Aunt Mary (And the Water-pistol, 1958)

Aunt Mary
(And the Water-pistol)
1958


Mother and me, the two of us, went walking through the back way, through our backyard that is, and through Zackary’s backyard, which had a pathway to Granite Street, there on the sidewalk, we crossed the street, walking up hill to Patron’s store, a small grocery store in the neighborhood. I don’t recall exactly whaat the walk was for—that is to say, once we arrived at the grocery store what our purpose was, what we or she intended to purchase, or what we were to buy at the store, mother seldom took walks like that—she usually went to the larger stores and bought in quantity, such as several loafs of bread, and milk, and fifty-pounds of potatoes, and a crate of pears—it was cheaper that way, so I must assume it was in need for a distraction of her weekend routine in cleaning the house, and perhaps to buy me a popsicle, and an item or two she needed for cooking. And we bumped into Aunt Mary, she was my mother’s aunt, and thus, making her my great aunt. She was in her late 70s, I was eleven years old at the time, and my mother was thirty-eight; she, Mary, lived a few blocks away from us, and it was the first time I saw her, the very first time we met, I hadn’t even know she lived where she lived prior to this quick and rippled meeting.
So, to Mother, me and Aunt Mary, talk, they rambled on about what was, updating one another, you know, loose talk for the most part; whenever Aunt Mary asked mother a question, the conversation went on longer, then it came to a standstill, no one was talking any longer, and Aunt Mary was just looking at me, that was all.
“What can I buy for you?” asked Aunt Mary.
I invoke her consideration of the present scene somehow.
There was clearly nothing to be said because Aunt Mary was somehow set on buying me something. All the same, my mother clearly said,
“He’s fine, he doesn’t need anything.”
Looking in a exquisite visible way, mother wanted to cater to her wishes I gathered after she, Aunt Mary, produced a light delicate laughter—and, if you will, a bend of the eyebrows, hoping she’d not be refused with her frankness: thus,
“No,” she said, “I want to buy him something, here I have a dollar,” and a dollar in 1958, was likened to $10.00 now (or in 2009, as I write this short-lived story out), and she was on a pension, and lived alone in a big house.

Aunt Mary finished her demand that I take the dollar, and buy want I wanted, which was a squirt-gun (or water-pistol), one you squirted water out of, and at your enemy, or if not enemy, someone familiar, like my brother Mike, which I would do later on that day, and get hollered at for doing so, with a hot lecture by my mother for abusing Aunt Mary’s gift.
Nonetheless, she gave me the dollar, and stood waiting down the block for me and my mother to return with the gun, and my mother with her groceries, and we did, and I had the gun. She looked at my smile; it was greater than she had calculated.
In consequence, to buy a present for a dollar, and to have many happy hours with it thereafter was a bargain at anyone’s planning, which I assume she didn’t plan but had good insight at the moment, or so it seemed, so it would have appeared to an onlooker, but of course it was instantaneous, but something fine, and rare, and I never ever forgot her happiness in giving it to me, or my delightfulness in receiving it.
Perhaps I learned that day, happiness is a byproduct, in saying that I mean, it is something sterling when you give, even if it is a little, and it is worthy of the honor of being or receiving, happiness in return.
Her eyes were shinning brilliantly, her face lost its oldness for a moment, and she pulled out her lungs to take in a full length breath, and both of us mighty proud over a simple plastic water gun.

I would see her once more before she died, which was not long after that, perhaps three or four months. People know when they have but a short time left maybe that was what she was doing, planting a seed, before she pass on. Feeling somehow, confident that it would be delivered to the right chambers of my mind; that was of course, fifty-one years ago, and I still have not forgotten that charming warm summer day.

Written 1-3-2009, Lima, Peru