Emma Marlow

In this new house…there are smoke detectors everywhere and one of them blinks a red light at me. I told Michael that it’s probably taking pictures of me undressing and sending them to Germany. Someone will recognize me from an internet site. I’m only paranoid when there’s a full moon.

Cayah (15) tends to cook with a gusto and filling a house full of smoke is life on normal mode around here. I’m never surprised when the detectors take off and squeal their warning. A bit ago, the kitchen smoke detector took off with ear piercing shrills and all of the other detectors in the house responded! They were no where near the smoke but they took off! I’ve never seen that before…that’s pretty smart.

Cayah flapped a hand towel around the kitchen detector to fake it out to no avail. Unlike the smoke detectors at the condo at the beach where we stay sometimes…it’s smarter than that. She yelled over the din, asking if she could poke it with a broom handle like we did at the other house. I told her no. We all know what condition that detector ended up in…..poked to death for doing its job, poor thing!

The noise was deafening and we were laughing. Finally…all at once…there was quiet. I heard Cayah snicker from the kitchen….:” I bellowed through the house asking what she did to make them stop.

“I ripped their batteries out…dog gone them….” she yelled back.

So much for high tech smoke detection. I guess if the house burns down we’ll all sleep through it.

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author.

My son tells me that I need friends in low places and much of the stuff that happens to me wouldn’t happen.

I think I DO have friends in low places here and in all reality I wish they WOULD do things to help me but I just don’t want to know about it. I have many people who have asked me if they could ‘even the odds’ or ‘take care of it’ and I tell them no. My mouth says NO but my heart says Yes…I just want them to take care of it without me knowing.

Many years ago I was going through a horrible situation with a house we were owner financing. The couple was going bankrupt and they were getting the house and we were holding the bag. It was going to put us way under and I was loosing my farm.

Anyway, my friend Sarah invited our whole family to her churches Christmas dinner. She and I and a really rough looking gentleman were at a table. He was obviously a biker and had a long beard and leathers and he was slumping over his plate listening to these two, young, homeschooling mom’s with tiny baby’s on our laps, prattle along. He didn’t say anything and kept eating and we kept chatting happily, across his plate of food.

I was telling Sarah the continuing saga of that stupid house and those people not living up to their obligations and leaving us in the lurch and I mentioned that it would just be perfect if it just burned to the ground. I mean…make sure no one was in it…the folks had a child and I didn’t want anyone hurt, but I was insured up the ying-yang on that place and if it burned to the ground…they would be outta there and I’d have a hundred thousand dollar lot to sell and I’d be rid of the place.

For the first time, this rough looking gentleman spoke. Mouth full…another forkful of food hovering next to his face, he said, “Who are these people and where is this house?”

Well….I was horrified….the thought of someone actually DOING something to the house was terrifying to me. Before I could begin my protests and convincing him that things would be OK and nothing touches us that GOD doesn’t allow…Sarah piped up with, ‘Tom and Jenny Johnson at six-three-one Expansion Hill Road in Arkin, North Carolina.’ She said it fast and clear so I couldn’t stop her.

My mouth was agape and I was speechless. I had no idea she even knew the actual address and it just flowed out of her like she was waiting for a friend in low places to even the odds for us. The biker put another huge forkful of food in his mouth and didn’t say another word. Sarah looked at me smugly like she’d helped me and it was done and there would be no more to be said about it.

That man chewed methodically after that and I know he was pondering and thinking and making plans. He was no longer listening to us.

I really think he fully intended to take care of that situation for us but that house was under protection by the local motorcycle gang. Everyone else in the neighborhood was vandalized and / or robbed by marauding bikers over the years and our house was never touched. Even with lawn furniture, a motorcycle, yard equipment and tools under an unlocked carport…we never had one thing taken.

Everyday after that Christmas potluck, I wondered if that house would burn and worried that someone would be in it and secretly wished it would burn right to the ground. The reason we were under protection is a wonderful lesson on God’s ordained authority.

One of our unwed mothers was a girl named Patty who had a baby boy named Damian. Now that was during the time when the Omen movies where popular and Damian was just a freaky name for a kid. Patty was unfit on many levels and I ended up caring for Damian AND my Adam, who was almost the same age. Patty didn’t even want the kid and she would take off for days at a time and when she was home, she’d take the baby down the road and blow pot smoke into his face so he’d sleep. The father of the baby was one of the officers in the local motorcycle gang. He was a big guy named Rock and we’d invited him over to see Patty and the baby several times. He knew what electronic equipment we had and how easy it would be to steal from us. Our home was open to him and his young family.

Rock was no dirty thug. He had a degree in economics, was a business owner and had been in the gang for a long time. In all honesty, the churches could take a lesson or two from a motorcycle gang…there is not one member that doesn’t have a visitor every single time the prisons allow visitors. Their brotherhood puts the organized church to shame!

But…I digress.

When the neighbors started mentioning that they were going to call social services, we knew something needed to be done about Patty and the baby. Calling DSS is never an option for us….ever. Michael made an appointment to speak with Rock at the gangs headquarters. When Michael was in the car ready to leave, I told him not to come back with orders from that man to bring the baby to the clubhouse for the whores to raise. He knew he was between a “rock” and a hard woman at that point and he didn’t know which one would be worse to face.

Michael knew that the authority of God…established long before any of us were born…was the ONLY way to handle it…no matter how crazy it looked in the natural. No matter what kind of man he was…he was still that baby’s father and it was his responsibility to care for that child and we would not move until we asked him first.

The clubhouse is a huge compound with constantine wire and electronic surveillance. It’s very foreboding.

Michael told Rock all we’d done to help Patty and even offered more help if she’d try. Then he sat quiet for a long time. Rock looked out the window and smoked a couple of cigarettes and finally turned to speak to Michael. He asked if we knew any family that would take Damian as their own. Michael said that we’d only place a baby into a Christian home and did he have a problem with that. Rock said that he had a praying grandmother and he was OK with it. He said Patty would sign whatever papers and so would he. They shook hands and Rock thanked Michael for coming to him.

The papers were drawn up, Damian was renamed Joshua and went to a Christian home. We never saw Patty or Rock again but our home was never vandalized or robbed. Never. Drugs were sold two houses down and dirty cops played head trips on everyone in the neighborhood, but our home was never touched.

So…in saying all that…when the rough looking gentleman was at that Christmas pot-luck pondering the burning of that house….he didn’t know that it was under some sort of protection. The house never did burn down because I didn’t know who to contact at the motorcycle gang clubhouse to let them know that we’d moved!

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author.

A long time ago in Spain, everyone on base got paid on the same day and back then there was no direct deposit and all that. Needless to say the lines at the one little American bank on base went down the road and around the corner and stayed that way all day. People brought chairs and scooted them along. Mom’s brought their kids and coolers and books and made a day of it. People would come and entertain the troops with their musical instruments and magic shows, etc. Preachers would come and yell fire and brimstone toward their captive audience. Before walkman and other portable head devices with CD’s and movies, there was the Boom Box or ghetto blaster…there was dueling music blaring and thumping along the line.

Then there were the officers’ wives that came to belly dance. These ladies were of every age and weight…all dressed up like something that came out of a bottle. They’d have their boom box blaring the exotic music and every musician and joker and magician and source of noise would be quiet. All eyes were on them. No one laughed. No one smiled. It was serious business.

There’s something unnerving about belly dancing. A fifty year old lady with stretch marks and cellulite slithering along the line of military personnel, tapping her finger and thumb seductively together with a ‘ting-ting-ting’ makes me remember wanting to run and scream. The older ladies and those hauling around fifty or more extra pounds graciously veiled their stomachs and many of them veiled their faces….thick black false eyelashes peeping over the top. There were still some flabby bellies writhing and twitching though.

I saw a professional belly dancer in Morocco in the casaba and I was surprised how fat she was. May-be in the culture of poverty, fat was a sign of wealth and privilege. In America it’s a sign of poor discipline and lazy lifestyle. I didn’t make the rules…it’s just what I’ve noticed.

Anyway….now as I’m no longer a sweet young thing with a tight stomach, I have to wonder about those ladies belly dancing for us while we waited to cash our checks. They bought the costumes and learned the moves and practiced together and got babysitters and took time out of their day to entertain us. It’s kinda sweet, really. I guess I’ve mellowed over the years and other people looking foolish doesn’t embarrass me as much as it used to. I can see past the silliness and recognize the heart of it.

For all you delightful military wives that belly danced for us in Rota, Spain thirty years ago…here’s a belated and heartfelt thank-you.

© Copyright Notice: Permission is hereby granted to make copies as long as Emma Marlow is properly cited/credited as the author.