agonizing sounds as if giant fingernails were clawing and gouging some kind of path way across a terrestrial chalk board toward the unknown.   He grabbed his head as his confused mind reeled with questions.  What is happening to me?  Is this some kind of replay of my life?  Am I reaching an end?

Like his head right now,  the images swirling in the dark cloud of synaptic chaos screamed for relief as they were crushed and compacted as if in some surrealistic salvage yard of checks and balances. 

Ignoring the mantra-like drone of the crushing sounds that accompanied the head pain, he bounded up the cellar stairs, yelling “Your shoe!  You need your shoe!”  She was nowhere to be seen.  The panicked footprints pointed to the snow laden woods.  Suddenly, the pain in his head began to subside.  The horrific sounds in his mind were gone.  Only a late afternoon breeze interfered with the calm.  Cautiously, he started walking with the shoe, the crunching of snow beneath his feet continuing a mantra-like incantation of clarity begun back in the cellar.  Moments later, wanting to believe the pain had only been an anxiety attack, he began running toward the trees where she had disappeared, the icy work shoe tightly gripped in his hand, the same hand that always carried the camera for experiences such as this, but was now shoving a frozen shoe inside the warmth of his jacket.   

“You stay away from me, you crazy son of a bitch.  I swear, I’ll cut ya… swear to God!” shouted the old lady.  She huddled down between two fallen birch trees and was determined to hold her ground.

Ari approached cautiously, “I’m not crazy and you don’t…”

“I’ve seen lots of crazy and you’re crazy,” she shouted back.

“Okay,” said Ari.  “Look, I’m just going to sit down here.”

“Sit there in the snow, and you’re crazier than I thought,” she said.  “You’ll freeze your ass off… and what the hell you jumpin’ me back there for?”

Ari moved to his right and slowly sat down on a stump.  “I didn’t mean to, just that, well, I used to live there and I kinda went…”

“Crazy!” the old lady said.  “You went fuckin’ out of your mind grabbin’ an old lady like that.”

Ari started to get up to go to her, “No, it was just…”

The old lady stood up and extended her hand that held an old pen-knife.  “You stay there, swear, I’ll cut ya!”

Ari reached inside his jacket.

 The old lady turned the knife in her hand and cocked it to throw.  “Cuttin’ less painful than getting it in the heart.  You keep that hand out where I can see it.  Swear!   I’m damn good.”

Ari carefully pulled his hand out.  “Okay.  Okay. I bet you are.  Look, I’ve got your shoe, damn it.  Calm down.”

“My shoe,” she said suspiciously.  “What the hell you doin’ with my shoe out here?  Pervert!”

Ari plopped himself down hard on the stump.  “Pervert?  Now, that’s crazy.  Go ahead freeze your foot off.  ‘Pervert.’  Gimme a break.”

The old lady moved to a stump a few feet from him, the knife still poised.  “Real slow… le’me see.”

Ari slowly reached inside his jacket and pulled out the now wet shoe.  “It was half frozen.”

“Yeah,” she said.  “Hasn’t been much above 20 last three days, ‘cept in your cellar.”  She grabbed the shoe, took a quick look, and jammed it onto her foot.  “Got it all wet!  You some kind of hot-blooded weirdo, huh?”

With a slight grimace, Ari nodded.  “Must feel better with a shoe on.”

“Not much,” she replied.  “Now you just git.  Go on…git!”

Ari rose, paused, and started to walk back.  He reached inside his coat and took out his cell phone.  “Okay.  I’m ‘gitin,’ but I’m ordering some pizza ‘cause I’m hungry and before I head out, I’m going to have it delivered and I’m going to eat it in my house.  Okay?  Now, you can calm down and join me if you want.” 

The old lady squinted and held her gaze on his back as he started trudging back toward the remains of his house.  “And I’m going to have them bring some tea, as well.”

It wasn’t until he was another twenty yards away that he heard her ask, “What kind?”

“I don’t know… pepperoni, sausage…”

“No,” she shouted back, “the tea.”

Ari smiled to himself and shouted back,   “I’ll have them bring whatever they got.  A variety of whatever they got.” 

‘“A variety of whatever they got,’ she said to herself.  She folded the knife and slipped it back into her coat.  As she blew into her hands, she got one last jab in, “you’re nuts.”

***

As the “Little Caesars Pizza” delivery car pulled away from the bottom of the hill,  the driver looked at his twenty dollar tip.  “Fuckin’ guy’s nuts.”  Ari started the climb up the hill once again, carrying a large pizza and a brown paper bag.  “Drive careful,” he shouted back after the delivery boy.

The cellar was warm now by Amy’s standards.  The hour that had passed since both she and Ari had formally introduced themselves had allowed for Amy to heat up the Coleman and some melting of snow for tea.  As Ari stepped down the rickety stairs with the food, he looked about.  Amy smiled.  Ari smiled back.  “It’s nice,  but consider this your last hour here.”

Amy wiped the smile from her face and shot back, “Don’t you go tellin’ me what to do.”

“This is my house and you’re gonna start living down at the “Y” like we agreed, ya, hear?”

He placed the pizza down on a box. “Ya, hear?” she mimicked back.  “You don’t even slur right.  I changed my mind.  Don’t take no handouts.” 

“Sure,” Ari said.  I understand.  It’s a loan til you’re back in the chips”

“Anybody ever tell ya you’re nuts?

“Yeah, I’ve been called that more than once, especially tonight,” he answered. 

“Wise guy, too.  So, what kind of tea?  C’mon,” she said.

  Ari opened the brown bag and like a kid in a candy store, grinned back at her.  “Black, black and black.”

“Hell of a variety,” she laughed sarcastically, showing for the first time the lack of three teeth on the edge of her smile.  She checked the Coleman and her cup of melting snow which was a long way from boiling and gave it a stir with her finger.  Ari reached back into the bag and pulled out two styrofoam containers with hot water.  “Here,” he said.  “Try this.”

She smiled again and took the containers.  As she lifted the tops, her eye went to the pizza box.  “You really gonna eat all that?”

Ari lifted the lid, “Only what you don’t, Grumpy.”

“It’s Amy.  Amy Russell.”

“Oh, good.  It’s got a last name,” said Ari.

 “Don’t get smart with names now, Aristotle.  We just met.”

They both took a slice and sat down, each eyeing the other.  “What’s this all about, Ari?” said Amy.

“Don’t know.  I was hoping you could tell me.”

Outside… from somewhere in the trees… the cold northern winds ruffled the feathers of the black raven.   “Caw, Caw, Caw.”