Chapter 6

the sound: Curtis Mayfield - Pusherman, Elton John - Benny and the Jets , Van Morrison - Moondance, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - Down by the River, Joni Mitchell - Big Yellow Taxi, Neil Young - Tonights the Night, The Band - I Shall Be Released, Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit, Joe Cocker - With a Little Help From My Friends

Anyway, so when the time came that Mike's Mom died it was me that held him when he cried. It was me that went out and got him a suit and a shirt and a tie. And it was me that dressed him, and loaded him into a cab and it was me that was there to help him out and hold him when he got back.

In time Mike's legs healed and in time he moved outta that third floor apartment and into my studio at the hotel.

And in time we began to work on me. The rest as they say…..is history.

When Mike's new stepmother announced that I wouldn't be attending the funeral I was thunderstruck and just backed down…..for about an hour.

The boys took over, and next thing I know, me and my big belly full of baby are in the Cadillac on our way to the funeral home and even Sick Rick whom I have hated since the day we first met (and the feeling is mutual, I'm sure) is making sure that I get in to say my goodbye.

Those boys stormed that funeral home and made enough of a ruckus that I was able to slip around to the back and in to see Mike. There was no one there…no one to see me I mean, they’d all gone out to check out the brouhaha out front.

There was no one in that box either. It wasn’t Mike. Mike was larger than life with that ruddy complexion that comes with strawberry blonde hair. Mike’s hair had been shoulder long and his disapproving step mother had made them cut it short. Mike’s most prized possession was his vest and jacket. She’d had him dressed in a blue shirt and tie. And not even that beautiful sky blue of his eyes. No the bitch buried him in aquamarine. He looked small and broken cos he was.

Mike’s dad was a broken man too but in a different way. He was living his own personal hell and he wouldn’t stand up to her. She was a gold digging, conniving, insipid woman and he was no match for her. In the end it turned out that I wasn’t either.

Four of the boys that we rode with went to jail that day, just so I could say goodbye. And if I live to be a hundred years old I'll never find a way to say thank you.

So now I know that I don’t trust men so much, and I’m not to keen on trusting women either. But I'm still not crying. I have a hotel to run and a baby coming in 3 weeks and who the hell has time to cry?

{a note from WyzWmn....I originally started writing this story a couple of years ago...wrote reams and saved it all...over time I posted bits and pieces of it in different places and then lost my hard drive and lost the bulk of the story.....just as well as I apparently was not (at that time) ready to share it all....I may still not be

so...read if you will...or not
but understand that this is not me attempting to garner sympathy, empathy or attention.
nor do I write to shock you
I simply tell my truth
this is me...trying to do what bloggers do....
get it off my chest....Wyz}