NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
Diddly, Boyd and I are waiting for Lark Bunlush to answer the doorbell. Her red Fiat 500 is covered in yellow oak pollen giving it an orange tinge. The sour smell of mulch rises from a newly delivered pile, blocking the car in.
“I haven’t seen your mom, and she isn’t answering the phone. What is going on, Boyd?”
“She has been acting weird lately, Diddly.”
“Like what?”
“Like locking all the doors.”
“You mean she doesn’t normally do that?”
“Mom? Normal? What are you talking about?”
“Well, I get that. Fred drove us over to check on Lark. We are both concerned.”
“Mom is depressed, Diddlie.”
Diddlie puts her palms up to her cheeks.“Oh, not again!”
“You mean she was depressed before?”
“Yes Boyd, she went into crisis back at college, then she became an activist.”
“Maybe that was her response to it!”
“Maybe, I think it gave her a sense of purpose.”
“I see she got her spring mulch delivered.”
“That’s on automatic, Did. The yard guys will be here in a while.”
“How was the California trip, Boyd?”
“Oh! I wasn’t on it, but the last thing Mom said to me was that they didn’t work anything out and then ended the call.”
“Who do you mean?”
“Do you remember Augie Carmichael, Fred?”
“Yes, very well.”
“Lark flew out to see him.”
“Sounds a bit desperate, Boyd.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Aren’t you living here?”
“I was, but I am locked out and hanging with Maynard in DC with the Sorrell sisters.”
“Didn’t she give you a key?”
“Yeah, the wrong one!”
“Do you think Maynard can help?”
“Sure, he should be here pretty soon.”
“Where is he?”
“He dropped me off and went to the store, Fred.”
“Are they on good terms?”
“Oh, definitely, Fred. Mom knows what a great guy he is and how much he helped me.”
Diddlie taps her phone and tries the front door.
“She is still not responding.”
Diddly and I stand around by the door as she repeatedly calls, rings the bell, and bangs on the door.
Boyd returns from walking around the back.
“Mom is in the living room watching TV.”
“Can you get in?”
“No, the sliding doors are locked.”
“Did you knock?”
“Yeah, I knocked and waved and shouted, but she didn’t look up.”
“Don’t you have a key?”
“No, she gave me the wrong one, remember?”
“Oh, that!”
Diddly opens her red polka-dot purse.
“Shall we go in?” She is holding up some keys.
“Why didn’t you use your key before? Yeah! Open up, Diddlie!”
“Are you okay with this Fred?”
“I guess so, but I am going to hang back. You and Boyd go in. Lead the way.”
I follow them in. Lark is sitting on a brown overstuffed leather love seat wrapped in a Pendleton blanket with a Southwestern motif.
She doesn’t look up from CNN flashing messages across the room, some commercial, some commentary, and some sound bites at high volume.
Lark doesn’t look up from the TV.
“Welcome to the latest reality TV show, our chief executive.” Macadamia is on screen boasting about millions of deportations.
Diddly walks over, past a stack of carry-out bags stuffed with litter. She sits down next to Lark and embraces her.
“Sweety, will you please turn that thing off.”
“Are you kidding?”
“No, Lark.”
“This is it. A Hollywood production, a ‘fait accompli’, a cyber coup d’État.”
Diddly reaches for the remote on the arm of the loveseat and turns off the TV.
Lark starts sobbing in Diddly’s arms.
The doorbell rings and Boyd goes back to answer it.
“That must be Maynard!”
Maynard comes in with Boyd, carrying a tote.
“Lark, what is it?”
She stares out the window, past Diddly’s cheek, at the colorful haze of redbuds and dogwoods swaying in front of each other in the breeze.
“That Feather Jackdaw has issued about 125 wacky Executive Orders already and we aren’t even a hundred days in!”
“Lark, they can only be issued by the president.”
“Right, and Feather is programming The Presidential bot getting vengeance against law firms and indiscriminately firing new government employees!”
“Yeah, okay Lark, Okay!”
“There’s a huge humanitarian crisis in Sudan, our bombs destroying Gazza and its people, there’s bombing and war in Ukraine. There are estimated to be about forty million enslaved people in the world today and the planet is heating up. Shall I go on?”
“Why don’t you answer our calls?”
“Their calls are louder than yours!”
“Remember your friends, Lark.”
“What’s the point, Maynard? We have been captured by entertainment and there is no way out of the show!”
“You are looking at the way out. It’s springtime.”
“That computer program in the White House is opening concentration camps in Salvador for Spanish speakers from South of here.”
“I don’t think we have reached that point yet.”
“Listen this thing is scripted by those crazies at PU and Dreamscape Media.”
Lark is in tears and her blanket falls from her shoulders as she breaks free of Diddie’s embrace to stand up.
“Cover up Mom!”
Maynard steps away.
Boyd strides over, picks up the blanket which has fallen on the floor. Lark is naked.
“What do I need clothes for? It’s hot and I am not going anywhere.”
“You need clothes, Mom!”
She stands still and lets Boyd wrap her in the blanket and Diddlie puts her arm around her shoulders, keeping the blanket in place.
“Come on, sweety, we are going to get you some clothes.”
“Did. I haven’t got anything. I don’t do laundry.”
“Yeah, I guess you don’t shower either!”
They help Lark out of the room.
I find Maynard in the kitchen.
“Fred, where’s the kettle?”
“I don’t know. I have never been in here before.”
He holds up a plug-in kettle.
“I am reluctant to use this plastic thing.”
“I get it, nano plastics!”
“Exactly, Fred, heat releases them in molecular hoards.”
We can see a chaotic column of tiny ants moving where the backsplash joins the countertop.
“Fred, looks like we have formic company.”
Maynard stoops down to look under the sink and finds a bottle of Windex.
“Move that packet of chips, would you, Fred?”
I move the opened packet out of the way, spilling some fried potato crumbs and salt. Maynard sprays the invaders.
“That should stem the tide!”
He wipes up the casualties with paper towel and presses some soap into the crack
they emerged from.“Do ants eat soap?”
“Maybe, it is fat.”
“Well, this stuff should keep them at bay long enough for us to get the job done.”
Maynard puts the Windex back under the sink and opens a corner cupboard below the counter.
“Voila!”
He holds up a Revere ware saucepan with a blackened copper bottom.
“This veteran will serve us well!”
He puts water on the stove to boil. Pulls a can of Simpson and Vale’s Earl Grey tea out of a canvas tote.
“Here’s a fine pound cake I picked up at Curd and Grape along with this.” He flourishes a round of camembert and then a packet of pumpernickel.
“See if you can find a plate and knife to slice up the cake.”
Maynard gets some apples and bananas out of his tote and looks around for somewhere to put them.
“I guess this will do.”
He places them carefully on a cutting board from the dish drainer using the curving bananas to corral the apples.
Finally, he pulls out a bottle of Prosecco.
“Maynard, I am concerned about the Augie factor.”
“Yes, I believe he was a factor years ago.”
“It is really too bad those two can’t find a way to be together.”
I have sliced the loaf of pound cake into about a dozen portions and placed them on a blue willow pattern plate from the dish drainer.
“Well done, Fred!”
He breaks off half a slice from the plate I had found. “Let’s try this stuff.
We can celebrate Lark’s recovery with this!”
“Today, you mean?”
“Certainly, today, Fred. That woman is watching too much TV.”
“True enough. Good thing Diddlie turned off that infernal stream.”
“She has enormous resources. I am quite certain of it.”
