Francie and dee

Francie lived six mobile homes down on the left from the entrance of the trailer park, Pine Glen Gardens, in the Northeast corner of Connecticut.  On the community mailboxes at the gate her address was listed as 29 Tin Can Alley, the name given by the original park owner, “who at least graced us with his face and had a sense of humor,” Francie liked to say. All the roads were laid with crushed stone, making for a muddy mess after heavy rains or a winter snowfall.

The latest count was 84 trailers, down from 120 since the new owner had taken over the property the year before. This new land-lease owner was listed as Goldilocks LLC, with a PO box in Trenton, New Jersey. They knew the rent would go up more than most could pay – and it did.  They’d never seen hide nor hair of the owner(s) and let loose their fantasies about what they’d do if they showed up.

Without a personal mode of transportation, the residents would have to rely on a neighbor or relative to take them shopping or to medical appointments in the nearest town three miles away. Or they’d have to resort to public bus transit, which only made stops early morning or the late afternoon. Some of the more robust and stalwart ones walked the three miles and back.

Francie just turned 58 when she bought her trailer second-hand, about a year after her husband Max had died in a heavy equipment accident on his construction job. The excavator he was operating tipped over into the hole he was digging on the job site.  

They owned a small ranch home just outside of town. Francie was content keeping house and working part-time as a school crossing guard.  She’d say Max was a decent and easygoing guy but had his faults like the rest of us. Staying within the budget, however, was a shortcoming, for he had a penchant for playing the horses and betting on the lottery. They just scraped by at times and had their disagreements and quarrels over money, yet managed to work things out in the end.  They looked forward to weekends to catch a movie or eat at their favorite Chinese buffet and of course their yearly vacation at the beach.

Francie and Max wanted children.  She had two miscarriages and went into an early menopause.  “Not in the cards,” she’d say.  But it gave her boundless joy, however, to “adopt” school children at her crosswalk, each and every one. 

Francie thought she’d never get past Max’s death.  In her grief she curled up inside so tight she couldn’t breathe for days and could barely bring herself to go out to her garden of flowers, shrubs and blooming trees.  As the months passed, she started losing that panicky, starving-for-air feeling.  She decided one day that what she needed was to greet the dawn at sunrise. (no easy task, not being a morning person).  And that she did, getting herself outdoors at that early hour to graze slow lazy eyes on the dewy clover and wildflowers, and watch the ground fog dissipating and giving way to the sun’s first breakthrough of light-blades. Sometimes on such mornings, she’d drift into a dream-like trance and feel the ebbing of her sadness.   

Once she’d gotten wits together, she sold the small home with the almost paid-off mortgage, leaving her with more than enough to purchase the trailer home at Pine Glen. She was sure this little metal domicile on this tiny patch of earth would satisfy her modest wants and wishes. The seven-year-old Ford Taurus, thank goodness, was still roadworthy, rusty and clunky though it was, and hadn’t seen a mechanic in over a year. She tag-saled the unwanted furniture, appliances and the rest.

After weeks of settling in, Francie landed a job doing checkout and shelf-stocking at the supermarket in town.  She knew she had to keep herself busy to ward off sorrowful remembrances.  And she could surely use the extra cash for odds and ends and a rainy-day fund.

It wasn’t long before she fell in love with her “tiny island of Shangri-la,” as she liked to call it. It took only a few months to create her “botanical garden,” which gave birth to a swath of wildflowers of every kind, gardenias, daisies, milkweed and a butterfly bush for the Monarchs, and the final touch, an arranged display of her treasured village of miniature hand-painted gnome cottages with a scattering of gnome families, men and women and children ringing their homes and walking the flower paths.

Francie made friends quickly with residents. Next-door neighbor Dee (from Delia) stopped by during the day to chat and help carry the heavy bags of topsoil and compost.  Francie couldn’t help but like her, only God knows why, she mused, as they were surely as different as night and day. Francie even took the risk of putting in a good word for Dee when she applied for work with her employer.  Dee was hired to work in the deli department.  She didn’t disappoint.

Dee stood five foot two, waif-thin, bony at the joints, with a pixie haircut that had the look of a miscast Peter Pan. And what a mouth she had on her, enough to out-curse a drunken sailor, some would think and very few say. What’s more, she bore a tattoo of barbed wire wrapped around her left upper arm as if a visual warning to beware, don’t get too close. And then, too, the scars – those thin horizontal strips riding up her right arm like hash marks on a military sleeve. 

“The cuts I did myself but stopped doing it fuckin’ ages ago and admit it did feel good at first, it kinda made me feel human, like I had a real body and was part of the living world for a while.”

Adding, “Those useless dumb-ass shrinks kept throwing words at me like dissociation and PTSD.  Those assholes wouldn’t listen when I told them that that doesn’t mean jack-shit if you’re too busy keeping your feet on the ground and cursing at the darkness. So, I stopped cutting on my own without them, anyway, so they can stick it,” said with a bravado and bitterness that belied the Peter Pan haircut and stick-figure frame.

As Francie got to know her more, she came to understand: Her biological mother had dropped her off in a hospital lobby at eight months old.  Child protective services placed her in several foster homes, and in her early teens found adoptive parents for her. They were overzealous Mormons who opened arms to her as a “divine gift”, the answer to their prayers. They had been childless and in their early 40’s. She became their “miracle child”.  Little Dee did her best to break out of their preconceived mold.

From 12 to 16 years Dee became a familiar name and face with police and child services as a chronic runaway. They’d reel her back in and in no time at all she’d slip their grasp and go back on the run on another meandering misadventure.

“I was just hoping for a soft landing somewhere and a longshot chance of a lick of luck,” she told Francie.

A soft landing she had on the grounds of Pine Glen, coming after years of hanging out with the “two-wheeler losers” in the biker gang, drifting wherever they drifted. Rex was her “main squeeze” in the Roadhog Rogues.  He made it very clear to the bro’s that she was off-limits, declaring, “Hands off, guys, she’s mine, got it?”  They “got it”, knowing how all-out crazy and possessive he could be. 

Rex managed to finesse a lowball buy on a beat-up trailer from a buddy in Pine Glen, who “owed him a solid.”  They moved in together. Dee soon started losing the urge and desire for the adrenaline-stoked freedom of the road and the thrill of skittering across the edge.

“Francie, life was not bad for maybe six months, until Rex started beating on me for stealing money from his wallet – which I did – and cheating on him – which I wished I’d done. Took a while, but I finally got the balls to report his ass to the police and take out a protective order on him.”

He stayed away from the trailer for months. Then, to her relief, Rex and his biker buddies were caught red-handed with a loaded rental truck after breaking into a warehouse full of power tools and construction materials.  Rex was arrested and convicted of grand larceny and was doing a four-year prison sentence with a year’s probation. His buddies were also looking at bars. 

Dee invited Francie over to her place on Friday nights to watch the cop shows while munching on bowls of popcorn – followed by a séance.  Francie initially balked at the séance, thinking it might go against her church upbringing, that it might be voodoo or something.  Couldn’t do any harm, she concluded.  In performing her ritual, Dee’s wish, her yearning, was to reach her biological mother, Rhoda, who, she’d found out, died eight years after she was born. If she was able to channel her, the first question would be, Mom, why did you leave me there?  And yearning became obsession.

For the séance she’d light three candles, arrange them in a triangle on the kitchen table, turn off the lights, draw the two window curtains, and sing the old spiritual, Will the Circle be Unbroken.  She’d say a brief prayer and call out to her, holding Francie’s hand as she did, intoning her mother’s name repeatedly for up to three minutes. Dee often said she felt her presence or “vibe,” but still hoped she’d hear her voice and respond to her question -- and more.

One Saturday morning, Francie joined Dee on her work break, Dee seemed more fidgety than usual.  She leaned on the brick wall outside, lit a cigarette and took a few puffs before telling her that Rex’s probation officer had given her a call. 

“Francie, don’t know what the fuck to do,” she blurted, “She told me Rex is being released next week, so I need to renew the protective order and to call the cops if he comes within 100 feet of the place.”    

Francie already knew Dee re-keyed the trailer before Rex went to prison.  She also knew that Rex was listed as half-owner on the title and very well might think he had a right to be there, protective order or not, in his defiance.

“Don’t you worry, Dee, I’ll keep an eye out whenever I can. I’ll be on the lookout, I promise.”

“No Francie, don’t, it’s my damn mess, the mess I’ve made all my life, and not your problem,” she pleaded, her voice shaky.

For the first time, Francie could see the child beneath the fearless bravado.

The next night, Sunday, there was a full moon. Tired after working the soil in her garden all day, Francie was about to call it a night before taking a quick glance through her window at Dee’s property.  

 Who it was, she know right away. The man on the thundering chopper pulled up on the gravel drive and onto the grassy edge at Dee’s. He swung a leg over, hit the kickstand and slowly started surveilling the property and the trailer, peeking into the windows as he circled.  Bearded with collar-length hair, he sported a stars-and-stripes bandanna around his head, a sleeveless shirt, ragged jeans and an unlit cigar stuck in his mouth. 

She knew Dee wasn’t home but could return on foot from Marty’s any minute.  She’d gone to borrow a few beers on the other side of the park.

Wasting no time, Francie opened Max’s toolbox by her bed, grabbed his old crowbar and hustled outside toward the intruder, and stopped some 50 feet away, screaming, “Get out, Rex, or I’ll call the cops!”  

On hearing her he did a quick pivot, trained eyes on her approach and let out a loud mocking belly laugh. She stood before him in her dirty gardening house dress, immovable and defiant.

“Get out of my way, you crazy fuckin’ bitch,” he screamed, and with that he lunged at her and threw her to the ground.  She fell, hitting her head on the crowbar against a stone.  She went silent.  She didn’t get up. 

Next day Francie was taken through the gauntlet of diagnostic tests at the hospital.  On returning to her room, she caught sight of Dee standing just inside the door.

“I’m gonna be ok, Dee, don’t you worry, child,” she said, after being transferred to her bed by two aides. 

“They tell me I’ve got no brain-bleed, that was what they were worried about,” she added.    

“Holy shit, someone is keeping an eye on you, Francie.”

Then Dee commenced to fill her in on what happened after she lost consciousness.

“Was walking back from Marty’s when I spotted Rex and you on the ground.  Called 911, but too damned late. Hurt so fuckin’ bad to have to wait for the cops and the ambulance -- you there not moving, helpless. He would’ve killed me for sure if I went to you, but I should’ve let ‘em. The ambulance came before the cops and checked you out. You started moving.  When Rex heard the sirens, he got scared, hauled ass to his chopper and kicked it over three times, it wouldn’t start, so the sunvabitch got to wear his favorite steel bracelets, cursing you every step of the way, Francie.  I jumped into the ambulance before they closed the doors on you.”

With that Dee gave a hearty laugh and Francie tried but with effort.

“Stop, Dee, my head is hurting and my banged-up face too,” while holding her hand against the white bandage on her face. 

Then Dee grew quiet for a moment, her eyes glistening, head dropping slightly.

“Francie, later that night I did the séance alone, maybe to keep my mind off of you. Funny thing, fuckin’ weird thing, you know, nothing but the usual -- three candles, same hymn, the conjuring of my real mother, but calling out to her, I heard a voice calling my name, nothing more, just a voice calling out my name.”

Francie’s eye brightened.  Could this be more than voodoo? she wondered, as she lay there, hanging on every word.

“What’s crazier, Francie, is the voice I heard, it sounded like yours, was yours calling my name, sure as I’m, standing here – my name, nothing more.”

Francie turned up a grin, “Dee, you probably had too many beers and nodded off with candles at your elbows and jumped up awake with your sleeve on fire and with this dream still stuck in your head.”

Dee forced a chuckle, which was choked back by a catch in her throat. She turned her back for several seconds – and like magic snapped back to the same Dee everyone knew.

Everyone, everyone but Francie.  Francie knew better.