santos scribes

All afternoon I listened to the bumble bee buzz,

this is what they told me:

“Listen Button, when I tell you they were drunk, I don’t mean beer-with-lunch-cocktail-hour-wine drunk, I mean speech-slurring-bodies-weaving-fall-down-and-leave-me-here drunk, I mean stinkin’ drunk.  

Picture a massive swarm of us all liquored up, gallons of that post-rain-elixing good stuff pumpin through our veins, oooh weee! Liquored up and heading to the hive, bumping into everything but each other- that was them Button, that was your parents, pushing you along in a mostly broken shopping cart they’d taken from outside the BeeBee Dairy there in Groton City. They’d gone and gotten themselves so buzzed up that afternoon, not even their baby girl in tow could stop ‘em.  

Now let’s be clear about one thing up front: the BeeBee Dairy was a fine and respectable eating establishment; that smiling bee in the logo was sipping on a milkshake, not a mudslide, you catch me? BeeBee’s sold Americana & nostalgia, patty melts & triple deckers, but tucked into that Shopping Plaza with the BeeBee’s and the Woolworths was a liquor store-can’t recall the name- but you could call it Sandy & Ned’s honey hole.  

There was a path at the edge of that parking lot behind the Cinema and to the east, the path wound all the way to the backside of the subsidized housing complex you all lived in then. To the west it ran right up to the Shopping Plaza, where the BeeBee’s (Ned washed dishes there and your social workers spent hours trying to find temporary placements for you) the Woolworths, and you guessed it, that liquor store were.  

Contrary to much of what you heard back then, your parents were not dumb. Disadvantaged? Yes. Disabled? You bet. But dumb? No sirree Bob. Back then liquor stores didn’t open on Sundays in Connecticut, and with the kind of help Sandy and Ned got from their boozing, they did what it took to stay armed with enough hooch to get ‘em both through the weekends.  

Ned worked Sunday mornings at the restaurant and on that Sunday, Sandy took you (and a fifth of Bourbon she’d squirreled away) over to meet him after his shift. Probably hoping she might share a bite of his shift meal. Lord knows she musta still been feeling the night before and I ain’t found a single thing a grease-soaked French fry can’t do to ease that kinda pain, but I digress.    

At BeeBee’s, she kept you beside her in that high backed vinyl red booth, chain smoking Winstons and waiting on your father to finish up. Twice she asked the waitress to keep an eye on you as she made her unsteady way to the ladies’ room, purse and belly full of the sloshing brown stuff.  

Once Ned joined the table they took turns getting after it, and honestly Button, in those days, no one was the wiser except for maybe that waitress- I never did get her name but I know you believe in earth angels, Button and I know sure as my queen is a bee, that young lady was one.  

When that waitress saw your parents stumbling their way to the exit with you, she threw her apron full of orders and cash across that counter so fast you’d have thought she was your mother. 

I caught sight of the situation just outside the glassed entryway full of penny candy and leaflets, and together she walked, and I flew as Sandy and Ned fumbled their way home with you. 

Now, “home” might be a stretch but they got you through that door and I busied myself with a dandelion while the big-hearted woman stood and stared awhile at that faded number 13. Idda said “Penny for your Thoughts” if I could have, but you didn’t need to be an Apiologist to know what she was thinking. 

Now Button, I need you to hear me on this, if you can- I’m a bee, and while my kind is known for doing great work to make this great planet of ours go ‘round, there are in fact limits to what even I can and can’t understand and so I can’t tell you what a higher power is but I can tell you it was with you and in us that late summer afternoon, same as it’s with you today, sweet child, same as it’s with you today.  

about this writing

Ahhh more Button! These pieces are so tender and important to me – are you enjoying reading them? thanks for being here xo, S.