It was not entirely his fault, but the man was an arrogant bastard, everyone said so. John was the eldest child of a wealthy family. He was raised in a pink marble palace on land which had been in the family for centuries. The house was surrounded on three sides with sloping lawns. A family of pigmy albino peacocks ambled freely, crowing.

By the age of ten all John knew of life was being dragged away from various pleasures to be presented to his parents. In velvet suits, John and his siblings were made to stand, in order of height, at the foot of the grand staircase for their parents to inspect them. This was often terrifying as Papa was explosive, especially late in the day, before he had his wine.

John was his mother’s favorite. He got away with the highest of crimes with her. Instead of punishments she fawned over him, stroked his blonde curls, and softly said, “I won’t let your father find out.” To this day John will tell you he blames his mother for teaching him how to lie. “That bitch!” he liked to say, “She showed me woman is weak when faced with man.” In time he would be beastly to his wives, and his mistresses.

John was born handsome which made his mother adore him more and his father care for him less. In hopes of gaining his father’s approval John pursued a career as an athlete. He represented his hometown in the national

sporting competition. Several years in a row, while in his twenties, he placed second in the high jump and the javelin, winning silver plates with his name engraved. John would bloat with pride and rush to show his father the trophies, and each time his glee was demolished when his father would scowl, and growl, “If you were a girl I could understand!” Before grabbing the prizes, and sneeringly examining them as if they were soiled undergarments, “Men take gold!” and with a flick of the wrist he would slice them over the balcony, where he took his afternoon constitution, and watch them plant, like setting suns, into the grass. Once, by accident one supposes, a trophy struck a peacock, took its head right off. Father and son stared as the headless body, with full plumage spread, slumped, twitching. The head bumped along the lawn, rolling like a snowball, with the trophy spinning alongside. Amazingly, the head stopped on the upturned silver plate, as if ready to be served.

His parents died in the fire; along with half his siblings and some of the staff. The structure survived unmolested by the terrible flames that had otherwise liquefied the contents. Rumors persisted that John had commissioned the tragedy. Some teeth were found in the ashes, little more. In the afternoons John took his tea and cakes and wine on the marble balcony, as his father had.

Crisp, early November, and Roderick and Daisy were moving. Roderick did not want to leave his townhouse. “It’s curtains for me. I’m ruined!” Roderick declared. “The bank owns my toys! Can you believe?” All on account of some papers he signed, as he says, “When I was out of my mind!”
Daisy wasn’t overjoyed about the enforced move, especially since she saw it as a backslide to the boonies. But Roderick was her meal-ticket, and where he went she was quick to follow. Besides, Daisy had learned, after a decade as a beautiful plaything, that when rich people claimed they were broke it meant something else, entirely.
The new house, a rental down valley, was bare. Not so much as a knife and fork. Which was Ok since neither Roderick nor Daisy were big on cooking. Unless you count holding a flame beneath a spoonful of junk. Still, even the addled need somewhere to loll. The night before the move they went online and ordered furniture. Roderick found a site with improbably low prices. “Let’s get everything,” Roderick suggested, and they were up all night, shopping and arguing.
Any tension between them evaporated when, with pride, Roderick watched his “baby”, a monster of a motorcycle, delivered to the new house. One of the few items the bank had overlooked. Largely because he’d forgotten he owned it. Men untied the purple machine from a flatbed, and rolled it down a ramp.
“My baby!” Roderick said, arms outstretched. He h

oisted his bulky frame astride the motorcycle. He pressed his soft thighs against the fairings. It felt wonderful. He wanted to feel the wind against his sallow cheeks.
”Back in the saddle!” Roderick punched one hand in the air and whooped, and then he began coughing, hacking, so much he had to grip the handlebars and jam his feet flat on the ground to keep from tipping.
“Lordy!” Daisy said, smacking a hand over her mouth.
“Shhhh!” Roderick whispered. He pushed the key into the keyhole and twisted.
And that was the last anyone could say precisely what happened. There was an explosion; puffs of smoke, licks of fire. The motorcycle thrust forward a few feet, as if possessed, and then wobbled eerily, before tumbling, bits flew off noisily as it met with the gravel of the driveway.
“Owwww!” Roderick was down and curled round like a shrimp; he was hugging his knees, and keening.
The following day, on a stack of pillows and blankets, Roderick was stationed by the living room window. He heard the sounds of a big truck.
“Darling!” Roderick yelled. “Furniture arriving!”
Daisy ran down the stairs, two at a time. Excitedly she skipped to the front door, opened it wide. The truck parked, the driver went around to the back and raised a rattling gate. After some rummaging he retrieved a small brown parcel. Right away Daisy knew something was wrong. It was a crushing disappointment to discover they had ordered dollhouse furniture.

I’m staying with my friend Mabel, in Westchester. Mabel runs a battleship of a home-front, with innumerable offspring, and a village in staff, not to mention assorted pets, one of which was a week overdue with four heartbeats detected. The expectant mother was a caramel-colored long haired low-rider wiener with old eyes. The father a tiny white puffball that was partial to yapping incessantly. Despite itself the excitable beast was endearing. Even after he left his still moist gnawed T-bone stuffed in between my pillows.

By my second day two of the four children had been dashed to the ER for various conditions, bee sting allergies and the like. I managed to elude too much direct interaction by submerging myself in a lot of very hot baths, or borrowing one of the many cars in the driveway and poking around the neighborhood.

To slot oneself in with a bustling household is an experience. For one thing all the noises are related in some way, unlike a discordant city. Even the yipping tiny dog was more percussion than annoying. I found I liked lounging on the blue chaise in my room, in the terry bathrobe hung in my bathroom, and listening to the sounds of this home.

On my third day I said to my hostess, “I usually spend all my time by myself. But I’m liking this ‘being with people’ thing.”
Mabel frowned at me.
“This is your idea of being with people?” Mabel asked. Her dark eyebrows raised, her black eyes glis

tened and flashed, like trains rattling away into mountain tunnels. “Sitting in your room with your door closed? That’s your idea of being with people?”
We stared at each other. Mabel crossed her arms, and pursed her mouth. “Watch out, bad weather is coming,” she warned, as she turned and left, already dialing on her cell phone.

The bad weather was a freak blizzard, dumping a couple of feet of snow in a matter of hours. It managed to turn off the power for half the county. Friends and neighbors moved in, seeking warmth, until Mabel’s house also lost power. Not to be defeated Mabel bust out years’ worth of camping gear. A brazier and fire was lit, cocoa was miraculously produced bubbling hot.

The many children made games of the snow.

Night encroached and we decamped to nearby hotels. Last thing before abandoning the battleship was to lock up the white dog in Mabel’s bathroom, with bowls of food and water and chews and toys. “Behave, you hear? You’ve caused enough trouble already,” I scolded the energetic powderpuff, meanwhile stroking his impossibly soft fur.

Mabel’s youngest, ten year old Joshua, admonished me, “It’s not trouble. It’s a blessing. New life.”
I have a lot to learn.
Even though the hotel rules were ‘no animals permitted’, thankfully Mabel had thought to smuggle in the wiener where the little dog promptly gave birth. One loss, one breech, three new lives. Hallelujah.

I chewed up a fortnight in New York at a friend’s apartment on the thirty-sixth floor overlooking Central Park. In two weeks I almost never left the building, except sometimes very late at night, for parties.

Carlos, my host, travels constantly, for his work. He has a spacious home he is never in, and a car he never uses stashed at a garage.

A housekeeper and a couple other house guests came and went, but I was mostly left to myself. Delivery men materialized at the front door, all day long, bearing foods, and clean clothes, and whatever else.

Carlos and I have a frayed history of friendship that was tight, in its heyday. Unfortunately, we met with a falling-out a couple of years ago, and have not spoken much since. This was an opportunity to reacquaint.

And I might have stayed longer than two weeks except a guest room opened up in a large house in Westchester, and I bolted. To facilitate the move I borrowed

Carlos’ car. In true sociopath fashion I justified my actions, with “I need it,” and “Carlos will never know.”

Seeing as I did not ask permission, technically I suppose you could say I stole it. Obviously, I had no intentions of keeping the machine, not forever. But a few days passed while I wallowed in Westchester, with the car in the driveway.

Early in the morning on my third day Carlos phoned. I saw his name on the caller ID. It was far too early for good news, so I knew I was in trouble. I ignored the call and went back to sleep. No need to deal with being scolded any sooner than absolutely necessary.

Later, after a shot of whiskey-spiked coffee, for pluck, I returned the auto. Carlos was mightily rightfully pissed.

On the train back to the suburbs, I left old Carlos a message, I said, “seeing as I was nice enough to bring back your car, you could at least come visit.”

Carlos has not returned the call.

I crashed a fancy book party in a private home on Park Avenue. I was not much interested in the author, or her book, or even the free comestibles. Truth is I had heard of this domicile, and I was curious. The owner, Oliver, is a rich man, a businessman, respectable. He is known as a philanthropist. He is older, he is serious, he has a splendid home, people frequently remark on it, “Get yourself invited to one of Oliver’s parties,” people will recommend. But they don’t know the half of it.

I was watching Oliver as he entertained a coterie. All slightly stooped, and bobbing, like they were bowing. Their drinks glasses held out in front of themselves, like begging bowls. I watched Oliver. He was paying close attention to a sleek lady talking at him. Without much of a plan I strode toward him. I gained on him, and then I was standing next to him. He continued nodding enthusiastically at the woman. She went banging on. I moved closer to Oliver, so I was right up on him. I leaned in close to his ear.
“I know everything about you,” I half whispered. “I know Vera Voluptus.”
Oliver spun like a well oiled ball bearing. He gripped me at the elbow, and steered me away.

“What news of Vera?” He spoke staring at the persian carpet. Vera was one of those girls who can hook a man for life. Vera claimed to be South American. She looked the part, with a lot of glossy black very long wavy movie-star hair. Gossips liked to say she was a liar, and she was really Vera Weener, from Weekawken. Since we live in a results oriented atmosphere I say it d

oes not much matter the provenance. Her results were good. She had some very pale skin, and a passion for party outfits. Vera always looked divine, even after a week of cocaine. Word was her makeup was tattooed. Vera was book smart, and stunning. She could ski bumps, could serve an ace, was disciplined about maintaining “the outline” as she called it.

The first time I met Vera was in a bathroom. There she was, bent over the sink, her face close to the mirror, applying makeup. In between sniffing from a tiny brown bottle. “I like you,” she said. “But my mother always told me never trust girls.”

One time, at a party, Vera quietly asked me to spot her twenty dollars, for a taxi home. I upped the money, never gave it much thought. Until hours later, Vera long gone, somehow the topic cropped up. Apparently Vera had asked every one of us in the room for twenty bucks to get home. We could only chortle, reluctantly impressed.

From the start I wondered what happens to girls like Vera.

Way back then, Vera would tell stories about Oliver, and his Park Avenue house. Despite his baggy oatmeal colored corduroys, and his shapeless navy cashmere crew neck with the merest hint of a stiff white collar peaking over, I knew that the nebbishy philanthropist was a wild drug and sex animal.

“I heard she’s living with her crack dealer,” I told Oliver. He stared at the floor. He shoved a hand into his corduroy pocket, produced a business card, and thrust it at me. “Call me,” he commanded. And then Oliver took a few steps and returned to his gaggle.

First I would like to thank those of you who offered suggestions for my sabbatical month. I liked the suggestions so much I have decided to do them all.

As I was loading the car, I pictured driving around America. I could stop at the fishing villages along the Florida coast, later maybe also fly to New York. I was slamming the trunk when my phone rang. It was a local girl offering an empty guest room across town. I sped right over. She was in the middle of trying to eradicate an infestation of white flies. An entire gumbo limbo tree was turned snowy from fly issue.
“You can stay a couple of nights,” she said.
I stayed a week.

I used up the week watching my hostess try a variety of home-spun white fly killing techniques, the best of which was the purchase of five thousand ladybugs. Too soon the week ended, and at the last moment I bought a ticket for New York. En route to the airport I drove the ocean road. I had a few minutes to spare so I parked at the beach. I made my way to the edge of the gentlest of surfs, water too placid to make headway up the sand. I reveled in the bright seascape and the warm air and tried to absorb the loveliness. Hoped to freeze the scene in my imagination.

“That you?” The words broke up my trance. I already knew the voice, I turned to see a friend from town. We have never

learned each others names. He is my favorite dance partner at the Salsa club.
“Hello!”
We embraced.
“Wassa matter your face?” He said. “Why you look so sad?”

Magician-like he fired up a marijuana cigarette and stuffed it twixt my lips. I did inhale. Then I inhaled some more. We giggled, and slumped on the confectioner’s sugar sand. We listened to the collision of bird calls. We watched the diving gulls and pelicans, precision bombing the water, flapping back up toward the open sky with tiny, black, squirmy fish clamped in their beaks. Swallowing on the fly.

“Flying!” I jumped up, and patted my friend on his head. “Gotta go.”

Turned out I was tremendously stoned, and it was a Herculean task to park at the airport in what seemed a very tiny narrow spot. And then to haul my bag, which suddenly felt like a thousand pounds, to the terminal. In my mind I heard the eerie synthesized soundtrack to Midnight Express. I trembled, sweat started rolling hotly down my spine, tickling the small of my back. Once aboard, I passed out before take-off.

It has been a week since I got to New York. Right away, it was good to be back. I have dashed hither, and kissed cheeks yon. I have been busy as a butterfly. And I cannot help wondering if those five thousand ladybugs are the start of upsetting the ecosystem.

I’m in ‘the city’ and coincidentally today was the service of a friend. I decided to attend.
Turns out nobody knew he was ill.
Until just the other day, when news got out that he was not well, and then the next thing anyone heard, he was dead.
Now here we all were, in the middle of the day, sitting in a Greek Orthodox church on the upper east side.
I had no idea he was Greek.
I did not know him exceptionally well. Even though our acquaintanceship spanned thirty years. This man was the lover of a friend of mine. He was also my mother’s gardener. Together they created an Eden of gardenias and mint and basil in gorgeous pots on her terrace, penthouse, midtown. To another he was a fellow acting student with whom to spar in the lead roles of Death of a Salesman. This man, now deceased, was many things to many people. But by all he was much liked, in a word, he was irreproachable.
Everybody in the church knew him at least as long as I, most longer.

The eulogy was delivered too low, and not a word of the lovingly crafted composition was heard.

The last time I saw him was at a Halloween party, a year ago. I sat with him at a round table in a fantastically decorated room. We talked about my mother’s garden, and how sad it was that she sold up and moved away. We both loved that p

retty terrace. When she left, ‘it was the end of an era’, we agreed. I was glad to see him.

The biggest celebrity at the service was Bolt of Lighting, that was her name, or something like that. She looked no more than a very stylish sixties, but everyone whispered she was at least eighty. She had a raccoon coif and all swept up into a fat ess shape. Her mod-outfit was also black and white, and her black, very high-heeled shoes had red insteps, like tongues.

Bolt of Lightning was the first in line to go view the open casket.

I have heard of this habit, seen renditions on the television and in the flicks. But never personally in the embalmed flesh. The two to my left, friends, indicated they wished to join the line of mourners. Thus, I felt compelled and trudged with them down the aisle.

I had the inclination to swoop my eyes around, check out the church and gather in the crowd, but I did not dare, especially after I noticed a friend in a front pew, was crying. His face only ever before seen laughing, jettisoning pith and wit, today was set with sadness, eyes wet with tears.

The open casket was a sight to see, a first for me. The nose looked so much more pointy than I remembered. The skin was an unsettling muddy purple. A Halloween mask. I could not stop from flinching. Amen, friend.

I am moving again, this time from one side of Key West t’other. The rental I have occupied since spring has been rented, to others, and I must move, immediately. For the millionth time in my life I fill my car with my gear. A friend will take me in for a few nights. But I waste no time and with the help of online listings I am on the case finding new digs. This being a tiny island, I swiftly visited a pile up of unlivable quarters, unless, of course, one was routinely inebriated, blind and insensate. Early this morning I saw a fresh post on the electronic billboard, it read, ‘hidden gem’. Anywhere else I would have had my heckles up, and brimmed with suspicions. But here, where people say ‘good-day’ when they pass by in the street, I knew that ‘hidden gem’ was going to be the real thing. I made an appointment to visit.

In this town rentals go fast, the nice and the not nice. One day you may see a red and white ‘for rent’ sign hanging off a white picket fence, and the next day you will see a moving van and a person, grinning, carrying in their possessions.

Who knows if down the line some unforeseen horror will rear, and ruin my life. I’ve been fooled many times before, and that includes two ex-husbands (another story altogether). But I fell in love with the ‘hidden gem’

, before entering it. It was a carnal lust that wrapped me up, and I signed a year lease before my future landlord had time to run my references. I employed my most convincing English accent (acquired after years of otherwise useless education), I thrust my books on the man, by way of introduction.

The hidden gem is concealed by a very plain house that sits on the street, under a streetlamp. To the side of the plain house there is a lacy wrought iron gate which opens to a path. This path plunges directly into a sculpted jungle of banyans with spanish moss, and here sits the gem. A treasure of a house with french doors opening up to the garden of banana trees and orchids, and a fountain, sounding like a brook. Butterflies and dragonflies buzzed the shallow pool. I signed the lease on the spot. It was only after the ink had dried I thought to ask about the furniture (there will be none), and the move-in date (November 1st). OK.

Now there is October to fill. What shall I do with myself while I wait for my abode? I could get in the car and drive around America, and have adventures. I could go to New Orleans, a destination that beckons. Or return to New York City, for yet another last hurrah. It would be an expedition couched in the coddling embrace of ego-puffrage, and book parties.

As they say in Key West, “What would Papa do?”

Mosquito Season. The locals had warned of this. With shame stricken faces, they had ominously said, “it can get bad.” They told of how the rainy season would incite the mosquito population to engage in wildings, when the insects tear across the island, stabbing and sucking on the red-blooded. Well, it’s half way through the Mosquito Season, and I have yet to be bitten.

My houseguest is of Haitian extraction. As a welcoming gift I bought him a book. This book came with a small blue doll and a set of pins, portable Voodoo. I left it out on the kitchen counter, where I knew he would see it. Sure enough, his first evening he picked it up and examined it at close range, and I watched his expression change from calm to cloudy. With a flick he let the little book drop to the counter, where it bounced once, and flounced to the floor. The Haitian wiped his fingertips on his shirt front, and then he yelped, and slapped at his neck.

“What’s the matter?” I had to ask.
“Something is biting me,” he said, and he spun a tight pirouette, and smacked himself in the face.

His first day he woke up horribly ill, all my plans for the adventures we would have, were dashed. Instead of swimming with the dolphins, the Haitian was holed up in the guest room with paper tissues in his nose.

Our first evening I talked the Haitian out of the guest room and

into joining me for a gaze at the stars in the garden. In no time, mosquitos showed up like bikers to a rally, over-excited and raring to go. Amusingly, it turned out the insects only went for the Haitian. His ankles were torn up, while I remained unmolested. Sneezing and scratching he abandoned me and returned to the sanctity of the guest room.

On his second and last day the Haitian rented a scooter and agreed to permit me to sit behind. I learned it is not good scooter etiquette to swivel dramatically as I craned about, “Oh look!” I’d yell into his ear. “No!” he would reply. “Stop moving around back there.” Also, I learned the importance of hanging the hell on. As, after waiting on traffic lights to change color, I would tend to space out, and release my grip, and then the bike would go forward, my neck snapping to catch up.

A girl on a moped with flowers stenciled all over, passed us, and stupidly I felt compelled to point this out. Immediately, the Haitian leaned forward, elbows out, shoulders flush with the handlebars, and sped the bike up as fast as it would go. I closed my eyes, and inhaled on the sweet smell of exhaust fumes. Without the benefit of sight the mopeds sounded like mosquitos. When I heard the engine rev down, I opened my eyes. We were caught up with the girl on the flower bike. Sod bicycles, I’m buying a scooter.

“Ouch!” cried Lula Belle, and she raised fingertips to her head.
“Sorry, darling, casualty of war,” said Charles.

Charles crouched in the sturdy limbs of an orange tree. Through the dark leaves he could see his wife’s mouth, he watched her tongue licking across her sunburnt lips. He felt nothing whatsoever as he watched her rub her temple. “You’re the one who wanted something sweet,” said Charles.

The orange tree was in an orchard, on a hill, owned for generations by the Rodriguez-Lopez family. Until a few years ago, when the family sold it to the Englishman, Charles, and his American wife, Lula Belle.

“I can’t believe you interrupted my work, for this!” said Charles. He squatted, high up in the tree. With one hand he grasped at a branch, and with his free hand he reached for the ripe fruit. Lula Belle held the bucket steady, tight against her torso. There were three small oranges in it, mottled white and yellow.

“I don’t want oranges,” Lula Belle was near crying, “I want chocolate.”
“Hold still,” said Charles, and he made as if to lob the fruit. At the last moment he flicked his wrist, giving the missile topspin.
“Hey! Ow!” Lula Belle screamed, and dropped the basket, clutched at her ribs.

Tonio heard the scream. He was walking near the hill that used to belong to his father. The hill where he was born, his ancestors were born, and buried. Tonio grew up believing this land would one day be his. He did not mean to turn his head and look, but he did. He was at the exact spot where he and his brothers, returning home from midnight escapades, would slip through the forrest of bamboo, and the grove of lemon and orange trees, from which his mother would make fresh juice. Tonio and his brothers would ease back into hammocks, never waking the snoring family, or snoozing dogs.

Just as when they were children, these country boys, now grown, would leave their homes late at night. Tonio led them to the secret meetings in the jungle. In mud-splattered, threadbare clothes, and scuffed knee-high rubber boots, the brothers climbed the red earth mountain paths, deep into the steep jungly hills, where no roads would ever be paved. Tonio was a natural leader. One day he would get back his father’s land.

Lula Belle gathered up the basket, and the spilled fruit. “I love our life,” she said, and instantly, her eyes welled with tears, and she added, under her breath, “I just wish I could spend it with someone other than you.”

“Bitch,” muttered Charles, as he unwound an orange from its stem, and aimed it at the bridge of his wife’s nose, where it exploded.
“Stop!” cried Lula Belle.
“Accident, luvie, sorry,” said Charles, with a thin grin.

What really annoyed her, was that after this pelting, she knew she would be the one to squeeze the damn oranges.