No U Turn. Michael Taylor

anticipating someone’s bad attitude or inappropriate behavior.

      No questions, no comments, no more conversation. Just silence. I had experienced this before with Boogie, when he didn’t want to disclose his agenda—when he didn’t want to cooperate, give up something personal, or contribute anything of himself. Something definitely was going on. He wasn’t going to share it. He was using Hannah and me again, but this time I had a surprise. A ‘Sting,’ if you please. I was going to play along. Hannah knew my plan, too. We were going to let him come, be on guard, hide the cash and jewelry, but pretend to be nice. Everything apparently normal, as usual! But I was going to record his answers to what I intended to be some very personal questions.

      I ended the conversation with a brief, “I’ll make sure she gets the message.”

      And I did.

      Afterwards, Hannah again had that ‘I-just-smelled-a-dead-skunk’ look on her face, just like when we had driven past some road kill in Montana or the Carolina’s. Scrunching up her nose and pursing her lips in that intense ‘Bewitched’ way of hers, she said, “I am­ definitely calling him to see what’s going on.”

      And she did—off by herself in the living room.

      When she was through, she came into the TV room and began her report with a cute I-knew-it smirk on her face. Twenty thousand dollars was really $130,000! It seemed that besides the man who was suing him for $20,000, he owed several others an additional $110,000. They hadn’t gotten around to suing or had, hopefully, just written him off.

      ~~~~~~~~~~

      I spoke to Boogie the next day. It was to let him know that H had filled me in and to make sure he understood that our calls to him were to make certain that he wasn’t bringing his difficulties to our home. ”No problem,” he said softly.

      ~~~~~~~~~~

      Sixteen days before his intended date of arrival, Boogie called.

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      Ten days before his intended date of arrival, Boogie called again.

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      ≈ Boy, he must be in some big trouble! ≈

      ~~~~~~~~~~

      Five days before his intended date of arrival, Boogie called once again.

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      ≈ I‘VE SEEN THIS BEFORE rang loud in my head—this type of uncertainty, desperation … repeatedly calling me at two—, or 3 o’clock in the morning, high on something and not noticing or caring about time zone differences, thrown out of California by Court Order and needing to be reassured that there would be an airplane ticket waiting for him at LAX and a place to crash with me in Norfolk ≈

      ~~~~~~~~~

      The day before he was to arrive, Boogie called to again confirm that we were expecting him. He waited until I said, “Yes, the room is still available,” before he threw in an additional and novel twist. Court apparently was going to be postponed until October 1, so I should “Tell Hannah that [he would] be needing that bed starting Thursday night!”

      ≈ What a surprise, Boogie! Your plans change and we’re supposed to jump! ≈

      “Boogie, that’s not going to happen!” I knew that he wasn’t going to back out of the trip at this point. And I knew I wanted to get the interview and tape his stories. Although I needed to speak carefully, it was going to be from a position of control. “I just want to let you know that when you weren’t expected to arrive until Saturday, we ‘rented’ the spare room out for Thursday and Friday to my niece, Cathy and her husband. They’ll be leaving early Saturday morning.” [Nick is really my nephew and Cathy is his wife, but I like her better and it’s an inside joke when I introduce them to others that way.]

      Unflappable Ben said, “It’s OK, I just need a sofa.” End of call.

      ~~~~~~~~~

      Hannah later suggested inflating the airbed and putting it in the basement. Fine with me. I remembered he liked it cold anyway. So the basement, with the air mattress placed only 10 feet from the furnace room—where the air would blow the coldest—was selected as the place where Boogie would bunk. At least for the first few nights.

      ~~~~~~~~~

      On Tuesday night, after shopping for food, picking up the house, vacuuming the carpets and cleaning three bathrooms in anticipation of the arrival of Boogie, our nephew, and Hannah’s father—Grandpa Waverly—who decided at the last minute to drive ‘up North’ from Virginia Beach with his grandson Nick and his wife, Cathy—a very full 4-bedroom house when combined with the five existing residents—Hannah broke out in a rash!

      After a night of Benadryl-induced sleep, and with the family doctor off on Wednesdays, Hannah drove herself and her histamine-induced Botox-looking lips, hives and scratching to the local hospital’s ER. They discharged her 7 hours later with a diagnosis of allergic something-or-other of ‘undetermined origin.’

      The Thursday morning of everyone’s expected arrival, having been up most of the night with swollen lips and a rash, including welts on her back, stomach and arms, Hannah woke me at 6:30 a.m. to say she was driving herself to the ER, and taking my 91 year old mother, Edith, along for company, sympathy and to protect her against all the drugs she is allergic to.

      Given that she was a frequent, repeat and valued customer—the ER immediately gave Hannah a forced rest with Prednisone, etc. Six hours later, the hospital admitted her for overnight observation of her angioedema and urticaria.

      ~~~~~~~~~~

      With 3 empty spaces on my driveway, plus ample on-street parking available, Boogie pulled up the ramp and stopped behind the white Honda at approximately 1:30 p.m. I hadn’t actually heard or seen him drive up, but was alerted to his arrival by the darting brindle-blur of Rocket, my youngest son’s 55-pound English Bulldog.

      ≈ ‘But Dad, it’ll only be for a few months. Just until he is house-trained and then Leah and I can move into an apartment without worrying that he is destroying the place while we are at work,’ said Darin—That was 4 ½ years ago ≈

      Next, I became immediately aware of a conflict about to erupt even before Boogie set foot in the house. Darin’s beautiful Filipino-American girlfriend was dressed for her part-time job. With a harried look, Leah complained out loud—I didn’t take it personally—how late she was, before yelling over her shoulder in frustration, “I can’t believe he blocked me in with all the other room to park!”

      There wasn’t enough time to explain to her that Boogie couldn’t possibly know that she was working as a waitress in Bethesda, developing her own baking and cake-decorating business in our dining room and kitchen, while simultaneously student-teaching and going to graduate school for her certificate, which didn’t allow for a lot of sleep. So I went out and asked Boogie to please park on the street so that Leah could get to her waitress job on time. In her rush to leave, Leah almost reversed into his front fender before he had completely—and slowly—finished backing down the slope.

      Turning back, I returned to the house to alert Hannah and my mother of Boogie’s arrival. I stopped short at our bedroom door when I remembered that Hannah was still at the ER. With no cell phone usage allowed, I hadn’t heard from Hannah since she woke me on her way out at 7 a.m. When I came down the steps to greet him, I noticed that although he had parked parallel to the house, he had placed most of his car on our grass and only some on the street, as I had requested.

      

      ≈ Well, he got half of it right. This will get Hannah agitated before Boogie even puts his bags down. Maybe I should have been more specific, like, ‘Park on the street, not on the grass.’ Thinking too much already! He’s not here 5 minutes