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Crossed at the Ankles Amid the Garden Gnomes
Here comes my make-up case out the bay window, and now my
pressed powder is sprinkled all over the rudbeckias. The stream of swears coming from the bay window has actually stopped
traffic. I have every right to be miffed, since I already asked Ed real politely several times if he would remove Grammy McMaster's
hutch from in front of the door so I could get back in please honey. Instead I am sitting calmly on the bench crossed at the
ankles, ignoring the cars traffic-jamming out in the street, hoping Ed doesn't find my jewelry box because when the necklaces
get all tangled it takes me days to get them right again.
"Ed, sweetie, I hope you wouldn't throw my jewelry
box out the bay window," I suggest, but it's hard to say if he can hear me because he's crashing around up there in our
bedroom and now I'm afraid I've gone and raised my voice a little, which no doubt will peeve him even more.
I
never complain when that niece of his, little Jasmine-Kayla gets herself into my jewelry box every single time she visits
and breaks the simulated pearls then gets every necklace tangled, do I? I just get it all right again and hide the box in
a new place, but that sweet child finds it every time and no one ever lays a hand on her even when it would do her good.
Everyone in Greenwood knows Ed's been sleeping with half the girls down at the fabric store because - and I'm not
boasting - he's still the best looking man in town and no one can resist themselves. He takes these week-long fabric buying
trips to Dallas twice a month, and one of the girls always goes along, and then sooner or later she quits the store in a huff
and he thinks I don't know what one plus one equals.
With Ed gone so much, and not here even when he isn't gone,
you can imagine I was longing for conversation. When Rick, the meter reader, came by and drank three glasses of my homemade
ice tea, well, one thing led to another and I never knew men were willing to do those things like Ed never did for me. I just
kept on giving Rick ice tea once a month at meter-reading time.
Then Mrs. Pfeiffer across the street told Ed
that the meter reader spent an inordinate amount of time at our house. She said that actual word to Ed - inordinate. Ed found
us together and poor Rick almost fell down the stairs with his pants half on getting back outside to the electric company
truck. That's when Ed shoved me out the door and dragged Grammy's hutch into the foyer to keep me out, although I don't have
a key and he knows I have no pockets because I have no clothes on, but I suppose he wanted to be real sure I couldn't get
back in. The cars are fairly well traffic-jammed now with me sitting crossed at the ankles amid the garden gnomes without
a stitch on and Ed screaming swears and tossing things through the bay window.
Then you know what he does? He
goes and throws my jewelry box out the window and even though it's real mahogany wood it breaks in two pieces and the simulated
pearls snap and go all over the Asian jasmine where it will take a month to find them. I see the necklaces all tangled up
in the tiny leaves and it reminds me of Jasmine-Kayla and what she does every single time she comes over when it's not her
property but mine, you know, and she never gets so much as a gentle suggestion from Ed to keep her grubby hands off my belongings.
"You have no right," I say kinda loud. There he is, all ugly and purple at the bay window. He calls
me a filthy slut and a nasty bitch who doesn't deserve to be his wife because I open my legs to any man who passes by, and
I go over to the shed and I get my daddy's shotgun that we keep out there to shoot gophers, and I bring it right back to the
bench under the live oak tree where I cross my legs at the knee.
"Hey Ed, you bastard!" I yell up
at him.
When his big old face pops into the window I cock daddy's gopher gun and shoot. Lots of the people in
the cars start to cheer and I actually get up and bow to them, even though I haven't got a thing on, and one of them whistles,
just like I'm pretty.
2001 Ellen Champagne
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