The Legend of CrazyLegs
by Suzie Plakson
Well, let me just say straight off:
I don’t think I’m the right person to tell you this story.
Howard purely hates it when I tell stories, he says I tell them all in patches, which he says is no way to tell a story.
Except see, the problem is nobody else knows MaryJane better than I do, so here I am.
Well, alright. I guess I can give it try.
But don’t go getting aggravated if I can’t keep things straight.
------------------------
Well, if you wanna know the truth -- I think somebody hushed it all up real good.
I mean, nobody ever found her little body anywheres, now, did they. Her old grey Honda exploded, but they never found so much as one single tooth, now did they. Not her little pearl necklace she always wore, mind you, not one solitary strand of her pretty white hair, and not one single little Naturalizer shoe, and you know how there’s always a shoe in the road somewhere after such things happen? Nossir -- not one single trace of Miss MaryJane McGee.
Yet, they say she was in that car, that, in all the years she had it, she almost never drove it anywhere. That’s what the newspaper said, that’s what the police say. They said it then, they say it now, no matter how many times I ask if don’t they think it sounds strange.
And it’s just so funny for me to see her grave. Well, you know, that big old grave marker, anyway, that some private citizen that nobody knows who it was put it up no matter who I ask. Have you seen it? Oh, it’s handsome, alright. And it’s right near that little bench MaryJane use to sit on for hours, whenever she went to visit her folks at the cemetery. Near that big old oak -- sorta looks like it’s protecting her and all the folks that come to pay respects.
But, oh, that marker -- so tall and handsome and polished, and saying so big and bold:
LONG
LIVE
CRAZYLEGS
AKA
MaryJane McGee
Dearly Beloved
of
This Town
Oh, it just makes me laugh because I know MaryJane, and she’d just plain die if she saw that thing. She wasn’t fancy at all, see she liked things real plain -- and, oh, if she saw that big old thing, and all the flowers and candles people still leave, even after all this time -- why, she’d just blush so hard, she’d melt right into the ground. I am not exaggerating. She would.
Now, if it was me, well, I’ll tell you right out: I’d like it a lot. I’d feel just so honored. But not MaryJane. Oh, that’d feel like bragging to her, and that’s not her nature.
No, but, the other big reason I get the giggles when I visit her grave is because, well...I know that MaryJane McGee is not in the least bit dead.
No, no, she hasn’t come to see me in a dream like they do, you know, in stories, but -- no, anyway, I dream dumb things like whether I’ll be able to fish my wedding ring out of the garbage disposal without it cutting my hand off -- but, no one, you know, wonderful or dead ever comes to visit me.
No, but I can just tell she’s alive. Oh, I’d know if she were dead. I just know I’d know.
Ohhh, I can just hear Howard’d say,
“How’d you know you’d know -- what’re you, a gypsy fortune teller now?”
And I’d say,
“Yes, Howard. I am a gypsy fortune teller now.”
And he’d say,
“Aw, quit yer yakkin’, you’re drivin’ me nuts.”
Of course, when he’d say things like that I’d clean forget I’d know whatever it was I knew. Of course, it doesn’t matter now that he left, right after the FBI came to see us. I can think more clearly since he’s gone, I’m noticing that. Can you imagine, after forty-seven years -- poof! Of course, I still do his laundry, except now I make him pay me. But this story isn’t about Howard, for Pete’s sake, it’s about MaryJane.
Anyhow, I sure do get a happy feeling what with all the people trading all their stories and feelings about her on the Internet. Now, truly -- don’t you think that’s just too fascinating, that whole information highway we have now? I think it’s a marvel, don’t you? Oh, I do. I just got hooked up with it and my little neighbor Joseph taught me how to get around and see all the sights like they do. I do like doing that an awful lot, I must say. I just dearlylove information.
‘Course, all the sights all say “CrazyLegs” when they talk about her. Most of what they say on the Internet is they trade stories back and forth about when somebody or somebody’s friend or boyfriend or whatever saw her do this or that or heard of her stomping on somebody’s toes, orsmacking their hands, or giving somebody’s hair a good yank and if she said anything when she was doing whatever it was she was doing, and what not, and what’s true, and what’s not.
Well, I suppose maybe I should tell you that how everybody got to calling her CrazyLegs to start with was just me and my big mouth. Howard says I’m the pipeline to the world. Oh, no, he’s right. I have a lot of trouble not telling everybody everything I think I know. But, if you see Howard, don’t you dare tell him I said so.
Alright, wait, now, how did -- oh --
-- so, we were walking home from Mundler Auditorium, from the first time and the only time I finally got to see MaryJane doing what everybody was saying she was doing all over town, this was still in the beginning, before she started going all over the gosh darn country doing things -- and, of course she wasn’t telling me one single solitary thing about why she was doing it! And me being such a curious person, this was frustrating me to distraction!
So, I say to her, real firm, I said, “Now, MaryJane --
And she said, “Now, Peggy --”
She was playing with me -- see, she knew I was fixing to pry her free of some of her secrets at last, and by force.
And I just kept right on at her, I said,
“I swear to you now, MaryJane, I swear to you with every fiber of my entire being: I will severely bust a GUT if you don’t tell me SOMETHING! Especially after what I have just witnessed with my very own two eyes!!”
“Can’t. And you know I can’t.”
“OOOOOH!! MaryJane Katherine Elizabeth McGee!! Now just what on EARTH has come OVER you?!!”
She just laughed a little -- oh, she has a laugh like a little child, MaryJane, like little bells, I always said that. But she still doesn’t say anything, of course. So I decide to have a good hard mope for the next whole block -- even though I truly was in such a fine mood, that it was hard to keep it up.
And, miracle of miracles, right in the middle of my mope, she all of a sudden up and says, real quiet, like to herself almost, she says,
“CrazyLegs comes up over me, that’s what.”
Well -- I almost dropped my teeth! She finally gave me an actual crumb of important information! Which she had almost not given me one tiny scrap of since she came back! (From that first trip which I’ll tell you about in a second, so please hold your horses.)
So, I say, trying hard to stay real nice and calm, and not yap at her, like I can, I say,
“Why, hmmm...why, MaryJane, what kind of a name is that? I wonder, hmmm -- might CrazyLegs be the name of an Indian?”
She only just nodded her head yes, just once, real small. Oh, she didn’t want to so much as open her mouth again. She knew she just told me something she didn’t mean to at all. I guess it being the first time I saw her being CrazyLegs, she must’ve got a little excited inside and slipped.
So, I’m staring at her real hard, but I say, real light, like I don’t care one bit,
“Why, I didn’t know you knew any Indians, MaryJane.”
And she stops and turns to look at me. Well, I was staring so hard at her I guess I pretty near bored a hole right through the side of her head.
So, I stopped staring, and she started walking again, she looked on ahead, and she said, real gentle, like she is,
“Leave off, now, Peggy.”
“Now, MaryJane,” I say, “This is not fair -- you get to act like the doggone Mona Lisa, when you know there’s a whole world of things to tell me, and I know you got your -- oooh, sometimes I think it’s just -- well, you know what a curious person I am!! Honestly -- sometimes, I think it’s just downright mean of you --”
Oh, the second I said it I felt so bad; MaryJane was never even a little bit mean to me or any living creature in her whole entire life. No, I am not exaggerating one bit. Never.
So, to make it up to God and MaryJane right then, after I said I was sorry for saying that, well -- I decided to confess.
See, well, okay -- I had snooped around in her bedroom when she was napping on the couch while Columbo was playing, to see if I could find any clues to that first trip and to all the strange things she started to do afterwards. Well, I did.
“Alright, well -- I’ll tell you what, MaryJane, when you were napping on the couch when Columbo was playing -- I saw that note tucked right into the corner of your dresser mirror.”
And she says,
“Oh -- and just what note was that, Miss Noseybones?”
“You know perfectly well which note!! Only the worn old crumply one that says, ‘Remember CrazyLegs’!! All wrinkled up like that. And not in your handwriting neither!”
And then, I got to say,
“AHA!”
I sort of forgot it was supposed to be a confession. And I sure do like saying “Aha!” Except it never matters to anybody when I say it.
So, she says, “I knew which note you meant, nosey Nancy.”
But, I plowed right on, I said,
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, MaryJane! Did you or did you not meet some Indian named CrazyLegs when you went on your trip?! Can’t you just tell me just that much?! That’s hardly nothing at all!! That wouldn’t even fill up a -- a-- that -- wouldn’t, ohhh --”
“You’ll give yourself a headache, now y --”
“-- oh, I know, I know, I KNOW!! I don’t want you to tell me about your dadgum sacred OATH again!! And whatever do you mean about CrazyLegs comes up over you, what does that mean?!”
“It’s a sacr -- ”
“Oh, HELL’S BELLS, MaryJane! I know the darn thing’s a stupid SACRED oath -- I know that, I KNOW THAT!! -- but I am absolutely, positively certain that whoever made you take that thing could not have possibly meant for you not to tell your best and oldest, dearest friend who you’ve known YOUR WHOLE ENTIRE -- ohhhhhhh, I know -- leave off now, Peggy...”
Nossir, there was just no getting around MaryJane. When she wanted to keep a secret, she was silent as the tomb., ever since childhood, it was a special talent of hers. Of course, I was sort of pouty about it that night on the walk home from the Mundler, but it didn’t last no time at all, really -- like I say, I was in still in much too happy a mood because that evening was so wall-to-wall wonderful. That was what they said in a carpet commercial years ago, and I’ve liked saying it ever since. Only never about carpet, I don’t think. Well, anyways, so --
-- that’s why everybody started calling her CrazyLegs, because when I’m real excited about something I just cannot shut my mouth. And I guess you haven’t heard the story before ever, have you. I don’t recognize you from being around here, anyway.
-- yes, well -- no, so -- I never did found out about what really, truly did happen to her car that other night, after the whole thing got so big. Seems they can always solve those sorts of things on television, and in just an hour, too, but not so much in real life, have you noticed.
And, of course, it all happened right around the Oscars going on, and you know how it is, once the Oscars get going -- oh, and now they say the Golden Globes are almost just every bit as important as the Oscars, ‘cause they say the Golden Globes tell you who’s gonna get the Oscar -- well, anyhow, when all that’s going on, people just pretty much forget about anything else. I know I do,
oh --
-- I do so love to see what they’re wearing. And the hair-dos. Oh, we always get such a kick out of it -- MaryJane and me, we’d make ourselves big bowls of popcorn each, mind you, and we’d have a big ol’ pack of Raisinets each, too, and a whole lot of Pepsi, and we’d watch, you know. Oooh, and when we’d be mad -- you know where they pick the wrong people, like they almost always do -- well, we’d throw Raisinets right at the screen, sometimes, just -- no, that’s not right -- wait now, no. That’s funny, I didn’t remember it that way until this very minute --
-- MaryJane never even threw one single Raisenet back then, can you imagine?! No, it was always me that threw ‘em! Oh, no, that’d just have been too -- unlady-like for her, you know. No, if she’d get mad at what was going on, she’d just say,
“Oh, for...oh, isn’t that...ohh...”
-- and she’d get all red in the face and sigh, maybe, and mash her mouth real tight.
So, I’m just saying, that if you woulda told me MaryJane was going to go out there and be so -- well, bold like that, being the very same person they say went right up to some chairman of the board type executive who like this one fella, was poisoning this river and he didn’t care a lick, and that afraid-to-even-throw-Raisinets-at-the -TV MaryJane McGee was the one to go and squeeze that man’s nose and pull his tie -- well, I for one would never have believed you in a hundred million years. That’s all I’m saying.
Nossir, you’d never have believed it either -- not MaryJane McGee who lived all her whole entire life so sweet and quiet in that pretty little yellow house she was born in right directly down the road from me. Living so nice and simple all her life, on that money her folks left her, you know, never bothering anybody in the whole wide world at all. Why, half the time you’d forget she was even there, even if you were standing right next to her, sometimes, even, but then there she was, though, always, you know, like, say -- tending her lovely garden, oh, she always kept just the prettiest garden, folks around here could barely wait ‘til spring so they could come by and take a peek in at it -- but, no, alright, well --
-- how’d it all start, you’ll wanna know, sure. Everyone always wants to know how this sort of thing starts.
Well. I can honestly say I have no idea.
Like I say, MaryJane and I go all the way back to forever, which was, oh -- so many years ago now, oh, it’s just so funny to even try to count how many years-- even though for some reason people always want you to count, they’ve just got to know how many years this, and how many years that -- even though knowing somebody for a hundred million years isn’t the least bit of a guarantee of knowing what goes on in their deepest heart, let me tell you that one right now. I learned that one, alright.
Ohhh...she just had just the cutest little braids when she was a girl. They just sort of poked out like that, at the ends, and oh, my -- she was always so partial to blue ribbons . Nothing in this whole world made MaryJane McGee happier than finding a new blue ribbon for her braids -- why, she’d be skipping and whistling around for days after. Why, she kept one off a birthday present once that she liked much better than the doggone present and she wore it for months and it always looked brand new -- I am not exaggerating in the least. MaryJane was a marvel that way. Only MaryJane could keep everything so darn neat without being a sort of prissy person. Now, me -- I couldn’t keep neat for nothing. My mother used to say I always looked like the wind blew me home. Why, she -- oh.
Yes, well -- let’s see, now -- I think the first time CrazyLegs came up on her that I heard about was this:
So, this one real early morning, MaryJane was in the check-out line at the market and, here’s what it was:
Some real pretty young woman was hollering at her boyfriend on a cell phone, with all sorts of ugly curse words, and there were even some little children right there in line, too.
Well, Sheila -- Sheila’s the cashier and she told me the entire thing, about twenty times, it was so exciting -- she said you could see everybody all along the line getting real upset, right, and looking at each other and sighing real loud, you know, and this hollering young woman just doesn’t notice or care, of course, and so, Sheila was trying to hurry those little children and their mother on through.
And, what I think is so interesting is, Sheila said, when she looked back on it, she remembered that MaryJane was the only one in that whole line who didn’t look upset at all. Which I believe was the same way when I looked back at the Mundler Auditorium incident.
So, it’s just getting worse and worse, and, all of a sudden, as that young woman starts to scream at her boyfriend -- MaryJane, well -- or CrazyLegs, I guess -- just right out of the blue turns around, stares hard at that young woman and steps right on that young woman’s toes -- stomp! stomp! -- with her little navy blue Naturalizers! And points her finger at the girl like she’d better watch out and she’d better stop it!
I mean, Sheila said the young woman’s shoes were those real long pointy ones, so I could see how it must’ve been tempting, but, of course, you know -- you’d never do it. But, right then and there, CrazyLegs just went right on ahead and did it, can you imagine!
Sheila said it was real surprising alright, but, the thing was -- it was such a nice relief, it being such a grey, cold morning, and this screaming, cussing girl was tearing at everybody’s nerves something awful. And even though Sheila was very worried that MaryJane had gone flying off her rocker, you know, she said that everybody up the whole line was just trying not to laugh -- so hard. Sheila said she was trying so hard not to laugh, too, you know, her being a worker at the store and all, but she said she kept snorting real loud out her nose, no matter how hard she tried not to.
Well, so this awful young woman screams at MaryJane, of course, you know,
“What the fuck is the matter with you, lady?! Are you fuckin’ psycho?!” And then she turns to Sheila and says, “Does she have fucking Alzheimers, is that her fucking problem?! ‘Cause if she doesn’t, I’m gonna kick her ass!”
People used to only talk like that when they came from New York, but now with the movies and everything, everybody uses bad language all the time, have you noticed. But don’t worry, all the people in line got all big and strong looking, all of a sudden, Sheila said -- nobody was gonna let that harpie lay one finger on MaryJane. And, by that time, MaryJane was smiling peacefully, and digging into her little change purse to purchase a little Kleenex packet. Sheila remembered it all, which I think is so wonderful.
But, you know, CrazyLegs being all small and light as a feather, she couldn’t’ve really hurt the screaming young woman, just sorta woke her up, and, you know, she’s always so pretty and perfect in those beautiful little pearl button sweaters of hers that you’d -- oh, yes -- you’d always know just what to get MaryJane for Christmas. Heck, I musta got her about fifty-six thousand sweaters, how long I’ve known her. And, wouldn’t you know, she liked it best when I gave her a color she already had -- isn’t that just so funny. She used to say it was such a comfort to see it again all new like that. You’d have to look pretty darn hard to find somebody naturally nicer than MaryJane McGee. So, let me just say that, flat out.
Well, ended up this young woman calls the police, of course, all crying and screaming and hysterical, just exactly like she’d been murdered, that’s what Sheila said.
Now. I’m gonna say something to you, and I know you’re gonna say, “Oh, that Peggy Apple’s just a big bag of nuts!” --
-- but I’m telling you something true, and I mean it: CrazyLegs had magic.
No, I do not just say that to be exciting, I do not. No, because you know, for instance, even though MaryJane got into terrible, awful trouble, or what would look like terrible, awful trouble to most folks -- it didn’t seem to hurt her at all, what am I trying to say, well -- alright, it’s like this: she may have got into heaps of trouble, but she never seemed to come to any harm. Not unless you count the Honda exploding. Which I don’t.
But, so the policeman comes -- for somebody stepping on somebody’s toes, can you imagine, that poor man -- oh, maybe it’s a vacation from people stabbing each other, who knows --
-- but, why I say CrazyLegs had magic is for instance because Sheila told me when that young woman told this policeman what happened, well --
-- he busts up laughing! Which, you know, I think policemen are trained not to do, under any circumstances. Like those guard fellas in England outside the palace with the big furry hats? They are not allowed to laugh, I know that for a fact. But them hats are so silly that they wear, don’t you think? Why, I’d laugh my head off all day if I had to wear that hat -- they’d have to fire me. No, but, so --
-- Sheila said the policeman looked at CrazyLegs, you know -- with her pretty white hair, so polite and so clean and so very small, and MaryJane’s eyes were just the kindest blue things you ever did look into, you know --
-- and then he looks at this screaming young woman who was such an awful mean thing with fake nails and boobies and big white teeth and a loud, mean voice, and a filthy gutter for a mouth, even to an officer of the law, can you imagine.
And that policeman just saw the truth, I guess. And the truth was that that nasty brat of a girl needed a sort of a -- good spanking from somebody. And I for one, am darn glad she got her toes stomped on and then got her mean self pointed at. So many people don’t care a thing about anybody else around them nowadays, have you noticed, cussing at their boyfriends in line at the grocery store with little children right there in front of them. I don’t think it’s natural.
Anyway, I believe they both got a citation of some kind. Oh, well, now...just saying that just made me remember the whole mountain of legal actions there were by the end. But I can’t go into all that -- we’d be here for the rest of our natural lives. I’m not exaggerating, we would, because everybody and their mother and the horse they all rode in on was threatening MaryJane with legal action. CrazyLegs must’ve had a hundred legal action lawsuits against her, it seemed like. Oh -- and here’s another way that makes me say CrazyLegs had magic: do you know that MaryJane truly never, ever seemed worried or bothered about that mountain of legal action law suits, not even one little bit?
Which I truly do not understand, I truly do not. My friend ChloAnn went through just one tiny legal matter -- well, it doesn’t matter, but it damn near worried her sick. She said she wanted to stick her head in the oven every second of the day. Said she couldn’t sleep hardly a wink, or hardly draw a decent breath until it was all over and done with. But that MaryJane was smooth as a lake about it all. Well, like I say. You think what you want. I believe in CrazyLegs.
And then I think about all those foolish, ridiculous, unhappy people waiting in a long, long line to sue somebody that was living on nothing but a small, fixed income. And for what. Hurting their pride, is all, really.
Like what happened that time I was with her when CrazyLegs came up on her -- oh, my -- that was THE most EXCITING night!! Ohhh, I remember it so very exactly:
Well, of course -- Howard thought we were just plain ridiculous to go and listen to this real famous spiritual speaker and author, who I won’t tell you who it was because if I do I’ll get to yakking too much and we’ll be here all night, so -- anyway --
-- Howard didn’t know why anybody needed to go looking for anything spiritual that wasn’t --
“-- in a damn church on a Sunday, when all you got to do is show up and say the damn prayers, and they got it all figured out for you!”
Can you imagine such ignorance.
So, there I was putting on my nice coat, and Howard just has one last holler at me from his chair, that this spiritual speaker was just an old snake oil salesman and I was just an old fool.
But I felt sort of strong inside that night ‘cause I knew where I was heading, see, and I say -- and I knew this to be an actual fact because I had just seen it on the Discovery Channel! -- so I say, real smooth, I say,
“In the Peruvian Amazon, Howard, snake oil happens to be useful for a whole lotta things.”
And he makes that old sourpuss face of his, like he does when he’s about to be completely ignorant.
“Aw, that don’t make no sense at all! Snakes are poisonous! You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about! As usual!”
So, wait -- I had my hand on the door -- I knew I was gonna get a good one off -- and I said,
“Well, then, Howard -- I suppose you better take that one up with the Discovery Channel!”
And I slammed the door. I felt just like Bette Davis. Right then I could tell it was going to be a very exciting night.
Well, I didn’t know the half of it.
So there we were at Mundler Auditorium. And the spiritual speaker had just been speaking for a nice while and we were all just feeling so wonderful, and MaryJane had gotten up in line to ask this spiritual speaker a question.
Now -- here’s another place where I also know that old CrazyLegs had magic, because in front of a whole big old place full of people, MaryJane McGee would never, ever, ever have talked up at a microphone. Never, ever. Why she was always afraid of the sound of her own voice practically, all her whole entire life just being so timid and shy of people.
But, by golly -- there she was that night, right up there in line with a whole wonderful, colorful variety of all sorts of real interesting-looking people, and just so calm, and looking over at me, once in a while and smiling when the speaker said something wonderful, and just waiting to ask her question, just like anybody else in the whole world.
Which I was just so very happy about, I can’t tell you. I couldn’t figure how she got to be so brave all of a sudden (except that it was pretty soon after that first trip, which, dang it -- I know, I know, I forgot to tell you about yet, don’t worry, I will), but I was just so moved and proud of her at that moment that night, to see that an even an old woman could change like that, after being one certain way all her life, well, I didn’t care one bit how it happened.
But, then, oh, dear Lord, oh, dear Lord --
-- there was this one young man with glasses, who got up to that microphone that they got in the aisle, you know, and he gets on that thing and he just keeps going on and on and on and ON, and there was only a small amount of time left, and still a long line of people, and he’s just yammering away, trying to show this wonderful spiritual speaker just how smart he is and just how clever he is and, well, we were all just crawling out of our doggone skins, just praying for that boy to just shut himself up! One of my headaches was even starting to come on, and, well --
-- the next thing I see --
-- without even realizing what it was that I was seeing? --
-- I see MaryJane McGee, just as calm and cool and collected as-you-please --
-- stepping out of her place and walking up that line past a few of those real interesting-looking folks and right directly up to this forever yakking young man with the glasses -- and she takes his hand just as smooth as if she’s just shaking it to say hello, and, whaddaya know, but --
-- Whap! --
-- she smacks it! --
-- and she says, in her clear little voice, which was louder than it woulda been ‘cause she was right near that microphone,
“Now, young man -- that’ll be enough out of you, y’hear!”
And she points at him. And then she just walks right back to her place, and she just steps right back in line, like nothing unusual had happened at all.
Well.
If I’da been standing up I woulda fallen down.
I could not close my jaw for a full five minutes. I don’t think anybody else in the whole darn place could either, and they didn’t even know, most of them, that MaryJane McGee would never in her whole entire life have done anything like that as long as she lived!!
It was JUST -- OH, it was SO -- oh, and then, some people started to laugh and clap, and then I did, too, and maybe I shouldn’t have, and ohhh, I guess I did feel just the tiniest bit sorry for the young man, he was just so -- but, oh, it was just the funniest, most wonderful thing to see in the whole wide world! One of the most satisfying moments I can even think of in my whole life!
And, of course, this young fella was trying to say something so clever and loud about MaryJane over the microphone, but the whole auditorium was just laughing and misbehaving ‘til he plain just give up and sat down and we all applauded. I bet nobody’s had that much fun seeing anything in a long time.
Well, anyway, so that’s why I asked MaryJane on the way home from the Mundler what on earth’s come over her, and that was why, even though she wouldn’t barely tell me anything at all, that was why I couldn’t stay in a bad mood that night, even though I tried.
Ohhh, yes -- folks kept walking with us for a little bit and patting her on the shoulder and thanking her, and a few people even hugged her -- all kinds of people, you know, and all different colors of people we don’t see much of around here. Oh, it was so exciting and happy, everybody saying good-night to each other all the way home, and laughing and looking at the sky and smelling how green everything smelled...oh, that walk home felt like an absolute party to everyone, you could tell. MaryJane just smiling quietly the whole time. I laughed more that night than I had in forever, seemed like.
Matter of fact, I was lying there laughing in the dark that very night, and Howard kept yelling at me to quit that laughing ‘cause he had to get up and go to work, which I knew he did, of course, and sure enough, every time he’d yell at me, and, even though I’d try so hard not to, sure enough -- I’d see MaryJane smack that young man’s hand and tell him that’d be enough outa him, and I’d bust up laughing all over again, ‘til Howard made me go stay in the den.
I laughed myself to sleep that night. I did. Well, heck, I guess I cried myself to sleep plenty in that den, so, believe you me, I remember the night I laughed myself to sleep. I’ll remember it ‘til I die...you know...I remember thinking that night, that I surely hope I do die laughing. I think that’d have to be an awful nice way to go. Don’t you? Oh, I do.
So, anyway -- listen to this: about two weeks later, I was paying my check at a restaurant just outside of town, when out of the blue -- them same giggles from that night completely come up over me and there I was remembering that smacking at Mundler Auditorium, right there by myself in the restaurant while I was paying the check, if you please. Well, I finally just had to explain it to the cashier, when I could draw breath, why I was acting so completely ridiculous.
And do you know --
-- that cashier told me that MaryJane had been there just the other week, when this big-bellied man was being just terrible to a young waitress and making her cry, and no one knew what to say, ‘cause the manager tells them the customer’s always right, you know, and they mustn’t talk back, or they’ll lose their jobs, and the other customers were just shaking their heads and feeling so sorry for the girl, and don’t you know --
-- that CrazyLegs, real calm, just wipes her mouth -- the cashier said she was having a grilled cheese and a Pepsi -- and she just lays down her napkin and she gets right up -- and she gives that awful bully a good Whap! in the back of his mean old stupid head with her little navy blue bag.
And she says,
“Now, you leave her be! And, yes, mister, it is my business!”
And then, she just stood there, and she waited. And the cashier said she was real scared for a second ‘cause that man got outa his chair and was about to lay whatever hit him flat -- until he turned and saw that what hit him was only just the sweetest, cleanest little old lady anybody ever looked at, and everybody was watching him like hawks, daring him to touch her. So he just looked around and then he stared at her real mean for a second and then -- he grabbed his coat and he left. And everybody clapped and hooted and hollered their heads off. The cashier said it was better than a movie.
Oh, I wish I’da been there. I’da lived on that one for months. He sued her, of course. That started happening pretty regular around our area.
But, see, of course, like most everybody did, the judge laughed when he saw MaryJane and her little blue bag, with nothing in it but a few dollars and a hankie and her social security card, which is about all she ever carried. And she never locked her door, so she didn’t have a key, and she walked everywhere, or I drove her, or she took the bus, like I say, she never drove her Honda, that I remember. Anyway --
-- of course, in court, that big dumb bully was wearing a big collar, you know, like he’d got some terrible whiplash, and, of course, he was suing for pain and suffering, and missed work like they all do. People are so ridiculous, they embarrass themselves all the time nowadays. That’s what I think anyway.
But, oh, you know, but the judges all just liked her so much, and, mostly, I truly think they wished they could just tell her she was perfectly right and, you know, just flat out thank her for doing whatever it was she did, really, but, you know, they couldn’t, of course. They have laws to abide by, which are called precedents, which from what I could see, don’t hardly make any sense at all.
I didn’t always go to the trials, Howard wouldn’t let me. He got so he didn’t want me associating with MaryJane, which was just too bad for him. Well, like I always say, we all know what Howard rhymes with, don’t we.
But, no, mostly, I think the judges gave her community service, which she liked so much, of course, being MaryJane. She never saw it as any kind of punishment at all. She just loved seeing things clean, and making them clean -- why, that was just her nature. You could eat off any single solitary floor in her home. Though, I must say, much as I do admire MaryJane for that, I have to say I never did know why any floor had to be clean enough to eat off of, since nobody’s ever gonna eat off it, for Pete’s sake. My mother used to always holler in at me about,
“Margaret Ann, that floor had just better be clean enough to eat off of!”
-- and I’d say --
“Well why?! Just when are we gonna all sit down and eat directly off this floor?!”
Ohhh, boy, I drove my mother crazy. It was fun.
No, but, anyway -- MaryJane did tell me she truly enjoyed those anger management courses. Which, of course, if they had a gold star they could give somebody at the end of it, MaryJane would’ve always got it, I bet. Makes me laugh, to think about MaryJane in there with all them big bruisers who beat up on their women, and get out and punch each other at traffic lights.
Now. I want to say something, but I don’t want you to get me wrong:
See, now -- I don’t think people should go running around being against the law, I certainly do not mean that. Folks should -- well, behave nicely, you know -- and not run around breaking the law on purpose, so don’t go getting me wrong -- but, see, how can I put it, well -- if you saw CrazyLegs in action, you saw right off that -- well -- say that first and only night I saw her, the night of the smacking of the yakking young man? --
-- maybe that spiritual speaker said something, I don’t know, but somehow, we all calmed down. But see, the next person in line got to ask his question. You see? Now --
-- it was a very, very important question.
I don’t remember what it was right this minute, but I remember it felt like something we’d all been thinking, when he asked it. It was something about something that worried all of us so terribly, deep down inside, you know, ‘cause a lot of folks sighed and shook their heads yes, and even moaned a little when he asked it.
And see, then -- what the speaker said as an answer to it just felt so -- beautiful to hear, you know, and wise as Methuselah, it felt like -- and from such a young person as she was, too, so it felt all fresh and shiny and new and it just...well, we all felt so comforted and so good inside. And then it turned out the speaker really did have to stop and leave right that very moment to catch a plane. So, well -- you see what I’m saying --
-- I’m saying because CrazyLegs come up over MaryJane like that, and stopped that young man from talking us all into the grave, we all got to walk out of that auditorium with hope in our hearts. Time woulda run clean out if she hadn’t. CrazyLegs did a lotta good, that’s all I’m saying -- a whole lotta good. Why do you think folks still leave flowers and light candles at that marker. Well, that’s why.
Well, alright, now, alright, let me tell you about that trip of hers.
But, first, let me just say right off:
I don’t know almost anything about it. Like I say, I only got to know peeks and corners of it, or only what MaryJane let drop now and then. She told me the first part just before she left and took her darn oath and couldn’t tell me anything after that.
Well --
-- one night --
-- all night long --
-- she dreamed that a voice that sounded just like her very own voice was telling her a flight number and a date and a time and an airline all through the dang night, over and over and over and over, she said, ‘til it got so aggravating, she had to wake up and write it down, so it would get the heck out of her head and leave her alone already.
And MaryJane thought it was so odd because she swears she never remembered one single dream in her whole life until that one, and I just thought that was so interesting. I tell you why, because, when she said that I remembered that she always did sleep like the perfect little log.
When we were girls and she’d sleep over or I’d sleep over, she’d just fall right asleep and the next morning, why -- she’d be in the very same position. Now, how can a person dream without moving around some? Now me, oh, I’m an awful big dreamer -- next morning it’d always look like I had a wrestling match with the -- well, Howard says no human alive is strong enough to keep me from stealing all the covers. I ask him how come he don’t ever think that maybe I’m wrestling with an angel, like Jacob, instead of just hollering at me about it -- oh, who cares about Howard, he’s just hopeless --
-- so, that very next morning MaryJane calls the airline that the dream was telling her the name of over and over -- and here’s the strange thing which gives me goose bumps every time I think about it:
It comes out that there was a flight with that very flight number on that very date on that very airline from that doggone dream! Leaving from here to go out to somewhere in SOUTH DAKOTA, for Pete’s sake! Of all places on this whole entire earth!!
And -- MaryJane actually packed her a little bag and three days later, she got on that flight. Can you believe it? Well, I still can’t, and I’ll tell you why:
MaryJane McGee had never been on one single solitary plane before in her whole entire life! And now, she just gets on this plane and flies off just as easy-as-you-please all because of some doggone over-and-over dream that nags her all night long! MaryJane going to South Dakota on a plane is like me going to the moon on a tractor!
She got back exactly thirteen days later.
So, of course, I charge right on over there to have our cup of tea in the garden.
And she tells me that she’s so very sorry, but she cannot tell me ANYTHING AT ALL about her trip because she’d made this sacred OATH to someone about some very important things, and she’d learnt that it kept the power in things much stronger, to keep them quiet. Can you imagine?!
Well, I bust out crying.
“Oh, MaryJane!! Oh, MaryJane -- you can’t, ohhh, please tell me something!! Ohhh, no-ooo!!!! Something so exciting and mysterious happens to you, and nothing exciting and mysterious ever happens to me, and I always want it to, and you don’t-- and here I am, worried sick about you, waiting day in and day out to know what entirely happened to you, you never even getting on a plane in your whole entire life before and -- and now -- you’re not gonna tell me ANYTHING?!! Well, I’m gonna lose my mind -- right here and now, I am going to COMPLETELY lose my SENSES!!”
And, oh, she’s just pouring out my tea, steady as-you-please, telling me she’s so very sorry to upset me so very much, she knows what a curious person I am and how hard it must be for me, but she just simply can not tell.
So I start to, you know, whimper at her, hoping it’ll do some good.
“Ohhhhhh, MaryJane -- ohhhh, please -- I won’t tell anyone anything, oh, please -- oh, please, I PROMISE with all my heart -- not to breathe one single solitary word to ANYONE on this whole EARTH.”
And she puts that tea pot down and she looks straight at me and she says,
“Now, Peggy Apple, that is a lie. You silly thing, you oughtn’t to lie at the very same time you’re making a promise -- it’ll get you all tangled.”
“...ohhhhhh...I know...”
Oh, no, she was right. I did know. Howard says if they wanted to sink a ship, all they’d have to do is put me on it. Now that I say that I’m not sure if he was talking about my -- or my -- hmm. Oh, who -- anyway --
-- you know, I’m just -- well, I’m just a naturally enthusiastic sort of person, and sometimes I just get so excited about things and I just forget that they’re supposed to be secret -- especially if they’re very fascinating, like this was. So, no, she was right about me lying about not telling anyone anything. I didn’t right then think I was lying when I promised it, but I as good as was.
So, anyway, I just out-and-out begged her with all my might. Oh, I’m shameless when I want to know a thing, oh, I moped and I pouted and said things like --
“-- oh, for pity’s sake this, MaryJane,” and “for pity’s sake, that” --
-- for about a half an hour straight. It was tiring.
Well, I’m happy to say it did work, but only a very little tiny bit. Like I say, MaryJane was silent as the tomb about anything that’s supposed to be secret, but --
-- she told me she would tell me just a tiny bit around the very edges that wouldn’t effect some completely sacred oath she had taken, but I had to promise not to bat away at her, like I do.
So, first she told me how she so enjoyed looking out the window at the mountains below, and at the farmland, and how nice and peaceful it felt to be flying around up so close to heaven, and how nice the hostess was, giving her a little pillow to sleep on, and how the seat was so comfortable and roomy, and things about being on a plane that I really did not care to hear about at all, because they weren’t the least bit mysterious or exciting -- but then --
-- she finally told me that, on this plane, she had another one of them over-and-over-type dreams. This one told her the name of a particular place in South Dakota -- which she never did tell me, of course. Now, this dream was like to go on and on and on in her head like the other one, only this time she wrote it down right off so she could get more sleep. So, then she went wherever that dream told her to go.
And all she would tell me about the dang rest of it was,
“So, then heap of things happened there --”
“Well, like what, for instance?”
“-- and then after that I had an over-and-over dream to go to a place in New Mexico, and I fasted on the side of a mountain for two whole days and two nights together. I enjoyed that.”
I almost fell into the rosebushes.
“ALONE?!” I said, “MaryJane!! Were you all ALONE?!!”
“I was,” she says. And she just sips her tea.
“What in -- MaryJane!! Weren’t you SCARED?!!”
“I wasn’t.”
“Do you mean to -- you didn’t eat anything at all for TWO WHOLE DAYS?!!”
“I did not. You’re gonna spill that milk all over your skirt, give it here.”
“MaryJane Katherine Elizabeth McGee: You have always been mortally terrified to so much as -- put out your garbage at night, and now you’re telling me you just went waltzing up a mountain in New Mexico, a little old lady like you, all by --
“-- now, I’m not a minute older’n’ you are, Peggy Apple, and I --”
“-- JUST A LITTLE OLD LADY ALL ALONE ALL NIGHT LONG FOR TWO WHOLE NIGHTS NOT EATING ONE SINGLE THING ON A MOUNTAIN IN NEW MEXICO -- ON PURPOSE?!! Like as if you just...oooooohhhhh, MARYJANE MCGEE!!! I don’t know what to -- oh...I gotta sit here and breathe a minute...”
“That’s a good idea. Rest awhile. You’re like to collapse a lung.”
Well, believe me, I shot her a fine look. But we did sit there quiet for a little bit while I caught my breath.
And she stared off, and out of that quiet, she said, with such a soft, happy look on her face,
“Oh, Peggy...I never did see so many stars all at once like that. Why, I just never knew there were so many stars. Blinking and blinking and blinking all over the sky, all night long...all at once, together, it was...like they was breathing.”
“You could have died of overexposure, MaryJane!! You could easily have completely PERISHED of OVEREXPOSURE!!”
I got my wind back good.
“Well, now, I ask you: did I completely perish of overexposure? No, I did not.”
“WHYEVER DID YOU DO SUCH A THING?!!”
-- oh, I didn’t even wait for her to tell me she was never, ever gonna tell me whyever anything ‘cause of that doggone stupid oath --
“Oooh, I hate that doggone stupid oath, MaryJane, I dearly hate that stupid sacred oath of yours with every bone in my whole entire body!!”
“Well, I’m sorry for you, then, but it’s sacred, it’s an oath, and that’s that.”
“Well, for -- well, I daresay that’s just the most aggravating and selfish sacred oath I ever heard of in all my whole entire life!”
Ohhh, I know. It wasn’t selfish at all. I was the selfish one, I know. But when I get upset that I don’t know a good secret, I’m just intolerable.
Well, then, somehow, and I truly do not remember how, but pretty soon, she got me to telling her about what happened with Shirley and that whole mess about Martha Castor’s crazy niece, and I just got all wrapped up in it, like I do, and forgot all about her not telling me about her trip for a good long while.
And then, later on, after the sun had set, and we were just listening to the crickets, and just rocking, and Horace was sleeping in her lap -- Horace is a big old wandering town cat, who comes around and visits with her -- and so there we all were real peaceful and quiet. And all of a sudden she says, so sad, oh -- so very sad, she says,
“Oh, Peg...I just...I just didn’t know people could be so poor as that. So bad off...and so...it’s -- it’s unjust, that’s what...”
Well. I think you’ll be glad to know I kept quiet for once in my life. Even though I had no idea who she was talking about, I just sat there and felt so very sad with her, for whatever poor people she was talking about. But now I think about it, I guess she was talking about poor Indian people.
And so, she just sat quiet, and I just sat quiet, and we let that old sadness sit there in the air for a long while after. And then I went home.
And it was pretty soon after that, I guess, that she started acting up. First around town, and then, you know, other places. So, I guess, that’s maybe how it all started -- dang... see, I told you I was the wrong person to tell you -- oh, dang it --
-- anyway, here I am telling it so Imight as well keep going --
-- I would like tell you another thing I also think might be that old CrazyLegs working some magic:
I do wonder just how she got in all them big important places anyhow, you know, just walking on in to see the heads of whole big huge companies, with no guards stopping her? Now, was it MaryJane or CrazyLegs doing that hat trick, I ask you.
But then I think, you know, truly -- she was so small and so quiet, that nobody noticed her a lot of the time. And I don’t suppose she ever brought a big old camera, like they do on 60 Minutes.
So, I guess maybe she just right went on in as if to just say hello, or just padding on past whoever it is and then, looks like -- she pretty much always ended her visit with old CrazyLegs giving somebody a good kick in the shin or a good talking to, like I heard she did with them Madison Avenue advertising folks --
-- oh, I was reading about that whole series of incidences just yesterday! It was so exciting! I read about a few I hadn’t before! Like the one where she went right up and started leaving pictures of all those poor starving young American girls and pictures of botched plastic surgery all over the halls, and pictures of young boys who’d killed for a pair of sneakers and such -like. Oh, I read all about how she busted into a big meeting of something they call a creative meeting with big clients or whatnot and told them all that they was driving the whole country nuts just to sell ‘em stuff we don’t even need and they should be ashamed of themselves, never screaming, mind you, so they say, just going in and people listening to her because she’s so sweet and quiet and neat and fragile-looking, I guess, and the stories’ll tell you how somebody always asks the security guard or the police or whatever to be extra gentle with her -- isn’t that just so wonderful? You should look that whole Madison Avenue business up on the Internet yourself -- you’d enjoy it, I know.
And that little sneak never even told me she went to New York City. The New York City, if you please. I do wish she’da sent me a postcard from there...
...I’ll never forgive Howard for burning those postcards, never. Jesus can, but that’s his job. I’m only human, and I just simply can not.
Oh, yes, alright -- see --
MaryJane had sent me some postcards from when she went to D.C., where I have always, always wanted to go, but Howard never would take me, not in forty-seven years, to see all the beautiful monuments in person. And so, MaryJane sent me all these beautiful picture postcards of all the monuments.
With too much postage, as usual. She always puts way too much postage on everything. She thinks the Post Office does such a fine job, they deserve extra thanks for all their trouble. I keep telling you, MaryJane McGee is just naturally the nicest person you’ll ever want to meet.
Anyway, she sent me all these other pictures of all the monuments, but three just beautiful pictures of the Lincoln Memorial. Which she knew I would just simply cherish, and, of course, I did, so very much. Well...I know it’s silly, but I always had sort of a little crush on President Lincoln. I know he wasn’t real handsome, but I liked his eyes, and his forehead, and his jaw, and his lower lip. And he was so tall, and dark, and, well -- just so pure and kind inside. Do you know that when he’d get reports of the boys who were dying in the Civil War, didn’t matter which side they were on to him, he would put his head into his hands and cry his heart out. Now, that’s the way a President oughta be, if you ask me.
So, I always loved him so. And that Lincoln Memorial makes you want to just -- well, I know this is so silly, but -- if you could get up his big old long legs somehow, sorta go sit on his lap and tell him your troubles,. And he might not be able to fix ‘em just like that, you know, but you know he’d sure listen and he’d try.
Well, so, anyway, yes. Howard burnt up anything I ever got from MaryJane when heard something from some friend of his that MaryJane went marching into the Bureau of Indian Affairs and was supposed to have poured blood into the files! I know, I know -- which doesn’t sound like MaryJane at all, if only because she wouldn’t want to make anything such a mess, and picturing MaryJane doing something so -- well, I don’t know if I believe it still, or if it’s just a rumor....but if Crazylegs was an Indian spirit or chief or whatever like people say, like I think he must’ve been, then I guess she must’ve had a good reason. In all the things I heard and read, Crazylegs never did anything unjust.
I know -- I always thought that the Bureau of Indian Affairs was run by Indians looking out for Indians, but I think that may only be a little bit true a lot of the time. I guess you’d have to ask a lot of Indians to tell you the truth about what really goes on. What do we know. The more I know, the more information I gather, the more I know I don’t know and never knew.
I’m still looking for more and more about that story, the BIA story -- that’s the one that interests me most, now. That’s the one I think got the FBI and the psychiatrists and…I can trust you, right? Well, if I can’t, it’s too late now. Take me in, if you want. I don’t think I’m afraid so much anymore, when I think about MaryJane.
So, yes, anyway -- I come home from the store one day, well... I’d smelled smoke from outside the house, see, so I go out back and find him there -- he’s poking a big old stick into the ashcan fire out back, glaring at me. And I felt just so sick and I didn’t know why, and then I look down in.
And, doggone it, if I don’t see... the last of poor Mr. Lincoln’s legs burning black, and turning to nothing but ashes.
If I’da been a man, I’da knocked him flat. But I’m a lady, so I just stood there hating him with my whole entire heart.
“Howard. Those were MY PERSONAL PROPERTY. You h--”
“I DON’T CARE, you hear me?!! She’s a MENACE, that woman! And she’s a TERRORIST --”
And then he hushed his voice and looked around, and even though he was whispering he was still hollering,
“ -- you mark my words, that friend of yours is a goddammed TERRORIST!!
“You are the most ridiculous human being that ever --”
“ --and she’s NOT getting me kicked out of MY OWN DAMN COUNTRY!!”
“It’s HER DAMN COUNTRY, TOO, HOWARD!!”
“-- taking her withered old CRAZYASS self --”
“-- it’s CRAZYLEGS!! AND YOU KNOW IT!!”
“Legs or arms or I DON’T GODDAM CARE-- Your crazy friend MARYJANE MCGEE oughta be LOCKED UP!! First, she starts in whacking on everybody in town--”
“-- folks liked her whacking on people, Howard! Why do you th --”
“-- and THEN she just ups and waltzes into the Bureau of goddammed INDIAN AFFAIRS -- and starts tearing the whole place apart?!?! AND POURING BLOOD AND YOU DON/T THINK THAT’S –“
“ -- Now look who’s EXAGGERATING!! And you DON’T EVEN KN --”
“YOU DON’T KNOW FOR SURE WHAT SHE DID OR DIDN’T SO NOW YOU SHUT UP AND YOU LISTEN TO ME!!!”
Don’t worry. I wasn’t scared of him. Please remember what Howard rhymes with. He was the scared one. I could tell. That’s why he was screaming his lungs out.
He hushed his voice again.
“-- and then she starts telling people from our own government they been lying and cheating them Indians?!! Most of them people are goddammed Indians or whatever the hell -- that’s just -- what the HELL does she know?! That’s anti-American, alright, stupid?! And MaryJane McGee is a danger to national security, that’s all!!”
I told you he was ignorant. I been reading up on the Native Americans in South Dakota, in particular, ever since MaryJane told me that’s where she went and me having found the crumpled up note and figuring about about CrazyLegs being one. Oh...I don’t want to tell you all the things I read. I mean I do, but I don’t. Because you’d never stop crying. You’d be so angry and so completely sick at heart, you wouldn’t know what to do to help set things right. I sure don’t.
But I told him, I said,
“You are SO IGNORANT, Howard -- she’s MORE American, if she’s standing up for NATIVE AMERICANS!!!”
“Keep your dadgum screeching down, woman!”
“--THAT’S WHY THEY’RE CALLED NATIVE AMERICANS, YOU BIG, DUMB -- DUMMY!!! They just happen to be MORE American --”
“Don’t you tell me who’s -- NOBODY’S MORE AMERICAN THAN I AM!! I FOUGHT --”
-- well, once Howard gets onto him fighting in the war and being the most American American anybody ever knew in the whole dang history of America, well -- you couldn’t shut him up even if you konked him on the head with a shovel. And, oooh, how I wished I coulda. But then, of course, I woulda killed him by mistake or something and ended up in jail for life without parole, or electrocuted. See, not just anybody can be CrazyLegs.
Well, I just got real, real tired to my bones all of a sudden and I turned around and went inside, with him yelling after me how American he was.
I didn’t speak one word to him for darn near a month. Oh, I fed him and did like I usually do, only I behaved exactly as if he weren’t there. I found it real relaxing, actually.
Well, I don’t like saying this at all, but I guess...it turned out Howard wasn’t all wrong, the way it all went. Though I’ll never forgive him for how he did it. Didn’t even think about talking nicely to me about destroying all my precious momentos, didn’t even -- oh, it don’t matter no more...
...I guess MaryJane was right, too, about not telling me much, I guess she, well -- she said something once -- well:
Let’s see, now, I believe this was when she was only being CrazyLegs just locally then. Yes, that’s right --
-- and I remember this one day -- it was one of those real perfect blue days, you know, with a nice breeze -- and she was cutting me a basket full of her big fat yellow roses, ohhh, you could just eat ‘em right up, they smelled so good -- and she said, sort of off-handed, you know,
“Peggy -- when it comes to me, don't you go soaking up any trouble that ain’t yours. You hear me?”
And I got scared.
And I said, “I’m scared, MaryJane, whatever do you mean?”
“Don’t be scared, Peg. No use in that.”
“No?”
“Not a bit. Don’t even bother.”
“Hm...what are you saying to me, MaryJane.”
I’d got used to her talking in riddles, but this was different.
“Oh, nothing so much, just -- you know how you found out you don’t need to know the answer to every single little thing that happens? And how, that’s not such a terrible hardship on you, after all?”
I scowled at her.
“I may have found it out, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Oh, here’s a beauty, smell that --”
-- and she hands me a big fat yellow rose, and goes back to cutting,
“-- you know how can go getting too many facts and situations going around in your head sometimes...and then you just stay stuck on that, like -- the spin cycle on the washer is in your head...and you drive yourself and everybody else to distraction?”
“…maybe.”
“So, sometimes it’s better for you to not know the answer for every little single solitary thing, even though you’re such a curious person by nature. That’s all.”
I was still scared. And I said, real anxious all of a sudden,
“Oh, MaryJane, with all this going on, with all this whole -- are you sure you’re alright?”
And she turned to me full on, her eyes just as clear as that sky, and she said,
“Peggy Apple -- I’m fit as a fiddle and sound as a drum, and you know that and I know that and don’t you ever let nobody tell you different -- no matter what -- you hear me now?”
And I did. And she was, too.
I don’t care what them crazy psychiatrists said, especially going on towards the end. She was as sensible as the ground I’m walking on.
Oh! Well, yes,, of course, I forgot to tell you about the whole other -- oh, they had an army of those psychological people saying she had this kind of disorder and that kind of disorder. Oh, what was that one, oh -- they said she had “a failure to repress herself” --- which I sure guess she did, but maybe those other folks she repressed did, too! Nobody ever examined them! Oh, and, there was the multiple personalities one, of course. She told me a little bit of all that nonsense her own self, I think she thought it was so darn funny, and it couldn’t hurt nothing to tell me some.
But, when I did start hearing about all of that, I tell you -- I sure was glad that she’d said what she’d said when she was handing me them yellow roses that day. Because it made me know that, no matter what they did to her or said about her, she knew the truth of herself, and she’d be alright, no matter what.
And, oh -- of course, she wouldn’t take all those different pills they tried to give her, see. I think mostly she just didn’t fill in the prescriptions. And if they’d ask her why not, she’d just say, real pleasant, you know,
“No, thank you, I’m fine. Why don’t you try ‘em. See how they do on you.”
And they just wouldn’t know what to do with her -- MaryJane being just the very picture of all things sweet and calm. But I imagine the calm part must’ve been the thing that made ‘em so darn nervous.
So I guess they had to start throwing all sort of words at her like they were going to explain CrazyLegs somehow, and if they could get it all written down and reported on, so’s everybody could agree on what exactly went wrong with her childhood to make her do what she was doing. I swear, those people don’t have no common sense at all, from what I could see.
And, do you know, she didn’t even tell those people about her sacred oath! She kept that oath so strong she didn’t even tell those doctors, even to explain why she wouldn’t explain one single thing to them!
I told her, I said,
“MaryJane, maybe if you tell them that you took that sacred oath, maybe they’d leave you alone a little bit.”
“Oh, no -- the world’s too upside down for that, Peggy. They’d lock me up good ‘n’quick if I started telling them a sacred oath was mixed up in it.”
Oh -- one little thing she told me about this one doctor that just -- well -- she says,
“Peggy -- do you know,”
she says, and she blushed real red, which I hadn’t seen her do in the longest while, and she said,
“one of them fellas today asked me when was the last time I had s.e.x.?”
Well, both of us just started to giggle.
“Oh, my goodness -- oh, what on earth did you say, MaryJane?!”
“Well,” she says, “I guess I just thought that was just about far enough, and CrazyLegs come up over me. You know, his hair was all just combed just so, you, know, and sort of slick? Well, I went over and mussed his hair up real good. And then I left.”
Oh, my, how I admired CrazyLegs. I truly did.
Hmmm, now...
...I might tell you something now, which I been keeping secret a long while now, which nobody knows but me and MaryJane.
But I bet you’re surprised I could keep any kind of a secret at all, aren’t you?! I can tell! Ohhh, I know, I know -- Headline: Peggy Apple Keeps Her Mouth Shut -- that’s alright, don’t feel bad -- I’m pretty surprised, too!
I might tell, I might not, I just have to see. ‘Cause I’m just bustin’ for some reason, talking to you. You been just about the best listener I ever met. I admire that greatly in a person. Other than you the only other person I knew who ever listened so nicely and so closely was MaryJane.
But, I’ll see, but that’s right, cross my heart, I didn’t even tell this to Howard or the FBI, so --
-- some time after MaryJane’s Honda exploded on that mountain road, and her with it, so they said -- the actual FBI come to our house one rainy afternoon and asked mostly me a whole heap of questions about MaryJane, of course, and why not. They made me nervous, I guess, but I guess mostly I felt glad to see somebody cared. And I figured they might know the answers to some questions I had.
It was a young man and woman who came -- a girl, practically -- oh, she was young. She sorta favored my niece, Debbie. Only Debbie’s not squat, and this girl was squat. Anyway, they were very nice and much more polite than most young people now, so I enjoyed them, I suppose you could say, at the beginning. You could see they were trying real hard to do their job excellently, and, at first, that was nice to see.
So, yes, they just, you know -- we all sat down in the den, and I put out some coffee and some Pepperidge Farm cookies -- I just must say: I think those Pepperidge Farm people know just what they’re doing about those cookies, don’t you? You can just put any one of their cookies out there at the very last minute, no matter who comes to visit, even if it’s the FBI, and feel downright elegant if you arrange them nicely on a plate. I might write them a letter some day and tell them so. Well, anyway --
-- they asked us, mostly me, like I say, a lot of questions about how we knew each other, and Howard told me not to bore them with a lot of stupid stories and just answer what they ask me, and I did.
And then, I figured, they might know -- and, well, heck -- I’m a taxpayer, so I asked them didn’t they think it was strange about the Honda exploding and no sign of MaryJane or or no DNA or nothing and Howard said,
“Oh, don’t pay any attention to her, she’s crazy.”
He did that all the time in public. But right in front of the FBI, can you imagine -- I about died of embarrassment.
But those FBI folks looked at him like he was as mean as he was.
And I said, sorta quiet, I said, to keep my dignity, you know, I said,
“Well, Howard -- they are the Federal Bureau of Investigation, so I just thought they might know.”
And then they looked at me sort of funny. And I got so nervous, and I didn’t even know why.
And the FBI girl said, “Why would we know, Ma’am?”
“Well, you’re -- the FBI, so I figure you must know -- well, you know, about why a person’s body would, you know -- come up missing, but the person would still...get declared dead...anyway? Don’t you deal with mysteries all the time -- on a -- you know, professional basis?”
And Howard says, all mad and nervous,
“I told you -- she thinks she’s goddamColumbo!”
Then young FBI man said, paying no mind at all to Howard, but still real nice and polite to me, though, he says,
“Mrs. Apple -- when Miss McGee went around the country on her trips...uh, doing the engaging in the sort of activities she did on them...was she ever in communication with you?”
Well, Howard and I got scared sick at the same second. Forty-seven years together, sometimes you’re just one animal creature. And I guess I was relieved, just for that one second, mind you, that he burnt those postcards.
And then, the FBI girl said,
“Mrs. Apple, let me say again how sorry we are that your friend is dead. “
And in that moment, I almost cried, but not because I was sad that MaryJane was dead, but because I was all of a sudden scared that she was alive. And so alone, somewheres. And I felt scared of what that girl was gonna ask me, and if I was gonna answer in some way that would hurt MaryJane, and if I was just too dumb not to know how not to hurt her.
“But, in the event of any...suspicious activity, that might have involved her, we don’t want her reputation to be -- compromised in any way -- it seems that she may have become involved with some -- let’s say, subversive activity. But perhaps she was coerced.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.
“Mrs. Apple. Was Miss McGee inclined to be anti--”
Well, I don’t know what come over me, but pure blind panic, and so I just railroaded right over her, and I talked and talked and talked, all of a sudden, about MaryJane’s over-and-over dreams telling her to go to South Dakota, and even about her not eating for two whole days and nights on the side of the mountain in New Mexico, and, oh, even about the stars breathing.
And as all this talk just rolled out of my mouth like a river, I swear, I noticed the FBI stop from looking suspicious of MaryJane to start looking like they just figured she was crazy, and they even started looking at me like I was crazy, and I didn’t mind any of that so much at all, except I started to feel sick that I’d told them anything about her nice time on the mountain and her private dreams, but I couldn’t stop talking, and so loud, too, like I was almost shouting, and I don’t know, maybe I thought I was helping her to -- I don’t know -
-- and then I got to the part about when she come home and she wouldn’t tell me one single thing about almost any of it, and how I almost went out of my mind with not knowing, and the young man said, but he had to get it in kinda quick, ‘cause I was mighty like the Mississippi,
“But -- wait, that doesn’t seem to make -- for her not to tell you anything at all. You’re her life-long best friend!”
“Thank you! That was my point EXACTLY!!”
The girl couldn’t understood it either, of course -- she may be FBI, but she’s a woman,
“But, Mrs. Apple -- she wouldn’t tell you any more than that and she’d never even been on a plane before and then she goes to two states she’d never been to, in one week --”
“-- Oh, you don’t have to tell me! I was so darn frustrated at her I thought I’d lose my mind.!!”
I was out of breath by that point and sweating, I could feel it rolling down the insides of my dress, and I scared poor Howard into a coma, and the FBI girl says all of a sudden, kind of hard, like a slap,
“Mrs. Apple, please! Did MaryJane McGee ever tell you exactly why she wouldn’t tell you anything she did on that trip?”
And all of a sudden, I got mad. Oh, I didn’t let them know, don’t you worry, but I knew that second that they didn’t care at all about what happened MaryJane, all they just cared about was some sort of silliness they had up their sleeves. I could tell because the FBI’s girl’s eyes went from being a pretty sparkly green, with kindness in them, to, like, well -- a ugly piece of glass. And I saw right then that they were play-acting. They didn’t care at all -- and maybe worse.
So, all of a sudden-- I shut up like a tomb -- just exactly like MaryJane -- and I just refused to tell them that the reason she wouldn’t tell me a darn thing was because of her gosh darn sacred oath, especially with what MaryJane said to me that day about her getting locked up if any sacred oath got mixed into it --
-- and I completelyrefused to tell them about the crumpled up note that said, “Remember Crazylegs.” I let them think it was some silly nickname that come out of nowhere like they seemed to, if they thought they knew everything, fine, then go ahead and think you know everything, see if I care. And I refused to tell them what I’ll probably tell you. I knew, I hoped, I prayed, she was maybe still alive somewheres, and either way, I wanted her free as the free-est bird that ever was.
So, I shrugged my shoulders and looked down, as if I were so terribly ashamed, and I said,
“...well...MaryJane...MaryJane wouldn’t tell me anything because she knows I can’t keep my mouth shut about anything.”
So, Howard pipes in, practically screaming, of course, ‘cause he was so scared --
“Now you know she’s telling you the God’s honest truth! You wanna sink the entire United States government in a New York minute, you tell Peggy Apple to keep all your government secrets for you!”
And somehow, they all started to laugh at that like it was the funniest thing they ever heard. And I joined in laughing, too, except out of pure relief that I hadn’t been loose-lipped like they was laughing about me being, when that was the one moment in my whole life that I ever shut up entirely for a damn good reason. And it was the the one and only time in my life that I’ve ever been completely grateful for Howard saying something nasty about me in front of people.
Well. Then -- after the end of the laughter, the room had a pleasant feel to it again, a lighter feel, you know -- the FBI looked at each other, and then they stood up and thanked us for the hospitality. They were looking mostly at me, and smiling real sweet, again, all warm and nice and polite, only now like I was a silly child, and they were the adults who knew what was what. But that was alright. And, sure, they said they’d get in touch with me if they had any more information about the Honda, and then they said they were very sorry that I had lost my dearest old friend, and I pretended I thought they were sweet again, and I cried a little, but only ‘cause it was over, and they were leaving.
Well, maybe a week after that, Joseph Munsen calls me. He says,
“Peggy, have you seen what they done to MaryJane’s house?”
And I say, with a big boulder of worry in my gut all of a sudden,
“Why, no, Joseph, whatever do you mean?”
And he says, “Peggy... just go by there. I won’t say no more than that.”
And I do. And what do I see, but the whole pretty little house is wound round and round with yellow tape the way they do. Like they took it prisoner. And just as I got up to it, a young fellow gets out of a black car and says,
“Ma’am, do you have any business with this house?”
Well, I guess I got sort of hysterical, and I say,
“Well, I -- MaryJane McGee was my -- did they find her?! Did they find her in there?! Why are they in there?!”
And this man acted like I was an insect. And he looks down at me and he says, real cold, like there was not a single human feeling in him -- what could make a person be that way, I ask you,
“Go back to your home, Ma’am.”
I just stared at him, and I opened my mouth to try to talk,
“B...wh --”
“Go back home, Ma’am. Now. Unless you’d like to be escorted home.”
I am not a violent person. Bu, oh, how I wished CrazyLegs woulda come up on me, but, all I did was say,
“Yes, sir,” and walk away back home.
And when I got there, I had to rush to the bathroom to be sick, I’m sorry to report. Howard shrieked and screamed at me all the while I was in there to stay away from that house ever again, or he’d kill me. I thought he’d give himself a stroke.
And a few weeks later -- God bless Joseph, he was MaryJane’s neighbor for forty-three years -- well, he knocked on my door pretending to bring me a magazine, to whisper to me that the black car wasn’t there no more, and hadn’t come back but once since that first day, so when I went to the market, and came back the long way and I strolled by and snuck into the back yard.
I looked at all that tape they left there, and I tried to get in a deep breath, but it wouldn’t come. And, do you know what, if you had asked me would I ever do such a thing as I was going to do, a year ago, such as disobey that police tape, I would’ve said, “Are you crazy!?” But somehow –
-- I just step over that awful tape as if I’m just dreaming I’m Peggy Apple stepping over the police tape to visit that poor, pretty, little house I loved, and I stepped up on that sweet, perfect, little porch where we sat and rocked and talked and looked at the flowers and the trees and the sky for all those many years, and then I came close to the window to look in to that kitchen table we’d sat at to play checkers and crochet --
-- ohhh, it was a crime scene, alright. But they had done the crime. I guess they were looking for things, and I guess because they figured she was dead, they didn’t care a lick about the mess they’d made -- drawers and cabinets left open and stuff spilling out if it like innards. I nearly fainted. I sank down on my knees and I cried my whole heart out against the windowsill for about five minutes straight,. And then -- why I marched home with steam coming out of my ears and I got my cleaning things all gathered up, and I shaking and mad and I told Howard that I was off to put MaryJane’s house back the way it was, so help me God.
Well, sure. That was when Howard packed up and left.
Alright. Well, I’ve decided. I am going to tell you that secret:
You see, I had taken my very own sacred oath about this here secret. From myself to myself. Yessir, I did. Well, alright, now, first off, let me just say right off --
-- this is something I know I oughtn’t to have been watching. I am truly ashamed of the snooping part of it, when it comes to this. I just could honestly not help it in the least.
But, now, listen, here: You have got to take your own sacred oath!You have simply got to swear by all you hold sacred and dear, that you will not tell anyone at all, especially not Howard or, obviously, the FBI! I absolutely do not want them digging up her yard, which was the one place on her property they forgot to tear to pieces and desecrate.
Alright, then -- here it is. Well:
I come into her garden one day -- this was right toward the end of the whole thing, right near where the Honda exploded on the road, maybe even just a few nights after this particular thing I saw --
-- it was a sorta cold, grey day, and the wind was up, swirling and twirling the leaves, that kind of day. So, anyway, I was calling and calling MaryJane from the fence so as to not scare her that I was coming in and she didn’t hear me. MaryJane was a little bit hard of hearing anyway lately, and then with the wind up like it was, whooshing in and out through the trees and all...and then...
...her playing that strange and, oh -- it was beautiful, sad music which I guess was Indian-type music, on her porch -- well, so all that made it even harder to hear me, so, I reached over the gate and I let myself in and I had it right in my mouth to call out to her again, but I stopped dead in my tracks --
-- MaryJane was digging a hole. A big one, too. Only it wasn’t in her garden, heck -- I seen her digging itty bitty holes with her trowel in her garden all the time -- no. She was digging this big old hole with a big old shovel right in the very middle of her yard. It’s sort of a big circle, the grassy part of her yard, and she was digging this big hole right in the dadgum middle of it.
I know, I know -- why did I stop, why didn’t I just say,
“Well, hey, MaryJane, whatcha digging there right in the middle of your dadgum yard? On your way to China this time?”
-- or something silly like I’d say, you know. But, I guess...maybe it was something about that music that was so -- mournful and -- it just sometimes sounded like an animal, sorta howling, only it was a kind of flute, maybe, I guess -- and, you know, where she was digging the hole was so different, like I say -- and also --
-- MaryJane looked so strong and powerful while she was digging, when she had always looked to me all her whole life just like -- a tiny little china-doll, almost, and here she was digging like -- like I don’t know what, but...and I guess all of that different-ness going all on once just -- just dang glued me to that spot behind the hydrangeas, trying to make sense out of it.
So anyway, she lays down this shovel, see. And then she kneels down in the grass by this hole, which looked to be about three feet deep, and it looks like she was fixing to rest a minute, but --
-- I see her pick up a mashed sort of grocery bag lying next to her, that I didn’t notice before.
With something in it.
And so she sits back and she takes this mashed grocery bag on her lap. And then out of that bag, she pulls out something --
-- it’s a faded old flowered pillowcase., with something in it Then -- out of this old pillowcase --
-- she pulls this awful mangy-looking folded thing, which I can’t make out what it is yet.
But, when she sees this thing -- well, I can tell right off that it’s real meaningful to her, because when she looks at it sitting in her lap, she sorta sags over it, so sadly. And she puts her hands on it, and she looks off, like she’s -- remembering.
And she just sits with it on her lap like that, and just leaves her hands on it a while, looking off and up aways. And she says, loud and clear, like she was talking to someone not too far up in the sky,
“Well, Chief...hello, it’s me, MaryJane, as you can tell. Sir, I tried real hard to do what you asked, when you came to me on the mountain and in the dreams and everywhere. Each time I tried. But I don’t think I done such a good job of it, really. I think I made a hash of things. I guess you can see pretty clear where you are if I set anything to rights at all...”
And then she sighs, real sorrowfully, and she starts to unfold this thing, real slow and real tender. Like it was an actual live thing, almost. And the more she unfolds it, the more I could see how just how worn and thin and full of holes it was. And then finally, I could see that, sure enough it was a blanket. An Indian blanket.
Oh, my, my, my -- what a sad old rag of a thing it was. It broke my heart to look at it, and I can’t tell you why.
But then -- right there in her sky-blue pearl-button sweater, and her smooth grey skirt --
-- why, she wraps that big old raggedy blanket around her. As if were...why, a sort of...holy robe. I swear. And, after a time, she talked again,
“I’m sorry, Chief. I’m sorry from my whole soul how our people didn’t do your people right. Not even once. Now, I’m gonna try to set your spirit free now, see, and help guide you ‘cause I know you didn’t get buried right and proper by your own kin. And I’m just a foolish old white woman, and so I know I don’t know how, but Chief, I’m sure gonna try. So, Sir, you show me, one last time, if you can, so I don’t make a hash of it. May your spirit find your people and be happy, Chief.”
And she pulls the blanket close, and she sits there, with her head bowed some, and her eyes closed. And then --
-- all of a sudden, the wind comes up, so fierce-like, tearing through the trees and the bushes and the grass, around and around and through ‘em, it scared me so much, I almost shouted --
-- but MaryJane, real calm, picks her head up, and lifts up her face to that wind and lets it blow her hair all around, and it gets all blown up and around, and with the dirt on her face and hands, and her hair all blowed around like that, she looked -- wild, I guess, like a wild creature I didn’t even know, and then --
-- she smiles, and nods her head a little like a yes. And then, she gets to her feet.
And wrapped in that worn old raggedy blanket, she starts in to do a slow, slow sort of a dance... around and around that hole she dug. And that music was a-howling through the air, see, and the wind was rushing and shushing and whooshing everywhere, like it was all dancing with her and there was this little white-haired wild-like woman, going so slow and strange around and around that little grave, and making such strange sort of movements and gestures, and then--
-- she stops. She takes off the blanket. She starts in to fold it, see, only -- she folds it just like they do our flag, in one of them big triangles they do when a veteran or a soldier gets buried. Of course, MaryJane’s triangle was perfect, even with that sad old rag of a blanket, even though she looked like this little wild thing.
And then, she kneels down in front of the hole, and she gets set to lay that sad old blanket in its little grave. But, all of a sudden, she pulls it in to her chest and hugs it, and then she puts her forehead to it. And, oh, my, did she cry, oh -- she sounded like a wounded animal. I couldn’t help but be put in mind of Mr. Lincoln, crying his heart out, for all them dead boys.
Oh, sure, I was crying, too. And, boy, take it from me -- don’t ever try to cry when you’re hiding. I about suffocated.
Just about as she started patting the dirt over, I sneaked out fast.
And then, I took the longest walk I ever took in my whole entire life. I knew if I went straight home, I’d be so full of feelings and secrets, I’d tell Howard something by mistake, and I knew that would be an unforgiveable crime.
I was thinking I might go to church and try to find Reverend Henry, but then I got real scared about what he’d say. Ever since I been reading about the Indians and I asked him about why we never let them pray for their Savior, and do their Ghost Dance, and used to even kill them if they did, and that’s how they call Him I guess, like we do Jesus, and how we got to pray for our Savior, and they didn’t get to, and how wasn’t freedom of religion supposed to mean everybody, not just some people, and I didn’t like what he said so very much at all. I felt very let down, if you want to know the truth.
So, I didn’t want to tell him about something so important to MaryJane, ‘cause I was scared he’d say it was ungodly or something and then I wouldn’t want to go to church ever again.
So, I just took a long, long walk all through the park, and then I sat and watched the ducks for a long time.
And I looked around, to make sure I was alone, and, well -- I went and told those ducks what happened, just to get it off my chest.
And I know this sounds just crazy, but I don’t care, I truly don’t:
I asked those ducks what to do. And they said, sort of, you know, just in my mind, of course, they said,
“Peggy Apple, you got to make a sacred oath yourself: To never, ever let MaryJane know you saw that and invaded on her privacy like that, and you’ve got to never, ever tell anyone what you saw -- EVER... -- at least, not until you find someone who can appreciate it.”
That’s where you come in, see.
So, see, I had to change my whole entire nature about being such a natural born big mouth in just one walk home. But I figured MaryJane changed her whole entire nature in one dream, and then one plane flight, so maybe I could change all of a sudden, too.
Well. That’s it. That’s the secret.
And I don’t care what anyone says, I’m not gonna let anybody come and poke around in her yard. Her yard’s a sacred burial ground and that’s that. And I bought a little weeping willow tree and planted it right over it, to protect it. I told folks it was in memory of MaryJane, and they left it alone.
But it’s really in memory of Chief Crazylegs, I guess.
Well, I guess that’s all. I thank you for being so kind and patient, and such a very, very nice listener -- I’m so sorry I scrambled things up, like I do. Well, I should really get going now --
-- well. --
-- oh, now, ohhh --
-- alright, I can’t help it. It’s your own fault, you have such an kind face.
Alright, I have just got to tell you one more thing, but, but, BUT --
-- you have to include this in your other sacred oath not to tell ANYBODY, anybody, anybody, anybody, especially those two particular parties we’ve already discussed.
Alright, here it is. Are you ready?:
I got a postcard today in the mail! WITH WAY TOO MUCH POSTAGE ON IT!!! Now, there’s no message on the side where there’s supposed to be one, and -- my address was typed in, see, and, no -- I will not tell you what the postmark says , I can at least keep that important part of the secret-- BUT -- what I will tell you is, for right now, why --
-- I’m gonna keep on setting out Mee-Ow Mix for Horace, who stills comes by like he expects her back someday soon -- now, anybody who knows cats, I ask you why would he do that if he didn’t know something, and, heck, I just may try to keep her dang floors clean enough to eat off of, AND -- best of all --
-- I’m gonna go on laying flowers at her grave once a week and laugh my head off while I’m doing it.
Shhhhhhhh...now, remember your oath!
THE END
© 2005 Suzie Plakson