Chapter 11: Adieu

We move in a few days, and we have received word that the buyer of this home we're about to leave will be putting up a fence. Wise choice, I suppose. So, the Ambrosia Files are coming to a close. I'd been thinking for a while that Ambrosia must've run off to Alabama with her sister. Having gone into my yard at least a half dozen times without having her black-clad body appear in the doorway with a cigarette in hand, it just seemed she had made an exit. Also, the last time I saw her, she mentioned she was thinking about leaving Steve and heading down to Mobile. "I'm afraid my ex-husband would get me for kidnapping," she said. "So, I thought about just leaving the kids with Steve and getting out of here. I got family. I'm sick of his ass. But then my ex would probably get me for abandonment."

"And you'd miss them," I answered, hopefully.

She gave me a sideways like-heck look and said, "Harlan is getting on my fuckin' nerves so bad. I don't think so."

But she clearly got a second wind and decided to persevere, because when I went out to barbecue with my husband yesterday, there she was. She was standing in a semi-circle of lawnchairs occupied by what appeared to be a few of the extras from Deliverance. As soon as she spotted me, Ambrosia came skipping -- yes, skipping -- over to get me. She fairly giddily took me by the hand and led me from my yard, giggling as she half-whispered, "You gotta meet my dad. I swear he looks like a hillbilly chimp." She's mentioned her father's likeness to a monkey before, but I honestly couldn't see it when I met him. I just saw a weathered speck of a man with no teeth, sitting spread-legged next to an enormously round woman in a muu-muu and who also had no teeth. This was Ambrosia's mother, and she actually spit on the grass just before she shook my hand.

Later that evening, Ambrosia brought Meddow into our yard to play dolls with my daughter, Abigail. I don't know where it came from, but as they were making their dolls do cartwheels and kiss, she just sort of blurted out that her parents used to be complete drunks. "I remember drinking beer when I was about three or four," she said. "And having them make me rum-and-cokes when I was about seven. They used to let me stay up drinking myself silly, or they'd bring me liquor as I waited for them in the car. We drank all the time at home. I'd be sick in the bathroom at 4 a.m., go to bed for a couple of hours, and then be off to school for the day." I add this up in my head with the story she once told me of watching her first porno with her parents, when she was thirteen, and I think how amazing it is that Ambrosia is as okay as she is. I realize why she never drinks when her kids are home, even if they're in bed. I realize how hard it is to be Ambrosia and how she's no longer a joke to me anymore.

Chapter 10: The Card

Well, we did it. We accepted an offer on our house and bought another one far, far away from Ambrosia. I've yet to form an impression of my new neighbors, mostly because we haven't moved into the new house yet, but also because none of them were out lounging in plastic wading pools in their yards and yelling, "Don't fuckin' worry about it!" at their kids when we looked at the place. Which is what Ambrosia was doing the day we first took occupancy here.

I haven't seen Ambrosia in over week, but last night she appeared in our yard in a tube top and cutoff denim shorts, took a seat in the grass, lit up one of her smokes, and shoved a little piece of paper into my palm. Folks, I wouldn't say it if it weren't true: Ambrosia has a business card. And it has legs. By that I mean it has a stylized photo of legs on it, sexy legs rendered in pastel blues and pinks. It's sort of blurry and taken at a weird angle, but if I had to guess, I'd say those legs are spread. Egads. I guess the card technically isn't a business card, since no occupation is listed. It's really a calling card. Does that mean I need to keep in touch?

Maybe I would keep in touch. I kept thinking about it as she dragged on cigarette after cigarette in our yard, declining our offer of a glass of wine because she "don't drink when there's kids at the house." I considered it seriously as we talked about movies we like, finding we had several in common. At one point, she even offered to babysit my daughter if I need a break during our moving hubbub. That's when I snapped back to reality: Ambrosia's nice to me. She gives what she has to offer. And if I run her through a certain filter in my brain, the one that looks beyong the Daisy Dukes and foul talk, she's actually been a friendlier neighbor than some of the cleaner-mouthed, cleaner-cut folks I've lived near. I have to admire her for the good she exudes in many ways, and yet I don't see any good places that calling card will take me. Late-night calls to pick up her ex-husband from a bar? Forwarded email chain letters promising my wishes will come true if I just reveal my favorite booze, colors, and TV shows after I forward it on to ten others? Really, should I keep up ties with someone whose offer to babysit makes me reel with fear? Sadly, I'd just as soon leave my toddler at a rest stop.

Chapter 9: Hey, Neighbor, You're Hung Like A "My Little Pony"!

Did you know that we all have penises? All of us -- me, you, your Great Aunt Hazel, every human being that ever walked the earth -- is or was endowed with a Johnson of some sort. I know it must be true, because Ambrosia said so.

I love that Ambrosia can't splurge on some dental work but instead has one of those 2,047-channel cable packages and is forever honing her mind with programs like "Inside the Real ER," "Forensic Files," and "Neonatal 911." It seems that at least once every week she has to recount for me some horrid tidbit she caught while watching cable TV at 11 p.m. with three-year-old Meddow. One recent claim is that we all have penises. Yes, yes, I know that in our first few months in the womb, all that good stuff that eventually becomes Our Stuff is just a glob of ambivalent stuff. I realize that, anatomically speaking, we're nothing but a bunch of Pats, Lees, and Chrisses until -- but only until -- our third month in utero. The exception would be those unlucky folks that Ambrosia variously refers to as "homophites," "hemadites," or "frododites" (basically anything ending in -ites will do it for her).

Sounds like some cable program tried to dumb down the whole sexual development thing enough that people up eating Cheetos and drinking Tequila Rose at 11 p.m. won't get confused and turn their attention instead to some 24-hour wrestling channel, or their bong. I know the program probably had lots of nifty cartoon images of the once-ambivalent stuff taking shape -- sacks dropping or turning inside out, skin churning and plumping with fat into folds, little teardrop-shaped blobs growing or shrinking this way and that. And then it probably explained that the clitoris is, technically speaking, a penis that never came to pass. But I think Ambrosia took this the wrong way, because she has not stopped talking about it for a couple of weeks now. She really believes that the clitoris is a penis, and has been telling everyone she knows that they have a penis. "You!" she says, shaking a finger at me, "You've got one! I've got one! Meddow's got one!" (I'm getting the idea, but she won't stop building her case, so craftily building her case.)

As if it weren't bad enough to tell me I had wee boobies a couple weeks back (see Chapter 5), I guess she's now telling me I've got a small penis, too?

Chapter 8: Put a Bullseye on Your Forehead, Why Dontcha?

We got to meet the family last night. My husband and I were having a glass of wine on our back porch, and the Ambrosia Clan was congregated around a firepit in their yard, smoking and drinking. I'll admit it now: I was drawn to them like Jane Goodall to a heap of chimpanzees. I wanted Ambrosia to bother us last night. Of course, she did. There's so much to tell, but I think I'll focus on H.H.BIL for today. What a gem.

H.H.BIL is really named Bo, and he's not nearly as hairy as I'd thought. He's just really sun-damaged and extensively tattooed, so he looks hairy from afar. Bo wears his beard in a tight little braid about the size of a cigarette butt, and his jeans are so tight that he actually has "camel toes." I didn't know men could get those, but indeed, photo documentation of said phenomenon can be viewed here.

After introductions, my husband says, "So, Bo, you're from Mobile?" pronouncing Mobile like mobil. "Mo-BEEL," Bo corrects, in the most horrifically phlegmy boy-I-could-cut-you voice. "It ain't goin' no-weres."

We all settle into our chairs and the Ambrosia Clan returns to their conversation about tequila (of course) and whether one should eat the worm. I can't tell if Bo is recommending it or warning everyone away from it. "I ate one of them dang things in a bottle of Mezcal," he says. "The guy tol' me to tip the bottle up, stick mah tongue in it, and wait til I felt that worm, then quick pull it out, bite dan on it -- don't chew it -- just bite dan and split it in half, then swallow 'em. Bo, I tell you hhhwat! I was drunk for two days. There was a parade goin' on -- donkeys, mules, all that -- and I jumped on toppa one uh them mules, and I was ridin' him like a bull. They was Messicans all 'round there, all of 'em with knives, jis runnin' after me and that crazy mule. Good thang that mule could run!"

He's a pretty funny guy, really. We are laughing and having a rather good time hearing him talk about his motorcycle crashes, his blind and one-armed moonshining uncle, and his brushes with inbreeding. ("Picked a gal up from a bar and brought her home one night, and bo, I'se glad we talked a bit b'fore we done sumpin'. Turned out she was mah cousin.") But at some point in the evening, as I'm once again helping Ambrosia remember the word for "you know, them people that got both stuff down there -- them homophites or whatever you called 'em," I realize that Bo is sharing with my husband his stories from Vietnam, and he's definitely not laughing anymore. "Now, I ain't racist," he says (which assures me he is), "but we got so many of them dang Vietnamese in Mo-BEEL anymore, they're roonin' the shrimpin' for our own kind." Reflections of the fire dance in his piercing blue eyes, and he grows somber, rueful, talking of the jungle, of hot murky swamps, and of Vietnamese riverboat refugees, so desperate for escape that they gave all their food to their boat captain and themselves ate only cocaine. "I served mah country," he finally husks out. "I did mah time. I was glad when mah [Navy] SEALs team came back."

It being Memorial Day weekend and all, I am so moved at this point that I'm ready to come home and put a final apologetic installment in this blog, to commit to leaving these poor people be. But then my husband, a former member of one of the military's more elite fighting forces, as well as a guy nobody would ever guess was a former member of one of the military's more elite fighting forces, says, "Which team were you with?"

"Huh?" Bo says. "That's what we called ourselves -- a team."

My husband knows this, but Bo has no inkling my husband would know this, because my husband looks more like the white-bread architect that he is now than the sharp-shooting Green Beret he used to be. My husband drinks with his pinky sticking up like a little old lady having her tea, for cripes sake. He likes to cook and garden. He also knows that there are relatively few SEALs teams and that these teams are named with numbers. "No," he continues. "I mean, which team? One? Two?"

"Huh? Um, oh, yeah," says Bo, clearing his throat and starting to knead the braid on his chin with his big meaty frankfurter fingers. "That's it. One-two." He looks like a deer caught in headlights, but an angry deer -- the sort that might, instead of turning tail and heading for high ground, jump through your windshield and ram his antlers into your major organs. I'm actually embarassed for him, and freaking out a little that my husband, kicked back in his khaki shorts, his bent pinky poking daintily up from the stem of his glass of Chianti, is calling this Hell's Angel on his B.S.

"You gonna watch the race tomorrow?" Ambrosia asks my husband from across the firepit. We don't watch NASCAR, and Ambrosia knows that. "Oh, wait, you don't like that. I forgot." Eyeballs widen all around and there is laughter of disbelief, as if we've just announced we are actually Mormon missionaries, come to save their souls. I start laughing, too. I always start laughing when I'm nervous. "Oh, honey, you should go put on your shirt," I say. Taking a swig of his Chianti, he shoots me a don't-go-there look that doesn't register with me in time.

"What shirt?" Ambrosia asks.

"Oh, it's this shirt I bought for him," last year, I laugh. "It says, 'Too dumb for opera. Too smart for NASCAR.'"

Do I have a death wish? Why not just stand up and scream, "Harley and Davidson were homosexual lovers! Dale Earnhardt deserved to die!" The angry deer swipes his hoof over the dirt beneath his body, and I wonder what on earth we are doing here. I'm sure no Jane Goodall, am I?

Chapter 7: Five Things I Love about Ambrosia

All's quiet on the Rebel front this weekend. I think the Ambrosia clan is out hunting morels. Now seems an opportune time to provide a brief list of reasons to love the gal:

1. She and Meddow baked us cookie-cutter cookies for Christmas. Not a single cookie was shaped like one of those buxom sitting silhouettes you see on truckers' mudflaps. They were actually shaped like trees and ornaments and even some mangers, even though she recently claimed, "We're not religious people." Geez. You think you know someone...

2. She and her boyfriend have benevolently inched Meddow's outdoor toys to the brink of our property line. Though I hear the theme from Sanford & Son playing in my head when I see that stuff, it would appear that my daughter hears something akin to the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. I gotta appreciate the fact that because they have so much toddler crap in their yard, we don't have to have any.

3. She is crazy for Barry Manilow. I don't mean she hums a bar of Mandy now and then while hanging her towels to dry on the line either. I mean she loves him in an auction-your-pewter-skull-and-crossbones-wedding-ring-on-eBay-for-concert-tickets sort of way. This is so unexpected from a woman who told her sons last week that she dreams of going crazy on them with an ax while they're sleeping. ("Is that awful?" she asked me.)

4. Her toughest moment, she claims, was pinning down Harlan while he got a few stitches sans anesthesia at age three. That's pretty impressive talk coming from a woman who unwittingly had sex with a toothless man, whose brother died in a gruesome motorcycle accident, who got pregnant when she was 16 and again at 18, who is missing her big toenails and eyeteeth -- you get the point. Talk about a mother's love.

5. She has a collection of Precious Moments-like figurines. Yes, I did say "like." Which means that she does not collect the actual crap but instead has shelves and shelves filled with knock-offs of this crap. There's something sweet about that, isn't there?

Chapter 6: The Hog Days of Summer

Oh, dear God. Can things get worse? After Steve's DUI conviction last month and the subsequent suspension of his driver's license, I actually thought we were going to get a respite from the Hog Farts next door. Then I heard that distinct bum-bum-rumbling bumbling of a Harley Davidson outside my window this morning and looked out to see a leather-clad man cruising up onto Ambrosia's lawn with his tattooed arms reaching out toward chrome ape-hanger handlebars. It seems Ambrosia's sister Josie is visiting from Alabammy with her hairy boyfriend, son, and their new puppy. Said puppy is currently chained to a cellar door, squealing like a pig in that godforsaken patch of land where Ambrosia's life spills into mine. I can hear Steve and Hairy Harley Brother-in-Law (H.H.BIL) talking outside as I type. H.H.BIL has the twangiest twang I have ever heard. He keeps saying, "Bo, I tell yew hhhhhwaht."

Yes, I do have an appointment to show the house today. No, I do not expect to get an offer. No, I cannot quick slap together a giant trompe l'oeil mural in our sideyard depicting a happy clean-cut family playing UNO and barbecuing something that doesn't require a spit. How would a slick real estate agent handle this situation? Josie's teenage son came walking outside today with his pants hanging down so far that I saw his entire butt crack and all the flanking flesh. Thank God he was walking away and not toward me. When he saw me, he casually hitched those pants up and loudly collected in his throat and then hocked a giant loogey, right splat in the middle of the sidewalk. "Morning," he muttered. Ah, well, at least he's cordial.

Maybe instead of trying to time our showings around Ambrosia's life, we should take $5,000 off our asking price and use it to send her and her clan on a nice, long vacation. Mudbogging on the bayou perhaps? A trip to Sturgess?

Chapter 5: Hey, Neighbor! You've Got Wee Boobies!

I've just weaned my daughter Abigail. I've been glum about it, and Ambrosia, in her own special way, has been trying to cheer me up. At least I think that's what she's been doing. Last week she regaled me with tales of her breasts through three pregnancies. "I used to be huge," she says. "When I got pregnant with Dugan in high school, I got up to a double D." She puts her hands out in front of herself like some lascivious guy describing a flight attendant with giant mel-OWNS. She's proud. "Then came Harlan," she says. Her eyes always roll when she mentions Harlan, and perhaps this is why: "He wouldn't stop sucking on them things," she says, "and I think that's why I ended up -- phhhfft -- flat as a board." She pulls out the front of her blouse, looks down inside, and adds with a smile, "Meddow got them back on track."

You know what? People who are weaning don't generally give a crap about their breast size. It's sort of not the issue. I think Ambrosia doesn't get this. I think she thinks the long look I've had on my face all week is about the possible deflation of my breasts and the devastation that smaller or flabbier breasts could cause to me and those who care about me. I think she thinks she is being my rock.

Yesterday she appeared on our shared turf with her half-smoked cigarette in hand, plopped down on a lawn chair, looked me up and down, and said, "Look at you! At least they're still pretty perky."

At least? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I don't even know how to respond to this bizarre greeting. I mean, how about a simple hello, lady? "Oh, they've changed," I say with a forced smile. "I went up and I went back down, too."

"At least you can buy the cute bras at that size," she says, making a sort of swirling, sweeping gesture toward my chest.

"I never do," I reply. Try as I might, it's not easy to look flippant when someone's basically pantomiming at me: You have kitten boobies. "I usually just buy the cheapest white bra in the store."

"Hell, you should shop in the little girls' section," she says. "They've got cute bras."

I'm shocked, confused, and a little tempted to seize on Ambrosia and rip her bleach-blonde hair out by its black roots. I'm a C cup, for cripes sakes. Is this freakishly small? Do I need to join a circus? Does any of this matter when my heart is breaking over my daughter's confusion at being suddenly cut off from her favorite thing in the whole wide world? Does anyone know if we have to make disclosure to potential buyers about Ambrosia's social skills, in our Real Estate Condition Report?