"Alice"

THE OWL by Layla Edwards

Thursday February 2 2006


I was swimming in my lane yesterday, pool was practically empty on such chilly morning, when Alice arrived, just the girl I wanted to see. “Alice” I said “I want to ask your advice about something.”


My friend Gina from internet sent me email asking me to buy her a silver and malachite pendant to go on a necklace, she will reimburse me. So when I saw Alice yesterday I said “my friend Gina wants a pendant which is malachite and silver.” Alice said “the gem show is in town, I will look for malachite and silver pendant for your friend.” She said the girl who made my necklace has been her friend for 30 years, she is an Indian and married to our State Senator. Alice said she used to make jewelry and she likes her own jewelry even better than her friend's.


And then without missing a beat, somehow what went on was the story of Alice’s whole life. No writer on earth could reproduce what Alice told me as we swam back and forth in the lanes. And she did not tell it in an orderly way. Apparently there were two main chapters but she kept saying one detail from one chapter and another detail from another chapter.



The first chapter, she was married to sound engineer in New York City. The sound studio was behind Lincoln Center. Alice thought it was owned by a famous singer, but someone told her it was really owned by Tammy who Alice never met. And Alice is outraged now that she heard Tammy is living as bag woman in Central Park. She thinks the sound studio was stolen from Tammy. All the stories of the sound studio era involve millions, mayhem, and even violence. Cars going after cars when they went to Jamaica, and her neck got broken. She and her husband broke up but they had a beautiful son together. Alice said she worked on 4 songs which were on the Hit Parade.



The next chapter is 25 years living in the Yucatan where she was kidnapped by a big Indian Chief and became his wife. Altho he was such a big Indian Chief, Alice was not his only wife, which was what upset her. They had beautiful son together too. Living with the Indians in the Yucatan is where Alice learned to speak Indian, to weave, and to make her own jewelry. She said she likes to be creative. “Most people want stones which are dull color and match, who wants that! it looks like string of pearls, I like vivid colors and odd shapes for stones.”



As far as I can make out there was violence in the Yucatan too. She got robbed there. She said “in Mexico if you yell out ‘help’ no one will come, but if you yell out ‘vagina’ everyone will come.” That tickled my funny bone. “Thanks for the useful info Alice, I will remember that when I get to Mexico, yell out vagina when I want help.” But she didn’t get my joke. She said how she had met an Indian there and he said “your vagina needs help, let me examine it.” That is what led her to explain how yelling out vagina is the way to get help in Mexico. She got concerned when I said “now I know what to do when I get to Mexico.” She said “you don’t know how handsome those Indians are, it is unbelievable, but they are Romeos, they will break your heart, you will be taken in by them.” I wasn’t worried about being taken in by handsome Indian Romeos, I have my Higher Self plus I am happy with Bill.



After long tales of mayhem and violence things began to settle down when she began to talk about raising her two sons. It sounds like she had a happy home with them even tho neither husband helped out. The son of the Yucatan Indian Chief lives in Tucson and is straight as anyone can be, wears designer clothes, drives a designer sports car, is married and has two kids. The son of the sound engineer lives in NYC. “His girlfriend is Puerto Rican but she won’t pick up her clothes or cook meals or clean the house.” “She sounds like me” I said to Alice, and Alice was shocked I am like that.



She can’t figure out why the son of the Indian Chief is such a neat freak. “I never raised my sons like that, we had happy relaxed home, he has one of those empty houses where everything is put away out of sight.” She said because she raised both sons without a father in the home they each think they are her father. When she told her New York son yesterday she put in the concrete to make a driveway, she got scolded. “Concrete attracts damp, mother, and beside you’re not supposed to be working with concrete.” “What damp!” she said to me, “we live on the desert, it is dry as a bone here.”



By now we were moving into normal life. Alice confided she watches television now. “I never watched television before” she said, “I don’t know what is happening to me.” “I like science fiction” she said. “I like ‘Matlock’ and ‘Murder She Wrote’” I said. And then Alice talked about the TV shows she watches. Alice confided she is looking for a boyfriend but wonders if she has a chance at 62. I said “Alice, my friend Helen who lives in Hawaii who has a solution to everything told me this.”


And to my shock, Alice, who had been lost for a solid hour in mayhem and violence and vagina and being kidnapped by big Indian chiefs in the Yucatan jungle, moved very close to me to hear every word about what my friend Helen said about finding a boyfriend when you are 62. I told Alice I had told my friend Helen I was extremely upset to notice that the woman Bush chose for the Supreme Court had lost all her prettiness and she was my age. And Helen said, “Anne last night ‘Hillside Blues’ was on, it was a rerun. The young man was arrested for stealing his aunt’s money. The young man said ‘why am I arrested, my 62 year old aunt has men in the house all the time, she put up a personal ad saying, if you want great sex call me up, the result is there are men in the house all the time, go ask them if they took her money.’ So the handsome young detective went to interview the aunt, then he had an affair with her, and then he married her.”



Alice was immensely relieved and happy to hear that. She said “I do go out with young men all the time but they grab my ass and my breasts and I don’t like that.” I said “there is no reason why they can’t behave like gentlemen, wait till you find the right guy.” “But I don’t like to go to bars” she said. “You never find anyone in a bar” I said. “I come here to the club and I haven’t met anyone here I like.” “Just be patient” I said. She said “I have no experience in picking the right man.”



I said “where did you grow up Alice?” She said “New York.” I said “I am from New York too, which part?” She said “our sound stage was right behind Lincoln Center.” I said “which part of New York did you grow up in, which high school did you go to?” She said “I was born in Syracuse.” I said “my mom came from Rochester.” She said “my grandfather had a department store there but it went out of business.” She said “my dad was Mayor.” “Mayor of what?” I asked. “Mayor of Syracuse and Rochester” and she named another town.



I said to Bill in the car “does Alice exaggerate?” “Why?” he said. “She said her dad was mayor of Syracuse and two other towns, you can’t be mayor of 3 towns all at once.” “Maybe it wasn’t all at once” he said.



“She said she did a 1000 hours of work for free for a man on his film at Tucson Access Studio and when she asked him to get her a container of coffee he said ‘I don’t owe you anything bitch,’ and she was so upset she went outside to have a cigarette. She said ‘don’t tell Bill I had a cigarette, he disapproves of smoking.’ I said ‘my Bill?’ she said ‘yes.’ I said ‘but I smoke a lot of cigarettes, when Bill wants a cigarette he comes to me, he only smokes 3 or 4, but I am internet addict and smoke all the time on the computer.’ She said ‘I didn’t know you smoked cigarettes Anne, OK I will admit to you I went outside and had a cigarette.’”



I said to Bill “I didn’t know you were one of those people who tell people to give up cigs when they admit they smoke cigs.” Bill went apoplectic in the car. “I never once mentioned cigarettes to Alice in the steam room. Where did she get that idea? Maybe she meant the other Bill, but the other Bill smokes cigars all the time and besides he isn’t like that. There is another Bill from New York City, he doesn’t like smoke, maybe Alice means him.”


Bill was so upset at hearing Alice said he disapproved of smoking and tries to make people stop, that he lost interest in whether Alice’s dad really was mayor of 3 cities. He kept returning to the smoking topic, trying to figure out where Alice got the idea. I was going to tell him Alice said if I ever need help in Mexico just yell out vagina, but Bill is Catholic, Catholics never find sex funny.