We had been involved with each other for about a year when Kelly 'Don't call me Penny Lane' said to me, "There's been something that I've been meaning to talk to you about."
I'm thinking, 'Here it comes,' and actually say, "Oh, shit."
"No, no, nothing like that. I'm just curious, and it makes no real difference to me, really, it doesn't. I'm just wondering, why do you talk to yourself all the time? I mean, is it just an idiosyncrasy, you know, some personal quirky habit? Or, I'm wondering, are you schizophrenic? Is there a history of mental illness in your family? I'm just wondering, you know. Not really concerned."
At this point she has a shit eating grin on her face. Kind of egging me on.
"Honestly, I don't know if there is any mental illness in my family. I never knew them. My mother died when I was very young and my father was never in the picture. Your guess is as good as mine. What do you think?"
She comes back with, "No, seriously, why do you always talk to yourself. I mean, most people do, sometimes. But with you, really Pick, it's a lot. No kidding, I've never seen anything like it."
I take a deep breath. Let it out. I take a moment to consider. I really like this girl. I could see myself spending a long time with her. Even the rest of our lives. Best to just come out and tell her the truth.
"I’m talking to Moses Aronson. My Uncle Moe."
Moses Aronson was born somewhere around the turn of the century in Ireland.
He was born into a family that belonged to the Jewish community. The history of Jews in Ireland goes back about a thousand years. Their numbers have always been small, as recently as 2006 there were less than two thousand Jews in the Republic of Ireland. The Jewish community there is well established and fairly well accepted.
Kelly looked at me funny, squinted her eyes and said, "You're kidding, right?"
"No. Not at all. My mother died when I was very young. Maybe four or five years old. My father was a married man that she had a brief affair with. His name was Simon. Anyway, Si was very fond of my mother. And, he was very close to his Uncle Moe.
"What he did was, Si that is, is ask his Uncle Moe to come to the states to kind of look after me and my mother. Well, she becomes ill unexpectedly and asks Moses to look after me when she is gone. She's getting pretty upset at this point and gets him to swear that no matter what, that he, Moses, will do everything he can to look after her baby boy. That's me."
Moses Aronson spent the better part of twenty years in the service. He had this thing when he was a young man about seeing the world. The military provided him just that opportunity. When he gets out he returns to his first love, antiques. Moe Aronson then devoted his time to traveling the world and hustling antiques.
I continue, "For some reason that eludes explanation, he was extremely fond of his nephew, Simon. Maybe it was because he himself never married or had any children. Regardless. Si asks him to go to America and look after his illegitimate family. Which is exactly what he does.
"Here's the kicker. Not long after that, when I'm six years old, Uncle Moe goes and dies. Nothing surprising, he's a very old man at this point. What is surprising is his commitment. He made a promise to my mother and it was so strong that he stuck around to keep it. It was Uncle Moe that taught me the antiques trade. No kidding."
Kelly is looking at me in complete disbelief. If you looked exasperated up in the dictionary at that moment you would find her picture right there.
"Hell, don't look at me like that. You wanted to know and now you do."
She lets out this huge breath. "You’re shittin’ me. Honest to God, I've never heard such a pile of…" You know, she went on like that for fifteen minutes without coming up for a breath of air.
"Okay," I tell her, "I'll just have to prove it to you."
"Sure. And just how do you plan to do that?"
I look around the room. Kato's yellow tennis ball is on the floor. "Simple. Take this ball. I'll step outside. You hide the ball. Anywhere, anywhere in the house that you like."
You're not going to believe this. This shit goes on for twenty minutes. Kelly, DCMPL, hides the ball, comes to front door to call me in, I go straight to where the ball is hidden. We do this same thing over and over until she has hidden the ball like twenty or thirty times.
And I don't miss once. Not one single time.
"How the hell are you doing that? It's a magic trick, right? I know you do magic, I've seen you with a deck of cards. You're pretty good. You really are…"
Son of bitch, she won't let it go. "No, sweetheart, it's not a trick. It's my Uncle. You hide the ball, he sees where you put it and he tells me. It's that simple."
"I know!" She's onto something else. Something she can sink her mind into, a concept that fits into her mental constructs. "You're telepathic. You come back into the house and read my mind. That's it."
"You know", I say, "That is a possible explanation. And, to be perfectly honest, its one that I've considered. Except for one little thing. Uncle Moe knows things that I can't possibly know. He tells me things when there are no other people around for me to read their minds.
"Here, I'll tell you what…" I pick up a tablet and pen from the kitchen table. I turn my back to Kelly and whisper something. The wait is about three minutes. I take a moment to listen and write something on the top sheet, rip it off and fold in half.
I hand the folded paper to her.
"Have you looked at the computer today?"
She says, "You know I haven't. We've been together since I woke up."
"Well, I've been up before you, but I haven't logged on yet. Turn on the computer and go to the New York Times site."
Kelly logs on and types 'New York Times' into the Google search bar.
I say, "Read me the headline."
"Blast Injures U.S. Soldiers as Riots Rage in Afghanistan."
"Okay", I tell her, "Open the paper and read what I wrote."
Her eyes go all wide. "Son of a bitch”, she says. “Blast Injures U.S. Soldiers as Riots Rage in Afghanistan'.”
Her next question is, “Can anyone else see this Uncle Moe of yours?"
"Yeah, one person."
"Who?"
"You'll find out, all in good time."
And that was that, as least for the time being. At that point, her last remark on the subject was, "That's pretty impressive, but I'm not convinced!"
She wasn't convinced at all, at least not for another several months. Then one day, we're walking past some antique shops in Lambertville. I'm closest to the curb side, she's nearer the stores. We're talking about something or another, I don't recall what.
Now remember, it's just the two of us.
She turns her head to the right. Looks into the window of a store. Kelly sees the reflection of a bear of a man. Tall, wide, with white hair and white beard. This reflection is walking right along side of us. From store to store, window to window.
Kelly’s head starts to gyrate, right left, right left. She looks at the reflection in the windows. She turns her head back to us.
On the sidewalk, it’s just the two of us. In the windows, it’s us and the bear.
Kelly takes a deep breath, lets it out and says, "I don't fucking believe it!" Which is kind of weird because she doesn't curse much.
"Huh?"
"Nothing", she says.
You know what. She never gave me a hard time about Uncle Moe again.