WILLODEAN (THE CUPITOR CHRONICLES Book 1) (58 page)

Swirl after swirl, step after step, we danced across the yard. The dirt dancer and I existed—nothing else. He breathed in my dark air, inhaling all my unworthiness, my shame, my sins. Everything of me, he took inside himself, heaving so deeply I felt the whole of me, almost void, then instantly, he returned it back to me—anew, redeemed breath from God, restored, refreshed. Recycled. I felt so light, and airy I thought I’d float away. It was an
inward change inside the house.  It
would manifest itself outwardly over time and circumstance
but I wouldn’t know it then.  For me it was only about the divine dance.  The
dirt dancer was a gift from heaven, sent to earth to remind me that everything is a miracle if I look at it through the eyes of a Seeker and not a Sleeper.
Eyes to see—ears to hear.
 This messenger infused me with life and breath I didn’t know could exist. 
Sustainable, ethereal, mystical.
 Even in my darkness, the lesser light, I could see a flame dwelling in me, as real as I’ve ever known, an unquenchable, undying, burning lamp. I didn't want to lose the feelings, wake up or stop dancing. I didn't want to grow up.

The crackle shell came to mind, being an adult, growing up, coming out to face the world, molting, having sex…ugh.
No more dances Willodean. Grow up! Be an adult.
 A feeling of loss clutched at my heart. I latched onto the Dirt Dancer even more so, unable to let go,
desperately grabbing him.  But the more I clutche
d at him, the less he held me until I fell right through him. He caught me before I
hit the ground. 
His whirring wind hands sent waves of electricity running through me. He se
nsed my apprehension, my dependence and neediness.  His voice roared
in my gifted ears like the great waves of the se
a till I thought I was drowning in him. 

“You will always have the light, Willodean, you will always have the dance. Look for me, when you least expect it. I am your gift. I am your light, your lamp in this journey of life. I am in your childlike heart that will always know the way. Never forget Willodean.” I felt instant stone. A rock of solid firmness confining me. He had removed himself from my embrace, and was slowly dissipating, like smoke evaporating in my vision. I grieved in my soul at being pushed back into the normal, boring complacency of my own dull life. My bell of the ball dress died with
out his life sustaining breathe.  It
scabbed off in pieces, dry and brittle like fallen leaves from a tree in winter. I was left standing in the same spot it began. Having tasted the divine—my wild heart ached for another world. The dirt dancer spun across the yard and down into the ditch towards the road. I caught his last glance, his sapphire eyes of flame
burning me from the inside, out.  I feared I would not see again, my pupils scarred from his brilliance. 
Mag took off chasing him through the yard and down the ditch and up the road.

Mag thought the dirt dancer was part of her Greek prowess, that secret Goddess part of her that believed in magic and mayhem. She came back panting and out of breath. She stood in front of me, staring at her hands with marvel when out of nowhere, a solitary leaf whooshe
d between us. Both of us froze and said not a word. 
Our eyes followed the leaf floating and dancing t
hrough air. 
The leaf fell softly to the ground as if to remind us of what was—and what wasn’t, the seen and the unseen.

“Ehhh, don’t worry girls.”
Maw Sue’s crackling voice broke the silence.  She looped her needle
through the fabric twice. “Dirt dancers always
come back. They are messengers, been around since the beginning of time. 
Once you see one for what it is—your eyes are now adapted to see the magical divine realm of the mystical God.
It is a privilege. A reminder of the simple things.  
Lilies of the field. S
tars of heaven. Divine crumbs. Encouragers. 
They remind us that we are but drifters, passing from this world to the next. They inspire us to live, to make time count while we have it. Mark this down on your heart calendar girls.
Today is a special day indeed.”  Mag and I looked at each other. 

“Did you know that most people live their entire lifetime and never see a single Dirt Dancer? And even if it passed them by, they wouldn’t recognize it.”
Maw Sue said occasionally threading her fabric and looking up. 
I
was stargazed and shrouded with the aftereffects of the divine encounter still listening and taking it in. 

“Their whole lives.” She waved the need like a magic wand, the string dangling underneath
.  “
Not once. I just couldn't imagine ...never. There is a difference in acceptance and receiving. If you accept, you must receive and if you receive, you best do something with it. The invitation is to everyone—but some choose not to see it.”

Well, I certainly saw it. I felt it too. Heck, I didn’t know if I could walk again. My feet wanted to float, take air, and dance forever. I took in every molecule of magic, inhaling the mystery and swallowing the air, the air he left behind, so that I could live, really live like the dirt dancer said I could. I thought about the dark rooms inside the house, inside me. I wanted to bottle up the light and carry it room to room, exposing the gritty shame and sadness that was held up in its walls. I wanted to banish it and never think of it again. 

From this moment onward, after the divine encounter, not only did we keep our eyes open for stranded turtles, but for spinning winds. Maw Sue said you just never know when a dirt dancer will show up. While I waited patiently to see another one, I perfected my dance skills. I gained discipline of the dance, in the backyard, in my bedroom, in the shower, down the hallway at school, and waiting for the bus. I was constantly aware of my surroundings, taking in the sounds, the rustling of leaves, the swaying of tree branches and howling winds. I felt lifeless, without air, without purpose, so I simply waited for God to breathe down and send another Dirt Dancer to remind me of what I constantly forget. That I am loved.
Deeply, divinely loved.

***

I was ten when I heard the story for the first time, however, it came with a price,
a painful price.  Dell had died unexpected of lung cancer surgery.  Here then gone. 
Papa Hart
blamed those damn puffing sticks. 
He was devastated. Every single day for three months he went to the cemetery, then one day, never went again. No one had the heart to ask him why. In a way, we all knew.
It had been months since her funeral, and I couldn’t get it out of my head.  Death did something awful to me
inside the house, as if there was a room waiting, knocking, taking breath and picking victims at random.

And watching Maw Sue lose her last child was worse than death
itself. She had another spell and it was difficult, worse than all the other ones combined.  No one could control her.  She’d be good one minute—then a raging mad woman the next.  I watched her fall off the edge,
somewhere in her past, in
side other terrible memories of dead children and coffins. 

“A mother shouldn’t have to bury a child. No. N
o.” She scream and pace, chant and march. “That should have been me. 
Meeeeeeee. Why didn’t you take me God?” God didn’t answer and that’s when she’d go on a terror and blame Papa Hart, reverting back to the day he ran off with Dell and got married.
Or blame anyone who happened to be nearby. 
It was one after another.
Crazy stuff. 
Chanting in rebuke, marching around the house, the neighborhood, Jesus with a banjo on the rooftop crazy town, uptight mad and
fuming at God.  She shook her fist to the heavens, shook her spatulas to the heavens.  It was awful. 
In my vision, all I could see was death stirring up demons in those left behind.
I’ve only been to two funerals, Big Pop’s and now Dell’s and it happened at both. 
The grief of losing someone strikes deep, uncovering a well of buried sorrows that mix with other sorrows, and then the well cannot hold it anymore, so it overflows and spills out. Death just ripped at everyone’s hearts until none of us could breathe or look at each other. Mag and I kept our distance from practically everyone and stayed busy for a long time
. 
The whole family was falling apart. I mean, it had never really been ‘together to begin with, but whatever structure we did have once, was clearly taking a tumble.

The first time I saw signs of this fracture was at Dell’s funeral. 
She was buried with a pan of her infamous, best of the best, biscuits. 
Yes. Believe it or not.
 Biscuits. Dell had
made them the morning before she had surgery. 
Papa Hart came home luggin
g her blue Samsonite travel bag without Dell. 
The biscuits sat on the stove top untouched
.   Papa Hart was at the viewing and overheard talk.

“No one could make biscuits like Ma Dell.” They said. “Wish I had that recipe.” Heads nodded in agreement. “They were the best biscuits in Pine Log.” or “I’d trade a case of whiskey for that recipe, sure would.” Old ladies murmured and talked.

Papa Hart disappeared for about fifteen minutes. He returned walking a beeline through the crowds with a tin pan of biscuits. I will never forget the faces of onlookers including members of our family when he
walked by. 
Heads jerked clean off their swivels. Little old blue haired ladies whispered and perked up.
Finger points and whispers abound. 
He placed the round tin can inside the casket between her hands, along with the golden ticket, the infamous biscuit recipe that everyone, and I mean everyone would have given their right arm to have. Dell never shared her secret biscuit ingredients and people eyeballed the recipe like it was a gold brick but Papa Hart guarded that casket like a hawk. Sticky fingered old ladies from the garden club and the church prayer committee walked by with suspicious eyes. What no one knew is that
I had a secret too. 
Dell did give out her
recipe. 
To me. 
But from the looks of things, I wasn’t
too sure I wanted to share this information.  I hid it inside
my mirror bin, detailed measurements, a cup of this, a pinch of that. My lips were sealed but that biscuit recipe was the talk of the town for a while.

There wasn’t much left of Papa Hart when Dell left. I saw glimmers of his old self, every now and then. I was in the tree in his front yard, hanging out, trying to keep busy while he napped on the porch in the old swing. He woke up, glanced at me, and walked into the house. I was sad and missed our porch time and was just about to jump out of the tree and go home to sulk.

“If you break that limb I’m gonna tan your ass with it.” He said sternly. I saw him upside down, because I was hanging upside down on a limb. He was standing on the porch and holding a box of whoppers. His voice was in a mood dial I recognized. A gruff, just woke up, don’t give me shit, but let’s eat, kind of mood.

“I won’t.” I yelled.
I did a surreal gymnast jump, the perfect ten on the score board and then high tailed it to the porch. 
He held out a handful of chocolate balls. Between the both of us we could live off sugar cookies and malted milk balls. I grabbed them, plopped a few in my mouth and sat down on the swing with him. In seconds, we looked like two chipmunks crunching on nuts, jaws stuffed and swinging.

Eekk-eekk said the swing, chomp-chomp went our teeth, swish-swish said the wind through the swing slats, squeak-squeak said the rusty chain, smack-smack said our lips, squall-squall said the hardwood porch, creak-creak said the rooftop.
 

I cherished these moments because it belonged to us. No one else. 
Our porch silence.

Papa Hart said a porch is to be useful for two things, and two things only. 
Storytelling or silence
. No arguing, no lies, no crying, no gossip. Storytelling or silence. That’s it. Papa Hart told
many a story on that old porch while Mag and I listened intently, learning about family trees, our in particular, since it was full of interesting characters, along with a few outlaws. 
Mag was convinced and embarrassed at the same time. She thought for sure her reputation would be ruined if anyone found out we were kin to outlaws like Bonnie and Clyde or Jesse James.
Papa Hart said we wasn’t but it didn’t change Mag’s mind. 

We heard stories of side spitting, gun toting, bullet brazen renegades, always one step ahead of the law, a finger on the trigger and sleeping with one eye open. There were gunfights, bootlegging, murders, womanizing, cheating, knife slicing, fist fighting, poker playing, dice throwing hucksters on every single tree branch. I even heard that cousins married cousins way back when and that freaked me plum out. My ears burned at the mere thought of marrying my first cousin Murdoc Hart. I’d just as soon be hanged. This insight into my family tree only further convinced me that our family broke off from one of the Amalekites tribes. Preacher Lester said that every single family was either from one of two tribes, the tribe of Jacob or the tribe of Esau. A thousand years ago, two brothers didn’t see eye to eye, an argument ensued about a bowl of beans and a namesake and things have been turned upside down ever since. I heard the Hart family fights started on less and lasted longer, except for those that were alcohol related. Alcohol makes you forget what you were fighting about so no one can discuss it the next day.
I pretty sure that’s why dad buys Lena MD 20/20 so she won’t discover his speeding tickets.  I’m not sure it’s working—either that or Lena is immune to alcohol.