EMILY’S SECRET

“She stole my albums!” I screamed, over and over, when I discovered that Emily Pffeifer took all 200+ oldies-but-goodies with her when she left, the week before. This included my Rubber Soul; Beatles album, Blue Gene; Gene Pitney album, Bobby Vee, The Lettermen, Janice Joplin at the Texas Pop Festival (!), Roy Orbison, The Beach Boys, Chicago, and more, all gone, gone . She came from Pennsylvania but she was moving to Canada. I had no idea how to find her and get her arrested for stealing my albums.

My adventures with Emily began that cold, snowy night in early March when my sister got a job in another state and had to renege on the rent/roommate situation, the two of us had going. She found Emily within 24 hours because she felt badly leaving me alone with the house in Tesuque, New Mexico.

Emily was in the downtown Santa Fe, La Fonda bar. She heard I was “looking for a roommate” from my sister and jumped at the chance because she was traveling and had no belongings with her other than her suitcase and backpack and her car. She telephoned me and we made plans to meet at the house the next day to see if she wanted to live there. I allowed her to have a month-to-month lease.

The house was nestled in a small Spanish neighborhood up the road in Tesuque from Arts, a local grocery store that boasted, “You Can’t Beat our Meat”. It was an old light green adobe with 3 bedrooms, a bathroom you could lie down in and a kitchen that had so many cabinets I could not begin to fill them all! Behind the house was the trailer home that the owners lived in. The backyard was shared with the owners and their three large, but nice dogs. In front of the house was the arroyo that turned into raging floodwaters every afternoon when it rained but was a road when it wasn’t raining. I had to leave early most days for job in a restaurant in town in Santa Fe because if I waited too long and the afternoon rain began, my little red Volkswagen Beetle couldn’t make it in all that water.

Emily liked the room right away and moved her few belongings into the comfy, sunny bedroom with the double bed and white lace dust ruffle. It was such a nice girlie-room. And it was directly across from the bathroom. I always had to sprint down the hallway from the bathroom to my bedroom but my bedroom was larger, anyway. And I had a front door to the dirt arroyo right in the room! It had originally been the living room but I liked the configuration with it being better utilized. We had a small living room off the kitchen, anyway.

In the beginning, after Emily moved in, I was home a lot. Even though I worked in town, I loved the quiet peacefulness of Tesuque and I enjoyed staying at home. Within a few months, however, I fell in love with a boy eight years younger than I. We couldn’t bear to be apart. He had a small apartment in Santa Fe so I stayed there most of the time. Some weekends we came out to the house in Tesuque where Emily always greeted us with a smile. I never felt like we had as much privacy there, even though I had a door that closed (but didn’t lock).

One afternoon, out of the blue, Emily confronted me in a hostile way. She demanded to know why I didn’t come home very often. She asked if I realized how much that hurt her feelings and that she had “needed me”. She commented on how much I worked and how she didn’t like my boyfriend. It was very peculiar. I hardly knew the woman!

My boyfriend didn’t like Emily, either. He showed me the toilet bowl and how the rim had Emily’s trimmed pubic hairs all around it, all around it. It happened many, many times, too. Emily started staying in her room after her confrontation with me. I came home more often, not to appease her but because I was afraid she was going to rip me off.

One afternoon she declared, with great drama, that she was leaving, much to my relief. She declared that she would pack her car that evening and drive to Canada. I stuck around but I stayed mostly in my bedroom until I heard her car drive away on the gravel of the arroyo. I looked around the house and everything seemed to still be there. I decided I’d strip the bed the next morning before work. I went to bed early and slept that kind of sleep when you are so damn glad someone is gone out of your life!

The next morning I took my shower, got dressed and went into Emily’s ex-room and pulled down the sheets on her ex-bed. On top of the mattress were several bath towels folded, in the middle of the mattress. I pulled them and underneath was the biggest, wettest pee stain you ever saw. I gagged at the smell and flung the drenched towels across the room, involuntarily! I pulled the mattress off the box springs. The beautiful dust ruffle was soaked in urine as well as the box springs and the carpet directly beneath the middle of the bed! The dust ruffle was molded and ruined with the center literally dissolving.

Because I didn’t have time to do anything about it, I threw away the sheets and the dust ruffle and took the mattress and the box springs outside to air and leaned them up against the side of the house. I knocked on my landlady’s door to tell her why the mattress was outside but she had gone to work. I left for work, absolutely shocked at my discovery of Emily’s secret.

When I came home from work, it looked like it had snowed in our backyard. There was white fluff everywhere. As I drove inside, I saw the mattress lying face-up on the dirt driveway with the center eaten out. The dogs were lounging about, exhausted from their escapade of destroying the mattress. The landlady came screaming out of her trailer demanding to know what happened. Oh my. Where to begin. I knew I wasn’t going to get my deposit back.

I went inside to pee and noticed the toilet bowl rim had trimmed pubic hairs all over it. I went inside the now empty bedroom and gagged from the old urine smell, now very evident, from the stained carpet. I went my bedroom, sat down on the bed and glanced at my little glass bowl with my earrings in it. The pair that my son had given me, the first gift he ever picked out for me, the kitten earrings were gone. Emily knew how much I treasured them. GONE!

It was several days later that I decided to listen to my albums. I set up my easel and my paints and looked inside the shelves..... and they were completely empty. She was somewhere in Canada......

Several years later, a friend who met Emily (only once) brought her name up. She asked if Emily had ever gotten over her crush on me. What? Hmmmmmm? She told me how Emily had professed love for me. My friend told her to keep it to herself. Really, I had no idea. Neither did my boyfriend.

PICK ME-UP

PICK ME-UP
I dragged myself into the main bar with my money total for the night from the service bar in the adjoining restaurant, attending to my last duty; to pass on the money info to the bartender who would then give the final total to the owner who sat at a table with her friends, holding court, directly under an old wooden cross.

I was exhausted. I just finished a twelve-hour shift as the inside service bartender. I was in no mood to have to talk to the owner or be bothered by anything other than handing over my totals.

Sure enough, I was called over to the table and asked to join the group. This occasion didn’t happen very often. And, there was a handsome younger man sitting next to Rosalea, the owner. I inched my way around the large, round table. Rosalea’s friends (the regulars) never spoke to me anyway so that was nothing new, a little uncomfortable perhaps, but not any different. But she introduced me to the handsome younger guy!

When I heard his name, I remembered the things I’d heard about him through the years. He was very intriguing, besides looking like Robert Redford, and tall, about 6’2” or taller. He was a gambler, loved casinos, traveled all over the world and was originally from Texas. He almost had a schoolboy quality about him. Nice.

I admiringly stared at him as he spoke to the people on the other side of the table. He looked pretty damn good in profile, too. I sipped my wine unnoticed, transfixed by the conversations, but dreading my long drive home, 23 miles southeast of town.

After what seemed like forever, someone got up from the table and it was the perfect out for me, pleading exhaustion. I said goodnight to everyone and clearly needed to go home!

Rosalea insisted the young man walk me to my car! He stood right up and like a gentleman, smiled, did a little bow and took my arm. I was relieved because my car was parked on a dark narrow street and it was best to be safe. Once you rounded that corner, you couldn‘t really be seen or heard that easily. I was used to it because I parked there nightly. But hey, I was walking next to this handsome, fabulous man. I wasn’t complaining.

When we approached my car, we walked slower. I leaned against the car, a little seductively, too. I looked up at that handsome face and he leaned forward and I thought "Oh goody, he is going to kiss me". I leaned upward, away from the car. As I did, with his one hand he cupped my pubic area and with the other hand he cupped my buttox and clasped his fingers in the middle (thank God I was wearing pants) and lifted me up, rendering me helpless with my arms perpendicular to his chest! He PICKED ME UP! INTO THE AIR! A veritable crotch-lift!!!!

I was taken completely by surprise and the glass of wine slowed me a bit because at first I couldn’t even imagine what just happened. Yet his cupped hands in my nether region gave proof that this was just plain weird! He was lifting me high enough that my feet were off the ground, my legs were dangling and I was sideways!!!

“Stop it!”, I screamed, hysterically.

“Stop it!”

Stop it!!”

“Put me DOWN!”

“Put me DOWN!”

“Put me dowwwwwwwwn!”

And he did, suddenly. He stood still, right there in front of me, and watched as I became one very pissed off woman!

I went into some kind of a karate mode, bent over at the waist, arms out wide, flailing, hysterical. My eyes narrowed and I was a hissy, snarlling mess.

“Ommmmmgh!”

“Irrrrkkkkkkk!”

“Arrrrrgh”

I couldn’t speak! I was so angry and so shocked that I could not form a sentence.

And, he straightened his shirt, turned a half circle, farted and went back to the restaurant just as if nothing had happened.

I was still posed in karate stance, shaking. How would I ever tell Rosalea what her friend just did to me? It’d be just my luck that she would love it. No, no, I had just been molested, sort of.

The next day I summoned up the courage and told her of the horrific incident after a sleepless night of worrying what she might do/say. After all, I had been molested! I was VERY upset! I had tears in my eyes for extra effect, as I related the whole sordid story to her.

She laughed and laughed.

"Lamy Butte, After the Storm"

"Lamy Butte, After the Storm", oil on canvas, 10 x 14"

"Striations"

‎"Striations", acrylic on linen, 6 x 12" (not framed) $250

"Near Galisteo"

"Near Galisteo", 6 x 12", acrylic on linen, $250

"Sandstone Outcropping"

"Sandstone Outcropping", 12 x 6" , acrylic on linen, $250

"Condemned"

"Goodbye Judith", oil on canvas, 24 x 18", $600



CONDEMNED


I lived with such cowardly, small-minded, male roommates.

They were SO relived when I moved into the house. Believe me! It was up to ME to kill the spiders!

I found the ad for a “roomie” at a kiosk in the University of Arizona’s Student Union building. I just arrived in Tucson and needed a place to stay. I was going back to college.

Two brothers, one nineteen and the other twenty-one were renting a three-bedroom house close to the University. They needed another roommate and the accommodations looked good to me. My bedroom was to be the one at the end of the hallway, with a backdoor and a teensy bathroom. I really didn’t need to go into the main house (and I rarely ever did until my roomies got the BeJesus scared out of them!).

I was a bit wary of their comment (when they found out I was thirty-three), “Oh good, it’ll be just like Mom is here”.

The house was roomy. The living room furniture was yellow Naugahyde sofas and a very heavy coffee table. No other furniture and nothing on the walls. Ugh. But it had a large picture window and a tiny front porch. The dining room was next to the kitchen with a door between the two.

The boys lived in the master bedroom. It was a large bedroom with a bathroom. At the end of the hall was my smallish bedroom with another door right next to mine, leading into another bedroom that was empty when I first moved in.

Within a month Cesar from Puerto Rico leased the room.

I went to school all day, every day except Sunday. Then I rushed home on my one-speed bicycle to shower. Then, in the 110 degree heat, I raced back to almost the same location as where I’d been, to go to work until midnight at a college bar/restaurant. I repeated the process, day after hot day.

Each night I walked in my back door, down the very dark hallway into the very dark kitchen and turned on the light. I back-tracked down the hallway where the light was located near the living room and turned on that light and then got comfortable in the kitchen. I usually had a glass of wine (the boys didn’t like wine so I could be sure they weren’t going to drink any. I kept my peanut butter in my lingerie drawer so they wouldn’t eat that but had my suspicions if that had been a good hiding place. I caught one of them one day, smelling my panties. I found another location for the peanut butter).

I cooked pinto beans almost daily. I was broke and ate most meals at the restaurant where I worked. But I had to hide things from my roommates. I didn’t trust them.

The boys were also broke, hungry and drank a LOT of beer. They were never home until just after I came in, saying they’d been at the library or something along those lines. Then we’d all laugh and sit around the lighted kitchen table, until I came off my work buzz and was ready to fall into bed. They never stayed up later than I did. They also left the hall light on and I’d wake up at night and go turn it off.

Cesar was rarely there and if he was, he was with a girl. He came in the kitchen door and went directly to his room. He had no bathroom. I guessed he either bothered the boys for use of their bathroom or peed off the front porch. I never asked.

One night I commented on how odd it was the brothers got home right after I did and at about the same time of the night, every night. They confessed they waited in their car until I got home and turned on the lights. Wha........?

“Don’t you hear the little dinner bell”? one of the brothers asked me.

“Dinner bell?” I howled with laughter wondering what the hell he was referring to.

“When we are here alone, even if we are sitting in the living room, we hear a tiny dinner bell. We hear it in our bedroom, too, and in the kitchen when you’re not here”.

Well, I started to think they were crazy. But they both looked so scared!

“If you’re going to be here on Sunday, we’ll show you the basement. You can see the jars for yourself!”

I had seen the basement the first day I moved in but only for a second. The door to it was next to the brother’s bedroom on the living room end. As I remembered, it had about four steps down with a railing and a water heater taking up ½ of the small space. There was a dingy window, but the steps were newly painted and it looked very clean. That was all I saw.

That Sunday I went to see the jars with the boys not entering the basement, hiding behind the door and pointing the way. I had no idea what each jar contained but there were about 30 Mason jars filled with various stuff mostly of a red/brown color, all nicely spaced on four shelves alongside the railing. What the heck? I touched one of the jars and got so freaked out I had to leave the basement. It was all I could do not to roar up the steps and barricade myself in my bedroom! C-R-E-E-P-Y!

I assured the boys someone had been making jelly and left the jars behind and not to worry about it. They were already terrified of the “dinner bell”.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the jars. I told Cesar about it when he got home one day a week later and showed him the jars. Being a believer in voodoo, he was mortified. We didn’t know who to show the jars to (police?) so we agreed to let it go and not worry about something that clearly wasn’t our business. He didn’t know about the “dinner bell” and I wasn’t going to tell him. I needed some bravado in the house. He was as close as I was going to get.

I started seeing less and less of the brothers. Cesar came home more and more. I stayed in my room mostly and did my homework on my bed with my door into the hallway open, so the swamp cooler would work properly.

It was annoying to have Cesar in such close proximity with his salsa music and singing and going inside and out (many times he would ask to use my door). I nicely asked him to quiet down; he was a good roomie and I tried to be patient.

One afternoon he asked to use my door and said he was leaving for something to eat and did I want him to bring back anything. Oh Yeah! I was giddy with anticipation of something other than peanut butter to eat, as I sat on my bed, drawing my right foot for an art project.

About twenty minutes later, I heard Cesar enter through the front door and walk down to his bedroom door and open it. I was so engrossed in my baby toe I’d lost that enthusiasm for food.

I heard him scream, “What the fuck?” And that got my attention.

I bounded off my bed to see what Cesar brought for me and he was standing in the center of his room, his mouth open with shock and awe. Then I noticed how trashed his room was. He was always so meticulous so it was surprising to see this side of him.

“Why did you do this?” he asked me. Me!

“What did I do?” I asked, astonished!

“You tore my room apart!” I looked all around the room. Coins were everywhere, chairs overturned, his stereo on the floor with a few albums busted. His sheets were torn off, clothes everywhere.

“I’ve been drawing this whole time! I never got off my bed”. I was totally shocked.

The brothers came in the house, heard all the commotion and came down the hall toward us. They pointed to Cesar’s bedroom door and we all looked in horror to see the word “Condemned” carved (carved!) in the front of the door.

I said, “I would have seen that! I would have heard something! I was cattycorner from that door, drawing my foot on my bed!”

Cesar turned to the brothers “You did this!” and grabbed one of them by the collar and they were off and tumbling down the hallway, I was screaming! The other brother jumped both of them and punches ensued and blood was on the living room wall and I was still screaming!

They all parted and we stood in the hallway, facing each other. One of the brothers had a broken nose and Cesar had a black eye. We were breathing heavily from all the exertion and violence of it all. Blood was everywhere....oh the clean up! I was worried immediately about our deposit on the house! What just happened?

And then the dinner bell rang..........

"Near Silver City"

new painting, 64 x 36", acrylic on canvas, $2800

"Gerbers"

acrylic on canvas 12 x 12" $350

"White Orchids"

acrylic on paper Unframed 15 x 11 $300

"Last Blooms"

acrylic on canvas 18 x 12" $400

"Snoozer"

oil on canvas 40 x 48", c. 1985 $2000

"Temporarily Stranded"

acrylic on canvas 48 x 40" $1600

"Black Mesa in December"

acrylic on canvas 22 x 28" $750

"Tumbleweed"

"Tumbleweed" acrylic on canvas 30 x 40 $1200

"Summer Agave"

"Summer Agave" acrylic on canvas 30 x 40" $1200

"Down the Street, Pregnant with Pears"

acrylic on canvas 40 x 48" SOLD

"Cindy's Garden"

acrylic on canvas 20 x 16" SOLD

"Sandias"

acrylic on canvas 24 x 30" $900

"Unrelentingly Cheerful"

acrylic on linen 9 x 12" $200

"Datura in the Morning"

acrylic on canvas 30 x 40" $1200

"Bloomin' Prickly Pear"

acrylic on canvas 20 x 16" $500

"Red Cliffs on the Way to Jemez Springs"

acrylic on cardboard 16 x 20" $300

"Fenton Lake Morning"

acrylic on canvas 30 x 40" $1200

"Thumb"

acrylic on canvas 12 x 24" $400

"Yucca"

acrylic on watercolor paper 18 x 12" $300

"On Enchanted Highway"

acrylic on canvas 15 x 30" $500

"Rock Garden"

acrylic on canvas 48 x 36" SOLD

"From The Top"

acrylic and pastel on posterboard 28 x 22" $300

"Snow Cactus"

acrylic on canvas 18 x 24" $500

"Red-Tipped Agave"

acrylic on canvas 33 x 50" SOLD

"Steve's View"

pastel on paper 22 x 29" $600

"New Mexico River"

"Stacy Park"

chalk pastel on paper, 2009 12" x 18"

"Green Bean Casserole"

chalk pastel on sandpaper

"My Bad Neighbor"

"Albuquerque Sink"

"Platform Shoe"

"Queen"

"Hollyhocks and Blue Flax"

"After the Storm"

chalk pastel/paper approx 12 x 18"

"Spider Web, Kailua Kona, HI"

This is a watercolor about 24 x 18, circa 1977

Stacy Park Live Oak

A fun day at Stacy Park last week. This was my demo for my Painting in the Parks class (chalk pastel/paper).

"Hazel's Rooms"

This is NOT the "Goat Sofa" but rather a new painting, acrylic on canvasboard 20 x 16" and sold to Hazel Smith. I love it.

"Bull Creek '09"

This is yesterdays demo for my Painting in the Parks class. It is acrylic/canvasboard, 16 x 20"

"Leaves on Bickler Road"

"Creek Bottom"

acrylic/canvasboard 20 x 16"

"Pease Park '09"

Yesterday's demonstration painting for my new Painting in the Parks class.
Acrylic/canvasboard 20 x 16"

"Two Shoes"

24 x 18" acrylic/cardboard

"The Bug Killer"

24 x 18" acrylic/cardboard

"Dart Blower in Clovis, NM"

18 x 24" acrylic/cardboard