“Pushing the River” excerpt

(this is a continuation of the 100-year-old narrator’s introduction)

             The minute the Tumbleweed came through the front door, I knew he was trouble.  He’s Grasshopper from that old TV show “Kung Fu” that the Boy used to watch every day after school.  Just rolls right on through his own life, stopping here and there for a time, making some messes and cleaning up some others, then poof-be-gone he’s back on the road again.

            My lady poked fun of him, and introduced him to everybody as “homeless and unemployed,” which they both thought was darn funny.  Cept it wasn’t funny at all, no sir, cause in no time at all My lady had that look in her eye, and the two of them holed up in the house and wore their dang bathrobes for days at a time, DAYS at a TIME, even after Marie moved into the house, they did this.  Not only that, but Lord howdy, she brought the Tumbleweed down here, yes sir, in the room right next to me, to do that…that act between a husband and a wife, and let me tell you what, in my day, that was done in the privacy of the marital bedroom and the marital bedroom ONLY, and what’s more only at NIGHT, at BEDTIME, in the BED, in the DARK, and as a final word on this whole infernal subject, we did our very dagnabbit best to be quiet about it!

            But I suppose that’s where our story really begins, the story of what has occurred under this here roof in the past four months, from the 1^st day of September when the Tumbleweed came to dinner and never really left, til today, Christmas Day, in the year of our Lord two thousand and thirteen.

            All right then, here we go.