Maria Opsal was my best friend, had been for nearly forty years.  That's not to say that for roughly 14, 000 days she nourished me as her most favored companion.  There were many times I felt Maria carried a pocketful of hostility toward me and my “inherent privilege” as she sometimes called it.  However there was a dug-in-the-dirt loyalty that our hearts hearkened to in the spring of '65 when we found one another at the reservoir searching for agates that we were certain would bring us wealth or, at the very least, good luck.  So when Maria called me up two months ago to ask if I'd come stay with her for a while, I couldn't say no.  My sabbatical at the technical college had just kicked in and although I'd planned on a rigorous schedule for finishing my novel, I foolishly thought I could write at Maria's.

Maria'd been struggling with med adjustments, mid-life orneriness and redundancy.  She'd lived on the same street, Stonerock Road, for eleven years, never mind that her mother and daughter team of poodle-somethings were named Betty and Wilma.  I'd come to find out they'd replaced me as her closest confidants since our last experience of living together, back in 1993.

When I arrived I found Maria living among totem poles of dog piles pillowed in dust bunnies.  Surprisingly enough the place didn't reek, but that could have been from the billows of smoke permeating the nauseating blanket of patchouli sticks.  She'd perfected the art of paper weaving by using the Sunday funnies.  Her doorless cupboards revealed twelve place settings. 

“I see you've given up on liquid diets,” I prompted, then took a hit off the joint she offered me.  “That's not all I've given up on,” Maria said.  ”Don't tell me you've given up on your faith in miracles or leprosy,” I asked taking another hit off the joint.  “Ever since the last election,” she said.  “Damn,” I said, “you should have called me earlier.  I had a miraculous “in” on the outcome of that election.”  Maria passed me the joint for the third time but I was too stoned to find her fingers.  “You hungry?” she asked.  I looked around the place and decided on a dog turd with a side of dust.  She told me to fuck myself and then I felt at home.

An hour or so later after a feast of unleavened bread, red wine and canned black olives, she'd rolled another joint, pulled a briefcase out from under the sofa, and blew the dust off the top while Betty and Wilma sneezed in unison.  “Bobbi,” she said, lighting the joint behind squinted eyes, ”how long can you stay?”  “Well, what's up?” I asked.  “Oh, by the way,” I added, “It's really great to see you too.”  She reached over and hugged me.  “I'm sorry, honey,” she said, “I just haven't been myself lately.  I'm so glad you're here.”  I smelled her familiar, comforting scent, canned peaches and untamed urban restlessness.  Before she let go, she gave me her familiar kiss on the top of my head and then slapped her hands on top of the briefcase.  “So,” she started, “let's return to business at hand.”

Maria and I met in late April of 1963.  It was at the reservoir by Hillcrest golf course in East St. Paul, a place I would ride my bike to after school in spring and summer to hunt for agates.  The place I claimed as my own, with the exception of the Popisils that lived down the block and bred like rabbits.  Every year they had a new kid, 16 total but four died and two were adopted out.  Yet at nine years old I already knew that ten was still a litter.  The Popisil kids never hunted for agates.  They were all far sighted and wore glasses that slipped off their faces when they bent over.  So instead of hunting, they just ran around the reservoir playing nuns and cowboys.  Gordon Popisil was retarded but not in a bad way.  He just liked to pick his nose and eat what he found inside.  He was two years older than me but he still wore diapers.  I let him look for agates although he never did catch on to what an agate was.  He'd pick up dirt, gum wrappers, a dog log and flash it in front of my face like he'd done good.  I'd say, “good job, Gordon, start your pile over there and don't let anyone steal from it.”

It was on a Wednesday in spring that I took Maria to the reservoir.  She arrived that day as a transfer student from a reservation school.  Miss Swenson, my fourth grade teacher who talked just above a whisper introduced her to the class and wanted a volunteer to be her guide for the day, including after school.  Maria was new to the neighborhood and didn't know the boundaries.  I'd set her straight.  “This is where I look for agates,” I told her.  I walked over to the rock pile where I'd spent so many days searching and left her standing by the water's edge.  Within an hour's time I carried my baseball cap of findings and held them out in front of her just far enough for her to ooh and aah but not touch.  Maria had dark plum hair with lines of red in it; I'd never seen hair that color before and I took her for an agnostic.  I sat down beside her and examined each stone and then passed them off to her to inspect.  “What do you do with these?” she asked.  “I collect them,” I said.  “Agates, these are Minnesota agates,” I said.  “Some day they'll be valuable and I'll use some of the money I make from selling them to go to college.”    Maria turned over one of the agates, held it up to the sun's light and said, “There's a fetus inside this one.”  She kept looking and looking at it, turning it like it was a kaleidoscope and it was offering up new images of life as time went on.  I thought she was creating a name for the fetus and parents.  Maybe even ways to incur funds for its college tuition even though it would be years before he or she would use the money.  Then the hair on the back of my neck started to rise.  What a strange thing to say, there's a fetus inside an agate!  “Are you an agnostic?” I asked.

Maria and I became regular partners at the reservoir that summer.  Although she didn't look for agates, she sang all the songs from The Sound of Music and pretended that she was Maria Von Trapp.  For a while she charged poor Gordon Popisil ten cents a day for her autograph.  He paid it without knowing why.  I'm not certain where he came up with the money but every day for about two weeks straight he reached in deep into his pocket and grabbed out a shiny dime and placed it by Maria's feet.  She wouldn't touch it because of his bugger-picking so I'd carry it home for her then run it under scalding hot water until she felt comfortable slipping it into her own pant pocket.

“Don't take money from Gordon anymore, Maria,” I said to her as she sat humming “How do you solve a problem like Maria…”  “What are you talking about?” she said, looking at me though her plum-hazed hair. “If you mean to quit taking advantage of him, I'm not.  I know where that money comes from. Bryan Avery gives him a dime every day to hand over to me.  Don't think I don't see him hiding in the ravine. And if you mean to say that I'm making fun of him, shut your mouth, Bobbi Norton.  At least I don't call him Popsicle sticks for brains.”  She had me there, hang dog position.  “Maria Opsal, I'm never going to tell you any secrets again,” I said.  “Never will I confide in you, best friends are not supposed to turn things around on one another cuz they're closer than even family.”  I felt guilty saying that Gordon basically had kindling for brains.  Gordon must have known down deep that he wouldn't have a chance to go to college even if he sold a million agates.  Maria looked at me and said, “Sometimes being best friends makes it too hard to confide.”

That next day I didn't meet up with Maria at the reservoir, or the day after that.  It wasn't until school started again several weeks later that Maria and I talked again.  What broke the silence was when she confirmed that she was in fact an agnostic.  I told her I didn't care.  I thought agnostics could still take communion if they kept their mouths shut about it, at least while in the sanctuary.  “Then how would I eat the bread and drink the wine?” she asked.  I attempted an answer while she rolled her eyes and said, “and you think you're college material?” 

After school I treated Maria to a cherry cola at Gertin Drug on Sherwood Street and White Bear Avenue.  “Do you think I am too dumb to go to college?” I asked her.  She was paging through a Teenbeat magazine she'd grabbed off the rack.  “I love Mickey Dolenz,” she said.  “Look at how sexy he is, don't you just love Mickey?”  I looked at the magazine photo of the Monkees and said, “he's okay.  I like Davey more.  But do you think…”  “Bobbi, you'll go to college, don't worry.  Your inherent privilege alone will get you through the door, just relax.  Sometimes you are so creepy.  Look at Bryan Avery, he even inherited the initials, B. A.”

I started to piece together signs of Maria's waning confidence, so I asked her outright one day when we smoked sucker sticks behind Haag's superette after school.  “My mom's a whore,” she screamed in my face.  “Okay?  My mom and Bryan Avery's dad have sex.  Bryan told me he would tell everyone in school that my mom does it with everyone unless I listened to them do it and tell him everything dirty they said to one another.  I told him I'd do it for a dime a time.  That's where Gordon's dimes were coming from, Bobbi.  Sometimes you are so stupid I can't believe it.”  Maria started laughing.  “Go in and get a pack of Winston's.  These sucker sticks are giving me a headache.”  She handed me a note asking Mr. Haag to please allow Bobbi Norton to purchase a pack of Winston cigarettes.  Signed, Celery Opsal.  “Your mom's name is Celery?” I asked.  “Agnostic, remember?” she said.  Maria handed me over a handful of dimes.

Later that year Celery Opsal got herself evicted from the house she was renting so she moved herself and Maria into the McDunoah projects.  They were on Maryland Avenue just 13 blocks from her other house and although my parents were part agnostic themselves, McDunoah after 9pm was not where they wanted me hanging out.  Her mom was never around and Bryan Avery kept tormenting Maria.  One weekend night I'd begged my mom and dad to let me sleep over at Maria's and they finally relented.  As predicted, Bryan Avery showed up during the night with two of his bully friends and started calling Maria and her mom names from outside the building.  “This is what they do every night, Bobbi,” she said to me.  I got so mad I opened the window and said, “Bryan Avery, come on inside and say that.”  Sure enough he toddled on inside the building, followed by Ricky Hammer and John Burns, two of his middle class loser friends that couldn't fight a flea.  I let then in the apartment.  “Pull your pants down, Maria, let's see your muff,” said Bryan.  I looked at Maria and I knew this was part of the dialogue he'd spent a dime on the summer before.  Maria looked scared and started to undo her pants and I walked up to Bryan, popped him a good one in the nose.  Blood spurted every which way.  He cupped his hands over his face and started to scream.  Then I took on the other two, just like in a 007 movie.  Within minutes three bullies were crying to the tune of “How do you stop a problem like Maria…”  It was my most proud childhood moment.  I had to blow out the flame from my index finger I was so hot.  That was the last time Avery messed with Maria that I knew of.

 “So, I want to go over some legal paperwork with you, Bobbi.”  I watched Maria unlatch the briefcase and pull out papers, wads of money bound with string, savings bonds, bags that jingled and various other things that looked oddly important.   “What'd you do, rob a bank or the Avery estate?”  Maria laughed deep but caught the smoke from her joint in her throat and started coughing and coughing until she threw up blood.  I looked at her and hurried off to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.  “Where the fuck is a glass?  What the fuck is with all this paper dinnerware anyway and fuckin A!  Where can I find a glass!?”  I slammed the only doors to a cabinet that were under the sink.  Using the plunger as a cup would do.  Maria was still choked up.  God knows where the plunger was last.  I thought about that, about Gordon's dimes and how they needed to be scalded before she touched them as she drank slowly from the plunger rubber cup.  “Stemware,” she said, pointing to the plunger.  I flipped her the bird.  “Confide, Maria.”

 “It's not behaving, Bobbi.  The disease is not behaving.  In spite of the meds, in spite of the treatments and the faith in miracles, it's got me.  I don't have long, Bobbi.  Maybe a couple of months.  Maybe longer, maybe less.  Doctors can't predict due dates like in pregnancies.”  I sat back, leaned my head against the wall and waited to think of the right thing to say.  Maria laid her head on my lap, turned sideways and Betty and Wilma immediately jumped to her side.  She rested her hand down by their heads and they both licked her fingers gently.  “Quit letting those dogs do that,” I said.  “Do what?” she asked.  “Quit letting them lick you like you're already dead.  Do you know where their mouths have been lately?  Picking buggers, licking their butts, each other's vaginas, ick. Take your hand away.” I shooed her hand away from the dogs and kicked at them with my foot to move away.  “Knock it off, Bobbi.  This isn't a cenacle.  The dogs live here.  They are loyal to me just like you are so don't get fucking weird with them or me.”  What about the dogs, I thought.  Who will get stuck with Betty and Wilma?  Silence.  I still didn't know what to say so Maria said it for me; “Sometimes being best friends makes it too hard to confide, Bobbi.”

Over the next several nights I conceded to Maria's schedule.  Partly this had to do with the grandfather clock that rang every quarter hour and grinded at my nerves like bone on bone.  Partly it had to do with Maria's sleep patterns.  She was most comfortable during the dark hours and nocturnal clocks started to send their rhythmic tick-tocks into me as well.  She'd remind me to spend some time sorting through the legal issues contained within her briefcase.  “Bryan Avery must have pissed his pants when he handed over that first hundred thou,” she said lying on the floor one dark early morning.  I remember her mentioning briefly her settlement from the car accident she'd had with him in '96.  Betty and Wilma were sleeping on her stomach, a perfect cave-like enclave that had formed from not being able to eat without pain.  Weight was never an issue for Maria unlike me who struggled every day of my life to fit into clothes in varying sizes from 10 to 14.  However now I wished I could give Maria some of my weight.  She was wasting away.  She must have read my mind and said, “Think we could even start a fire using my body for kindling?”  I squeezed her hand and told her she had a head full of Popsicle sticks.  “But you never quit confiding in me, did you, Bobbi?”  I looked at the clock.  3:17am.  “No, Maria, I didn't.  I guess that was my inherent privilege.”

I'd sprung for a set of juice glasses, bought cases of ginger ale and organic juices and lids of dope from Cookie Roberts, Maria's dope dealer, to sustain us for a while.  Dope helped with Maria's ongoing pain.  I'd taken up funny paper weaving and made Maria and me matching head dresses and exotic bongs out of empty ginger ale bottles with agates floating in cloudy water.  She started sleeping more and left me a nocturnal widow most nights.  I started reading some of the legal papers, something that she said I could do during my spare time.  I was the executor of her estate.  It seemed as though poor little Maria had stashed more money away than God had spent creating the world.  Strange lawsuits had made her independently wealthy.  Lawsuits she'd kept secret from me.  There was no car accident with Bryan Avery to speak of among the paperwork.  Instead I learned why Bryan, who'd smarmed his way in to becoming our first Republican State Senator since before I was old enough to vote paid off Maria.  She'd gotten rid of the fetus at 21 weeks.  Later she was diagnosed with AIDS.

There was a car accident, but it involved Celery and it was after she'd collected off of old man Avery.  Could have been a suicide but I doubt it.  Celery would have wanted to live to spend every dime of that money.  It was Maria's money now.  I shifted my legs and the briefcase tumbled to the floor.  Betty and Wilma jumped up, looking nervous and protective of Maria.  Maria stirred on the sofa and reached over to get her glass of juice.  I handed it to her.  She took a sip, “Thanks, mama,” she said and turned back to burrow in the cushions and go back to sleep. 

 “Thanks, mama?  That's it?  That's what I get?  I come here from across town, gag my way into a house full of totem pole dog turds, live off dope and juice for two weeks to date and find out your pauper lifestyle is nothing but a fraud, you had an abortion without even confiding in me, and what about those fucking dogs?  Who's going to be responsible for those two worthless pieces of shit?  Huh, Maria?”  I jumped and Betty and Wilma ran for cover.  I took off my funnies headpiece ripped it to shreds and said, “by the way, Maria, in my ending Bryan Avery dies of leprosy, the dogs eat him and they grow sores both internally and externally, croak by your gravesite and god comes down to steal your money.  He pays back the Republican Party and you for being an agnostic.  You never fought back, Maria.  You think these lawsuits, this pile of money sitting here was fighting back?  Jesus Christ, Maria.  You never fought back.” 

I wanted to roll a joint, drink a gallon of cheap wine, and eat the money until it swelled in my stomach so that I had to spend the rest on size 16's.  “How do you solve a problem like Maria…” she started to sing in a soft voice, as though completely unaffected by my outrage.  “Your bully persona doesn't become you, Bobbi.  It's not in keeping with your image as a college instructor.”  Wilma and Betty came out of hiding and pounced on the couch.  They curled up on Maria's stomach and she winced but reached over and scruffed their underbellies.  “You should put Wilma on a diet,” I said as I lifted Maria's feet and sat down.  I rubbed her swollen ankles, now all bruised and sore.  She asked me to stop; she said it hurt to be touched.  “The fat one's Betty,” she said.  “And a diet wouldn't help.  She's pregnant.”  I sighed and leaned my head back, staring at the ceiling's cracks, trying to make constellations that would make me feel as though this was all a dream.  “Your inherent privilege,” Maria said, and smiled like she did the day I handed her the fetus agate for good luck.  I looked over at fat Betty who now had a hangdog look.  Maybe she was guilty about the totem pole dog turds I continued to pick up on a daily basis.  Damn dog never pooped outside.  Maybe she was scared of what her new life with me would be like across town.  Would I put her friend Wilma up for adoption?  How about the pups? 

 “Come here, Betty,” I said, patting at my side.  Maria's feet were still resting on my lap.  Betty moved with her tail between her legs, slow motion, head down and curled up against my thigh.  I touched her furry back and her body took a timid jump.  “She'll get used to you,” Maria said.  “She's very sensitive and likes to go for walks, especially in the morning and then again at night.”  “You could have fooled me,” I said.  Then I remembered Maria had been sick long before she'd called me to spend time with her.  Most likely Betty and Wilma would build totem poles outside if I took them out. I'd never had a dog, how did I know?  “I'm glad we're having this conversation,” I said.  “And what time do I take them to ballet lessons, which one plays softball and which one trains for marathons?”  Maria put her finger to her lips and said, “Betty spends lots of time at the reservoir searching for agates.  She's saving for her kid's college funds.  Wilma sells secrets for money.”  I squeezed Maria's hand, “Sorry, did that hurt?” I said.

 “What will you do with the money?” Maria asked. “Oh, I thought I'd maybe buy a reservoir of agates, maybe set up a scholarship fund in your name for Wilma's kids.  Maybe give Cookie some extra cash.  She's still wearing the same Earth Shoes from 1974, all duct taped together.  Maybe I'll hunt down Ricky Hammer and John Burns, fuck with them some.  It might take a few bucks.” 

 “I want you to retire,” said Maria. “Finish that novel that you've been talking about forever.  Can I have a say in how you spend some of that money, Bobbie Norton?”  I picked at my cuticles and said, “You know, Maria, I never have been able to settle down enough to be a very good writer.  It takes discipline.”  “Ah, so you're nothing but a fraud?” she said.  “Isn't discipline the first thing you teach your students about writing?”  Maria was the one that ought to have gone on to college. She was always far smarter than me. And it pissed me off. “I'll think about it, huh? I really will. I think about it.”  “Tell me about your novel,” she said. I looked at her and realized I was a fraud. I had 14,000 false starts that never went beyond two pages. I looked at Maria and I knew she was waiting for a storylogue. I stood up and so did Betty next to me on the couch.  Wilma then stretched and yawned.  “Where are the dog leashes?” I asked. Maria pointed under the sofa.  “You'll be surprised what you'll find when you move this piece of shit furniture, Bobbi.  A goldmine.”  I reached under and found two leashes, one pink, one purple to match each of the dog's collars and gently attached them.  Betty and Wilma were squirming their hind ends and whining excitedly.  “You have two faithful and loyal friends forever now, Bobbi.”  I heard the clock strike a quarter hour and looked at my watch.  “It's 2:15am.  Is this an okay time to walk them?  You said in the morning and then again at night.”  “Look at them, Bobbi.  You think it's not okay to walk them?”  She must have been right.  They'd obviously confided in her.  I suppose eventually they would me as well.

We walked around the neighborhood until each dog had pooped twice and then fake pooped.  Betty's stomach swayed back and forth. I wondered when the puppies might pop out, how many there might be, if I'd have to assist in any way. I wondered if maybe getting her high on dope before hand would help Betty with the pain. I wondered what type of fence I'd need to get for the dogs as I compared neighbors fences on our adventure.  I wondered if I'd need to get a set of family cell phones just in case I was out and Maria needed to call me and tell me that Betty had gone into labor. I wondered why I'd never sacrificed my freedom to have a child of my own, because all of a sudden it felt good to be a parent of sorts. I'd have to confide all of this to Maria I thought when I returned but upon opening the door I noticed the clock had stopped ticking at 2:43 and according to my watch it was much later. In Maria's hand rested the fetus agate. Her eyes were shut and she looked peaceful, just like the water held within the confines of the reservoir. I laid down on the floor beside the sofa.  Both dogs plopped on my round belly, digging a cave formation. Each circled three times, then laid down, sighed and we all closed our eyes until daylight.