Henrey was in the shit in 'Nam. Special ops, '69-'72. When Henrey got back, he bummed around a bit, then he bought a '72 Nova that wasn't running too good. Then he met my mom. Henrey lived in the basement when I was little. Moved upstairs later. A lot of people lived with mom, and they all called her Mother, even though she was younger than them. She cooked and cleaned, and they kicked in SSI and disability and bought pot and wine. To hear Henrey and mom tell it now, it was always a holiday. That's not quite how I remember it, but I'm not gonna tell them. Mostly it was bikers and vets, and vet bikers, who moved in with us.
Once when I was little, Henrey told me I looked like Grace Slick. "Who's she?" I asked. Henrey rolled his eyes and hugged mom and said, "We're getting old, Mother." I asked Henrey to teach me to drive in the Nova, but he said girls can't drive cars like that. He taught me in mom's Honda instead. He's always working on the Nova, but I can't remember what all he's doing on it. Something about engines. This stuff slips out of my mind like the sands through the hourglass on the beginning of that soap opera. Henrey's stories are highly detailed and really entertaining, but you should ask him to tell them to you, because I'm not good at telling his stories.
When I was little Henrey would tell me jokes I didn't understand. Like the one with the drunk pitcher in the world series and the punchline is "that's the beer that made Milt Famee walk us." Henrey had to tell me that there was a beer that had a slogan, "the beer that made Milwaukee famous." Henrey once told me a story about a girl he knew. They called her Grenadine because she was explosive.
copyright 1999, Marie Mundaca