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Sad Love Times 3 Page #5

The news tonight is not good. No one here expected good news, and no this is not about Clay. He's in Spain, and he probably won't get in touch with me until he reaches the states. I did let his family know he was alive but hurt, and that his injuries are not life threatening but very serious. I hope and pray the military doctors can save his damaged leg.

That is not the problem du jour. The problem is Patricia's van, and to some extent Patricia. She is going to be our first Protestant member of Ivy House. That makes her part of the religious majority in this town, something that three Jews and a Moslem are not. That matters. I wish it didn't.

Tonight is Purim, so we took turns reading the Book of Esther. There are no synagogues here and Dafna, Leah, and Nadine all wanted to celebrate. The Koran does not include the Book of Esther and even though I have read it before (Remember Alise and I were best friends and shared holy books as soon as we knew what they were.) it was a learning experience. We didn't have the traditional rowdy reading because with only five of us, we felt dumb booing and pounding on the table. We just booed a little for Haman. Patricia found even this weird, but Haman is an arch villain and wanted to commit genocide long before the word was invented. If Haman succeeded there would be no Islam or Christianity either. I pointed that out. Patricia liked the hamantaschen. Yes, Leah is our best cook which is why I'm glad she is going to be our new 10. I'm still pretty lame in the cooking department but not as bad as I was in high school. I make lots of farfelle and lots of potato salad.

Baking fancy cookies is beyond me. Our hamantaschen had "mohn" filling. Mohn is poppyseed filling. Leah said she'd make mohn cake later in the spring and before Pesach which is what she calls Passover. Patricia slowly realized she had landed on the moon.

Well all that would be fine but Dafna screamed profanities when she got a look at poor Patricia's van which she is due to inherit as the 10 down in Taos, New Mexico. The thing had no snow tiers. It leaked oil and probably other fluids. Patricia joked and said the poor van had its period every week of the month. Dafna did not think the joke was funny. She nearly slapped Patricia.

Then she went inside and phoned Western Regional which is the head of all the courier houses, but not the transit stations. Vermillion and Spokane are transit stations, so too is Santa Fe. She requested a delay due to having received a van that was "undriveable." "The mensturating shit box," as Patricia's van that is due to become Dafna's van is known was going to spend the next three days at the mechanic's getting looked at and fixed. It was also getting snow tires because we need them for the next four to six weeks. Here it will be closer to six weeks. In New Mexico it may be four weeks.

Dafna also took Patricia's van to the washing stalls. We don't have our own stall, but we use a car wash down by the interstate. She cleaned and vaccuumed the menstruating shit box, until she could get a good look at its belly. The van had rust damage, about twice as much as our vans which drive on far more salt caked roads. "Did nobody ever clean this van before?" Dafna asked Patricia. "Not since the weather turned cold," Patricia answered. "The vans get cleaned when you ahve a day off," answered Dafna. "You're going to learn that here." Dafna even showed Patricia her van's belly. Who wants their van eaten by road salt?

Then it was time to outfit Patricia. She needed a food box, seat covers, and a pillow cover since she drives with a pillow against her lower back. This is common for the very short drivers. Patricia stands just over five feet tall.

We got the seat covers at AutoZone and the food box, a styrofoam container and a thermos at Wal-Mart. We also got Patricia several pillow cases. The cases and the seat covers all get washed after each extended trip. Dafna also explained that Patricia's van would smell clean enough that it did not need an air freshener. "Do road KP. Garbage in, means garbage out at the next available stop," Dafna sputtered angrily. "I hope Nadine, Leah, and Vijaya inspect your van regularly to make sure you keep it spit and polished. We haven't had an accident all winter, and you're not going to be our first."

To her credit, Patricia only cried a moderate amount. That doesn't win much sympathy here since all of us sometimes cry under stress, and Dafna chewed on Patricia until she was like a wad of gum with all the taste sucked out.

Maybe the chewing will do some good. Better Patricia should weep and hang her head now than break her head in an accident. As things stand, Patricia is with us until Wednesday so she is going to go riding with us as a part time passenger, part driver. She doesn't know she's on probation or maybe she does know and is beyond the point of caring.

Right now Patricia wants is writing to her parents on the laptop. Don't worry, she's staying until she messes up or until she shows she's competent. I suspect she's competent. No on ever trained her before with rigor, spit, and polish. She'll get over the stress.

Vijaya L. Naipul

Courier Rank 11

Ivy House

38 Ajax Ave.

Missoula, MT

Point Two-Five

Dear all,

I am sorry I have not written in a while, but there has been a lot going around here out west including a route switch, and no, I have heard nothing from Clay yet which means he is still in Spain and has no internet at his hospital. That is not good, but there is not much I can do about it.

The "menstruating shitbox" as we christened Dafna's new van that she took with her to Taos, New Mexico where she is due to become the next 10, became roadworthy due to the mechanics and a new set of tires courtesy of the US government. It took plenty of yelling and cajoling on the phone to get Western Regional to pay for those tires. Taos must be a cheap operation or someone was skimming money down there in New Mexico.

Patricia turned out to be another story. Yes, she can drive. Yes, she takes safety precautions, but we are a team here at Ivy House and Patricia is a poor fit. That does not mean we dump her. It means we make her fit and kee her poor fit from doing damage that could lead one of us to have an accident.

To start with Patricia came with food issues. She says we have food issues, but Patricia has them not us. To start with, she did not know half the foods we eat. She liked some of them well enough, picked out what she did not like, asked for plain stuff etc... That would have been fine, but her ignorance made her a poor cook and even worse at marketing. When her travels took her to Winnipeg or through Bozeman, a not uncommon occurence, she'd bring back the wrong thing or nothing at all. Drivers at Taos cooked for themselves and ate a lot of Lean Cuisine and Power Bars.

A frustrated Leah, our new 10, tried writing down Patricia's shopping orders in the Report of the Day, only to find that even this did not work. In desperation, Leah thought outside the box. Patricia now has my route through the LoLo and I have the eastern route which means frequent stops in Bozeman and at Rapid City.

In other news, Oniksi is back in my dreams again. I watch girls in white shirts and black skirts (It's mostly high school girls), some kind of uniform I guess, taking very formal classes. I mean these girls rise when a teacher enters the room and I have seen them throw themselves at the principal's feet. Obeisance this is not. It is groveling. I also saw the white buffalo in her pen in the city menagerie. I am not sure why I am still having the dreams. One was not at the school, but it featured Kokqi speaking before a group of old men and women with weathered reddish brown faces and long white braids and lots of symbolic beads and feathers on their clothes. She said "no" a lot and then she mentioned "Kelli Ann Jackson's name a lot. Kokqi even spelled it. Kelli knows. Kelli knows. Kelli knows," Kokqi kept repeating.

Kelli came to live in Ithaca after my time and I don't have the slightest idea what she knows, but if it's about Marguerite, Kelli knows about as much as I do which is that Marguerite does good things for poor people. As for what Naama can do, magic comes with a terrible price. There is no free lunch and Naama would like to be healthy. That's what I'd tell those men with the long hair and "nice" ladies with mignaiee.

Vijaya L. Naipul

Courier and Federal Employee Rank 11

Walsh Library

University of Montana

Bozeman, MT

Point Two-Five

Leah gave Patricia Comparative Religion 101 last night. That was after I, of all people gave her a course in Pasta 101. What did that poor girl grow up eating? I shudder to think what her mother cooked. Anyway, I explained for the tenth time what a farfelle was, what a tubetini was, what ancini de pepe was and yes we like our soup over our macaroni and yes, the little shapes are better in soup than elbows and a nice change from rice. Yes, there are at least twenty ways to make pasta salad. Yes, it is a staple. Yes, barley and rice are not kasha and vice versa three times over.

And now, according to Leah, we have to eat down all those lovely grain products that form the heart of our dinner menu and get ready for Passover. The matzoh have been ordered over the internet (Please excuse the passive voice) along with jams and jellies. For a week there will be no Chex Mix and no granola in plastic bags and no gorp since peanuts are chametz. Yes, Patricia has lots of new words in her vocabulary.

She asks how any of us would have survived out west. Leah tells her that we are surviving quite nicely in Missoula, Montana. Then Nadine asked Patricia how she survived without a decent diet in Taos.

"People did their own thing there and they did in Amarillo too. What would you do in Amarillo?"

"Look for a large supermarket and a health food store or co-op," answered Nadine matter of factly. "You know one in every three boxes you transport is a care package so this food thing is not just us."

Patricia groaned. Sometimes this very lonely driver talks about high school. She was in a lot of extracurriculars, not just Peace Project and Card Club, my two favorites as well as the group that did the front display board after it looked like a destroyed village in a war zone one time too many. She played field hockey and did Model UN and Key Club, and really liked her service learning which was more than getting barrels ready to go back to South Asia and writing letters to prisoners. Most of my prisoners were in jail on immigration violations.

All that is gone since she's been driving. If Patricia could, she'd go back home to that world, but you have to leave that world to go to college don't you. Maybe Princeton is different than Cornell, especially Cornell architecture.

By the way, I'm keeping an eye out for mono. So far no one we've transported and no one in this house has it, but who knows. It's probably back east.

Vijaya L. Naipul

Federal Employee and Courier Rank 11

Ivy House

38 Ajax St.

Missoula, MT

Point Two-Five

Dear Alise and Vijaya,

No one out here in Missoula has mono. I have the Rapid City and Medora runs now and the prairie is brown with white mottles of snow. It is a miserable time of year, and yes this far north we still need studded snow tires. They ride more smoothly but more noisily than tires with chains.

Tell Florita, I work. I've been working part time since I was sixteen and I don't consider myself low class for packing barrels or driving a courier van. I drive my van for Uncle Sam, the US government. I'm a federal employee. I'm not a whore either. How can you say that and not have it sound like a protest? Our group of drivers is all female and we call ourselves and people call us Ivy House. We're Ivy House because we'd all be going to Ivy League schools if the government hadn't conscripted us.

Anyway, I don't have to find matzoh for Leah and Nadine. Dafna is in Taos where she teaches cooking, proper KP, accident prevention, and puts the fear of Allah the All Merciful in to her drivers. She's a 10. I'm an 11. The lower your rank the more prestige you have etc....Leah ordered our matzoh for Passover over the internet. Thanks, Leah. I like matzoh. They are flat and crunchy.

Meanwhile, I have still heard nothing from Clay. He is still in Spain. I imagine they are struggling to save his leg. I wish I could say I have bad dreams of him, but instead I dream of that strange school with Indian kids in uniform. Yes, this is the House of Many Tongues in On-ik-si, the city of onyx. The kids there throw themselves at the feet of authority figures.

I also dream of the white buffalo. She's a cow or a heifer because she is still so young. They are going to clone her if they haven't done so all ready. Priests come to her stall and bless her and talk in a language I can't understand. The white buffalo has something to do with a coming of a messiah. Of course I'm not sure what Two-by-Two, Kokqi's world could do with a messiah. I guess everyone wants one unless you know God sent his greatest prophet all ready.

Vijaya L. Naipul

Courier and Federal Employee Rank 11

Americana Inn

Medora, North Dakota

Point Two-Five

Dear all,

Happy Passover. I managed to get back to Missoula for the second seder. This weekend I ended up on the wrong end of a DNP (A Do Not Proceed) order and stuck in Medora, North Dakota. I had picked up my roommate on the plains outside of Rapid City and we got hit by the storm. She was a black haired lady who may or may not have been Native American (That means Indian and don't you dare call them red savages, Ysabeau). I don't care what she is.

I have been dreaming of the white buffalo heifer in her pen in On-nik-si, the city Onyx on Two by Two. I wish the dream would go away. It monopolizes my head and lives there without paying rent. It crowds out good dreams of such subjects as my cousins and I playing flag football. I know you don't get a choice about dreams, but I could care less about a stupid white buffalo.

Anyway it is true what they say about spring snow storms, they are the worst. There I was cooped up in the motel in Medora with Monique who was bound for Lame Deer and even going out once an hour to scrape ice off my van did not give me enough relief. What does Monique start talking about? The white buffalot calf kept on the Sioux reservation in Rose Bud, South Dakota. Say that three times fast if you will. It was bad enough that there were white buffalo in my dreams.

Finally, I could not resist, I asked Monique, what the white buffalo meant. She said it meant the coming of the messiah and the time when the red man would rise up, a kind of time of reckoning if you will. I said I did not believe a word of this hogwash. Monique asked about my religious background and I told her.

I was glad when we could get going late this morning. I was glad to dump Monique in Lame Deer and pick up only paperwork that is bound for Spokane when one of their drivers comes by to take it. I'm glad when I checked my email that there was a letter from Clay! He is at Walter Reed Medical Center and the USO has an internet cafe for wounded servicemen and women. Clay is back in circulation. It also looks like they "saved" both his legs. That doesn't mean they are going to heal as good as new. Clay has weeks of very painful physical therapy and rehabilitation ahead of him. He is currently using a wheelchair some of the time and a walker or crutches other parts of the time. They put him on a machine that shoots electricity through his legs to stimulate the nerves to rewire. Nerve cells once killed do not regrow and neurons can not divide to make new cells. When Clay's legs were crushed, there was a lot of nerve damage. In an earlier era he would be a double amputee and in an even earlier time he would be dead. Clay however is alive and if it be the will of Allah, he will walk again.

By the way, I haven't checked the telegraph today, but barring horrific news, Allah be Praised for the Sirius Gate ship finding land. They too have been in my prayers and I will keep them there in the hopes that they land safely, can walk about, and can find food and water.

Vijaya L. Naipul

Courier and Federal Employee Rank 11

Ivy House

38 Ajax St.

Missoula, MT

Point Two-Five