Mud Pie
A decidedly unsophisticated comedy about ideals of perfection and having all the finest things in life.
It is time for the most dreaded of occasions.
It isn’t that socialite Evelyn Chatsblythe is merely difficult. She’s impossible. Tensions are mounting as she puts the finishing touches on plans for her elaborate 43rd birthday celebration. And just in case you didn’t know, everything must be absolutely perfect.
When a family of hillbillies and their ghastly pink trailer “drop in” just in time to ruin the celebration, impossible becomes a fond memory of better times.
Big brother Sausalito and little brother Cincinnati stake their claim on the grounds of Evelyn and Carter’s palatial estate. While the two filthy heathens bathe in the pool, their goats munch away on Evelyn’s prize roses.
Evelyn’s ongoing quarrels with the household staff are nothing compared to the feud that is brewing just outside the mansion’s absolutely perfect walls.
Potshots, hostilities, and a battle cry of no surrender no retreat begin to crumble when a little thing called love creeps in. The hearts of the arrogant mistress of the estate and the two belligerent hillbilly boys that ruined it, find that perfection may not be all that perfect after all.
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CHAPTER ONE
A Big ol’ Slice of It
“It cannot hinder the view of the fountain. This is crucial. That is where the portrait will be taken.” With a flail of her hand and her peach sundress floating behind her, Evelyn Chatsblythe, the not-so-young, yet strikingly beautiful mistress of the superlative Italian Renaissance estate begins a brisk stride across an expanse of emerald green lawn.
Following her toward the marble fountain nestled near the base of a rugged canyon wall is Kenneth, a well-dressed party planner, frantically tapping an i-Pad. “Portrait?” he asks while checking his notes. “I wasn’t aware you needed a photographer.”
Evelyn dismisses his concern with a wave of her hand. “Oh God no. I wouldn’t allow you to handle something as important as that. I’m having Vincent fly in from Paris.” Evelyn strokes the contours of her face. “Vince knows how to bring out my classic cheekbones.” The mistress spins about to position herself elegantly on the rim of the fountain and crosses her long legs beneath the flowing fabric. “I will sit here and open my arms as if to say welcome to my guests. It is at that precise moment that the balloons will be released behind me and Vincent will capture the moment as only he can do.” Evelyn spreads her arms, then looks up and feigns delight as she pretends to watch make-believe balloons soar heavenward.
As Kenneth watches Evelyn’s imaginary balloons soar past the canyon’s craggy, arid walls of succulents, juniper, cedar and sumac, he manages a lukewarm, “Oh.”
“Oh?” Evelyn repeats scathingly as she abandons her elegant pose. She blinks her synthetic cobalt blues with a degree of pseudo-moral outrage that is typically only experienced by the 1%. “Do you not comprehend the paradox that conveys how I’ve maintained my child-like sense of wonder even as I enter my forty-third year with the kind of dignified grace that others appreciate so about me?”
After blinking a few times with the kind of stunned disbelief usually reserved for the remaining 99% of us, Kenneth’s eyebrows rise ever-so-slightly. “Of course.”
“So now do you understand why the tent cannot block the view of the fountain?”
Kenneth sighs with metered impatience. “Missus Chatsblythe, if you want a tent, you’re going to have to sacrifice the perfect view of something. Could we place it near the garden, perhaps?”
“The garden?” Evelyn brings two fingers with impeccably-manicured nails to her collagen-enhanced lips. “How can I have the perfect party if my guests cannot enjoy the splendor of the garden? The dignity of a formal garden cannot be compromised by a monstrous tent looming nearby. Do they not teach you anything at party school? It will make the grounds look as if the circus has come to town and a herd of elephants and a troupe of clowns are due to arrive at any moment.”
She blinks.
Kenneth blinks.
“So, you want to forgo the tent?”
“Heavens no.” Evelyn rises indignantly from the fountain rim. “Are you from this planet? How do you not know that Southern California is coming into its rainy season? And if it doesn’t rain, the sun will almost certainly be too intense. And it could be migration season. Think of the disaster a flock of hugely shitting birds flying overhead could cause. We must have a tent...”
“Near the pool?” Kenneth quickly suggests.
Evelyn winces.
She is about to argue how the splendor of the dozen marble Greek nudes that surround the pool are certain to be compromised by a looming tent when a tin can bounces down the canyon wall and draws their attention. As they shield their eyes against the sun, the can springs from an outcropping, soars across the flawless blue sky, plunges earthward, then splashes into the fountain where it bobs happily in the churning water.
“Oh ick.” Evelyn’s lip curls.
While curiously looking up the hill, Kenneth distractedly proposes, “A few small canopies would probably suffice. Only a fraction of your guests have sent confirmations.”
“What do you mean by only a fraction?”
“Out of two hundred invitations, only thirty-five have accepted.”
“Did you address them correctly?” Evelyn demands with her eyes blazing. “Did you remember to mail them? Tell me, how have you managed such a catastrophe?”
“I have over one hundred regrets, madam.”
With her jaw hanging limp, Evelyn stares at the party planner and blinks as she is prone to do in situations such as this.
“It might be a good idea to downsize the festivities,” Kenneth cautiously suggests.
After two more blinks and a dozen beats of a heart only momentarily broken, Evelyn turns her attention to the can bobbing in the fountain. She pulls a small bell from her pocket and rings it desperately.
Floyd, an ancient gardener, hobbles around the pool house, then stops.
The bell ceases. Evelyn calls, “Another piece of crap has fallen into the fountain.” She quivers. “Oh, and I found a weed growing over by the Eleanor Roosevelt. If you thought it was a flower, it is not. Flowers do not have leaves that go...” Evelyn twists her hands and arms grotesquely.
After standing motionless a moment, Floyd waves acknowledgment, shakes his head wearily, then with a bow-legged old man shuffle, disappears back behind the pool house.
“Where is that senile old man going? Does he think I rang for my health?” Frenetically ringing the bell, Evelyn pursues the weary gardener in a determined march. “Floyd. Floyd. I meant now, not five minutes from now.”
With despair eating what is left of his soul, Kenneth lets his i-Pad fall limply to his side, shakes his head as Floyd had done, then trudges after Evelyn. “The tent, Missus Chatsblythe. Could I have a decision about the tent?”
* * *
Branches begin to rustle in the wooded cleft that runs up the canyon wall. Sausalito Jones, a wiry sixteen-year-old, makes his way down the hillside while wiping the juice of canned peaches from the corners of his mouth. Sporting hollow cheeks accented by smudges of filth, he stops and peers through the branches as Evelyn’s brisk pursuit and shrill screeching, followed by Kenneth’s silent plodding behind, both vanish around the far side of the pool house.
His grimy baseball cap partially obscures equally soiled, scraggly hair. With a squint of his dull brown eyes, he spits, plucks a stem of grass from the hillside, then places it in his mouth. Ratty overalls that hang loosely from his bare shoulders expose a good three inches of hairy ankles above equally-distressed leather boots at their other end. With a bucket in one hand and a shovel in the other, he continues his descent with the kind of long, slow gait favored by the mountainfolk of times gone by.
* * *
There are certain disasters that befall mankind. Only rarely do they happen on a Tuesday morning. Occasionally they entail hysteria. Usually they involve the slightly-aging mistress whose child-like wonder and dignified grace are the envy of all.
So it is that on this Tuesday morning, across town, in the engineering lab of a high-tech prototype developer, several professionals in lab coats are huddled together at a table. Unaware that disaster has occurred, Carter Chatsblythe, the impeccably dressed CEO of Proto Precision and long-suffering husband of the mistress of the estate, is studying schematics along with his crew of engineers.
The shapely legs of the firm’s receptionist tug at her short skirt as she enters the area in an urgent stride. Her stiletto heels click briskly on the floor while a great deal of wailing emits from the cordless phone she carries at her side. She approaches the group with wide eyes and addresses Mr. Chatsblythe. “I’m so sorry to interrupt sir, but it’s your wife.” She extends the phone to Carter. All freeze as a particularly piercing wail comes from the receiver.
Carter looks at the phone with apprehension, then mouths the words, “I’m not here.” He gestures her away just as a bout of sobbing begins to seep from the phone. After taking in the disillusioned expressions of the engineers – for what kind of jerk would do such a thing to his wife in her moment of despair – Carter flares his nostrils, sighs with exasperation, then extends his hand for the phone.
He holds the receiver to his ear and laboriously begins, “Evelyn. - Evelyn. - Evelyn, - honey, - dear, - could you calm down? Evelyn. - Evelyn.” He looks at the faces of the engineers and smiles pathetically. “Evelyn. Evelyn, I need you to calm down.”
The sobbing stops. Just as Carter opens his mouth to speak, a barrage of desperately high-pitched complaint spews from the receiver. While struggling to understand and only marginally able to keep the phone anywhere near his ear, Carter comments as the rare opportunity presents itself. “My God - Floyd did what? - To whom? - Murdered?” The engineers gasp and the receptionist draws her hands up to her mouth.
Their expressions of stunned disbelief are like those that usually occur when first hearing of disaster on an otherwise pleasant and ordinary Tuesday morning.
* * *
If anyone should ever want to know, it takes a Ferrari 308 nineteen minutes and forty-two seconds to speed from Proto Precision to 1219 Happy Canon Drive. Carter Chatsblythe now stands on the expanse of emerald-green lawn at Evelyn’s side. Both look down at the exposed soil of a shovel-sized hole where a few rose petals are all that remain of the Eleanor Roosevelt rosebush.
Happily, the weed growing next to it is quite undisturbed.
Evelyn’s face is streaked with rivulets of black mascara wetted by tears that glisten in the midday sun. Beneath a very ordinary hazel eye, one of her cobalt blue contact lenses is stuck to her cheek. She sniffles into a tissue, rivets her eyes on the gardener, then speaks bitterly. “It was that bastard, Floyd.”
Carter looks from the hole, over to the edge of the garden where Floyd stands in the shade of a cluster of Palm trees with his hands clasped before him. His head is bowed solemnly – in reverence for the deceased – one would imagine.
“Evelyn, honey, Floyd doesn’t strike me as the type.”
“Oh, he’s cunning. Don’t let that feeble old man act fool you. He’s a maniac. Make him tell you where he hid her.”
After emitting a heavy sigh, Carter trudges away.
With crossed arms and a tapping foot, Evelyn seethes with vehemence as she watches Carter approach Floyd.
“How’s it going, Floyd?” Carter asks wearily.
Floyd’s gaunt eyes rise up to face Carter. A slow smack of Floyd’s chops that are comprised of scraggly whiskers and toothless gums, precede his response. “Not bad. The crazy bitch is driving me nuts though.”
“I hear ya,” Carter commiserates because right now the vivacious, exciting woman he married twenty years ago has indeed become a crazy bitch that is also slowly driving him nuts. “Listen,” he asks bluntly, “did you kill the damn rosebush?”
“Wish I’d thought of it.” Floyd pulls his whiskered chin up to his nose.
Carter studies the sincerity in the dreary eyes of the master gardener who looks like a bum but knows his stuff and so far has not been run off by the mistress of the estate who happens to be very good at running off the help. “Hmmm. Well, carry on then.” Carter starts to turn away, then turns back. “And try not to act old. It’s making her suspicious.”
With a cursory nod that is followed by more heartfelt shaking of his head, Floyd ambles away. Carter glances to where Kenneth, worn, has collapsed against one of the classical Greek nude statues that surround the pool. The party planner mouths the words, “Help me,” before allowing his eyes to roll back into his head.
Until the mistress’s forty-third birthday has passed, help me will be the plea of all mortals in the realm of the semi-notorious Evelyn Chatsblythe. For you see, the mistress of the grand villa is completely oblivious to the touch of irony that her personality brings to the winding road known as Happy Canyon Drive that runs a mile deep into a rugged canyon of absolutely preposterous wealth.
* * *
With night having fallen, Evelyn, wearing a flowing nightgown, stands at the master suite bay window with her arms folded. Carter, in plaid pajamas, sits on their bed looking at Evelyn’s slender back. With weariness, “I’m sure everything is going to be perfect. Size doesn’t matter. Could we please focus on the thirty five that are coming and not the one hundred sixty something that unfortunately have other plans?”
“Everyone knows when my birthday is. Why would they make other plans?”
“I’m sure it was an oversight.”
“One hundred and sixty something oversights?”
“Shit happens.”
“They don’t like me.”
“I’m sure they adore you. You are the epitome of good taste and high society. Even with a smallish turnout, I’m sure you will have the most fabulous birthday since Cleopatra.”
“You’re placating me. I hate it when you placate me.”
“Whatever darling. I’m tired and I’m going to sleep. Good night.” Carter turns out the light on his nightstand, gets under the covers and turns away on his side.
It is silent in the room now bathed in subtle light.
“Why can’t I fire the help?”
The motionless lump beneath the covers sighs. Carter explains in a slightly muffled and somewhat annoyed, mechanical tone, “Because there aren’t enough people in the county – and possibly the state – for you to fire everyone that annoys you. So, unfortunately for you, they are my employees, not yours, therefore you cannot.”
“Are you my husband or my father? I am not a child.”
The lump is unresponsive.
“Then I will be sleeping in my retreat.” Evelyn huffs as she glares at the bed and its man-shaped satin comforter. She storms out of the room and slams the door behind her.
A groan emits from under the comforter.
The recently-slammed door opens.
After flicking on a myriad of light switches to illuminate the room to roughly the brightness of the face of the sun, Evelyn marches in. She grabs the remote, turns on both the television and stereo, cranks them to an unbearable volume, then drops the remote into a vase of freshly-cut orchids. “Humph.” She sneers at the covers, exits and re-slams the door.
* * *
With her gown flapping wildly behind her, Evelyn marches angrily from the master suite, along the curved balcony that overlooks the superlative living room below. She comes to a door near the top of the staircase, opens it, careens inside and – because doors are basically perfect for slamming – slams it shut behind her.
Her retreat is illuminated by a shaft of moonlight entering the windows. Evelyn forgoes the lights, then with an arm stretched before her and the other trailing behind like the overly-dramatic actresses of 40’s and 50’s black-and-white overly-dramatic movie era, she glides directly toward an ornate canopied feather bed in the middle of the room, lands face-first on the bed and sinks into its softness.
She is still.
She is also unable to breathe.
There is a rustling of satin as Evelyn thrashes about to curl onto her side.
Lines of distress are etched around her perfect features. Her hazel eyes dart anxiously side to side. After lying there a moment, she sits and twists around with another rustling of fabric, then flops back against a mound of lace pillows. She lays still only a moment, then reaches around so that she can take a porcelain doll from the nightstand. She clutches it to her bosom, rests her cheek on the top of its head and hugs it tenderly.
“I’m not perfect anymore,” she whispers to the doll. She draws and expels a forlorn breath, then holds the doll into the shaft of moonlight. “You will always be perfect. You will always be young. Everyone will always want you.” Evelyn gazes into the doll’s senseless vibrant blue irises.
The creases of Evelyn’s distress begin to fade from her face. Finally, she smiles a tiny little smile and lifts a finger to move a lock of synthetic doll hair back from a hand-painted face. “Always perfect,” she repeats, sniffs, then bites her lip. She gazes at the doll’s flawless appearance and smiles tenderly.
* * *
Outside the villa’s walls, clouds roll beneath the lunar brilliance, then churn against the moon’s bright face until it and its light are extinguished. Far beyond the canyon wall, the sky flashes and distant thunder rolls.
* * *
The next morning finds Evelyn holding a robe tightly around her waist as torrents of rain douse the glass panes of the French doors that encircle the breakfast nook. While sipping from a steaming mug of coffee, she watches the storm with concern, then furtively turns toward the telephone.
The raspy voice of the cook and housekeeper, Mrs. Gilbert booms. “Don’t even think about it, missy.”
“I wasn’t, I...” Evelyn turns to find the intense eyes of Mrs. Gilbert staring her down from across the kitchen. In the weathered full face of the earthy woman, there is a knowledge that crumbles Evelyn’s innocent ruse. “What if the ground gets soggy?”
“Then ya wear boots. Ain’t nothin’ your mister is gonna be able to do about the rain.”
The two stare at one another.
If one was to imagine the hearty stock of woman prevalent in pioneer lore from the years 1650 through 1850 that could till ten acres by hand, milk cows, slaughter chickens, birth one dozen children, and chop firewood; Mrs. Gilbert would come to mind. Like Floyd, she knows her stuff and is impervious to the slings and arrows of Mrs. Chatsblythe.
Surmising the stand-off will not go her way, Evelyn tosses her hair back, then begins to stride from the room. “Then I’m going shopping. Have Bernard bring the car around.” She hesitates in the arched doorway with her back toward the housekeeper.
“In an hour.“
“Or two.
“First, I will be bathing.” With another arrogant shake of her head, Evelyn proceeds toward one, or depending on her mood, possibly two of the mansion’s ten bathrooms, for it is her prerogative to mess them all up if she so pleases – and she frequently does. After watching her only momentarily, Mrs. Gilbert shakes her head, rolls her eyes, then wipes the counter with her dishcloth.
* * *
Up the canyon wall, beyond its crest, in an arid woods of low, twisted trees, succulents and cacti, stands the faded remains of a circa 1950’s pink house trailer with an improvised corrugated steel shed roof built atop it. Water streams from the tin panels onto the saturated mud that surrounds the humble abode. A quarter-acre of rusted junk, chicken coops and goat pens encircle the homestead to complete the ambiance.
While rain pelts the metal roof with a constant din, Sausalito Jones sits at a tiny table, sucking on his lip as he concentrates to write on a piece of paper before him. His mother, Loretta, a gaunt woman of sickly pallor with dark rings beneath her eyes, lays propped up in bed peering as best she can at his work.
Not totally unlike a cheery bouquet of fresh-cut flowers and shiny helium orbs bearing well wishes of better health, the Eleanor Roosevelt rosebush sits unceremoniously in a bucket at her bedside. Her labored voice is weak as Loretta advises, “Watch yer penmanship, Sausalito. I kin’t hardly make that out.”
“Okay, Mama,” Sausalito drawls, then redoubles his effort. The relative quiet is broken when the door opens. Cincinnati, an innocent boy of eleven with long hair and ratty clothes steps inside, soaked to the bone. He quickly shuts the door, then after a wary glance at his mother and brother, wiggles his shoulders out of his saturated coat.
“Find anything interestin’, young’un?” Loretta asks with a wheeze.
“Dead bird was all.”
Sausalito looks up from his studies with hopeful eyes. “Eatin’ bird?”
“Jus’ a poor baby felled out’a the nes’ and drown’d. Weren’t no bigger than yer thumb.” The boy holds up his thumb.
Sausalito exhales with disappointment. Loretta nods, then launches into a coughing fit of wheezes and deep rattles. Her sons watch impassively as the fit passes. While drying himself with a towel, Cincinnati interjects, “You ain’t soundin’ so good, Mama.”
“I’m okay, honey-pot. The molds stirred up from the rain make it hard to breathe. You jus’ worry about yer studies and that will be comfort ‘nough for me.”
Sausalito sternly pushes a book across the small table. Cincinnati looks at it, then defiantly walks over to Loretta’s bedside. While looking deep into her ailing eyes, he strokes her hair affectionately. She runs her hand over his wet hair with a grateful smile. The boy leans close, kisses her, then walks back to the table, sits, pulls the book close and takes a pencil in hand. Loretta watches only momentarily, then lets her head fall back into her pillow.
“Sausalito,” she speaks with pure exhaustion, “you got all them papers we talked about?”
“Yes, Mama. They’s all safe and secure.”
“That’s my boy.” She breathes arduously. “And you know who to talk to at the bank?”
“Missus Conley. I got it Mama.”
“You’re a good son. Both a’ you are. I’m very proud to have been your mother.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
The boys look at one another with a full understanding of the words, “proud to have been.”
* * *
On a street lined with exclusive boutiques, a black limousine slowly drives through the pouring rain. Bernard, the placid middle-aged chauffer at the wheel, looks straight ahead with vacant detachment. Behind him, in a state of near desperation, Evelyn cranes her neck as she tries to look out all the windows at once. “Toni’s...no. Holland Brothers... um, no. Maybe something to eat. Oh gosh, no. I can’t gain any weight before the party. Maybe a cappuccino? No, no, that makes me hyper.”
From her perch on the edge of her seat, Evelyn suddenly points. “Pomades! Pull over. I need a fragrance. That is what I need. Bernard, what are you doing? I said, pull over.”
“I’m looking for a parking place, madam.”
“Ugh. Would you look? It’s at least three stores down now. You just passed a loading zone. Are you watching what you’re doing at all? Over there! Over there! Park in the bus stop.”
Bernard’s lip tugs ever so slightly as he tightens his grip and yanks the wheel. Dislodged from her precarious position, Evelyn shrieks as her feet fly up and she tumbles to the floorboard. The limousine jerks to a halt with another happy thump or two from the back.
Bernard smiles with devious, yet placid delight.
* * *
Moments later, a not-as-amused-and-now-really-soggy Bernard rushes alongside Evelyn holding an umbrella to protect her from the rain. She strides along, pulling at her clothing. “I’m rumpled. How on earth did you get a position driving a car? That half-wit, Floyd, who is blind as a bat, could have maneuvered better. You better believe Mister Chatsblythe will hear about this.”
A tow truck cruises past them, unnoticed. As it nears the limousine parked in the bus stop with its hazard flashers on, the truck slows and its yellow lights begin to flash.
Inside Pomades, a drenched Bernard opens the door for Evelyn, who enters regally. He collapses the umbrella, steps in behind her, then stands just inside the entrance. She spins around and looks at him dryly – which is somewhat ironic if you think about it. “What are you doing?”
He looks at her blankly.
“I don’t like to be watched.”
Looking then between Evelyn and the approaching salespeople and considering his options, Bernard quietly steps back outside, opens the umbrella, and stands in the rain.
The salespeople are then forced to retreat as Evelyn parades along the counter without so much as stopping to smell the fragrances. “Junk. Sludge. Rot. Urine.”
* * *
The iron gates of the mansion open for two taxis to pull into the drive. Both stop in the pouring rain near the entrance of the mansion. Evelyn gets out of one, and Bernard, the other. She pops open the sole umbrella, then proceeds into the house in a huff. Bernard simply walks to the front steps in a slouch, sits in the torrent of rain and buries his face in his hands as the taxies depart. Floyd happens to be ambling about the grounds in a yellow slicker collecting worms. Worms, if you didn’t know, make lumps in the grass – and lumps are not acceptable to Mrs. Chatsblythe. Anyway, Floyd approaches Bernard and observes him through the water pouring off his visor. “Handicap space?” he ventures, then pulls his chin up to his nose.
“Bus stop.”
“Crazy bitch,” Floyd mutters, slowly shakes his head, then hobbles away with his writhing can of worms.
* * *
With evening having fallen, the rain continues but has mercifully reduced to a steady drizzle. Evelyn sits on her bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, eyes downcast and her lower lip protruding in a pout. With his hands firmly on his hips, Carter speaks through the frown that cannot find its way off his face. “You have to be nice to people. You have to be patient...”
“Even when they’re imbeciles?” Evelyn’s color-of-the-day fluorescent green eyes dart up at him with a nasty glare.
“Just because they don’t do what you want, precisely when you want, does not make them imbeciles.”
“They are here to serve me. They’re serve-ants.”
Carter sighs. “They are here to help us run this home. We can move into a three bedroom rancher with lap siding and neighbors ten feet away where you can cook, clean, garden, wear slippers in the supermarket, and drive yourself around town in a station wagon if you’d like.”
Evelyn’s face contorts horribly. Her mouth falls open.
While pointing sternly, Carter continues. “That’s about where I’m at. One more hysterical phone call. One more towing charge. One more impound. One more...”
Evelyn’s eyes narrow hatefully.
Carter returns his hand to his hip. “From now on you will let Bernard drive the car, Floyd take care of the grounds and Missus Gilbert run the house without your directives and demands. I trust them. I pay them to do what they do. And in my opinion, they do it well.”
“And if I’m miserable, that means nothing to you?”
“It’s either you or the rest of the world.” Carter holds his hands like a scale that is suddenly put off-balance and shrugs.
Evelyn’s perfectly plump upper lip curls hatefully.
* * *
Up the hill in the dismal pink trailer, a kerosene lamp burns brightly. Loretta coughs and gags as Sausalito cradles her in his arms. Cincinnati holds a steaming tin cup under her nose. Sausalito cajoles, “Breathe the steam, Mama. It’ll break up the congestion.”
“It’s tea, Mama. Take a sip,” Cincinnati pleads.
Loretta gently pushes it aside and turns away, coughing too hard to speak. The boys look at one another, then Sausalito lays his mother back into the pillows, rises abruptly, and walks to the door.
The shaft of light from the opening door illuminates a dozen pairs of yellow eyes that instantly appear in the blackness of the woods. Sausalito steps out into the drizzling rain and softly closes the door behind him. Once again in darkness, the reflecting yellow eyes disappear into the black. Within a couple steps, Sausalito’s posture crumbles. When he begins to sob, the piercing yips and wails of a dozen coyotes accompany his weeping.
* * *
The next morning finds birds singing in the bright sunshine. Only a few wisps of fog linger along the canyon walls. Inside the mansion, Mrs. Gilbert is busily preparing breakfast when Evelyn bounces into the kitchen wearing very stylish sweats accessorized with fuzzy ankle warmers. With astoundingly good cheer and brandishing tiny pink plastic dumbbells, she dances to an imaginary rhythm. “Good morning, Missus Gilbert. It has stopped raining.”
Mrs. Gilbert eyes the cheerful mood and tie-dyed contacts that adorn the mistress’s eyes. “Good morning, Evelyn. You are one lucky lady. The forecast says it will be nice for your big day.” Mrs. Gilbert adds a garnish to the gourmet breakfast she has prepared, then places the china plate on the table with a proud chef’s, “Voila.”
Evelyn stops dancing.
“Oh,” she says with profound disappointment while looking at the plate with sour dismay. “I didn’t want that today.”
The two look at one another. After unceremoniously pulling out the chair adjacent to the plate, Mrs. Gilbert cocks her head toward it ever so slightly. The crazed look in her eyes and flared nostrils imply a threat. After gauging the situation and weight classification of the contestants, Evelyn sheepishly makes her way over to the chair, but stops short of sitting. “Maybe Bernard would like that and I could just have a yogurt.” She smiles ingratiatingly.
“Listen lady, you will eat this or I will stuff it in your ears.”
* * *
Up the hill, Sausalito and Cincinnati sit at the table looking at their hands while Loretta fades. Her breathing is irregular and the rattle, louder. “Mama’s dying, huh?” Cincinnati asks.
Sausalito nods. “Not much longer now.”
“Couldn’t we git her to a hospital?”
“You know she don’t want no part of no hospital. This is where she wants to be and we’s who she wants to be with.”
“I’m a little scared. I don’t want Mama to die.”
Sausalito can only look at his brother because both of them already know her wishes well.
Suddenly, a groan crawls the length of the trailer and the boys find themselves jostled a bit. They make odd faces at one another as another groan begins beneath them. “What the heck?” Sausalito’s wondering is cut short by a sudden lurch. The trailer and the earth beneath it begin to move. The boys reach for something solid to hold on to as speed begins to pick up. Suddenly, everything tilts. With dishes and books crashing around them, they holler in fright.
* * *
Meanwhile, in the breakfast nook, round one of the Happy Canyon title match is underway. Evelyn bobs and weaves from one side of the table and throws not-very-threatening punches in the air with her tiny weights. Growling lowly from the other side, Mrs. Gilbert holds the breakfast plate like it’s a cream-pie about to be thrown.
The chandelier above them begins to rattle.
Both freeze. Their eyes slowly roll upward to the shimmering crystals. “Earthquake,” they shout, then bolt for the French doors.
They exit the house in a sprint just as a swath of earth slides down a cleft in the canyon wall, then plows across the emerald lawn. Trees and bushes still intact, the sliver of land rushes alongside the mansion. In a matter of seconds, it slogs to a halt like a train having rolled into a station. The pink trailer atop the mound now sits nearly even with the second floor of the mansion. The lower jaws of both women hang limp. The plate and its gourmet breakfast falls from Mrs. Gilbert’s hand onto the patio with a crash.
* * *
Inside the trailer, the boys look at each other with wide eyes. It is absolutely silent. They rise, then step over a litter of dishes to get to the door. They step outside, then cross the muddy yard as frightened goats, freed from their pens and chickens, loose from their coops, dart and flap about around them. The boys thrash through the bushes, come to the edge, and look down on the manicured grounds of the estate that spread out below.
Mrs. Gilbert and Evelyn peer back up at the boys from beneath hands they have brought up to shield their eyes from the sun. The boys blink a few times, then look at one another. “Mama,” they both shout, then slip and splash through the mud to rush back inside.
* * *
Loretta’s mattress has slid onto the floor where she has sunk into her covers and pillows. Upon peeling them away, her boys find her eyes closed in peace. No breath comes from her slightly parted lips.
* * *
Evelyn and Mrs. Gilbert gaze up the canyon wall where the long gash of newly-exposed earth extends beyond the rim. Just then, a tin can rolls from the mound in front of them, bounces off the exposed tangle of roots that protrude from the muddy slide, then lands on the grass. The two women stare at it, share an incredulous look, then creep toward the mound. They tiptoe across the soggy lawn, around the corner of the mansion to see where the landslide has stopped only inches from the iron front fence.
At the leading edge of the slog, Floyd’s two black rubber boots protrude from the muck.
* * *
Cincinnati weeps into Sausalito’s arms as they sit together on Loretta’s mattress. Sausalito’s voice cracks. “We’s on our own now, little brother.” He sniffs between sobs. “Mama done gone to heaven. She’s lookin’ down on us now, you can be assured.”
He cranes his neck to look out the dingy window toward the mansion of the glistening estate they landed in. “Her spirit done some mysterious and powerful work ‘fore it left her. Lord have mercy on what befalls us now.”
Author’s note:
A long time ago I was in California after a rainy period and saw my first landslide. The entire side of a hill had simply slid off the hill and taken with it, a home. Coming from an arid climate where such things do not happen, it was one of the most bizarre things I’d ever seen. I’ve read that the elements that make a good story are: take a fish out of water and while you’re at it, strand someone up a tree. Basically, put people where they don’t belong in a situation they don’t know what to do with and preferably with someone they don’t like.
Everyone knows someone that is just impossible but has no clue that they are. We also have come across people that are darn sure they are right and by default, everyone else is wrong. There are clashes of culture - wealth, poverty, education, ignorance, etc. I figured I’d throw everything all together and make a colossal mess for some hapless characters to figure out - just to see if they could.
Then just to be fair, I decided to try to write believable women - my fish out of water experience. It was fun to get completely out of myself and write this comedy. It ain’t serious literature, but it is refreshing on a lot of levels.
The hodge-podge of elements and characters turned out to be a comedy with a lot of deeper meaning. If you’re a man, you will not necessarily like this story, but if you are a woman, chances are you will. If you’re sophisticated - or God forbid - an intellectual, just stop now ‘cause yer gonna hate it. Or you might have yourself a hoot. Hard to say but be kind when you review it if you decide to go ahead after you’ve been warned.
