Mrs. Martin Part IV

Mrs. Martin Part IV

In my mind, these were three possible outcomes from my window rapping. Scenario One: Rap, rap would go my knuckles. Mrs. Martin would pause, going from still to something beyond still, something I’d never seen, like a tree cut off from air, a cloud without change. Then she would begin to turn her head, a petrified tree finding breeze again, her hair iron willow branches. And slowly, slowly like a moon waxing, her face would turn until I could see her eyes, the color of some abject bottomless misery, something so deep, so beyond the ken of my 10 years, I would lose my breath at it, feel the cold of space spilling from her body, feel shattered, too small for my bones, lost on my street, a snowflake, a pebble of rain, a blind train in a tunnel…and then she’d turn back to the endless strobe of her television. And I would turn around too, walk right past the girls and back towards my house. And they would run to catch up, asking what’d I seen, and I’d stop and say: “Just Mrs. Martin, the most loneliest broken heartedest most oldest lady in the whole universe.” And then they’d say, “Oh” with new gravity. And we’d walk back to our houses with the albatrosses of reality hanging over our pajamas.

Scenario Two: Rap, rap go my brave knuckles. Suddenly, the wind would cease and the grass in her yard would stand straight up like hair. I’d notice a smell that had been lingering under the waft of pine, a dead smell, a long, long dead smell. Then I’d hear a low keen, a nail being dragged across a mile long chalkboard a mile away. And then Mrs. Martin’s head would turn, twisting around towards me, the skin of her mottled neck folding and twisting, and just before I saw her face, I’d notice her neck wasn’t actually turning, only her head and then I’d see she had no face but a gaping skin hole where a face should be. The left over skin hanging like raw dough falling into a black hole that was lined with yellow teeth like a lamprey or leech mouth and then she would scream, turning that keen loud enough to turn my hair white. Next she would rise from her chair, hovering with her hell powers, and start shooting lightning bolts from her hands and face hole and I’d turn and grab the girls and run all the way back to our houses. And we’d tell our parents, showing them my white hair as proof, and they’d form a lynch mob, arming themselves with Ginsu knives, battery powered drills, and ski poles and march down to the witch’s home. But it would be all magicked back together, everything looking the same, and our parents would shake their heads, ground us, and put us to bed. But me and the girls, we’d know. And maybe Steve Martin. Cuz he’s young and has white hair and I wonder if he got it the same way.

Scenario Three: Rap, rap go my inquiring knuckles. Mrs. Martin’s shoulders jerk in surprise, and then her head whips around to reveal not the face of an old lady but a very young and beautiful lady instead. She’s wearing an iron gray wig and some kind of aging makeup around her neck. And then she motions me to the side door to which I, enamored, dutifully enter. When I get inside the wigged girl is setting up some sort of similarly wigged dummy in the wheelchair, she then turns and motions me to a back room where she discards the wig and peels off the neck makeup. When she turns around to reveal herself, the light strikes her beautiful feathered hair and perky bangs and I realize with a pang deep down in my gut that is none other than Daryl Hannah, lead actress of the hit mermaid movie Splash.

“Hello, Shamus.” She says in her whisper voice.

“Hello, Daryl Hannah. How do you know my name?” I squeak, praying for immediate puberty.

“Because when you watch a movie at least a hundred times, it emits a tiny radio signal to the actors so they know who their favorite fans are. Tom Hanks says hi, too.”

“Oh, geez, I didn’t know. I guess Ferris Bueller knows me, too.”

“Matthew Broderick, yes. Are there any questions you have for me?”

“Yes, Daryl Hannah, why are you pretending to be Mrs. Martin?”

“Well, Shamus,” she croons as she sits down on the heart shaped bed I’ve just noticed in the middle of the red velveted room we’re standing in, “there is no Mrs. Martin, only me, hiding from the men who want to kill me.”

“What men with eyes would want to kill you?”

“The most fearsome crew of villains ever. Freddy Krueger, the Terminator, the Ultimate Warrior, dinosaurs, Dracula, and Jon Voight. They’ve all joined up against me to stop me from acting and showing off my perfect legs.”

“Joined up against you? Like when the Sinister Six joined up against Spiderman?” I ask knowingly.

“Yes, Shamus. Just like that. And keep reading comic books well into your adult years, okay? Women find that super sexy.” She growls and eats a Sweettart.

“What can I do, Daryl Hannah?”

“Well, there’s one solution, Shamus. With me, I have a special ray-gun that will increase your age and make you just as old as me. Then you will have the body mass and super strength needed to battle my nemeses. In exchange, I will also marry you and make you a huge action star like Harrison Ford. And we will do the deed. How does that sound to you?”

“Sounds radical, Daryl Hannah. But also too good to be true.”

“Yes, unfortunately, there are side effects. Much like the plotline for the movie Big, your parents will not recognize you and you will lose all those years growing up. You will get me of course and become best friends with Steven Spielberg and the Beastie Boys but you will lose all your old friends and family. It’s a pretty bogus price to pay, but the rewards are quite bitchin’.”

“Wow, Daryl, that’s pretty heavy.” I sit down on the heart shaped bed, my Hulk pajamas suddenly feeling a bit uncool. “I’m sorry. I just can’t leave my family. And I have some friends outside, too. One of them might give me my first kiss.”

“Well, that breaks my heart, but I’m a really talented actor so I’ll act like it doesn’t. As a parting gift would you let me give you your first kiss?”

“That would be awesome!”

Then I close my eyes, pucker up, and Daryl Hannah lays it on me. A kiss that makes my lips go numb and my mind go all bonkers. She takes her place back in front of the TV and I open the door carefully. Just as I’m leaving, I dare to ask her one more question.

“Daryl Hannah, in the scene where you’re swimming underwater I was never sure but it looked like you weren’t wearing any clothes. I looked really hard. Is that true?”

“Well, Shamus, during the filming I was wearing a skin colored body suit that makes me look naked. But in your copy of the movie, I really was naked.”

“I knew it! Thanks, Daryl Hannah.”

Scenario Real: Rap, rap went my knuckles. She didn’t look. I tapped again. Nothing. So I practically banged. Her head whipped around. She looked right at me. Her face was old but her eyes were so blue. But rockwashed blue, the blue of the sky after you’ve closed your eyes on a sunny day. And white, too much white. Mrs. Martin looked at me but she didn’t see me.

It was almost three months before I came back to stand at her window, that time with no glass between us.