Trouble in Trailer-dise...Part 3

Shayna Gets the Surprise of a Lifetime!

Shayna was confused and embarrassed as she hobbled off to the store to rent the romantic comedy Hank had requested. Did he really think Meryl Strip was pretty or was he more interested in, say, the hunky blond co-star who played her son? Shayna couldn’t be sure, but the questions were making her uncomfortable, so she did what most people do: she brushed them under the carpet and went about her day. She was afraid to entertain anymore suspicions for fear of “falling down another steep hill in her platforms.”

Shayna had naïvely thought that a few hours apart might help to restore things to the way they were. She encouraged her friend, who had driven her, to keep checking off a long list of errands and when it came time to pick out the movie, Shayna wandered up and down the aisles as if she didn’t know what she was looking for, just to stall for a little more time apart from Hank. The sun was getting low as they headed back to the farm. “What are y’all up ta tonight?”
“I think Hank’s plannin’ somethin’ romantic because he wanted me to get this here romantic comedy. You know Hank, a real knight in shinin’ armor. I think he might be fixin’ some grillin’. Maybe gone out to them flower fields to pick me a boo-kay.”
“You one lucky lady Shayna. My man ain’t gotten me a boo-kay since our weddin’!”

The path was uneven down to the trailer and Shayna was limping along when she heard what sounded like Britney Spears Hit Me Baby One More Time blasting from the Airstream. As she rounded the corner and opened the door, it was clear that Shayna could no longer pretend. Not to her family, not to her friends, not to the nurses or doctors, not even to herself.

“Good heavens Hank! That’s my goddamn nightie! Just what in the name of the devil do you think you’r doin’ in that?”
This time Hank didn’t even try to run into the bathroom and quickly change like he had so many times before. Times when he had gotten lost in the moment and miscalculated Shayna’s return. No, he just kept right on as before; the façade of Hank and Shayna finally blown out like A Candle In the Wind.

“Woohoooheeee! You can’t catch me! Wooohooooheeeee! I am FREE!” he yelled at her, with a wild look in his eyes that, in all their years together, she had never seen.
“Yuuuuuhooooo! Daisy’s wearin’ a hat Mama! Daisy like them dresses! Daisy’s a guuuuud girl Mama!”
And then he dashed out of the trailer and into the fading sun. Stupefied, Shayna staggered out after him. She had never in all her life…
The show continued as Hank, now not afraid of being who he truly was, danced around the farm in the white nightie that Shayna had bought for $7.99 on the discount rack at the local Wallmart. Like a Jack released from the confines of his wooden, or in this case aluminum box, Hank giddily bounced from tree to tree, stopping every so often to pose in front of the hot flashes and curious lenses of an imagined paparrazzi. He twirled and swirled around like the ballerina he had always envisioned himself to be, and then, in a moment of mammary madness, picked up the two white fire pit shells Shayna had brought home from the salvage yard and raised them to his chest.


Hank pranced up the trail to the chicken coup and, once again, picked up his favorite, Shaniqua, and set her loose on his wife, his Shayna. Weak from the trauma of her recent physical and emotional injuries, she crumbled to the ground almost instantly. “Wooohoooheeee! You ain’t gonna be the death of me! That’s the end of you Shayna! No more Hank do this and Hank do that! No more Hank have you seen my high heels! Weeeeheee! I have seen your heels lil’ ladee….they on my damn feet!”
Before Shayna could even roll onto her side to try and flee, Hank dashed into the coup, grabbed the chicken feed and started dousing her in dried corn kernels. Like a flame to gasoline, the feathered flock followed the trail and found their gimpy prey begging for mercy. “Goddamn you Hank! Wait til’ my mama hears about this! Get these dang birds off of me Hank!”




With only a crutch left, there was little that remained of Shayna. Hank pivoted, kissed his little Shaniqua for a job well done and headed back to the Airstream.

On his way home from the auto body shop, the handsome neighbor that Hank liked to visit on hot days could have sworn that he saw a shadowy figure next to the road, hiding in the woods, limping along. It couldn’t possibly be Shayna he thought. It just couldn’t be.

Tune in this week to see if Shayna survived!

Big Trouble in Trailer-dise...Part 2

Things on the farm are heating up!

The week before Shayna’s string of “accidents”, she had been returning home, after applying for a waitress job at the local Hooters, when she happened to notice the billboard outside the Baptist church on the corner. As she made her usual right turn, something compelled her to turn sharply and without warning into its empty weekday parking lot. There she sat, both hands on the steering wheel, shoulders hunched over, her mind lost in thought, staring straight ahead at the sign before her: Is Your Husband Gay? Don’t Live In Sin Anymore, Let Christ Help You To Read the Signs! Printed underneath was this website address: christwire.org

Shayna didn’t know why she suddenly turned her car into the church lot that day, but once she did, that same unsettling feeling began to arise in her gut again. Sure Hank liked to listen to George Michael’s Greatest Hits in the shower, color coordinate their flatware with the throw pillows and tweeze his eyebrows, but did that make him gay? Yes he had a gym membership, spent hours on the computer and took his phone into the bathroom with him, but did that make him gay? She tried to think back. Had her new lipstick been unusually low last time she went to use it? Her dresses on the wrong hanger? She couldn’t remember, but before she called on Christ for help, Shayna hatched a plan.

She immediately turned the car around and headed back to Hooter’s. This, she thought, this oughta clear things up. Once there, she signed up to be a contestant in the bikini pageant being held the following Saturday, the very day that would see Shayna “falling down a hill in her platforms.”


When Saturday finally arrived, Hank was busy typing away, like usual, on his computer when Shayna stepped in the direct fire line of his vision, dressed in her hot pants, with her bajongas hanging out of a Hooters half shirt. “Hank,” she tried purring, “ I didn’t wanna say nothin’ cuz I wanted it to be a real surprise, but me and you are goin' down to the Hooter’s tonight. I got me a bikini contest to win! Ain’t it great Hank!”
Hank looked up ever so slightly from his screen and then back down again, “I ain’t goin’ nowheres Shayna.”
“But Hank! I did this for you! What is wrong with you anyways? Why ya always in front of that thing. Just who the hell are ya talkin’ to Hank? You gonna start makin’ me think somethin’ ain’t right now.”
“Who I’m talking to ain’t none of your bizness Shayna. Good luck gettin’ them saddle bags of yours past them judges.”
With that, Shayna stormed off.

Or that is what we have been led to believe. What Shayna would have liked us to believe. Perhaps Shayna never did storm off. Perhaps, with her growing suspicions about Hank’s secretive behavior, more words were exchanged. Words and accusations that felt threatening to Hank. Words that perhaps emboldened Hank to go to the coup next to the trailer and pick up his favorite chicken, Shaniqua, from the pen and chase Shayna with it, knowing all along that one of her greatest fears was live poultry. Perhaps, all dolled up in her hot pants and heels, Shayna never really did fall down a steep hill alone, but rather scraped her knees and sprained her foot desperately trying to escape, over dark, bumpy farmland, from a deranged, perfectly tanned and tweezed chicken wielding Hank.

Tune in tomorrow to find out what Shayna finds when she returns from the store with the Meryl Strip romantic comedy Hank requested!

Big Troubles in Trailer-dise...Part 1

Under A Full Moon, Amid Ominous Trees, A Deep, Dark Secret Festers On the Farm!

On the grassy plain of Red Wing Farm, next to a tranquil lake filled with snapping turtles, under biblical Southern clouds, disaster has struck. The gentle summer wind has finally blown off the shiny aluminum cover of Hank and Shayna’s seemingly idyllic life together; behind the flirty pranks, elephant rides, barbeques and romantic trips to Myrtle Beach, a deep, dark secret has been festering like the mosquitos and tics under their Airstream.

Last Sunday morning, Shayna was still fooling herself. She had woken up to the cackles of the chickens that terrify her, and upon feeling the throbbing in her foot, quickly conceived a story. As she hobbled out to the bathhouse, with bruises and scrapes on her elbows and knees and one along her jawline that resembled half of a Mennonite beard, she was stopped in her wobbly tracks by her fellow farm-goers. “My heavenly word Shayna! What in God’s good name has happened to you!?” they pried.
“Oh this?” she replied, sheepishly glancing down at the ground as if they might not notice she looked like someone who had barely survived a fifty car pile up.
“Yes Shayna. That. And that. And that. And that too,” they said as they pointed to each of her injuries.
“Um,” she stuttered, “Um…um, well, ya see, I was walkin’ home last night and it was real dark out and I was wearin’ me my platform shoes, you know the ones with all the cork n' stuff, the ones that make me look real nice and tall. Well, I was walkin’ down this real steep hill when, well, wouldn’t ya know it, my foot just gave right out from under me and sent me topplin' over like one a them stacks a cans at the shootin’ range. Had me sleddin’ down the payvement like a banana peel. Sure did.”
“For the love of….well, where in the world was Hank?”
“Oh Hank? Oh he…um…you know Hank don’t like to go out on the weekends. He prefers keepin’ close to the trailer. Says he got him lots of important computer work to do. That Hank, always workin’.””

As soon as she had thought it up that morning, Shayna become as convinced by this story as everyone else. The story calmed the gnawing she felt in her gut, put a neat wrapper around the checklist of behaviors that had seemed out of place to her, like the receipt for a large Kheil's purchase found in Hank's dungaree pockets or the David Hockney coffee table book he had recently brought home from the local thrift store. She told her story again and again, to the registration nurses in the emergency room and another time to the doctor who sent her for x-rays. But with just minor foot injuries reported, everything carried on as before.

The following morning, the next door neighbor had seen Hank and Shayna making a quick dash for the car. He called out to them,” Hey, where y’all goin’?”
Hank was quick to reply, “Me and Shayna have some bizness takin’ care of. Now why don’t you mind your own... boy.”
The neighbor, a handsome mechanic in his late twenties, with dark, moppy hair and a chiseled six-pack who preferred to work on cars without his shirt on, was taken aback, not used to the brash reply from a usually jovial Hank. In the afternoons, when the man was hot and sweaty, Hank would stop by and make friendly small talk, ask him things like if he belonged to a gym or if he ever went skinny dipping at the swimming hole by himself.

When Hank and Shayna returned a few hours later, her arm was wrapped up in bandages and a partial cast.
“Well, what on earth?” a fellow farm-goer asked her.
“Um…well, now I know this might seem crazy to y’all but I swear I was just tryin’ to cut me an avocado to eat, and dang it, wouldn’t ya know, that knife just them there slipped and went straight through my hand. I was gushin' blood like a bloody blood fountain. Got me two stitches I did.”

To outsider’s it had seemed like a string of unlucky events for Shayna, two completely random accidents that left her barely able to walk or use her left hand. But if more attention was paid to the dynamics between her and Hank, anyone would have been able to detect the unsettling orchestration staged between them.

The next afternoon, Shayna told Hank she was hitching a ride with a friend to the grocery store to pick up a movie.
“Hank, I’m goin’ to the store, what all movie do ya want me to get?”
From behind the glow of his computer screen, he called back to her as she limped over to the door on her crutches, “How bout’ you get me that movie with that real purdy blond laydee...Meryl somthin'...Strip I think...Meryl Strip. Why don't ya pick me It’s Complicated so I can look at how purdy she is.”

Shayna didn't let her mind dwell on the fact that Hank was requesting a romantic comedy for fifty something year old female divorcee's. She just blankly replied, “Oh and Hank, it might take me sometime gettin’ back, I think my ride is fixin’ some more errands afterwards.”

Shayna then hobbled off as a big, wide grin emerged on Hank’s face.

To Be Continued....

Tune in tomorrow, on God's day, to find out the conclusion to Trouble in Trailer-dise!

Hank and Shayna On the Road to Florida!

Dollywood or (you guessed it) Bust!

As soon as I had arrived in Asheville, Gecko and I were already mapping out a summer of kitsch. “We are going to have so much fun,” he said on the car ride from the airport to the farm.
“I can’t wait.”
“We can ride go-carts.”
“I love go-carts.”
“And go to the roller derby.”
“Sounds like a blast.”
“And I know there is already a group planning a trip to Dollywood.”
There was an audible scream.
“DOLLYWOOD! Really? As in Dollywood, Dollywood?”
“Yup.”
“As in Dolly Parton’s theme park in Tennessee Dollywood?”
“Yup.”
I quickly whipped out my Bucket List and scribbled, Pending, next to, #36. Visit Dollywood. This was big.

We started scripting our grand entrance into the park almost immediately. We would buy me a blond wig and dress me up in daisy duke’s and a short sleeve plaid shirt tied up above my bellybutton. I would wear big wicker heels and we would take photos in front of every ride.
I imagined the entrance to have a colorful plastic bust of Dolly waving at us. I imagined us eating popsicles and cotton candy that had been molded to look just like her. I imagined me singing along to her music as it blared from the loudspeaker’s; songs that I hadn’t heard in over two decades. I even imagined myself buying a Dolly Parton t-shirt and getting my picture taken next to the life size cardboard replica of her.

This summer has been one of the hottest on record and Gecko and I have been slugging through it with part-time air conditioning. With this heat, we have nobly tried to maintain our enthusiastic energy levels for kitsch, but on the eve of our Dollywood adventure, it was obvious it was waning. “It’s going to be too hot for a wig,” Gecko told me as I lied almost listless on my bed after Spark had rendered me into a piece of toast at acupuncture that day.
“I know.”
“And we’re going to the water world park, not the regular one. It’s just too hot.”
“Oh, yeah, that makes sense. I forgot to get a plaid shirt.”
“It will be too hot for that too. We’ll just tie your hair up in pigtails and plaster on some blue eye shadow or something.”
“Okay. That sounds good.”

The next morning almost all was lost. In a pre-coffee haze I just managed a pair of daisy dukes, a bathing suit top and a pair of flip-flops. “We’re almost there, get your hair up in pig tails,” Gecko said in the car.
“I don’t wanna.”
“And where is your makeup?
“I forgot it.”

"Well then get your shoes on."

"I don't have them."
“You better shape up. Your going in with pigtails if I have to tie them on your head myself.”

When we arrived at the entrance, it was clear that the heat hadn't stole only our enthusiasm, it stole Dolly's as well. There was no plastic bust waving at us, there was no music playing or even a sign that said where we were – Dollywood Dammit! Inside the park I scanned for anything that resembled her but there was nothing, not even a cardboard photograph. Then, to add insult to injury, as we were getting into the tube on our first ride, the lifeguard called over to me,” Hey, your not allowed to wear jean shorts on any rides. I’ll let you down just this once, but you’ll have to change.”
“What? I can’t wear jean cut off’s….in Tennessee….at Dollywood?”
That was like asking a leprechaun not to wear green.
“Nope. Sorry. Bathing suits only.”

I was crushed. Left with no other options but the sale rack at the gift shop, I was forced to walk around, defeated, in a pair of ridiculous blue waterproof disco pants intended for someone half my age. With my jean cut off's, the last remaining connection to the south and to Dolly, stowed away in a locker, the gig was up.

When we got back to the car I took out my Bucket List again. As I started to erase the pending status on, #36. Visit Dollywood, I decided to just replace the entire event instead and start again.
#36. Trip to Hooters.

Need I say more?

Events from the Roadtrip I never Announced

Sorry for the Silence Y’all!

I can’t believe I left you for almost two weeks with the breaking news that furby’s have indeed gone wild in the neighborhood!

While I was calmly meandering my way by car to south Florida to visit family, many of you were probably living in fear, looking behind you in empty parking lots, locking otherwise unlocked doors and windows and placing small children and pets on a twilight curfew. Well, rest assured, the Nawth Carolyna Gecko bear has not been spotted since.

On the Open Road!

God or Journey?

It took me just about an hour into my trip, flipping through stations on the car radio, to realize that my options for listening entertainment were going to be limited to God and the 80’s. At first I chose the 80’s, happily driving and singing along to songs that triggered adolescent memories of school dances, orthodontist appointments, and slumber parties. This lasted for hours and hours until an entire decade of my life had been successfully relived.
A few times though, during, let’s say, an Eagles, Journey, Rick Springfield, Madonna medley, I would land on a station and hear a tune I thought I recognized, only to find out it was a Christian rock song disguised as regular music! I heard people rapping (rapping!) about the light in their heart or bands punking out to the saviour. There was even a heavy metal version of salvation! So after I got bored with the 80’s, I started voluntarily tuning into God.


Speaking of God…

Don’t ever give the devil a ride
He will always want to drive.
-God

I saw this message plastered in black letters on the side of a big rig truck when I was already three states down (from North Carolina through South Carolina and into Florida), seven hours in and so over caffeinated that the four cups of truckstop coffee were starting to produce a dangerous hallucinatory effect.
I wondered if maybe I had missed the devil hitchhiking along the side of the road. I started to keep my eyes peeled because quite frankly, by that time, the thought of handing the wheel over to another driver while I relaxed in the passenger seat sounded divine. And if the little red guy ever got out of hand, all I would have to do is sing along with Whitney Houston to "I will Always Love You" and not only would the windows shatter, but he would definitely want to find another car to drive.

The Scratching of Cars and Un-Records in Savannah Georgia

Here are my first images of Savannah…

After waking up with my period and driving seven hours to Savannah, I backed into a pole and cracked up my rental car, but only after I had declined the collision insurance.
I then checked into the Thunderbird motel in desperate need of a good hormonal cry and a nap, but all I heard was bad 50’s music. I was soon confronted with their need to rip off my head and shove retro down my throat when I walked outside and saw speakers strategically set-up so that hearing the thunderbird playlist was not only recommended, it was mandatory. I debated leaving, but with a bad case of cramps, a dented car and all other accommodation being double the price, I reluctantly went back inside and burrowed my head under a pile of pillows.

When I woke up I texted Gecko: Savannah can bite me. But after some food, a couple of Midol, a stiff whiskey and a break dancing party where the DJ was scratching imaginary records on his apple laptop, Savannah started to soften at the edges and look a little more like this...

The drive from Savannah to Red Wing farm is four hours, but the 80’s God mix must have gotten me again, because I missed my exit and turned it into an epic eight hour return. I can’t help but wonder if I couldn’t have made it in two hours - if only I had let the devil drive.

Furby's Gone Wild

The other day I was walking home, following the trail alongside the cornfield, from the swimming hole. This has become one of my favorite activities here and I probably take this walk at least four times a week.
Usually I keep a lookout for black snakes, which are out in the heat of the day. And there have been times when I have passed a squirrel climbing up a tree or another person walking their dog. Snake, squirrel, dog – this is one reptile and two animals I can clearly identify.
But there are many reptiles and animals in which I cannot identify. As I approached the grassy border from the cornfield to the back of Red Wing Farm, one such species came across my path.
It was probably about twenty-five feet away and it was large enough and brown enough and had claws enough that it stopped me dead still in my tracks. I looked at it, it looked at me and we had a stare down for at least thirty seconds. Once it scampered away into the woods, I quietly walked by and made it back to the trailer in one piece. Gecko was not there.
At a dinner party, I told people what I had seen.
“Was it a possum?” they asked.
“I don’t know. What does a possum look like?”
“How big was it?”
“It was probably three feet long and three feet high.”
“Was it brown or black?”
“Um, brown. I think. Maybe a little black.”
“Did it have rings around its eyes?”

"I don't...oh, I can't remember. I was too scared to look too close."
The questioning was getting intense and everyone had their guess as to what it was that I saw until the computer was pulled out and we started playing the picture game.
“O.K. Did it look like this?”
“No.”
This?”
“No.”
“This?”
“YES! YES! THAT’S IT!”
“Oh Jersey girl, that’s just a Nawth Carolyna Gecko Bear!”

The Odd Couple

There are not many people who can share communal space in peace, let alone the tight quarters of a trailer. Luckily for Gecko and I, we have proven over the years that our cohabitation is a pretty harmonious affair. And while we have many similarities in how we go about things, morning remains a time when Gecko and I couldn’t be more different.

I usually become conscious around seven-thirty or eight and then choose to lay in bed with my eyes closed and my mind daydreaming until the clock approaches a more respectable hour – let’s say around nine-ish. This is my magical “I’m not getting involved yet” time and I cherish it almost as much as the cup of coffee that I know I will very slowly make when I finally do get out of bed.

By contrast, Gecko is up by six or seven and immediately starts planning out his entire day, week, month, and year onto lists, supported by graphs, diagrams and tech support from T-Mobile. As soon as his eyes open it’s as if his mind just heard the starting gun and Seabiscuit is out of the gates running seven furlongs in a swath of southern heat.
Two mornings ago, as I was lying there, imaginatively spinning myself into first place at a salsa competition in perhaps New York or Miami, Gecko came barreling through the three-foot hallway full of energy:
“Well, I hope your awake. If not, too bad for you because its time to organize the office!”
“But it’s five Gecko!”
“Close those eyes! Here come the lights!” he chirped as papers, magazines and boxes of stuff were whipped up into a tornado that would have had Dorothy frantically clicking her heels.
Then yesterday, just as I was riding across country, on an open road at sunset, in a 1969 baby blue Camaro with the handsomest man in the world sitting next to me, I heard my frequency start to go static as Channel Gecko was coming in strong.
“ AT&T sucks! You guys are so much better. O.K, Now. I want to upload my contact list from my iphone to my T-mobile phone but it’s saying I have to go through Outlook Express and create some file. What’s that? I need to make a what file? O.K. Right – a CSV file. Andriana? Are you awake? Do you know how to make a CSV file?”
“I don’t…wha?....a who?...file…wha?” I replied, looking at him as though someone just spent the night socking me in the head with coal pillows.

It’s interesting to me the ingredients that make a household successful, or in our case, a trailer successful. Differences are so many times spun into a negative, when really, what could be more fun than two people, sharing the same space, one having mapped out their entire future while the other has only mapped out their path to the coffeemaker - all before nine in the morning.

The Occasional Daily Photo - 8/03 - Hot Lil' Piggy