the gravity of ghost people

There is a pause to my house when I walk in at 8:39 PM.

"There is a light on in the basement," BC states. Beach nods agreeing, pushing the mashed potatoes around on her plate.

His words sink like stones between the three of us. Slipping beneath the waves of icy water lapping around my throat.

The events of the week have stirred up so many unsettled topics. I am treading lightly across the wooden skeleton of an old harbor.

I set down my bag.

For a week we have been running in circles taking care of other people's animals. It started with Beach watching 2 cats for a coworker from the gym. It's a good job for her. It requires me to drive her 2-3 times a day into Sugar House. For the most part, it falls easily into our days of running her to her job, me to my job, her to Gym, taking care of our own dogs, her school work, and household errands.

Then a phone call came in from a neighbor asking if Beach could watch her 4 dogs.

I agreed Beach could take the second job because she could walk down there and it didn't require anything from me. I couldn't have been more wrong.

The first morning she walked down I got a phone call right away. Once I got down there and saw the situation BC got a phone call.  I'm not trying to be mean or hurtful but the house, OMG the house.

The story we were told was her dog sitter flaked. After seeing the state of the house and the dogs we see that probably isn't the exact truth of it.

We cleaned for 2 hours while Beach stood in the yard with the severely neglected dogs.

It was quickly decided Beach could not go to the house alone. And above the obvious reasons, there was something very not right going on- I just didn't know what. We didn't want her in the house at all.

 It was so bad we went home and all stripped down in the mudroom. Ten minutes after being home I had an asthma attack- the first one in over 16 years!

So 4 times a day between driving 3 times a day to Sugar House and to Gym/work I have been walking down the street and taking care of these dogs... usually alone. Always trying to get there for the last time before dark. Always leaving feeling like I have done nothing for them. They live as patients on life support; like old people eating canned soup and rotting in their apartments in front of the TV.

The cats are so well-loved and cared for and my own dogs so spoiled! It's an impossible divide to accept. Imaginary divides created by real fences.

Knowing I would be at work until way after dark I had asked BC to do the nightly check-in and lock up for me. He had picked Beach up from the gym at 7PM to go see the cats and then to the dogs. It was the only night it wasn't my job.

The feeling I get inside the house the rock in my stomach about being in the kitchen, about being near the basement door suddenly makes too much sense.

"Mom," Beach grasps for a lie, "When you go down there at night is there a light on?"

She knows the answer is no. NO: A word I really should make better friends with.

"I think someone is living down there," he says.

"What do I do?" I ask.

"Pretend you don't know... and don't go in the kitchen."

The problem with ghost people is they live among us but we don't know they are there until it's too late.

b.u.s.y.

Busy.  That's all I can really say for myself.  A new dog.  Summer schedule at the gym.  A huge reorganizing project on the farm.  The addition of a Tiny House.  Helping BC with his new project Juniper Works. 

A little more time spent with the Nearly-Growns and Little J (can't really call her a baby anymore).  A 15-year-old daughter with a day and a night job... the discovery of Instagram.

Yeah. Busy.

But I miss writing.

I get positive comments on my Instagram. I like Instagram! But yesterday one of the kind commenters didn't know I even had a blog.  It's been that long.

I have seen this same post from many a blogger, it's been too long, I promise to be better, writing about not writing.

The truth is writing is like any other discipline.  It takes time and energy and practice. So yeah, I am out of practice but not out of stories or words.

One of the main storylines in my head and heart right now is Beach's recovery from her back injury.  Having an injured athlete isn't its own chapter, it is its own book.

The R&B Farmstead has stories too. Adventures in skunks mostly.

Then there is Juneau. He has awakened something in my heart I haven't felt for an animal since Kilo.  He is naughty and cuddly. 

He is terrified of men.  He pulls leaves off the sunflowers and puts them in the water bowls that are out in the yard. He is wicked smart- something you could never accuse Kilo of being. 

He likes to reorganize things, not too destructive so far, and really good at catching flies!

And back at the gym, fall schedules are going out which means Meet Season is on the brain.

On Wednesday night I watched the as new compulsory parents received their Meet Season packets and placement letters.

The Optionals BBQ is next.  I will watch the new Level 6's get theirs.  I find that always gives me a lot to say...

As for us, for Beach, it's like the bubble scene in Willy Wonka- we are on the ceiling trying to decide if we are having fun way up here or if we are just totally terrified of the whirling fan ahead of us. Level 10, that's as high as it goes here. Of course, there is a chance with her injury she will stay Level 9.  Levels mean both more and less at the top.

Yeah, it's been a minute but I'm back.

to do nothing

At 3 AM I woke to the sound of children screaming in the street. I woke BC and he went to check. I heard the front door open and close twice.  The third time what I heard was our end of BC's 911 call.

A man had come out of the dark following the 3 young kids and bleeding woman. BC had come out to ask if they needed help. BC asked the man if everything was okay. The man responded with a punch that hit BC on the side of the face and dropped him instantly.

BC was not out looking for trouble at 3 AM when he left the safety of our bed.  He was not duty sworn to protect and serve. He wasn't armed or trained or ready with back-up.  He was doing what anyone would do, what anyone should do; he was offering help to someone in need.

The police arrived behind 3 blazing spot lights shining down 10th. Captured in the cold beam was the woman barefoot, bruised, eye swollen shut, and bleeding from a head wound.  Beside her 3 young kids not dressed for the winter weather.

From the first moment the police talked with BC they treated him poorly. They set the tone. They were dismissive of his injuries and story. Telling us, "Well, we don't know there was an assault; we didn't see it. You can make a report if you want but then you will have to file that with the prosecutor's office." A clear effort to insert a barrier to action on the officer's part.

We were asked multiple times if we really wanted to file charges every time we said YES. Reminded twice it was only simple assault. Again, an attempt on the officer's part to discourage BC from filing charges.

They spoke with the woman.  She was uncooperative other than to give the address of the house she had fled.

We had 2 people out in the street bleeding. "You can't make someone be a victim," the officer told me. Same officer who liked to remind me when I pressed for some sort of action on their part that they don't know if that man assaulted BC because they didn't see it. 

"You know how ridiculous that is?" I responded. "We aren't in a court don't pretend you don't know that guy hit my husband. We are all more intelligent than that."

Seven police officers proceed to knock loudly on the door of the neighbor's house. The woman and the kids had returned inside with him. The man refused the police entry so they tried to leave.

It was me questioning them that held them up. I was told they can't go in without an active threat to someone. Without that they had no reason to force their way in.

Okay, understandable but then they got one.

While I was questioning them the man shirtless burst out the front door into the yard.  The 7 armed officers suddenly decided to stay. They even called 3 more officers to help them. The cars blocked the street.

It seemed they were about to become more serious about the threat. Instead, I watched 10 huge cops stand outside the small fenced yard collectively trying to open the gate from the other side and failing to do so.

I was seriously about to go help them at the risk of being shot when a man in a truck pulled up.  He ran across the street, jumped the fence, and grabbed the man now openly threatening to beat and fight the cops and "everyone in the house" into the house shutting the door behind them.

The police returned to pounding on the door.  Then they gave up a second time and left.

But before all 10 trained, armed, fit men left I had another long conversation with 2 of the officers because their story kept changing.

At first they couldn't go in because there was not an active threat.  Need I remind you THEY didn't see BC get punched so they don't know why he was bleeding.  The woman refused to talk so she was totally fine.

Then there was a threat but they told me it didn't seem safe (now it was too big of a threat) to them to go because they didn't know what was in there. And yet they all seemed pretty shocked that I was pissed they were taking all their big guys and big guns and leaving us here next to what they felt was a dangerous situation. Too dangerous for them but not us?

I shared my disappointment in them. They were sorry I felt that way.

What was most disturbing was 15 minutes after the officers left we stood in our front room, too afraid to let our guard down, watching a woman ushering 6 small children out of the house and into the van parked in front of our house. The whole time there had been children trapped inside the house as the man threatened in front of the police to beat them all. The police had left them there and those kids knew it.

The police refused to act because they didn't know what was in the house. BUT they did know, and what they didn't know, you can never know.

For the record, I didn't know what was waiting for me the day I ran into a house to protect small children as my neighbor's boyfriend held a knife out threatening them. I didn't NOT act because of the unknown, I acted on the known. There were kids in danger. My job was obvious; get them out at any cost. I don't want to be someone who wouldn't see it like that.

I didn't know what was wrong with the lady slumped in the gutter across the street when I approached her. I didn't know what I would find climbing into an over turned truck at the end of the street to stop the bleeding from the driver's gushing wounds.

To the Officers:

I'm sorry one your own was killed this week.

I'm sorry one of you felt justified enough in that fresh wound to say to me that I should consider that you have a family you want to go home to while I stood there pleading with for you stay and protect my family and the family trapped inside the house with that man.

I'm sorry you feel we should live in a world where we should do nothing. I'm sorry you are so scared to do what you know is right, that you don't do it.

I am sorry the assholes are braver than the heroes.

I'm sorry you feel helpless.

You told us, next time don't do anything. Call us. I told you that was impractical, and you agreed.

In the night a child cried out for help.  In the street a woman was beaten and bleeding. The man who went to help them was struck in the face and knocked to the ground.  The men trained to help were called by the good guys. Nothing happened to the bad guy.  The woman and children where left in harm's way.  And the good man who tried to help them was treated like shit by the men who refused to do anything.

and the dog came back...

At 5:00 AM the sound of scurrying nails on the wood floor is followed by Ginger barking twice- from underneath our bed.

I was already awake ready to launch the second pillow at the cat creeping through our room. I only had to free the pillow from beneath BC's head first. 

I am a light sleeper.  The faintest noise stirs me wide awake.  

The night often finds me hurling pillows at tip toeing cats, pulling back blinds to peer at empty street lights, tracking shadows across the ceiling, listening into the dark at far away voices, dancing in my mind to the night calls of trains. 

But Ginger barking at night is incredible rare so instantly I woke BC.  He mumbled, "Bear is in the house again."  Took up a pair of underpants off the floor and headed out of the room.  

His footsteps were joined by the sound of Beach but only BC's voice carried enough to really make out the words.  "I know I am getting him."

Then I knew the issue.  Bear, our new neighbor's giant husky had once again gotten into our house and tried to get in bed with Beach.

Beach has been a pretty good sport about these sudden, surprise "sleepovers" with the neighbor's giant dog.  Ginger Dog, not so much.

Ginger, smarter than she is brave, abandoned Beach for the shelter of our room before sounding the alarm.

This, in one form or another, has been going on for weeks. Yesterday, my fb friends got a snapshot of it.  So far, that we know of, Bear has killed 2 of our hens and gave our rooster an attitude adjustment via what I would call extreme grooming.  That one was more of a favor than an incident.  That rooster is a dick.  Less so now.

Bear tried for my rabbit but good thing for Bear's sake, my rabbit is too fast.   

BC stumbled back in 20 minutes later.  "Misty, were is Ginger's leash?"  Translated as: things are not going well. 

I told him and 20 more minutes passed before BC was heard on the stairs returning to bed.  He fell back to sleep but my cause was hopeless.  

I got up and made coffee.  I found my gray dress coat on the table.  This image appeared to me: BC in his black underwear wearing a ladies wool dress coat chasing the neighbor's dog up and down 10th West at 5 AM.  Stranger things have happened around here.  

I spent the morning editing photos from our Sunday day trip.  Around 8 AM BC left for work.  I wandered into the kitchen for the last of the coffee pot only to see outside the kitchen's glass doors our neighbor hanging over the fence trying desperately, but quietly, to talk Bear into leaving our yard- again.  

No doubt his house sitter passed on my words from yesterday's encounter... including the heavy tone of the "cop knock" on the front door and the dead chicken I gave her.

I stuck my head out.  "Yeah, so that's your dog and I think that is your squirrel now too...."

We had a nice long talk about dogs like Bear and what they need.  While Bear loudly ate a squirrel between us. Turns out Bear's visits to our side of the fence line up with our neighbor breaking his leg ending their long daily runs together.

Solution: I offer that if he pays my kid she will walk his dog for him.  It feels a little like blackmail but I can live with that.  And if it end the chicken killing, my hens can too. 

    

Mrs. Harry and I

Mrs. Harry and I call to each other from across the street.  

We say little things like, “Hello.” & “Good-bye”.

We wave to one another as we come and go in our cars. 

She drives north.

I tend to drive south.

I have shovel snow from her walks at the bridge of night and the break of morning 

anonymously working under the street lights.

But that is about as close as I get to her front door.

When her husband Mike, moved to the nursing home (early onset Alzheimer's)  we met in the middle of the road as we were taking in our respective trash cans. 

She paused, of course only to be helpful, 

“I thought you should know that Mike has gone away to stay at a nursing home…” she said.

“If you need anything,” I answered.

”Yes, of course, and you too… if you need anything,” she replied.

When my car got stolen she came to her gate.  When the police came because the neighbor south of us pulled a knife on his family and they fled to my house she went to her window.  When I coaxed the drunken woman from off the park strip in front of her house she watched me from behind the curtains.

When BC was working in Moab she noticed me doing his chores. 

“Is he gone long for work?” she asked.

“Yes.”

 “If you need anything.”

”Yes, of course, and you too… if you need anything.”

When her husband died we met again in the middle of the street. 

“I thought you should know Mike passed away…”

"Yes, thank you, I'm so sorry....if you need anything."

 “Yes, of course, and you too…if you need anything.”

Mrs. Harry and I call to each other from across the street.  We say little things like "Beautiful day." and "Can you believe this rain?"

I know she likes it when I keep up with the garden.  She smiles when I pick up the fast food wrappers that float down the street like felons out on parole.  She doesn't mind if I park in front of her house but the neighbors to the north she turns the sprinklers on on them.

“Is he gone again?” she asks from her front porch as I haul in groceries.

“Yes” I answer wondering about how often she watches my house because BC's truck sits like a decoy in the driveway...

“If you need anything,” she says.

“Yes, of course, and you too…if you need anything,” I answer.

Only we both know we can’t give each other what it is that we both need. 

down the rabbit hole

The skin where she dug her nails into my arm still stings.

It’s a coincidence.  All of it is. The bike, the backpack, the long blood-red painted nails…ten years to the day of my sister's death and I am sitting in the gutter beside a weeping, wasted woman with long brown hair and soft brown skin. The air around her is thick, wet & foul -and so familiar.  All of it is familiar.

She tries to bum a smoke off me. I tell her I don’t smoke but she asks again. The second time I say I don’t smoke it sounds very self-righteous to me so I add, “I love the smell but I just never started…” like it was some kind of a failure on my part to not smoke.

She says, “Shut the fuck up, white girl” and laughs. 

She asks me how she looks. I tell her she looks like shit and I offer the glass of water I am holding.  When she takes it our hand brush and I feel instantly sick to my stomach.  

Before I came to sit with her on the side of the road I had stood in my yard watching her struggle to drunkenly bike down 10^th West. In the amount of time it took me to go water the garden, she had made very little progress.

When I returned to look for her she was sprawled in the gutter right across the street.  I tried to decide what I should do. Tried very hard to talk myself into doing what the other neighbors were doing, ignoring but I couldn’t.  

I set my beer down, hiding it before heading out to her. 

Having obviously lost the battle to leave it alone I returned to the other argument I was losing with myself tonight: I really wished I hadn’t turned down the chance to sit on the hillside and listen to Willie's music carry itself through the crowds at red butte, over the fences and up to the music surfers collecting on the east belly of the shoreline trail. I should have figured out a way to go…I shouldn’t be here doing this, not tonight.

The glass I gave her was my sister's.  I don’t drink out of it even though tt’s been in my cupboard for 10 years.

The woman cradles her backpack kneeling beside her bike crying about her children.  She tells me I don’t know her. I tell her that is bullshit. She doesn’t know what I know.  She laughs and tells me, “Shut the fuck up, white girl.”

Then she offers me a shot which I accept because I don't want to rude. But I am grateful when she rummages through the backpack and comes up empty.

She cries about her daughter and about a list of drugs she can't stop doing and men.  None it makes sense but it doesn’t have to because I’ve done this at least as many times as she has.

I tell her what I know is what it feels like to be a woman sitting on the side of the road crying that nobody sees.

She counters, “That’s not me, because you see me.”

And I tell her, “What I see is my sister. She died 10 years ago today from a drug overdose.”  Now I know that part might be a little inaccurate because also (mostly) she drank herself to death.  

I tell her, “I know she didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to leave her kids, she would have stopped if she could have, she did the best she could…”

“We do,” she said, “We do the best we can.”

I convince her to let me walk her home. She asks me for money. I tell I don’t have any aware of how angry this makes her and I prepare for anything. But the anger blows over, “Shut the fuck up, white girl, you don’t have money?”

“I did,” I tell her. “My boyfriend gave me 60 bucks today but then he asked for it back.” 

She shakes her head at how pathetic she thinks that is but then she agrees to let me walk her home.  She attempts to mount the bike and falls. I offer to walk it for her. She lets me but when I start off holding my sister’s glass in my hand. She tells me to leave it. I stutter before placing it in a spot I hope it will be okay.  

l walk the bike as she stumbles down the street barefoot and dirty towards her house, around the corner and halfway up the block.

She asks me again for a smoke. She asks me again for money.  Her hands out like she about to pat me down or worse. I do it for her. I let the bike fall against my hip and I smash the pockets on my shorts to show her they are empty.

“Shut the fuck up, white girls,” she says starting to crying again. She grabs my arm and digs her nails in as her young daughter, a kid a year younger but a head taller than my own child pops out onto the sidewalk before us.

“Mom, where have you been?” She asks blinking in the sunlight.

Her mom tells her she found a white girl. The daughter’s expression is practiced and flat. I hand her the bike while in my mind I wonder if I could keep it- it’s a nice bike and I really use a nice bike.

The woman begins pulling me towards her but I look at the front door of her house weighing the risks of what could be behind it. I picture Beach back in my yard lying in the hammock reading and I decide to wiggle free.

I back out into the street and tell her goodbye from a distance she can't make without stumbling. She hisses something about her neighbors being a threat to me. I can’t help but to laugh. She doesn’t notice and tells me she will watch me to make sure I make it passed them without trouble….

I run her street, a lot. I know every piece of it, every house, every tree, & every leaning mailbox. Walking it, away from her, is soft and milky like the edges of a sleeping baby's dream… I turn the corner safely back on 10th. The air here is different. I take a big breath in slowly letting it out. 

I collect my sister's glass off the neighbor’s grass. Cross the street and go looking for my beer.  

if you build it

A few finishing touches on the horse fence and guess what?!?! 

Time to go down the street to pick up a pony!

Yes, another fine day on 10th West. 

The neighbors don't even blink at the sight of a girl and her dad out walking 

a horse down the middle of the street.

It was the pony's first trip out of her own yard in over 9 months.  

We weren't sure how she would do but with a little company, she did just fine.

Cowgirl (slightly under the weather still) camping out along the fence line pony sitting.

wild ginger

Baby J and her parents stopped by to say hello Friday night.

 She was actually happier to see me than this pics seems to make it. She reached way out for me and gave me the biggest hug a little person can give.  We were supposed to get to see them the night before but I had to cancel because I was too worn out to pull it off :c

 Right as they arrived Beach and Sophie were finishing making a batch of No Bake Cookies for a teammate who had to have surgery on her hand. So we took scoops of gooey chocolate and oats outside and taught baby J to play Corn Hole. She's a natural.

She's also a tough competitor! Who likes the sounds of big trucks driving by! The farm families on our street were working hard last night. Including BC who was putting a second axial on one of his trailers.

And Baby J claps for herself. Occasionally she did take off running in the middle of a game yelling, "Kitty!" But she always came back.

 After Baby J left the girls and I delivered the cookies, 

or what was left of them to their mates house. <3  

I'd call it a perfect Friday night.

smalls

I am barefoot still wearing pajama bottoms when I step out into the driveway to take out the trash. What I find is a small group of men milling in the street around BC as he stands behind my car. The men of 9th West are discussing her fate as if it is an open casket viewing.  

I wander out to hear the phrase I have come to know too well: head gasket. That leads into the California plan. The one which involves disemboweling my car, driving the engine to the port, and exchanging it plus a few grand for a new-used Japanese engine. 

This would be the 3rd such discussion about this particular subject this morning. 

I squint in the harsh light, "You are talking about my car?"


BC laughs nervously, "They are all really worried about it." 

I shrug and walk away. 

Yesterday in the canyon Beach had asked, "Mom, if you could have any life what one would you have?" 

I thought about it, "This one. If you love 85% of your life you are doing pretty damn well."


"What would you change?" 

"My car.... my running shoes... a new computer would be nice. But see this is all stuff. If all you want to change is stuff than your life is a good one."

"If you could have any car for free and you didn't have to pay gas, what would it be?" 

"A Silver Subaru wagon... with a bike rack." 

She smiled thinking I was lying. Partly because she knows I have always wanted a truck but I don't pursue getting one because I have too many kids to haul around.

"No honestly," I said, "but it wouldn't be just any old one off the street. I want the top of the line. I would want the Alaskan package and leather seats. An automatic and it would have the best stereo system ever installed in a car."

"Not a truck?" she baited. 

"No, a Subaru is 85% perfect for me and what I need to get done."

"Mom, I love that we hike and camp and collect rocks... I'm sorry you don't have your car."

"It's okay. Besides, on days like today, I love 100% of my 85% life." 

link to my latest article in The West View

The West View 

Summer 2016 Housing and Development Issue

Preserving an urban farming culture in Glendale, by Misty L. Brown