Zona

Hallway of doors

Through the door and into the alley. The weeds and the smells of gramma's pomegranite bushes. A barking dog next door. Now the smell of beans from the neighbor's kitchen and the musty old rags that gramma used to weave into rugs.

And my uncle Heber is standing there in his white shirt, suspenders and pit helmet. He has that old man smell to him. We'd go to his property on the border to feed his pigs. Heber was kind of slow because he was gassed in WWI but his mind was sharp.

These were the only times when I remember being just me. The cute girl from next door showing the world to me when we were naive and innocent and I was too shy to kiss her. The lady that cleaned my gramma's house making tortillas that have been unmatched in taste all these years no matter how many I have tried in my search to find them. The bed I slept in with the big window to the front porch and the thunderstorms that knocked the lights out and set me free into the flashes and the booms.

The coin laundry my uncle owned and where my gramma worked has wild cherry tomatoes growing in the front and they were the best and mountain dew in the bottle as the machine clanked and released one into my reach. Playing wiffle ball next door and listening to the Pinedo boy practice his opera singing voice. Years later there would be my favorite cousin Scott and chasing after the girls at church.

Warm nights after church as all these mormon grandchildren of polygamists gathered for ice cream down at the dairy queen. Me hoping my dilly bar concealed a "free stick". Oh, and Aunt Gladys' oatmeal cookies.

I'm back out in the hallway with a slight tear in my eye. They're all gone now but this is my favorite room. One where there are too many things to write down. One I come to when I'm blue. They always smile and wave goodbye when I leave.

The Pinedo boy went on to sing in New York City. My wiffle ball neighbors still live in that town. My favorite cousin Scott would take his own life after a traffic accident left him a fraction of the man that he had been. That's a big taboo of course to mormons but we all understood. My uncle Heber had a son, Billy who went off to WWII and never came home. He was murdered in The Netherlands by the gestapo after escaping with five other Americans from a POW camp. One of the things I want to do before I die is go visit his grave.