Judy, that is a very sad story.

joanna

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "judy prince" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 11:59 AM
Subject: Fw: Fw: This Earthly Cycled Hope


Dearest Mouldy P,

Of course all of my poems are about you, and sometimes they are about others 
in addition to you.  I thank you for your careful look at the poem.  Another 
friend of mine asked what was the relationship between Boy Toy and me, so 
maybe it will be useful for me to send you my answer to him.  I had a lot of 
notes on both the possum and the boy toy, never knowing if or how the two 
topics might merge, but feeling their relationship somehow.  And then 
yesterday I suddenly was seized with writing the poem.

Following is the actual situation with Boy Toy:

  My gardener and I had been observing several painters at work on the 
exterior of my neighbor's home.  For several days, we saw that only one 
painter was careful, efficient, quick, responsible, reliable, and 
respectful.

  Since I needed my livingroom painted and was about to have a big gathering 
at home, I asked my gardener, who always knows the neighborhood and 
surroundings better than I do, whether it would be a good idea to ask the 
young man if he could bid on painting my livingroom.  Mr. Johnson (my 
gardener) said that it was a good idea, so I went next door and asked the 
young man if he would be interested in the job, he said his name was (I'll 
use a false one here) George Jensen, he came over after work, offered to do 
the job at a price that was incredibly low, and I told him the job was his, 
but that I would be closely observing his work and asking Mr. Johnson to 
observe it as well.

  As I knew would happen in the interim, Mr. J gathered fascinating facts on 
the painters next door, including George.  He found out that all of them 
were employed at very low wages for a disreputable man who contracted with a 
home-buyer (an investor in homes) to fix up homes for the investor to resell 
at a huge profit.  "On the street" the word was that the painters and any 
other workers employed by the man were usually paroled prisoners.  Mr. J had 
no specific details, though, about George.

  I proceeded with my plan.  George came to paint, Mr. J and I closely 
observed him and his work at all times, and we found him to be the best 
painter we'd ever known.  This little skinny white kid earned our respect, 
believe me!  I then conferred further with Mr. J, telling him that in my 
brief chats with George, I felt him to be lying about his name as well as 
his background---except that I believed him when he told me he had been 
dishonorably discharged by the army, a fact which he said his employer 
didn't know and he didn't want him to know.

  Mr. J found out that George lived, rent-free and alone, in a large 
beautiful home owned by his employers' mother, an even more disreputable 
character than her son.  Mr. Johnson and I concluded that Mom and George 
probably were having a liaison, a fact which had no relevance to our 
association with him.  But Mr. J immediately began calling him "Boy 
Toy"---doubtless a term born of Mr. J's experience "on the street" for so 
many years before his conversion to Pentecostal beliefs.

  I asked Boy Toy if he could paint the rest of my main floor, and he 
happily agreed.  An incredible fact is that he always walked to work (five 
miles) and carried all of his work equipment in a backpack.  And he did his 
two days' painting of my livingroom before he began his work on the house 
next door.  That meant that he showed up at my place at 5 a.m. for two 
mornings.

  Boy Toy showed up at the expected 5 a.m. to, I assumed, begin painting the 
rest of my main floor, but instead he said apologetically that his employer 
had told him that he'd be fired if he continued to paint for me.  Of course, 
I had no choice but to accept his being unable to paint for me anymore.

  Then I asked Mr. J, later, to explain what he thought Boy Toy was Really 
Saying.  He said he felt that Boy Toy's Old Lady (his boss's mom) was 
jealous that Boy Toy was working for me because she assumed I was doing 
exactly what she was doing with Boy Toy.  I was incredulous, but Mr. J said 
that most folks assume that others are just like them, either moral 
bankrupts or not.  That was a useful bit of information for me to tuck away, 
and it made me see that folks often treat me in ways that shock me but are 
simple projections of their own behaviors onto me.

  We then didn't see Boy Toy for many days.  Next we knew, the police were 
after him for torching the home that his employer had insisted he paint in 
order to get him away from being near my house.  Boy Toy was forced to paint 
the new house, inside and out, entirely by himself, 12 hours a day, for 
three weeks.  The night he finished the job, he bought a bottle of liquor, 
took it into the house and drank it all.  Then he set the house on fire.  It 
survived well, he was on the run, he got picked up, he was permitted by the 
police to return for fingerprinting the next day, but he took off again, 
returning, months later, to my home.  Mr. J counseled him not to come back 
because we would then be "accessories" and liable to arrest.  Boy Toy didn't 
come back, and we haven't seen him.