Miss Myler has a dream and needs to find peace with it
Miss Myler befriends a group of paraplegics vets who help her bring her dream to an end
The wheels fell away from the secure platform and as Miss Myler fell earthward her mind reviewed in one flash parts of her life. In fact, the instantaneous memory pictures that paraded through her mind with such impossible speed referred to the events which had led her to this terrible predicament.
It had all begun near her two-room home in Cassadaga, Florida. Miss Myler, a sixty-five-year-old, had never married; from birth, her legs were malformed and withered; she’d learned to care for most of her needs from a wheelchair. After cancer took her husband she found the necessity of moving out of her sizeable house near Orlando. For many years she’d worked as a quality inspector at one of the larger orange groves that cover most of central Florida. There were things she couldn’t do for herself such as trim the overgrown rose bush that grew up one side of her small, wooden home. Once, while on a visit, Miss Mylers’ nephew surprised her with a green parakeet, “to keep you company,” he said. She’d named him Frito after her favorite snack.
Miss Mylers’ nephew also built wood ramps that allowed her to climb the four steps up to her front door. In several of her rooms, her nephew removed the doors which allowed easier access for her wheelchair. Her living room and other spaces were free of furniture and this way she had almost free rein of the floor. Despite a sparseness and a feel of never-ending transition the space was fresh as the soft breeze pushed and swayed sheer light blue window curtains. She preferred leaving windows open, allowing a gentle air moving through that carried the essence of roses from her garden.
The little old house was in what some people would say was a forgotten neighborhood. By most standards, they considered her town small. She loved her beautiful wood home. She loved living in a small town, which Cassadaga was, grocery nearby, the church down the street, children often raced their bikes up and down the sidewalks that lined with old and tall Florida Maples and Bald Cypresses and ubiquitous Sand Pines most hung with long wisps of softly swaying Spanish moss. Several years back she turned the upstairs into a rental apartment and a war veteran named Peter lived there.
During a visit shortly after he moved in she asked him what the tattoo on his forearm meant. He said it was his Special Forces unit. He said he’d lost his leg in the war. Peter turned out to be a gem and whenever Miss Myler needed repair work or maintenance, her renter got it done and refused to reduce his rent for his service. Miss Myler saw that he drove a very fancy car and guessed that he really didn’t need the financial help. As a consequence, a friendship was formed. Often the young man, a Systems Software Engineer, joined her for an early breakfast before he set out to work to the nearby industrial complex in Orlando.
The parakeet and Miss Myler became close friends and they would talk at one another incessantly in the house’s privacy. At first, she was a touch hesitant to break into a serious conversation with Frito. She overcame this as Frito responded with voluminous screeching and soft clucking, stressing his speech with a gentle back-and-forth rocking of his green, feathery head and jabbing the space around him with his wings; one wing to make a light suggestion, both wings to stress a point.
Miss Myler had eyes of blued steel and rosy cheeks; she kept her gray-brown hair done in braids wrapped up around the top of her head. Her wide shoulders were her most notable features along with arms which, through the years of working the wheelchair, had developed into efficient pistons of power. Visitors coming to visit with Miss Myler were at first surprised, then became used to the fact that their host rarely sat still. Using her wood plank flooring throughout as a runway of sorts, she’d whip around from the living room to the kitchen to the entry foyer. The floors sounded much like an old bowling alley as the balls rumbled down the aisle. The muscles that moved and worked the arms were taut and as strong as steel bands. She imagined herself to be like a steam locomotive, her arms were the drive shafts that connected from the engine to the outside of the wheels and as she rolled along she whispered, “chug, chug, chug, chug, whoo, whoo, chug, chug, chug.” Frito meanwhile hung onto the top of her head and screeched with delight.
Peter often joined her on her walk, to the neighborhood club of wheelchair-bound paraplegic vets at the outdoors basketball court wheeling swiftly after the basketball; one vet knocked the ball off the court. Miss Myler was just arriving as the ball rolled off in her direction, showing great deftness she scooped the ball up and with one quick movement flung it back to the men. Every Friday Miss Myler went to watch them play basketball and soon she came to know them by their names. Amazed and impressed by their tanned, muscled arms and handsome faces, Miss Myler was most thrilled when they’d stop playing to do wheelies. Ray was her favorite rider of them all. He’d been the first to notice her watching them six months back.
“Miss Myler, Peter.” Ray called as he rolled in her direction, “how are you guys today?” Peter entered the middle of the circle of players and began talking up next weeks’ game.
“Oh just fine Ray, thank you. Looks as though you boys are working up quite a sweat today.”
“Just the usual. You should get out there with us some-time, whew!” He smiled and winked as he caught his breath. They watched as the men did wheelies; several could maintain their balance on two rear wheels for several minutes. As she saw the men raise up their front wheels as if they were weightless she was reminded of the dream she’d been having for the past few months, a flying dream of sorts.
Each dream had stripes, they seemed to dominate everything, she thought they were green and white and then another time green and red. Amidst the stripes she flew; the first time as she gained altitude and the sense of weightlessness filled her body she awoke frightened, catching her breath; her pillow was damp from perspiration. But as the dream persisted, she felt good about it; the dream clarified a little more with each experience. Although she flew she didn’t flap her arms as in some peoples’ flying dreams, and she didn’t become airborne through the more sophisticated means of levitation and propulsion; she felt anchored to something. Even though the dream became a welcome routine for her, its meaning remained a total mystery. She told Ray about it.
Unless one has a keen interest in dreams, listening to another person recount their dreams can rate as one of the most tedious exercises in the refined art of listening. Ray, much to his own sense of guilt, was getting bored until she compared her dream to a lock.
“A lock? Miss Myler, why a lock?”
“Well yes, you see the lock on my front door opens with great difficulty, I have to work this way and that with the key until it opens. So the other day as I was working with the key I realized this was like my dream.” Frito, still on top of her head, flapped his wings and chortled. “You see, Ray, I’m missing the key to unlocking my dream.”
“Well Miss Myler that sure is interesting; I’d say that you’re lacking something, like-“
“Ray I’ve been lacking something for years!” She said pointing to her head; Frito leaned back hanging onto hair and chattered excitedly, he almost fell off; Ray and Miss Tyler joined in laughing.
“No, no, I meant no such thing; heck, especially us,” Ray gestured towards Miss Myler, then to himself and with a sweep of his arm taking in the group of shouting men on the court, “we have to be a little loose up here to get along. But what I meant is that I bet you’d like to learn how to do a wheelie!”
“Well I guess- “Miss Myler had raised eyebrows and the start of a smile, “I guess so, why not? Right?”
“Maybe this will help you find the key you’re talking about.”
So that day she took her first lesson from Ray as the men formed a protective circle around her in case she flipped backward. They shouted encouragement as she, with Frito hanging onto her hair, tried to execute the powerful hand thrust and at the same instant jerk back with head and shoulders this to provide the counterbalance to lift the heavy front wheels.
“Okay Miss Myler, try it again, and let’s see if you can get the front wheels off the ground,” Ray said, coaxing softly.
“Oh! I’m scared of this, boys, I just don’t know.” She went on with light protests but realized that more than anything else she wanted to succeed.
Once at home, she continued to work at shoving back against the backrest, trying to coordinate this move with a firm forward move on the wheel handrails.
Taken up by this new excitement and once while Miss Myler shoved back hard, Frito was thrown from his place on her head. Frito’s wings had were clipped when he was first brought to her, but now his wings were full-grown, and with a burst of chirping and beating wings he flew freely about the room.
“Of Frito, yes, you’re beautiful, I think you know that don’t you!?”
The bird responded with fancy loops, flying so fast that to Miss Myler, Frito looked like a little green comet that left a trail of green. She understood the bird to say: “Now it’s your turn, yes you can fly, you can do it, you can’t quit!”
“All right Frito, here it goes again.” And with a mighty shove backward she jammed down hard on the handrails and she lifted and saw the room go around in front of her. ‘Wham!’
“Ooh, my God, ooh it hurts, ooh my back.” She thought she heard birds chirping and realized it was Frito beside himself chirping wildly in despair. He held one wing out then the other as he perched on one of the front wheels that were now high in the air; the other wheel was spinning slowly. Reaching behind her on the floor, she grasped a table leg and pulled free of the wheelchair. The pain was sharp, low on her spine. With great determination she pulled herself to the telephone; Frito walked forlornly in a goose-like waddle alongside her. His beak made a fretful clicking, and he ruffled his little green head.
The doctor came as fast as he could and after giving Miss Myler a thorough check-up and saw that she had suffered no serious injury, he reprimanded her. He left her with pills for the pain in her back. Her recovery was swift. Frito helped get her started with each day, bringing her toothbrush into her bedroom and dropping it from a close distance on her face. This woke her. The pills created a loss of sharpness.
“Well good morning Frito!” At this the bird would go through his aerial acrobatics, fluttering here and there and chirping away. She understood him to say; “It’s time to get up, time to get going, can’t quit, time to practice, time to learn how to fly!” In the next room, the cuckoo clock cuckooed seven times.
“Okay, Frito, I suppose it is time to get up.” That night her flying dream had returned, additional details appeared this time although the stripes remained a mystery. Last night she noticed that there was a key, a gold key that hung about her neck on which were inscribed the initials R.P.; the burden of the mystery lessened just a little as if the unseen tumblers in this dream lock were jostling promisingly. She’d awakened as the toothbrush touched her cheek and the rustling wind from Fritos’ wings fanned her to a new resolve to continue on with her wheelie training.
That day Frito swallowed one of Miss Mylers’ pain pills and dropped dead in the middle of a wondrously inspired aerial flourish. It had landed with a gentle thud with both feet sticking straight up. Miss Myler called out once. “Oh Frito!” She was not disposed to crying. Picking up the small feathery bundle, she nuzzled the warm body, breathing in the honey-sweet aroma of Fritos’ feathers for the last time.
“Can’t quit, can’t quit, can’t quit.” Fritos’ encouraging chirp rang in her inner ear, the singing now a plaintive cry. Miss Myler looked across her compact living room and her steel-blue eyes hardened. Taking her sharpest apple-coring knife, she cut open the dead bird and replaced its little, multi-colored intestines with paper. After she sewed him up, she wheeled over to the cuckoo clock which hung within her reach, and with a touch of crazy glue replaced the plastic cuckoo bird with Frito. She noticed that a small bunch of Fritos’ bright green feathers stuck with the crazy glue to the tops of her hands. She dismissed it with a smile thinking: Frito will help me fly.
Now with each hour came Fritos’ exhortation to excellence, for instance, at three o’clock he’d go: “can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit!!”
A year passed since Fritos’ death. Every day she worked at learning the wheelie until she had mastered it, the timing and subtle body coordination needed for staying up on two wheels for extended times. Much to the delight of the vets, she could stay aloft longer than all of them. With great respect and camaraderie, they dubbed her ‘the little old lady from Cassadaga’. She provided quite a spectacle as she flew up and down the sidewalk to and from the basketball court or to the grocery store on two back wheels. Two arms, flailing up and down, her cheeks red and puffy; her now unkempt hair and white silk scarf the vets had gifted her she’d taken to wearing flew in the wind. The entire town came to know her and they were fond of her.
The children delighted in riding their bicycles alongside her and she dazzled them with backward wheelies and her very own ‘slip on a dime’ trick.
Ray worked with her and often visited her at home. The vets invited her to their barbecue gatherings every several months. They awarded her an honorary place on their wheelchair basketball team and got to throw the first ball during games; the crowds cheered.
“Yes, well; I had my doubts too you know, thanks to you, thanks to you, Ray, and all the boys. It’s meant so much to me.” She poured Ray a small glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. The cuckoo clock struck four and seemed to chant: Can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit!” Ray noticed for the first time that the cuckoo bird was Frito.
“Did you,” pointing up to the bird, “how did you, my gosh that’s Frito isn’t it?” Ray was smiling.
“Oh yes, after Frito died you could say I resurrected the little bird,” she looked up at the clock. “He still provides me with company; or sort of, anyway. Oh, Ray, now you are surely wondering about me a little, you know, my mind…” she chuckled.
“Oh, not in the least Miss Myler, not in the least. Some of our veteran friends when they lose their service dogs have them preserved, it brings them peace and happy memories.
“Miss Myler, I’ve been meaning to ask you about that flying dream. Do you still have it?”
“Yes, I do, Ray. I must say that I look forward to it every night now, or almost every night. I’m still puzzled by it, though.”
“Is it still the same dream each time?” Ray asked.
“The green and red stripes are still there. Where there once used to be a roaring noise, now it’s more like people talking, and the flying seems so much better. It’s as though I fly with less effort. Oh, and then there are the gold plaques with the clear initials R. B.s, the B has a small s after it; this is still a question to me.” They sat for several minutes. Ray finished his orange juice and put the glass on the kitchen counter. Ray went about rinsing his glass as though in thought.
“Oh Ray, there you go again, leave it, haha.”
He stopped what he was doing and looked at Miss Myler. “You’re dreaming about a circus Miss Myler.”
The key fit and something shifted in her mind. The picture was clear.
“My God,’ she thought, ‘of course it’s a circus!’ Then she said: “! You’re right, the gold plaques with the R.B.s initials are on the poles supporting the green and red, striped canvas top!” She placed her hands to the sides of her face as she flushed from the sudden rush of revelation. The roar, the people in the dream were the audience, and they were watching her do a stunt.
These were the pictures and memories that flashed through her mind as she fell toward the floor of the ring circus, these pictures and more she reviewed with the suddenness of a bolt of electricity.
The Rolando Brothers’ circus was a dilapidated place and was unscrupulously operated, and the owners used the initials R.B.s for advertising along the Florida highways for miles leading into the Orlando. They used the initials R. B. s as an obvious effort to pick up some tourists there to visit the world-famous Ringling Brothers’ circus with the same initials. During the early seventies after Disney got started in the Orlando area many secondary, fly-by-night diversion parks tried to cash in on the Disney rush. Ringling Brothers had in a slow, legal battle tried to have Rolando Brothers remove the initials without success.
A letter from Social Security advising Miss Myler of a ten-year miscalculation they had made in her favor went to the wrong address. Enclosed was a check for five thousand dollars payable to Miss Myler. A senile man named Mick Myler in Tallahassee received the letter. Property taxes had risen so steeply that Miss Mylers’ food purchases had become difficult. She discovered the tastiness of canned cat food fried in a saucepan with a bit of mustard and ketchup, except for the mysterious solid bits of white and purple debris that she had to spit out as she chewed.
That was ten months ago, and the money had long gone to pay off overdue debts. Her Social check barely covered her expenses.
The chubby and sweaty talent scout from Roland Brothers circus had at first kept his hat on in her house; she felt an annoyance towards him. A lousy peddler, she thought. He lit up a smoke and given some changes would have said nothing, instead, she asked him to extinguish the smoke. She noticed his irked reluctance, though momentarily. Her thoughts were more or less: what an unsavory person lacking in manners and common consideration, she thought of wonderful Ray and his equally compassionate veteran friends. When Sal, the circus man, removed his heat moistened Panama hat and placed it on her coffee table she couldn’t resist and quickly told him to remove it.
She smiled to herself as she recalled one of her vets' friend's favorite terms for one another: asshole. But in this case, she didn’t feel it in a friendly way.
“Yes ma’am, we hear you’re just supm’ wonderful in that wheelchair. See, ma’am, we got what we at Rolando Brothers’ call ‘the satellite’. Now the fella that used to ride the wheel made twenty-five dollars each ride;” the talent scout, or so that’s how he presented himself, waited for a reaction but Miss Myler didn’t budge other than lightly dusting a side table next to her. “So we’d like to offer you fifty dollars each time you ride ‘the satellite’ on that wheelchair! And if that ain’t a bargain, I-“
She nodded, barely noticeably in the affirmative. “Okay, I’ll do it for seventy-five dollars, but I’ll need my first payment now, I’ve some bills to pay if you don’t mind.” There was nothing to sign, just an agreement. The circus employee knew there was little purpose in trying to get her to come down, pulled out a wad of bills and peeled off seventy-five, then handed them to her. They made ride arrangements, as the circus was nearby she could go from her house and back again after her show.
They drove her to the stripe-topped circus each day for three days before show day. The first time she rode ’the satellite’ she was terrified but thoroughly exhilarated. It was outside for the time being but they’ ed roll it into the huge tent for the show. ‘The satellite’ was a wood circle ramp covered in bright, blinking lights which reached twenty-five feet at its highest point. Sitting beneath and to one side of the wooden ramp it didn’t impress her as being very high, but going through on the wheelchair was something entirely different.
With the help of two muscular men as part of the routine, she was pushed up the ramp to a take-off point; its height was equal to that of the circle. The initial terror convulsed her, caused her at first to shudder for a moment as several circus hands hollered encouragement, and shouted frightening catcalls. The circus crew since took an immediate liking to Miss Myler, admiring her guts and showed her every kindness. They secretly advised her to ask for more, which after several shows she did and was now making a hundred per flight.
She closed her eyes and Frito was popping in and out of the cuckoo clock, ‘Can’t quit! Can’t quit! Can’t quit!’ and with a forward thrust, she was off and rolling. It all went so fast; she felt she would fly right out of her chair as the centrifugal force played its wrenching mischief on her frail body. In what seemed a blurry instant the sky appeared and disappeared. The grass was there once again as she rolled out of the circle and came to a stop a short distance away. She loved it.
“Hooray for the little old lady from Cassadaga!” The cheering and raucous words of congratulations from the circus hands felt gratifying.
The day of the big show was here, ‘the satellite’ was under the big top and the ringleader was now introducing Miss Myler to the large circus audience, a skinny lion in a nearby cage roared as though part of the show, the circus was a packed house, excited children eating popcorn and hot dogs, parents calling out encouragement. The tent was full of the old classic ‘Little old lady from Pasadena’, sung by Jan and Dean, the volume at that moment being turned down.
“Here now, ladies and gentlemen…” under the glaring, white spotlight the ringleaders’ tuxedo and top hat shimmered and the tall mans’ smile showed gleaming, white teeth as he gestured grandly up to Miss Myler, now poised at the top of the take-off ramp. “I know you’ve all heard of the little old lady from Pasadena; please allow me to introduce our very own little old lady from Cassadaga!” A good part of the circus goers present knew that not far from where they were was a small town of that name.
The muffled applause grew silent in anticipation as the drum roll began and she was off! As a last-minute detail, a yellow silk cape was tied about her thin neck. “You’ll look fancier with this.” They’d told her. At the very top of the circle, the anchored feeling she’d had in all her flying dreams suddenly broke away and as the wheels lifted off the solidity of the ramp she lived her dream, the key was in, the lock went snap and there was only coolness, unfettered weightlessness.
The rustle of small wings close by…
