A Glibertarians Exclusive: Marilee – Part V
Waverly, Iowa – May 1954
Marilee’s hand was soft and warm in Coy’s callused one. They walked down the darkened street of Waverly in silence, enjoying each other’s company. Coy was lost in thought.
What the hell do I do now? Will I stay here with Marilee? Ain’t anything I want more, but is that what she wants?
It occurred to him that finding out she didn’t want him to stay would be considerably worse than not knowing.
But if she did want him to stay…
He suddenly noticed they had stopped walking. They were in front of a small doorway on the side of a building containing a furniture store on the ground floor. “This is my place,” Marilee said. “A little upstairs apartment. Would you… would you like to come in for a while?”
“Sure,” Coy agreed. Marilee let his hand go to dig in her handbag for her keys. Suddenly nervous, Coy wiped his hand on his pant leg. I must look like an asshole, he thought, standing here with my jaw hanging open.
Marilee didn’t seem to think so. After what seemed like a month, she found her keys and unlocked the door. “Come on in,” she said, and led Coy up the stairs.
Marilee pulled a cord, turning on a light above the door. Coy stepped in, had a quick look around. The apartment was small, with a table and two chairs, a small couch, a kitchenette on one side, a door that presumably led to a bathroom on the other. A blank panel on the far wall no doubt let to a pull-down bed; Coy had seen the like before.
His gaze lingered on the folded-up bed for a moment.
“Have a seat,” Marilee said, indicating the small table. “I’ll make us some coffee.” She reached up to a shelf for a box of matches and lit a burner on the gas stove.
Coffee, sure, why not? “Sounds good,” Coy said. He sat down and watched as Marilee measured out water and coffee into an old blue enameled pot.
He realized he had only seen Marilee in the dim light of the night club, and then again under streetlights. Now, in the bright light of the apartment, Coy could see she had aged; she looked thinner, paler, and tired. Still, he thought, she looks damn good to me. And hell, I’m older, too.
Marilee placed the coffee pot on the burner, then sat down across from Coy. She pulled a packet of Lucky Strikes out of her purse, tapped one out and placed in her mouth; she held the pack out to Coy, who took one. “Don’t remember you smoking,” he commented. He pulled his old Zippo out of a pocket, lit her cigarette, then his.
“I didn’t used to. It’s been a while, you know. Working in a place where I work – well, you may as well smoke, the place is full of smoke anyway.”
“I reckon.”
“You’re quieter than I remember,” Marilee said. “I saw you earlier, I was wondering if you’d come say something.”
“War may have had something to do with that,” Coy agreed. “Spent four years in the Pacific. Marines. Wasn’t anything I want to talk much about. Guess it may have burned some of the talk right outta me.”
“You sure used to talk pretty, especially at night, way back when. I know we weren’t a long time together, but it sure was… I guess an intense time, way I recollect it.”
Coy looked down at the tabletop. “Maybe. Been on my own a long damn time now.”
Marilee looked at Coy keenly for a few moments. “Wait there,” she said.
There was a small bookshelf on the other side of the room that Coy hadn’t noticed, not being much of a reader. Marilee went there, extracted a small volume bound in green leather. There was a ribbon in the book, marking a particular page.
“Here,” Marilee said, handing Coy the book. “Take a look at the page that’s bookmarked.”
Coy looked at the cover. It was a tome of poetry; he noticed the poet’s name, picked out in thin gold on the leather:
GUIDO GUINIZELLI, 1225-1276
“Italian, is he?” Coy asked.
“Yes. Read that poem. Coffee should be about ready.” Marilee turned back to the tiny kitchen. Coy opened the book and read:
In verity I’d sing my lady’s praise,
With rose and lily-flower her face compare:
Like to the morning star her beauty’s rays,
Like to a saint in heaven, ah, wond’rous fair!
Green shades are like her and the breeze as well,
All hues, all blossoms, flushed and pale, beside
Silver and gold and rare stones’ lustrous spell;
Even Love himself in her is glorified.
She goes her way so gentle and so sweet,
Pride falls in whomsoever she doth meet,
Worthless the heart which scorneth such delight!
Ungentle folk may not endure her sight,
And a still greater virtue I aver:
No man thinks ill hath he but looked on her.
Coy closed the book and laid it on the table. “Fella writes pretty.” He was writing about you, from me to you, Coy thought, but said nothing.
Marilee looked mildly disappointed. She evidently had been waiting for some other reply, but Coy had no idea what else to say. He just watched as she poured two cups of coffee, placed one on front of Coy, then sat down with her own.
“So, you say you’re looking for a job here?” she said at last.
Sure as hell, now that I’ve found you again at last. Wild horses couldn’t drag me away. But all Coy managed to say was “Yeah. Grain elevator east of town supposed to be hiring.”
“What have you been doing all this time?”
“Well, that takes some telling,” Coy said. “Was laid up for a while at the end of the war. Then, hell, I’ve been a cook, I’ve been a fisherman, done pretty near everything but teach school. Moved around a lot. Seems like sooner or later I see an old Wanted poster with my name on it, so I move on.” He stopped, a little embarrassed at his unaccustomed loquacity.
“Was it bad?” Marilee asked. “The war, I mean?”
Coy nodded. “Not something I care to talk about much, if you don’t mind.” Coy had found early on that it was frustrating, talking about the war with anyone who hadn’t been through it; there was no common ground.
“I understand.”
They sat in silence for a few moments. The clock ticking on the wall caught Coy’s attention; it was almost two in the morning. He suddenly realized how tired he was.
“Coy,” Marilee said suddenly, “I’m not staying here.”
“You’re not?”
“No. There’s a fella I’ve been seeing. He got him a job as a construction worker – high steel. He went off to New York to work on some building or another. Next week, I’ll go out there to be with him.”
Coy felt as though someone had hit him between the eyes with a hammer. “Oh,” was all he managed.
“I’m sorry, Coy,” Marilee continued. “I had to move on. What we done back then… Well, it was a long time ago now.”
“I reckon it was,” Coy agreed. “Look, Marilee, I don’t take it personal. I never did go back to that café in Fresno looking for you, nor back home. Can’t say as you owe me anything. Not one thing. You deserve to have your life.”
And yet he still felt the strange connection, an entanglement, as though the two of them were bound together somehow, by some kind of invisible scarlet thread. Suppose I always will, he told himself.
“Good,” Marilee said. She took a sip of coffee. “I want us to part on good terms. Besides,” she went on, “I have this funny feeling we’ll see each other again, someday. Somewhere.”
The connection, Coy thought. She feels it too.
“I bet we will. Anyway, it’s late. Suppose I better be going. Good luck, Marilee, with New York, your fella and all.”
Marilee got up and hugged Coy. Then, he walked out into the night, towards the cheap hotel where his earthly goods were parked.
Don’t really feel much like staying here now, he thought as he walked through the darkened streets. Every time I walk past that bar, I’d think of her. Every time I walked past that furniture store, I’d think of her. Don’t know as I can really take that.
May as well move on. She mentioned steel work. There’re big steel mills in Pennsylvania. Fella with a strong back ought to be able to find work there.
The next morning, he tossed the Waterloo Courier ad in the wastebasket, loaded his possessions back in his truck and drove off, east bound, to try his luck someplace else.
She lit a burner on the stove,
And offered me a pipe,
“I thought you’d never say hello” she said,
“You look like the silent type.”
Then she opened up a book of poems,
And handed it to me,
Written by an Italian poet,
From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true,
And glowed like burning coal,
Pouring off of every page,
Like it was written in my soul,
From me to you,
Tangled up in blue.
Great story
“And every one of them words rang true,
And glowed like burning coal,
Pouring off of every page,
Like it was written in my soul,
From me to you,
Tangled up in blue.”
That’s what your story did to me Animal, it’s very dusty in here right now,
Thanks
Animal, I’d almost think you writing from (my) past. Except the poetry part. I moved on one place too far, too fast.
“Don’t look back, somethin’ might be gainin’ on you” Satchel
I’ve looked back too often, somethin’s gainin’ on me. Great story, now I have to wait another week… Damn it!
Very cool story. I’d recommend posting the links to the previous chapters.
That’s a hell of a good idea, unfortunately the last two parts are already scheduled and I can’t edit them.
Try having to search through the archives to find the previous parts! *Stares at A Path To Wellness posts*
Of, you could just click on my name at the top of the post, and there they are.
*Or
I was referring to when I finished ‘A Path to Wellness’ several years after I started and to link to the original posts I had to search through the archives, because the new site history doesn’t go back that far.
Yeah, that does complicate things, but when I’m producing a series like this I usually write the whole thing out and then upload them in clumps, so when they’re edited and scheduled I don’t yet know what the permalinks will be. TPTB would have to edit that in. But in this case, they’re all sequential, so that issue doesn’t come up – this entire series is in recent history.
My writing is all done on the fly to incorporate recent events. It may not be ever-green, but it’s timely.
That works, I had missed part 3.
Question, is it possible to have a hand of 4 nines and a Kings high straight flush in the same deal?
It would be tough, if the game was honest.
I honestly don’t know – not much of a cards player. I just looked up the varying ranks of different hands. Chalk it up to “willing suspension of disbelief,” maybe?
I think you would need 5 nines in the deck, so requires more than disbelief. Unless they played with wildcards, e.g. jokers wild, no idea if that was a thing back then.
While I’m being a prick, no one in LA ever says N’awlins.
That would be tough, unless you are Paul Newman. Actually, he settled for four Jacks.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KayNuX1rvpU
OK, how do they say it?
oblig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuQjoaYIwQA
Perfect.
Nicely done, Animal.
Ug, it’s so laborious to use the mouse to pull the scroll bar down instead of the side arrows! This is a Human Rights violation!
I found some of my essays from my freshman year of college, so a la Sloper those will be coming soon. As I’ve mentioned before when you lot talk about ‘what made me libertarian’, I’ve always been such. So these may be some simplistic arguments, and maybe a la Obama I’ve evolved on the issues in the last 20 years, but except for some bases I let get stolen they were still sound and of course contained some glib humor.
Ain’t no party like a English 107 party! Woo woo!
I was put into remedial English A, because no one told me there was a separate placement test for English. The Prof apologized to me afterwards. Also.
Did we go to the same high school? At least you weren’t in English as a second language, as some of my classmates, not that there’s anything wrong with that.
The oeuvre will never increase at this point.
LOL
You don’t have page up/down buttons on your keyboard? Or Home and End?
I’m on a tablet.
I’ve never used those buttons and I’m not about to start now!
*dismissive sniff*
Mouse wheel.
This installment is bittersweet but good.
Thanks Animal this was another great read.
“Why is fascism so commonly associated with genocide, when as a political philosophy it is about unity, nationalism, and the merger of corporate and state power? It is because it needs a unifying force powerful enough to sweep aside all resistance. The us of fascism requires a them. The civic-minded moral majority participates willingly, assured that it is for the greater good. Something must be done. The doubters go along too, for their own safety. No wonder today’s authoritarian institutions know, as if instinctively, to whip up hysteria toward the newly minted class of deplorables, the anti-vaxxers and unvaccinated.”
Indeed.
I seem to have a bit of dust in my eye… must be from a little dust-up I just had with someone. I need to go begging for forgiveness now, damn if I didn’t t screw up again. Thanks for another good one, Animal, this one hits home with my past and my present.
Unrelated to the story but following up from Scruffy’s post about Ivermectin. We’ve been filling our Ivermectin through one of the local members of this group of independent pharmacies (if a group of independents is not an oxymoron). I e-mailed him today about getting a refill (because of Scruffy’s experience). He called me to tell me it was on backorder nationally, but there was no hint that he was unwilling to fill it.
Since they’re independents, I assume YMMV, but it may be an option for some of you.
I stated in another post but will repeat.
When I worked at a vet clinic, we used ivermec as a dewormer BUT also to treat Parvo.
Parvo. That’s short for parvovirus. Look it up.
From the dead thread @ Putridmeat
“Where do you source your plants/seeds from? Hints on growing (and keeping the damn birds away!)?”
The weird super hot seeds I got from pepperjoes. The ghosts were bought live from Lowes.
I get my tips on growing from pepperjoes and peppergeeks. We’ve been using Bloomcity kelp to feed them and occasionally some calmag.
I don’t have a bird problem. *shrug*
Cool, thanks.
“I don’t have a bird problem”
So what you’re saying is… 20 gauge?
I don’t think that’d be well received in a townhouse setting.
This is one of my all time favorite series. I bet even Bob himself would enjoy it. It would be cool to get his opinion of them.
Happy no labor day, Glibs. Been drinking chardonnay and cooking stuff. Made a batch of chimichurri butter. I’m simmering the month’s veg trimmings into a nice vegetable broth. Watching a shitty movie https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Game_Is_Kill!
It’s a good day.
So happy to see someone else who saves trimmings for stock. I was watching a cooking show where the chef said not to do that for a quality stock. I turned it off.
The festival was quite busy. Thousands of people. Mask wearing was in the low single digit range as a %.
Weather was perfect.
They didn’t have the dart/balloon game this year.
*sad trombone*