Nolly

Mac’s older brother Nolly was a handsome man who never seemed to lack female companionship.  He lived at the top of “family hill” in a large chalet he had built and it was called “De Church”, short for “The Church for What’s Happening Now”.

Someone had given Nolly a piece of driftwood art which was hung in a prominent spot in his living room.  It was a lovely painting of the Friendship Rose done on a piece of bleached wood the artist had found at Hope Beach, and under the painting was written, “The Lord Giveth and the Friendship Rose Taketh Away”.  This pretty much said it all when it came to Nolly and his girlfriends, the Friendship Rose was the only way they could leave the Island back then!

The ladies came and went.  Some stayed at the “church” for a short while, others stayed longer, but in the end the Friendship Rose carried them away.  Nolly never seemed to mind when they left, he was a confirmed bachelor and wanted to stay that way.

Nolly spent a lot of time at the Frangi Bar back then, if you wanted to find him that was the first place to look.  It was the “meet and greet” spot on the Island where “yachties”, shore visitors and locals congregated.  I can’t recall the name of the beautiful German lady he met there one evening, I DO for some reason  remember that she designed and made very bizarre-looking belts!  It wasn’t long before the lady climbed the hill up to Nolly’s house.

One day I was having lunch at Momma’s house with Mac and his good friend Mackie Simmons.  Momma fed an incredible number of people each day, she spent most of her time cooking for a seemingly endless parade of  waifs and strays as well as family and friends. Mac and Nolly ate lunch there every day without fail, which is why Mac’s father Bluesy became worried.  He hadn’t seen Nolly for a week and figured something was wrong.

He asked, “anyone seen Nolly? I ain’t see him for a week, he must be sick”. Mac and Mackie laughed, and Mackie replied, ”yeah, he sick all right, he have the German measles!”  Bluesy was horrified, worried that German measles were going to make his son sterile.  The poor man was so distraught that I reassured him, explaining that Nolly had gone up the hill with a German lady, the talk of measles was just a joke.  Bluesy exclaimed, “Jaysus Christ, dat boy have sex like a f….ing turtle!”  Mac and Mackie laughed until they cried, and passed the story around for weeks.

Many years later I heard a strange grinding noise in my yard and discovered two large turtles mating.  It wasn’t until then that I realized what Bluesy had meant about Nolly and the German lady, and why Mac and Mackie had laughed so hard. Those turtles carried on fuhevuh!