The Fargo Kantrowitz'z Literary Campsite

I don’t say much anymore. What’s to say? This world is a merry-go-round and you better not fall off. I met Jed back, oh, back a long time. I admit I’ve been something of a mother hen to him for the last ten years. He couldn’t get off the shit. The rock and roll wasn’t what it was. Hell no. It was the drug. If I knew that Jed had been taking heroin when I met him I would have slipped away. I would have so Moxy Priestessed him he wouldn’t have known what it was that happened to him. But he had a car and I’d taken a clunker down to Nashville, thinking there was something big in music going on there, but was really looking for Hollywood. I was always a showgirl, not a city girl and I wanted to prove that there was nothing wrong with that. I could kick up my heels better than most of those girls on the ballet stage, but I didn’t want to. I’d listened to Elvis when I was girl because that’s who my father liked and he was a composer for the Broadway stage. It’s funny how things happen.

Now I’ve got my husband back from the drug, but I picked up a family along the way. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of the fact that I live on a mountain near Millsville in Tennessee. Realistically it’s ideal for a person. I’ve got a nice home in the country, my husband is near his family. I’ve got a beautiful little girl. But I’m bored. Simply put, I’m bored and I don’t want to drag Jed back to the city. He’s not ready. He may never be ready and I love Jed. I’ve loved him from that first day we met in McDonalds, I think. It’s just been a strange transition, that’s all.

To think that I’m trading in my city girl status by staying here is hard, it’s like losing perspective on who I am and sometimes I take it to mean that I want to go to temple again. I deny this to Jed, but I do miss it sometimes, that firm grounding in the Jewish faith that I grew up with. I take Minnie to a Methodist church, but I’m thinking of telling Jed that we’re going to start going the little synagogue over on Maple Street. I think that If my Minnie has a little bit of that then maybe I could keep a little bit of home near me and then I’ll want to stay and me and Jed won’t get in a stupid fight and break up. I can feel it in the air sometimes. Oddly enough, it seems that this request I’m going to make to Jed today isn’t all that’s out there working in our favor. Albert’s little play about Princess Diana is making Jed pick up his guitar again. He even had me come up with the feel for a song Albert called Coconut Jerk Chicken. It was fun, we had Minnie dancing around the house and when we were done me and Jed had written the first song by Moxy Priestess that was ever written without a trace of heroin in Jed’s veins. That little victory felt good.

Overall I’m happy here on Annabelle Mountain. The mountain is beautiful. We’re near the top. We can afford to do this since neither one of us has to go into town and work. We still get some royalties. Jed spent most of his big money, but I invested wisely and we are well to do now. They say there is an angel who lives on this mountain, the spirit of a young girl who died here. I don’t like to think about that story. I don’t much like the subjects of angels because that means that God does have need. I sometimes wish that God would just dismiss all of the angels because the angels are always made up of the spirits of those who didn’t deserve to die. I guess Albert would say that Diana is an angel. On our mountain, the little girl from the civil war era, Annnabelle, is an angel. The trouble with angels is that we want more and more of them, but nobody wants to volunteer to be one.

That is, I think, the predicament that Jed’s brother finds himself in. He thinks that if he can pay tribute to Princess Diana then he is saving her soul. But I wish his tribute could have been written while she had been living. That way she too would be able to believe in angels. It’s not easy to see the realities of coping with this life. Albert is coping, that’s plain to see. Jed said that he would cry when the music stopped playing sometimes when they were alone in his room. Jed loves his brother. That’s another reason why I can’t insist on moving. We’ve been here over a year and each day is feeling a little bit longer, but Jed’s not ready. He needs as much time here at home as he had away from home. My parents always loved me and made it clear to me that they did, so I must be the stronger one. I will take Minnie to the synagogue and turn her into a little Jewish princess like I was and it appears that Jed will spearhead the return of Moxy Priestess, something I thought would never happen in a million years.