The House

I hear tell that the house is still there, still standing like. Leastways I heard that was the truth of it a few years ago from a sickly ginger-headed woman who had been passing the little cove. Said it was “the sweetest little shack she ever did see, and she didn’t mind who knew it”.

I still miss the place, the way I miss cigarettes. I forget for a time and then wish I was right back there, feeling good, feeling human again the way I used to feel.

The days when you are a teenager and the hormones are fighting and kicking their way around your body and for the first time (and perhaps the only time) you feel alive – I mean really alive. Music blows your brains out, the thought of nakedness makes your tongue run drier than a desert, and you stutter and fret over the smallest of things. Then some days you feel as if you are standing taller than a mountain, I kid you not and you think you could take on the world. Then someone sounds a whistle, and your hormones go touring around your bloodstream again, and you are lost, good and simple. Tempers and anger and you don’t have the slightest clue why - just that it’s good to shout at someone, anyone. 

Those were the years when I knew that house. The lost years, the days of wine and roses when Ma painted flowers and Pa would go missing for weeks at a time.

Crazed Boy was one of my friends, heck who am I kidding? He was my only friend, still is – in that I carry the stone he gave me just before he went to ‘Nam and never came back. He turned me on to dirty music, ‘black music’ my Gran called it, but we never listened to the elders – we just rocked and rolled until the sun came down and even then we’d light a fire on the beach and keep sometimes going until the morning.

When I think of that house, when I think of those years, I can still smell the ozone that drifted in off the sea, and that somehow kept me company. Everything smelled of the sea and you only really noticed that fact when you drifted into town, and things started to smell of smoke.

Those were the electric years, the times when I felt that I had a million volts wired to my spine, and I tell you what - I would give anything to feel that way again.

No one lived in the place for years afterwards. Some say it was haunted, but I remember I drifted down that way one November, a couple of years later – it was easy to break in – and I saw that some of the Pastor’s blood sparkled on the walls. Even after all that time.

Boy who would have thought that one head full of blood would have made such a mess? He put the gun under his chin and told my Ma and me that he believed God had given up on him and then he splattered his head right across the gramophone and our only two books: one of them ironically being the Bible.

Apparently, he was now in a better place, when I asked was that Detroit, my Ma slapped me so hard that my head bounced off the wall and I wasn’t sure if the blood was mine or the Pastor’s. She apologized later but said I had a way of talkin’ that got folks crazy like. I wondered if maybe I had made the Pastor shoot himself in the head.

It wasn’t long after that things started to go wrong with the family. Like we had been cursed by the shooting. My Ma died of a weak heart – so the Doctor said. My father was jailed for robbing a drug store in Woko County. My brother and I were taken into care, and then we were split up. I never did see my brother again. I have been told that he made it good in the oil down in Texas. I hope that’s true; I really do. So if you happen to walk down by the cove some empty sunny day, and you see the house, just keeping on walking. It ain’t healthy to stick around.

bobby stevenson 2020

Sundays

It was Sunday morning in our little town. Through my window, I could see the Durzies heading to the Church of Jesus, and I knew it must be 8.15 am.

When I think back to those Sunday mornings all those years ago – goodness life was so very different than today. If I close my eyes, I can still see them like a photograph seared to the back of my mind.

The procession was always led by Eugene, their youngest, both he and his siblings were all blessed with their mother’s burnt read hair.

April and Jimmy were behind Eugene. If I can recall correctly at that time, Jimmy was eleven, April, ten and ‘Gene was going on seven.

The father, Joseph, was from a Scottish family who had come to this US in the early 1900s.  He had been born here, had attended school with Helen (his red-haired wife) and had never loved, nor wanted to love, any other woman.

He was the town dentist, and Helen was his receptionist. They lived in a large villa on the edge of town – although thinking back, that was all eaten up by the city in later years, and nowadays it sits right in the middle of things.

If I remember correctly, Jimmy went away to some war and never came back. April worked as Elvis Presley’s hairstylist for a few years, and then she fell for one of The King’s backing musicians, had seven children and spent most of her days being a mother.

Eugene became Mayor of our town and he was a good one until he took sick and left us, a little too early, I might add.

Helen, well she still lives in that large house that once sat on the edge of town but which now stands in the middle of things. Her grandkids come to visit at Christmas, and sometimes she moseys on down to Georgia where her daughter calls home.

They knocked the Church of Jesus down a while back to make way for a Freeway that leads all the way into the city. It only takes 15 minutes to get there, and a whole lot longer to sit in the house of God.

I still stand at my window and watch the folks passing by – but, to be honest, Sundays ain’t what they used to be.

Bobby stevenson 2020

Enough Sunshine For Everyone

That summer, that sultry humid one, in ’46 was the hottest on record. She still remembers it. How could ever she forget?

From her apartment window on the first floor she could view most of the comings and goings for a block. And she never got bored. Never.  There was always the odd soldier returning home from the war overseas. Those kids in khaki would run up the sidewalk throwing themselves into the arms of lovers, mothers, brothers, kids, and wives and always the same hugs, as if to say: ‘I’m home – let’s never be so stupid again’. 


Before the war, there had been Edith and her son, Eugene. Now Edith was alone. Her last letter from her only son had come from a prisoner of war camp in the Far East. That was two years ago, and she still had heard nothing. She felt that if he was dead she would know, and she was sure she could still feel the tick of his heart in the universe.

When Eugene, or Gene as the liked to be known, was eight years old, he had 
run out in front of an automobile which had been speeding up Montrose. The car clipped her son and knocked him flying back on to the sidewalk. Her boy, her love, had been in a coma for six weeks before he had opened his eyes again. Edith had never, ever prayed so much in her life.

It was the Japanese lady on the second floor who had saved Gene’s life. She was a nurse and had been approaching home after a double night shift at St Edwards, when she saw the automobile hit Eugene. She had given him the kiss-of-life until the ambulance had arrived. Her name was Hana Tanaka, and after that accident, both Hana and Edith had become close friends.

When Eugene lay unconscious in St Edwards, Hana would come around to the room and sit with Edith during her darkest hours. In fact, Hana had been attending Gene when he first opened his eyes.Hana had given Edith the good news in the morning.

“You and your son deserve happiness, after all, isn’t there there is enough sunshine for everyone,” said Hana, as she hugged Edith.

The war ended, and many folks danced and kissed their way up and down Montrose Avenue. Edith watched most of it from the safety and sterility of her apartment window. She couldn’t party until she knew her boy was home and safe.

It was in the Spring of 1946, that George, a single man, who had also been captured by the Japanese, moved into Edith’s apartment block. George tended to keep himself to himself, but on the odd occasion when Edith passed him in the corridor, Edith would exchange a ‘hello’. She was desperate to ask if he had seen or talked to her son, but she never seemed to get the chance.

So it was in shock that Edith found herself in the backyard of the apartment block that sultry summer in 1946, staring into the face of George as he held a knife to Hana’s throat.

“Goddamn Japs! Ain’t no good. Ain’t no good at all, with what these folks done to me,” shouted George as he pressed the knife closer to Hana’s neck. Edith was sure she could see some blood appearing. From a top window across the way, a woman signalled to Edith that she was going for help. Until then, Edith would have to think of something quick.

“This woman, George – can I call you George? – This woman saved the life of my boy right outside here a few years back,” said Edith.
“Don’t care if she did, don’t care if she didn’t,” said George. “She’s a Jap and they all deserve to die.”
“Why George?” Asked Edith.
“Just ‘cause, just ‘cause. Just ‘cause of what they did to me and every other poor soul. They is the devil. They is the devil. They surely are”. Edith noticed a tear running down George’s face, and so decided that now was the time to act.
“She saved my boy’s life, George. What kind of devil does that George? Tell me? You can’t blame Hana for the sins of others. She’s a kind decent heart and deserves to be treated as such. She grew up here, George. She’s an American. She’s proud of being an American. She is love, George. Love. You understand?  After she saved my boy’s life, she sat with him day and night tending to his every need. She’s an angel, George. She ain’t a devil.  Know what she said to me, George? Hana said we all deserve happiness. Each and every one of us. I know folks out there did some pretty bad things to you, George. Things you might not forgive, but it wasn’t Hana. Not this gently lady. Hana said to me that there’s enough sunshine for everyone and I think she’s right George. I surely do”.

George thought for a bit, then dropped to his knees. Edith picked up the knife and threw the object as far as she could. The cops never arrived that day and a few weeks later George disappeared.

Edith still stands on the steps of her apartment waiting for her boy, Eugene to walk home up Montrose avenue.  She still has hope in her heart.

bobby stevenson 2018

The Last Person on Earth

He ate his tin of beans and gently thought about things. Was life an exciting adventure, or was it, in all truth, just a lot of crap? He certainly wouldn’t be doing it again, that was for sure – assuming that you could do it again.

He had been on his own for the longest of times. He had been pot-holing in a very deep hole in the ground when it had happened. The war, followed by the floods due to all the dams and waterworks that had no one to look after them. 

He believed at first, that there could have been more pot-holers who had survived that fateful day and that he would eventually run into them.

The nearest thing he’d seen to a living person was a shark which had swum past the building he was now in – but that had been a long time ago. Since then, nothing and no one.

He would go down to the ground when he needed more cans – he would try to drink out of bottles found in stores, rather than use the rain water. Yet what was he being precious about? The water could only kill him, and he was going to go eventually.

He’d organised a soccer world cup in the last few weeks – where he, naturally, played in every team. So far, the first semi-final was between Kazakhstan and Barbados – that’s just the way it had worked out. He originally had three footballs and two of them had been kicked over the edge in his excitement. The footballs had disappeared by the time he had gotten to the jungle floor below. 

He imagined they had been stolen by a group of pygmies who had survived the war. He always imagined others to talk to, or even just to see now and again.
The loneliness was killing him – probably, literally.

He had long since realised that as he was possibly the only living thing in the world, then what he liked, and what he disliked, would represent the rest of humanity. All those millennia of genius – Shakespeare, Einstein, Plato, Newton…. well you get the picture - and yet it was only the tastes and knowledge of one, Johnny Cribs that would be remembered if any aliens arrived.

He had decided that the Monty Python theme tune – The Liberty Bell – would be the World’s Anthem. He decreed, that no one was to ever read a Dan Brown book as long as Johnny Cribs was President of the entire planet.

On Wednesday mornings, Black Sabbath was to be played in every home and at the stroke of midday, Rammstein, the band, was the order of the day, afterwards.

Just like in the book, 1984, James Blunt (not that he was in the book, just the principle of the thing) was to be struck from all records – James Blunt never had, nor ever would exist.

In the early days, he had walked as far as the national stadium – much of it had fallen down or had been washed away – but as far as Cribs was concerned his team had won the League and the Cup for the last five years – and dared anyone to argue with him.

He had saved some books from a large bookstore which had once stood on a corner nearby. He hadn’t got around to reading anything – in fact, he was using some of the books to sit on. He had (and he didn’t want to appear like a Nazi) but had burned some of them to keep warm. The rest he’d keep for the later years.

There was no electricity – not since the war. He had stayed alive by eaten from tin cans – or aluminium – or whatever the hell it was. Mostly beans. Always gave him indigestion.  

He had plans that once the soccer world cup was finished, he would start a ‘This Roof Has Talent’ competition – where he would play all the talent and the judges. He decided he would play Simon Cowell as a decent and reasonable human being – because Johnny thought that would have annoyed him.

Before the world cup, he had the whole roof (him) involved in Big Brother – he had voted himself out on every occasion.

And that is when it struck, Johnny – in the good old days, he hadn’t actually noticed the world  – he had been too busy on his phone, his pad, his computer and his television to see it.

Now it was too late.

Still he had the other soccer semi-final to look forward to:  Ireland versus Hawaii (he was sure he had heard that Hawaii was a country on a tv quiz programme).  

One day, someone would come. Until then.....

bobby stevenson 2017.
Painting by Ivo VanDeGrift