Rowena O’Riordan

Rowena O’Riordan                  
                 
1
                
     Her heart is a glass of haunted roses. Weatherworn Ellis Island faces rise like Lazarus from family memory books. Ours is the immigrant waltz learned from grandparents who danced on the shores of America upon arrival.  
     Spring in Natchez, Mississippi is pollen blown on the honeysuckle breeze like the nectar of Aphrodite. Sassafras scents the morning light on a dandelion lane past the bird sanctuary owned by the surgeon down the road until he walked Brightwood Street with his bewildered little daughter as cancer devoured the marrow of his bones.  
      But my eyes are on Rowena whose delta blues reside where the nightingale nests deep in her south. The heart of summer is in the Irish wine light of her sun freckles where champagne embers sizzle in her sequined skirt as I gaze on with the preen of a sun-tanned lizard.  
      The color of the water is a Bahamas aqua sea but is a school pool chlorine where she rises like  
Carmen up a ladder of fire in a Bizet opera.  
     “Do you like me, John?”  
     “As a friend.”  
     “I think you like me for more than a schoolboy crush even.”  
     “I am a monk.”  
     “Your eyes on my legs tell of a reluctant priesthood.”  
     “I struggle with my monasticism.”  
     “Say goodbye to those St. Francis blues. Meet me at the skating rink this Saturday for hand-holding.”  
     With Jimmy Carter as president, we sweethearts are illuminated by the eternal flame of young love made light by the glow of a harvest moon.  
     Rowena says, “I’m so glad you made it here my dear.”  
     Keith walks up to me and Rowena with a serious look like he has something important to tell us. He says, “Let me show you two how to do a date properly.” He takes our arms and wraps us together snugly as a ribbon on the birthday gift we  
give to each other.  
     She smiles saying, “I’ve never done this with a boy before.”  
     “I always took you to be more experienced than me.”  
     “It was all for show. I am a greener than grass.”  
     I feel the thump of her heart against my boyish ribs like the beat of a snare drum. I scent her perfume like the smell of incense at church but with a strange and more intoxicating sensation.  
     The prismed light from the glass orb dances on her eyes that burn like Roman candles flickering to the beat of disco music that washes over us and across the perfumed shore of her cherry blossom lips plush and pink with the promise of a bon vivant love still a dream for my boyhood as yet to be had grail.  
     “Do you want to let go?” I ask her.  
     “Not just now. Let’s try it a while longer just as an experiment. They’re playing ‘Dancing Queen’. That’s our song. Now let’s take a whirl around this place.”  
     I reply, “Your face looks beatific under the mirror ball light. The smile on your face is like the  
sun. Hold my hand and I’ll take you on a trip.”  
     Rowena says, “You look adorable in your geek outfit. Here we go my wonderful freak.”  
     “Look at you. You look like a French Quarter tarot reader ready to make a prophecy with your fiery eyes,” I say.  
     “Careful my eyes don’t burn you,” Rowena replies.  
     “You funny girl, I can’t help but look now,” I counter.  
     “Watch out my dizzy lover. We don’t want to bump anyone. Our skates seem to be going in different directions” Rowena admonishes.  
     “I am already crashed. You have me spellbound” I succumb. We are skating rink swans under the mirror ball moon. We ride a slow comet that swings around the Milky Way as her sparrow hand quivers in mine.  
     “Let’s sit together and have a coke. I’m out of breath,” Rowena gasps.  
     “I’m breathless too. A soda sounds great.”  
     “Now let’s get our cokes.” I gaze at her lipstick embrace of the glassy soda bottle shine, with my eyes on fire.  
     “Oh, this drink is so refreshing. In a minute I want you to take me around the skating rink again. I’m sorry I can’t kiss you on the lips yet. I’m not ready for that. However, I love kissing your cheek. Your skin is so soft and boyish” Rowena exults.  
     I say, “Well that coke went down nice. Hey, they’re playing ‘Kung Fu Fighting’. Care to take another spin with me?”  
     Rowena rejoices “Oh I love that music! Let’s do it!”  
     “Let me take your hand my darling one.”  
     “Leaf I feel my youth slipping away. Hold onto me and never let go,” Rowena pleads.  
     “Lovers will come and go. Yet we will remember this as our golden age. One day in some city I’ll think of you. For now, we have disco music and each other. This moment is the real thing. Live it with me in perfect harmony my love” I say.  
     “Oh, Leaf you sound like a soda advertisement.”  
     “I know. But I meant it sincerely.”  
     “That is what I love about you. You know I could use a kiss now. Pucker up, my boy. How lovely, Leaf. I need an encore.”  
     “Your cherry pop kiss is a lip sugar libation,”  
Rowena says.  
     “Well, I’m your huckleberry. It was only my first try” I muse.  
     “It was my first kiss too. I always wanted my first to be with a boy like you.”  
     “I confess I always wanted to kiss you.”  
     “You are beautiful. I have a couple of questions for you before we go steady. If Farah Fawcett wanted you for a boyfriend would you stay with me?”    
     “Of course, I would. You are prettier without makeup than her all dolled up.”  
     “Oh, Leaf I am swooning. Now, if a kidnapper said, ‘It’s either you or the girl,’ what would you do?”  
     “I’d do what any true gentleman would do. Does that answer your question?”  
     “Yes! Yes, it does. They’re playing ‘Love Train’.  
Be my Travolta. I wouldn’t leave you for him either.”  
     “Let’s skate together. We’re only young once. Let’s do it well.”  
     Rowena exclaims, “This is our boogie night. We could be dancers in a discotheque in New York  
City!”  
     Rowena continues, “Though these skates are designed for the rink rather than roller blades for the street with these wheels, this skating rink floor feels like grapes I am mashing for fermentation. But ours is a good crop. As long as I gather my skirt I can see my steps to keep from falling.”  
     She needs to hear ‘Love is Like Oxygen’ with her true love and like a miracle the song blasts from the speakers. This is a song for teenagers who kiss while chaperoned by her auntie on account of us having shared a root beer after midnight. Our buttery feet are a slippery start for habitual soda souses whose Cajun patois may find us sharing a houseboat in the Atchafalaya.  
     Rowena sneezes and tells me, “You know you could catch my sinus infection.”  
     I reply, “A dance with you would be more than worth getting the sniffles.”  
     She says, “Oh, you would get a stuffy nose for me. That is true love.”  
 
2
     Back in the classroom Rowena’s bestie, Sarah tells us that she has a secret to tell. We sit in the back of the classroom out of range of eavesdropping ears. Sarah says, “I had a dream about you two last night.” Rowena perks up like a cat for the ball of yarn ready to be unraveled.      
     Sarah says, “I dreamed Rowena was disrobing for Leaf.”  
     Rowena blushes but with her signature smile that hints at the fascination of the aforementioned cat when offered a bowl of milk.        
      I ask Sarah, “Was there more to the dream?”  
    Rowena says to me, “Can’t you see I am mortified? It wouldn’t be embarrassing if it were my dream told to you in confidence. But for my bestie to divulge this in your company is over the top for a Natchez girl at the tender age of sixteen.”  
     Sarah goes on, “And Rowena you did it on my dare like you were in a conniption fit. You looked like a savage Goth warrioress ready to sack Rome.”  
     Rowena says, “Please tell me I was wearing  
something underneath!”  
     “You had on a leather Viking skirt and vest ready for battle.”  
     “Hear me roar,” Rowena says.  
     I reply, “Rowena, what are you doing this Saturday night?”  
     She says, “I’ll be with you at the skating rink. Where else would I be?”  
     When Mom is planting spring flowers we drink orange juice which spills on her face for me to lick the fruit essence from her sticky lips. Our liquid love is anointed by the mint julep blues when our cups blush green as the leaves of May.  
     As spring turns into summer we sneak blackberry wine from Dad’s liquor cabinet and hide in the woods to drink the dark elixir that stains her summer dress in organdy blossoms.  
3
     April is about to pass into May in Natchez, Mississippi. My girlfriend Rowena and I are eighteen with our youth to be hushed like an unruly child. I tell her, “Hey. Let me show you the abandoned house back in the woods near where I live. We can go there at dusk. It is spooky but you’ll love it.”  
     Rowena replies, “I like haunted places. Spirits are just like people when alive. They mean no harm.”  
     I say, “You’ll be safe with me. Trust me.”  
     “You’re the most peculiar person I’ve had the pleasure to have met. I’m stuck on you like white on rice. If you run away I’ll stalk you.”  
     “I wouldn’t leave you for Carmen Electra.”  
     “You’ve got a psycho on your hands. So don’t try it” she admonishes.  
      “But how can you stand to be part of my madness?”  
     “Cuckoo goes a long way to being a keeper in my book.”  
     “Yes, I’m glad that doesn’t freak you out. We were made for each other” I reply.  
     That afternoon we stroll the wooded lane past my house. Rowena says, “I love your neighbor-hood. This is where I want to live with you when we get married. We could sneak off into the woods and do all kinds of things together.”  
     “You make being grownup feel so liberating my love,” I reply.  
     “Oh, honey we’ll play house together for the rest of our lives.”  
     “You make normalcy enticing. Yes, we could be like average people. We’ll have a couple of kids, work hard, and grow old,” I say.  
     “Not us my love, we are birds of a different feather,” she says.  
     We walk down the street and through the gate into the forest.  We climb down the ravine to the pool of water sunk in a slick bowl-shaped hole in the clay. I breathe the rich smell of decaying leaves and moist clay. Sunlight blinks through fern fronds that hang from red clay walls. Water trickles down the chute and falls lyrically into the oval pool. Droplets splash melodically into tea-colored water.  
     “When we were kids we made a mud slide here. We slid down the bluff into the pool we made with a clay dam,” I share with her.  
     “Now that we’ve left high school behind, our games can be more daring,” she grins.    
     I wrap my arm around Rowena’s waist. I tell her, “We’re almost there. You are brave to follow me here. After all, I am a man. But you can trust me.”  
     Rowena slaps me on my denim bottom. “Don’t say that Leaf. You’re not like any man I’ve ever met. I’m not afraid of you. I’d sooner be afraid of a puppy dog.”  
     The years have slid by in a surreal procession. My incipient awareness of being an adult grows. The bliss of our love brings me a soft smile. The gnarled roots of trees intertwine with each other in an exquisite nature tapestry. They are a vision of hope in this twilight of my youth.  
     We silently climb out of the ravine. I push Rowena’s derriere as she climbs a bluff. She says. “Please make me feel secure. You really wouldn’t take me against my will, would you? I love you. I just need to know you will protect me out here. After all, a strange man could come upon us. Would you defend me?”  
     “I am your knight and you are my lady. No man will molest you while in my care. And I wouldn’t even think of forcing myself on you. That is not who I am.”  
     Rowena says, “I knew that. I just needed to hear  
you say it.” Her femininity outshines the sun.    
     The ivy-covered forest floor resounds with crickets chirping, frogs croaking, and a blue jay singing. Rays of sunlight filtering through the green leaves of the trees make golden splashes on the ivy. I fill my lungs with cool dusk air redolent with the smells of dirt, grass, and flowers.  
     The trail leads us to the house, decaying in the forest solitude. We open the door to a future we never considered. Dust motes are suspended in a silent dance. The walls are varnished in sepia sun paint. The cloudy windows intimate shadowy trees swaying in a restless forest wind waltz.  
     Wrinkled boots hang pendulously from rusty nails. A salt-caked jar sparkles like a pauper’s chandelier. The dresser has sinuous cracks like tree limbs branching into arabesque swirls. The mattress molders in the dusty afternoon quiet. Shards of glass are scattered like diamonds in a corner shrouded in soft darkness.  
     A spider weaves its translucent web with its strands gathered in a cathedral of death. The spider’s church shimmers in heavenly perfection. Its crystal lattice glows with holy fire. The predator of time stalks my lonely hours. Life found purchase here once. It might be found again with caring and hard selfless work. I hear laughter from the tree swing.  
     Rowena looks misty-eyed. Late Afternoon sunlight slants across the room. Orange patterns dance through the window panes. The trees outside appear blurred in a reddened light paint. Shadows crawl across the floor in patterns of coal-like dark clouds. The trees outside are silhouetted like ancient Titans who haunt my world with preternatural beauty.  
     Rowena says, “We should go home. It’s dark.”  
     I say, “Let’s stay a while. The ghosts will visit before long.”  
     “I said I want to go home.”  
     I reply, “Are you sure?”  
     She breathes deep. “My parents will wonder where I am. I didn’t tell them I was coming here with you.”  
     I say, “Ok then we’ll go back. But navigating the terrain here will be tricky at night.”  
    She says, “Oh my God. You brought me out here after dark because you wanted to sleep with  
me. You tricked me!”  
     “I was flying blind. I never had such intentions.  
I just wanted to show you this place. I promise not to take advantage of you. We can sleep here on the bed together. I won’t touch you.”  
     She says, “I trust you, Leaf. We’ve known each other since elementary school. I know you are a good man. Do you mind if I undress for our night? I need to feel the breeze.  I won’t be able to sleep in the heat otherwise.”  
     “I don’t mind. I think I’ll do the same. But let’s keep our underwear on.”  
     Rowena says, “Leaf I’m beginning to feel more comfortable with being here with you. In fact, I like it. It feels romantic. Let’s strip and feel the wind,” she whispers. I hug her to my chest.  
     We slip out of our clothes and curl up in the bed. Rowena says, “It’s pitch dark now. Let’s do what lovers do in the dark.”  
     I reply, “Let’s rein in that pony until the nuptials.”  
     “Did you just say we are on the wagon train to marriage?”  
     “We’ve been on that Conestoga wagon for quite  
some time now.”  
     In the distance, I hear Mom’s voice calling me home. But I am an adult now. I make my own decisions. Rowena falls asleep with her bottom pressed into my lap. In the middle of the night, she awakens. “Will you marry me?”  
     “I will, Scout’s honor.”  
     Rowena says, “I can sleep now. I guess you should get me a promise ring.”  
     “Instead of a promise ring let’s get engagement rings.”  
     “Oh be still my beating heart. Are you proposing to me?”  
     I say, “That stands to reason.”  
     She says, “Are you poking fun at me?”  
     I reply, “Heavens, no. I was just stating the obvious.”  
     She replies, “You are poking fun at me!”  
     “No, I could never do that to my wife.”  
     “Oh, I love it when you call me your wife. Please keep saying it. I need to hear it.”  
     “I could say it all day and night.”  
     “I’ll hold you to it.”  
4
     I lead her on a late afternoon walk by the banks of the muddy Mississippi where I hunted the 19th-century ghosts. There, old glass bottles washed to shore along with rusty square nails from a time long before me. I scavenged for glass whiskey flasks and broken glass once filled with medicine with nostalgic eyes.  
     We climb the river bluffs to see feathery indigo clouds suspended over Ole Man River’s curve into the horizon. Tendrils of misty droplets hang in milky fronds curling toward the ground. A snowy fleece of cirrus with patches of teal sky looms overhead.        
     Kudzu climbs over the box factory ruins where my great-grandfather toiled in the heart of the roaring twenties whose wealth passed him by like a locomotive headed somewhere else when a nickel bought a movie and Confederate veterans still gathered at the diner. The smokestack still points like a steeple up at the heavens where the laborers have emigrated and where I too will go but with  
that prospect far from my boyish heart.  
     Dad’s stories of his papa are replayed in my mind like an old LP with scratches but still sonorous and resonate. Here the smoke weighed heavy in the Natchez dusk where it was blown like an old man’s last breath from the box factory stack.      The sooty cough of the workers sounded like a cigarette lung blues when the bluebird sang for love on the slopes of the Mississippi River bluff with the dusk deepening into ochre shades of sorrow until the whistle blew its old refrain for the shadowy tribes of tribulation to go home to meat and potatoes and wives who grasped at splinters of faith for better days ahead.  
     Green shrubbery blankets the sunken bluffs below our perch. A riverboat horn bleats through the quiet evening. A cardinal swoops out of foliage below arcing gracefully back into the thicket.    
     She sits on a foliage-matted bench by my side. Her sigh is as deep as the impending night. Leaves rustle in the warm breeze and saffron sunset clouds glow angelically. Her hand is warm in my palm like a tiny sparrow with her delicate and reassuring touch. The goodness of the earth is felt deeply in  
this encounter with her.  
5
     We fly like angels to the outskirts of Natchez where the road leads to secret wrecks lost in the junkyards of derelict dreams.    
     Drunk on persimmon wine I carry her down memory lane looking for derelict cars in the haze of lost America where crushed beer bottles are strewn on junkyard plantations of golden-age rust buckets.
     A Mustang chassis catches the rain. The concentric circles of a shattered windshield are a catcher of the American dream.  
     The hood is a seat for weary pilgrims who can’t find their way home. Lost in the purple sunset we await the gospel dawn in the backseat of a Chevy.  
     She yells, “A round of stout kisses on the house!” She paints my face with lipstick until we  
yodel in a duet of beer-drinking songs.  
     She says, “Bartender, give me a mug of barleywine strong enough to peel the paint from a 1970 Buick.”  
     “But all we have is the natural light I picked up  
at the convenience store.”  
     “Then let’s get just tipsy enough to celebrate Oktoberfest in this scrap heap.”  
     “Natchez is our Bavaria on the bayou.”  
     She replies, “We may not get drunk but we are happy as possums sharing a sweet potato.”  
     Her hands grow rough like a man’s from her new job shelling pecans. My hands are stained black from molasses at the sugar mill. Her deepening dialect is fresh from the earth.