Where are you now Dana Moon?

I have always wanted to write a book called that. And this morning it calls out to me to start. "Well begun is half done," a wise man said.

Dana Moon by Debs Blackbird Roberts (unedited) Copyrighted 2007

Chapter One

Dana Moon came into the house at 10 Cottage Street, Cambridge MA. The year was 1972. He said he was looking for a friend. He used the bathroom at the top of the landing, the one outside my studio apartment. My neighbor Floyd used it too, we shared the lion-clawed bathtub room. I had painted it immediately after I moved in. I painted the floor tiles in checkered burgundy and beige and the outside of the bathtub in burgundy. Old Floyd, thought it was all so cool, he with his jive ways and trilby hat, who ate in Jack in the Box in Central Square. Dana knocked on my door, he said he wanted to meet whoever it was that transformed the bathroom. When I saw Dana I trusted him immediately. There was never any question about that. Sometimes you just know.

Dana Moon wasn't like the rest. He knew about the syringe behind my toilet. He said not to worry, the junkies were gone now. He said that there had been a couple who lived downstairs and their friends would come by the house and use my bathroom when they needed a safe place after scoring their fix and they sometimes stashed stuff there. Maybe he was looking for the stash and not a quick piss. He was together.

It's because I had no idea about Dana, about who he was, where he came from and where he went to after he left me, that fascinated me about him. He gave me the lovely gold plated Walton watch once that I wore for some years in my jeans, hooked by the rose gold, roses carved into each link fob, into to my belt loop which I slipped into the little pocket, above the pocket I kept my hands tucked into. Those little pockets that are made just for that size of watch. The watch was like Dana. Smooth and pretty. The watch was lightly etched in a Victorian design on the gold back. Delicate. Dana was hard, hard like gold which has it's softness, but delicate too. Compassionate, that was the light I saw in him. Passionate, yes very passionate. Loving, always loving.

The watch has seen it all. I gave it to my Grandfather when I went back to England a few years later. He treasured that watch until he died. It made him feel rich. I took the watch back again after he died until George and I met. Then I took it to be engraved. It said something like "Happy Birthday, November 16th 1981. To George, with love always, Deborah ". He kept the watch after the divorce. I gave him back his diamond ring he asked for, but I wasn't going to ask for the watch, as much as I wanted to. I gave him the watch.