----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joanna Boulter" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 8:07 AM
Subject: Re: Fw: This Earthly Cycled Hope


> Judy, that is a very sad story.
>
> joanna

>
Oh God, it surely is a sad story, isn't it, Joanna?  You've increased my 
feeling of its tragedy, yet your saying that it is a very sad story has also 
increased my belief in the healing of compassionate friends' words.  My poem 
was, fundamentally, intended to be a poem of hope and not of despair.

My thanks and blessings to you,

Judy

> ----- 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.