Chopin – Nocturne in E Flat Major (Op. 9 No. 2)
Dilsey Murphy made her way back to Val’s usual seat on the bus the first thing in the morning. Usually Valerie rode to school of a morning with Ricky in his hand-me-down Ford Fiesta, but he had football practice after school on Mondays through Thursdays. So, Val was available to sit with Dilsey on a cold Tuesday morning in October.
“Hello, Dils. Something the matter?”
“It’s Blueberry. She’s sick this morning. Not going to school like usual.”
“How’s Mike taking it? Worried?”
Mike Murphy was Dilsey’s younger brother. Blueberry Bates was his eighth-grade lady love. They were always together like salt and pepper shakers on a restaurant table.
“He’s devastated. The Bates sisters took Blue to the emergency room last night. She’s in the hospital now.”
“Oh, that’s terrible! We’ll have to go visit her as soon as possible.”
“She’s not conscious. Maybe a coma…”
Dilsey sat down next to Valerie and the first thing Val did was put an arm around her and pull her in close. Dilsey laid her head on Val’s shoulder. Tears followed.
It’s funny how things work in real life. Not so long ago it was Val in tears, laying her head on Mary Philips’ shoulder. Then Mary had been the actual leader of the Norwall Pirates, the infamous liars’ club. But when Mary was going away to college, she didn’t turn to any of the boys to lead the club. She asked Valerie to do it. And then Val shouldered the responsibility until she finally handed the leadership of the infamous werewolf chasers and undead wizard whackers off to her cousin, the Terrible Timothy.
“Is it enough just to hold you like this? Or is there something you wanna talk about?”
“Holding me helps. Did I tell you I kissed him?”
“On your date?”
“Yeah. After the movie.”
“That’s sweet. But don’t let him take advantage of you.”
“I know… he’s a boy. And he tells a lot of lies.”
“Big ones… black in color… with hair on them… and sometimes spider legs.”
Through the tears, Dilsey chuckled at “spider legs.”
“But he has a good heart.”
“He does. You know he was pretty awful to Blueberry about the whole transgender thing, though.”
“Yeah. Blue has never really been a boy. But it was hard for him to accept that when he found out she was born with a penis.”
“Empathy for others was never something he was good at.”
“The Bates sisters convinced him though. They showed him the x-rays that showed that Blue also had malformed ovaries. She was only a boy on the outside part.”
“I didn’t know that. I always thought she just needed to be a girl that badly.”
“Do you think it’s easier to be a boy than it is to be a girl?” Dilsey looked up at Val and the tears were gone.
“I suppose it is to be your brother Danny. He always sees the funny side of everything and life is mostly one big joke to him.”
“Yeah, but my brother Mike is the opposite. He takes things way too seriously. He fights with Mom more than any of the rest of us. And he really loves Blue, even though he tells me how much he struggles to understand her most of time. Mom couldn’t force him to go to school today because Blue is in the hospital.”
“Mike is a gallant young man. You’re right. It must be harder to be him than it is to be either of us.”
“I wouldn’t want to be Tim either. It has to be hard to be that smart and that imaginative all the time.”
“I suppose you’re right. More than half of all the weird things the Pirates have done over the years happened because of what was going on in Tim’s evil brain.”
“His brain’s not evil, Val. He has a good brain.”
“Sure he does. And it’s a fine thing for you to admire him for it. I just say things like that ‘cause… you know… cousins.”
“Sure. It’s just like me saying brothers.”
“You know, Dils, it’s a good thing to be able to talk like this. Me and two former Pirates have started meeting down at the skinny-dipping pond. It might be good to have another girl there.”
“Really? Who are the other two?”
“Ricky Porter and Billy Martin.”
“Oh, uh… I don’t really know them.”
“Well, if you come along with me next time, you’ll get to know them better. It could be good for all of us. Some of us have problems with depression and it helps to be able to talk about anything and everything with people who will at least try to understand.”
“Yeah. That might be good.”
“I will get in touch with you for the next time.”
“Yeah, um… okay.”
The two girls sat together in silence for the last couple of miles to Belle City High School. It felt good to hold somebody like Dilsey. She was warm and soft and good to be near. And when they left the bus together, Valerie felt like now she was the wise older girl, while Dilsey had taken Val’s former place as the apprentice. She would be happy to pass on all the things she learned from Mary when she was younger. In fact, it felt like a real important responsibility.
Catch a Falling Star 
Nutzy Nuts
Things are not what they seem. Life throws curve balls across the plate ninety percent of the time. Fastballs are rare. And fastballs you can hit are even rarer. But if Life is pitching, who is the batter? Does it change the metaphor and who you are rooting for if the batter is Death?
If you think this means that I am planning on dying because of the Coronavirus pandemic, well, you would be right. Of course, I am always planning for death with every dark thing that bounces down the hopscotch squares of the immediate future. That’s what it means to be a pessimist. No matter what bad thing we are talking about, it will not take ME by surprise. And if I think everything is going to kill me, sooner or later I have to be right… though, hopefully, much later.
I keep seeing things that aren’t there. Childlike faces keep looking at me from the top of the stairs, but when I focus my attention there, they disappear. And I know there are no children in the house anymore since my youngest is now legally an adult. And the chimpanzee that peeked at me from behind the couch in the family room was definitely not there. I swear, it looked exactly like Roddy McDowell from the Planet of the Apes movies, whom I know for a fact to be deceased. So, obviously, it has to be Roddy McDowell’s monkey-ghost. I believe I may have mentioned before that there is a ghost dog in our house. I often catch glimpses of its tail rounding the corner ahead of me when my own dog is definitely behind me. And I am sure I shared the facts before that Parkinson’s sufferers often see partial visions of people and faces (and apparently dogs) that aren’t really there, and that my father suffers from Parkinson’s Disease. So, obviously it is my father and not me that is seeing these things… He’s just using my eyeballs to do it with.
But… and this is absolutely true even if it starts with a butt… the best way to deal with scary possibilities is to laugh at them. Jokes, satire, mockery, and ludicrous hilarity expressed in big words are the proper things to use against the fearful things you cannot change. So, this essay is nothing but a can of mixed nutz. Nutzy nuts. And fortunately, peanut allergies are one incurable and possibly fatal disease I don’t have. One of the few.
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