Night before last, Chris Wandel asked me how Belle and I were doing. I felt she was asking for her boyfriend, Stefan Eins, as well.
The day I met Belle in Ken Kesey Square, Marilyn called that evening.
“I fell in love today with a younger version of you” I told the love of my life who is my dear friend this very day. “Not that you look just alike, but she has your ambience. She was wearing black leotards. There was something about her, a Bohemian flare. She even has your mole. What side of your neck was your mole on? I forgot.”
“I had it removed seven years ago because it was cancerous.”
Marilyn and Chris understand me, my relationship with women and my muse. This is why I have known these beautiful Bohemian women for a hundred years. They are amused, and saddened by the vicious attack, the attempt to control my information.
“But this is how the best Bohemian stories go. There has to be a Gypsy girl, a female Robin Hood, a Master Thief who delights in capturing the jewels of the gentry, the upper crust, because, nothing is sacred in the world but the Gypsy Oath.”
“I understand.” Marilyn said. Then we talked about the statuette of the young girl and her cat that M’s mother gave her, that she did not want, nor her daughter. So I took her in, this symbol of our lost innocence, lost when Marie made us going to three Billy Graham Crusades at the LA Coliseum, and when I did not “go down” and get saved for having ‘Teen Sex Thoughts’ I knew we were doomed, especially after Marie found the ‘The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ’ under her daughter’s mattress where we fell asleep in each other’s arms after I rose quietly from my blankets put on the floor, I allowed to stay the night as long as I went to church in the morning.
You see, Marie used her beautiful (and sexy) daughter to tempt me, have me be ‘with sin’ because I was raised Catholic, and was a child of Satan in her eyes. If only she could save me, then she would be guaranteed a place in heaven, for she was sleeping next door with a married man.
And so I got threats from a shrill shrew, the Queen of the Street Banchees who falsely accused me of stalking Beautiful Belle, with lust in my heart. And I dare not go downtown. And, so it goes! Once again I was…..used.
“Stay away from Belle, if you know what’s good for you: if you want to live!”
Last week I saw that Belle and my aunt Lillian look alike. Lil and my uncle invited M and I to a family get together at the beach. We went shopping for a bikini. M was fifteen when Lil met her for the first time. There was jealousy. Marilyn and I were desperate to learn how to deal with the destructive jealousy from those close to us. No one was on our side. Not even Billy Graham. It was a set-up!
I had it all. Belle was going to pose for me. She would have gone to New York with me, or, the Ends of the Earth. But, there came this Temptation after I read her poem wherein it appear she was using money meant for the poor and homeless, to go party with. I was bid to say something. I looked at what that was and how it would take everything from me, especially the beautiful ending of my book.
“Just keep your mouth shut, Jon Gregory. Don’t say anything, or you’ll ruin everything.”
Thus spoke the dark editor within that bid me to come live on the surface of life, and pretend. And while she sit next to my empty canvas, and as I pick up my first brush, I will do my best to ignore what I read, and what I could not help but conclude. When I beheld this Latest Temptation, I wrote………
“You better not be using the homeless, for I will oppose you and found my own program to help them.”
THE END
Jon Presco
Copyright 2014
http://stevensilversteinphotography.net/covers-1/
Rosamond Press 