All books. All the Time. Established 2005
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
June Book Reviews!
ASSISTED SUICIDE
ASSISTED SUICIDE
The night was young and its opportunities were endless. This aspect is what Alfred Covington loved about those first couple hours of darkness, and also fear. In Jackson, Mississippi these hours of summer were perfect for the mischievous. The mosquitoes had gone away to fornicate and multiply and strategize about their dawn assaults. The snakes were out swallowing things whole. The old people had long retired for the night having nightmares of terrorist attacks, West Nile Virus, advertisements in Spanish at Walmart, rap music, long-haired grandsons and granddaughters with thongs and tongue rings. The drunks, they were still drinking. The potheads— they were probably playing video games and eating candy. The crackheads— they were waiting for the drunks in the parking lots of bars or for the potheads around the convenient stores. The sound of a basketball thumbing the asphalt was constant, no matter the hour. The whores were everywhere. They were in places you’d never think. Ready to freak all of them. Neither rain, sleet, snow, pregnancy, venereal disease or unions could keep them from their jobs or God or Allah for that matter.
They were almost ready to go out on the town, but Alfred was in no mood for all this madness. There was going to be trouble for sure. He had to think of an excuse his friends might believe. It would have to be really embarrassing. Sleep, a date, work– all of these would lead to ridicule. Don’t be a little bitch, they’d say. And with that, Alfred would give in and be in the mix with them. Once, Alfred had told them that he had contracted a terrible case of jock itch and was going to the emergency room. That one had worked, but they were still always bringing that up around girls.
So Alfred simply walked casually to the door and walked down the steps to his truck. He was headed for the refuge his bed offered. Alfred was excited to have escaped for the comfort and safety that sleep offers from the darkness and trouble that night brings. He had been going out too much this week and really wanted to get to sleep at a decent hour for once.
The back roads home to Alfred’s were roads that he had traveled more than any others. He had walked them and then road his first bike on them. He had ridden his old rusted, rust colored go-cart there. Now it was Alfred driving these same roads in his compact pick up truck, a Tacoma.
Alfred had seen numerous families move into and out of the various homesteads along the way. Hence, he’d wreaked havoc on these very same mailboxes and garbage cans and Christmas decorations and pumpkins. No malice intended just the boredom and freedom that youth offered. Alfred turned onto Dogwood Place and gave it a bit of gas. There was a couple of hills that with the right speed, you could bounce the truck up and into the air. Alfred and his friends called this section the Kipper’s Knickers and Goody Gap Haven and finally settled on Knob Hill. When they had girls with them, they would crowd into one car. The excuses varied: high gas prices, the economy, expired tags, headlights out. The girls would sit in their laps. They would hit the bumps so they’d bounce into the air with the girls in the boys’ laps. First it was a challenge to not get a boner. Then, Alfred and his friends would just do it on purpose. They liked that shit. It was a way of telling them girls that they are sexy without saying anything. One time some pretentious girl tried to make fun of Alfred for it.
She said, “Oh my God, you’ve got an erection.”
Alfred said, “Damn straight.”
He was a legend that night. Alfred’s friends thought Goddamn that Alfred is so witty. Sharp even.
Alfred topped the second hill and briefly hopped his truck into the air. A magnolia tree shaped shadow loomed in front of him. From the depths of this shadow, the darkness seemed to leap to life. He slammed on the brakes but he was already air borne again from whatever the shadow had spat before him. The tires locked and the truck jerked to a halt. Alfred could feel some of the gravel through his feet as it pelted the undercarriage.
Alfred flung open the door and the yelping was immediate. He began to follow the yelps. He jogged a couple of paces and then slowed to a walk. Alfred could feel the panic and so he took some deep breaths to calm down. The yelps wouldn’t have any of that so he jogged again. And there it was. Vomited from the shadows, wrapped and contorted grotesquely around the Maleys’ mailbox was a heap of broken, twitching yelps. The yelps wouldn’t allow Alfred the ability to think. Panic was full upon him. Alfred knew what to do, he just hadn’t worked out what to use. He ran his fingers through his hair. Then he took a few strides this way and that. The cursed yelping. It had brought to life the whole neighborhood. Dogs were barking at it and running around the confines of their fences setting off motion detectors that blinked and momentarily whole yards were awake. Bug Zappers sizzled and popped steady as the humidity. No one noticed them, just white noise like the fans that hum us to sleep. But they noticed all those dogs yapping, calling to one another, extending out in a radius quicker and more unpredictable than any cell phone network. Quit that racket, some dog’s name or Shut up some other dog’s name or I’m going to blow Fido’s head off Mr. Henderson if it don’t quit barking. Fido fucked right off and ran up under the house when he heard that.
Alfred needed something blunt, and he needed that something quick. He picked up an old log but it was rotten. He spotted a bat in someone’s yard and he ran to get it, but it was an old whiffle-ball bat. Alfred ran over to the yelping. Spastic broken limbs convulsed struggling to stave off death, in spite of all the relief and peace that death offered. The brain tells the body that this is it but the body says - not for me, motherfucker, it's not - and tries to run. But the body can't go without the brain. It can only flop about with lungs pumping madly like a fresh hooked fish in the bottom of an old john boat. All that pain was all too much for Alfred. He stomped on its mouth. The yelping subsided as did most of the other noise from all the commotion. Alfred nudged it on the back with the toe of his shoe and its back legs began to spasm. He placed his foot on its head and exerted pressure. It was of little help. He stood up on both feet on its head and hopped up, slamming his feet down. It ceased to budge and so Alfred could think now that all that noise and ruckus was over. He began to study on who the owner of this once yelping, twitching, spitting, frothing black lab was. The Maleys had a golden retriever named Trooper. It was barking at Alfred. So he walked to the house across the street. Alfred never had met them.
In the couple of minutes of waiting after Alfred rang the doorbell, he began trying to find the best way to tell these people I ran over your dog and then proceeded to stomp it to death—if it was their dog at all. He thought euthanize might be a better term to use. I’d better leave that latter part out all together, Alfred decided. They might not understand it was a mercy killing. It would be a lot worse if they had to see it yelping and twitching, all but dead.
All of this time waiting, nervously, Alfred had been wiping the blood off his shoe on a beige welcome mat. He looked down to see if he’d gotten all the blood from his tennis shoe. The face of a black lab stared back up from where it had been embroidered onto the welcome mat. Now it was bloodied. So much for the suspense, bring back the anxiety of panic. A woman appeared at the door. She had dark, sleep deprived, sunken eye sockets. Her left eyelid sank lazily down and fluttered slightly, hovering just enough to see out. Only her face peeped out through the door crack. She had the door knob in one hand and with the other she had her gown clasped together above her breasts. Alfred made out the shape of a cross hidden beneath her gown, between her breasts.
She said, “I never ordered no pizza.”
Alfred wished he had brought a pizza. He was thinking too hard on what to say when he thought the person answering the door would say something like it’s 1 in the morning, what the hell do you want? Alfred put his hands in his pocket and fidgeted with some loose change.
He said, “Do you have a black lab?”
She said, “My son has got one. Why?”
She opened the door. She motioned towards the living room, which lay open to the foyer. The child was more than heavy. He was obese even. She didn’t look to where he was, just motioned that direction. He was naked from the waist up and he was filthy. He was really hairy for a boy. He had big, irregular patches of it on his shoulders. The boy was knelt in a box of kitty litter. He had been playing in it like it was a sand box. He had a big lump of it in his hands. He was watching Alfred with blank, black eyes. He took a bite of the kitty litter and then he smelled it. He poked around at it with his finger, then wiped the remnants on his chest and down his sides to his hips. Alfred turned his gaze back to her eyes. She looked beyond the realms of exhaustion.
Alfred said “I think I may have run over your dog. I mean … his dog.” He didn’t figure now to be a good time to tell her about the kitty litter. She looked back at into the room.
“Clarence, get out of there” she said to her son.
Clarence didn’t say shit, just stared back unawares. She left the door open, went in and grabbed him by the arm and led him into another room. Alfred heard her say something like how many times I told you not to play in Cat’s box. She returned.
“Where is it?” she asked.
Alfred motioned down her driveway.
He said: “I’m real sorry Ma’m. I have a dog too. It was just lying down in the middle of the road. I live just a couple streets over. I am Alfred Covington.”
She said: “It’s okay. I’m Mary Wilson.”
They walked down the drive and Alfred took her to the mail box across the street. Alfred offered to carry it up to her garage. He bent down to pick it up and it was awkward to carry. Alfred never had thought about the term dead weight till then. It was probably about 75 pounds. He also hadn’t noticed the steepness of the driveway on his walk both up it or on the return trip down. His lower back ached as soon as he got the dog cradled into his arms. He could feel the blood soaking through his t-shirt. It was slick on his forearms and his shirt clung to his stomach. He walked up the hill with his back arched way out and his crotch thrust out like someone who had been goosed and then paralyzed in this state of recoil. Alfred thought that this was the closest his spine and pecker had ever been, but he didn’t want the lady to see him straining and try to help. If she did, she’d have blood all over her on top of everything else. The dog’s body was really warm and it smelled like burnt rubber. When they got up to the garage, she had Alfred put the dog into a wheelbarrow. Alfred sure wished he’d noticed that wheelbarrow. She put a blanket on top of the dog.
“Come inside and wash off” she said.
She led Alfred to the kitchen and he started scrubbing off his forearms and hands.
She said, “I’m going to change into something more decent.”
Mary left Alfred in the kitchen. Clarence was sitting on the kitchen floor. The boy was dumping fruit loops on the floor and then picking up the individual bits and eating them. He had plugged two of them into his ears. He was watching Alfred. Alfred had his back to Clarence at the sink but he could feel its stare through the hair on the back of his neck. Alfred wondered who was going to bury that dog. He turned around and looked at Clarence. Clarence stared inquisitively back, tilted his head and went like he was going to scratch at a flea or something in his ear. His finger jarred loose the fruit loop and he snorted with delight or simply better air flow. Clarence’s attention was now solely on the fruit loop. He picked it up and gave it a big whiff with his nostril and ate it. He started digging in the same ear for more fruit loops. The cereal box neglected. Alfred hadn’t even thought about whether she was married until then. Mary came back into the kitchen and picked up the fruit loop box and put it into the cupboard next to some Captain Crunch. Clarence was still digging in the wrong ear and pulling his finger out and sniffing at it, testing it with his tongue.
Mary Wilson’s new attire was a red hoody, some worn jeans with white paint splotches and she wore a pair of pink sock mittens. Alfred noticed that adorned on her big toes was a watermelon which stood out to him because of its contrasting color. He also managed to make out a pig on her little toe. It was outlined in black. Her toes looked so dainty he lost his train of thought.
He said, “Uhh, uhh”,
She said, “Yes?”
Alfred looked over at Clarence for a little help. Clarence was still searching the wrong ear.
Alfred said, “Are you gonna… I mean …..do you have anybody to bury it?”
She said, “I was hoping to call the city and wheel it down to the street for them to pick up.”
Alfred figured the man of the house must have wheeled out a long time ago by the state of these fruit loops. Who would do such a thing as wheel a stinking dead dog out to the curb, Alfred thought.
Alfred said, “Mrs. Wilson, I..”
“It’s Miss and call me Mary please,” she interjected.
He said, “I know of a pet cemetery and I’d be glad to bury it there for you.”
Mary didn’t respond immediately and Alfred took this as contemplation.
He said, “I insist. Please. I’d feel a whole lot better if you’d just let me take care of it.”
And so it was agreed. Alfred backed his truck up the drive and loaded the dog into the truck bed and let out—glad to be done with the awkwardness of the situation. He sure as hell didn’t want to bury it and had no idea where he would do something like that. He didn’t even know of any pet cemeteries. He just said it to be done of the whole business and maybe free up some guilt for something more worthy of God’s wrath. But hell, it wasn’t his damn fault; Alfred figured. She let him take the blankets to keep from getting all bloody again. Alfred wondered whether or not that was an item she intended him to return. Was it more like Tupperware or sugar?,” he thought.
Alfred drove down Fern Way and turned onto Eastover Drive. When he came up onto the bridge that ran over Twin Lakes, he slowed the truck to a stop. He opened up the tailgate and then shut it back. Scared of being spotted by anybody, Alfred drove on up a ways and pulled off the road into a shadow. Alfred pulled the dog to the end of the tailgate. He squatted down with his back to the truck and pulled the dog by its collar until it was resting on his shoulder. He cursed at the dog as he freed his truck from its burden. His lower back was really strained now. The dead dog and Alfred stumbled up to the bridge. At the bridge’s middle Alfred placed the dog on the rail. The dog’s head lay on its side with its back legs dangling down towards the lake. It’s big, black head lolled about, bobbing slightly above the pavement. Alfred walked a bit down from it and slumped over the rail to catch his breath. He spat into the water. Then he pissed over the rail and into the lake.
Alfred didn’t really want to throw the dog in there. There were an awful lot of snakes hidden down under that bridge. Hr didn’t know if they even would eat pieces of a dead dog. He just wasn’t sure what would. Maybe a snapping turtle would eat that. It had flooded recently and Alfred had seen an alligator in there. He knew an alligator would love some of that. He wondered whether or not that alligator was still in there. It probably had swum off back to the Pearl River by now. Gone back between the two dams on the Pearl to be with the 4.999 other gators within that two mile span. Alfred grabbed the dead dog by the back of its collar and jerked. Its body did a full flip and its big old black head smacked onto the pavement and it paused for a split second like that. Its face looked like it had a smile or something. It looked kind of happy. Then its body’s momentum carried it down into the darkness. It sure made a big splash or it sure sounded like one to Alfred. It floated there. He hadn’t thought about that. Alfred had a notion that if you couldn’t swim, then you’d drown. And drowning was sinking. There was no current, so it just floated there. The wind blew just barely, and he watched the dog slowly bob up under the bridge. A thought did occur to Alfred to sink it but he wasn’t about to go under that bridge. Not with all those copperheads and cottonmouths.
When Alfred was a boy, his older brother Clyde and he would go down under that bridge in their canoe. Clyde was seven years older so he was always in the back, the captain. Plus Clyde always got to shoot the BB gun. Alfred wouldn’t have nothing but a stick. He’d be in the front of the canoe with that stick and they’d go under that bridge. All around the foundations there were piles of sticks and garbage and shit that snakes would hide in. Clyde and Alfred always had to worry about the ones that would sun on the pavement of the bridge above. When a car or someone came along, they could just slither off and drop into the water below. Alfred had seen them do that on numerous occasions and he was all the time afraid of one falling on his head. He had nightmares all the time of snakes falling on his head and dropping off his head and settling on his shoulders. It would wrap around the back of his head, gripping to gain purchase. Alfred would feel the slickness of the snake on the back of his neck and he’d wake up wanting to jump up from his bed, but he was just frozen there in that dream state. Then he’d finally convince himself that it was a dream and he’d wake up. Alfred could never get back to sleep after one of those dreams so he’d have to get his flashlight where he kept it on the dresser across his bedroom. He would high step the whole way there and back scared the floor was littered with snakes of all makes and models like in that Indian Jones movie. Then he would go get his dog from outside and put it in his bed with him. His momma sure hated him to let the dog in the house and damned if she wouldn’t bitch at him with a fury when she caught the dog asleep at the foot of his bed. She didn’t know everything Alfred had always thought. But Alfred’s parents were gone now. Dead gone. So Alfred went on home to do as he pleased.
Once home, Alfred made himself a scotch and let his dog out of the house to go piss. Hiss momma hadn’t known shit he thought. A dog was good for protection. What good did it do you with it sleeping in the yard at night? Who cared if it kept your yard safe? What you really wanted was for you to be safe where you were, in the house. His momma always had differing views from him. Alfred wasn’t allowed to wear shoes in the boat. His Mom wouldn’t have that. She would say something like what if the boat tipped over and you got your shoes wet Alfred. They’d be ruint.
There had been two times when the snake had slithered right from one of those piles into the boat, but Alfred couldn’t tell her about that. The first time, he’d just jumped right out of there and flipped the whole canoe. Clyde had whooped Alfred’s ass for that. His BB gun sank. But that snake had scared the shit out of Alfred. It had crawled right into the front of the boat and Clyde had been all the way in the back. The second time, Alfred started backpedaling towards Clyde and he tripped over the seat and then started scooting back with his hands still on his backslide. But that snake had slithered right after Alfred and he’d pulled his bare feet down from the seat rest and kicked at that fucking thing. It bit Alfred’s damn foot and he liked to have gone into shock. He knew it was a cottonmouth. He knew why they called them cottonmouths but he’d never been able to tell a copperhead from a cottonmouth or just a water snake. But when Alfred saw that snake open its mouth and watched it as it bit the knuckle of his left toe, he was officially let in on that secret. He felt those fangs sink in but couldn’t see them. All he saw in that mouth was white. Clyde started smacking the hell out of that snake with his paddle and it slithered back to the front of the canoe. He pulled his little brother up and put him behind him. Clyde was scared the canoe was going to tip over at any second. He had started to the front careful as he could, but he wanted to smack the shit out of that snake. Then Clyde paused and he turned and looked at Alfred.
Clyde said, “Do you want me to kill it or do you want to do it?”
Clyde balanced the boat for Alfred and gave him his paddle. Alfred hit that damned thing with the blade, trying to get at his head. Then he turned the paddle over and used the T-grip. It worked a lot better and Alfred felt better. He was scared as hell that he got bit, but he didn’t cry. He had been too scared to cry before, but on the way back home Alfred was about to start. Alfred wanted to be tough though and his brother had let him steer the canoe back this time. He was scared and thought that he might die, but he couldn’t let on like that. Captains were tough.
Alfred’s parents raced him to the hospital and he got a shot. All that happened was that he got a bit of a fever. He felt a lot better the next day. Alfred still wouldn’t get into a boat or go swimming without some shoes on. He would get into a pool without shoes, but he didn’t like it. People sometimes ask Alfred why he is all the time wearing shoes swimming and he just tell them it’s on account of his hairy feet— which isn’t really a lie, because his feet are hairy as hell.
Alfred went outside to throw the ball to his dog a bit. Damn dog would retrieve the ball but then he’d plop on down and roll all over it. That dog sure was bad about bringing the ball back. Alfred went back in and freshened up his glass of whiskey. He went back out on the patio and took a seat. He watched his own dog roll around on that ball. Alfred tried to think about how that Clarence boy’s dog had lived its life. He thought about it being a mentally challenged kid’s dog. The dogs he had owned would follow him around and hated to see him leave for school. How he had played fetch with them and they loved playing fetch. Except for his current dog, he thought. Well, it did fetch good, it just had a long process of returning or retrieving. But what the hell could that dog do with Clarence? Shit, Clarence would just as soon eat the dog’s food. Clarence ate kitty litter. The damned cat didn’t have a name. They just called it Cat. What was the dog’s name? He bet it didn’t have a damn name. It probably just sat there listening to Clarence yelling all sorts of incoherent gibberish. It was probably scared as hell all the time. Not knowing what to do when he pulled its tail and whatever the hell else that thing, Clarence, did to it. Alfred felt better about the whole thing now.
Alfred went on in and took a shower and scrubbed away the rest of the blood. He sat down and drank a bit more of the whiskey. He figured he just put that dog to a peaceful rest. Its whole life had probably been like Alfred’s when it was yelping at him and causing all that commotion. He had about panicked, but he knew what to do. That Clarence’s dog probably hadn’t ever known. Maybe that is why he was laying in the middle of the road in the shadows. It might have been just waiting for someone to come along and give it some peace. When Alfred thought about that, he made a drink in a plastic cup. He got out in the canoe and paddled out and found that dog in the shallows by the shore. Alfred took off the old muffler that was now used as an anchor. He tied it around that dog and then sank it out in the middle of the lake. Sank the dog far off from that bridge. Away from all those snakes and garbage and shit.
_________________________________
Author: Heath Corlew
I have an MFA in creative writing from Queens University of Charlotte. I reside in Asheville, North Carolina where I have several boring part-time jobs to support my writing problem. I was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Writers are NOT allowed vacations!
Alright now people, a crisis is at hand. As I type, I have only SIX more stories lined up at the Dew for the front page. While books for review are beating down my front door, apparently all short story writers are taking the Summer off. This will not do! Sharing your stories is just as important to me as the books I receive to review.
So this is a very nicely worded plea. :) Sit down, ignore the sunshine and warm water and instead bang out approximately 1,000 words or more for the Dew.
Tell your writer pals to share, tell your friend that's thinking about submitting that they should give it a try. If you're a columnist, pretend the Dew needs a column! If you're an author who wants to share a chapter excerpt of an upcoming or recently published book, we can do that!
Ya'll really, really don't want me to start digging out my dog and kid stories.............do you?
The Promise
The Promise
I don’t like cats.
I’m a dog lover.
My wife, on the other hand, loves cats. She has several and her comment is “they’re almost like family.” I try to accept them because they make her happy. But I wish we didn’t have so many.
Our first marriages ended in divorce. But this marriage has lasted longer. We constantly reassure ourselves that we have found our soul mates. Her children and my children are “our” children.
Our marriage is supposed to be one of those happily forever after unions.
We were busy enjoying ourselves and celebrating our anniversary when she started feeling weak and tired.
“Take a nap”, I said. “You’ll feel better after that.”
Since we were away on vacation she tried to put up a good front and say that she was fine.
In the days after we returned home I noticed that she still was pale and tired.
“Well,” she said “I guess that means we’re getting old.”
But there wasn’t any excitement in her voice when she said that.
Finally she went to the doctor. She was given vitamins and told to make an appointment for a series of blood tests.
When the results were ready we both trekked to the doctor’s office.
That’s when we heard the big “C” mentioned. Great strides have been made with cancer these days but not when it comes to being terminal. She was terminal!
The treatments were grueling. But she remained positive. I could tell that the disease was wearing her down.
This isn’t supposed to happen. We are soul mates. Lovers forever. I can’t imagine life without her.
As spring turned into summer she began to spend more time in bed. She would get up for dinner because she said that she didn’t want me to eat alone. I could see that it was a struggle for her. Then in early evening I would go and sit by her bedside and read to her. Since her vision was dimming she’d enjoyed hearing my voice and listening to me read.
I always came away from her room with tears in my eyes and a lump stuck in my throat.
I tried to be brave for her but it was difficult.
During that time her cats always kept her company. They would climb up on her bed and she would be smiling as she pet each one. I am almost jealous of those cats. I wanted them out of her room. But she said they brought her great comfort and joy.
Soon she was too weak to come to the table and have dinner with me. One day she said to me “I have something to ask you.”
“Sure, anything,” I answered.
“I want you to promise me something,” she replied.
“Whatever it is I’ll say yes,” I said.
“It’s important to me that after I’m gone you keep and take care of my cats,” she said. Then she hesitated, “One more thing. I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to find someone else to share your life with.”
I answered. “Yes, I’ll take care of your cats.” I never answered the other request. How could I? We were soul mates.
Every night she’d ask the same thing. And every night I remained silent.
Then one night after I had read to her she appeared more frail and weak than before and she whispered her request once again.
Feeling so sad I just said, “Yes, I will.” A look of peacefulness came over her as she held my hand.
The next afternoon she passed away.
Today I sit here thinking about the last days of her life. I feel the warmth of her cats and I can see her smile. It’s as though she’s with me. I’m glad I promised her that I would keep her cats.
I’m married once again and my new wife doesn’t like cats. She’s constantly asking me to find another home for these animals.
But I must keep my promise. How could I not? We were soul mates.
______________________________________________
Author: Pat St. Pierre
I am a freelance writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. My fiction;fiction has been published in a variety of places. Some of those places are: The Gardener's Gazette, The Writer's World, The Homesteader, Lutheran Parenting, Joyful, The Shine Journal, etc. My poetry has been published in such places as: The Camel Saloon, Boston Literary Review, Pond Ripples, Three Line Poetry, etc. My poetry book "Theater of Life" is available on Amazon.com. I am also an amateur photographer whose work can be seen at: Ken*Again, Southern Women's Review, Amaranthine Muses, The Camel Saloon, Ramshackle Review, Pond Ripples, The Shine Journal, etc. My blog is www.pstpierre.wordpress.com.
I don’t like cats.
I’m a dog lover.
My wife, on the other hand, loves cats. She has several and her comment is “they’re almost like family.” I try to accept them because they make her happy. But I wish we didn’t have so many.
Our first marriages ended in divorce. But this marriage has lasted longer. We constantly reassure ourselves that we have found our soul mates. Her children and my children are “our” children.
Our marriage is supposed to be one of those happily forever after unions.
We were busy enjoying ourselves and celebrating our anniversary when she started feeling weak and tired.
“Take a nap”, I said. “You’ll feel better after that.”
Since we were away on vacation she tried to put up a good front and say that she was fine.
In the days after we returned home I noticed that she still was pale and tired.
“Well,” she said “I guess that means we’re getting old.”
But there wasn’t any excitement in her voice when she said that.
Finally she went to the doctor. She was given vitamins and told to make an appointment for a series of blood tests.
When the results were ready we both trekked to the doctor’s office.
That’s when we heard the big “C” mentioned. Great strides have been made with cancer these days but not when it comes to being terminal. She was terminal!
The treatments were grueling. But she remained positive. I could tell that the disease was wearing her down.
This isn’t supposed to happen. We are soul mates. Lovers forever. I can’t imagine life without her.
As spring turned into summer she began to spend more time in bed. She would get up for dinner because she said that she didn’t want me to eat alone. I could see that it was a struggle for her. Then in early evening I would go and sit by her bedside and read to her. Since her vision was dimming she’d enjoyed hearing my voice and listening to me read.
I always came away from her room with tears in my eyes and a lump stuck in my throat.
I tried to be brave for her but it was difficult.
During that time her cats always kept her company. They would climb up on her bed and she would be smiling as she pet each one. I am almost jealous of those cats. I wanted them out of her room. But she said they brought her great comfort and joy.
Soon she was too weak to come to the table and have dinner with me. One day she said to me “I have something to ask you.”
“Sure, anything,” I answered.
“I want you to promise me something,” she replied.
“Whatever it is I’ll say yes,” I said.
“It’s important to me that after I’m gone you keep and take care of my cats,” she said. Then she hesitated, “One more thing. I don’t want you to be alone. I want you to find someone else to share your life with.”
I answered. “Yes, I’ll take care of your cats.” I never answered the other request. How could I? We were soul mates.
Every night she’d ask the same thing. And every night I remained silent.
Then one night after I had read to her she appeared more frail and weak than before and she whispered her request once again.
Feeling so sad I just said, “Yes, I will.” A look of peacefulness came over her as she held my hand.
The next afternoon she passed away.
Today I sit here thinking about the last days of her life. I feel the warmth of her cats and I can see her smile. It’s as though she’s with me. I’m glad I promised her that I would keep her cats.
I’m married once again and my new wife doesn’t like cats. She’s constantly asking me to find another home for these animals.
But I must keep my promise. How could I not? We were soul mates.
______________________________________________
Author: Pat St. Pierre
I am a freelance writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction. My fiction;fiction has been published in a variety of places. Some of those places are: The Gardener's Gazette, The Writer's World, The Homesteader, Lutheran Parenting, Joyful, The Shine Journal, etc. My poetry has been published in such places as: The Camel Saloon, Boston Literary Review, Pond Ripples, Three Line Poetry, etc. My poetry book "Theater of Life" is available on Amazon.com. I am also an amateur photographer whose work can be seen at: Ken*Again, Southern Women's Review, Amaranthine Muses, The Camel Saloon, Ramshackle Review, Pond Ripples, The Shine Journal, etc. My blog is www.pstpierre.wordpress.com.
Friday, May 27, 2011
A Well Dressed Angel
A Well Dressed Angel
It was yard sale day at the Johnson home. The Johnson’s had a daughter, Susan, upon whom misfortune had fallen in the double barreled whammy of a greatly unexpected unwed pregnancy and a more predictable stubborn will. Unwilling to listen to the wisdom of her mom & dad, she married the father of the child, Johnny, even though she was barely eighteen and he was only sixteen and they both glared at life through the lens of immaturity.
A look back through the prism of time reveals that no one person was one hundred per cent right in the processing of these unfortunate events but at the Johnson’s, some things were processed better than others. The yard sale was one of the high points.
The young couple was financially challenged as anyone might expect, having a new baby and living with the husband’s parents, jobless and destitute of all personal wealth except the occasional gift from relatives.
The relationships were strained at best between the two parental families because Susan’s parents did not favor the marriage while the Johnny’s parents acted like it was the greatest idea since sliced bread. There were two completely different sets of values in play, with serious conflict created by such wide differences in the expectations for their children. So on the yard sale day phase of the process, there was little or no interaction between these parental families. The Johnson’s however wanted to help their daughter someway, thus came the idea of a yard sale.
There was plenty of older but yet good quality items to sell and the idea of raising $400, a reasonably high sum in the early nineties to give to Susan to help with the expense of motherhood. The Johnson’s older daughter, Chelsea was home from college for the weekend, and her boyfriend Charles who lived nearby came over and helped to display a myriad of items from the basement in the driveway and the garage. Mr. Johnson contributed some of his older sporting goods but didn’t have many old clothes to sell because he wore the one’s he had till they were pretty much worn out.
Mrs. Johnson treasured her children’s, two daughters and a son, leftovers but for this purpose she was willing to sell some of them and it was back to school time so there would be a lot of interest in the clothes her children had outgrown. It was painful to sell the items but for such a noble purpose her reluctance was overcome and the anticipated joy and helping Susan prevailed.
The sun broke the eastern sky in a special way that day as the Johnson’s overloaded the driveway and the garage with the stuff for sale. There three other yard sales going on in close vicinity of their suburban Atlanta address so the crowds promised to be big that day, and the buyers came early and kept coming till about dark.
The yard sale went about as expected till mid afternoon when a little boy was spied by Charles eyeing some fishing poles in the back corner of the garage. When asked by Charles about his interest, the boy replied, “I would like one of them but I don’t have any money, we are shopping for back to school clothes and Mama can’t afford much for them and nothing for a fishing pole.” Charles being in a charitable mood and not realizing these were Mr. Johnson’s personal use items, not for sale, told the boy, “Take one, and it will be free.” Mr. Johnson, usually tighter than the bark on a tree, also moved by the charitable nature of the event, observed this activity and simply nodded his approval and Charles helped the boy pick his fishing pole.
It seems that this act of charity by Charles and Mr. Johnson got the ball rolling even though this whole affair was for a charitable purpose, selling unwanted items for as much as you get for them was not really being charitable towards the needy buyers even though the sales proceeds were for a noble purpose. When I say “got the ball rolling”, the sales proceeds at this point were not even halfway to the $400 goal, and suddenly the proceeds began to take off.
About that time Charles & Chelsea related to Mr. Johnson that the little boy’s sister had stayed in the car while her mother shopped for back to school clothes in the driveway. Because the little girl seemed to be pouting, Chelsea asked her what was going on. The little girl related that they were back to school shopping at yard sales and she wanted to go to the mall but her Mama only had a little money to spend and that the one or two things she had picked out so far were even too expensive at the yard sales for her to buy. Choking back tears the little girl began to sob quietly saying, “I want to go to the mall.” When Mr. Johnson heard this, he recalled years gone by as a needy child in a single parent home he had frequently longed for something better.
“Where is that family now?” Mr. Johnson asked. Charles said they went to the next sale around in the cul-de-sac. Mr. Johnson jumped in his truck and rode around till he spotted the little boy with the fishing pole which was the only way he had to recognize them, and from that, he found the boy’s mother and sister. Mr. Johnson explained to the mom that if they would come back to his house, they could pick whatever they wanted from the displayed items and there would be no charge for anything, the items would be gifts from his family to them. The lady was overwhelmed when she realized that someone was going to take the pressure off her and some real charity would be offered. She had prayed for help as the day went on and it became obvious than even by shopping yard sales she would not be able to meet her children’s needs.
A few minutes passed and the family returned; a mother, her son and daughter got out of the car smiling and all the Johnson family and Charles made them feel more welcome than before. Chelsea helped the little girl to pick out the best, most stylish and desirable clothes from what was on display. If the family expressed a wish for something that was not on display then the Johnson’s looked back through the basement and even got an item or two out a the current use things in their closets. Soon the single parent family left with their car loaded with stuff and two happy children well equipped for back to school. Mrs. Johnson wiped a tear away when she heard the little girl excitedly tell her brother that she had gotten the very coat she had wanted to have for when cold weather came along.
The yard sale continued at a brisk pace and the Johnson family along with Charles were not worried about making the $400 goal because the joy they shared with the family they had helped to bless was enough for them to know that they had had a blessed day no matter how the proceeds turned out.
They had put the remaining items from the yard sale back in the basement as darkness fell on their street and all were in the Johnson home preparing a fine meal to end what to them would be an unforgettable day. Charles and Chelsea were sitting at the kitchen table counting the money and had just pronounced the total to be an even $300 when the door bell rang. Mr. Johnson went to the door because the rest all wanted some privacy and some food at the moment. He was cautioned by the others to say the yard sale was over and they were not digging out anything else.
He was greeted at the door by a well dressed man who had a fine automobile parked at the curb. He was asking the location of the yard sale he had heard reference to from someone up the street. Mr. Johnson said simply, the yard sale is over; we are getting our meal together. The gentleman said well I was just looking for musical instruments; did you have any for sale? Mr. Johnson quickly said no, then suddenly he remembered a blue velvet lined music case in the basement that held a flute he had bought used for fifty dollars years ago in another city when one of the children had expressed an interest of studying band in school. Reluctant at first to get involved he told the man about the flute. Quickly the man said, exactly what I had in mind. Mr Johnson asked him to wait while he retrieved the flute thinking, “maybe $25 more towards the goal.” Inside he told the others about potentially more money as he brought the flute up from the basement. Don’t give it away they cautioned him, they had decided to make up the difference between the $300 they had and the $400 they wanted to give to Susan, and every other little bit would help they said.
At the front door once again, Mr. Johnson showed the gentleman the flute, and the man took it out and looked it over carefully then he began to play it. Beautiful music came from the $50 used flute which had so long languished in a storage box through four or five relocations of the Johnson household. “How much do you want for it?” was the question asked. Mr. Johnson replied,”Obviously you know more about musical instruments than I do what would you offer?” “$100 at least,” said the stranger at the door as he tendered a single bill bearing the picture of Benjamin Franklin. “Sold”, said Mr. Johnson. The gentle man left satisfied and the Johnson family, and Charles, prayed and thanked God, thinking maybe, just maybe, they had just been visited by a well dressed angel in a fine automobile. The $400 goal was met.
Bill Prince ©May 1, 2011, All Rights Reserved
It was yard sale day at the Johnson home. The Johnson’s had a daughter, Susan, upon whom misfortune had fallen in the double barreled whammy of a greatly unexpected unwed pregnancy and a more predictable stubborn will. Unwilling to listen to the wisdom of her mom & dad, she married the father of the child, Johnny, even though she was barely eighteen and he was only sixteen and they both glared at life through the lens of immaturity.
A look back through the prism of time reveals that no one person was one hundred per cent right in the processing of these unfortunate events but at the Johnson’s, some things were processed better than others. The yard sale was one of the high points.
The young couple was financially challenged as anyone might expect, having a new baby and living with the husband’s parents, jobless and destitute of all personal wealth except the occasional gift from relatives.
The relationships were strained at best between the two parental families because Susan’s parents did not favor the marriage while the Johnny’s parents acted like it was the greatest idea since sliced bread. There were two completely different sets of values in play, with serious conflict created by such wide differences in the expectations for their children. So on the yard sale day phase of the process, there was little or no interaction between these parental families. The Johnson’s however wanted to help their daughter someway, thus came the idea of a yard sale.
There was plenty of older but yet good quality items to sell and the idea of raising $400, a reasonably high sum in the early nineties to give to Susan to help with the expense of motherhood. The Johnson’s older daughter, Chelsea was home from college for the weekend, and her boyfriend Charles who lived nearby came over and helped to display a myriad of items from the basement in the driveway and the garage. Mr. Johnson contributed some of his older sporting goods but didn’t have many old clothes to sell because he wore the one’s he had till they were pretty much worn out.
Mrs. Johnson treasured her children’s, two daughters and a son, leftovers but for this purpose she was willing to sell some of them and it was back to school time so there would be a lot of interest in the clothes her children had outgrown. It was painful to sell the items but for such a noble purpose her reluctance was overcome and the anticipated joy and helping Susan prevailed.
The sun broke the eastern sky in a special way that day as the Johnson’s overloaded the driveway and the garage with the stuff for sale. There three other yard sales going on in close vicinity of their suburban Atlanta address so the crowds promised to be big that day, and the buyers came early and kept coming till about dark.
The yard sale went about as expected till mid afternoon when a little boy was spied by Charles eyeing some fishing poles in the back corner of the garage. When asked by Charles about his interest, the boy replied, “I would like one of them but I don’t have any money, we are shopping for back to school clothes and Mama can’t afford much for them and nothing for a fishing pole.” Charles being in a charitable mood and not realizing these were Mr. Johnson’s personal use items, not for sale, told the boy, “Take one, and it will be free.” Mr. Johnson, usually tighter than the bark on a tree, also moved by the charitable nature of the event, observed this activity and simply nodded his approval and Charles helped the boy pick his fishing pole.
It seems that this act of charity by Charles and Mr. Johnson got the ball rolling even though this whole affair was for a charitable purpose, selling unwanted items for as much as you get for them was not really being charitable towards the needy buyers even though the sales proceeds were for a noble purpose. When I say “got the ball rolling”, the sales proceeds at this point were not even halfway to the $400 goal, and suddenly the proceeds began to take off.
About that time Charles & Chelsea related to Mr. Johnson that the little boy’s sister had stayed in the car while her mother shopped for back to school clothes in the driveway. Because the little girl seemed to be pouting, Chelsea asked her what was going on. The little girl related that they were back to school shopping at yard sales and she wanted to go to the mall but her Mama only had a little money to spend and that the one or two things she had picked out so far were even too expensive at the yard sales for her to buy. Choking back tears the little girl began to sob quietly saying, “I want to go to the mall.” When Mr. Johnson heard this, he recalled years gone by as a needy child in a single parent home he had frequently longed for something better.
“Where is that family now?” Mr. Johnson asked. Charles said they went to the next sale around in the cul-de-sac. Mr. Johnson jumped in his truck and rode around till he spotted the little boy with the fishing pole which was the only way he had to recognize them, and from that, he found the boy’s mother and sister. Mr. Johnson explained to the mom that if they would come back to his house, they could pick whatever they wanted from the displayed items and there would be no charge for anything, the items would be gifts from his family to them. The lady was overwhelmed when she realized that someone was going to take the pressure off her and some real charity would be offered. She had prayed for help as the day went on and it became obvious than even by shopping yard sales she would not be able to meet her children’s needs.
A few minutes passed and the family returned; a mother, her son and daughter got out of the car smiling and all the Johnson family and Charles made them feel more welcome than before. Chelsea helped the little girl to pick out the best, most stylish and desirable clothes from what was on display. If the family expressed a wish for something that was not on display then the Johnson’s looked back through the basement and even got an item or two out a the current use things in their closets. Soon the single parent family left with their car loaded with stuff and two happy children well equipped for back to school. Mrs. Johnson wiped a tear away when she heard the little girl excitedly tell her brother that she had gotten the very coat she had wanted to have for when cold weather came along.
The yard sale continued at a brisk pace and the Johnson family along with Charles were not worried about making the $400 goal because the joy they shared with the family they had helped to bless was enough for them to know that they had had a blessed day no matter how the proceeds turned out.
They had put the remaining items from the yard sale back in the basement as darkness fell on their street and all were in the Johnson home preparing a fine meal to end what to them would be an unforgettable day. Charles and Chelsea were sitting at the kitchen table counting the money and had just pronounced the total to be an even $300 when the door bell rang. Mr. Johnson went to the door because the rest all wanted some privacy and some food at the moment. He was cautioned by the others to say the yard sale was over and they were not digging out anything else.
He was greeted at the door by a well dressed man who had a fine automobile parked at the curb. He was asking the location of the yard sale he had heard reference to from someone up the street. Mr. Johnson said simply, the yard sale is over; we are getting our meal together. The gentleman said well I was just looking for musical instruments; did you have any for sale? Mr. Johnson quickly said no, then suddenly he remembered a blue velvet lined music case in the basement that held a flute he had bought used for fifty dollars years ago in another city when one of the children had expressed an interest of studying band in school. Reluctant at first to get involved he told the man about the flute. Quickly the man said, exactly what I had in mind. Mr Johnson asked him to wait while he retrieved the flute thinking, “maybe $25 more towards the goal.” Inside he told the others about potentially more money as he brought the flute up from the basement. Don’t give it away they cautioned him, they had decided to make up the difference between the $300 they had and the $400 they wanted to give to Susan, and every other little bit would help they said.
At the front door once again, Mr. Johnson showed the gentleman the flute, and the man took it out and looked it over carefully then he began to play it. Beautiful music came from the $50 used flute which had so long languished in a storage box through four or five relocations of the Johnson household. “How much do you want for it?” was the question asked. Mr. Johnson replied,”Obviously you know more about musical instruments than I do what would you offer?” “$100 at least,” said the stranger at the door as he tendered a single bill bearing the picture of Benjamin Franklin. “Sold”, said Mr. Johnson. The gentle man left satisfied and the Johnson family, and Charles, prayed and thanked God, thinking maybe, just maybe, they had just been visited by a well dressed angel in a fine automobile. The $400 goal was met.
Bill Prince ©May 1, 2011, All Rights Reserved
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Remembering Mamaw
Growing up in Norfolk, Virginia it was a rare treat to travel here to the mountains of North Carolina to visit the "country cousins." We'd spend most of our time visiting with my mother's family, eating Granny's biscuits, holding baby chicks and learning to shoot a BB gun. Granny didn't have much, but she'd give you her last dime if you asked. We'd usually stay a week and at some point during our stay, we'd venture across the mountain to visit my dad's family. Back then, the road across the mountain was pretty scarey, solid rock on one side and a sudden drop straight down on the other. In some places the road curved so sharp, it nearly turned back on itself.
It would take about forty five minutes to get to Mamaw and Papaw's house. The difference between their house and Granny's was like night and day. Granny's house kind of listed to one side and didn't have any paint left on it at all, but Mamaw and Papaw had a big, pretty white farm house, surrounded by pastures full of cows and horses. At that time, it was still a working dairy farm. In Granny's defense, I can say this. At least she had indoor plumbing. I remember my mom always bringing a paint can in from outside and sitting it in the hallway just outside the bedroom door whenever we spent the night with Mamaw. My mom was after all, a city girl.
At Mamaw's house there was always fresh green beans, mashed taters and biscuits at dinner. I used to help her in her garden when I'd stay with her, following her up and down the rows with a plastic bucket while she tossed the beans, cucumbers and squash in. I remember being amazed, as a city girl, I thought that stuff only came in cans. I thought her barn was like a 7-11 store because she'd walk out there and come back with eggs and milk. I didn't touch milk for a while after I saw where THAT came from. I wasn't to thrilled with what end of the chicken the eggs came from either. I remember one morning, waking to the smell of very strong coffee and the sound of boisterous laughter. I wandered into the kitchen where everyone was looking out the big double windows by the table. Sometime during the night, one of the calves had gotten out and Mamaw was out there, panting and out of breath leading it back up the dirt road and to the barn. The laughter was from everyone watching her chase it down, all of them to out of breath from laughing to go out and help. The best part was that you could hear her giving it a thorough talking to all the way up the road. "Now you cain't be a wanderin' all up and down the road all by yerself, what if a bar got after you?"
Mamaw Ethel married Papaw when she was quite young. He was about fifteen years her senior and needed a wife to raise his son and twin girls. His first wife had died, leaving him with three kids that needed a mother's love. If there was anyone with plenty of love to go around, it was Mamaw. She was barely five feet tall and had this pretty high pitched voice with a sing-song lilt to it, a lot like you hear in people from India. Her hair was dark, almost black and her eyes sparkled emerald green. I remember her hands the most, so small and delicate, olive tan with odd white spots. They were never still, she always had something in her hands, a dishtowel, the phone cord, her fingers always working diligently, nervously. When she greeted you, she'd turn her head to the side and look up to you and always reach out to touch your arm or pat your hand. I never heard her speak ill of a soul and rarely did you see her that she wasn't smiling.
Papaw was nothing like Mamaw. I don't remember him ever even speaking to me. He and my father would always end up in a fight when we'd visit, with my mom and Mamaw stepping in and trying to smooth things over. As I got older I was told the stories of how Papaw would leave to go buy a pack of cigarettes or a loaf of bread and not come back for weeks. During that time, Mamaw ran the whole farm by herself. Milking cows, making butter and raising not only the three kids he came into the marriage with, but four more of her own. When he'd decide to come home, he'd come strolling in at dinner time as if he'd really just left for a loaf of bread and he expected his dinner to be on the table, or else. When my parents were married, he expected them to live and work there on the farm. That's how they ended up in Norfolk. They went to visit my mother's sister and her husband and just never came back. Mama said she wasn't living under the same roof as that son of a you-know-what and she damned sure wasn't milkin' no cows.
Papaw died when I was about ten I think. We got the call when my dad was off somewhere on a hunting trip. Mom had to call the forest service to hunt him down and have him call home so that she could give him the news. Papaw got killed in a car accident, driving too fast on the "four lane" on the way to see one of his women. He was in his late sixties at the time.
As I look back now, seeing how much she went through, it's even more amazing that Mamaw never seemed to become bitter. The death of her husband, whom she loved a great deal, her middle son losing one of his legs in Vietnam, her youngest son battling stomach cancer and the death of the oldest, the boy that she raised and loved as her own, from cancer. The divorce of my parents some twenty seven years ago seemed to upset her almost as much as it did my mother. She and my mother were always close and she made a point of making sure Mom knew she would always be a daughter to her, regardless of what my father did.
Mamaw is, at this writing still with us, if only in body. The last few years have been hard, watching her mind come and go. The last few times I've gone to visit, my aunt has met me at the door and quietly warned me that she may not know who I am, worried that my feelings would be hurt. But she always made a liar out of her, looking into my eyes for a moment then smiling and saying my name like no one else ever has. "Is that my May-ree? Come here and look at her eyes, her eyes are just like mine."
It was just a few years ago that she showed me the pictures of her and her siblings when they were young. The pictures that lead me to ask if there was a lot of Indian or something in the family because, they didn't really look white. When I asked, she cast her eyes down and to the side, giggled a little and said, "Why yeah, there's some Indian and a little black too!" My aunt was embarrassed and told her to shoosh, that you just didn't talk about such things. That's how my Melungeon quest began. The downward spiral of dementia began shortly after that. It was as if she knew what was around the corner, as if she had to make sure I knew the truth, because I was the only one of her grand youngins who wasn't raised in the confines of these mountains. I was the only one who wouldn't be ashamed and keep digging until I found the truth.
Now she's confined to bed, consciousness coming and going. The doctors say it's only a matter of time. I hope she holds on until the weekend so I can get over there to see her. I need to ask her one more time why she's got a black rag doll sitting by her bed and see her toothless grin. If she looks into my eyes and I don't hear "My May-ree," I'll know she's already gone.
___________________
Author: Mahala Davis
Reprinted from September 13, 2005
http://hiddenmahala.blogspot.com
It would take about forty five minutes to get to Mamaw and Papaw's house. The difference between their house and Granny's was like night and day. Granny's house kind of listed to one side and didn't have any paint left on it at all, but Mamaw and Papaw had a big, pretty white farm house, surrounded by pastures full of cows and horses. At that time, it was still a working dairy farm. In Granny's defense, I can say this. At least she had indoor plumbing. I remember my mom always bringing a paint can in from outside and sitting it in the hallway just outside the bedroom door whenever we spent the night with Mamaw. My mom was after all, a city girl.
At Mamaw's house there was always fresh green beans, mashed taters and biscuits at dinner. I used to help her in her garden when I'd stay with her, following her up and down the rows with a plastic bucket while she tossed the beans, cucumbers and squash in. I remember being amazed, as a city girl, I thought that stuff only came in cans. I thought her barn was like a 7-11 store because she'd walk out there and come back with eggs and milk. I didn't touch milk for a while after I saw where THAT came from. I wasn't to thrilled with what end of the chicken the eggs came from either. I remember one morning, waking to the smell of very strong coffee and the sound of boisterous laughter. I wandered into the kitchen where everyone was looking out the big double windows by the table. Sometime during the night, one of the calves had gotten out and Mamaw was out there, panting and out of breath leading it back up the dirt road and to the barn. The laughter was from everyone watching her chase it down, all of them to out of breath from laughing to go out and help. The best part was that you could hear her giving it a thorough talking to all the way up the road. "Now you cain't be a wanderin' all up and down the road all by yerself, what if a bar got after you?"
Mamaw Ethel married Papaw when she was quite young. He was about fifteen years her senior and needed a wife to raise his son and twin girls. His first wife had died, leaving him with three kids that needed a mother's love. If there was anyone with plenty of love to go around, it was Mamaw. She was barely five feet tall and had this pretty high pitched voice with a sing-song lilt to it, a lot like you hear in people from India. Her hair was dark, almost black and her eyes sparkled emerald green. I remember her hands the most, so small and delicate, olive tan with odd white spots. They were never still, she always had something in her hands, a dishtowel, the phone cord, her fingers always working diligently, nervously. When she greeted you, she'd turn her head to the side and look up to you and always reach out to touch your arm or pat your hand. I never heard her speak ill of a soul and rarely did you see her that she wasn't smiling.
Papaw was nothing like Mamaw. I don't remember him ever even speaking to me. He and my father would always end up in a fight when we'd visit, with my mom and Mamaw stepping in and trying to smooth things over. As I got older I was told the stories of how Papaw would leave to go buy a pack of cigarettes or a loaf of bread and not come back for weeks. During that time, Mamaw ran the whole farm by herself. Milking cows, making butter and raising not only the three kids he came into the marriage with, but four more of her own. When he'd decide to come home, he'd come strolling in at dinner time as if he'd really just left for a loaf of bread and he expected his dinner to be on the table, or else. When my parents were married, he expected them to live and work there on the farm. That's how they ended up in Norfolk. They went to visit my mother's sister and her husband and just never came back. Mama said she wasn't living under the same roof as that son of a you-know-what and she damned sure wasn't milkin' no cows.
Papaw died when I was about ten I think. We got the call when my dad was off somewhere on a hunting trip. Mom had to call the forest service to hunt him down and have him call home so that she could give him the news. Papaw got killed in a car accident, driving too fast on the "four lane" on the way to see one of his women. He was in his late sixties at the time.
As I look back now, seeing how much she went through, it's even more amazing that Mamaw never seemed to become bitter. The death of her husband, whom she loved a great deal, her middle son losing one of his legs in Vietnam, her youngest son battling stomach cancer and the death of the oldest, the boy that she raised and loved as her own, from cancer. The divorce of my parents some twenty seven years ago seemed to upset her almost as much as it did my mother. She and my mother were always close and she made a point of making sure Mom knew she would always be a daughter to her, regardless of what my father did.
Mamaw is, at this writing still with us, if only in body. The last few years have been hard, watching her mind come and go. The last few times I've gone to visit, my aunt has met me at the door and quietly warned me that she may not know who I am, worried that my feelings would be hurt. But she always made a liar out of her, looking into my eyes for a moment then smiling and saying my name like no one else ever has. "Is that my May-ree? Come here and look at her eyes, her eyes are just like mine."
It was just a few years ago that she showed me the pictures of her and her siblings when they were young. The pictures that lead me to ask if there was a lot of Indian or something in the family because, they didn't really look white. When I asked, she cast her eyes down and to the side, giggled a little and said, "Why yeah, there's some Indian and a little black too!" My aunt was embarrassed and told her to shoosh, that you just didn't talk about such things. That's how my Melungeon quest began. The downward spiral of dementia began shortly after that. It was as if she knew what was around the corner, as if she had to make sure I knew the truth, because I was the only one of her grand youngins who wasn't raised in the confines of these mountains. I was the only one who wouldn't be ashamed and keep digging until I found the truth.
Now she's confined to bed, consciousness coming and going. The doctors say it's only a matter of time. I hope she holds on until the weekend so I can get over there to see her. I need to ask her one more time why she's got a black rag doll sitting by her bed and see her toothless grin. If she looks into my eyes and I don't hear "My May-ree," I'll know she's already gone.
___________________
Author: Mahala Davis
Reprinted from September 13, 2005
http://hiddenmahala.blogspot.com
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Damage We Do To Ourselves
The Damage We Do To Ourselves
“Did you see that damn negro man twinkle-toeing down on the square today?” Wilson asked, slapping down a domino.
“No, can’t say that I did.”
Just like Chester, not much to say. He had sat there on Wilson’s porch every Sunday afternoon for 17 years, drinking his Makers and water, hardly putting a word to the wind.
“Yes sir. That ‘ole boy was down there putting money in peoples’ meters, dancing around like he was some kind of ballerina, he was. Yes sir, down there in a suit and a tie, twirling and swirling all around like he owned the goddamn place.”
Chester looked like he might break down and say something but no, he did not, he just sat there, looking off the porch to the empty street.
“Yes sir. Sheriff Ruford got wind of it while I was sitting down there at Martha’s place and did you know that it’s against the law—“
“You mean it’s against the law to put a goddamn quarter in a meter.”
“Well, it’s illegal to put change in other peoples’ meters so Sheriff Ruford goes up to ‘ole Twinkle-Toes and asks him what he thinks he’s doing. You know what he did?”
“…He just danced on to the next meter like Ruford wasn’t even there. You wouldn’t have believed that ‘ole boy.” Wilson let out a small grunt which he felt passed for a laugh.
“Yes sir. He just put another quarter in the next meter and went on to the next. Not sure, but I don’t think Ruford quite knew what to do with him. He just stared at that boy and followed behind him like an old hound dog. Yes sir. He had his scent alright but like I said, I don’t think he knew what to do. Finally, though, I saw Ruford take off them ‘ole sunglasses of his that he always wears and he tells that boy he’s under arrest.”
“Ha…Under arrest for following God’s Golden Rule,” Chester said and took another deep pull from his sweat coated glass.
The next morning, folks from all over Yondu County and beyond started pouring into tiny Meredith, Alabama, after rumor of the “Twinkle-Toes” incident spread. Some came in on church buses and promised to uphold this man’s civil rights. Others came into town in beat-up Volkswagen buses, having not showered in days, but they were there to fight the government they said. And others, well, they just saw it on the news and thought it might be worth the trip.
The local men, most not caring for the crowds themselves you see, found their way down to the square along with the rest of the people anyhow. And the courthouse stood there above all of them, a beacon of justice, facing the coast instead of the union, fresh white paint already chipping from its budgeted yearly facelift.
Yes sir, Wilson thought as he studied the crowd, a better bunch could not be brought together to defend this negro.
Wilson, standing there amid the crowd, looked fragile, almost childlike in his grey and white striped shirt which might have fit his frame at one time, but now just swallowed it. He wore his bright red bow tie and matching suspenders and looked so much like his father had that night he finally took Wilson out on one of his errands. They had come out to these very same courthouse steps which stood there in front of Wilson, and there was a crowd, but it was much smaller than the one now. And Wilson remembered his father standing next to him, as the man hung on an apparatus made especially for that purpose. Wilson had always found it funny that he could remember little details about the boy they hung that night, like the large scar behind his left ear, or the darker black skin he had under his left breast, but he never could remember what that boy had done to get himself hung. He thought, and he tested his 81-year-old memory one more time, but finally his concentration disintegrated into the sea of cadenced calls around him:
“FREE…FREE…FREE!”
“FREE THE METER KING,” the mobbed shouted in unison.
“Meter King,” Wilson scoffed.
He looked over at Chester, who as usual wore that blank expression which always left Wilson wondering if he had had a stroke. Chester had been born in Boston. Maybe they just looked that way, Wilson thought.
He tapped Chester’s shoulder and made a motion with his hand for Chester to follow him. However, when he saw that Sheriff Ruford had come out, Wilson stopped and Chester followed his cue once again. Ruford held his megaphone up to his mouth, screeched something metallic and waited for the crowd’s attention. After a couple more screeching false starts, Ruford finally began.
“Listen up! Listen up! I’m going to be brief. This man who’s the reason for all this; well, his name is James Applewhite, but most of you folks probably know him better as Twinkle-Toes. Well, you see, he ain’t the upstanding citizen that some of ya’ll think he is.” Ruford paused for effect, letting the thought sink in.
“Yep. This boy here has been convicted of two counts of sexual assault of a minor up there in Tallapoosa County.”
The crowd quieted. It appeared that no one in the mass had done their research, at least not well enough to dig up that fact. Wilson watched as almost instantaneously the throng deflated around him. Their rumbles lifted up but Ruford again quieted them with his deep, beckoning voice.
“Now! Now! He’s been on parole for 18 months and has decided to come into our town and set himself up a life. And that’s all fine and well as long as he follows our laws but…”
This time, Ruford’s pause was filled with hoots and hollers.
“Now, I’m not saying that he’s a bad guy. Frankly, I think he’s an alright fellar, but I still have a job to do and I gotta keep him in jail for the time being.”
With his words said, Ruford turned and his steel-straight posture, which won him the last election showed and he slowly, almost marching, made his way back inside the courthouse.
“That’s bullshit,” someone said. And another turned and asked, “This is the old south. What do you expect?” Their murmurs rose to a threatening buzz but the peaceful hippies and the church women weren’t looking for trouble.
“This is still the old south,” Wilson said under his breath, and he walked back against the crowd, leaving Chester standing there alone in a group of almost 10,000.
Well, sixty days passed there in Meredith and James Applewhite remained in a jail cell there in the back of the courthouse. The freaks, as Wilson thought of them, went on to the next outrage, leaving behind them loads of garbage and notions about justice, which, to the untrained eye seemed to have been left on the ground along with those pounds of trash.
After the words Sheriff Ruford addressed the crowd with on that Monday morning almost two months ago, all sympathy in the town died right along with the warmth and the color which fall had brought on. Winter came and the hushed voices in the street told the story of a town reverted, a small rural town gone back to ways which can only be described by their courthouse. It still stood with its back to the north. It was painted as white as ever.
Wilson and Chester hadn’t changed much in those two months, themselves, and on this particular day, Wilson was eating Martha’s famous fried green tomatoes when he spotted “Twinkle-Toes” coming down the courthouse steps.
“Look at that,” Wilson called, standing and parting the blinds to get a better look. “That’s that ‘ole boy now. What’s he doing?”
Chester and a couple of other men turned to see but none of them ventured to answer, so Wilson stepped outside into the cool southern winter. As Wilson stepped out onto the sidewalk, he saw many others doing the same. Morgan Watsley, from the barbershop, walked out with his hairpiece slanted down towards his eyes as if he had been napping in one of his chairs again, and Wilson could just make out Jim Erickson across the square, from Jim’s Hardware, carrying what looked to be a hammer in his hand. From all the businesses on the square, people came out to see this man, this myth, and watch; some came out to make sure their eyes hadn’t been deceived by the thin panel of glass which separated their sheltered lives from the outside world, while others, well, they simply followed the rest.
“Hey boy! Hey Twinkle-Toes! I’m talking to you,” Wilson hollered across the street, breaking the silence.
Mr. Applewhite just stood there, looking nowhere and at no one, wearing the same wrinkled blue and white checked suit he had gone to jail in, holding what looked like a small cotton bag off to his left side.
“Hey boy! You gonna be picking us some cotton this morning?”
Applewhite looked straight at Wilson, matching Wilson’s stare with one meaner and yet, softer still. He took two steps toward Wilson and jumped, doing a perfect pirouette, followed by a brisé volé. The whole crowd gasped and Wilson saw Jim drop his hammer and watched as the toupee fell from Morgan Watsley’s head.
“Can you believe this?” Wilson asked and no one answered.
As the men and women looked on, Applewhite went right on over to the parking meters and began inserting coins from his cotton bag, never once breaking from his incredible dance. As James jumped and moved gracefully from one meter to another; Wilson continued hurling obscenities at him.
Before long though, Sheriff Ruford emerged onto the steps of the courthouse with his megaphone, and even Wilson couldn’t help but stop and see what he had to say this time.
“Listen up! I am only going to say this once. Mr. Applewhite that is a crime which you are committing as I stand here watching you. You know what you’re doing and I can take you into custody, if I should choose. Now, for the rest of you, I’d like it if all of you just went back inside. Go on in there. Go on and finish your hair cuts and eat your lunches. There ain’t no show here. It seems that this here has just been a case of mistaken identity up in Tallapoosa County. This man; well this man here seems to be innocent if only he’d just follow the parking laws,”
The crowd around Wilson chuckled, upon hearing this joke a second time, and Wilson stood there unable to believe what he was hearing. That negro. That…That… Just then, he hissed “Nigger” as loud, if not louder than he thought possible. His neighbors and his parish members, some of whom he had known their entire lives, these people craned their necks, but they already knew who had said it. It was Wilson, with his narrow mind, living in the past. Yes, of course, they thought in unison, it was Wilson.
He saw their looks and tried to go back to his fried green tomatoes like Ruford had told them to do, but two men blocked his path.
“What? You all got a problem with Southern ideals all of a sudden?” Wilson screamed at the two men.
“No sir. We don’t have a problem with Southern ideals,” Chester said from behind him. “We just got a problem with your ideals. Now why don’t you get on out of here and take yourself back on home.”
Wilson didn’t know what to say. If he wasn’t welcome there at Martha’s he’d sure go on ahead and take his leave. He turned from his former friends and began to walk away when Chester called out after him, “And don’t be expecting me on your porch this Sunday, or any other Sunday for that matter. I got my own whiskey at home and I’d rather drink it there by myself.”
The men, sitting around Martha’s, laughed a quick laugh at Wilson’s expense before they walked back inside to get out of the chill, and Wilson, well, Wilson walked on out to his car where a freshly written forty dollar ticket sat underneath his driver-side wiper blade, just waiting for his wrinkled hands to grab.
______________________________________________
My name is Shane Stricker and I am currently working on an MFA at West Virginia University. I grew up in Sikeston, Missouri and spent a good deal of time over the summers down in Oxford, MS. I live here in Morgantown, WV with my dog, Boogie, and my fiance, Bizzy. Good beer (preferably Boulevard from Kansas City), baseball games, and reading and writing fiction hold my attention like nothing else.
“Did you see that damn negro man twinkle-toeing down on the square today?” Wilson asked, slapping down a domino.
“No, can’t say that I did.”
Just like Chester, not much to say. He had sat there on Wilson’s porch every Sunday afternoon for 17 years, drinking his Makers and water, hardly putting a word to the wind.
“Yes sir. That ‘ole boy was down there putting money in peoples’ meters, dancing around like he was some kind of ballerina, he was. Yes sir, down there in a suit and a tie, twirling and swirling all around like he owned the goddamn place.”
Chester looked like he might break down and say something but no, he did not, he just sat there, looking off the porch to the empty street.
“Yes sir. Sheriff Ruford got wind of it while I was sitting down there at Martha’s place and did you know that it’s against the law—“
“You mean it’s against the law to put a goddamn quarter in a meter.”
“Well, it’s illegal to put change in other peoples’ meters so Sheriff Ruford goes up to ‘ole Twinkle-Toes and asks him what he thinks he’s doing. You know what he did?”
“…He just danced on to the next meter like Ruford wasn’t even there. You wouldn’t have believed that ‘ole boy.” Wilson let out a small grunt which he felt passed for a laugh.
“Yes sir. He just put another quarter in the next meter and went on to the next. Not sure, but I don’t think Ruford quite knew what to do with him. He just stared at that boy and followed behind him like an old hound dog. Yes sir. He had his scent alright but like I said, I don’t think he knew what to do. Finally, though, I saw Ruford take off them ‘ole sunglasses of his that he always wears and he tells that boy he’s under arrest.”
“Ha…Under arrest for following God’s Golden Rule,” Chester said and took another deep pull from his sweat coated glass.
The next morning, folks from all over Yondu County and beyond started pouring into tiny Meredith, Alabama, after rumor of the “Twinkle-Toes” incident spread. Some came in on church buses and promised to uphold this man’s civil rights. Others came into town in beat-up Volkswagen buses, having not showered in days, but they were there to fight the government they said. And others, well, they just saw it on the news and thought it might be worth the trip.
The local men, most not caring for the crowds themselves you see, found their way down to the square along with the rest of the people anyhow. And the courthouse stood there above all of them, a beacon of justice, facing the coast instead of the union, fresh white paint already chipping from its budgeted yearly facelift.
Yes sir, Wilson thought as he studied the crowd, a better bunch could not be brought together to defend this negro.
Wilson, standing there amid the crowd, looked fragile, almost childlike in his grey and white striped shirt which might have fit his frame at one time, but now just swallowed it. He wore his bright red bow tie and matching suspenders and looked so much like his father had that night he finally took Wilson out on one of his errands. They had come out to these very same courthouse steps which stood there in front of Wilson, and there was a crowd, but it was much smaller than the one now. And Wilson remembered his father standing next to him, as the man hung on an apparatus made especially for that purpose. Wilson had always found it funny that he could remember little details about the boy they hung that night, like the large scar behind his left ear, or the darker black skin he had under his left breast, but he never could remember what that boy had done to get himself hung. He thought, and he tested his 81-year-old memory one more time, but finally his concentration disintegrated into the sea of cadenced calls around him:
“FREE…FREE…FREE!”
“FREE THE METER KING,” the mobbed shouted in unison.
“Meter King,” Wilson scoffed.
He looked over at Chester, who as usual wore that blank expression which always left Wilson wondering if he had had a stroke. Chester had been born in Boston. Maybe they just looked that way, Wilson thought.
He tapped Chester’s shoulder and made a motion with his hand for Chester to follow him. However, when he saw that Sheriff Ruford had come out, Wilson stopped and Chester followed his cue once again. Ruford held his megaphone up to his mouth, screeched something metallic and waited for the crowd’s attention. After a couple more screeching false starts, Ruford finally began.
“Listen up! Listen up! I’m going to be brief. This man who’s the reason for all this; well, his name is James Applewhite, but most of you folks probably know him better as Twinkle-Toes. Well, you see, he ain’t the upstanding citizen that some of ya’ll think he is.” Ruford paused for effect, letting the thought sink in.
“Yep. This boy here has been convicted of two counts of sexual assault of a minor up there in Tallapoosa County.”
The crowd quieted. It appeared that no one in the mass had done their research, at least not well enough to dig up that fact. Wilson watched as almost instantaneously the throng deflated around him. Their rumbles lifted up but Ruford again quieted them with his deep, beckoning voice.
“Now! Now! He’s been on parole for 18 months and has decided to come into our town and set himself up a life. And that’s all fine and well as long as he follows our laws but…”
This time, Ruford’s pause was filled with hoots and hollers.
“Now, I’m not saying that he’s a bad guy. Frankly, I think he’s an alright fellar, but I still have a job to do and I gotta keep him in jail for the time being.”
With his words said, Ruford turned and his steel-straight posture, which won him the last election showed and he slowly, almost marching, made his way back inside the courthouse.
“That’s bullshit,” someone said. And another turned and asked, “This is the old south. What do you expect?” Their murmurs rose to a threatening buzz but the peaceful hippies and the church women weren’t looking for trouble.
“This is still the old south,” Wilson said under his breath, and he walked back against the crowd, leaving Chester standing there alone in a group of almost 10,000.
Well, sixty days passed there in Meredith and James Applewhite remained in a jail cell there in the back of the courthouse. The freaks, as Wilson thought of them, went on to the next outrage, leaving behind them loads of garbage and notions about justice, which, to the untrained eye seemed to have been left on the ground along with those pounds of trash.
After the words Sheriff Ruford addressed the crowd with on that Monday morning almost two months ago, all sympathy in the town died right along with the warmth and the color which fall had brought on. Winter came and the hushed voices in the street told the story of a town reverted, a small rural town gone back to ways which can only be described by their courthouse. It still stood with its back to the north. It was painted as white as ever.
Wilson and Chester hadn’t changed much in those two months, themselves, and on this particular day, Wilson was eating Martha’s famous fried green tomatoes when he spotted “Twinkle-Toes” coming down the courthouse steps.
“Look at that,” Wilson called, standing and parting the blinds to get a better look. “That’s that ‘ole boy now. What’s he doing?”
Chester and a couple of other men turned to see but none of them ventured to answer, so Wilson stepped outside into the cool southern winter. As Wilson stepped out onto the sidewalk, he saw many others doing the same. Morgan Watsley, from the barbershop, walked out with his hairpiece slanted down towards his eyes as if he had been napping in one of his chairs again, and Wilson could just make out Jim Erickson across the square, from Jim’s Hardware, carrying what looked to be a hammer in his hand. From all the businesses on the square, people came out to see this man, this myth, and watch; some came out to make sure their eyes hadn’t been deceived by the thin panel of glass which separated their sheltered lives from the outside world, while others, well, they simply followed the rest.
“Hey boy! Hey Twinkle-Toes! I’m talking to you,” Wilson hollered across the street, breaking the silence.
Mr. Applewhite just stood there, looking nowhere and at no one, wearing the same wrinkled blue and white checked suit he had gone to jail in, holding what looked like a small cotton bag off to his left side.
“Hey boy! You gonna be picking us some cotton this morning?”
Applewhite looked straight at Wilson, matching Wilson’s stare with one meaner and yet, softer still. He took two steps toward Wilson and jumped, doing a perfect pirouette, followed by a brisé volé. The whole crowd gasped and Wilson saw Jim drop his hammer and watched as the toupee fell from Morgan Watsley’s head.
“Can you believe this?” Wilson asked and no one answered.
As the men and women looked on, Applewhite went right on over to the parking meters and began inserting coins from his cotton bag, never once breaking from his incredible dance. As James jumped and moved gracefully from one meter to another; Wilson continued hurling obscenities at him.
Before long though, Sheriff Ruford emerged onto the steps of the courthouse with his megaphone, and even Wilson couldn’t help but stop and see what he had to say this time.
“Listen up! I am only going to say this once. Mr. Applewhite that is a crime which you are committing as I stand here watching you. You know what you’re doing and I can take you into custody, if I should choose. Now, for the rest of you, I’d like it if all of you just went back inside. Go on in there. Go on and finish your hair cuts and eat your lunches. There ain’t no show here. It seems that this here has just been a case of mistaken identity up in Tallapoosa County. This man; well this man here seems to be innocent if only he’d just follow the parking laws,”
The crowd around Wilson chuckled, upon hearing this joke a second time, and Wilson stood there unable to believe what he was hearing. That negro. That…That… Just then, he hissed “Nigger” as loud, if not louder than he thought possible. His neighbors and his parish members, some of whom he had known their entire lives, these people craned their necks, but they already knew who had said it. It was Wilson, with his narrow mind, living in the past. Yes, of course, they thought in unison, it was Wilson.
He saw their looks and tried to go back to his fried green tomatoes like Ruford had told them to do, but two men blocked his path.
“What? You all got a problem with Southern ideals all of a sudden?” Wilson screamed at the two men.
“No sir. We don’t have a problem with Southern ideals,” Chester said from behind him. “We just got a problem with your ideals. Now why don’t you get on out of here and take yourself back on home.”
Wilson didn’t know what to say. If he wasn’t welcome there at Martha’s he’d sure go on ahead and take his leave. He turned from his former friends and began to walk away when Chester called out after him, “And don’t be expecting me on your porch this Sunday, or any other Sunday for that matter. I got my own whiskey at home and I’d rather drink it there by myself.”
The men, sitting around Martha’s, laughed a quick laugh at Wilson’s expense before they walked back inside to get out of the chill, and Wilson, well, Wilson walked on out to his car where a freshly written forty dollar ticket sat underneath his driver-side wiper blade, just waiting for his wrinkled hands to grab.
______________________________________________
My name is Shane Stricker and I am currently working on an MFA at West Virginia University. I grew up in Sikeston, Missouri and spent a good deal of time over the summers down in Oxford, MS. I live here in Morgantown, WV with my dog, Boogie, and my fiance, Bizzy. Good beer (preferably Boulevard from Kansas City), baseball games, and reading and writing fiction hold my attention like nothing else.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
My E-book Gamble
The article below is not the usual Dew material - but it was interesting enough that I thought some of the up and coming writers that visit the Dew might have an interest in it. CJ West wrote a full length novel, put it up online and is giving it away. Apparently this has been a very successful endeavor for him as he's now selling his other 4 novels at a pretty good clip. The Dew wanted to share this fascinating "experiment" with you.
______________________________________________________________________
My E-book Gamble
Last fall I moderated the e-books panel at Bouchercon in San Francisco. I had dabbled in e-books before then, but my research for the panel convinced me to dive into the fray. My change of heart began when I went to my local Barnes & Noble and shopped for books from the six authors on my panel. Only one of those authors was represented on the shelves.
The authors were all multi-published and had careers spanning several books each. All seven of us (including me) had books available for download in seconds. Getting our books from B&N would take days at best. It was then I understood that e-books level the playing field for lesser-known authors and give us an inexpensive way to reach readers globally.
My books were already available at most e-book stores thanks to Amazon and Smashwords, but they weren’t selling because readers didn’t know about them. Inspired by friends who had been selling very well on Kindle and Nook, I engaged readers on forums and boosted my sales.
Before Christmas I decided that the key to selling more books was to get more readers to read my books. Sounds like a catch-22, but one of the great things about e-books is that they don’t require the expense of printing and shipping. When Amazon created the Kindle, they gave authors a platform to deliver their books. That platform works whether the customer is buying the book from Amazon or receiving it from the author’s website free.
There are now millions of readers walking around with Kindles and my goal is to give my latest book, THE END OF MARKING TIME to as many of them as I can. Many industry experts say that giving away books is a bad idea, but so far my results have been encouraging.
Since the week before Christmas I have given away over 2,500 copies of THE END OF MARKING TIME. I encourage readers to forward the book to anyone they like. Some have sent it to 20 or more readers. Some have made the book available for download and shared hundreds of copies.
Sounds crazy, but it is working. I have received over 100 reviews on Amazon which means people are reading and enjoying the book. Even more surprising, THE END OF MARKING TIME is my bestselling book. Hard to believe because it is free from my website, but after I began offering the book free my sales multiplied six fold. Sales for my other books are increasing as well, totaling just shy of 2,000 e-book sales this January alone.
So far my gamble is paying off. You can help me by visiting www.22wb.com, requesting your free copy of THE END OF MARKING TIME, and sharing it with your friends!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CJ West is the author of 5 thrillers. His latest, The End of Marking Time has been called “a modern 1984 meets Prison Break.” CJ interviews thriller authors monthly on Blog Talk Radio and hosts The Indie Author Book Group. His first novel, Sin & Vengeance is in development for feature film by Beantown Productions, LLC. (http://www.sinandvengeance.com)
The End of Marking Time on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/End-Marking-Time-ebook/dp/B003P9XAXW/
Sin & Vengeance on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Sin-Vengeance-Randy-Black-ebook/dp/B0038BRRWM/
______________________________________________________________________
My E-book Gamble
Last fall I moderated the e-books panel at Bouchercon in San Francisco. I had dabbled in e-books before then, but my research for the panel convinced me to dive into the fray. My change of heart began when I went to my local Barnes & Noble and shopped for books from the six authors on my panel. Only one of those authors was represented on the shelves.
The authors were all multi-published and had careers spanning several books each. All seven of us (including me) had books available for download in seconds. Getting our books from B&N would take days at best. It was then I understood that e-books level the playing field for lesser-known authors and give us an inexpensive way to reach readers globally. My books were already available at most e-book stores thanks to Amazon and Smashwords, but they weren’t selling because readers didn’t know about them. Inspired by friends who had been selling very well on Kindle and Nook, I engaged readers on forums and boosted my sales.
Before Christmas I decided that the key to selling more books was to get more readers to read my books. Sounds like a catch-22, but one of the great things about e-books is that they don’t require the expense of printing and shipping. When Amazon created the Kindle, they gave authors a platform to deliver their books. That platform works whether the customer is buying the book from Amazon or receiving it from the author’s website free.
There are now millions of readers walking around with Kindles and my goal is to give my latest book, THE END OF MARKING TIME to as many of them as I can. Many industry experts say that giving away books is a bad idea, but so far my results have been encouraging.
Since the week before Christmas I have given away over 2,500 copies of THE END OF MARKING TIME. I encourage readers to forward the book to anyone they like. Some have sent it to 20 or more readers. Some have made the book available for download and shared hundreds of copies.
Sounds crazy, but it is working. I have received over 100 reviews on Amazon which means people are reading and enjoying the book. Even more surprising, THE END OF MARKING TIME is my bestselling book. Hard to believe because it is free from my website, but after I began offering the book free my sales multiplied six fold. Sales for my other books are increasing as well, totaling just shy of 2,000 e-book sales this January alone.
So far my gamble is paying off. You can help me by visiting www.22wb.com, requesting your free copy of THE END OF MARKING TIME, and sharing it with your friends!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CJ West is the author of 5 thrillers. His latest, The End of Marking Time has been called “a modern 1984 meets Prison Break.” CJ interviews thriller authors monthly on Blog Talk Radio and hosts The Indie Author Book Group. His first novel, Sin & Vengeance is in development for feature film by Beantown Productions, LLC. (http://www.sinandvengeance.com)
The End of Marking Time on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/End-Marking-Time-ebook/dp/B003P9XAXW/
Sin & Vengeance on Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Sin-Vengeance-Randy-Black-ebook/dp/B0038BRRWM/
Sunday, May 22, 2011
A Return to the Wood
A Return to the Wood
(excerpt from Still Life, a work in progress)
The stillness is strange to a stranger. As the rolling hills, hollers, and creek beds assault your senses with a natural cacophony, you find yourself instead engulfed in a flood of nothingness. For long stretches only the crack of a tree branch yawning another ten years of solitude. A black racer sounding like an old page turning, as it slides a head quietly beneath more moldy leaves. The scurry of raccoon and 'possom across open paths. None echo for long. No part of their world records such things, but simply allows an ebb so the small can make their point, before swaying tidelike back to the void.
Stare for a good year or two at this angelic hub, your eye eventually plumbs toward the horizon, to the tops of the trees, which are everywhere. Caught, it’s a cloister drawn from inside your own contentment, away from the irritated tempo of the city. Where one tree ends and another begins is unimportant, even to the part which normally seeks such discretion. Instead it gives in to the atomic clarity willing to let all the life there, both literal and imagined, take up residence inside itself. Before long you see the tables have turned. The healthy pulse from the soil to the sky reveals you have been deluding yourself. The beauty here has you out-lifed. Here you are nearer the leaf than the slug burgeoning beneath it. Standing still, you are the strange-thoughted rock beside the creek bed. What use are you in this steady organism? Lose it while walking in a deep, breathing viscera. Is this what young Buddhist monks give up with the million OMMMs designed to pickpocket their desire and concrete delusion? The more I take in, the stranger I seem to it all, the harder it is to make sense of my very human existence. Taxes, profit and loss. Even your love life becomes the subject of nonsense.
In contrast to these walks some 25 years ago, I find my attention split between the natural beauty and the faster thoughts that seem entirely out of place. There is a constant reverberation among the million things we feel we must do and the colors of the countryside. The hues lend themselves to easy interpretation. According to mood, rusts and auburns are sad examples of the rigors of age, the decay of the natural and infiltrating the best of us without apology. Other times they reach out as gold from the floor of the glen, Goethe’s gilded world of pride and awe, an Ars Poetica scribed by the farmer hands of God. Hundreds of subtle shades impress on the heart how the speechless universe can be at once infinitely complex and but the utterance of a single call note. To some it’s the science of genus and ecosphere. To another, a wellspring of emotion made flesh—Whitman’s Grass, Frost’s mossy grandeur. Oak instead of Lindens lining the pages of Schiller. A fallen tree becomes a heart-broken arbor imposed on the sorrows of young Werther. The rectangular sky above reflects a Potomac ideal—a turquoise blue adorned with insular clouds from the space directly above and expanding a mile or so in all directions. It has somehow become this -- perfect water suspended above you, reflecting the slow ripple of eternity.
(excerpt from Still Life, a work in progress)
The stillness is strange to a stranger. As the rolling hills, hollers, and creek beds assault your senses with a natural cacophony, you find yourself instead engulfed in a flood of nothingness. For long stretches only the crack of a tree branch yawning another ten years of solitude. A black racer sounding like an old page turning, as it slides a head quietly beneath more moldy leaves. The scurry of raccoon and 'possom across open paths. None echo for long. No part of their world records such things, but simply allows an ebb so the small can make their point, before swaying tidelike back to the void.
Stare for a good year or two at this angelic hub, your eye eventually plumbs toward the horizon, to the tops of the trees, which are everywhere. Caught, it’s a cloister drawn from inside your own contentment, away from the irritated tempo of the city. Where one tree ends and another begins is unimportant, even to the part which normally seeks such discretion. Instead it gives in to the atomic clarity willing to let all the life there, both literal and imagined, take up residence inside itself. Before long you see the tables have turned. The healthy pulse from the soil to the sky reveals you have been deluding yourself. The beauty here has you out-lifed. Here you are nearer the leaf than the slug burgeoning beneath it. Standing still, you are the strange-thoughted rock beside the creek bed. What use are you in this steady organism? Lose it while walking in a deep, breathing viscera. Is this what young Buddhist monks give up with the million OMMMs designed to pickpocket their desire and concrete delusion? The more I take in, the stranger I seem to it all, the harder it is to make sense of my very human existence. Taxes, profit and loss. Even your love life becomes the subject of nonsense.
In contrast to these walks some 25 years ago, I find my attention split between the natural beauty and the faster thoughts that seem entirely out of place. There is a constant reverberation among the million things we feel we must do and the colors of the countryside. The hues lend themselves to easy interpretation. According to mood, rusts and auburns are sad examples of the rigors of age, the decay of the natural and infiltrating the best of us without apology. Other times they reach out as gold from the floor of the glen, Goethe’s gilded world of pride and awe, an Ars Poetica scribed by the farmer hands of God. Hundreds of subtle shades impress on the heart how the speechless universe can be at once infinitely complex and but the utterance of a single call note. To some it’s the science of genus and ecosphere. To another, a wellspring of emotion made flesh—Whitman’s Grass, Frost’s mossy grandeur. Oak instead of Lindens lining the pages of Schiller. A fallen tree becomes a heart-broken arbor imposed on the sorrows of young Werther. The rectangular sky above reflects a Potomac ideal—a turquoise blue adorned with insular clouds from the space directly above and expanding a mile or so in all directions. It has somehow become this -- perfect water suspended above you, reflecting the slow ripple of eternity.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Til Deaf Do Us Part
Til Deaf Do Us Part
It was quiet...too quiet. That could only mean that my hearing aid had fallen out again. It didn't fit right, and I kept putting off getting it fixed. I rubbed my eyes and slid out of the recliner onto the floor. My basketball-damaged knees popped as I did. “Ain't it fun getting old, Josh?” I talked to myself a lot since Agnes passed. I reached under the chair and disturbed a family of dust bunnies, but didn't find what I was looking for. I did retrieve a button, three dimes and two stale pieces of popcorn. That wouldn't have happened when Agnes was doing the cleaning. It wasn't until I stood and looked across the room that I noticed the overturned lamp.
“Frankie, did you jump up on the bookshelf, again?” I'd fallen asleep in the upstairs sitting room while watching the Mets humiliate the Yankees. The Boys from the Bronx would get even tomorrow. The room had been Becky's until she left for college. Agnes had converted it into a TV/sitting/sewing area so we wouldn't have to go up and down the stairs as much.
“Frankie? Come here, boy.” Fearless Frankie the Mexican Marauder. There wasn't much to him, but his cacophonous yelps let me know when anyone was around the house. He could have sounded an alarm while I slept; but with one ear shot and the other just about worthless without the hearing aid, I might not have heard him.
I skimmed the floor one more time looking for that dang hearing aid. “How come things never fall where you can see them?” I gave up and inched my way toward the door.
A flash of light coming from downstairs assaulted my eyes as I stepped into the hallway. I raised a hand to my forehead and looked through the railing into the living room. Was it a burglar? Becky worried about me living alone. I told her I didn't have anything a thief would want. Maybe I was wrong.
I twisted to the left so my better ear faced downstairs. I heard faint sounds coming from the kitchen. Someone must have broken the window to the back door. Muted voices wafted up the stairs. I hurried back into the sitting room as fast as my arthritic knees allowed, lifted the receiver off the phone, and dialed 911.
“Hello? Operator? Is anyone there? I need help.” I laid the phone on the nightstand and took up a position behind the door, glad for a change that I'd lost that fifty pounds. I wasn't sure what to do. Could I make it to the front door undetected? What would the intruders do if I saw their faces? Was I better off hiding in a closet until they left?
Another flash moved across the foyer and into the dining room. Where was Frankie? Was he hurt? Dead? Poisoned? Was he waiting for me to come save him? The voices moved closer.
I sat on the frayed carpet behind the door and pulled my knees toward my chest. Was I a fool for thinking I could fend for myself? Becky had asked me to stay with her and Jeff, but I didn't want to interfere in their lives. A nursing home wasn't an option for me, I couldn't stand being around all those old people. Besides, I'd lived in this house for sixty-two years. I was comfortable here.
I looked through the crack in the door and saw a shadow in the hall. It was moving away from me, which meant the intruder was coming my way. I crawled to the closet—the pain in my knees reminding me that a man in his eighties shouldn't be on all fours—, reached for the handle and opened the door, hoping it wouldn't make too much noise. I moved into the closet and closed the door. Didn't I used to keep a baseball bat in here? I couldn't locate it in the dark. Had Agnes moved it?
After my eyes adjusted, I saw the light crawling under the door. I took a few breaths to slow my racing heart. I felt sweat roll off the top of my shaved head toward my eyes. The voices were close—one high, one low. A man and a woman? My own Bonnie and Clyde? Were they killers? Did they get their kicks out of intimidating old people?
I saw a shadow pass under the closet door. Had they heard me talking on the phone? I started to stand. My hand touched something hard. The bat. I grabbed it in my right hand and put my left on the door handle. Okay, Josh. Here's the plan. You're going to open the door, step into the room with the bat held in both hands over your head, and yell like you did the night you won the NCAA basketball championship. That'll scare 'em away. On the count of three. One. Two. Three.
“Dad? Are you all right? You were supposed to come over for dinner. Did you forget?”
I lowered the bat when I saw Becky and Jeff. Frankie was in Becky's arms, her fingers caressing his neck, my silver hearing aid dangling from his mouth. I felt the heat rush to the top of my head, my embarrassment on display. I didn't know what to say. I was afraid of what might come out. Instead, I leaned against the wall and laughed until my throat dried, and I started to cough.
___________________________________________
BIO
Jim discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His recent stories have appeared in Flashshot, A Twist of Noir, The Short Humour Site, Dew on the Kudzu, and others. Jim's Six Questions For blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.”
It was quiet...too quiet. That could only mean that my hearing aid had fallen out again. It didn't fit right, and I kept putting off getting it fixed. I rubbed my eyes and slid out of the recliner onto the floor. My basketball-damaged knees popped as I did. “Ain't it fun getting old, Josh?” I talked to myself a lot since Agnes passed. I reached under the chair and disturbed a family of dust bunnies, but didn't find what I was looking for. I did retrieve a button, three dimes and two stale pieces of popcorn. That wouldn't have happened when Agnes was doing the cleaning. It wasn't until I stood and looked across the room that I noticed the overturned lamp.
“Frankie, did you jump up on the bookshelf, again?” I'd fallen asleep in the upstairs sitting room while watching the Mets humiliate the Yankees. The Boys from the Bronx would get even tomorrow. The room had been Becky's until she left for college. Agnes had converted it into a TV/sitting/sewing area so we wouldn't have to go up and down the stairs as much.
“Frankie? Come here, boy.” Fearless Frankie the Mexican Marauder. There wasn't much to him, but his cacophonous yelps let me know when anyone was around the house. He could have sounded an alarm while I slept; but with one ear shot and the other just about worthless without the hearing aid, I might not have heard him.
I skimmed the floor one more time looking for that dang hearing aid. “How come things never fall where you can see them?” I gave up and inched my way toward the door.
A flash of light coming from downstairs assaulted my eyes as I stepped into the hallway. I raised a hand to my forehead and looked through the railing into the living room. Was it a burglar? Becky worried about me living alone. I told her I didn't have anything a thief would want. Maybe I was wrong.
I twisted to the left so my better ear faced downstairs. I heard faint sounds coming from the kitchen. Someone must have broken the window to the back door. Muted voices wafted up the stairs. I hurried back into the sitting room as fast as my arthritic knees allowed, lifted the receiver off the phone, and dialed 911.
“Hello? Operator? Is anyone there? I need help.” I laid the phone on the nightstand and took up a position behind the door, glad for a change that I'd lost that fifty pounds. I wasn't sure what to do. Could I make it to the front door undetected? What would the intruders do if I saw their faces? Was I better off hiding in a closet until they left?
Another flash moved across the foyer and into the dining room. Where was Frankie? Was he hurt? Dead? Poisoned? Was he waiting for me to come save him? The voices moved closer.
I sat on the frayed carpet behind the door and pulled my knees toward my chest. Was I a fool for thinking I could fend for myself? Becky had asked me to stay with her and Jeff, but I didn't want to interfere in their lives. A nursing home wasn't an option for me, I couldn't stand being around all those old people. Besides, I'd lived in this house for sixty-two years. I was comfortable here.
I looked through the crack in the door and saw a shadow in the hall. It was moving away from me, which meant the intruder was coming my way. I crawled to the closet—the pain in my knees reminding me that a man in his eighties shouldn't be on all fours—, reached for the handle and opened the door, hoping it wouldn't make too much noise. I moved into the closet and closed the door. Didn't I used to keep a baseball bat in here? I couldn't locate it in the dark. Had Agnes moved it?
After my eyes adjusted, I saw the light crawling under the door. I took a few breaths to slow my racing heart. I felt sweat roll off the top of my shaved head toward my eyes. The voices were close—one high, one low. A man and a woman? My own Bonnie and Clyde? Were they killers? Did they get their kicks out of intimidating old people?
I saw a shadow pass under the closet door. Had they heard me talking on the phone? I started to stand. My hand touched something hard. The bat. I grabbed it in my right hand and put my left on the door handle. Okay, Josh. Here's the plan. You're going to open the door, step into the room with the bat held in both hands over your head, and yell like you did the night you won the NCAA basketball championship. That'll scare 'em away. On the count of three. One. Two. Three.
“Dad? Are you all right? You were supposed to come over for dinner. Did you forget?”
I lowered the bat when I saw Becky and Jeff. Frankie was in Becky's arms, her fingers caressing his neck, my silver hearing aid dangling from his mouth. I felt the heat rush to the top of my head, my embarrassment on display. I didn't know what to say. I was afraid of what might come out. Instead, I leaned against the wall and laughed until my throat dried, and I started to cough.
___________________________________________
BIO
Jim discovered flash fiction in 2007, and he’s read, written, studied, and agonized over the form since. His recent stories have appeared in Flashshot, A Twist of Noir, The Short Humour Site, Dew on the Kudzu, and others. Jim's Six Questions For blog (http://sixquestionsfor.blogspot.com/) provides editors and publishers a place to “tell it like it is.”
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Amy's Men!
Amy's Men!
By Len Hazell
Amy woke up with the scream sticking in the back of her throat.
Instead, she whimpered almost tacitly and bit down hard on her lip.
She had been dreaming that she was in bed with David and that she could hear him snoring beside her, in that same soft, persistent irritating manner that he always did, before…
Then she had woken and heard it, in reality, beside her, soft, persistent irritating and for a moment she knew, she simply knew David had come back.
“You’re dead.” The words clambered weakly out of the back of her arid throat and floated like dust in to the morbid night air.
Andrew moved in his sleep, grunted and stopped snoring. He opened his bleary red eyes half way and gave her a lopsided, drool-ridden smile.
“Can’t sleep?” he croaked.
“Why were you doing that?” she demanded.
“Doing what?”
“Snoring like that?”
“I don’t snore.” He chuckled and turned his back on her, in moments he was silently asleep again.
Amy smoked a cigarette, her trembling fingers barely managing to manipulate the lighter and her gibbering lips tossing ash all over the bed.
“David is dead.” She assured herself, “I’m with Andrew now and David is dead. I know he is.”
She stubbed out the butt in the lead, crystal, bedroom ashtray and sank back in to the cool pillows.
Andrew snored again, David’s snore.
She threw herself out of bed without even thinking what it was she was doing, and collapsed, panting hard with her back against the plush wallpaper.
Small mewling noises escaped her glottis as she listened hard and her mind raced.
The first morning when she had caught Andrew parting his hair on the left and plastering it down with hair oil. She had demanded to know why and he had shrugged saying it suited him better, now he was a respectable married man.
Last week when he had arrived to breakfast sporting the beginnings of a Rhett Butler moustache and she had screamed at him to shave it off until he did.
The way he had started to use those aggravating little phrases like “that’s m’ girl” and “fine and dandy.”
And now this.
She began pushing herself backward across the carpet with her heels, heading for the bedroom door.
She had to face it, she knew she did, it was not possible but it was happening. David had come back; he was spiritually possessing Andrew, retaking his rightful place, and carrying on just as if nothing had happened.
Nevertheless, of course, something had happened, and eventually he was going to remember it and then what would he do?
David had never been violent, he had never raised a finger to her, he had not even had a bad temper; It was one of the things, the many things that had driven her mad about him. But now? Being dead for a year and a half could change people, she was certain of that and if he recalled the circumstances of his death.
Amy opened her eyes and found she was out on the landing. She got to her feet and ran in to the bathroom.
She poured ice-cold water in to the basin and splashed it in to her face until the sting told her she was fully awake.
Still that soft purring snore reached her from the bed and she slammed the bathroom door on it.
She faced her wild-eyed reflection in the bathroom cabinet mirror and stared hard in to her own eyes.
“He is dead.” She reiterated, but there he was snoring in her bed again.
The decision was quick and certain, just like the last time.
She fetched the garden hose from the shed and ran it from the boiler’s vent into the bedroom. Then she stuffed up the flu pipe of the boiler with a wet towel.
After assuring herself the bedroom windows were all firmly closed, she blocked up the gaps round the bedroom door with more towels.
Finally, she turned on the boiler and waited for the snoring to stop.
In the morning she would drag him in to the bath, run the water and then discover him an hour or so later.
Everyone said after David died that she should get a new boiler, dangerous stuff carbon monoxide. If only she had listened.
If only David had listened, “You can’t keep coming back like this darling,” she muttered. “You have got to get the message; it is over between us.”
________________________________________
Bio
Len Hazell is a writer, actor, performer and composer working in the UK.
He is 46 years old, a slave to his family and dogs and hopes one day to get a life.
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Walk of a Gracious Woman
The Walk of a Gracious Woman
by gina below
It would have been easier for her to lay it down and walk away, but she had never been a coward regardless of what life had thrown her way. She had always kept her dignity when there had been nothing else. When everything was falling apart around her it was the one thing she had held on to. She was the one who had to look at her reflection in the mirror every day and if she did not respect herself no one would. Some days though the grief was a great heavy load and on those days there was only one reason she managed at all, one reason alone that made her draw air into her lungs and heave her weary body up with the dawn and get on with one more day. But one reason is all there is needed sometimes and she would rise and thank God for that one thing and walk into the light of a new day.
There were things that had to be done, things that could not be left for others because there was no one else. Some days she would stumble and fall, but she would somehow manage to find her bearings again. She would catch her breath and pull herself up and dust herself off and hoist herself to her feet and continue on. Then the dusk would greet her and she knew she had made it through one more day. It was a day she could be proud of, another day she had faced with dignity and grace.
As the minutes turned into hours, and the hours would in turn become days, the days would roll into weeks, the weeks would meander into months, and the months would bring the seasons, and the seasons would bring with it the years. With the years a certain peace would follow as she in turn watched her one reason grow into more. She would find her reflection changed in her mirror now, but it was one she was satisfied with, one she had worked for, one she was not ashamed of. She could see she had made a difference, and maybe it only meant something to her but she had accomplished a life. A life she could be proud of, ever how small it was, and she in turn would pass it on.
She would pass it on to her one and only reason, the single thing that made her continue on, her children. Her only daughter would in turn carry on with the dignity and grace she had witnessed her own Mother never lack from. When times were hard she prayed, when times were impossible she prayed harder and every breaking dawn found her there even if it was a struggle just to be. And she in turn would try her very best to pass it on to her own daughters.
I suppose it is a dying art, one not sought out by the young women of today. It is not an easy task by any means, a rare accomplishment to say the least. But I was privileged to have seen such a thing, to have had it in my midst, to be touched by it. If anyone had ever had an excuse it would have been her, and her Mother before her. But as she had told me often “Just because you have an excuse does not give you an excuse”, and she would smile and go about her task at hand. You will miss it if you are not careful, like a soft breeze through the trees. Its beauty touches you so gently you are sometimes unaware until it is gone. But if you are very lucky as I have been, consider yourself especially blessed to have witnessed the walk of a gracious woman.
by gina below
It would have been easier for her to lay it down and walk away, but she had never been a coward regardless of what life had thrown her way. She had always kept her dignity when there had been nothing else. When everything was falling apart around her it was the one thing she had held on to. She was the one who had to look at her reflection in the mirror every day and if she did not respect herself no one would. Some days though the grief was a great heavy load and on those days there was only one reason she managed at all, one reason alone that made her draw air into her lungs and heave her weary body up with the dawn and get on with one more day. But one reason is all there is needed sometimes and she would rise and thank God for that one thing and walk into the light of a new day.
There were things that had to be done, things that could not be left for others because there was no one else. Some days she would stumble and fall, but she would somehow manage to find her bearings again. She would catch her breath and pull herself up and dust herself off and hoist herself to her feet and continue on. Then the dusk would greet her and she knew she had made it through one more day. It was a day she could be proud of, another day she had faced with dignity and grace.
As the minutes turned into hours, and the hours would in turn become days, the days would roll into weeks, the weeks would meander into months, and the months would bring the seasons, and the seasons would bring with it the years. With the years a certain peace would follow as she in turn watched her one reason grow into more. She would find her reflection changed in her mirror now, but it was one she was satisfied with, one she had worked for, one she was not ashamed of. She could see she had made a difference, and maybe it only meant something to her but she had accomplished a life. A life she could be proud of, ever how small it was, and she in turn would pass it on.
She would pass it on to her one and only reason, the single thing that made her continue on, her children. Her only daughter would in turn carry on with the dignity and grace she had witnessed her own Mother never lack from. When times were hard she prayed, when times were impossible she prayed harder and every breaking dawn found her there even if it was a struggle just to be. And she in turn would try her very best to pass it on to her own daughters.
I suppose it is a dying art, one not sought out by the young women of today. It is not an easy task by any means, a rare accomplishment to say the least. But I was privileged to have seen such a thing, to have had it in my midst, to be touched by it. If anyone had ever had an excuse it would have been her, and her Mother before her. But as she had told me often “Just because you have an excuse does not give you an excuse”, and she would smile and go about her task at hand. You will miss it if you are not careful, like a soft breeze through the trees. Its beauty touches you so gently you are sometimes unaware until it is gone. But if you are very lucky as I have been, consider yourself especially blessed to have witnessed the walk of a gracious woman.
Friday, May 13, 2011
UNDERGROUND
UNDERGROUND
You were new in this neighborhood. You had not come to live here really. You had come to work as a brickie in a building site belonging to a nouveau riche who was kind enough to allow you and your co-workers – three of you – stay in the boys’ quarters of his mansion. The dark of night was setting in, and you had returned from the site and decided to take a walk down the street. You would not compare where you came from with this neighborhood because the street here was neat, like that of Mecca, as your people would
say. The beautiful houses here had well-manicured flowers in their front and also left spaces between each other. The opposite was the case where you came from. The dirty street was a picture of penury. The decrepit buildings were crammed together. You had labeled the area a refugee camp because the room occupancy ratio was high, like seven or eight or nine people in a room not as big as the kitchen of the nouveau riche. In the dry season you cried; in the rainy season you wept. In the former you would not stay in your room in the noon time. It was always hot. The night brought no relief too. The walls opened their cavity and emitted heat. You would see father, mother and their children spread-eagled on mats outside till one or two a.m. You used the toilet with your organs of sight and smell closed because the place emitted a suffocating stench that you would not go in there without covering your nose and mouth, except if you wanted to vomit. And in the latter season you waded through pools of water to get to your house because water had filled up the whole area. As dark clouds gathered in the sky, you heard the frantic voice of Mama Tutu, calling out to her children to return home. She knew it was ominous. With her children, she quickly began to pack their things–table, chairs, clothes, mattress–to one side of the room. At the grumbling of thunder, she hurried them up. She took a bucket and placed it directly to the spot where the roof was leaking. The spot could be two or three in the room. You could not stop a rainstorm from unleashing its fury on houses it had chosen to. You could only pray it did not spread the net of its fury to yours. You dared not close your eyes as the rain pelted down on the roof of your house. You suffered palpitation with every strike of lightning and thunder. You knew the havoc the twins could cause. You had cause to thank God if you still had your roof intact after the rain had stopped. But it was not unusual to see neighbors whose roofs had been blown away ruing their losses. It was not unusual to see a side of a house slid down afterward; it was not laughable to see rooms turned a swimming pool. These were typical of the place you came from, where life was inhumane and short.
You walked further down the street and a storey building, of which the ground floor occupied some shops, attracted you. There was a neon sign blinking in front which read, Welcome to Corporate Barber. You decided to see what the inside of Corporate Barber looked like. You allowed the oncoming vehicles to race past before crossing diagonally to the other side and started for the barber’s shop, walking past two ladies who were engrossed in a talk. You thought they were gossiping because you overheard one of the ladies saying, Do you even think he is serious at all? You slid the tinted glass door open and the cold air from the air conditioner welcomed you, wafting into your mouth. You swallowed it. You had seen eyes turn to you. The barber, a young man not as old as you, asked if you wanted to have your hair cut. You nodded yes and ran your hand through your hair, taking a seat. You had your hair cut about ten days ago and you never used to having it barbed until after a month, at least. You had nodded yes to save yourself from the imminent embarrassment of saying no. Or what would you say you had come to do if not barbing? Who would you say you had come to check? The TV was on. A movie was being aired on a cable channel. You began to watch the movie. You never bothered to ask the title from the two beside you. Now it was a basketball scene inside a Sports Arena. There was a frenzied crowd from the floor to ceiling. The crowd was cheering and chanting. Ecstatic. There was a girl stealing the show, exploding on the branded court. She was playing for the side in red, the home team. She dribbled down the opposition arc and threw a two pointer. Basket. The spectators went frenzy. The camera closed up on a woman who was shouting, Sally, that’s my girl! She must be her mother, you thought. The buzzer sounded. End of second quarter. The home team carried a 12 point lead into the locker room. The crowd was still raucous. A man in a blue jacket signaled to another who was sitting on the same row with Sally’s mother. You could see their mien suggested sinister intention. They both exited the arena. And no sooner had they exited when explosion rocked the whole place. The duo besides you screamed. The one on the barbing chair made to turn his head to the TV. The barber held his head. In the next scene you saw Sally standing in front of the rubbles that the arena had become, her right arm in a cast. She was weeping. You wondered how she managed to escape.
There was a door directly facing the sliding door. You had thought it was the door to the toilet. You realized how wrong you were when a girl– in her twenties–came out the door. If the room was a toilet, the girl would not have stayed in there that long. The girl’s looks was stunning, even a blind man would see it. You instantly developed a tug of attraction for her. She sat on a chair beside the barbing chair, her back to you. But you could see her eyes in the mirror as she was combing her hair. The barber announced it was your turn. And as you sat on the barbing chair, he asked for your clipper. It was strange to your ears: a barber asking a customer for his personal clipper. He told you that his customers did come along with their clippers. You glanced back and saw the other man holding his bag of clipper. Where you came from it was not like this. Bature would use the same clipper, the one you had known with him for long, on all heads. He would only clean the blade with petrol after each cut to save you from contracting HIV. Bature’s small shop was a wooden shop sitting precariously on a gutter. Though the shop looked better off than its neighbors that are mostly kiosks of petty trade, it had suffered attack from rainstorms too. Bature would use any available plank to repair the damaged parts. There had been graffiti of a barber barbing the hair of a man on the front wall of the shop before it was damaged. A rainstorm had brought it down overnight. You had all gathered at the wreckage in the morning to sympathize with Bature because news had spread round that rainstorm had brought his shop down like the Berlin wall. Bature would only mumble a reply like a bereaved when consoled. Of course he was bereaved because in your neighborhood there were two types of bereavement: bereavement of a loved one and that of means of livelihood. There was no job the people in your area could not do. You were an electrician on Monday; on Tuesday you were a bricklayer; on Wednesday you became a mechanic or something else, depending on what was available to relief your aching pocket. Poverty had forced you to become all things. You had all turned carpenters on the day to help Bature repair his shop. Even those who did come early in the morning to a Mallam’s kiosk nearby to drink paraga had joined you. When you finished putting the shop back on its feet, the graffiti was no more. A part of the drawings was now the window on the right side of the shop. A large portion had become the floor of the shop.
You had felt embarrassed by your lack of a clipper. Maybe if the girl was not here, you would not have. You knew she was paying attention, though she did as if she was unmindful of you. You were proved right when she told you to come back with your clipper the next day. You left the shop and began your walk back to your abode. Your noveau riche had warned you not to stay beyond ten p.m. outside. You had not walked quite a distance when a hand waved to you from a car that sped past you. It was the girl’s. She was the one driving. She had another person on the offside seat. But you could not make out the sex of the person. You thought the girl would tell him or her that you came to Corporate Barbers without a clipper and both would laugh derisively, making a mockery of you.
You had bought a new clipper when you returned to the shop the evening of the following Saturday. It was the first time you would have a personal clipper. Before, you had seen no reason to own one despite the noise about HIV and the danger of contracting this dreaded disease by sharing unsterilized instrument with others. You had thought you were secured with petrol. Whenever you went to Bature barber, you would tell him to rinse the teeth of his clipper in the petrol thoroughly before using it on your head.
You would warn him not to cut your flesh. You bought this clipper not because you really loved to. It pained you to spend your money on something that was not that necessary. You could have used the money to have a swell time. You knew it was enough to buy a bottle of your favorite beer for six days. That had become the opportunity cost of salvaging your pride at Corporate Barbers. When you got there that Saturday evening, you met the barber cutting the hair of–a Korean or Japanese? You were not sure; moreover, you cared less to know if he was from Seoul or Pyongyang or Tokyo.
His face had told you he was from Asia. He could be a Bank Ki Moon or a Jong Tae-Se or a Junichi Inamoto. The TV was on. It was a terrestrial channel this time. A soccer match between your country and her perennial West Africa rival was being shown. It was not a live match. It had been played some months back. It was the first semi-final of the 24th Orange African Cup of Nations hosted by a country known for its oil and guerrillas. Your country had played a crucial role in the independence of the tournament host. Your country and the United States foreign relations had gone awry in the 70s over the tournament host because Lagos took side with the MPLA faction as against the FNLA/UNITA alliance supported by Washington. That was when the economy of your country was still strong, when your country was still a lodestar in the firmament of nations. The match was not one you loved to watch again because your team lost by a lone goal. The result had made you sad, and you had afterwards joined the legion of soccer fans calling for the head of the national coach. You had roared he was not technically sound to tinker the team. You had howled his knowledge of the game was as obsolete as the house in your area. But how much of the game did you really know? You picked up a glossy fashion and lifestyle magazine and began to flip through.
You saw an unusual hair cut on a page and showed it to the barber and asked if he could create the style. He chuckled and asked if you were ready to part with extra money. Just then it dawned on you to check the price list. Your brow flew upward in surprise when you read the price for adult cut. It was thrice that of Bature’s. You were to pay for the coolness of the air conditioner you had been enjoying, so you thought. It was a chicken feed to the customers here. Now you were in a dire strait, but you did not want your ego deflated again. You did not want the folks here to look down on you. You were ready to protect your pride, ready to sacrifice all the money on you. All the while you had been expecting the girl you saw the last time to show up. About four people had gone in and out of the door. She was not among. You did not set your eyes on her till you left the shop. You were disappointed.
You were not doing your work well at the site because your thoughts was on the girl. Your co-workers asked if anything was wrong with you, but you only muttered something incoherent to yourself. They left you alone when they realized you were not ready to open up. Then you sighted her pull up her car, get off the car and come over to you. You hugged her, and she told you how much she had missed you. You were wondering how she knew your site when you realized that you were only being drenched by your fantasy rain again. The rain had a way of soaking you whenever your heart was in chaos. In your ghetto house it had soaked you with wealth as avalanche as that of Bill Gate on a number of occasions. You had closed your eyes and found yourself in a mansion classier than that of the nouveau riche. You had seen yourself chauffeur-driven from place to place and traveling to exotic places all over the world in your private jet. Sadly, there could be a knock on the door, or some children barging into your room to hide from themselves. You had opened your eyes to still find yourself in the world you thought you had left.
You ran your hand through your hair every time. You were eager to see it grow quickly. You wanted a reason to go to Corporate Barber again, a pretext to see the one that had filled your heart as water filled the earth. You knew it was not you again. You knew another James, once disembodied, had usurped the body of the real James. The former James would not go to Bature’s shop to have his hair cut until after a month he last did. He could even leave his hair bushy for some time more and told his friends that he wanted to make his hair old school. But the now James was different. He was eager to see clipper passed through his hair again.
You found yourself at the barber’s shop the following Saturday and sat comfortably with your clipper in your hand, waiting for your turn. You were not interested in the TV this time, the programme being aired, cable or terrestrial channel, because you were not here for it. You had come because of the girl. You thought if you did not see her in the end, your coming would amount to nothing. It would amount to a waste of money and time. Your anxiety heightened when another girl came out the door. Something was now pushing you to inquire about her. But again you thought that would amount to absurdity because you did not know her name. The barber had begun to cut your hair when the one you wanted came out. Your heart beat rapidly. Again, she sat on the chair next to you, combing her hair. When you glanced at her she smiled and remarked you had finally bought a clipper, and the barber told her that you bought it the previous week. You told her that you did not see her when you came here last week. You got to know that her name was Emilie when the barber mentioned it, telling you she had gone before you got here last week.
You were amazed by how Emilie had warmed to you quickly. It was as though you had known each other for long. You had begun to go to Corporate Barbers frequently because of her, and moved round the town together in her car. At this time you cared less about your fiancée anymore. You were erasing her name from your memory with each passing day. After all, you had quarreled four days before you left your ghetto for this place. She had insulted you without coming back to apologize because you did not give her the money she had demanded. And here you were with another girl who, instead of spending money on her, was the one spending her money on you, without sparring a dime. You thought by the time you solidified your relationship with Emilie, no amount of plea would make you reconsider your over-demanding ghetto girl.
On a Saturday evening you were in an upscale restaurant at Victoria Island. Two days before, you had gone to a newly-opened shopping mall where you bought some clothes in one of the boutiques. She had paid for those clothes. You were in the restaurant with a set of the clothes you had bought on: a kagol cap, white polo shirt and blue jeans pant. She wore a cream top over off white harem pant with a brown belt around her waist. Her gold chandelier earrings dangled like a pendulum as she moved her head, the hair of which she wore in braids. You were seated at a table (the tables were draped with purple covers) in a corner in the fairly crowded restaurant. There were hum of voices and laughter all about. She ordered shrimp puffs and cheese snacks (what she called finger foods) with a cocktail of fruit juice as an appetizer. The appetizer was strange to your tongue, because it was the first time you would eat it. Even going to a restaurant like this was alien to you because you had only known going to buka to devour fufu or gaari, with egusi soup, plucking a big morsel and sending it down your throat. Shortly afterwards, she ordered for the main menu–fried rice and salad with grilled chicken and a burgundy wine, which you also drank for the first time. While you sipped your third glass of wine, she leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, her brown wooden bangles dropping down her hands. She regarded you warmly. You held her hands, looking into her eyes. You thought everything about her make up–brow liner, powder, mascara, and lip gloss–was perfect. She said she wanted you to stop working as a brickie, that the job did not befit your status. You told her you would not hesitate to drop the job if you found a better one. You had learned bricklaying when you could not secure a white-collar job after you graduated from a polytechnic. She told you she had talked to a man who was ready to help you get a better job, a highly lucrative one.
You were fizzing with excitement as you both headed for Corporate Barbers two days later. You wanted to take a seat in the shop when she told you to follow her in. And for the first time you went through the curious door. She led you down a hallway and turned to the right before descending a staircase to an underground. You would never think there was another world here. It reminded you of how the former Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein hid in an underground for many months before he was captured by the U.S. forces. You found yourself in a large room. There was a mini bar (stocked with a range of drinks) to the right and game area to the left. Three young men were playing snooker. She introduced you to them. The first was of average height; the second was taller but slender. The third, wearing a pair of glasses, bent over the snooker board and pointed his cue to a white ball, squinting his eyes behind his glasses. He hit the white ball against a red ball. There was commotion on the table as balls clashed with one another.
Three red balls entered the pocket which was further away. He grunted excitedly, jabbing his fist in the air. He made another attempt, but the red balls would only dance round the table without entering any of the two pockets. The second man had taken his turn when Emilie told you to lounge on a chair at the bar and started towards another room. As you sat down, you took in the room well–the paintings on the walls, the stuffed animals, the upholstery, the bar, and games–and thought this place looked familiar. You were still trying to draw out the familiarity when Emilie emerged with a hip-hop star. Then the familiarity struck your mind. The award-winning artiste had used this place in one of his music videos. He had sat on the same chair you were sitting on, surrounded by a bevy of luscious girls. You glanced at the trio at the snooker board and recalled that two of them were in the video as well. You were pleased to meet the star that you had only been seeing on TV. You thought you had got something to boast of when you returned home, to further make your co-laborers envious of you.
She led you into an office and there you met a man they called Big Boss. He was the one you had actually come to see, the one to help you get the lucrative job Emilie had told you about. He was a tall man with a well-built frame and speck of premature grey beards. He was seated at his desk when you entered. He welcomed you and told you to go and sit on the couch. His voice was raspy. As you sat down you looked round the exquisite office and wondered the kind of job they did in this hidden place. You saw Big Boss gather up some papers on the desk, thump through them a moment and then shove them in a drawer. He came around the desk, holding a cigar and lighter. You gave Emilie a glance and she returned it with a reassuring look. When he came over to you he shook your hand again and lit the end of his cigar. He puffed his cigar and said Emilie had told him everything about you. He gave a smile that you thought was mischievous and asked what you would like to drink. Beer? Hennessy? Whiskey? You mentioned Hennessy because there had been much noise over it. All your hip hop artiste, including the one that had just left, now chanted it in their songs as though it was their gateway to fame and fortune. You had seen them sip it as water in their videos, and now you thought was your opportunity to drink it. Big Boss ordered for Hennessy on his cell phone, inhaled his cigar again and asked if you knew the name of the cigar. When you said no he told you it was a cordiba cigar from Havana and further asked you where Havana was. He was impressed when you answered ‘Cuba’ and said very shortly you would go there.
He flicked ash off the cigar onto the ashtray on the coffee table. You did not really understand what he just said or maybe you did not listen to him enough because you were actually looking towards the door, expecting someone to come in with the Hennessy. Another girl came in with the Hennessy and three glasses. She fixed a bronze-colored attachment. There was a crucifix pendant hanging on her neck, and her lips were so red (with the over-use of her gloss) as though the Jesus had been shedding blood on them. She set the wine on the coffee table and started for the door immediately. Big Boss eyes followed her out the door. He turned to you again. He picked up the wine and unscrewed the cork. The bottle hissed. He poured the wine into each glass. You took a tentative sip and watched him down his at one go. He poured another into his glass and told you he was ready to offer you a job. She met your glance with a smile. When he announced that your job was to travel to Europe and North America to deliver their goods to their customers, you went on your knees, expressing your deep appreciation. Why would you not go on your knees when you had thought you could never go to the white man’s land?
Now he had said you would be going there regularly. You thought you could not have got a lucrative job better than that. You thought your new lease of life had started. You thought you were now saying bye to ghetto life. He took a sip of his wine and regarded you over the rim of the glass and told you to sit down and take your wine. Though your joy would not allow your wine to appeal to you again, you still managed to sip a little. She sipped hers too and asked if you were ready to take the offer. You eyed her with a little contempt and wondered, Why did you come here in the first place? He added you did not even ask them the products you would be taking abroad. When you inquired, he replied the goods were white substance. White substance? You repeated. She glared at you and asked if you had never heard about it. You still did not understand and were trying to figure it out when he called out, Cocaine! Your glance moved from him to her and then to the trompe l’oeil on the wall opposite you. She came closer to you and took your left hand in both of hers, saying you could do it. He returned to his desk with his cigar between his lips and his glass in his hand. There was something menacing in his movement. When you bore your mind about the fear of being caught by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, they both assured you that you would never be caught, that they did their homework very well before setting out. She added that she had delivered the goods successfully on eight or nine occasions. That if she could, you could as well. With a steely determination in your face, you told them you were ready, ready to do anything that would bring fortunes your way, notwithstanding the risk involved. They both applauded your decision and determination and remarked that the next thing was to apply for your International Passport the next day. As she drove you back home, you thought a good name was better than gold and silver. You would rather die a brickie than living on mega bucks earned from peddling cocaine. You knew you would not do the job, but you had lied in order to deliver yourself from their hold. You would not join people soiling the image of your country. She said bye to you when you got off her car at your usual stop, hoping to see you the next day. But she would never see you again because you left for your ghetto early the next day.
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Brief Bio: Olusola Akinwale is a Nigerian writer and an award-winning essayist. His short stories have appeared in Author-me and Saraba Magazine. He currently lives in Lagos where he is working on a collection of short stories.
You were new in this neighborhood. You had not come to live here really. You had come to work as a brickie in a building site belonging to a nouveau riche who was kind enough to allow you and your co-workers – three of you – stay in the boys’ quarters of his mansion. The dark of night was setting in, and you had returned from the site and decided to take a walk down the street. You would not compare where you came from with this neighborhood because the street here was neat, like that of Mecca, as your people would
say. The beautiful houses here had well-manicured flowers in their front and also left spaces between each other. The opposite was the case where you came from. The dirty street was a picture of penury. The decrepit buildings were crammed together. You had labeled the area a refugee camp because the room occupancy ratio was high, like seven or eight or nine people in a room not as big as the kitchen of the nouveau riche. In the dry season you cried; in the rainy season you wept. In the former you would not stay in your room in the noon time. It was always hot. The night brought no relief too. The walls opened their cavity and emitted heat. You would see father, mother and their children spread-eagled on mats outside till one or two a.m. You used the toilet with your organs of sight and smell closed because the place emitted a suffocating stench that you would not go in there without covering your nose and mouth, except if you wanted to vomit. And in the latter season you waded through pools of water to get to your house because water had filled up the whole area. As dark clouds gathered in the sky, you heard the frantic voice of Mama Tutu, calling out to her children to return home. She knew it was ominous. With her children, she quickly began to pack their things–table, chairs, clothes, mattress–to one side of the room. At the grumbling of thunder, she hurried them up. She took a bucket and placed it directly to the spot where the roof was leaking. The spot could be two or three in the room. You could not stop a rainstorm from unleashing its fury on houses it had chosen to. You could only pray it did not spread the net of its fury to yours. You dared not close your eyes as the rain pelted down on the roof of your house. You suffered palpitation with every strike of lightning and thunder. You knew the havoc the twins could cause. You had cause to thank God if you still had your roof intact after the rain had stopped. But it was not unusual to see neighbors whose roofs had been blown away ruing their losses. It was not unusual to see a side of a house slid down afterward; it was not laughable to see rooms turned a swimming pool. These were typical of the place you came from, where life was inhumane and short.
You walked further down the street and a storey building, of which the ground floor occupied some shops, attracted you. There was a neon sign blinking in front which read, Welcome to Corporate Barber. You decided to see what the inside of Corporate Barber looked like. You allowed the oncoming vehicles to race past before crossing diagonally to the other side and started for the barber’s shop, walking past two ladies who were engrossed in a talk. You thought they were gossiping because you overheard one of the ladies saying, Do you even think he is serious at all? You slid the tinted glass door open and the cold air from the air conditioner welcomed you, wafting into your mouth. You swallowed it. You had seen eyes turn to you. The barber, a young man not as old as you, asked if you wanted to have your hair cut. You nodded yes and ran your hand through your hair, taking a seat. You had your hair cut about ten days ago and you never used to having it barbed until after a month, at least. You had nodded yes to save yourself from the imminent embarrassment of saying no. Or what would you say you had come to do if not barbing? Who would you say you had come to check? The TV was on. A movie was being aired on a cable channel. You began to watch the movie. You never bothered to ask the title from the two beside you. Now it was a basketball scene inside a Sports Arena. There was a frenzied crowd from the floor to ceiling. The crowd was cheering and chanting. Ecstatic. There was a girl stealing the show, exploding on the branded court. She was playing for the side in red, the home team. She dribbled down the opposition arc and threw a two pointer. Basket. The spectators went frenzy. The camera closed up on a woman who was shouting, Sally, that’s my girl! She must be her mother, you thought. The buzzer sounded. End of second quarter. The home team carried a 12 point lead into the locker room. The crowd was still raucous. A man in a blue jacket signaled to another who was sitting on the same row with Sally’s mother. You could see their mien suggested sinister intention. They both exited the arena. And no sooner had they exited when explosion rocked the whole place. The duo besides you screamed. The one on the barbing chair made to turn his head to the TV. The barber held his head. In the next scene you saw Sally standing in front of the rubbles that the arena had become, her right arm in a cast. She was weeping. You wondered how she managed to escape.
There was a door directly facing the sliding door. You had thought it was the door to the toilet. You realized how wrong you were when a girl– in her twenties–came out the door. If the room was a toilet, the girl would not have stayed in there that long. The girl’s looks was stunning, even a blind man would see it. You instantly developed a tug of attraction for her. She sat on a chair beside the barbing chair, her back to you. But you could see her eyes in the mirror as she was combing her hair. The barber announced it was your turn. And as you sat on the barbing chair, he asked for your clipper. It was strange to your ears: a barber asking a customer for his personal clipper. He told you that his customers did come along with their clippers. You glanced back and saw the other man holding his bag of clipper. Where you came from it was not like this. Bature would use the same clipper, the one you had known with him for long, on all heads. He would only clean the blade with petrol after each cut to save you from contracting HIV. Bature’s small shop was a wooden shop sitting precariously on a gutter. Though the shop looked better off than its neighbors that are mostly kiosks of petty trade, it had suffered attack from rainstorms too. Bature would use any available plank to repair the damaged parts. There had been graffiti of a barber barbing the hair of a man on the front wall of the shop before it was damaged. A rainstorm had brought it down overnight. You had all gathered at the wreckage in the morning to sympathize with Bature because news had spread round that rainstorm had brought his shop down like the Berlin wall. Bature would only mumble a reply like a bereaved when consoled. Of course he was bereaved because in your neighborhood there were two types of bereavement: bereavement of a loved one and that of means of livelihood. There was no job the people in your area could not do. You were an electrician on Monday; on Tuesday you were a bricklayer; on Wednesday you became a mechanic or something else, depending on what was available to relief your aching pocket. Poverty had forced you to become all things. You had all turned carpenters on the day to help Bature repair his shop. Even those who did come early in the morning to a Mallam’s kiosk nearby to drink paraga had joined you. When you finished putting the shop back on its feet, the graffiti was no more. A part of the drawings was now the window on the right side of the shop. A large portion had become the floor of the shop.
You had felt embarrassed by your lack of a clipper. Maybe if the girl was not here, you would not have. You knew she was paying attention, though she did as if she was unmindful of you. You were proved right when she told you to come back with your clipper the next day. You left the shop and began your walk back to your abode. Your noveau riche had warned you not to stay beyond ten p.m. outside. You had not walked quite a distance when a hand waved to you from a car that sped past you. It was the girl’s. She was the one driving. She had another person on the offside seat. But you could not make out the sex of the person. You thought the girl would tell him or her that you came to Corporate Barbers without a clipper and both would laugh derisively, making a mockery of you.
You had bought a new clipper when you returned to the shop the evening of the following Saturday. It was the first time you would have a personal clipper. Before, you had seen no reason to own one despite the noise about HIV and the danger of contracting this dreaded disease by sharing unsterilized instrument with others. You had thought you were secured with petrol. Whenever you went to Bature barber, you would tell him to rinse the teeth of his clipper in the petrol thoroughly before using it on your head.
You would warn him not to cut your flesh. You bought this clipper not because you really loved to. It pained you to spend your money on something that was not that necessary. You could have used the money to have a swell time. You knew it was enough to buy a bottle of your favorite beer for six days. That had become the opportunity cost of salvaging your pride at Corporate Barbers. When you got there that Saturday evening, you met the barber cutting the hair of–a Korean or Japanese? You were not sure; moreover, you cared less to know if he was from Seoul or Pyongyang or Tokyo.
His face had told you he was from Asia. He could be a Bank Ki Moon or a Jong Tae-Se or a Junichi Inamoto. The TV was on. It was a terrestrial channel this time. A soccer match between your country and her perennial West Africa rival was being shown. It was not a live match. It had been played some months back. It was the first semi-final of the 24th Orange African Cup of Nations hosted by a country known for its oil and guerrillas. Your country had played a crucial role in the independence of the tournament host. Your country and the United States foreign relations had gone awry in the 70s over the tournament host because Lagos took side with the MPLA faction as against the FNLA/UNITA alliance supported by Washington. That was when the economy of your country was still strong, when your country was still a lodestar in the firmament of nations. The match was not one you loved to watch again because your team lost by a lone goal. The result had made you sad, and you had afterwards joined the legion of soccer fans calling for the head of the national coach. You had roared he was not technically sound to tinker the team. You had howled his knowledge of the game was as obsolete as the house in your area. But how much of the game did you really know? You picked up a glossy fashion and lifestyle magazine and began to flip through.
You saw an unusual hair cut on a page and showed it to the barber and asked if he could create the style. He chuckled and asked if you were ready to part with extra money. Just then it dawned on you to check the price list. Your brow flew upward in surprise when you read the price for adult cut. It was thrice that of Bature’s. You were to pay for the coolness of the air conditioner you had been enjoying, so you thought. It was a chicken feed to the customers here. Now you were in a dire strait, but you did not want your ego deflated again. You did not want the folks here to look down on you. You were ready to protect your pride, ready to sacrifice all the money on you. All the while you had been expecting the girl you saw the last time to show up. About four people had gone in and out of the door. She was not among. You did not set your eyes on her till you left the shop. You were disappointed.
You were not doing your work well at the site because your thoughts was on the girl. Your co-workers asked if anything was wrong with you, but you only muttered something incoherent to yourself. They left you alone when they realized you were not ready to open up. Then you sighted her pull up her car, get off the car and come over to you. You hugged her, and she told you how much she had missed you. You were wondering how she knew your site when you realized that you were only being drenched by your fantasy rain again. The rain had a way of soaking you whenever your heart was in chaos. In your ghetto house it had soaked you with wealth as avalanche as that of Bill Gate on a number of occasions. You had closed your eyes and found yourself in a mansion classier than that of the nouveau riche. You had seen yourself chauffeur-driven from place to place and traveling to exotic places all over the world in your private jet. Sadly, there could be a knock on the door, or some children barging into your room to hide from themselves. You had opened your eyes to still find yourself in the world you thought you had left.
You ran your hand through your hair every time. You were eager to see it grow quickly. You wanted a reason to go to Corporate Barber again, a pretext to see the one that had filled your heart as water filled the earth. You knew it was not you again. You knew another James, once disembodied, had usurped the body of the real James. The former James would not go to Bature’s shop to have his hair cut until after a month he last did. He could even leave his hair bushy for some time more and told his friends that he wanted to make his hair old school. But the now James was different. He was eager to see clipper passed through his hair again.
You found yourself at the barber’s shop the following Saturday and sat comfortably with your clipper in your hand, waiting for your turn. You were not interested in the TV this time, the programme being aired, cable or terrestrial channel, because you were not here for it. You had come because of the girl. You thought if you did not see her in the end, your coming would amount to nothing. It would amount to a waste of money and time. Your anxiety heightened when another girl came out the door. Something was now pushing you to inquire about her. But again you thought that would amount to absurdity because you did not know her name. The barber had begun to cut your hair when the one you wanted came out. Your heart beat rapidly. Again, she sat on the chair next to you, combing her hair. When you glanced at her she smiled and remarked you had finally bought a clipper, and the barber told her that you bought it the previous week. You told her that you did not see her when you came here last week. You got to know that her name was Emilie when the barber mentioned it, telling you she had gone before you got here last week.
You were amazed by how Emilie had warmed to you quickly. It was as though you had known each other for long. You had begun to go to Corporate Barbers frequently because of her, and moved round the town together in her car. At this time you cared less about your fiancée anymore. You were erasing her name from your memory with each passing day. After all, you had quarreled four days before you left your ghetto for this place. She had insulted you without coming back to apologize because you did not give her the money she had demanded. And here you were with another girl who, instead of spending money on her, was the one spending her money on you, without sparring a dime. You thought by the time you solidified your relationship with Emilie, no amount of plea would make you reconsider your over-demanding ghetto girl.
On a Saturday evening you were in an upscale restaurant at Victoria Island. Two days before, you had gone to a newly-opened shopping mall where you bought some clothes in one of the boutiques. She had paid for those clothes. You were in the restaurant with a set of the clothes you had bought on: a kagol cap, white polo shirt and blue jeans pant. She wore a cream top over off white harem pant with a brown belt around her waist. Her gold chandelier earrings dangled like a pendulum as she moved her head, the hair of which she wore in braids. You were seated at a table (the tables were draped with purple covers) in a corner in the fairly crowded restaurant. There were hum of voices and laughter all about. She ordered shrimp puffs and cheese snacks (what she called finger foods) with a cocktail of fruit juice as an appetizer. The appetizer was strange to your tongue, because it was the first time you would eat it. Even going to a restaurant like this was alien to you because you had only known going to buka to devour fufu or gaari, with egusi soup, plucking a big morsel and sending it down your throat. Shortly afterwards, she ordered for the main menu–fried rice and salad with grilled chicken and a burgundy wine, which you also drank for the first time. While you sipped your third glass of wine, she leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, her brown wooden bangles dropping down her hands. She regarded you warmly. You held her hands, looking into her eyes. You thought everything about her make up–brow liner, powder, mascara, and lip gloss–was perfect. She said she wanted you to stop working as a brickie, that the job did not befit your status. You told her you would not hesitate to drop the job if you found a better one. You had learned bricklaying when you could not secure a white-collar job after you graduated from a polytechnic. She told you she had talked to a man who was ready to help you get a better job, a highly lucrative one.
You were fizzing with excitement as you both headed for Corporate Barbers two days later. You wanted to take a seat in the shop when she told you to follow her in. And for the first time you went through the curious door. She led you down a hallway and turned to the right before descending a staircase to an underground. You would never think there was another world here. It reminded you of how the former Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein hid in an underground for many months before he was captured by the U.S. forces. You found yourself in a large room. There was a mini bar (stocked with a range of drinks) to the right and game area to the left. Three young men were playing snooker. She introduced you to them. The first was of average height; the second was taller but slender. The third, wearing a pair of glasses, bent over the snooker board and pointed his cue to a white ball, squinting his eyes behind his glasses. He hit the white ball against a red ball. There was commotion on the table as balls clashed with one another.
Three red balls entered the pocket which was further away. He grunted excitedly, jabbing his fist in the air. He made another attempt, but the red balls would only dance round the table without entering any of the two pockets. The second man had taken his turn when Emilie told you to lounge on a chair at the bar and started towards another room. As you sat down, you took in the room well–the paintings on the walls, the stuffed animals, the upholstery, the bar, and games–and thought this place looked familiar. You were still trying to draw out the familiarity when Emilie emerged with a hip-hop star. Then the familiarity struck your mind. The award-winning artiste had used this place in one of his music videos. He had sat on the same chair you were sitting on, surrounded by a bevy of luscious girls. You glanced at the trio at the snooker board and recalled that two of them were in the video as well. You were pleased to meet the star that you had only been seeing on TV. You thought you had got something to boast of when you returned home, to further make your co-laborers envious of you.
She led you into an office and there you met a man they called Big Boss. He was the one you had actually come to see, the one to help you get the lucrative job Emilie had told you about. He was a tall man with a well-built frame and speck of premature grey beards. He was seated at his desk when you entered. He welcomed you and told you to go and sit on the couch. His voice was raspy. As you sat down you looked round the exquisite office and wondered the kind of job they did in this hidden place. You saw Big Boss gather up some papers on the desk, thump through them a moment and then shove them in a drawer. He came around the desk, holding a cigar and lighter. You gave Emilie a glance and she returned it with a reassuring look. When he came over to you he shook your hand again and lit the end of his cigar. He puffed his cigar and said Emilie had told him everything about you. He gave a smile that you thought was mischievous and asked what you would like to drink. Beer? Hennessy? Whiskey? You mentioned Hennessy because there had been much noise over it. All your hip hop artiste, including the one that had just left, now chanted it in their songs as though it was their gateway to fame and fortune. You had seen them sip it as water in their videos, and now you thought was your opportunity to drink it. Big Boss ordered for Hennessy on his cell phone, inhaled his cigar again and asked if you knew the name of the cigar. When you said no he told you it was a cordiba cigar from Havana and further asked you where Havana was. He was impressed when you answered ‘Cuba’ and said very shortly you would go there.
He flicked ash off the cigar onto the ashtray on the coffee table. You did not really understand what he just said or maybe you did not listen to him enough because you were actually looking towards the door, expecting someone to come in with the Hennessy. Another girl came in with the Hennessy and three glasses. She fixed a bronze-colored attachment. There was a crucifix pendant hanging on her neck, and her lips were so red (with the over-use of her gloss) as though the Jesus had been shedding blood on them. She set the wine on the coffee table and started for the door immediately. Big Boss eyes followed her out the door. He turned to you again. He picked up the wine and unscrewed the cork. The bottle hissed. He poured the wine into each glass. You took a tentative sip and watched him down his at one go. He poured another into his glass and told you he was ready to offer you a job. She met your glance with a smile. When he announced that your job was to travel to Europe and North America to deliver their goods to their customers, you went on your knees, expressing your deep appreciation. Why would you not go on your knees when you had thought you could never go to the white man’s land?
Now he had said you would be going there regularly. You thought you could not have got a lucrative job better than that. You thought your new lease of life had started. You thought you were now saying bye to ghetto life. He took a sip of his wine and regarded you over the rim of the glass and told you to sit down and take your wine. Though your joy would not allow your wine to appeal to you again, you still managed to sip a little. She sipped hers too and asked if you were ready to take the offer. You eyed her with a little contempt and wondered, Why did you come here in the first place? He added you did not even ask them the products you would be taking abroad. When you inquired, he replied the goods were white substance. White substance? You repeated. She glared at you and asked if you had never heard about it. You still did not understand and were trying to figure it out when he called out, Cocaine! Your glance moved from him to her and then to the trompe l’oeil on the wall opposite you. She came closer to you and took your left hand in both of hers, saying you could do it. He returned to his desk with his cigar between his lips and his glass in his hand. There was something menacing in his movement. When you bore your mind about the fear of being caught by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, they both assured you that you would never be caught, that they did their homework very well before setting out. She added that she had delivered the goods successfully on eight or nine occasions. That if she could, you could as well. With a steely determination in your face, you told them you were ready, ready to do anything that would bring fortunes your way, notwithstanding the risk involved. They both applauded your decision and determination and remarked that the next thing was to apply for your International Passport the next day. As she drove you back home, you thought a good name was better than gold and silver. You would rather die a brickie than living on mega bucks earned from peddling cocaine. You knew you would not do the job, but you had lied in order to deliver yourself from their hold. You would not join people soiling the image of your country. She said bye to you when you got off her car at your usual stop, hoping to see you the next day. But she would never see you again because you left for your ghetto early the next day.
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Brief Bio: Olusola Akinwale is a Nigerian writer and an award-winning essayist. His short stories have appeared in Author-me and Saraba Magazine. He currently lives in Lagos where he is working on a collection of short stories.
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