More Random "...NOTES..." From Wrinkled Scraps...

IN AN ALL-TOO FAMILIAR SCENARIO…

…an orgy of self-indulgence…I plow through a container of homemade peanut butter fudge and chocolate fudge with walnuts and moments later am overcome with regret, but o how momentarily satisfying is instant gratification, and hey, eating wrong is big during the present-day faux celebratory season and who am I to buck the tide? And besides ‘Doing things wrong is my way of doing things right…’

...I nosh madly away in the Mother of All Feeding Frenzies, trying to attain the look du jour, be it heroin chic, blancmange or a sudden world-wide endorsement of the ectomorphic profile – I am ready for all eventualities, my wardrobe includes the smallest sizes as well as the long flowing robes we humongos seem to favor, thinking, oddly, that to de-emphasize the bulk which comes with this overindulgence, piling on the sweaters, triple XXX pants and sweat suits with floor length coats is a way to hide it all…really instead of one slob hoving into few it seems like two…I quickly finish brushing my few remaining follicular wisps and turn wistfully away from the glass that tells no lies…youth, youth, youth…where did you go?

WHY IT SHOULD COME TO HAUNT ME NOW, HALF A CENTURY LATER…

…I can’t say…unless it is because it is true that ‘everything you do comes back to you’, because on numerous occasions in the recent past I have woke with a fright and there she was big as life, Christy.

...misshapen and grotesque beyond belief she lurched miserably through the streets of my youth chased by the taunts of myself and many others, mercilessly imitating her bow-legged, crippled-hipped, bent-armed shuffle, dragging one foot along muttering in a croaked whisper…how the poor woman must have suffered her whole life through because of people like me!

A bad memory lain dormant lo these many years, since the 50s, there is no one to say to, ‘Christy I’m so sorry I hurt you, here let me help…’

If she were still alive – she couldn’t possibly be – and was as feisty now as she was then she’d take her hickory cane to me, which she often tried to do in 1954 and 1955 - but then I was too quick; now she’d probably catch me.

As I matured (in several respects) I changed in appearance and after a fashion she no longer recognized me and also, of course, when I grew older and (one hopes) wiser, I left the poor dear alone.

Now I wake with a start as I hear her cane whistling through the air cracking me across the back of my legs...a tingle of fear and pain shoots up and down my spine…