For the Moon in Cancer… a house story:

It was February, 2007 and I was wearing the ugly pants I’d worn to fly across America and meet the soldier. I hadn’t seen him in more than 25 years and we were sitting in a truck in front of a laundromat. I had the song “Trudy and Dave” playing in my head. Trudy and Dave are John Hiatt’s outlaw couple who shot up a teller machine, took the money for the laundry and drove away clean, but never mind that…

“Well, I’ll tell you what I plan to do,” he said.

“Tell me.”

“I’m going to go… well you know where I’m going, doncha, P?”

“I do.”

“And when I get there I’m going to build a house. It’s going to be all on one level in case I go blind. Because I may go blind. You know this, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And I don’t care if I do. I won’t mind being blind just as long as I’ve got my place built and I’m used to it. I’ll need to know my way around. Because I won’t want to be dependent in any way if I can help it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. So I figure I’ll build a Spanish style house, one level. Actually I’m going to build two houses but they’ll be connected. They’ll be a hallway in the back where they’re connected and in the middle of the whole thing, there’ll be a patio. You know. They’ll be some grass in there… maybe a bbq.”

“Two houses?”

“Yeah. I’m going to build two houses. One of them will be for you,” he said.

I chuckled. “Me?”

“Yeah, you.” He reached into his pocket for a pen and a pad. ‘Wanna see it? I’ll sketch it for you. I’ll show you what I have in mind and you can tell me what you think.”

“But I live in Colorado.”

“I know. But I’m hoping you’ll come to where I’m living, eventually. It may take awhile, a few years. It may take five. I expect it probably will but I’m going to do this anyway and the whole time between now and then I’ll be trying to talk you into coming,” he said.

I stared.

“Well, P, you know how it is. I don’t know what else can be done. You have your kids for one thing. And they’ve got their father there. You’re not going to do anything to mess your kids up and either am I. We don’t want to do that so this is going to take awhile on account of that alone. And it may not ever happen.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it’s going to take so long. And you’ll probably have a million boyfriends between now and whenever this can happen. Lord knows how many men you’ll run through because you attract them like flies. You attract men in droves and you may meet one you like but I’m still going to do this. I aim to do it and I’m going to do it.”

“You think you’re going to build a house and then import me?”

“Yeah. Well actually I’m going to build a house for sure. I don’t think that, I know that. And then I’m going to import you if I can. I’m going to try my best to get you to come but really P, it may not be that hard. For one thing, I think you may want to be with me but I also think you’re going to like this house. I’m going to make it as nice as I can,” he said, pointing at his sketch. “This will be a nice house, I promise. I’m going to die in it so you know. It’s going to be nice and you’re going to like it.”

“I see. So why 2 houses? Why not one house if it’s for you and I?”

“Well once I do this I’m not going to move again. Never. I’m going to die in this house so when you kick me out, I’m going to need somewhere to go.”

“Kick you out?”

“Well yeah. I know I’m going to get kicked out of this place,’ he said. “You’ll be kicking me out for sure and probably more than once.”

I laughed.

“Yep. You’ll say get your ass out of here and I’ll say, fine. And then I’ll just go to my side of the house and you can do whatever you want. Go out. Get another man. Move. Stay. You can do whatever you want but I’m not going to move…”

“Why do you think I would do that? I haven’t thrown anyone out of a house for 20 years,” I said interrupting him.

“I know you haven’t but we’re not talking about someone else are we, P? We’re talking about me. Me, you throw out. Me, you yell at and scream at and probably try to kill.”

I stared.

“Well, I’m sorry but it’s true. For some reason there are times I piss you off like… oh, you get so mad. You just get mad as hell like I guess doesn’t happen with other men. But it happens with me so I’ve got to protect myself. Kick me out if you want but I am not moving. I am going nowhere once I am in this house. Not until I die. I am dying either here,” he said pointing to his drawing, “or on a battlefield.”

“Well maybe you’re right. But if I do decide to come to your Hacienda hopefully I could restrain myself.”

“No need!” he said with a big grin. “There is no need to restrain yourself, P, there is no need for that at all. You want to kick me out, you go right ahead! It’s not going to make any difference to me. I’ll just go over to my side of the house and you can shut and lock the door. These are going to be two complete living quarters, so we can do this. You can throw me out and I can go and neither of us are going to have any problem at all.”

“I see.”

“And then if decide you miss me and you want to see me again, then fine. We’ll just open the door and go back to sharing one living space. We’ll live together again if that’s what we want to do. If I am not too pissed at you, that is.”

I glared and he laughed.

“I’m just kidding. I don’t get pissed at you, P. Almost never. Just that once.”

“When I called you a cock?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded.

“So tell me. What do you think of this place? Do you like it? Do you think you might want to live here? If you don’t like it I can try to come up with something else but I think this right here is pretty good.”