Legends of La Honda: Limey Kay

Limey Kay was a gun-toting, hard-drinking, motorcycle-racing stonemason.  All around La Honda and the Santa Cruz Mountains you come upon samples of his masonry, usually with a whimsical touch. Often he mixed abalone shells among his bricks.

Limey's old house, built on a steep hillside between Laguna and Redwood Drive, is an eclectic mix of brick and stone reflecting different stages of his growth as a craftsman.

It's a small house, but it has six chimneys.  According to Debbie Kay, Limey's daughter-in-law, "The reason there are six chimneys and not the same amount of fireplaces is that Limey had built five or six chimneys for Neil Young's place and Neil shouldn't have more chimneys than Limey!"  No two of those six chimneys are alike.  Consistency and symmetry were of not much interest to Limey Kay. Neither were foundations, so some of his work hasn't held up particularly well.

In his day, Limey's work was in great demand, but you had to know how to approach him.  A six-pack of Coors was generally the cost of getting an estimate - or doing any kind of business with him. Joan Baez hired him by showing up at Apple Jack's with a pickup truck full of bricks and beer.  When he worked, he started the day (at 6:30 in the morning) mixing mortar and drinking Coors, even in the cold of winter.


Besides Neil Young and Joan Baez, Limey was hired by another local celebrity: Ken Kesey.  This particular job ended unfinished after Kesey invited Limey to join in a Fairy Circle, a regular event at Kesey's in which various Pranksters sat in a circle under the redwoods behind Kesey's cabin.  In the Fairy Circle people would drop acid, hold hands, be quiet, and tell each other "where they were at."  Limey (and a few other locals) couldn't quite adapt to this hippie custom and stomped out, never to return.

Limey had a series of vintage motorcycles.  An old Bonneville of his can still be seen around town.  With Hells Angels hanging out at Kesey's, and with Limey's history of racing motorcycles (which were not equipped with brakes),  along with Limey's fondness for guns and alcohol, trouble was bound to happen.  One day Limey held a gun to the head of a Hells Angel. For weeks thereafter Limey was on the lam, hiding out as the Angels sought revenge. Meanwhile Nancy Kay, Limey's wife, asked for mercy from her old friend Sonny Barger, who was head of the Oakland Hells Angels. Eventually Sonny called off the manhunt, and Limey came out of hiding.

For a while Limey carried a pearl-handled .44 Magnum revolver.  He had only one bullet, which he kept in his pocket.  Local residents still remember Limey laying the gun on the bar at Apple Jack's and demanding a beer, or Limey with a rifle threatening a neighbor's dog, or Nancy waiting until Limey passed out from drink and then tossing his gun in the lake. But here's the thing: Nobody has a story in which Limey ever fired a shot.

Hubert Allan Kay was born  in December 1929 in Menlo Park, where he lived until 1961, when he married his first wife.  According to James Adams, "The name 'Limey' was supposed to have been because he raced English flat-track motorcycles on no-brake bikes. The real reason for 'Limey' was because his Mom was English and he would go to England with her in his youth."  Moving to La Honda, Limey built the two-story brick house on the hillside from the ground up, with his bare hands, in the early 1960s. The current owner of the house is working to preserve the house with all its eccentricities including, of course, the abalone shells.

On his 50th birthday, Limey married Nancy, who was 29 years old at the time.  They had a daughter five years later named Jody Rose.  Nancy says, “I had already had three kids and he had four from a previous marriage.  Jody was number eight and pulled the whole extended family together. Those were some of the best times of our life together.”

According to James Adams, "Limey had, at one time, 22 feral cats. [Descendants of those cats still hang around the woods near his cabin.] The cats knew they could trust him. He'd take Jody, his infant daughter, out with him to feed them in the mornings. He'd spend more money for huge bags of cat food than he'd spend at the bar, which was a lot."

Limey had a long-standing feud with the town of La Honda.  Rather than pay his water bill, he poured concrete over the water meter box. Eventually, with the aid of a backhoe (and police backup), the town got a reading of the water meter, and got paid.

Limey didn't always have the firmest grasp of finances. One day he walked into a local realtor's office and said, "I hate to do it but I'm broke and I'm gonna have to sell my house." The realtor replied, "Limey, I'm sorry to tell you this but I already sold your house for you - three years ago."

Limey seemed to have a soft spot for animals and children. If anybody drove too fast up our little roads, Limey would flag them down.  People were scared of Limey because he was gruff. If he spoke, he mumbled. And yet he often showed kindness. If your car was stuck in a ditch, Limey without being asked would pull you out with his monster jeep-like vehicle which he called The General.

Limey died in 2005, but his spirit lives on in La Honda, as well as examples of his craft. He was a folk artist, a pain in the butt, a one-of-a-kind stylist, and a local legend.

(The photo of Limey as a young man is by Susan Friedman in the book A Separate Place by Charles Jones.)

(I wrote this article for the La Honda Voice, where it originally appeared.)

An Interview

I was just interviewed by Liana Burnside for a research project at Brigham Young University.  The questions were interesting...

 1. What first prompted you to distribute some of your material for free online?
In March 2008 I read an article in the NY Times about podcasting novels, and I instantly loved the idea.  All literature has its roots in oral storytelling.  Somehow we have come to believe that only printed works are true literature, but they are merely an imitation - and sometimes a poor substitute - for oral storytelling.  My own writing has always been geared toward the sound of words, especially the extensive dialog.  I'd been writing podcast-ready novels for 40 years and hadn't known it.

Or is the question about doing it for free?  Well, initially I thought a free podcast of the novel might entice listeners to buy the printed book.  I was wrong.  Most of them are happy just to listen.  But the podcasting process turns out to be exactly what I like about literature, so I'll continue even without making any money from it, although - ahem - I appreciate the occasional donation from the occasional grateful listener.

2. When writing your novel Clear Heart, did you know you were going to turn it into a podiobook? If so, how did that affect the writing process?
I had completed Clear Heart just before I discovered podcasting, so the writing was intended for print.  Reading aloud, of course, is a great editing tool, so the writing became better as I prepared the podcast.

Currently I'm producing a podcast novel that is strongly influenced by my podcasting experience.  It affects the story in several ways - most obviously in my use of music which I incorporate into the plot.

3. How have you promoted your work? In addition, what sort of online networking have you participated in?
I suck at promotion.  It doesn't fit with my personality.  I have a blog and a website.  Sometimes I comment on other people's blogs.  I do a few internet radio interviews.  That's about it.  Eventually, the podcast itself is my best promotion.  Without any publicity, my downloads increase every month.  People find me through word-of-mouth recommendations.

4. You offer a few of your books in both audio and print versions. Do you feel like the different versions offer different experiences? Is one superior to the other?
I want both versions to be good, and I try hard to make it so.  And yes, of course the experiences are different.  Listening to a podcast is an incredibly intimate experience.  My voice is literally inside the listener's head - inserted through ear buds.  People won't allow that kind of intimacy for long unless they really like you - so I have to be as good as I can be.

5. What is your primary motivation for writing?
Creating characters and bringing them to life.  Creating my version of the world.  A kind of birth.

Thank you again for assisting me with my research.

Interesting questions, Liana.  A pleasure.

A nice review of Clear Heart

I've been taking a break from blogging while I concentrate on preparing my next novel/podcast.  But somehow, in spite of my absence, the internet keeps on going...  I just became aware of a new review posted on Amazon by a reader/listener:

Clear Heart by Joe Cottonwood, is a story about life. Just that, life. There are no car chases or gunfights or deadly diseases, although there is one race with death that had me praying for a positive outcome.

Wally, a building contractor is just existing, each day a struggle to overcome the death of his wife as well as her betrayal. His highest hope is to create a house that is as close to perfect as possible for an impossible client, while his own life and home are in chaos.

His best friend, Juke, is a misfit with no responsibilities and seemingly no cares except to do his best work for his boss, Wally.

A fateful accident introduces Opal, the force that causes a catharsis, the healing and growing that takes place in this tale of life.

Abe, Opal's son, an immature high school grad who was accepted into Princeton until he pulled a trick on the wrong man.

And last but not least is Frog Girl, Amanda, a pregnant, seventeen-year-old run away.

Throw all these personalities into a pot and stir, add a few side characters for spice and the race to finish the perfect house as the fire. Let it stew. With these ingredients, it simmers, boils, and simmers again. Just like life.

As a member of the audience, allowed a peak into the life of these people, you are shown all the imperfections of Wally and watch as he was able to say good bye to his wife and fall in love again. Watch as Opal realizes she does not need the perfect man, a banker or lawyer for a partner. Watch as Abe and Juke both mature into men who, after being tossed around the water, floundering a bit, learn to grab hold of life and realize what is important. Watch as Frog Girl discovers the mystery and bonds with her unborn baby and makes better and stronger decisions as her life continues.
There were times I did not like the characters, just as in real-life. Some decisions were made that would not be the decisions I would have made, but usually, after some learning and searching, things got back on course again.

I did not like Opal very much, all the way through. I thought she learned the least and did not really understand the minor miracle that was happening in her life. But that is just like real-life, too.

Joe Cottonwood is a carpenter. The details are sometimes overwhelming, but embellish the story and add a "scent" (I could smell as well as feel the redwood).

All in all, when I finally got the very end and looked back, I was amazed at the depth of this book. A story does not always need a car chase to be an excellent tale. I really liked Clear Heart. 

The reviewer is Arlene Radasky.  She's a writer/podcaster herself.  Her story The Fox is available as a podcast here or as an ebook here or as a printed book here
.

Ann Emerson, continued...

About Doctor G.

He still goes out of his way every time to ask
how I’m doing: he is the tree whispering through

the cracked hospital window, the shiver of white
narcissus, the breeze lifting the skirt of the nurse

opening my door. He is the song in my head
that doesn’t stop at night, the way curious medicine

wanders my blood--I no longer go out of my way to
picture the mound of earth dug just my size.

Sometimes someone touches your hand in an
unexpected room and you close your eyes

like the lid of a music box that’s been wanting
quiet for years.  When I start to die, this is

how it will be:  no terrible music, no one taking
my place, his footsteps in silence carrying on.

—Ann Emerson

From the journal of Ann Emerson:

Friday, January 22, 2010 1:55 AM, PST
a long week has just ended, with the last 36 hours in the wilderness passed without phone, water, heat, and light. i knew when i signed the lease to this cabin 15 months ago there’d be times like this one.  i knew when i decided to embrace living with cancer there’d be times like this too--times of rough poetry at best.

there may not be all the time i’d prefer left to see the rest of the world or even to improve my poetry much, but there is plenty enough left to deepen my relationship to life.  further,  i am discovering that to delay doing this just because my health isn’t optimal is more than an excuse; it’s a sin.

my epiphany in the darkness is simple and stark.  i wasn’t put here to be a poet. i wasn’t put here to achieve one single thing. i was put here only to love.

and, friend, i’m warning you, that is the only reason why you are here too.

let’s begin.

Ann's journal is ongoing at CaringBridge.  It is open to the public.  Make a visit.  Say hello.

I introduce Ann Emerson here:
Meet Ann Emerson
 

Meet Ann Emerson

(I wrote this article for the La Honda Voice newspaper.  Oddly, some people on this planet don't subscribe to the Voice, so I thought I'd repost an expanded version here with some additional comments.)

Not the Last
by Ann Emerson
-- with gratitude to Jane Hirshfield

In this story I am an old animal
and not sad in the way people think

about horses vanishing in the West.
Stanford Cancer Center.  The hills behind the

research lab are stitched tight with barbed wire.
Things now are just as they said it would be:

steel devices and PKC412.
End-stage: I am a feral horse untouched

by human hands, lithe as grasses on
high plains.  Pink gasps of lungs for air.

This isn’t the last poem I will write about
orchids on the desks of doctors from grateful

families of the dead.  Here, in this closed
room, I grow restless pricked with silver

hooks and tools.  I am not sad no one
has figured me out and I do not wonder why things

turn out as they do: my sky pouring gold through
the window, the crack of wind setting me free.

Meet Ann Emerson
by Joe Cottonwood

Ann Emerson self-portrait

You may not have met Ann Emerson, though she's been living in La Honda for a couple of years.  "I'm kind of a hermit," she says. 

Four and a half years ago, Ann learned that she has a rare form of cancer called malignant mastocytosis.  She was given 3 to 5 years to live.  "This prognosis was very good," she says, "because now I know there's an end in sight.  I'm at heart very lazy.  I need to evolve.  Now there's a compression of time, an intensity.  I'm more selective about who I spend my time with." 

Mostly, she spends her time with two old cats at her little cabin in the redwoods in a chair overlooking San Gregorio Creek, where she writes poetry.  She calls her home Lazy Eye Ranch in honor of a lazy-eyed cat.

Besides writing poetry, Ann runs something of a hospice for old cats, usually blind ones.  "I've always worked with dying animals," she says.  Currently she cares for two of them, Blinky (one-eyed) and Babar.  In boxes by the window are the ashes of 3 cats who have passed on: Wabisabi, Flossy, and Piccola.  "When I die," Ann says, "I want my ashes mixed with theirs."

Ashes

Morbid?  Depressing?  Not at all.  Spending time with Ann is to be embraced by the clarity of her life, her spirit, all of which shines through her poems.

Born in Oakland in 1954, Ann grew up in a not-so-good neighborhood in Richmond until 1968 when it was destroyed in the rioting after the assassination of Martin Luther King.  Her father was a professor of medieval musicology; her mother was a child prodigy concert pianist who at age 8 appeared in Steinway ads, but who gave it all up, as was expected in the 1950's, to raise Ann.  Her mother became a reference librarian in the Richmond Library, where Ann would hang out and read everything, first children's books and then moving to the adult section.

Ann in 1976

Ann majored in Physiology at U.C. Berkeley and wanted to be a veterinarian, but the Dean of the Vet School at U.C. Davis "chewed me out, called me a hippie (I had hair down to my butt) and told me he wouldn't admit me because I was only going to drop out and have babies."  This was 1975.

So instead of veterinary science, Ann studied literature in graduate school but only as an academic pursuit, never as a creative writer.  In those days (and perhaps still) there was a strict boundary: You were either academic or creative, never combined.

At age 27 Ann worked with Mother Teresa in Calcutta.  "She was a pistol," Ann says.  "A tough cookie.  A down to earth, gritty woman.  She took no personal interest.  To her, all that matters is your service to others."   On a wall of Ann’s cabin hang the words:

Three things in human life
are important;
The first is to be kind.
The second is to be kind.
The third is to be kind.
  --Mother Teresa

Ann worked for 20 years in the California Employment Training Panel, an agency started by Governor Jerry Brown to retrain workers.  For 15 of those years Ann visited employers, meeting CEO's, helping workers from the cubicles of Silicon Valley to the hot fields of broccoli farmers.  What she learned, she says, is that "American workers work really hard."

Blinky

Finally, with her illness, Ann had to quit.  She can't go more than a few hours without sleep.  With the clarity coming of a life-threatening illness (Ann, in her Buddhist group, doesn't use the word "terminal"), Ann came to see many of her acquaintances as shallow, concerned with shopping and shoes.  She gave up her life in San Carlos and moved to a little cabin in the redwoods.  Meanwhile, she joined an experimental writing class offered to cancer patients at Stanford.  Under teacher Sharon Bray, she discovered she had a calling as a poet.  At last she is a creator, not an academic.  And she is blossoming.  Now she meets with Ellen Bass, a Santa Cruz poet, and had an inspiring encounter with the poet Jane Hirshfield.

Ann has turned to poetry with a passion.  "You go for broke," she says.  Her lessons from Mother Teresa ("All that matters is your service to others"), from broccoli farmers ("American workers work really hard"), and from her own trials with chemo and blood transfusions and all the medical technology that Stanford can bring to bear, have taught her this: "It's not what you do but how you do it.  You do it with all your heart and all your passion."

And this: "Getting cancer was the best thing that ever happened to me."

 After posting this article, Jane Hirshfield commented:

The finished poem is perfect, more than perfect--it is devastating and gorgeous and true.
Thank you for this story--and Ann, thank you, for your presence, your words, and your teaching--

Ann keeps a journal at the wonderful website CaringBridge.

There's more about Ann Emerson here:
Ann Emerson, continued...
  

Meet David LeCount

crossing the cattleguard--
     a lone cow studies
     how we do it

David LeCount's poetry has been published on tea bottles all over the world.  How many other writers can make that claim?

David and his wife Arla have lived in La Honda long enough to raise three children along with horses, pigs, chickens and a Guernsey cow.  David loves milking cows and making butter, but most of all he loves teaching, a profession he has practiced for 40 years.  At one point in his youth, he was considering a career in the Secret Service but chose teaching instead.  He says "It's the best decision I made in my life."  His students would agree.

talking to the nun--
a little girl closes her eyes
and whispers

David grew up in Lagunitas, a small rural town in Marin County not too different from La Honda where his father was a professor and gentleman farmer.  Later he moved to Marin City, a not-so-bucolic town where he says one of his classmates tried to knife the principal, a girl kept a loaded .38 in her desk, and the school was surrounded by concertina wire facing inward—to keep the students from leaving.  With that experience, he says his early teaching assignment in the Ravenswood school district in East Palo Alto didn't frighten him for physical violence, though he felt "terrified" to actually perform as a teacher.  He takes the job seriously.  He says, "I was throwing up for the first six months of teaching."  Apparently his digestive system settled down, and he has taught English at Menlo-Atherton High School and Pescadero High.  He describes teaching as "magical," and says, "I had a wonderful blessed time at Pescadero." 

in the rain
the bell
drips into silence

David is adept at languages.  He can dabble in Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Greek, Arabic, Swahili, Italian, and a bit of Japanese.  He has now retired from teaching but keeps busy tutoring.  In addition he is leading a "World Travel Club" in which students learn languages and cultures combined with a meal at a restaurant.  Right now the assignment is Egypt, and he would appreciate any tips for a good, cheap Egyptian restaurant.  David went to tiny Deep Springs College in Nevada joining a class of 8 freshmen, followed by the somewhat larger University of Alaska.  Eventually a Creative Writing Fellowship led him to the University of Massachusetts.  He has written two books for teachers of creative writing, Nonstandardized Quests: 500+ Writing Prompts That Matter and Dream Writing Assignments: 600+ Prompts for Creative Writing. 

blowing moon--
the ghost of the pampas grass
comes to life!

He moved to La Honda in 1977, deciding the town offered "the same things that brought me to Alaska."  It seemed a place where "my kids could collect the eggs" as he had done as a child in Lagunitas.  La Honda, he says, "is heaven for me."  A long-time writer of haiku, he was amazed to discover that J.W. Hackett, a well-known haiku master, was living in the same town.  They soon became friends.

angel gull
out of the salty fog
shadows the sand

David has stacks and stacks of journals he has kept, writing mostly in haiku, tanka, or other poetic forms, rarely in prose.  He is working on an epic poem about the Lakota Sioux. His haiku have been published in various journals and the Christian Science Monitor.  In 1988 he won the Grand Prize, "my equivalent of the Nobel Prize," from the Modern Haiku Society of Japan.  He has spoken at the World Haiku Festival in Amsterdam.  Through his haiku David has made friends and visited them in Romania, Japan, Croatia, Paris.

along the shore
a driftwood fire
hisses salt

  And then there are those bottles of tea.  A bottle of Ito En tea purchased in Japan displays in both Japanese and English script:

into the dusk
the doe's tail
flees its own white

while a bottle of Teas' Tea Green White, purchased at the New Leaf Market in Half Moon Bay, displays the haiku:

ten heron heads
blow as pampas grass
in the morning fog

Usually appearing with half a dozen pens in his pockets, David has been a reader at Lit Nite, the last-Wednesday-of-the-month celebration of writing at Sullivan's Pub in La Honda, where the haiku combines with beer and wine.  And perhaps a bottle of tea.  

the wind shapes
the sand dune
shapes the wind 

Lit Night at Sullivan's Pub

Caroline Graham, one of La Honda's talented teens, joined with me at the most recent Lit Nite to read a few passages from a novel of mine, a work-in-progress that might have the title Jesus at the Mall or perhaps Wormheads.  We'll record it as a podcast later this year.  (Copyright © 2010 by Joe Cottonwood.)

     Jaz Lee hung up the phone and saw that her mother was staring.     “Who was that?” Linda Lee asked.
     “Hoot.”
     “Hoot?  He’s a bird?”
     “No.  He’s a kid.”
     "Does he go to your school?”
     “Yes.”  For some reason, Jaz felt herself blushing.
     “Is he a nice boy?”
     “He collects waterfalls.”
     Jaz knew she was turning bright red.  Trying to avoid her mother’s probing gaze, Jaz swept her eyes around the kitchen — and noticed a shiny white toaster.
     “What’s that?”
     “Oh.  I got a new toaster.”
     “You what?”
     “It was broken, Jasmine.  So I got a new one.”
     “Couldn’t we fix it?”
     “Jasmine, you don’t repair toasters.  You replace them.”
     “But we had that toaster all my life.”
     “You want it, Jasmine?  It’s in the garbage.  You can keep it in your room if it’ll make you happy.”
     “Mo-ther.  That isn’t the point.”
     “What is the point?”
     “The point is you got a new toaster.  And it’s white.  Toasters are chrome.  We’ve always had a chrome toaster.  All my entire life.  How could you?”
     Linda Lee sighed.  She folded her arms.
     Jaz recognized the expression on her mother’s face, the grim forbearance.  She’d known that look all her life.  It was reassuring, somehow.  Cozy and constant.  Like an old Christmas carol.  And Jaz was being unreasonable; she knew the toaster wasn’t the issue — and so did her mother who was asking, "What are we talking about, Jaz?  I mean, really."
     "Nothing."
     "Did somebody die?  Is it about death?"
     "Nobody died, Mom."
     "Then what are we—"
     The phone rang.
     Jaz answered.  “Hello?”
     “It’s me.  Hoot.”
     “What do you want?”  It sounded a little harsher than she intended.  But she didn’t know how to take it back.
     “Is there a Hair Nebula?”
     “God, Hoot.  I have no idea.”
     “Well, I just painted one.”
     “What are you talking about?”
     “I thought you knew about nebulae.”
     “Well I don’t know all their names.”
     “Oh.  Okay.”
     He hung up.
     Jaz stared at the phone in her hand.
     Her mother was watching.  “Who was that?”
     “Hoot.”
     Linda Lee was shaking her head, smiling.  “So now boys are calling my darling daughter.”
     “No they’re not.”
     “Oh.  Excuse me.”
     “We were just talking.”
     “Right.  Absolutely.”
     Jaz watched as her mother went to the refrigerator and took out a gallon jar of pickles.  Removing the lid, she started fishing with a pair of tongs for the last kosher dill.

     “MOTHER STOP!”
     Linda Lee looked up.  “What?”
     “Don’t take that pickle.”
     “Why not?”
     “It’s the last one.”
     “You want it?”
     “No!”
     “Then what—?”
     “If you take it, they’ll be gone.”
     “We can buy another jar.”
     “That isn’t the point.”
     “What is the point?”
     “The point is that’s the last pickle.  And if you take it, they’ll all be gone.  Forever.”
     "Okay, now I get it."  Her mother put the pickle jar back in the refrigerator.  "I understand."
     "You do?"
     “You’ve got a birthday coming up.  Fourteen."
     "So?"
     "You're ambivalent."
     "Ambivalent?  I don't have a choice."
     "Precisely.  Even the late bloomer has to bloom.  But I can offer one choice.  Of course I like to surprise you but I’m just wondering:  You want anything in particular?”
     “Yes.  A … ring.”
     “Any old ring?”
     “A navel ring.”
     “From the navy?”
     “Na-vel.  With an e.”
     “Jasmine?  Is a navel ring what I think it is?  Is it something you put around your belly button?”
     “Actually, I think it goes through the little fold of skin just above.”
     “Through?”
     “Like, pierced.  You know.”
     “I’ll have to talk this one over with your father.”
     “That means no, doesn’t it?”
     “Why do you want a navel ring?”
     “Because … Mimi Bucher doesn’t have one.  She wouldn’t have one.  She’s too cute.  She’s bought.”
     “She bought what?  Who’s Mimi Bucher?”
     “She’s somebody who would never have a navel ring.  Now do you understand?”
     “I’m not sure I like this idea, Jasmine.”
     “There’s a shop that’ll pierce it but I have to get parental consent.  You sign it.  A form.”
     “I don’t know, Jasmine.  I don’t know how sanitary this is.  And more than that, I don’t know about the idea of putting rings in a place like that.  I’m not sure you understand how it might seem.  How it might look.  To boys, I mean.  You never let me talk about this, but you’re becoming a young woman.  Boys are starting to notice and we need to talk about—”
     “No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!”
     Jaz opened her eyes, unplugged her ears, and saw that her mother was standing with arms folded, fuming.  “I understand ignorance, but I cannot tolerate willful ignorance.  Read the book.  That book.  WILL YOU PLEASE READ THE BOOK I GAVE YOU?”
     “Will you ask Dad?  About the ring?”
     “Yes.  We will definitely talk.”
     “Thanks, Mom.”
     Jaz danced a little jig step that took her right out of the kitchen and up to her room and her cat and her stuffed animals on a shelf all in a row.
     Jaz sat on the bed.  Her eyes caught sight of the book her mother had given her — Our Bodies, Ourselves — which she’d never read, which she didn’t need.  She’d learned all that stuff back in third grade, and she wouldn’t get pregnant.  Not the first time.  You can’t get pregnant the first time.  That's what she learned in third grade, and the facts don't change.  And after that first time, if you don’t want to get pregnant, all you have to do is hold your breath while you do it.  Nobody ever gets pregnant if you hold your breath.  Facts don't change.   They just don't.
     Jaz opened the Oxford Book of Christmas Carols, then set it on her chest as she lay back.  She hummed The First Noel.  She made up better words.  Softly she shared the carol with the stuffed animals she had played with, the cat she had loved, the room where she had lived all her whole entire life.
     *****
   

     *****

    Jaz peered in the eyepiece and adjusted the focus knob.
    “Here, Hoot, take a look.”
     They were in Jaz’s back yard.  Light streamed from windows.
     Hoot bent to the telescope.
     “See ’em?”  Jaz asked.
     “I see a bunch of stars.”
     “Those are the Pleiades.  The Seven Sisters.  Except with magnification you can see more than seven.  Can you see haloes?”
     “You mean they’re angels?”
     “The stars.  Each Pleiad.  They have haloes.  Sort of bluish white.  Can you see?”
     “No.”
     There was too much light in the yard.  Jaz wished they could go somewhere out in the country.  Somewhere dark.  With the stars.  Alone.  “The haloes are dust.  Reflecting starlight.  On clouds of dust.  Which are nebulae.  So you’re looking at haloes which are dust clouds which are nebulae.  Young ones.”
     “Huh,” Hoot said.
     “You know what?  The light that you’re seeing — the light that’s going into your eyeballs right now — that light left those stars years ago.  Years and years.  The light that's in your eyes might have left those stars when Jesus was alive.  And so right now Jesus is alive in your eyes.  And mine.  That is, if you care about Jesus.  Do you care about Jesus?"
     "He's all right."
     "I'm sorry I shouldn't have talked about Him.  But the light that’s starting its journey from those stars right now won’t come to our eyeballs until you’re an old man.  And I’m an old woman.  Or maybe we’ll be dead.  Maybe centuries will have passed.  But those stars will still be young.  Isn’t that awesome?”
     “Uh.  Yeah.”
     “You really think so?”
     “Yeah.  Awesome.”
     The night was cool.  Jaz could see her breath.  There was something electric in the air that had made Jaz want to call Hoot and invite him to look at stars.  She could hardly hold still.  Didn’t he feel it?  He seemed almost bored.
     Jaz tried to explain:  “It’s so big.  So … vast.  Does it make you feel insignificant?”
     “Sort of.”
     “Not me.  I love it.  I love the, the bigness of space.  It makes me feel all tingly all over.”
     “Tingly?”
     “Yes.  Tingly.  Because I’m a part of it.  Whatever I do here on this planet affects what happens on the Pleiades.  Because everything’s connected.  It’s the Butterfly Effect.  Because what happens to a butterfly affects the whole—”  As Jaz was speaking she cast her hand in a wide circle around herself to indicate the whole of the universe — and struck somebody’s shirt.
     Her father.  Standing behind her.
     “Daddy!  What are you doing here?”
     “I just came out.”
     “Why?”
     “To check on things.”

     “God, Daddy, you could give me a little warning before you go sneaking up on —”
     “I wasn’t sneaking, Jasmine.  I just walked out the back door.”
     He just walked out the back door in time to hear her say she felt tingly all over.  Tingly.  Of all times.  And the only reason he would want to check on her would be because there was a boy with her in the back yard as if — as if she were the kind of girl who would need to be checked on just because she felt tingly all over.  God.  How humiliating.
     “We were looking at the Pleiades,” Hoot said.
     “That’s nice,” Mr. Lee said.
     Her father had eyeglasses.  A big nose with hair hanging out.  Why didn’t he trim it?  Ears with more hair bursting out.  Disgusting — and it was all black.  Black body hair.  God.  What Hoot must think of her, to have such a father.
     Hoot said, “Jaz told me you were a mathematician.”
     “That’s right,” Mr. Lee said.
     “I’m trying to understand the Theory of Relativity.”
     “Good luck.”
     “Do you understand it?”
     “Pretty much.”
     “Is space really curved?”
     “In layman’s terms.”  Mr. Lee rubbed his big nose, thoughtfully.  “The question is:  Curved as compared to what?”
     “You mean a curve is relative?”
     “Everything is relative.”
     “Cool!”
     “Daddy,” Jaz interrupted, “you can go back inside now.”
     “But this young man wants to talk about relativity.”
     “No, he doesn’t.  He’s just being polite.”
     “No,” Hoot said.  “I’m really interested.”
     “Ah.”  Mr. Lee smiled.  “There.  You see?”
     Jaz saw.  Hoot would rather geek with her father than with her.  She stomped across the yard and into the house.  Behind her, she heard Hoot asking a question and knew without looking that her father was rubbing his nose back and forth with his finger, thoughtfully, smecking the big nostrils and those horrible hairs back and forth, back and forth.
     She slammed the door.
     Her mother was at the kitchen table grading papers.  “What’s wrong, Jaz?”
     “I invited Hoot to come over and look at nebulae and now Daddy’s out there talking about mathematics.”
     “Math?  Your friend must be bored to death.”
     “No.  He’s interested.”
     “Well if he’s trying to make a good impression on your father, he’s certainly on the right track.”
     “He’s not faking it.  I don’t think Hoot fakes things.”
     “He seems like a nice boy.”
     “God, Mother.”
     “What?  What did I say?”
     “You’re always saying.”
     “Saying what?”
     “Judging people.”
     “All I said was he seems like a nice boy.  Jasmine.  I talked it over with your father.  We think, the ring, not yet.”
     “Then when?”
     “Later.  When you’re older.”
     “I need it now.”
     “Nobody needs a navel ring, Jasmine.”
     Mr. Lee came in the back door rubbing his nose and said, “He seems like a nice boy.”
     Jaz made fists, clenched her jaw, swallowed a scream, and ran out to the yard.
     Hoot was gone.
     She ran to the gate.
     Hoot was walking down the street toward home.
     “Hoot!”
     He turned.  “What?”
     “I’m sorry.”
     “Hey.  It was fun.  Let’s do it again.”
     Then he turned and continued walking.
     Jaz slammed the gate shut.
     Somewhere on the other side of the universe, butterflies were trembling.