Stella and Levi Make a Move
Years later, Levi tells a story about trying to figure out what was wrong with a particular IBM machine he was working on. Apparently all the other machines on location were working properly. One machine was screwing up. Levi worked on the machine for many hours and couldn't find the problem. He decided to stop for a moment and think out how the process was working step-by-step for all the other machines. He soon discovered that the "broken" machine was the only one working properly and all the other machines were the ones malfunctioning! All the "working" machines had been misprogrammed.
This is a story about beginner's mind but he didn't know it at the time.
But soon Levi becomes frustrated with his job working on IBM machines.
The boys still go on hunting and camping trips. They go on picnics to the Jemez mountains with Carol's kids.
Levi carries his daughter to bed every night and rubs his five-o'clock shadow on her face and she laughs. He reads Charlotte's Web and Dr. Seuss stories to her. She likes to try to get him to review the previous night's chapters and discuss predictions for the chapters ahead as a way to keep him in the room longer. Monsters live in the wall (the room has no closet). Levi doesn't believe there are monsters in the wall, which is okay with the daughter because they're not angry or mean monsters. They just happen to live there and are somewhat intimidating.
You're sick!
Once in a while Levi and Stella take their kids out to dinner at the Royal Fork or Panchos, where if you put up a little Mexican flag the waiter will refill your chips and salsa.
Their daughter is very bored at restaurants and behaves badly waiting for food. Her parents ban her from eating out for life. Stella and Levi start going to Las Vegas with their friends Carol and her husband.
While they're gone, Levi's mother takes care of the kids and decides they should go out to dinner. The daughter maintains she is, in fact, banned from this activity for the entirety of her life. The grandmother says this may be true but surely Stella and Levi didn't mean The Royal Fork, which happens to be the daughters favorite restaurant at the time. The daughter thinks this is a very lucky break.
You pig!
Levi quits his IBM job and starts painting. He invents a pop-up greenhouse made a soft plastic but they don't sell. Levi gives away all his paintings except one, a kachina dancer which hangs for many years in the living room of their house. With his dad, Levi builds his daughter a big southern colonial dollhouse. One day when he's angry he picks up the dollhouse and throws it across the room. But it's sturdy and only a pillar breaks off. It's one of only two times his daughter has ever seen him lose his temper. She never even hear him swear. Even when he's fixing cars.
Meanwhile, Levi convinces Stella to go into Real Estate. Stella goes to Real Estate school with two of Levi's first cousins who live in Albuquerque. Stella has become close to Levi's big family. She's outgoing and friendly. They feel they get to know Stella better than Levi.
Tony Orlando and Dawn Interlude
Stella sunbathes with Fred's new saucy wife who tries to shock her with stories about wife-swapping parties. Stella is shocked but she pretends she isn't. Later Fred's wife's daughter from another marriage is found hanging from a tree. Stella and Levi take care of her younger son for a while. In fact, Stella and Levi take in many of Levi's cousins and second-cousins over the years while they're transitioning from one part of their lives to another. They all have fond memories of Stella and Levi giving them good advice when they needed it.
Stella is a good Real Estate agent but not a great one, she says.
She doesn't like pressuring people into buying something they don't want. She pressures Levi into getting a job. Levi has a friend at the Albuquerque telephone company, someone he met fixing IBM machines. Peter has moved to St. Louis to work for McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Company, the one that makes war machines. He gets Levi a job writing code for machines instead of fixing them. He loves this new job and lives with Peter and some other workers at a boarding house for six months while they look for houses for their families. Stella sells their Albuquerque house herself. While showing it one day, her daughter runs out and says she doesn't fucking want to move. Stella tells the buyers this is the neighbor kid. The daughter swears a lot and is forced to eat Dial soap periodically but it doesn't work.
Stella stays behind to take care of the kids and pack up the house. One night the kids drive her crazy because they won't clean out a closet in the living room. Plus, the boys 'scuffle' a lot and break figurines all over the house. Stella storms out of the house. The kids think she's left for good. The oldest brother soberly dubs himself the leader and they clean out the closet. Stella returns and they move to St. Louis.
The little poodle dog has died but there's another Norwegian Elkhound puppy coming to them once they get to St. Louis. They've also lost their two rabbits. But they take a family of horned toads in a box (who soon die off in the midwest humidity), a turtle (who dies trying to hibernate in the back yard), a parakeet (who will soon die from a beak injury), and a box of Gerbils (who will live pretty long considering all the other pet drama).
Levi buys a fixer-upper that seems like a big upgrade to them with crazy shag rugs everywhere, gold-laced mirrors in the dining room, a soon-to-break intercom system and a laundry shute to the basement that feels like a regal luxury. After the intercom breaks, they use the laundry shute as an intercom system to the massive basement.
The new dog grows up and develops epilepsy. She lives to be nine years old and finally dies from an epileptic seizure that will not end.
The new school tells Levi to stop reading to his daughter right when they're both in the middle of Heidi. They say she's not reading at her grade level and this will give her a kick-in-the-butt to read something on her own. Levi stops reading to her but tells her it's because I, Claudius is on TV. I, Claudius is on forever and Levi never returns to Heidi so she finishes it herself. She forever hates I, Claudius.
A boring I, Claudius Interlude
The Poem
The honeysuckle charmed you off your feet,
the mud pies and ripped knees,
the five o'clock beard.
You gotta know what is and isn't yours.
Chicken and chocolate on the dress,
there are parties to find.
Slamming doors and swearing.
Some day you will cry alone
when all the daddys will be gone
and you will wake up some cold day
to find what a fool you've been.
Stella stays at home for a year or so. She volunteers with the girl scouts, until her daughter drops out, and at the grade school. Her hair has turned salt and pepper and she gets many compliments on it. But her daughter's schoolmates think she's the grandmother.
Eventually she gets a job as a secretary at a warehouse and trucking company. The truckers like her because she's pro-union and not too bothered by their swearing although they don't do it in front of her. She can't wash all their mouths out with soap.
