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7
As if she had a built in alarm, around 6:30 AM each and every day, Cinderella began her morning ritual. It began with irritating---whining howls. She would then stretch in a way that formed her back into a lying down crescent-like shape that caused her spine to crack. Next she would shake off whatever had become a part of her fur while she slept.
We had always tried to get to sleep before Cinderella did. For once she went to sleep she went into an asthma-like kind of snoring that put even my aunt Ida Mae’s snoring to shame. And it lasted the whole night.
I remember that when I was a kid, we thought that Auntie Ida Mae must have been the World Champion Snorer of all times. You could hear Auntie Ida Mae’s snorts and groans all the way down stairs---even when the music was playing or the TV was on. Uncle Dough Belly use to say that she was calling hogs. No two ways about it, as we were in Texas, those damn hogs must have been in Arkansas.
I remember that one night Auntie Ida Mae’s snoring got so bad it scared the poop out of us. We ran up stairs to her bedroom and nearly broke the door down. She never missed a beat. The sound was frightening. Baby Sister suggested we do something quick before she chokes to death. I clapped my hands real loud and screamed boo! Auntie Ida Mae grunted, quietly turned over and let go of one that sounded like a 57 Chevrolet with a gutted muffler. Baby Sister shouted out real loud. “Jesus Christ! She’s dead!” No sooner that after the words jumped out of Baby Sister’s mouth, aunt Ida Mae resumed her hog calling. We giggled and ran down stairs to the kitchen. Uncle Dough Belly was sitting at the kitchen table sipping on his hot toddy. It was his nightly ritual which enabled him to go up stairs and get to sleep before the hog calling got out of hand.
In addition to snoring most of the night, Cinderella must have also had some weird dreams. Her snoring was often interrupted with muffled barks. I remember reading some time ago that dogs, like humans, do dream. I tell you, sometimes Cinderella acted more human than dog. Just like some humans sometimes act more like dogs than they do people.
After her morning stretching routine, Cinderella would go out through the doggie door onto the veranda to do her business on the little artificial green golf putting mat that we had purchased from K-Mart.
I have to laugh every time I think about the day we bought that little green mat. The cashier had no doubt gotten an A+ in the Customer Service Training Class.
“How are you two lovely people doing this fine morning?”
“Just fine; thank you.” Queen replied
“Can I help you folks fine anything else?”
“No. Thank you. We’re good.” I replied
The little cashier kept chatting away as she checked and bagged our things. She tied a string around the rolled up green mat and handed it to me.
“I hope this is going to help you improve your golf game.”
“I think my golf game is about as good as it is going to get.” I said.
“Y’all have a nice day, now. And don’t forget to come back to see us.”
Out in the parking lot, when we got to the car, Queen asked, “What did you mean about you golf game is about as good as it’s going to get. Man, you’ve never even picked up a golf club.”
“And I don’t intend to either. What did you expect me to say? I was not about to tell her that this was going be used as a dog’s lawn.”
“Man, you crazy.”
“I’ll tell you what’s crazy.”
“What?”
“Paying somebody one million dollars to spend a whole day walking over miles of pretty green just grass to knock a little white ball into a big black hole. Do you know how many houses could be built for the homeless on the golf courses in this country?”
“You do have a point there, but…”
“Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not mad at Tiger. But I think he’s getting tired of the game. You know. The game they keep working on him.”
“You ready, Honey?”
“Yeah. Everything is in the car. Let’s go, putt putt.”
Having taken care of her business, Cinderella returned to the bedroom and began tugging at the bed coverings. I glanced over and noticed that it was now 6:45 AM. I glanced back over at Queen and noticed that she was fast asleep. Undoubtedly, she must have been dreaming; for there was a cute little smile on her face. At any rate, I threw off the covers, got up and went into the bathroom to pee, brush my teeth, and wash the sleep off my face. When I was done, I put on my robe and went into the kitchen to start preparing breakfast.
Cinderella took her usual spot at the south entrance to the kitchen where she could observe my every movement. She sat there panting away; her drooling tongue hanging out of the left side of her mouth. The expression on her little doggy face seemed to be saying, “You ain’t got my breakfast ready yet?” Yep, that same dog article had stated that dogs too, exhibited facial expressions similar to those of humans. I swear that dog has us---me---wrapped around her paw like a grandchild has a grandparent wrapped around its finger. My sister had told me that dogs, man’s best friend, and babies, know a sucker when they see one. Needless to say, I was a sucker for both the dog and my new grand baby.
Aroused by the aroma of breakfast, Queen got up and came into the kitchen and made her regular cup of coffee. I hadn’t had coffee since grad school. So this was one thing Queen didn’t expect me to do when I made breakfast. Nor did she want me to do. The last time I had made coffee, she complained that it tasted like mud. I remember saying, “What’s wrong? When I was a kid, mud cakes tasted pretty good to me.” She said, “Fool”, when you were a kid, gas was 28 cents a gallon. And for a quarter, you buy a movie ticket, a bag of pop corn, and a soda. And you could go down to the store and buy one cigarette at a time.” Now, this didn’t bother me at all. It was the one thing I was never expected to do. Make coffee.
When Queen and I first started going together, I had made the mistake of bragging to her that I can out cook and out iron any woman younger than my mama. Including the best of any other help you could find! Little did I know, I had suckered myself again! Queen still cooks her specialty meals when she feels to do so. But for the life of me, I can’t tell you the last time she ironed anything. Auntie Ida Mae had told me when I was young, “The reason I’m teaching you how to cook, wash and iron, is ‘cause when you marry, yo wife may come down sick. Or God forbid; she might jus up and die ’foe you. And it’s ‘portant that you knows how to take care yo self.” Me and my big mouth! What can I say?
After breakfast Queen and I sat down to catch up on the world news---changing the TV channel from OWN to CNN, to see what Sanjay and Wolf had to report. What a depressing choice. It seemed that the whole world was at war. Ebola was becoming pandemic and seemed to have been the only true democratic thing happening around the world. It furthered appeared that it had now become as easy to sneak into the White House as it was to sneak into a movie. Makes you wonder if something was up. And it looked like whites no longer had a monopoly of serial killers. What was this world coming too? After a few minutes of such depressing news, we switch the channel to the Steve Harvey Show.
That evening, before trying to get to sleep before Cinderella, Queen, for some reason felt it necessary to remind me of my upcoming prostate exam and that my colonoscopy was soon due.
“Why did you have to remind me? You know how I hate those exams. I’ll never forget that first time…and all the times after that…when Doc ran his finger up my butt. Damn. My knees buckled. I got dizzy and almost passed out! How can…never mind…forget it.”
“Aw, that ain’t nothing; try having a baby,” Queen said. “Anyway,” she continued. It’s important. There are just too many Black men dropping dead from double C.”
“Double C, what’s that?”
“You know, Queen said, “prostate cancer and colon cancer.”
My thoughts flowed back to Uncle Dough Belly. Before he died, he had told us that the reason he kept getting up throughout the night to go pee, was because of Auntie Ida Mae’s hog calling and the hot toddy working on his bladder. Not being one who ever wanted to go to the doctor, it was too late when we finally found out that he had prostate cancer.
“You know Queen, the colonoscopy itself, is not so bad. It’s the preparation the night before that I dread. That cocktail they give you does a real job on you. At least that castor oil and orange juice washout the old folks gave us every summer allowed you a couple of days. But that stuff the doctors give you now these days does a Niagara Falls on you over night. And I mean all night!”
Queen laugh so hard the whole bed shook. Then she said, “If I would have had that cocktail an hour before, I would not be able to laugh like this.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. Remember that time I sneezed after having drank that stuff an hour before?”
“Do, I? Whew, we found out what the old folks meant when they use to say somebody had the flying s.”
We whooped until tears came rolling down our cheeks. Black folk always find something funny about the most serious things. I want to think that it evolved as a coping mechanism we perfected to keep us from going crazy from the things we always had to deal with in order to survive the daily trials and tribulations of life. It’s only somewhat recently that we’ve been privy to those professional couch sessions.
Seemingly disturbed by the loud laughter we made, Cinderella ran into the bedroom. She stopped at the foot of the bed. Huffing and puffing, with her tongue hanging out the side of her mouth, she sat down on her haunches; and wagging her tail, she looked up at us laughing away in the bed. The expression on her face was like that of a person who had just seen two other people who had obviously just lost their minds. Aware of her confused, curious stare, we stopped laughing.
“Did you take your meds?” Queen asked.
“Yes,” I replied. “Did you take yours?”
“Of course I did. Turn off the lights and turn up the TV.”
“Yeah, we had better try to get to sleep before Cinderella starts her nightly sleeping spasms.”
The next morning was weird; really weird. When I woke up, the sunlight had done a Clorox job on the night’s darkness. The bedroom was fully occupied with dark shadows. The TV timer had turned off the television. The bedroom was dead quiet. I blinked my eyes and looked over at the clock. To my surprise, it was 6:30 am. I got up and opened the blinds. Still blinking my eyes to get use to the dawning light, I made my way to the bathroom and peed. When I came out of the bathroom, I became aware that I had completely overlooked Cinderella lying there at the foot of the bed. I switched on the bedroom light.
“Queen, Queen? Wake up!”
“What…what is it?”
“It’s Cinderella! She is not making any noise!”
“What?”
Queen sat up in the bed. She leaned over the foot of bed and looked down at Cinderella’s lifeless body on the floor. She cupped her hands over her mouth and her eyes overflowed with tears.
“Oh no, no, no…my poor little baby.”
I walked over to the window and opened the blinds wider. A cloud had drawn a curtain over the sun and the sky was beginning to sprinkle rain. I walked back over to the bed and put my arms around Queen. I gently kissed each of her watery eyes.
“It’s starting to rain, Queen.” I said. “You know, back in Jamaica, they say that when a person dies and it rains, it is a sign of the goodness of the person.”
Queen just sat there with her nose running and tears rolling down her cheeks. All I could was to look at her and synchronized my heart with hers.
“She was such a good little girl, Leon. She was my baby…”
“I know Queen”, I said.
“Oh Leon, you’re my baby too. Lord, give me strength.”
We got up and went out o the storage closet and took out the little coffin box we had prepared earlier (no one or anything lives forever). I leaned over and kissed Queen on her salty cheeks.
“Damn Leon”, Queen said. “We never got Cinderella those cute little doggie slippers.”
“Well, she won’t need them now”. I said. “She’ll now be trotting along on the soft cotton clouds of dog’s heaven, having given so much happiness to so many humans.”
Queen’s eyes and mine locked onto each other. Wiping each other’s tears, we smiled and began to laugh. The mixed tears of lost and joy evaporated from our ebony cheeks. Cinderella had given us so much joy as we struggled with the daily challenges to acquire a life of freedom, justice and liberty.
