Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Surprise for Annie

Surprise for Annie

Buddy tugged at the ragged patchwork quilt on his army style cot. The room was freezing cold. Slowly opening his eyes, he saw his mother poking at the coals in the old wood stove trying to get a spark from last nights fire. Paper boxes were nailed over cracks in the boards. Buddy could lie in bed and read the comics nailed to the ceiling to keep the cold from penetrating the room. He turned on his side pulling the small lumpy pillow over his head, tugging the cover under his chin uncovered his toes. He knew he had to get out of bed and try to find scrap lumber or old broken furniture to be used in the stove.

At fifteen, he was man of the house. His father had left to get a WPA job but never returned. Sliding his legs off the cot, Buddy pulled on his dirty, holey socks and black rubber boots, one of his finds from the garbage dump. The boots flopped on his feet but they were the only footwear he owned. He was already dressed having slept in his clothes for warmth.

Annie, his four-year-old sister, was sitting on an old rusty bucket close to their mother. A three-legged table was thrown in the corner to be broken for kindling. Annie, Buddy, and their mother, Rosalie, lived in a one-room shack. The small stove had a porcelain door to the oven and several holes for pots. The house always smelled of smoke and fresh baked bread. The boards were splintered and rough. Blankets were hung over the four windows in extremely cold weather making a dark and dreary atmosphere.

Putting his feet on the floor, reaching for his tattered patched coat, he headed for the door. Hearing his mother say, "Buddy, I’ll have oatmeal in a minute”, he paused to answer.

“I’ll eat when I get back. I need to check the dump.” Buddy wanted to get there early not because of the good finds being carried off but because the town boys teased him about being poor and scouring the dump for bottles to sell and firewood. Closing the weather-beaten door, he ducked his head pulling his frail coat collar around his face, and faced the icy wind. To carry his finds, he pulled a rusty, dented wagon with Western Flyer barely readable on the reddish side. The few cents he got from his bottles was given to his mother. She barely kept the family fed by doing ironing for the elite society.

Arriving at the dump, Buddy saw the pile wasn’t much bigger than the last time he was there. Climbing to the top of the pile, he started throwing debris to one side. After finding a dead cat, old clothes and four bottles, he stumbled going back to his wagon. He fell on something hard. Digging thru the dirt and goop, he found a tricycle frame. Maybe he could find enough parts to make Annie a tricycle for her birthday. He knew there wouldn’t be any money for a gift and knew his mother wished she could get Annie a birthday present.

On his way home, he always stopped at Reynold’s One Stop Country Store to sell his bottles. An old gray-bearded man drinking an Orange Crush and a spotted dog were on the porch when Buddy arrived at the store. GR----, The dog snarled at Buddy. “Pete, hush! Don’t mind Pete.” Nodding Buddy carried his bottles into the store.

The one light was hanging down in the center of the once white but now brownish ceiling. Cans behind the counter needed dusting and a few had missing labels. The wooden floor showed signs of wear and hadn’t been swept in a long time. The store was only used by the few people that lived in Zoe, Mississippi. Accepting seven cents and a piece of red and white stick candy for Annie, he thanked Mr. Reynolds and left the store.

Leaving the porch, Buddy said bye to the old man still sitting in the old unpainted rocker with the dog beside him. The old man asked, “What’s in the wagon?”

"A tricycle frame. My sister will be five next week. Maybe, I can find enough parts to make her a tricycle.”

“I’m Al Tawndy. I ran the old service station for years. You find the parts and I’ve got a few tools if you need them. Aren’t you Deke Shanklin’s boy?
“Yes sir. My names Buddy.”

“I know your daddy and mother. Haven’t seen them in a long time. Sorry he left you all in a fix.”

Buddy looking at his feet embarrassed said, "I have to go. I go to the dump everyday maybe I can find some more parts". Buddy searched the pile of throw-aways every day but couldn’t find anything that resembled tricycle parts. Discouraged but determined not to quit, he remembered Mr. Tawndy. Asking Mr. Reynolds where Mr. Tawndy lived, Buddy trudged down a weedy path behind the store, arriving at a small neat whitewashed frame house. Pete lying on the porch let out a growl. “What is it boy?", came from the house. Opening the door, Mr. Tawndy spied Buddy. “Found any more tricycle parts?”

“No sir, and I’ve looked every day”.

Mr. Tawndy raised a dark eyebrow. “Buddy, let’s look behind the old service station. There used to be a few houses there.” The old building had broken windows and was surrounded by knee-deep grass. “Let’s check the back. Watch for snakes.”

Following Mt. Tawndy around to the back of the building, Buddy kicked weeds, found old bricks cans and just junk. Discouraged and almost giving up, he kicked a piece of metal. Pulling weeds apart, he saw a tricycle frame with handlebars and wheels. The frame was tangled in weeds and old wire. Buddy yelled, "I found one.”

Mr. Tawndy hurried over.”Let’s pull her out.” Pulling the frame out into the open, Mr. Tawndy said, “This is what we need.”

“There’s no seat.”

“Follow me home.”

Arriving back at Mr. Tawndy’s house, Buddy followed the man to a weather-beaten shed. Stooping to enter the low door, he came out holding a bike seat. "This belonged to my little girl years ago and I’ll be glad to give it to Annie. Leave it here and come back tomorrow. I’ll get sandpaper and paint and we’ll fix Annie a pretty tricycle".

__________________________

Annie awoke slowly looking around at the familiar shabbiness of the room. Today was her birthday. She sat up twisting her neck as if a gobbler looking over her brood of chicks. She didn’t see anything for her birthday. Spying her mother and Buddy in the kitchen, she climbed out of bed. “Mama, what did I get for my birthday?”

“Annie, there isn’t anything.”

As Annie screwed her face to cry, Buddy said, "Annie, I've got a surprise for both of you. I’ll be back soon.” As Buddy went out the door, there was a surprised look on his mother’s face and a look of anticipation on Annie’s.
Buddy slowly opened the door dragging a shiny red tricycle behind him. Squealing with joy, Annie jumped on the seat. “Buddy, where did this come from?”

“Me and Mr. Tawndy found parts. We sanded and painted it for Annie.”

“Buddy, how do you know Mr. Tawndy?”

“I met him at the store. He said he knew you and daddy”.

“Did he say anything about me?”

“No, Ma'am.”

“Buddy, that’s your grandfather,-my father. We haven’t spoken in years. Maybe, it’s time for us to be a family again. With your father gone, we could use some help. When you see him ask him if he wants to come by. Now let's carry Annie outside to ride her tricycle.". Going outside, they both watched Annie learning to pedal her tricycle with her long blonde hair blowing in the breeze. Walking slowly up the path was an old grey bearded man followed by an old hound-dog named Pete.


___________________________

Author: Revia Perrigin

Monday, May 28, 2012

Albatross


Albatross
Loosing my Burberry necktie, I rose from my glass topped mahogany desk that spanned the middle of my office on the twelfth floor of Hearst Towers in Manhattan.  It had been a day hampered by much irritation.  Thank goodness, there were no more appointments for today.  Walking to the window that covered the whole side of the room, I looked at tall towers of other buildings.  I stared at my reflection in the glass.  Wearing a Hugo Boss suit, a mark of success, my face was lined with forty-three years of worry.  I ran my hand thru my thinning grey hair and noticed my pallid complexion from years of indoor living.

            The ringing of the telephone shook me out of daydreaming.  “Mr. Thompson,” my secretary, Sara, spoke over the intercom. "You have a call from a Mr. Willie Thompson in Sharkie, Mississippi."

            My hands were shaking as I reached for the telephone. My voice sounded hoarse as I said, "Willie".  I hadn’t talked to my brother, Willie, in ten years.

            “Louis, they found him”, Willie blurred.

            “Found him”, I knew Willie meant our father, Roy. “How?  It’s been years.”

            “The people that got the old place were digging the well deeper.  They found his bones.”

            Memories flashed in my mind. Willie and I had to haul water from a nearby spring using the old gray mare, Sally, pulling a one-horse wagon. The water in the well was black and unusable.  “Willie, calm down. Stop crying.  There’s no proof. He was drunk and fell in”. 

            “Louis, the old boards were there. Someone had to cover the well after he fell.”

            “Mama could have. We never touched him.  He just fell.  Let the county bury him as a pauper.  God knows, you can’t afford a funeral and I don’t want him buried by mama.”  

            “Louis, why don’t you come home?”

            “Willie, I just can’t deal with it". Replacing the phone without saying goodbye, I felt my chest tighten and my knees starting to shake. I could feel the blackness and sadness of my soul.  I knew terror along with Willie, fourteen year old, Mary, and mama as darkness settled over the desolate land.

            The house was built in an open field. Daddy had built it leaving cracks in the floors and inside walls leaving peep holes between the rooms. Many nights, I had watched while daddy beat mama.  Around the back of the house, a pile of burnt cans and broken glass made the garbage pile.  Small bushes behind it were used for excrement.  Pages of a Sears-Roebuck catalog littered the grass.  A run-down stable housed Bessie, the milk cow.  A lean-to beside the stable was used for a corncrib.  Between the house and stable, boards were over an old well.  Closing my eyes, I could see images as if it was yesterday.
The whisky bottle made a crashing sound as it shattered on the woodpile.  I remember hearing daddy yell, "Boy, you best hurry with that wood or I’ll beat the hide off you."  Walking hurriedly with a load of wood, I heard him yell, "Don't slam the damn door”.     

Entering the kitchen, I saw Willie trying to hide under the dining table made of rough boards.  His six-year-old body was coiled in a tight bundle.  Mama wearing a faded dress was trying to start a fire in the stove with one hand and holding the front of the dress together with the other hand.  Most of the buttons down the front of the dress was missing.  Her dark hair was over her shoulders as she looked at me.  Her facial expression showed bewilderment.  I knew she was silently begging me not to made daddy angry.

            There was never enough food.  The four of us had to wait while daddy ate his fill.  Sometimes if there was a little extra, mama would hide it for me, Willie, and Mary. I was twelve and gave most of mine to Willie. 

            Mama didn’t know what happened at home while she worked.  She hitchhiked to and from a waitress job.  Most days, after work she had to go to her garden scrounging for food.  She never asked if we went to school.  We knew volunteering information would cause trouble.  She thought all of us went to school.  Daddy made Mary stay home most days.  When we got home, her eyes would be puffy from crying and she would stay away from mama claiming a lot of homework.  She would just look at my books.         
                                                                                                               
 In March, Willie and I got home from school to find daddy passed out, lying in the floor wearing only boxer shorts.  Mary was gone.  Many times, Willie and I had talked about killing daddy.  Many nights he would rant and rave about religion.  He would preach fire and damnation quoting Bible scripture long into the night.  No one slept those nights.  Mama would just smile her cowered smile saying he was the envy of Billy Graham.  Seeing mama so sad about Mary, we knew we had to have a plan.  He was too big for us to face.

            Willie and I decided the next time he wanted to beat us we would run toward the well. We would take the boards off and he would fall in.  The well was about six feet round.  We dropped rocks into it to guess the depth.  It was deep enough.  After drinking all day, daddy would beat us after we got home from school.  He didn’t need a reason.  Any object close by was used as a weapon.  Willie couldn’t walk for two weeks after being beaten by a singletree off the wagon. Mama never stood up for us.  She was afraid of a beating but he always hit her so the bruises wouldn’t be visual.                                                                                                                                                        We never ran from him.  Running would only cause him to beat harder.  We planned to run from him the next time he was to beat us.  Finding him in the kitchen drunk, I eased out the back to uncover the well.  Minutes later, he yelled at Willie, "Come back here!"  Willie sprinted through the back door.  .I yelled "Run Willie!"  We both ran for the well.  We waited for him to catch us as he staggered toward the hole.  Both of us dodged the well but he staggered into the hole.  He screamed as he reached for air.  If the fall didn’t kill him, he would drown in the black water.  In the silence, Willie and I looked at each other. Neither spoke as we walked toward the barn to start our chores.  This would be our secret.  When mama got home, we told her we hadn’t seen daddy. Deep down inside, we were both surprised at what we had done.

            Days passed into winter.  Mama wondered what happened to daddy. She knew he wouldn’t leave without money or liquor.  At night, she cried about Mary.  I wondered if she knew Willie and I lied to her about daddy.

            We stayed in the house suffering the winter.  There were no quilts for the beds.  Willie and I piled clothes, newspapers, and magazines on our bed. We had an old blue, air force coat that mama put on our bed.  Many nights, she slept in a chair adding wood to the fire in the Franklin heater. 

            Times were hard as we grew into our manhood.  Willie joined the army at eighteen. After three months in Vietnam, he was shipped home minus a leg.  I was attending Ole Miss on a football scholarship and received a deferment.  Drinking and visiting bars was my pastime.  One night, I looked into a go-go girl’s eyes as men poked dollar bills inside her tights.  Recognition flashed in our eyes.  It was Mary.  We didn’t speak. I never visited that bar again.  Guilt overcame me and I wished we had killed daddy before Mary left home.    
                                                          
 I can move trains, planes, and cargo ships all over the world.  I am CEO of Hearst Industries, the biggest shipping organization in the world.  I am responsible for the Emma Maersk, Wal-Mart’s transpacific ship from China to American markets.  My power is with graphs, timetables and ocean levels.  I don’t have the power to fight my demons.  I can still see him damning the devil between swallows of corn liquor.   
                                                             
 Removing a flask from my desk drawer, I take a big swallow, replace the flask and look out the window at Manhattan before leaving my office making my way through the red-carpeted foray to the parking garage.  I would go home and drink myself in a stupor.             
                                
Early morning would find me in the glass windowed skyscraper taking telephone calls and keeping track of vessels on five oceans and airways hoping I wouldn’t hear from Willie. 

 Today the demons would be quiet but tonight, I would reach for the bottle.
 _____________________
Author: Revia Perrigin

Friday, May 25, 2012

Shindig, Shivaree and Hellfortootin’ Honeymoon Time




Shindig, Shivaree and Hellfortootin’ Honeymoon Time
Tom Sheehan

Me and Ivaloo were honeymoonin’, and I’m Everett Musdane, along with some of our celebratin’ friends at a mountain motor court, on a grand flat spot in the Ozarks, being Lorded over by the midnight stars across the sky like bright sand pebbles flung out of a huge bucket. The small cabins, all with porches out front and parkin’ spaces out back, were arranged in a circle around a fireplace in a grassy court and celebratin’ area, with only one entrance to the grassy court for the owner’s vehicle for service stuff. The owner was Slim Slocum and the place was called Slocum’s Cozy Cabins and he one-time pitched for that St. Louie team.

Ivaloo was the one and main beauty in my life full of knockdowns and drag-outs of all kinds ‘til I tempered down and slowed the speed of some emotions, but not all of them, you can bet.

Anyway, I was asleep and dreamin’ away, and thinkin’ of them stars punchin’ down at me bein’’ so little up there and me down here. And part of my dream came right back to Ivaloo and all her goodly possessions, and I started shakin’ and shiverin‘ all over, and Ivaloo shook me awake and said, “Everett, what was happenin’ to you? You were shakin’ like clothes hung out on the line?”

And I told her the truth, “Here I was dreamin’ you were lyin’ right on top of me and I wake up and it’s all true and there you are with your head on my chest. That’s powerful frightful stuff.”

And my beauty Ivaloo, cool as all get-out, said, “I can feel your heart beatin’.”

So right off, so not as to skip a beat, I said, “Can you feel anythin’ else?”

And Ivaloo comes right back and says, and I can almost see that huge smile on her face, “I already had some of that.”

I tell you, fact straight out of the book, we start to laugh and laugh, and it gets real loud and real laughter you might dream you can have sometimes, and it don’t stop none, includin’ the bellyachin’ and in one big session of laughter and glee poundin’ at us ‘cause we’re so happy, it rolls right out the open cabin door and goes sideways onto a couple of other cabin porches and busts right across that grassy court to where good friend Fleet Scott is sleepin’ in his own hammock he hung on the porch ‘cause he’s one of those guys who says when he’s with his woman he Lords over things but when he gets out under the stars he knows he gets Lorded over by no small margin. His place best in the world most times is out fishin’ and trappin’ and huntin’ and gettin’ Lorded over for a change, as he does find balance in all things, as he might say now and then.

And laughter is now comin’ from other cabins, and it begins to wind uphill and it’s a heavy, loud midnight under midnight stars and all that Lordin’ comin’ down on us and from inside of us in those little cabins, except for Fleet Scott of course, and in the middle of the contagion that’s nothin’ but laughin’ so sides ache themselves, I hear Fleet Scott say, “I can’t stand no more of this, so I best get the fiddle out and join in in my own way,” and that fiddle must have been layin’ right beside him because it’s not but a spittin’ second and that bow of his found the first wire it looked for and a note came loose of it like heaven was comin’ down too, and then another note and laughin’ still escapin’ other cabins like everybody’s joined up like they enlisted in it and another voice, I think Pete Stigger’s, says, “I got my guitar right here, “ and we hear him slap the box of that thing and the wires start jumpin’ for his fingers, and another voice says, “Wait up on me 'til I fetch my harmonicky,” and he starts mouthin’ that sweet little thing so it’s dancin’ too and one gent whose voice I didn’t recognize says, “Hell, I got a jug of Grade A Goodness from Jodie’s still right here and I’m donatin’ it to the party, and another cabin has a voice that says, “I got a cooler full of beer I was savin’ for a special occasion and guess this damned well is a special occasion,” and we hear the cooler bump on the porch steps and it’s on its way onto the grassy court where things are already gettin’ up to real speed and just about everybody is out of their cabins, meanin’ most of the women folks ain’t been able to dress their best and say, “So what the heck,” and they’re there like they can’t wait for some more fun, and the dancin’ begins all barefoot on that cool midnight grass with the stars sayin’, “Lordy, whats goin’ on down there?” some women plain open like they’ve never been in a group, like I mean with feelin’s and clothes and bein’ so skimpy dressed but Lordin’ takin’ place.

And it goes on for a few hours ‘til Slocum the owner comes in and says, “I can’t stay away anymore ‘cause you folks are havin’ more fun than I seen in a hundred years, and I got a keg in my pick-up and I’ll bring it right in,” and he watches some of the women dance their new way of bein’ loosened up and then he goes off and drives the pick-up in there and the keg goes alive and we party and dance and sing and hear music the likes of never and it goes on 'til 5 in the mornin’ and Slocum falls asleep in the bed of his truck, and then Fleet Scott, born smart as the whip itself, says, “Everett, would you tell us again how you and Ivaloo got to laughin’ and get all us out here for the party of our lifes, as it will be mighty well appreciative,” and I tell them all over, and tell them what Ivaloo said, “I already had some of that,” and right then, like Fleet Scott had planned it all, there swooped down on our party a silence like the whole world was stood still, and hands reach for other hands and pairs go off to their cabins and the stars are fading already, and the party’s over, or so it seems, but that silence don’t last long and there comes a whole bit of roarin’ and yellin’ to the Lord and celebratin’ from them small cabins that can’t keep no secrets at all, and then the silence comes back like it was bein’ missed and everybody sleeps 'til about 10 in the mornin’ and checkout time is 11 o’clock, and Slocum wakes up and says, “I only got two couples comin’ in today so we’ll have to share up somehow,” and already the next session of the party has sprouted wings right up here in this grand flat spot in the honeymoonin’ Ozarks.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

J.D.'s Story


J. D. ‘S STORY

The July sun had just risen as J. D. lengthened his body from the fetal position and began to rub his eyes.  There was the burning sensation in his lids that he was accustomed to feeling when he slept in the open air.  He had fallen asleep the night before on the grassy bank beside the railroad track that bisected the small Texas town.  The boards of the porch where J.D. took shelter extended over an embankment behind the building that housed the post office and the town’s only drug store..  It was not unusual for J.D. and, occasionally, some of the high school boys to sleep there, especially in spring and summer.

Almost immediately he tasted the bitter phlegm edging from his lower throat.  

He cleared his throat and wished for a drink of water—or better yet hot coffee.  It would be an hour before the café would open. Then he brushed the bits of straw and a few red ants from his trousers.  The trousers were of a synthetic fabric and had developed a variegated sheen over the years.

            Gazing before him, he waited a few moments before he stood up, taking care not to knock his head against the boards of the back porch.  After having gone to  Pin Oak Creek on a fishing excursion the day before, he decided not to walk to his parents’ house five miles south of town. J.D. never waded the muddy creek with the men who dragged  a net through the water.  But he enjoyed the camaraderie with the fishermen.  Some of them brought their shotguns with them in the event they wanted to shoot squirrels.  They might even skin a few of the squirrels if someone had brought a pot and cans of corn and tomatoes for a stew.  

At the fishing site the night before, he drank several cans of beer and ate a bowl of squirrel stew.  It was late, close to midnight,  when one of the men who drove him to town dropped him off near the depot.  His eyelids felt heavy, and he went directly to the space under the back porch of the drug store.  He, and occasionally others, had spent the night there before.
J. D. found his white straw hat and thrust it on his head. It was still too early for the owner of the service station where J. D. spent a great deal of his time to open his place of business.  

This was one of the mornings, common since his return from the war,  when he was awakened early by a nightmarish dream of combat.    He often dreamed he was a member of a battalion like the one in which he served . In the dream he would disembark from a landing craft  at a beach where Japanese soldiers waited with grenades and other weaponry.  The situation in the dream that particular morning resembled closely the experience he had when his battalion invaded the island of Guam  two years before.  In the dreams he is a detached observer who sees one of the men in the unit writhing in agony after he has taken a piece of shrapnel from a grenade.  Another wounded soldier moves his mouth, as if he might be calling for a medic, but there is no sound.   J. D. sees but not does not hear the Kamikazis as they dive toward the landing crafts near the shore.  Somehow, not hearing any sound made the sights even more horrible than they had been in actuality two years before.. 

When J. D..  slept at his parents’ home,  he called out in his startling dreams , often fitfully..  He knew this because sometimes he came awake suddenly.  His parents must have heard him, but neither of them mentioned the incidents.  Neither did his sister.

In these dreams J.D. would occasionally see the face of Billy Butler, his sixteen-year-old neighbor.  Billy was his sister’s classmate at the school.  Strangely, in the dream Billy’s face looked serene despite the chaos around him on the bomb-ravaged beach.  

Over the months since he returned from the war J. D. had often stopped by the Butlers’ house.  After the school day was over, Billy was usually at home.  He was a reader, often bringing a different novel or biography home each evening from the school library.  Billy was of slight build with a shock of brown hair, neatly trimmed.  He had hazel eyes with a hint of a Native American slant, a feature he had inherited from his mother’s side of the family..  

J. D. tried hard to suppress his attraction to Billy.  He could not control, however, the episodes that made up the sequence of dreams he often had.  Billy’s face appeared time and time again.

Once a few weeks before when J. D. borrowed a friend’s car.  Billy, Billy’s younger brother, and J. D.’s sister rode with him to a basketball game at the high school.  At the game Billy performed as the head cheer leader.   

That evening  J. D. stood with a group of other men near one of the two exits in the school’s gymnasium   He found himself gazing at Billy and the other cheerleaders,  all girls, rather than at the action on the court.

 During the intermission between the girls’ game and the boys’ game he saw Billy place his megaphone near the foot of the bleachers and walk toward the exit. 

Impulsively , J. D. decided to follow him.  In the parking area cars were parked pointed every direction.  The area was lighted only by the low-watt bulbs outside the two entrances to the gym.  J. D. noted that Billy went to the Chevy J. D. had borrowed, opened one of the back doors, and started to step inside.

            J. D. walked toward the car.  Coming within earshot of Billy, he asked, “Is there somethin’ wrong?”

            Apparently Billy was not aware anyone else had left the gymnasium.

            “Nothin’s wrong,” Billy said.  “I’m goin’ back in now,” he said.  He seemed anxious.

            J. D. lighted a cigarette as Billy walked back toward the gymnasium.  “I gave the two Butler boys a ride,” he thought.  “I wish I could drive Billy home without his brother.”

            When the game was over, J. D. drove both boys home.  He did not ask Billy why he had left the gym .

That particular morning when J. D. waited for the service station to open, he was relieved that he had not had the recurring dreams.  To see Billy’s f ace in the dreams only tormented him.  In the dreams Billy had never been killed, not even injured.  But in each of the dreams several  teenagers hardly old enough to shave were among those under fire from the enemy.  J. D. had seen the bodies of many hardly older than Billy damaged by mortars to the point the individuals could not have been identified except for their dog tags.

            Suddenly J. D. was jolted out of his indolence by the sound of the first school bus as its tires rolled across the gravel of the sloping road near where he stood.  After the bus passed, J. D. walked in the direction the bus had come from.  Soon he would be sitting on an up-ended Coca-Cola crate under the portico at the Texaco station.  A day like many others since he returned home from the South Pacific would begin.

_______________________________

 Robert G. Cowser teaches composition part-time and writes memoirs, fiction, and poetry.  Recently, the Chiron Review published a short memoir, Muscadine Lines published two of his short stories, and one of his poems, along with a commentary, was translated into Spanish for Trilce, a Chilean journal.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Clay

“Mama, tell me a story.”

Isaac is very small as he climbs into my arms, bending and pulling and kneading at my skin and everything underneath with his tiny hands. I offer him no help. Let the nasty little dumpling struggle a bit, he’ll appreciate it more.
“It’s almost bedtime,” I say, wrapping him up in my skinny arms.

“I know.” He wipes his nose on my shoulder, thinking he’s being sneaky.

“What’ll it be about then?”

“About you. And Daddy.”

I feel my jaw tighten. I don’t mean to be angry, really I don’t. I almost toss him off me as a sudden urge for privacy washes in. Don’t want to think about it, especially not with him there, reminding me of…

But he’s looking at me, fearless, and I won’t give him reason to fear me.

Brave, for five and a half. And he’s mine, all mine.

I loosen myself up and swish liquidy words around in my head, making up a fantasy out of nothing but truths. A story should be a story – but whatever I do to my son, I won’t lie to him. “Alright then,” I say, a little too pleasantly. “A story about your Mama and Daddy…”

He pulls a little at my hair, which looks more red than brown against his chubby, white hand. Shinier too. He does bring out my best, it seems. “Will it have a happy ending?” he asks.

I smile. “No. I don’t like ‘em with happy endings.”

“Why not?”

“Happy endings are for princesses, aren’t for little fishy things, like me.”

“And me?”

I ruffle his light hair, maybe a little harder than I mean to. “Like half you,
Little One.”

It is a short few yards from my chair to my bed, but a thousand miles when I carry my son. I toss him into the pillows with a grunt, and he giggles high and low all at once. The shirt of his Bob the Builder pajamas lifts, exposing his squishy tummy and a strip of blue big-boy underpants. I flop beside him. He looks up at me that way I love, where I know every word I say matters more than anything anybody else will ever tell him.

I will tell it to him pretty; I’ll make it sound like drip-dripping cave water, melodic and musical. He’ll listen, he’ll like it. He won’t comprehend, but he is five and a boy and doesn’t care to. But he’ll remember, and someday if he disobeys me and grows up, he might understand my wishy-washy words. I won’t lie, ever, but I’m not ready for him to know the truth, the whole truth yet.

I begin: “Once upon a time. There were rivers, and streams. I remember them. There was water, and I was water and water was in me.”

“You weren’t water, people can’t be – “

“Hush and stop being smarter than your Mama.”

He hushes. He likes that I think he’s smart.

“I was water, and all the life in it was in me. I was young, and free, and there were things I liked: swimming, salt, glass, green. And boys.”

“EEEEWWWW!”

“I told you hush up, didn’t I?”

He hushes.

I wait a moment, and continue. “There were boys. Pretty boys… boys with lips like rain and hair like murky creek beds and muscles flashing like fish beneath their skins. I liked the way they tasted: cool, and slick. I liked them because they were light with the silver of youth, and asked little of me. Trouble with pretty boys is, they like growing up.”

“No we don’t! I don’t, anyway. I won’t.” His brow puckers in confused frowns. O, I do like my boy. He isn’t like other ones.

I say, “That’s good, munchkin-monster. I like you like this. I’ll make sure to keep you this way, ever and ever, amen.” He snuggles against me, satisfied.
I go on: “One day, before I was ready, those boys, who weren’t sweet like you, they dried up into men, and went off to seek their fortunes.”

“Like in stories!”

“It is a story, booger. But I’ll skip ahead: nobody wants the mermaid, in the end. Don’t believe the movie, read the book.”

“But you’re not a mermaid, Mama.”
“I was.”


“Really?”

“Sort of.”

“How?”

“’S a Secret.”

“Tell me!”

I sigh. My breath must smell of coffee, which he hates, because his nose wrinkles up. “You wanted a story about me and Daddy. When you ask for a story about how I was what I was, whatever it was, I will tell you.”

“O. Okay…” He does not comprehend, but he is trying very hard. I can tell because he bites his middle fingernail when he is trying to understand.
He won’t though. Not yet.

I have to swallow before I go on. I don’t want to say HIS name, or even think it, but it’s buzzing in my head, ugly and mean. I ignore it.

“Anyways. So…. I got left. And left. A lot. And I didn’t mind. Didn’t mind till the dry, dirt-men started coming around. The old ones. They said they were my age, but I did not believe my own timeline to be so long.

“First they tested me, a toe at a time. I was warm, for why shouldn’t I be when sunshine was for the sharing?

“They waded in next, straightbacked and vain. There were so many, and all so dry and hot and alien. They slid down the banks to me, then went away again in huffy surprise when I melted them to mud. It wasn’t my fault. It’s only common sense, anyway.”

“What is?”

“You know mud, Isaac. What happens when you make a mud pie and pour water on it?”

He is proud to know something that I do not (I must not know it, for why else would I ask him?) “It melts!”
 
“Exactly. The loam-men were – ”
“What’s loam?”

“A kind of dirt. ‘Sgot lots of leaves in it.”

“O.”

“The loam-men were simple, and quiet, and just almost almost almost didn’t mind me. They were dark around the eyes and bruised on the inside and their smiles were sad and they thought they were better than me because they had suffered.

“People step on dirt. And dirt men. That’s what I tried to tell them. ‘S no wonder they suffered. I suppose they thought I was not smart enough to teach them.”

“O well.”

“O well is right. Anyway, I didn’t so much like the paler, sandier men. They were so loose around the edges, like their bodies were held together by business suits. Like their souls were so lacking their cells would not stick together. They dissolved with a slushing sigh and I did not miss them much. What sound does it make when the water at the beach comes onto the sand?”
His little arms go round about his head. “SHHHssshhhhchhhccchhh!!!!”
He is good at sounds.

“Right. It was like that,” I said. “Then the silt-men – ”

“What about Daddy?”

I had almost forgotten. Ugly remembering… ugly truths… I won’t tell him!

I will.

But just the storystory.

“O, him.” The ugly name now, I have to say it. So I spit it. “David. His name was… David.”

I am angry now. I don’t hide it very well as I say, “Your father was clay, and I hated him worst.”

Who knew such small eyes could be so big?

“He came down, and hit me all of a rippling sudden and I awoke from dreams of fog and rain. I was not afraid of him. He caught me up in a bottle, swirled me around until I was drunk-dizzy, sick and sweet. I reached out to touch him and he did not, he did not break up in little bits, as others did. He did not…” My words dry up and I must swallow the dregs.

Isaac will not look at me. His questions are quiet, and he is thinking, and hard.

“And then … Well, you know what we siren types must do when a sailorman is drownding in our storming and waves.”

“You have to save ‘em, don’t you.” He doesn’t ask. He knows.

“We cannot stop it, you know – ”

“I know.”

“ – and love must follow until we are all caught up in netted pearls and our
own green hair.

“Your hair’s not green.”

“No… So. Anyways….

“I thought I’d saved him. Well. Well. That just wasn’t enough. He wanted too much. Wantedwantedwanted and would not SAY HE WANTED.”

My words are growing hotter now, I can feel them boiling behind my eyes but I can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop. “He wouldn’t ever say, ‘Sarah, I want this, or you, or something.’ Just went on with the longings and ruint himself on what he didn’t have and couldn’t ask for.”

“What did he want, Mama?”

“He wanted YOU, Little Boy. Little mud boy. Little fishy mud man boy.”

I am angry, and afraid, because he is afraid because I am angry. So I smile, and tickle his tummy, and that is my sorry. His giggles mean I am forgiven. Simple to be a mother, isn’t it? Good to be a mother.

He senses we are close to some important part. “What happened then?”
I sigh, calm now. Sad now. “Without asking, he reached up in me and used what was me and what was him to render YOU. Some little neither-swimmer-nor-sinker stinker, wrought of all that was mean and hard in him. I didn’t want him to, and I tried to stop him. But all I did was drownd him, and leave myself pitiful. All that wanting he’d done, and all that working and building and shaping of you, and turns up he didn’t want you so much as he’d thought. And I ended up with you and without him after all.”

I thought that would make him sad, but somehow he looks proud of it. As if he knows what a powerful little bundle he was way-back-when, to have won my freedom-drunk heart to himself so easily.

Funny stinker, he is.

“So here was you, and me, all on our ownsome-lonesome. And what was I to do with a thing like you, both clay of your father and flashing scales of your mother? It would have been less frightening had I been older, or younger, or anything but what I was. Which was free.

“I hated you so, bending me, breaking me from the inside out, and then ruling me like some blanketed, wrinkle-faced tyrant! But that soft little tummy and your blinking eyes were such as I had never seen, and I was more helpless and in love with mothering you than I ever… Don’t laugh, boy.”

“I’m not!”

“You are.”

He rolls away, thinking himself too grown-uppish to listen to the L word in any form. I go on with my story, smothering him with wet kisses and tickles until he screams. “I loved you, little monster, little half-breed, changeling, creature-discomfort, little wreck of living joy!” He does not fight me, but screams and wriggles like a fish on a hook until I cannot hold him.

He lies back on the pillow, wary of my poking fingers, gasping for breath. “Hee.. heehe… finish the… story, Mama…” he says.

I comply: “And so I did the worst thing, worst thing, worst thing I have ever done in my life: I built a cage, walked in and let you lock the door.”

“What kind of cage?”

“This one. This house.”

“’S not a cage, Mama.”

“It was.”

“Like how you was a mermaid?”

“Like that.”

“O. Well… whyfor?” he asks gravely. His middle fingernail continues to suffer.
I speak it like a secret: “I traded water-freedom for a son I didn’t think I wanted. A son more alien to me than his father. A son of dirt with a stunted little tail, who would grow up and be a man like his father… David.”

There is quiet for a moment. He chews his nail, little gravel-puddle-grey eyes soaking me up, until I say:

“But I could teach you to swim, and you could be like me. You could have my faults, at least, and not his. And that was enough for me.

“So you and I live happily ever after. The end.”

He sits up and looks down at me, too seriously for a five and a half year-old. I suddenly have a vision of my little blondish Isaac sacrificing Abraham with a toddler’s plastic sword. It passes away more quickly than it came. “But you said it wouldn’t be a happy ending,” he complains.

I will never lie to my son.

“And so it isn’t,” I say. “It’s a bad, sad ending. I don’t get to swim about free anymore, and you don’t have your Daddy.”

He looks down at his pulpy fingernail.

I say, “I like sad endings like this’n. But I never did like the happy ones.” I put my head in his lap, very carefully. “I think it’s the best kind of ending.”

He wipes spit off his fingers onto my shoulder. “Me too.”

A good boy, mine is. And he’s mine mine mine mine mine.

__________________________

Author Bio: Lizzie Locker
I grew up on a farm in Alabama and spent my childhood hunting fairies and deer in the woods around my home. I am currently a senior at Mississippi University for Women, and I will be graduating in May with a degree in Creative Writing. Most recently, I have been published in Signatures Literary-Arts Magazine and The Dillettanti Review. I am also the recipient of the Neill James Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing and the Mozelle Purvis Shirley Portfolio Scholarship.