$195 plus shipping and handling

16"x 27"

Mona has real curlers in her hair and her cats are covered in (artificial) fur.

  Mona Jeansonne

       I’d just moved into a vacant house my dad owned.  It had never been rented and had sat there for seven years, neglected except for some storage.   I was in college, single, just out of the army and Vietnam, back to finish my college degree so moving there just seemed like another adventure, and I was up to the challenge since the only other option was to move home. 

`The 1930's wallpaper hung stubbornly to some places but the majority was on the floor.  Strings from the old cheesecloth backing gave visions of a haunted house.  The paper on the ceiling seemed to breathe as the wind pumped life into it.  Each room had it’s own rhythm.  I stood mesmerized watching the ceiling catch it’s breath.  Inhale, exhale.  Inhale, exhale.  Breathe in, breathe out.  “I am alive, help me please,” it seemed to sigh.

The floors were so uneven that I could drop a marble at the front door and it would roll to the opposite wall faster than I could take two steps. One of the rooms had holes in the boards big enough to see the ground underneath. I put bricks over the holes and placed plants and a nude plaster statue I called Mary Hattie in that corner.  On boring nights, I would remove the bricks to see how many marbles would roll in the holes before I knocked them away with another one.  It became a game of skill similar to quail hunting for they rolled so fast.

After the first month living there, I would return from classes and find some woman, on my property, her hair always in rollers, peering into whatever window she could; sometimes on a chair or a step ladder to see better.  Upon seeing me she would gather her belongings, shake her head and mutter in French under her breath as she walked back to her house.  I was offended by this nosy old woman.  I discovered she was my neighbor, Mona Jeansonne.  She was older, late seventies, divorced and living with her divorced daughter and grandson.  She liked cats, lots of them; 9 to be exact with two expecting.  I liked dogs, dogs that barked.  Ms. Jeansonne spoke only French.  I spoke only English.  I didn’t know her, not sure if I wanted to for we had nothing in common. 

Friends began to visit.  No matter how many appeared I could always count on Ms. Jeanasonne to show up five minutes later with a tray of coffee and the right amount of cups and saucers for my guests.  It was eerie.  If one visited then I would receive two cups of coffee; if 10 then eleven cups.  She never was wrong.  She would knock on the door, thrust the coffee into my surprised hands then disappear, shaking her head and muttering in French only to return as soon as the last guest left, no matter how late, to retrieve her belongings.

One day I came home with groceries, a bag of coffee visible at the top.  She came outside in a huff, grabbed the coffee and began to lecture me in French all the while shaking her finger at me.  Then she opened the bag and emptied the contents into the street and spat upon it. 

“Hey, you crazy old lady,” I yelled, “what did you do that for?”

She continued angrily talking in French as she rifled my groceries, shaking her head and spitting on the ground whenever she found something she did not like.  Her daughter stepped outside. “Mama,” she said first in English then in French, “he doesn’t understand you, he can’t speak French.” Without missing a beat, Ms. Jeansonne picked up one bag of groceries and carried it to her house, continuously lecturing me in French.  At the door she swiftly turned, grabbed a broom and shaking it in the air yelled in English.  “Learn!”

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