NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Diddlie Drates is weeding her front yard. The sun is well above the tree line leaving its electromagnetic signature in dappled shade. She kneels on a small green tarp under a wide brimmed floppy yellow straw hat with her gardening tools tossed in a bucket off to the side. Long thin purple and yellow ribbons, wound once around the top of her hat, hang across the back and flutter in the air over the edge of the brim. There’s a pile of drying weeds on her right and on her left is her wheelbarrow full of fresh cut goldenrod. I can’t see any sign of it growing nearby, but then again, Diddlie often has goldenrod, indicative of a certain mood, even when it is out of season. I walk over to her and offer her the use of my transplanting spade, which she had previously asked to borrow, if it isn’t raining, on Sunday morning.
“Thanks Fred, I want to use that to get this horse nettle out. The root can go down eight feet.”
“You need a backhoe Diddlie!”
“Yeah, this dry clay is hard as rock and you can’t pull anything up. The stems just break off. Have you got a real small one I can borrow for that patch over there?” She points out a clump of carolina horse nettle, hiding its thorns but showing off its faintly purple flowers with yellow centers. “Look at that huge bumble bee! It is weighing down the flower nearly to the ground.”
“They love solanum carolinense”.
“Are they Latin scholars, your bumble bees?”
“Fred, they don’t need Latin they have …”
“The sound of a dump truck drowns out her voice. It comes up the hill, orange, with ‘Mack’ in big polished metal letters abovethe flat rectangle of the radiator with bull dog on top. Eight wheels roll into view under its load, two more riding high, and then all stop opposite us. The driver seems lost. He has his phone up to his ear. “Dordrecht’s Group” is printed in small letters in the middle of the door bellow a yellow lion salient. The engine revs, a cloud of diesel smoke spreads from the exhaust stack behind its shiny heat shield with grab bar. The brakes exhale, and now the engine is quieter, as if it is panting rapidly from its exploding metallic lungs. Diddlie waves at the driver. She takes off her yellow leather gloves, gets up and walks over to the truck and shouts. The driver doesn’t notice. He is looking the other way with his window shut. She turns and comes over to me.
“Come on in Fred. This is too much.”
“Where are you going?”
“What?”
Diddlie, steps close, and shouts in my ear. “Come on in and have some tea.”
We go through her carport past Mr. Liddell who is sleeping through the commotion with his back to us in his hutch. As soon as we enter, the kitchen door slams shut, pulled by an old spring. The Red Queen shouts: “Get out will you? Damn you, get out!” Diddlie fills her kettle and puts it on the stove to heat. Then walks through to the living room and I can hear her tell the Queen that Fred is visiting. “He’s off his head!” replies the Parrot. I hear Diddlie close a door and she comes back to the kitchen. She stands facing me with her back to the stove. I sit at the small Formica topped table that was in here when she bought the house, along with two old chairs. The chairs have chrome metal legs and a small plastic covered seat with a matching padded back mounted on two chrome uprights. Surprisingly she holds a bunch of golden rod. There is so much it takes two hands.
“Where did that come from?”
“Oh don’t try to distract me Fred. Fred I have been reading the blog and I have a lot to say. I’m sorry Fred, but I’ve got to tell you, that the thing still doesn’t have any structure.” There is a faint scent of lemon in the air.
“Did, your kettle is boiling.”
Her kettle is black enameled metal. The handle is in the shape of a standing cat. The head is hinged for filling while steam comes out of a vertical stump, which used to be a tail rising from the cat’s back. A plume of steam comes out like a huge bushy cloud of new tail.
“It is full of structures, Diddlie.”
“Well I don’t get it. You do seem to be getting into more of the talk though. That at least is more believable than all that transcribing you’ve been doing, without a word from you.”
“I am getting to know folks around here. There’s more to say. Have to listen at first to get to know them. Glad, at least that you find it more believable. Are you going to make tea with that boiling water?”
“No, no, no, Fred you’re trying to distract me again. Where’s the plot? I mean what is happening? It’s all loose ends.”
“Well, our knowledge of the world is scanty, though it may seem otherwise.”
“I don’t know what you mean, conspiracy theories or what?”
“No! not that, I mean we get a fragments and bits of the world from all from all sources and string them together with sentences and stories.”
The room is filled with a scent of orange and vanilla. The lemon has faded. There is a stir in the steamy air above my head and a whiff of cinnamon.
“Fragmented, like what kind of stories?”
“Diddlie, let me ask you something.”
“Okay, but that doesn’t let you off the hook from my questions to you.”
“Understood, I want to hear about your long visit to England.”
“Well, I stayed with my aunt Maria’s daughter up in Chester. Not sure how much more I am going to say.”
“Old Maria Gostrey?”
Orange scent in the atmosphere is giving way to tea, a bit smoky perhaps.
“Yes, Maria.”
“What’s the problem?” Diddlie’s small kitchen is filing with the black enamel cat’s steam tail. Nothing it seems could survive the profusion of steam, creeping in at keyholes and crevices, and it steals around window blinds and obscures a bowl of red and yellow dahlias on top of the fridge. The door to the hall is open. Nothing stirs in the living room or in the hall. The tiles behind the stove are running with condensation and the rising humidity is soaking my shirt.
“What ever I tell you will become part of your blog.”
“… and the problem is?”
“The problem is I want some privacy.”
“Diddlie are you hiding in this steam for privacy? Are we going to drink tea or just inhale?”
“I put tea in with the water you know.”
“Yes the aroma is delightful but a taste would be nice too.”
“It is Shakers’ tea, called ‘Sabbath Day Lake Herbal Tea.’
“I don’t have to write everything you say you know.”
“Well Fred, you can write the name of the tea but don’t write anything about my love life okay?”
“Okay, can I say whether or not it is still ripe?”
“You can say it was a ‘Last Tango in Chester’ and now it is over, crashed and buried, done, finished, and forgotten … I wish I could forget … anyway say that.”
“Yes, well that eliminates a promising story line.”
“What an insensitive reaction!”
“Sorry Diddlie I …” She puts the bundle of goldenrod down on the table, and adds more water to the kettle, as the clouds are thinning though still thick enough to obscure the chandelier above my head.
“… Listen Fred, you have so many other lines to tie up, you can’t complain about lack of story line.”
“Well, life is full of loose ends. That is just life.”
“Life is, but fiction isn’t full of loose ends.” I get a glimpse of Diddlie’s hair beaded with water droplets shining like tiny silver Christmas ornaments.
“I wish you’d turn the heat down under the tea kettle Diddlie.”
“Oh Fred, let kitty have his tail.”
“Any way it is getting hard to see you through this steam, besides I am not writing fiction.”
“You are too. You said you were writing me and all the rest of Fauxmont, and none of it really exists.”
“Diddlie you are so mixed up about that. But any way you want a more conventional story line I suppose.”
“I want to talk to Werner Plank and see how he is doing with that law suit hanging over him, and what about the house next door. Jake has moved out, thank God and good riddance, but what’s going on with his stinking great house, and what’s the story with the Juanita … need I go on?”
“You don’t have to.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“Um, this steam is really getting to me … I don’t know the answers yet. You know you can see all kinds of figures in this cloudy room.”
“Excuses Fred! You’re just as lost as you were before I went away and it has nothing to do with kitty’s tail. He only has a proper tail when I boil the kettle and I have been away for so long he must have forgotten what it is like.”
“Did, why isn’t the steam going into the hall? I have got to open the door and get a draft in.”
“Don’t you dare open the door, Queenie will fly out and we will never get her back.”
“I thought she was locked in the living room.”
“No she just flew in. Look up Fred.”
“I never noticed her come in. It is hard to see in this steam.” She is perched on one of the Plexiglas rods of Diddlie’s kitchen chandelier, a construction joined with fishing line she bought at a craft fair. I can smell cinnamon again and it grows stronger the longer the bird is there.
“Why is she so quiet?”
“It’s the steam.”
“What’s the steam?”
“Steam is water vapor Fred, harmless, and sterilized, just the way she likes it. It’s good for her plumage and vocal cords.”
“Do parrots have vocal cords?”
“Queenie speaks doesn’t she?”
“Well, this humidity is bad for my shirt and I am dripping, so if you’ll excuse me I’ll be going back.”
“Why Fred? … I mean I want to know. I want you to answer some questions to move the plot along.”
Steam rolls in between us in scented opacity. Its magical white substance seems both solid and immaterial both dark and filled with light from the kitchen window.
“That’s true in fiction generally, but … steam is making it hard to breath.”
“Diddlie I only find out little bits of things as … but there are themes running through it.”
“Like what?”
“What’s your address?.”
“1664 Oval street.”
“You notice all the streets in Fauxmont are named after terms in cricket and streets outside the neighborhood are named after scientists?”
“Yes but you’re inconsistent. There are some characters and details that are purely imaginary and some others that refer to something else, but there is no system.”
There’s a rush of air. Vanilla scented steam swirls around the room and I can hear the Red Queen’s wings flapping but can’t tell where she is. The Cinnamon suddenly gets stronger and fades again. Then a terrific rumbling vibration comes from outside. Is it another earthquake? Sounds as if the house might be falling over. The red Queen shrieks and flies out of the steam towards me in an intense choking cloud of cinnamon scent, only to disappear again. I get up and walk carefully towards the door, but can’t see where she landed.
“What is going on Did?”
“Oh, he’s finally figured out where he is.”
“Who has?”
“The driver of that red truck.”
“So?”
“I am getting new gravel for the driveway. Hey there, where are you going Fred? There’s lots more steam yet.”
“Goodbye Diddlie!”
Walking home, away from the cinnamon parrot and the metal kettle cat with steam tail, I am surprised to find the newspaper still in the driveway.
I had read the Sunday paper over breakfast, before walking up the hill to Diddlie’s with the transplanting spade. Could this be a second copy delivered by mistake? No, the sun is still behind the tree line. It must be Monday morning. Here’s the date printed on Monday’s paper lying in the driveway.
