Chapter 4: The Cabin

The Cabin

I’m never going to get used to calling Jackie, Edith.

Edith has the language skills of an Irish fish monger or a Regency period theater orange seller ... and the morals of an alley-cat. ‘In and out for a pound, guv.’

In the Regency Period in England a pound had the purchasing power of 2,000 dollars in todays money. Edith might have been a whore but she wasn’t a cheap whore.

Edith didn’t understand ‘things’, but she had the easy expectancy of a London slum dweller.

The longer she was with us the more we understood that she was born in London England in 1790 and most likely was run down in the fog by a handsom cab in 1807.

I think my sister died in the fall down the celler stairs in 2000 ... we were blessed with Edith at the turn of the century... 2000.

One thing was certain ... we couldn’t stay here ... in our house. Jackie had friends Edith wouldn’t understand.

“Mom?”

“Yes, David?”

“What are we going to do?”

“Go to the cabin at the lake.”

“We have a cabin?”

“A lake?” Edith said, “I can learn to swim?”

It was important to ‘get outta town.’ Daddy had been in the ‘thick of it’ ... politics, corruption and vice ... and we, mom, Jackie and I were ‘sure’ to know ‘what was what,’ and therefore, dangerous to the Powers that be.

We didn’t ... but ‘they’ couldn’t take the chance.

“We can’t take the car,” mom said. “David ... take the bags back in the hall/tunnel. I’ll reset the wall.”

In the glow of 12 volt lightbulbs ... LED’s? ... we headed in and through the Underground Railroad rooms, mom worked anothe secret door a real tunnel that went for miles. Fortunately, mom had a ‘trolley’. a wheeled cart that I piled the pirate treasure on a pushed along. I’d have hated carrying the sacks ... mostly because a collage foorball team couldn’t ... carry them. Too many and too heavy. We came out in an abandoned warehouse in a town I didn’t know.

(I simplified the trolley trip ... you wouldn’t believe me. I don’t.)

In the warehouse there was a reasonably newish tan Dodge 4X4 pickup on a trickle ... mom had the keys. and we were loaded up and away before noon.

“Never flee in the dark, David. You disturb the dogs and some dog owners pay attention.”

Two days later we were in Montana ... Pennsylvania on the Monongahela River, where mom traded the pickup and some cash for a 55 foot riverboat.

After that the fleeing was fun. I learned about boats ... Edith learned about bikini’s ... woohoo! ... and mom allover tanned. Woohoo whoo!

Keep out of the way of the barges and pushboats. Tie up at night. Mom, now a blonde, looked like a 20 something heiress and I looked like her boytoy.

Speaking of boytoys ... it was the other way around.

Let me tell you about it. We were tied up to a treebranch for the night. Mom specifically wanted to do Pittsburg early in the day so we tied up early.

I was studying the charts for tomorrow and was distracted by the knock on my stateroom door.

“Yes?”

“May I come in?”

Mom.

I had to get up and unlock the door.

“I’ve been bad,” she said.

“What?”

“I’ve been bad and I need to be spanked.” She handed me a belt I’d never seen before. It was well used.

If that sentence were being written, the need would be ‘all caps’ and spanked would end in an exclamation point. I’m just telling it ... not writing it.

She wouldn’t look at me ... and her nipples were so erect they could cut a rare steak. At the very least they should have torn a hole in her tee shirt.

Of course I sprung a woodie.