The Bone

(This is my thinly veiled attempt at a 3rd person drama....based on a true life story...which when some of you read it you'll realize just how "thinly veiled" it is (ie - where's the veil?!).

Also, I've been enjoying reading a lot of Carl Hiaasen this summer and I have to admit I somehow wanted to add a little of his fun style into the story...though I'm not entirely sure I did!!)

Thanks for reading it...it's definitely a work in progress...hope you enjoy!

BTW - As this one is particularly long...a few chapters perhaps!?...I have linked the ending to my "Pages"...so, you can read the ending there....

                           Janet

                            :  )

                                                                                                            

THE GARDEN

Annie walked barefoot in the early morning dew over to her garden. It looked so glorious and abundant this time of the summer. The soil was rich, rich, rich from years of horses and cows grazing in that field. The animals were now long gone, but the black soil smelled sweeter than any Annie had ever gardened in before. Large, lush green leaves of zucchini plants; beautifully shining burgundy eggplants; 50-60 sweet little cherry tomatoes to pick from each robust plant; as well as, 10-foot tall sunflowers about a foot in diameter just busting with  seeds filled out the 40' x 40' garden. She looked around at the sweet green and hot jalepeno peppers, nasturtiums, marigolds, catnip for the kitty, and saw that some Sweet Silver corn that was starting to form ears. Annie picked and ate some of the cherry tomatoes and watched as goldfinches came chattering in by twos and threes. They settled on the bent-over sunflower heads and rapidly picked the fleshy seeds, hulls flying. Then they headed off in their flitting and bobbing flight pattern, bright yellow and still chattering away against the blue sky of the early morning.

Annie poked around amongst the dense foliage to see if she could find any more woodchuck holes. She didn't care to have a new family of those ever-chewing rodents move in, they could wreak havoc in a garden just overnight. Earlier in the season the old farmhouse where she lived started to smell so bad, it definitely seemed like a dead animal in the walls. So, it was quite a surprise when Annie moved a loose floorboard and found a twenty-foot well with the reeking smell of a bloated woodchuck wafting up into her nostrils! Ugh! Who knew there was an old well under the floor boards of this house? And, who knew how they were going to get the smelly thing out of there?!

GroundHog's Day and Mr. PestAway

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THE BARN

The old barn stood near the garden. Brown weathered shingles and a roof that was dipping slightly but still held up with century-old beams that supported the structure from the inside.

Records indicated that the barn had been built on this property before 1812. People loved to stop in to take a look at it because there just weren't any like it around any more in these old New England towns. Every piece of land or old farm property was being eaten up by McMansions that the new-monied Dot-Commers, Yuppies and contractors were building in the area.

That and what properties the National Park had taken by eminent domain forty years back. And this was one of them, thought Annie. When they rented the place the agreement was that they could stay there until the landlady died. At that point the 4 1/2 acre property, including the house and barn which was already deeded to the National Park Service, would be turned over to the Minuteman National Park.

The area was certainly changing.

Annie looked around with a sigh, but smiled to herself slightly as she realized that her elderly landlady was one chipper and spry old New England Yankee and didn't show any signs of dying any time too soon!

With her basket full of luscious cherry tomatoes Annie slipped into the old barn to look around. It was full of used furniture, knick-knacks, antiques, record albums, refinished steamer trunks, and lots of other items which she'd been gathering and buying at yard sales, antique auctions, and it even included special "finds" from the local dump/Transfer Station's "Swap Table." Most everything had price tags fluttering from them and Annie had to shake her head in disbelief at the business she'd created over the recent spring and summer season.

Yesterday alone, hundreds of cars pulled in throughout the morning and afternoon. A couple of her roommates needed to direct traffic at some times it was so busy! All she did was put a home made sign on the road outside of the house that said - "Barn Sale", and people came out of the woodwork to see what was going on in that old barn. People bought things that Annie never thought would sell, let alone for the prices that she put on them. She herself was never much of a shopper, but she thought, I guess it goes to show you, one man's trash is another man's treasure, just like they say. Anything, for the right price. Funny.

She smiled remembering from the day before that couple who were in their mid-sixties. They picked an open spot in the back of the barn and began a ballroom dancing waltz together to the music that Annie had playing in the barn. They definitely knew their way around the dance floor together, and Annie had to smile even more at the image of them dancing in front of the big barn door that was open to the back field of tall grasses, day lilies and black-eye Susans. Beautiful! When the music stopped everyone who was in the barn at that time applauded; the couple laughed and bowed graciously and then everyone went back to picking around at the many varied items that the barn offered.

Annie picked up one of the fluted champagne glasses that she'd found just yesterday morning at the "Swap Table." There were only three in the set, so she figured that's why someone got rid of them. Annie twirled the flute around in her hand, it really was a beautiful piece of glass, finer looking than any she'd ever seen, but then again, she didn't exactly travel in the "Champagne Flute" world...what did she know?! She smiled to herself as she took the glass into the house, poured some seltzer water into it and watched the bubbles cling to the fluted edges, just like champagne. She grabbed the Sunday crossword and headed back outside to enjoy the morning to herself.

Settled in at the old picnic table in the backyard, Annie felt the early morning sun on her face. Closing her eyes, face to the sun, she thought to herself, "This is gonna to be a hot one...hot and humid. Enjoy it while it's not."

She had to laugh because she said it with a nasally little twang like her friend who liked to pretend that he sounded like H. Ross Perot. "Just like H. Rost says. It's not just the heat, Lil Missy. It's that gosh darned humidity. It'll git ya evertime."

THE HOUSE

It was still early and as far as she knew, Annie was the only one in her household of multiple roommates who was up and about; "astir" or, not "abed", as they ask for in the crosswords. Of course, these days, she wasn't sure who were roommates at the big, old farmhouse and who was just visiting. Between roommates, friends of roommates, overnight guests of varying categories of roommates...well, she wasn't into keeping track, as long as they all paid up when it came time for the rent and bills. This morning she just wanted to enjoy the quiet of a Sunday morning and some time alone with her champagne glass and the crossword puzzle.

Annie looked to the front of the house to see how many cars were parked there this morning. She recognized a couple of her roommates cars and then a few new ones. Must be those college friends of Tom and Peter, two of her newer roommates, she thought.

How was it that here she was in her late thirties and living in a big, old farmhouse with people who still had friends in college? She wondered to herself as she her shook her head. Some of her friends joked that she lived out in the country just like she had twenty years earlier in "The Big Commune", or "The Hippie House", they liked to joke.

"Hey, we're coming out to the Hippie House, better hide the pot!" They'd kiddingly say when they called her.

Seems that everyone loved to stop by the place any time of day or night. Just last night, Annie remembered, around midnight, beers and wine were going down, Peter was telling a funny story of being stuck on a camping trip without a sleeping bag, and the mosquitoes, and the girl whose sleeping bag he wanted to be in, but wasn't, and, and, and...it was a pretty funny story. 

Some Dave Brubeck was on, "Take Five." Or was it Miles Davis? She really needed to get better at learning her musicians. She just knew what she liked when she heard it, and then often forgot just as quickly, as soon as the next tune came on. Ah well, that was something she'd put on her "Life To Do " list, Annie thought, with a chuckle. That, and figure out what she was doing with her life...ha! she thought, I'll get right to work on that!

Where was she? Oh yeah, around midnight last night out of nowhere, Boggs comes in. Boggs was a friend of one of the previous roommates who had moved out months ago but, either Boggs didn't know his friend moved out, or he didn't care. He continued to drop by and join in the conversations as if he'd been there all night. Last night he'd brought a pound of bacon with him and the next thing you knew, two plus hours later, a pound of bacon, some toast, and a dozen eggs were eaten by everyone, as well as all the beer and wine that went down with it. After the feast, everyone drifted off to their rooms. Or, their friend's room, or landed on one of the many living room couches.

Annie had to shake her head and laugh. That was pretty common these days...or, nights, perhaps she should say!

The big yellow cat came out and stretched his neck out for a scratch. He tumbled to the ground under the picnic table and Annie continued to rub his big lazy belly with her bare foot as she slowly worked the crossword puzzle.

"Hmm, I'm starting to see the main pattern in this puzzle," Annie said to herself triumphantly. She loved it when she figured out what the puzzle author was going for and this time it appeared that the theme was collective nouns for different groups of animals. She was psyched as this was kind of a speciality of hers.

"All the regulars - "skein of geese", "murder of crows", "watch of nightingales", "knot of toads", "ostentation of peacocks." You gotta love some of these terms...murder...ostentation!" she thought, though she sighed a bit as the puzzle was looking a little too easy this morning.

Little did she know that her easy morning was quickly about to change.

Suddenly, kitty quickly came to from lazing around under the picnic table and gave a short, low growl. Annie swore that in another life kitty had been a watchdog, he growled just like a dog and always was aware of things before anyone in the house.

Annie looked up to see what he might be growling at and right away she saw a man walking through the woods that bordered their yard right into the backyard! His head was down as if scouring the ground below him.

When he was about 30 feet away, Annie called out, "Can I help you?"

Now, she didn't think about what she was going to say, but she scolded herself inside her head for saying, "Can I help you?" - like the guy's at some department store and she's the clerk to give him some assistance? Stupid! Stupid! she reprimanded herself. She didn't even ask that of people who came to the Barn Sales!

But, what the hell was this guy doing prowling around in her backyard at 8 in the morning, anyway?!

In one quick move the guy pulled out something from his breast pocket and flashed it at Annie while saying, "FBI, Ma'am!"

What?!

(to continue... readers go to "Pages" - "The Bone - continued"...upper right corner of blog page)

Comments

[Rich]

I really enjoyed reading these great stories; they just move the reader along eagerly anticipating to find out what comes next. What a great cast of fascinating characters you have created.
Keep on keeping on!

[elizabeth cobblah]

before clicking open the remaining story in pages my comment is I'm hooked! Lovely images, relaxed and freely giving narrator, some humor, some reverence, some mystery... I see potential for the open barn door, the crossword puzzle and the lush garden to all have symbolic meaning. The impermanence of the living situation for the narrator and for her tenants adds some interesting tension too.

[michael candela]

Hi Janet, I really enjoyed the first part of the bone. I have alot of the same experiences from growing up on the land from a former farm with a barn and big house. Made me feel very at home. I look forward to reading the rest of it, the FBI guy was quite a surprise.

[Janet]

Mike,
As I said in the intro, this piece is "thinly veiled", and yes, the FBI guy showing up was a surprise!!!

[fitz]

I love this Janet, especially as these days you portray are my earliest memories of getting to know you. You capture the barn and the field so completely. ( I remember trying to rototill the rootgrass of your field!)

In reading this, I think you should make it a first person narrative--or keep it as is--and market it to Yankee magazine or some such publication.

Beautiful and vivid stuff.

[Laraine]

I'm sorry it took me so long to read this. It was really interesting. Did a relationship flourish between Annie and the FBI guy? It's very exciting that you have a personal experience with the history of the park land acquisition. I hope you'll write more about this.