Current mood: contemplative

Hi Everyone,

Late yesterday afternoon, the old lady who lives in the house next door to me, was robbed. It's an evil, heinous thing to do to anybody; take something that isn't yours. To invade the home of a sick old lady and rob her of all her worldly goods is about the most cowardly thing a person could do.
She isn't a nice old lady. She used to be, until dementia, paranoia and physical frailty overtook her. But she did not deserve being swindled. She called me around five o'clock crying and I was shocked. In recent weeks when I've tried to check on her, she either didn't recognize me and threatened to call 911 or DID recognize me and told me my pet monkey was keeping her awake.
I don't have a pet monkey, but I digress.
Her tears and complete incoherence concerned me and my mate Tony, who was in town from Hawaii (via Vegas Baby) hitched up his pants (he lost his belt in a casino, a whole 'nother story)and we raced to my neighbor's house.
It was a bad, sad story. Two guys claiming to be from the gas company arrived at her front door. While one distracted her in the back yard with some imaginary gas leak, the second guy gave the OK to another bunch of guys and they pulled into her driveway in a moving van. Within seconds, they were hauling away a good portion of her possessions.
Another neighbor saw them and mercifully called the police. As I write this, the guys have not been caught but hopefully they will be. I was shocked how quickly they relieved the contents of my neighbor's lifetime habit of hoarding.
She let me and Tony into the house and she boiled water for tea. She couldn't find teaspoons. All her silver was taken. Man! These guys were fast!
We sat down with her and drank tea out of her musty-smelling cups and just let her talk.
"They didn't take the most valuable thing I have though," she smiled shakily.
"Oh, what's that?" I asked.
"The screenplay somebody wrote about me in 1952."
Tony and I looked at each other and she toddled off, returning with a folder the burglars had found, opening it and deeming it trash, apparently, because they'd discarded it. The snap was broken and I opened the file to find dozens of old 10 x 8 glassy black and white photos of my neighbor. I am not into women but she was hot and gorgeous in her time.
"You did burlesque?" Tony grinned. "Nice pasties!"
My neighbor was apparently the one time queen of New York's pre-world war II strip clubs. The screenplay was about her love affair with a cop sent to shut her down.
She told us hilarious stories of strippings gone wrong, pasties that left red marks on her nipples. All the waiters in her club were gay men, she told us proudly. They adored the girls but never tried to cop a feel.
Police raids were announced in code by the waiters, who would shout "Ice! Ice!" and the bare breasted ladies quickly slapped on pasties.
Tony and I sat, enraptured by her memories...of New York in the 30's and 40's and for a brief moment in time, a woman lost from the present, remembered her past and appreciated that a world away, in a whole other time zone, two other men deemed her priceless treasure to be important.
I have no idea if she remembers anything of our discussion this morning but for Tony and me, the best gift we gave her was our time. And our attention. I am a writer and if my house was burning down, I'd grab my animals (imaginary monkey included) and my working manuscripts.
I have no idea why her movie was never made. Maybe it wasn't meant to be. I am glad she has her memories - when she has her memories - and me, I will never be able to look at an ice cube in quite the same way again.

Aloha oe,
A.J.

Currently listening : Destiny By The Brothers Cazimero Release date: 2008-05-20