Spit Again

'You know, my son started out just like that & now he does it all the time.'
'Ha, yeah... I figure he'll figure out not to do it facing the wind soon.' 'It's a disgusting habit.'
'It really is. I do it all the time, especially when I'm in a mood.'

La Florida, as named by Ponce de Leon...Spanish for 'Place of Flowers'

...where I born & raised. Where the bulk of my clan continues to reside. A place I only visit or vacation to.

Timmy Toes marks a line in the sand that covers the well-worn-anyways walkway that leads from the crushed periwinkle parking lot to the decades old Tiki Bar....with our rooms sprinkled in between the two.

Armed with thick slices of ice-cold, hot-pink watermelon, an afternoon breeze & a slow-setting sun, we all plopped our bigs toes right on that line. Seeds tumbled, spewed, sped & shot out of our mouths. Tiny black teardrops from the heart of the melon... bounced, skipped, skidded & plopped their way into the sand & seashell shavings that would later pay host to the various vehicles of the nightly guests.

Objective? Spit your seed the furthest.

Three seeds into it, I sit out...I really have no desire to spit & three slices of watermelon later, the boys finally give, announcing the winner.

20+ feet was the record and Skinny had it by a long-shot.

Robbie & the Devil

Robbie.
The only person I have ever said 'I hate you' to in a emotional fit.
Gawd, I loved her... following her from watermelon patch to kitchen and garage, to the fishing spot under the banana tree.
Robbie helped to teach me a lot of things ...
how to spot fresh soil and how to make fishing poles,
when to say Thank You, Your Welcome & God Bless You and
the wheres and whens of spitting.
Until it was the end of her day, I would follow that little old woman around.
And then, I would follow her to the faded sedan that blew blue smoke when it came to fetch her.
I guess Robbie was a good sixty or seventy years older than me.
She'd say to my mother, 'I dont know wut you gonna do wit dat chile...she got duh Devha in hur.'
;) Now with a developed ID & ego, I guess this is the same thing that my mother now calls 'spit,' the cops now call 'passion,' my girlfriend calls 'conviction' or just the part that my brother calls the pitbull in me.
When particularly rotten, Robbie would lead me to the bathroom.
'You got duh Devha in ya chile, you bedda spit dat devil 'n out!'
I would spit & spit & spit into that toilet.
'I don't see any devil!' I would defiantly proclaim.
'Awwwdnow, you caint see 'em, but he's inya... keep own spittin chile.'
She'd flush that toilet & I would spit, always looking for that little devil in me to go plunging into the water.
I confided in Singleton & Kimbies that I never did see that devil get flushed.
Yup.
I was convinced that he had taken root somewhere in the world inside me.
They confirmed my beliefs, yup gotta spit that devil out.
And then told me about the water rats.
The ones that come up the pipes & suddenly appear in the toilet when you are right there... but when you still can't see them.
These evil little creatures that come to bite little girls who spit, but don't spit the devil out, right in the ass.
Living on a lake, I am sure that I have seen the water rats outside before & the thought of those beady eyed, knobbly tailed beasts coming up the commode to bite me in the ass was all too believable to me.
Stranger things have happened in this world.
Although, I have yet to be bit in the ass by a water rat and
I have yet to see the devil,
I still spit.


I guess that it's just the devil in me.