The rental house in Winter Park had a large room with windows lining two opposite walls, affording a view of both the front and back yards. One day, there was a storm pouring down in the back yard, but the front yard was untouched.
Thinking about the rental house in Winter Park reminds me of Mr. Sulowski. He was a few years younger than my parents. I think he worked with my father, and they became friends. I think of Mr. Sulowski when I think of the Winter Park rental house because I remember my mother and him, sitting on the front stoop of the house and talking. Mr. Sulowski’s jeans were riding down, and my brother and I could see his butt crack.
My brother and I thought that an adult's butt crack was the most hysterical thing in the world. In the kitchen, we tried to drink our coca-colas, but kept thinking of Mr. Sulowski’s butt crack and, as a result, spit up coke on the kitchen table. My mom wanted to know what was so funny; which of course we couldn’t say.
A few weeks later Mr. Sulowski died in a plane crash. He was coming back from the Bahamas in a propeller engine plane. For the longest time I thought Mr. Sulowski was a victim of The Bermuda Triangle, which had figured prominently in my nightmares because when it had been my brother’s turn to choose a family movie, he chose a documentary on The Bermuda Triangle. I fell asleep during that documentary, but must have retained a sense of fear, because ever since I wanted to make sure I never took a plane or ship anywhere near Bermuda. As a child I confused the Bahamas, Bermuda, and Barbados.
Mr. Sulowski left a widow and 2 young boys.
Sometimes I wonder what my mother and he were discussing when they were out on the front step. With an adult’s view onto that memory, it seems to me that my mother and he were having a serious conversation. Maybe they were ending an affair. Maybe my mother was doling out advice as to how to handle my father. Maybe the were just shooting the shit in a way adults do, but children don't understand.
All the whilst, my brother and I laughed and spit out our cokes.
*Similarly to the way I straddled four states on my recent holidays: a toe in Utah, a toe in Arizona, a heal in Colorado, and the other in New Mexico.
We used to get that rain one side only effect in rashbre south, which was also in Florida. And as further copycat we also visited the Four Corners a few weeks ago on our own desert trails.
ReplyDeleteFascinating how you think back into distant scenes like that...
I think we used to call that "brickie's cleavage". Well, they dished it so we dealt it.
ReplyDeleteA tangled web of memories, reflecting two worlds, weatherwise and generation-wise.
I remember watching, as a child, an old black and white film set in the southern American swamps to do with murder and inheritance. Bob Hope (I think) was one of the actors. In one scene, the "heroine" is asleep in her bed and a secret door opens above her head, revealing a knarled hand searching for the jewels beneath her pillow. That scene haunted me throughout my childhood, made worse by the fact that my headboard was placed against the old chimney (room for secret doors and hidden hands). Anyone who can identify this film from my poor description wins my eternal gratitude.
Do you think your mom was having an affair?! Is that what you're implying? That's pretty strange, dark stuff.
ReplyDeleteRashbre ~ Wouldn't it have been funny if we were straddling states at the same time! Don't you think we all think back to distant scenes? One scene always leads to another and another and another.
ReplyDeletePG ~ 'Brickie's cleavage' LOVE IT. I have no idea about the film. I'm tempted to do internet research, but I suspect you've already trawled the ether.
UB ~ Funny that that was the detail that you honed in on. At the time of writing, I hadn't really focused on it, but now that you mention it. I don't consider it dark stuff. I suppose my view of marriage is very different from the norm. I don't consider an affair to be the worst of things in a relationship. In my mother's case, she was (is) a beautiful woman. A cross between Pocahontas and Jackie O. It wouldn't surprise me if she had offers of physical intimacy; the relationship between my parents was not great. They should have never gotten married. It took them 40 years to get a divorce, and it makes me unbearably sad to think that my mother didn't have physical intimacy with someone she liked during that time period. So, from my perspective it is not dark stuff, but hopeful stuff. (Of course from my current day perspective; not from my childhood view, which certainly didn't think any of this!)