Al, His Jar, and Me - 2. Chapter 2

I didn’t believe my eyes. It was one of those moments. One of those overwhelming, dangerous moments when you realize how completely… lost you are.

 

How did I get to this point.

 

…

 

On my way home for the day's excursion, I turned my truck into my new driveway that led across the old, terraced and walled fields to my new home. Each terrace was marked with stone walls carefully built by great uncle Arthur. I passed the original farmhouse where I had lived occasionally over the last twenty something years. It had been built by Arthur’s grandfather and added on to many times and again when Arthur married aunt Lydda. I had inherited the property when I was sixteen, back when it was still on the edge of nowhere. Now it was in the middle of everything, surprisingly. I could of sold the place, isn’t that what people do. But, I needed the place, it had roots that held me together over the years. I know I have been lucky in life… I know. Still everybody knows hurt and the down side. And dreams, everybody has dreams. I made one come true for myself, here. On this old land of my family.

 

When I was young, or when I was much younger than now, I had ambitions. I was attracted to architecture and art. Honestly, I was full of impractical and improbable dreams. Maybe that is why my great aunt put me in her will and I ended up with the small farm she lived on. My parents were not surprised at the bequest, they seemed to think it was fitting. Aunt Lydda told me more than once… “In every generation of our blood, there is one a wee bit more “touched” then the others.“ Maybe this is the real reason she gifted me with her legacy. I don’t always dwell on these things, but forgive me I have had one fuck of a shock recently. It has been on my mind too much and has me rethinking and rethinking everything I can think of.

 

The stone paved drive leads up to the front of the house and becomes a terrace and then circles around to the back. I pulled my truck around the terrace and cautiously backed up near the front entrance. First order of business was to unload my prizes. I carried uncle Jay’s carving as I got out of “old red”. But, instead of heading straight inside I leaned against a sturdy fender and looked at my place in wonder. I could not believe that an idea from my teenage mind survived and became a reality.

 

My great aunt Lydda was over sixty when I was born, close to eighty when she died. Still considered a handsome woman even in old age. She got married to her first husband really young at sixteen. She married a man twice her age. Apparently this was okay with the family since her intended, Arthur, owned a farm and his own construction business, and was a renowned craftsman. The farm was the one I owned now. Most of my life, I saw aunt Lydda thru my father’s eye’s who adored her. She was a wee bit “touched” he would often remark. After her death during a robbery of her little store she ran on a corner of their farm, we all grieved greatly. A couple of weeks ago I found out much more about aunt Lydda, when I discovered her diaries hidden beneath a false floor in her former bedroom closet. I was moving my things from the old farm house to the new house and found the latch hidden all these years by an old trunk in the closet that I had never thought to move. The trunk held old wedding dresses, aunt Lydda married six times.

 

The locals in their charming way, had christened my new home the “Tomb of Doom”. Not that original. I wasn’t that surprised or upset. Our family has… been politely talked about… for over two centuries. And in truth the place I built was different from the usual. From my angle leaning against my truck, it looked like a large black wall with three sets of doors and three large round windows, above. The façade was tiled with large slaps of black slate that uncle Arthur had salvaged from a demolition job. The walnut front doors, the twin French doors and the windows were from the demolition of a church. When uncle Arthur salvaged a building he sold most of it. But he also had a habit of hauling lots of salvage pieces home to his farm and stored them in large barns he had built over the years. The same barns I played in as a boy and gave birth to the dream of using all that stuff to build a sanctuary for myself one day.

 

I walked across the granite veranda and unlocked the center doors with the old bronze key in the ornate, bronze box lock. The door opened without a squeak and I entered a smaller vestibule and then a room half the size of the whole building. It was still empty. Mostly empty. The statue of aunt Lydda stood on a plinth at the end of the east side of the space. Uncle Arthur had carved it. That was one of the reasons people talked. Aunt Lydda was mostly nude and had the wings of an angel. Behind the statue was a wall of glass where the sun rose. The statue had sat in a barn wrapped in burlap and ropes until I had it moved into its new home. What a scandal it caused in it’s day.

 

The statue was life-sized. Aunt Lydda was five foot six, but the wings of the statue arched above her head. Her arms and hands reached out in a caress, holding unto something… unknown? I smiled up into her smiling face. “Look what I found today, aunt Lydda. Your brother Jay carved this, I thought you would like it.” I set the horse carving down on the floor made up of antique boards saved long ago, hauled home and stored in a barn so many years ago.

 

When uncle Arthur died, aunt Lydda wanted the statue placed over his grave. That was a scandal too.

 

A few hours later after some very cautious moving and hauling and lifting, I had the urn unloaded from my truck and as clean as it was going to get… which surprisingly was very pristine looking to me. I would of said the urn was cut from something like obsidian. Except obsidian is glass and chips and breaks. And the urn did not have anything that looked broken. It was dense black and looked patterned in subtle surface waves, fluid and glossy. From one of the old tool barns I had pulled out a stone dolly that had a arm hoist. This thing was a life savor when it came to moving around heavy objects and made installing the urn into it’s niche easy peasy. Which I was grateful for. The urn looked like it belonged.

 

It was then time to shower and get dressed for dinner with my architect/contractor and new friend… and more hopefully. Which was me jumping the gun because How, short for Howard, hadn’t shown any signs of being interested. And even though I was single now, I was still sore from the last guy I thought was going to be the one. Exactly. But it was How who asked me to dinner. And I liked the idea, what a great one it was from all angles. I should not have started down this road of thought because I ended up with one of those boners that won’t end. It’s why I thought How was going to be good for me, maybe. I only got this worked up when it was real for me, when I had made my mind up to go after what I wanted. No wishy-washy crap that always ended badly. This time I would not regret trying for How. But first I had to calm down and get rid of the evidence of my regard. So I stripped down and entered my shower. On either side of the entrance were built in benches that wrapped around the corners ending at the niche where I had placed the urn. On either side of the niche were two shower positions. If you closed the entrance doors, the shower became a steam sauna. Uncle Arthur had a pile of Georgia pink marble and this was used throughout the master bath.

 

And...

 

Then I woke up on my bed still half soaked naked. What happened? Did I fall? Pass out? Drag myself out of the shower only to fall on my bed? I did not hurt anywhere. I had a weird dream though. I could remember a dream. There were drums and rain… or was it my heart and the shower. There was sunlight and dark heavy flowers or was it… my orgasm. There was my reflection except I was young. Except it was not me was it ?

 

And I had spoken to myself…. “Thank you, Father, for your sacrifice.”

 

Weird dream, right. Stress, I guess. I needed to get it together now though, I’m okay. Except, I could hear something now, chanting or something from the main room.

 

 

 

 

April First 2015, but written months ago.