Day 8 It goes on and on!

When it comes to divorce, one must remember there are at least two versions of the story—if not more if children are involved..  It’s that way in life and believe it or not, it's the same in death—a lesson I was definitely reminded of meeting “Little Davie,” a young man who eternally sleeps not far from his parents, “Big Davie” and “Joanie Lee.”

His unassuming name plate lies a few yards into Memory Gardens, but I don’t remember seeing his mom or dad, then again, I didn’t look around.  I was trying to remember all the information on his head plate.

After two hours on the Net, I found where “Little Davie” died—Tuba City, Arizona.   He had been a fireman’s assistant in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and had been born somewhere in the state of Washington. 

As I got a handle on his family tree, I started getting small crumbs of information, but with those tidbits came the following: “That c--- is a piece of work” and “Why are you bothering to look her sh-- up—she is nuthin’ but a fat old slut!”  This happened as I found his wife’s name on Ancestry.com –“Aurelia” {remember I never use real names—names don’t matter—it’s their stories which are interesting}.

I tried to ignore his angry rants.  I had the television on and was kind of—but not really listening to A&E’s “My Ghost Story—Caught on Tape,” so you can understand I thought I was picking up ideas from the show—which was natural.

Then came, “Don’t you listen tew anything dat man says.  He’s crazy.” 

I thought I was making up this rather dramatic and fairly entertaining argument—this he said/she said thing usually makes for good drama and to be honest I wasn't feeling in good vibes on our walk this morning, nor was I feeling like writing anything.   

As I kept searching for Little Davie’s cause of death, I heard, “Ya know she killed me--yeah, it’s true.  Why don’t you look in the Arizona’s historical prison records, because she did it—she took out a pistol and shot me for no-reason-what-so-ever.  I never laid a hand on the b----!  The fat f------ cow.  Go on, look it up, you’ll find her in the f------ prison records under K---- Murderer.”

After another hour, I was beginning to think I was going off my rocker—which I tend to do as a matter of habit.

A female tone, with a slight hint of a German accent piped in, “See, he vas lying to you.  I never killed heem, never shot heem—perhaps I shot at heem—but I made sure I missed heem by a good, long mile--the big baby.  He’s an s-o-b from way back.  But I scared heem dat day--dat’s for sure.”

“The f------ cow!  She would have killed me—she wanted to killed me!  Saying all that sh-- that I beat her, telling the f------ cops I tried to strangle her for no reason.  You heard her, didn’t you f------- good reasons!  If you had heard that German yappin' constantly for two years you would have wanted to shut the f------- b---- up too!  OK—well, I might have lunged for her throat—but for crist’s sake, who wouldn't want to?!  She was the one shooting the f------ aimed a pistol at me!”

I couldn’t hear myself think, let alone hear the television with all their yelling because that was when they started going at each other as if anyone on either side of this life's veil.  They were shouting, trying to convince the other that his or her version was the truth, but after forty years, who gives a flying fart who's story is true?  They're dead for cryin’ out loud! 

 

It goes to show that what baggage we don’t unpack or throw away in this life, goes with us in the next.

My heart went out to Little Davie; he had died in 1971 at the age of 24.  Then again, I have natural sympathies for abused women.

I started to find a lot of information about Aurelia at that moment.  Even she didn’t know exactly when she was born—somewhere in Germany in or about1948—arriving on the U.S. Ship “Homeland” from Europe not long after World War II; entering New York Harbor at the age of maybe two or three.  She came with a few members of her family, but by the time she arrived in Arizona, I couldn’t find a single name that belonged on the passenger list.  By the time she got to that desert state in 1966 I wonder if any of her relatives were alive.  It was that year she married her handsome 19-year old sailor, and she, was 18.  They chose Solano County, California—where else would one find a sailor but near San Francisco?  A year later “Davie Jr.” was born, and that’s when things really got out of control—black eyes, broken dishes, Shore Patrolmen making late-night visits so the neighbors could get some sleep—naval detectives interviewing the culprits, because both of them had violent tempers, and I’m not even sure who exactly got the shiners—it wouldn’t surprise me they both had to cover up such shameful evidence.

One or the other wised up and called the whole thing off—sometime in October of 1968.  Aurelia stayed in sunny Vallejo, California, while in Tuba, City, “Little Davie” met his demise—how—I have no idea—neither one of them would shut up long enough to tell me.

Nonetheless, Aurelia went on with her life—(wink, wink, nod, nod).  She married a man named Lou, a German American, born in Minnesota and who happened to be 42 years older than she was.  They got hitched on May 15, 1970, and I doubt very much that he was a free-spirited or drugged-out hippie.  When I saw her address in Camino Alto, I guess she wasn’t living in the slums!  Of course, she was looking out for her boy.  Oddly enough, Lou didn’t live long after their nuptials, and Aurelia buried him a week after his death on November 29, 1971.  I never found out how Lou died either. 

Because she used two or three different versions of her name, Aurelia could have married again—and I lost track of her after 1974.  I know she’s dead—I wouldn’t have found myself in the middle of yet another argument if she wasn’t. 

 

Something odd happened while I roamed between doing my laundry at my neighbor’s and looking up information about this “very loving couple.” 

 

One of my majolica plates worth about $50 fell off the wall and broke into a dozen pieces.  The 3M sticker hook that is advertised not to come off the wall stopped sticking and the plate fell—nothing really paranormal, but still…odd uh.  Eventually, I had to kick both of them out of the house with, “Please, people!  Take it outside, will ya?!”

After they left everything settled down—I wasn’t feeling agitated, and more importantly the dogs didn’t look like someone had hit them and was about to do it again.  They’re chasing each other around like they normally do.

Who do I believe—Little Davie’s or Aurelia’s version?  Neither.  Both.  Who knows?  They probably have lied about the other so much not even they know exactly what really happened.  Which is pretty ironic, don't you think?