Lila Blue (34 page)

"But then it will be my fault
if I see something bad is going to happen and I can't stop it."

"You are not responsible for
other people's choices, whether or not you foresee them. Just because you see
something doesn't mean you have to do anything with it. Seeing clearly is a
great talent, clairvoyance, clear seeing. Seeing clearly into the future is a
gift, the gift of prophecy, a blessing from the gods. Don't reject a gift just
because you don't know exactly what to do with it. Receive gifts with humble
gratitude, and you will be guided to use them for the good of all beings."

"How do you know?" I
said, wanting promises and proof.

"I don't know what's true for
you. I only know what is true for me. If you want to be responsible for
everything you see, that can be one of your rules about life. Everyone gets to
make her own rules."

"My mind is muddled, Grandma.
Let's stop talking about this."

"Good idea," she said.

After we washed the breakfast
dishes, I sat at my lady poet's desk and wrote the dream in my journal, along
with the time and place. I was curious about whether or not I was seeing
clearly in my dreams.

When I had finished that and was
practicing writing my name beautifully, Marta called Lila and said she and Hank
would be by for a beach walk. We met them on Lila's porch and they led the way
down the stairs to the smooth damp sand.

After we got down to the tide line
and admired the waves crashing on the black rocks where hundreds of mussels and
gooseneck barnacles lived, Marta said, "Those pictures I took at your shop
yesterday morning turned out great, and I want to print a special edition of
the paper to come out Tuesday morning."

Hank said, "I told her
everyone will be at the council meeting already. No need troubling with a
special edition."

We walked north into the wind,
which was milder than usual, and sunshine broke through the heavy overhead
clouds making brilliant rays that angled down to the beach like those in the
pictures of Jesus standing on the clouds. Lila and I called them Jesus rays.
The ones breaking through the clouds this morning were glorious enough to turn
atheists into true believers.

"Maybe you're right,"
Marta said. "I'll take pictures at the meeting and put a double edition
out on Friday."

"Cassandra," she said.
"There's one picture of you sweeping up glass that is perfect for the
front page. Is it okay if I use it?"

I looked at Lila, and she said,
"You get to make up the rules."

"Okay," I said, pleased
that I'd be in the paper like my brothers had been, even if it was a paper that
hardly counted.

Ahead of us was a big flock of tiny
sandpipers, sixty or seventy of them. We watched them run on their toothpick
legs as fast as they could go, chasing the receding wave, then stopping to poke
their needle beaks into the sand to pull out sand fleas and gobble them up
before the next wave came in to chase them up the beach again.

Watching them was like hearing
classical music. There was an underlying theme with unexpected elements on top
that captured your attention and held it. I loved the way one would be later
than the rest and have to run to catch up with the others as they traveled on
up the shoreline. Sometimes the flock separated around a pile of seaweed or
driftwood and each part went its own way for a while before rejoining the
whole. They flowed like water around obstacles, all their tiny bodies flashing
white or gray depending on their angle to the light.

I was nearly mesmerized by watching
them, but all that changed when Marta let out a wild yell and ran at the flock
like a big puppy off its leash. She even barked and waved her arms at them. The
guards at the edges of the flock got everyone running away from her, but when
she gained on them, they flew up, signaling the whole flock to take flight.
They flew about fifty yards up the beach and settled back into their eating
symphony as if nothing had happened.

Hank laughed and shook his head.
"Marta loves to stir things up," he said. "She can't control
herself." There was a warm affection underneath his words, and I glimpsed
the depth of his love for her.

Pink cheeked and panting in an
exaggerated, giddy way, Marta ran back to us. "I couldn't resist,"
she said.

I saw all four of us there on the
beach together, three people in their sixties and me barely twelve, and we all
seemed the same age, all young and old at the same time. What an odd little
flock we were!

Sunday after work Lila asked if I
wanted to go with her and Veronica to visit Fred in jail. At first I said no,
but then I changed my mind. I wanted to see the man who ruined my grandparents'
wedding present.

We met Veronica outside the police
station, and Lila showed her a contract she'd written.

"This is great," Veronica
told Lila. "That lawyer I work for couldn't have worded it better. Good
for you."

"Let's see if it works,"
Lila said, and she led us into the police station.

The officer at the desk stood up
when we walked in. "Ms. Blue," he said to Lila. "The chief said
you'd be in to file charges."

"I'd like to speak to the
suspect first, if that's okay," she said.

He looked at Veronica and me.

"I'm his wife," Veronica
said.

"I'm Cassandra," I said.

"I guess it's okay," the
officer said, and he led us back to the jail cell where Fred was sitting on a
skinny cot looking bored.

When he saw us, Fred stood up and
came to the bars. "Ah, Lila," he said. "I'm so sorry. They told
me what I did. I'll fix everything with my own hands. I'll do whatever you
want."

"Good," Lila said.
"That's what I came here to talk to you about."

"You'll see," he said.
"Good as new. Better, even."

"Cassandra," Lila said to
me, "I'd like you to meet Fred Wattles. Fred, my granddaughter, Cassandra
Blue."

Fred stuck his hand out through the
bars to greet me but I stepped away from him.

Fred tried to talk to Veronica, but
one look from her silenced him.

Lila started out then in a lawyer
tone of voice. "Mr. Wattles, the Chief wants me to file charges against
you for your criminal actions, but I'd rather not. I have a proposal where you
might be able to avoid additional trials, jail time, court enforced
restitution, a more serious criminal record, and various other unpleasant
consequences."

"Oh," Fred said, properly
humbled.

"Four conditions," she
said, holding up her hand to tick them off with her fingers.

"One. You pay for all
repairs."

He nodded vigorously but kept his
mouth shut.

"Two. You destroy all your
firearms."

His eyes got wide, and he looked to
Veronica for support. Her face was stone.

"Three. You bring me an exact
replacement of the antique barber pole you destroyed."

"But," he said, ready to
go on.

"And four," Lila said,
stopping him. "You do not set foot in a bar or any public establishment
where alcohol is served until you have completed the first three tasks."

"But, Lila," he said.
"Why can't I sell the guns and give you the money?"

"You destroyed my property.
I'm asking you to destroy yours. I can leave right now and file charges on the
way out. I don't want to waste your time talking."

"Wait," he said.
"Just give me a few minutes, okay?"

"Take your time, then,"
she said.

"Where am I going to find a
barber pole?"

"My husband and I bought that
barber pole on our wedding day in Portland forty-five years ago. I'm sure
there's one just like it somewhere."

"Your wedding day?" he
asked.

Veronica said, "You heard her,
Fred."

"But what if I can't find
one?"

"Then you'll never set foot in
a pub again the rest of your life," Lila said. "That's the deal."

"Maybe you should go ahead and
press charges then, Lila," Fred said. "The police won't make me
destroy my own guns."

Veronica stepped up close to the
bars of the cell then and said in a very sweet, soft voice, "Honey, don't
make a decision until you hear my part."

Fred went back, sat on the cot, and
slumped down like a busted five year old. He hung his head.

"If you don't agree to Lila's
terms and work at least eight hours every day to complete the tasks, you can
find yourself another place to live, starting now."

"Vee," he said in a
five-year-old whiny voice, "Don't be that way."

Veronica held up her hand and he
shut his mouth. "Lila's giving you a chance to save your life here. If you
don't take it, I'm done with you. I've already changed the locks on the
doors." She turned and marched out of the building, not giving him a
chance to say another whiny word.

Fred looked at me, desperate for
one last chance at sympathy. I looked him straight in the eye and thought of
broken glass in the middle of the night.

Lila waited a few more seconds, and
then she said, "I'll see you in court, then, Fred. I understand. No hard
feelings."

She took my hand and turned us
around to march out the way Veronica had.

"Wait," Fred said,
leaping to the bars and hanging on them. "I accept. I'll do the four
things. I promise."

"Good," Lila said, and
she turned around and handed him a contract to sign. He read it, shook his head
and sighed, and finally signed.

"Please sign the other two
copies, too," she said, "One for you and one for Veronica."

Lila took all the copies back, she
signed and dated them, and then she had me sign as official witness.

"You've made the right choice,
Fred," she said, handing him his copy. She bowed Namaste to him.
"I'll let Veronica know."

Monday morning there was a misty
fog on the beach, but it disappeared two blocks inland, so Rainbow Village had
clear blue skies. We went early to meet the window repair guys at the shop.
They worked on one of Hank's building crews, and he sent them over to get Lila
fixed up. They started by taking the plywood off the windows and loading it in
their truck.

Marta was there taking dozens of
pictures. I thought things were stirred up enough. I wanted to say to her, You
can ruin biscuit dough by too much handling.

"These guys are great,"
Marta said. The workers, two middle-aged men in white overalls and heavy brown
boots, smiled for the camera like movie stars. After they prepared the window
frames and measured everything carefully, they set off for the valley to get
the glass they needed.

As they drove away, Fred and
Veronica showed up. Marta ran over to take their picture and Veronica held up
her hand and said, "No pictures. I'm humiliated enough as it is."

Fred was scrubbed and dressed in
church clothes, and his shoulders slumped when he saw what remained of the
barber pole. He went over and stood in front of it. Lila and Veronica chatted
about her new job with the law firm. No one moved to rescue Fred. People drove
by on their way to work and slowed down to wave at Lila and comment about the
shop windows. It was a regular Monday morning in Rainbow Village.

Herbert came and turned on the neon
open sign, and then he sat in his barber chair to read the Portland newspaper.
After a few minutes, he came outside, handed the paper to Lila, and went back
inside to a customer.

"Marta," Lila said.
"How did this get in here?" There was a note of agitation or
impatience in her voice that I'd never heard before. Veronica and I looked over
her shoulders, and there was a big picture of me in my beaded Pocahontas braids
and blue jeans sweeping broken glass on the sidewalk. The murdered barber pole
was beyond me in the left corner of the photo, and you could read the
Lila
Blue's Family Barbershop
sign on the front door of the shop. The caption
read,
Coastal Business Victim of Shooting
.

Marta took a deep breath and walked
over to us. "I told you it was a great picture," she said.

Lila looked at her and held out her
hand. "Give me the camera," she said. "No more pictures.
Period."

"Lila," Marta said,
"this is the news, the biggest news happening right now, not just here but
in the country. It's my obligation to cover it."

"Stop," Lila said, and
Marta did stop and kind of pulled herself up to attention. She didn't turn over
her camera, though.

"No more," Lila said
again.

"Okay," Marta said.
"I won't use the ones I took today."

"Thank you," Lila said.
She folded up the paper and handed it to me.

I took it back inside the shop
where Herbert was finishing a donut haircut on a customer. A donut haircut was
their barber term for a trim for men who were mostly bald, those who had only a
narrow fringe of hair all around. Herbert charged half price for donuts,
because they took so little time. He sold a lot of them.

 I sat in Lila's chair, aware of the
clean bullet hole at the center of my back, and unfolded the paper to my
picture. There was no story, just a paragraph that served as the photo caption.
Coastal Business Victim of Shooting. At 2:22 Saturday morning rifle shots
shattered the silence of the lovely beach community of Rainbow Village, Oregon.
The attack on Lila Blue's Family Barbershop came after the owner’s column in
the Rainbow News called for residents to come together at their community
council meeting Tuesday night to discuss handgun safety. Pictured here, in the
aftermath of the tragedy, is Blue's twelve-year-old granddaughter.

I liked the picture of me. I could
see why Marta was proud of it. I looked young, vulnerable, and sweet,
surrounded by broken glass, and the shattered barber pole seemed a symbol of a
peaceful small town being destroyed by violence. The photo was artistically
pleasing, and I wanted a copy to send to Shakti. I figured I'd ask Marta later
for a print. Now didn't seem the appropriate time.