BREATHE, AND OTHER STORIES OF THAT NATURE
Brett Alan Wallis
B.A., California State University, Sacramento, 2007
PROJECT
Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of
MASTER OF ARTS
in
ENGLISH
(Creative writing)
at
CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, SACRAMENTO
FALL
2009
BREATHE, AND OTHER STORIES OF THAT NATURE
A Project
by
Brett Alan Wallis
Approved by:
__________________________________, Committee Chair
Doug Rice
__________________________________, Second Reader
Joshua McKinney
____________________________
Date
ii
Student: Brett Alan Wallis
I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University
format manual, and that this project is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to
be awarded for the Project.
__________________________, Graduate Coordinator
David Toise
Department of English
iii
________________
Date
Abstract
of
Breathe, and Other Stories of that Nature
by
Brett Alan Wallis
Synopsis
These stories represent the culmination of years of practice and study in the art and
practice of writing. The stories represent the effort, ideas, hard work and determination of
a mind ready to display the world around it. The stories are broken into sections to better
represent the stages the human takes throughout his/her life. The sections also reflect
highly on how the author factors in understanding, love, coping methods, death and
family in the world we live in today.
______________________, Committee Chair
Doug Rice
______________________
Date
iv
PREFACE
“The rest I dedicate to the MOON, who, by the bye, of all the PATRONS or MATRONS
I can think of, has most power to set my book a-going, and make the world run mad after
it.”
-Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemen
“Her nose was small,exact,stupid.
mouth normal,large,unclever. hair genuinely
artificial unpleasantly tremendous./ under flat lusts of light her nice concupiscence
appeared rounded./ if she were alive,death was amusing.”
-e.e. Cummings
“He played a sweet mournful air, which I perceived drew tears from the eyes of his
amiable companion, of which the old man took no notice, until she sobbed audibly; he
then pronounced a few sounds, and the fair creature, having left her work, knelt at his
feet. He raised her, and smiled with such kindness and affection, that I felt sensations of a
peculiar and overpowering nature: they were a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had
never before experienced, either from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew
from the window, unable to bear these emotions.”
-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein, Vol. 2
v
DEDICATION
This project is dedicated to my Grandfather, who taught me when I was wrong and how I
was supposed to fix it. My eternal teacher.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface…………………………………………………………………………………………….v
Dedication………... …………………………………………………………………………….vi
Chapter
1……………………………………………………………………………………………………1
Reminders………………………………………………………………………………..2
Breathe…………………………………………………………………………………..19
2…………………………………………………………………………………………………..30
Noche de Musica…………………………………………………………………….. 31
Sons……………………………………………………………………………………...40
Prayer(s) and Conversation……………….......…………………………….…….......44
3. Intermission.…………………...……………………………………………………………55
Back Home……………………………………………………………………………..56
4…………………………………………………………………………………………………..63
Dates…………………………………………………………………………………...64
Walking…………………………………………………………………………………75
vii
1
Chapter 1
2
Reminders
Jay’s mother had a thing for pregnancy tests. Not in a sick way, she just liked to
take one every Saturday, after lunch, between the time when Maury came on and the
news. That was when she thought her hormones were at the highest level of potency and
when she thought the E.P.T. test was able to do exactly what it said it would do, be error
proof. She wouldn’t go to the store to buy them, that would have been embarrassing, so
she sent her son Jay to the store, always with a hoodie, always wearing baggy jeans and
sunglasses and a hat with a basketball team’s logo on it, but never a team in town, never.
Jay would walk to the store trying to be something of the shopper, grabbing a basket and
swinging it. Browsing the vegetables and magazines, looking at them for the best bargain
or the best taste, of either. Then he would put soda in his basket or some cereal or a set
of bananas or something to stop the basket from swinging under its empty load. Once it
was stabilized, he would go to the isle of tampons and diapers and condoms and look at
the row of tests. The store brand. The expensive electronic brand that spoke to you,
being the first voice to congratulate you. And the error proof. He wanted the blue box. He
would pick the box up and examine it, perhaps to see if it was the right one. Did it say
two tests? In fact it did. A bargain and he didn’t even know that was what he was here
for. He would smile and turn the box over and look at the instructions running his finger
over to read. His fingers only felt the cardboard. Then someone would stare and shake
their head. That boy is too young to be worrying about a pregnant girl at home, too young
indeed. Then he would put the box in the basket with the bananas or soda or cereal and
3
walk past the person who looked down in the basket to see the bananas and pregnancy
test and they would think, “At least she’s getting potassium for the (maybe) unborn.” His
glasses would slide off his face while looking down to check if the test was still in the
basket. They were too big. He would wander around the store a bit more, looking at this
and that. Whole grains. The utensils aisle. Taking a spatula off of the rack and bending it
to test tensile strength. “Fried banana pancakes can be heavy you know,” he would think
to himself. He hated bananas. Then he would go to the checkout and stand in line with
other people who had carts full of things. And stand and stand and look down at his
yellow bananas and blue test box and wonder why both were the colors they were.
Choice? Maybe for one? Both? People looking inside the basket in sympathy or
wondering if he was thinking about a name or if he knew he had to pay child support
until the kid was 18. He would reach over and put a Snickers bar in the basket. While the
people looked at him he would think about unwrapping and eating it on the way home.
Peanuts, he loved peanuts. That was something the person behind you might be able to
get behind. Not the pregnancy tests, but peanuts. Roasted and salted. They tasted good to
the guy behind him thinking about how he’s going to have to pay welfare to this kid who
can’t get a hat on his jimmy. If they started talking about peanuts and peanut’s
counterparts, beer and baseball, everything would relax and be normal. Instead, the clerk
says “next,” and he has to step up and pay for his items. If the clerk is a man he looks at
the box and places the test box under the bananas and bags it himself, placing the test on
the bottom of the bag, hidden. Jay pays and everything is okay as he leaves the store, tests
under bananas, yellow above blue. If the clerk is a woman, she places the test on the
4
conveyor belt and lets it ride its way to the bagger (inevitably, another woman) to place it
in a bag on top of the bananas, precariously perched on the rough yellow terrain, a splash
of blue staring up out of the baggage at his forearm all the way home. Both women look
at him as he pays, as he makes his way out, as he’s walking away outside, through the
wall, eyes following him the whole way. Then everything in the store goes back to some
kind of normality as the next group of people hesitate to let their groceries ride on the
same conveyor belt.
---His mother waited for him on the couch. Maury was crouched over, looking in to
the eyes of a sobbing late teen, clutching at their hands and asking them if they knew why
they slept with an older man or why they thought it was necessary to keep their
knowledge of the baby’s origins a secret. Some ‘oohing’ by the audience, some booing, a
cheer for success on the guy finally finding out. Her potato chip bag on the table was
crumbling empty. Some crumbs stuck their way onto the table. Sometimes, if she was
still hungry, she would lick her fingers and suction small chip crumbs to her hand and
then set them in her mouth, looking at her clean fingers afterwards. Jay sat across the
couch from her and put the bag of bananas and tests down. The bag flopped to one side
on the table, depending on how the bananas were situated. Maury was speaking in the
background. Her eyes looked at the lopsided bag, trying to see around the corner to the
inside of the bag and peer into the blue label with the instructions on the side.
“Is that for me?”
“Yes.”
5
“Well,” she sat up, just hearing the origin of the lopsided baby, “did they give you
much trouble at the store? Did they ask you any questions or anything like that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“May I change the channel?”
No.
“No,” she grabbed the bag, “did you buy yourself something? What? What did
you buy?”
“Bananas.”
“Again?”
“Yes.”
“Why.”
“They seem to fit with a pregnancy test.”
“Don’t you talk to your mother like that.”
They sat for a few seconds. Usually Jay would count to see how long. A statistical
average. A number that determined if his mother consciously remembered whether or not
she had asked for an apology or if that was something of a dream. Seconds. Prepare for
an apology, maybe that’s what she thought he was doing. Waiting to find the right words,
searching in the lexicon of apologetic words but not finding one more suitable than
‘sorry.’
“Jay.”
“I’m sorry.”
6
“That’s okay, I forgive you.”
She got up and pulled the test box out of the bag (either above the bananas or
below) and sat back down to read the box.
“Let’s see,” she said.
He wanted to say, “like the instructions are in Chinese” or “like you haven’t
already memorized exactly what it says, even the names of the particular hormones the
test looks for.” But he sat there and said nothing. A vocational school commercial came
on asking people to do what was best for them, get an education.
“Did you know that the window thingy is easier to read and understand than in
previous tests?”
“Oh,” Jay said.
“Well I think that now is the time to test its better than any other. Don’t you
think?”
“Yes.”
The TV stayed on as his mother picked up the box and headed for the bathroom.
The door closed and she turned on the sink full blast, noise running across and around the
confines of the bathroom to block the sound out of her pants being lowered and the gentle
rhythm of the plastic cover of the tests being torn away and the stream of urine coming
onto the end of the test, its absorbency pulling in the urine to get a clear reading on the
hormones that showed up in the body. Then the sink shut off and Jay imagined that she
sat on the closed toilet seat with the functioning test resting on the edge of the sink. Her
hands under her chin, breathing deeply, expecting the test to come back positive. Jay
7
hoped it would be a brother. You get a tiny hoodie and can be taken to the store and he
could say to the clerks, “At least this time we can be certain that she’s pregnant.” The
clerk might smile, nervously.
The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Jay? This is your father. Let me speak to your mother.”
“She’s in the bathroom.”
“Dammit, Jay, she’s always in the bathroom. She’s calling my god damned
lawyers and telling them she’s gonna sue because I don’t pay your god damn childsupport when each check goes uncashed screwing up the balance of my checkbook. I
don’t know if you know this yet, Jay, but carrying over 16 checks into the next year is a
pain to do.”
“Sorry, Dad.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry, just get your mother.”
Jay told him again that she was indisposed but something about checks or money
came out of the receiver. He held the receiver away from his arm and called out “Mom,”
so his father would hear from the receiver. “Mom,” so at least he was trying. He watched
TV and held the receiver out to the side, weighing his hand down.
The toilet flushed and his mother opened the door leaning up against the wall next
to the bathroom.
“Well, it was negative.”
“That’s… fantastic.”
8
“Who’s on the phone?”
“Dad.”
“Dammit, probably calling to tell me he’s not going to pay alimony or child
support ever again, bastard. I hope you know your father is a bastard, Jay. A bastard!” she
yelled. A garble came from the phone.
“Gimme the phone,” he handed it to her and headed into the kitchen. He took the
bananas with him, lifting the old dead bunch out of the fruit basket, he placed them with
the new, yellow bunch of curved bananas. He poured a bowl of cereal with milk and ate it
while looking at the bananas. Each banana had its own consistency and shape. Some had
a larger than normal brown spot on the bottom. Others had a very slight brown spot that
almost faded yellow. That mattered. He thought. The browner ones must get picked on by
the more yellow of the bunch. They are the kings of the bunch. Rivals. He laughed. His
mother had been yelling to the phone from the living room and heard him laugh.
“What’s so funny, Jay?”
“Nothing.”
“He was laughing at us talking on the phone. What was so funny, Jay?”
“I said, nothing.”
“Don’t snap at me. Your father says don’t snap at me… well, you would say that
if you were here and heard the tone he took.”
Jay stopped listening and went back to the bananas. One of them must be in
charge.
----
9
She sat in the kitchen. Waiting for something. A cup of tea was in front of her but
had long-ago gone cold. The steam had escaped out of it and gone away into the top of
the room. Her hands shifted the cup back and forth along the top of the table. An arc of
condensation appeared, weakened, then disappeared.
“He sat right here and laughed at me,” she said. The refrigerator clicked on and
hummed behind her. She picked up the cup and brought it to her lips and sipped at the
cold tea. She put the cup down and made her way to the bathroom and into the medicine
cabinet. Pulling out the test box, the one test rattled around inside. She pulled out the
instructions and read over them again. hCG. That’s what the body gave out when it was
ready for baby. Another baby. She placed her hands on the tiles of the counter. They were
cold like the rest of the bathroom. She couldn’t have another baby, not now or ever. He
had ruined her. Ruined. No one had touched her since. But the hCG could be hidden,
even the test in the box could fail and sometimes the hormone didn’t show up in the body
for days. She looked in the mirror, at her eyes, her eyes felt cool like her hands did on the
tile.
The doorbell rang. She threw the box of the remaining test in the garbage. The
doorbell rang again. A shadow leaned over and looked in the window that was next to the
front door. Walking to the door she pulled her blouse closed, looking down the check to
make sure that her bust wasn’t showing.
She opened the door and two men in suits holding bicycle helmets stood on the
step. Behind them on the street was another man in a suit next to three bikes. A sprinkler
10
sprayed behind him and he looked like he was trapped in a haze. A sparkle came from the
reflector on his helmet, his head moving to look up and down the street.
“Hello, ma’am, have you some time to talk with us about Jesus and the Church of
the latter-day Saints?” He smiled and extended his hand out, a small blue book with gold
writing pushed almost to her face. The other man just smiled and looked behind her into
the house.
“I appreciate what you two are doing, but I really think I wouldn’t fit in your
church.”
“Nonsense, my name is David and this is Isaac,” Isaac smiled, “and behind us is
Zedidiah. May I ask your name?”
She looked back and forth between them and then back to Zedediah, still hazed by
the sprinklers fine mist in the noon sun.
“My name is Deborah.”
“Well, Deborah, you should know that the previous stigma about the church being
against women is gone. The LDS Church now is an equal opportunity employer. As well
as an equal opportunity worshiper, that is, everyone gets an equal chance at the Lord’s
free time.” Both of the men laughed and looked at each other.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have that much time to talk, my son will be home soon and I’ll
have to be getting dinner ready.”
“That’s fine, ma’am but take this copy of The Book of Mormon and remember
that Jesus loves you.” David stuck the book out further into Deborah’s face. Isaac’s eyes
followed the blue book. She looked at both of them and grabbed it.
11
“Thank you,” she said. They both backed onto the step while she closed the door.
She leaned over to watch them go out to their bikes and take off down the street past the
misty sprinkler. She pushed the curtains back and walked back into the bathroom. Did
she look like she needed Jesus’ help? The blue book dropped into the trashcan on top of
the EPT box.
--Deborah. He had said it normally, but there was an echo. They were at the drivein seeing Bullit. Steve McQueen screeched across the giant screen and everyone’s eyes
followed. He was trying to tell her about how the Mustang was the best automobile made
in the United States, even in the world. They smoked two joints before going to the
movie and she couldn’t focus on what was being said, if she missed McQueen or not. If
the car was moving or not. The world seemed heavy to her. Her limbs wouldn’t move,
but the insides of the car shifted a bit when she moved her eyes. She couldn’t tell if the
car moved or just her eyes moved and not the car. She wasn’t sure.
Someone was driving in the movie and then she fell asleep and the world got
fuzzy, she couldn’t understand the difference between time or sleep or both.
Then, they were at his house. The light fell and she thought she saw the night
brighten outside for a moment. Then he was on top of her, pushing, or pulling at her
clothes, she didn’t know, only that that the clothes dragged off her body and scraped her
toes.
The rest was warm and moving. The bed was moving to her.
12
She started think about the music in the movie and how it floated alongside the
car, never overtaking it, never leaving. The music and the car moving together.
He grunted and rolled to her left and she slept apart from her self.
---Someone was sitting where Jay normally sat at lunch so he moved to the other side
of the cafeteria. A group of girls sat on the left of Jay and were whispering to each other,
looking at Jay from across the table. One nodded her head a few times. He focused on his
sandwich. One of the girls got up and headed over to Jay walking by to look and then
sitting on his right.
“Your name is Jay, right?” She sat down next to him.
“Yeah.” He put his sandwich down.
“Did you get a girl pregnant?” After she said that she leaned forward closer to
Jay’s face.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Lori over there,” she pointed and Lori waved. “Her mom works at SaveMart and
she saw you in there buying a pregnancy test. So, who’d you have sex with?” The girls
heard her say that and started to laugh.
“No, I’m not having sex.” He turned back to the sandwich.
“Then why did you buy it?” She said. She leaned back and away from Jay. The
girls tensed looking on. Jay looked her in the eye.
“I bought it for future research.”
13
They stared at each other for a moment.
“Whatever.” She got up and walked back to the girls. Jay finished his lunch and
got up to leave. Some people watched him on the way out, the rest tended to their own
lunches.
---Jay’s mother had taken him to a park once where a traveling circus performer had
set up a show at the request of the park authority so that passersby’s could see a free
show and remember that the Richmond Park Authority really did care about the people
and their parks and not the money that came into their parks. The man had four leopards,
a giraffe sitting in the back of a flatbed truck and a llama. The llama had a fur condition
and was patchy and rundown looking. The llama’s name was Emma Sue. He remembered
looking at the llama and wanting to pet it even though the other kids were repelled by it
and walked over to the roped off leopards and the cramped giraffe. Emma Sue was alone.
Jay’s mother sat at the bench that was across from the animals and watched, only
vaguely, Jay go up to the traveling zoo. Her eyes were on the other mothers and what
they looked like. It was dress season. Jay stood in front of Emma Sue and held his hand
out coaxing her towards him. Emma Sue’s head was sideways and cautious, the way
llamas looks when they’re about to run or leap. Jay kept his hand out. Emma Sue stepped
towards him until she was almost at Jay’s hand. Her head was stretched out sniffing the
air around Jay’s hand.
14
“Don’t you want to come see the ferocious leopards,” the traveling ringmaster
said approaching Jay and Emma Sue. She backed away to the corner of her large pen, her
head turned sideways towards the ringmaster.
“No, I like Emma Sue.” Jay’s mother had gotten off the bench and walked
towards Jay.
“Is there a problem here?” she said.
“I was just trying to get you…son?” His eyebrows raised, Jay’s mother nodded,
“your son to come see the leopards. But he said he wanted to stay with Emma Sue.” She
put her hands on Jay’s shoulders and led him over towards the ringmaster.
“Of course. Jay, why don’t you go look at the leopards with the ringmaster.”
“I want to stay with Emma Sue.”
“Really, it’s fine if he wants to stay here.”
“No,” she said pushing Jay further, “go look at the leopards with Mr. …”
“James.”
“Mr. James.”
Emma Sue watched as Jay was pulled away to look at the leopards that paced
back-and-forth in their small cages. She bent down and picked up some hay, chewing it
while she watched him walk away.
---It was Saturday and Jay was at the store again. His mother had thrown away the
second test in the box, saying that the test got spoiled once you opened the box. He had
15
the blue of the test box and the yellow of the bananas in his basket. He walked around the
store looking at everything. The spatulas had new card board wrapping. He made it to the
clerk. A clerk named Cindy. She looked at him from the line when he chose it. Two
customers in front of him paid. Jay stepped up to the moving belt.
“Why do you buy so many pregnancy tests?”
“Excuse me?” Jay said, The bananas’ lengths had preoccupied him.
“You buy tons of pregnancy tests. You come in like every week and buy
pregnancy tests.” She stopped the belt before the bananas and the test could get to the
scanner, “Why?”
Jay stared at her for a moment.
“I’m Mormon and I have five wives. We’re trying to not get pregnant and each
wife is ovulating at different times. Just to be safe, you know. Don’t want any more
children to sneak up on us.” Cindy stared at him.
“I thought Mormons like to have lots of kids?”
“I guess you don’t know everything then, do you Cindy?” She blushed and turned
the belt back on to scan the items.
“I’m sorry,” Jay held his hand up dismissing her, “that’ll be thirteen dollars and
twenty two cents.”
“Thank you, Cindy,” he said tipping his fingers towards her.
He walked past 12 people out of the store. Outside he made it 42 steps before he
started laughing so hard that he dropped the bag and bruised two of the bananas. A
couple walking to the store looked at him but diverted their glance.
16
---Maury had three guests on the show. Two were lesbians and one was straight but
none of them knew about the other’s orientation. It was a love triangle of somewhat
confusing origins. Jay opened the door and came into the living room with the bag in his
hands.
“Where have you been? It’s almost time for me to take the, well, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Jay said back.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Give me the box.” She handed it to his mother. He had opened it and pulled out
the instructions before he got there. He carefully pulled the box shut so it would still open
in the normal fashion. His mother pulled out one of the tests and started to look inside for
the instructions.
“Where are they?”
“What,” Jay said, sitting on the couch.
“The instructions.”
“I don’t know. Maybe they don’t have any.”
“Well, how am I supposed to know how to use it?”
“I don’t know, guess, reason it out?”
“Don’t take that tone with me.”
“No tone was issued.”
17
“I’m going to go do this test and then we’re going to talk about your attitude. You
understand me?”
“Yes,” Jay said watching Maury hug all three troubled souls as they came to the
conclusion on who got to participate and who got to watch. The bathroom door shut and
the phone started ringing. Jay lifted off the receiver and held it close to his ear.
“Hello?” His father said. Jay laid the phone on the table and took the bag with the
bananas in the kitchen wondering why things constantly happened in this order. He
pulled the rotten bunch out of the fruit basket and put it on the table next to the new
bunch. Jay sat across the table and look at the bunches next to each other. He crossed his
legs.
“What have we to say to your father, new bunch?” Jay said in a German accent.
He paused. “Interesting, but Oedipus never wanted to have intercourse with his father,
only his mother. A new complex has been born.”
The toilet flushed and Jay’s mother came out of the bathroom and into the
kitchen.
“So?” Jay asked uncrossing his legs.
“Negative, good because I don’t know if I could deal with another child like you,
Jay, all attitude and no respect, I mean…”
“When is the last time you had sexual intercourse, Mother?”
“Excuse me?”
“Sex?”
“What type of question is that?”
18
“Well, you must be married again and not telling me because of the constant
obsession with being pregnant. Three times a week then? No protection? I can see why
you’re worried.”
“Why are you saying this?” She started to cry.
“Because I have to buy them and you haven’t dated since Dad left.”
“I just want to make sure.”
“I’m sorry, Mom, I just don’t understand.”
“That’s fine, Jay, ” she said, wiping tears away. “We all do things that are weird.
Like you, why you always buy bananas when you go to the store?” She started to
chuckle. He looked at her.
“Because their shape and color make me smile.”
She smiled first then started to laugh.
“That’s so weird.”
“I suppose it is,” he said, “I suppose it is.”
She laughed some more.
19
Breathe
The mailman always came on time. Always unlocking the cage of little doors to
slot each letter to each person. The city couldn’t change the mailman, couldn’t change the
way the mail would come each day, couldn’t change the way the days came and went like
the mail. Couldn’t change me. That’s what I thought once. Marching along to some kind
of beat playing in the head of fourteen thousand other kids. I had it all made. Pussy lined
up for blocks around. Suzy Q sneaking into the house half past nine, we’d get it on all
day long. The way sweat and disaster melts into your skin under the sheets of the same
bed your mother tucked you into. It was wonderful. One time this girl, Mormon, would
call me and tell me her Daddy was upstairs asleep, then she’d open her bedroom window
and stick her legs out all y’d and I’d slide right in, outside next to the bushes. Come.
Then it was, ‘Thank you, miss, I’ll come back real soon.’ I can’t say how it felt
afterwards. The guilt. The walks back to the apartment feeling like the two of us should
start a family or a something. Damn but it felt good to lie. Walking up and down the
sidewalk telling lies all day long. Lie about how many ladies you been with. Lie about the
way you did drugs. Lie about the wide-eyed crazy things you did while you was on those
drugs. Beatin’ up hobos and such. You could damn near tell the people on the block that
you had kicked the mayor right in the junk and they’d go on believing.
But that street was beautiful. Black asphalt, cracked and broken. My Momma used
to tell me that the cracks were what made the city breathe. Our block must have had a
20
whole ton of air saved up underneath. Holding its breath till pay day. Holding on to that
last moment on rent days. All that breathing and no one to pay the rent. Momma used to
say that the rent due blues were the worst kind of blues. All tangled up. Getting your
underwear all run up your crack. Damn it was hard hearing Momma in the background
scraping at the bills on the table while my brother and me watched TV. She would rub
her head, getting a smudge of ink on her forehead. That was when we knew not to cause a
rucus. A money stain. The city still breathing outside as Momma heaved her breath in
and out trying to focus on all the numbers in front of her. Those days were always the
longest. Dinner always at 9 o’clock. It was hard to even imagine dinner. Macaroni and
cheese usually. Yellow and gold. I remember eating leftovers just after a girl named
Marigold had gotten done showing me what it meant to get a B.J.. Momma had come
home early from work, seeing us naked and eating macaroni and cheese on the couch.
Both Marigold and I stared at Momma for a second. I had the spoon halfway to my
mouth. The gold of the macaroni just next to my lips. I put the spoon in my mouth were it
belonged. Momma stared at Marigold.
“You Marigold? Susan Rodies’ kid?” she said, staring at a piece of macaroni stuck
on Marigold’s right tit.
“Yes, maam.”
“Well?”
“Well what, maam?”
“Does my macaroni taste as good as your Mommas or what?” She crossed her arms
after saying that. It had enough in it to equal enough ass whoopins to last any person a
21
lifetime over. Marigold rushed to my room to get her clothes and pushed past Momma,
naked, to leave. The whole next week Momma didn’t talk to me. That was punishment
enough. The city would scream outside but inside our apartment, the silence was inside
my head. Marigold never came back neither. She was good at what she did too.
The smudges on Momma’s forehead began to appear again. This time having
nothing to do with money. My brother Bobbie began to cough. All the time cough cough.
On the subway, people would stare at him as he held my hand coughing. Little ‘hack
hack’ sound barely audible, but registered by something deep down in people. Those
damn people staring, they kept wanting to know something. Anything. ‘Who is this boy?’
Trying to get in when all I wanted for them was to get out. Leave Bobbie and me alone.
Then the cough turned into a blood cough. Blood on handkerchiefs. Shirt sleeves.
Tablecloths. Once he coughed the blood cough on the street’s cracks on the street. Some
guy walking by seeing a kid coughing up a big hunk of red bile into the sidewalk.
Disgusting. I know it was. Bobbie standing there hacking up every bit of himself deep
down. People just took a wide berth. Circling out of their way, paying no attention to the
boy dying on the cities cracks right in front of them. Two guys stood way back in the eve
of some building. Whispering to one another. Making bets on Bobbie. Bets on the
quantity of blood. Both of them mother-fuckers had hats on. Some company’s logo
tattooed on the front. All they could do was stand there and whisper about how this kid
was coughing up enough blood to donate. All they could do was think about their wives
and cars and how many hats they needed to buy. The whole time I was standing there
22
patting Bobbie on the back, stroking him to calm the blood out of his throat, I wanted to
run over to those men tear their hats off and throw them in the gutter. Stamp on them. But
Bobbie kept coughing. That silent ‘hack hack’ noise, shaking his body, and I couldn’t
stop rubbing his back and telling him that everything was ok. The cracks next to him
breathing in the blood that Bobbie coughed into the ground.
The smudges would come and go depending on how Bobbie’s cough went.
Momma would have her hand, index finger and ring planted in the fake gun symbol on
her temple and cheek. She would stand like that for hours. Staring at Bobbie coughing.
Ignoring her stories on the TV, ignoring her crossword puzzles. Just staring at Bobbie
sitting on the couch with me watching TV. I was the same way. I didn’t poke fun as much
at Momma anymore. Girls hardly ever snuck in. Bobbie’s coughs echoed all around.
Days came and went. They were usually measured in red tissue, sprawled out on
the bathroom floor next to the garbage. Box after box. Bobbie and I built a pyramid once,
boxes reaching near to the ceiling. We crashed it down, laughing and laughing, Bobbie’s
hacks left aside for the moment so he could wheeze a few moments of laughter into the
apartment. Laughing over spilt tissue boxes. It wasn’t that funny but we laughed anyway.
Bobbie asked me one night. He asked me and he asked me over and over again. I
couldn’t take it anymore. The city outside kept edging in on our conversation. Butting in
through the window. Car honk and ambulance screech. Waiting for the specific
knowledge to be bestowed upon the small parts of asphalt, accumulated, that made up the
city.
“Is my cough serious, ‘Mey?” He used to call me ‘Mey even though my name was
23
Jeremy, then Momma started calling me it, then some of the girls did, hanging around the
house listening in. I hated when they called me that. Momma was no different, she used
to rub it in, how childish my name was that way. Bobbie just said it cause that was the
way he knew my name. I let him.
“We don’t know, Bobbie, doctor’s test are gonna come back soon.”
“But shouldn’t a doctor be smart and stuff and know when kids is sick and need
medicine?”
“Yes, Bobbie, but doctors don’t know everything. Now shut up, the shows back
on.”
That would usually keep him quiet, but he kept staring at my face. Little wheeze
coming from the back of his skull.
“What happens if I die? What happens if the doctors can’t help me? I don’t want to
die.”
The city’s noises came to a halt outside our window. Even the T.V. stood still on
commercial to listen in on the answer given by me, the big brother that was supposed to
make sense. Answering all of the cities questions like I’m some kind of fucking Ms.
Cleo, ‘Call me now,’ being broadcast over all the city’s airwaves. Bobbie stared at me for
what was like three episodes on TV. Running by, commercials for toys and deodorant
unheeded while everyone waited for the big brother to answer. Bobbie kept wheezing
next to me, eyes filled with some kind of easygoing malice that only gave a fuck if
somebody, anybody, decided not to answer and forgo the pleasantries of truth.
“I don’t know.”
24
“Oh,” Bobbie said. He stared forward at the TV, or maybe past it, not
comprehending why ‘Mey, godfather of all things holy and shitty, couldn’t understand
the way death went. I turned towards him and looked at the side of his face, gaunt and
pale from whatever disease wracked his body, dry on the outside, while his lungs flooded
on the inside. The small concave on his chest heaved a bit each time he took a breath. I
felt bad for his chin and his ears and his nose. They didn’t know any better. The lasso that
I had tied around the city at that moment loosened a bit.
“Listen, Bobbie, you don’t need to worry about stuff like that, I told you, doctors,
they’re smart and we need to trust them. Ok? They’ll find a way to fix you up real quick.”
“Yeah. Ok.”
I got up and headed for the bathroom leaving Bobbie to stare at the TV’s blank
hold. The tap water was cold and beautiful running in the sink. The mirror showed me.
Skin flushed and ready for anything. Fat and muscle taut underneath its surface. I kept
staring at myself and bringing spit into my mouth and spitting it into the sink. My mouth
would get dry so I’d splash some of the water into my mouth and spit it out again. The
water was foul. It tasted like when our garbage disposal broke and we didn’t have the
money to fix it for three weeks. I felt sick everytime before I spit into the sink, then I’d
gather more water and spit some more. I started to get sick of it all so I stopped.
Bobbie was still sitting on the couch where I had left him. I sat next to him,
catching up on the episodes’ progress. I looked back over to him. The questions had
faded.
I kept thinking to myself that something would happen. Something incredible. That
25
the doctors would call and say that because of their misintentioned treatment, Bobbie
only had pneumonia and needed a slight I.V. treatment. Momma would come home with
some hidden genealogical knowledge that showed some covered disease that had some
simple and absolute cure. Bobbie would suddenly be free of all of his coughing woes as
this phase in his childhood passed. Something incredible and fantastic prompting tooth
fairies and Easter bunnies to show up and light the apartment on fire and dance around in
some insane spiritual pyre. I didn’t even know where all that was coming from.
I shoved him in the shoulder and he shoved me back and we watched more TV.
Nothing incredible happened. Momma came home and had a smudge on her
forehead. A deep, blue smudge, hinted of ink and fingers, stationed directly over her left
temple. She looked frantic at first, then Bobbie turned around and said hello and returned
to the TV. I said hello as well, but she kept staring at Bobbie’s head, fingers at her left
temple, other hand clenching and un-clenching at her side. She still had her nametag on
from work, her shoes were scuffed and her hair was frazzled out on the edges.
Bobbie started to hack a bit, but brought a hand away from his face free of any
copper tasting blood. Momma was going to step forward when he started to hack, but her
scuffed shoes remained still when nothing showed up on his palm. She still didn’t say
anything or notice that I was staring at her. She just kept staring at Bobbie. Then she
started to make dinner. Clanging pots and pans. Pushing together food and half setting the
table. I heard her mumbling to herself. Once I asked her what she said, and she told me
nothing. I heard her once. She spoke all crazy eyed, praying, no, more demanding to God,
26
‘Don’t you take my baby boy, don’t you do it.’ Back and forth. Her and God discussing
the future of an eight-year-old boy.
The dinner continued to be made and God paid no attention to Bobbie, only to the
perfection of the dinner. Perfect amount of spice on that Chicken skin, perfect amount of
grease on those fried potatoes. The meal had to be perfect, God made sure of that.
Momma kept mumbling to herself, pushing pots and pans sideways and up and down. I
set the table while she wasn’t looking. She hemmed at that. Glancing past me to Bobbie,
silent with the TV. The kitchen smelled good and dinner tasted good and, for a few
morsels, Bobbie didn’t cough and Momma’s smudge faded away and we laughed at the
jokes I told and said prayers to God for the good food. It was alright.
After dinner four or five girls called seeing what they could find at my house.
Momma knew what they were after and hung the phone up each time. I got antsy but
didn’t mind, there was always tomorrow.
The hacking started up towards bed time. Bobbie coughed a bit and spit a huge
black and blue mass into a tissue. Momma stroked his back and threw the tissue into the
bathroom toilet. It faced up at me as Momma tucked Bobbie into bed and I brushed my
teeth. Huge piece of flesh straight out of Bobbie’s lungs. It had all his drops on it, red
sticky pieces of bluish-yellow and orange. I felt like it had eyes and was staring at me
every time I looked into the mirror to brush my teeth. I spit my toothpaste out and
brought a glass of water to my mouth, but I glanced down to it, red smattering in the
toilet, floating around the bowl, red ships of disaster. My mouth tasted like the garbage
27
disposal again. I threw up into the toilet. I threw up all that beautiful food that God had
created and sanctified thanks to Momma’s good touch and brilliance. She came into the
bathroom throwing away a wad of tissues from Bobbie’s room.
“What’s wrong? You sick now, too?” She stood in the hallway with her arms
crossed while I kneeled over the toilet. Her hand never went to her smudge. Her hands
never clenched. Her eyes only looked.
“No.”
“Good.” She walked away back to Bobbie’s room and finished tucking him into
bed. I flushed the toilet, not looking and I went into my bed room.
Sleep didn’t come very easy. The silence outside the windows added up inside my
head as the loud thrusting hacks of Bobbie cracked inside the apartment. Huge tumbling
coughs, rolling around in his bed. Momma kept getting up and taking more and more
tissues into his room. Whole armadas of tissues. I sat up in bed listening to her coo at him
trying to soothe his lungs into compassion and sleep. Then she appeared in the doorway
clutching Bobbie’s shuttering body, frail and limp, rocking him back and forth against his
lung’s revolt.
“Get your clothes on, we’re going to the E.R.”
“But, Momma, Bobbies just-”
“Get them on now, boy, don’t quarrel with me.”
“Alright.”
I got my coat and my clothes and left towing behind Momma, Bobbie nestled in her
arms. His head rested on her shoulder staring at me and the world moving backwards in
28
front of his eyes. He looked at me in our apartment’s outside hallway and smiled. I
smiled back. Then Momma turned the hallway corner and I couldn’t see him smiling
anymore.
We got into the car and drove the short distance to the hospital down the street,
trying to avoid the few red lights along the way. Cabs in holding patterns waiting for the
early business men who had fun nights with hookers but needed to return to their wives
and children. Us trying to avoid the cops on the street that would stare at a mother and
two kids driving around at four in the morning, wondering what kind of mother does that.
The hospital was white, as usual, and the orderlies and nurses were polite to
Momma and kind to Bobbie and standoffish to me, as usual. The severeity of Bobbie’s
cough made them care a bit more for a few seconds, but then they just admitted him like
everyone else. Bobbie coughed in the waiting room. Filled with men and women with
broken arms and rashes and bending over buckets of vomit and bile. But when Bobbie
coughed, everyone stared. I kept staring at the white walls hearing people come and go,
struggling with what ideas the sick often think in white boxes with other sick people’s
thoughts. The hours started to tick by. A constant room, mesmerized by Bobbie’s coughs
of sickness and the people around him coughs of discomfort at the sickly child in the
corner of the room. Momma checked her watch.
“You better go home and get ready for school.”
“Ok, Momma.” I stood up, ready to go.
“Say goodbye to your brother.”
“Goodbye, Bobbie.”
29
“Goodbye, ‘Mey.”
“I’ll see you when you get home.” I said all this while I walked away from Momma
and Bobbie, sickened by the white room and all its people. Bobbie still clutched to
Momma’s shoulder staring at me smiling as I walked away. Staring at me walk through
the double sliding glass doors. Staring at me as I walked out onto the street and back to
our apartment.
The walk was a beautiful thing. Filled with the early dew of the cities breath in the
morning. I felt like that white room didn’t exist anymore and that the street was all there
was left in the world. There was a girl on her way to school. Short skirt. Stripped
stockings. V-neck blouse cut real low. I passed her and turned to look for a second. She
didn’t look back.
And I just kept walking home, trying to avoid the cracks in the sidewalk to let the
city breathe.
30
Chapter 2
31
Noche de Musica
She sings at night when the sun is gone and Linda is asleep. Creeping out of her bed
and leaning against the wall of her bedroom, arms leveled at her chest, listening to her
own humming voice against the wall. The House. Vacuumed and silent, shuddering,
almost, as her voice swells, swills in her mouth. She wanders around this house, at night.
Singing. Slow rhythmic folk versions of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Blinded by the
Light.” The clock ticking back and forth, an ornate metronome, pendulum gold encased
in glass. She knows Linda will awaken if her voice gets too loud. Her chest expands to
sing some lyric lost to the music the cars play when they drive by. Then her head tells her
no, and she hums. Keeping her breath inside. Swallowing notes and lyrics. Whole. She is
afraid of Linda. Of the conversation. “Samantha, you know I need to sleep. You know
that I work during the day just like you work during the night. Do I run around banging
pots and pans all morning disturbing you? Do I?” Samantha imagined the tirade with
spanned hips and fingers that ticked back and forth, Samantha opened the window and
sang to the city outside. Samantha moved down the stairs, toes reaching every wood edge
on the steps, curling under a bit on each lip.
The kitchen was a kind of white that blurred into the cracked tile counter and kept
in the noise from the rest of the house. Before, she lived during the day, and Linda first
moved in, she cooked and sang Aretha Franklin in the white sound booth. Whenever she
tried to get Linda to sing, Linda would frown and sulk over to the couch saying
32
something about not having time and not being childish enough to bask around all day
singing songs recorded by other people.
Samantha opened the window and looked out into the night and the street. All of
the cars were lined up behind one another, each almost touching the other in front of
them. Nobody walked along or trailed their fingers across the fence boards, bored at the
hand’s insistence to search their pockets or rummage across the shirt. She sang a song
into the night. Each word of “Only the Lonely” playing into and around the trees and
grass in the night. She imagined that the cars answered the “dum dum dum dum de do
waa’s” and that the street posts answered with their “yeah yeah yeah yeah’s.” Each alone
in their attempts to complete the song, but together in their oneness of vison and
collective song for the night. Collective light.
Samantha remembered the call of the teapot and removed the kettle from the stove
before it had a chance to join with the music of the light posts. She poured the tea,
watching the tea bag slosh around in panic until the water changed color. Seeping the
water away from itself and changing it into something else. No more water, only tea.
She grabbed her tea and headed to the computer. It flickered to life while she sat in
her chair. She placed the cup of tea carefully on the clay coaster that her friend Jaylin had
made for her. Together they made and sold “functional stemware” on the internet.
Samantha sat humming and nodding her head while the computer booted up so she could
handle the emails of their business venture.
She opened her email to check for clients’ feedback on the products they had
purchased. There was only one email in her inbox and it said ‘hey’ in the subject line.
33
She opened it and saw a picture of an overweight naked man with the caption, ‘wanna
meet?’ underneath his spread legs. She giggled and then started to laugh, her laughter
playing into the chorus that echoed from the house. She clasped her hand on her mouth
and looked over her shoulder in case Linda was there. Glass of water Linda who
stumbled down the stairs. Or angry woken Linda who heard laughter at three decibels
higher than it was. The chair squeaked as she looked back to the naked man’s member.
She laughed and hit reply. She typed in the box, ‘no thanks, but the picture was very
aesthetically pleasing.’ She clicked send and tended to more of her business.
Samantha hummed to herself, clicking at the mouse, playing along with the
melodies in her head. The lights calm flicker from the screen played images on the back
of the room, transcribing an amorphous image of Samantha on the wall. She looked over
her shoulder to check for Linda but instead saw a shadowy vision of herself locked on the
wall behind her. Moving and shifting. The light moving and moving.
Her email box flipped up as an email appeared. She clicked on it and saw the naked
man had replied back. ‘Bitch,’ it said. She frowned. The house, her head, the computer
screen were all silent. She logged out and shut the computer down. The chair squeaked a
bit as she sat back in it. She brought the tea to her lips but it had gone cold so she left it
there. Humming so she wouldn’t hear the squeak of the chair, she got up and headed into
the livingroom.
The night outside was normal. Each time a car passed, it seemed like hours until the
next set of lights traced their way into her living room. The TV faced away from the
window, the house sitting at the corner of a crux of streets. Cars turning to peer into the
34
living room, blinding the watcher with their curious headlights and diminishing
withdrawals. Samantha watched The Price is Right, recorded from the day. Bob Barker
whispered into her ears, her headphones hugging close to her head. She smiled as the
wheel spun round and round, red one dollar sign flashing itself to her. She hummed its
theme song and hummed the theme to Baywatch and the theme to the A-Team. Bobbing
her head back and forth, headphones warming. The commercial prepared itself to come,
and silence was there. She heard something. A whisper throughout the house. She paused
the TV and took the head phones off. Her eyes focused on the bookshelves, the image
pulling itself away on each side as her eyes strained to rehear what she had heard in her
headphones, but in-depth and uncompromised.
Linda, she thought to herself. Her eyes refocused on the glare of the TV when she
heard the noise again. A conversation, or whispers. Both. She got up and scuffed her way
over to the foot of the stairs cocked her head up towards the top of the hallway to Linda’s
bedroom. The sound came from outside. Again. A whisper. Not the dog or cat or night, or
the man’s strange nightmare, his arms reaching out in a scream, unable to pull the covers
off to silence the city’s crashing hum in the background. But a conversation. A
conversation in the blackness. She moved herself into the front of the house slinking
along to the front door, pulling the lock away, its small squeak blowing against the
muffled focus of her ears. The small tone of silence pushing in on the conversation
outside. The door opened and the night outside tried to let her hear the conversation. The
front porch had four pillars with a bench on each side. Bushes corridored in the porch,
lifting away from the ground to the roof and making a small wall next to the bench.
35
Samantha sat on the left bench nestling against the bush and feeling its small prickles
against her back. Her fingers rubbed along the woods grain feeling the sound pushed off
of the edges of her fingers. She sat in the pillow of silence, waiting for the speaker.
Waiting for the night to be broken. Waiting for something. Everything.
Then someone giggled. A hand scraping fabric. Lips kissing eachother. The bush
felt like a chasm making seconds between each noise that came to Samantha.
“Venido en bebe, no sea malo,” a voice said. “No, Jesse, no quiero a, dejo para
volver a la casa de su hermano,” a young girl’s voice said. Samantha looked at the bush
to try to see a face. A voice. A Body. “No ser así. Será divertido bebé. Permite hacerlo.
Me duele cuando no lo hacemos, ¿sabía usted que?” The voice said moving, or
something, beyond the bush. A car spring moved and shifted. “No, Jesse. No quiero. No,
por favor, no,” the girl’s voice again. It started to crack at the end of the words.
Samantha’s hand clung to the bench, feeling the dirt rise between her fingers. Nails
pushing themselves in, making slight noises that matched the noise of the car next to her.
“No lucha. Vamos, nena, no lucha. Me duele tanto como le duele. No lucha,” The voice
raised, but then quickly subsided. The girl’s voice muffled. Nothing came out but the
spring’s whimper. Three whimpers of spring or girl. Then nothing. A cry whispered its
way out through the bushes and into Samantha’s ears. A seatbelt buckled. The girl’s
voice began to cry, whispering to Samantha, “Por Que, Por Que, Jesse, por que?”
“Callete.”
The car pulled away from the bush leaving Samantha, leaving the bush’s silence.
36
the father sitting in his chair, plush and ripe red like a tomato, pipe small with
walnut tones and a tail of smoke lifting itself off, whipping around and back onto his
face. he never sung to the little girl. he would peer over his shirt sleeve and nod and nod.
saying things in slight tones that whispered themselves past the smokes tails. whispers
about how men never sang, they spoke about true things. talk true things. talk the truth.
singing was just a funny storyteller’s way of lying. “i won’t sing with you, but you can
tell me about your day.” the little girl walking past the father to the house beyond with
her arms to her sides fist curled into little circles. the father only staring past her to her
destination, fingers of smoke curling around the end of the pipe, becoming the oxygen
around the pipes end
the cigarette burning in the mother’s mouth, dangling like a fat lip below. the dishes
being rubbed by a cloth too tired to remember the store it came from. humming some
kind of crazed fast melody to the clean white plates. dangled cigarette limping along with
the song tempo, splashing grey ashes that turned invisible next to the white bulbous
billow of the soap. humming along as the cracked newspaper hemmed and flopped
switching sides from sports to politics the cigarette jittered to a stop pathetic and flopped
split lip again down and reclusive ready to be whimpered in apologysurrender. the little
girl hating the cigarette’s silent ash, floating down to mixture, no hum of secrets words,
only float and disappearance. holding hands to her ears, rubbing the edges, rubbed sound
of finger and ears, rubbed inside
the boy waiting downstairs. a boutonniere, perhaps a bottle of jack. unscrewed.
ready for legs to split. she didn’t know. only the mirror in the bathroom wanted her.
37
reaching out with reflection and a perfect shield of simmering light. her hair was ugly.
long and disgruntled. splayed out on the side of her plump rutabaga face. she snarled at
the mirror. showing teeth. white teeth like the tiles next to the mirror and the keys on the
piano, except the keys on the piano had grey and yellow streaks on them. she took the
scissors to her face her hair. the mirror reflected it as well. reflected their sliver pin
blades. reflected the silver reaching the brown as the lights soft hum played along with
the scissors waltz. the sound of the parents hushed laughter and conversings downstairs.
shlink. noise cutting hair after hair dropping into the sink, murking up its whiteness. then
a knock at the door. gasp. the mother crying, seeing her short haired lopsided daughter.
the cry turned into coughs and hacks and then wails. the father looking in trying to calm
and soothe the mothers wails. the boy looking surprised to the date who had been forced,
reckless and calm, to the wildcat. she stood and stood and looked to her room that door
opened into the calm dark that drank into her. plunged into her. her
mother laying on the ground. cigarette broken into her face. the father sitting on the
chair next to her. hands hanging to his side, clenched. the kitchen muffled after the sound.
after the sound. after the little girl saw the father and the mother yell and strike. and the
silence playing into the music of summer, but only after the sound. and then, the
grandmother tried to stroke the girl’s hair, but they were about the same height. the house
had been emptied and nothing but the newly formed dust remained, clinging to the
mantles and fan blades. no one spoke and the grandmother made her way out to the car.
waiting with her eyes forward while the girl looked into the house and its vacuum of
noise. turning around and leaving. passing the kitchen. closing the door and getting in
38
next to the grandmother. the grandmother nodded and said ‘ok’ and started the car, put it
into gear and drove away.
Samantha walked back into the house with her feet rising from the floor only in
little bits, to muffle her noise and listen for the car to drive back. Back to the bush to
speak all over again. To make noise all over again. The stairs creaked a bit at each step.
Linda was laying on her bed asleep with her mouth open, gasping large incoherent
breaths. The room was plain and still and Linda’s white sheets blended into her face.
Samantha walked forward and sat on the edge of the bed feeling her weight rest against
Linda and the mattress. Linda felt the shift and woke rolling her eyes and her body to
look at Samantha.
“Samantha? What the hell is going on? What time is it?”
“I,” Samantha turned herself to look at Linda. Her face was drawn and her eyes
were open and silent.
“You what? You’re freaking me out.”
“I saw them.”
“Who.”
“Nothing. Something. Or sound,” Samantha said. She got up to leave the room.
“Dammit, Samantha,” Linda said rolling herself away from the door, “don’t fucking
ever freak me out like that again.”
Samantha walked down the hall feeling the rug and its soft swoosh under each of
her feet. The wall of her room was cool and white again. Her fingers rested against it as
39
she made her way to bed. The light began to broach over the tree tops and houses, but
only in muted tones, not turning the things in the world into things yet, just murky
objects. Samantha left the blinds open and she lay on the bed waiting for sleep, but
hearing the voice of the city, whispering its awakening throughout the house, eyes open,
unable to sleep, unable to dream in music.
40
Sons
The sunset in the back porch of our house was beautiful almost every day of the
week and Carli and I sat out there taking in every drop of sunset until the black blanketed
out the light and we could only see eachother by feeling. I think that was when we really
started to hold one another, on the deck, with every part of our bodies pushed together.
We could feel. We made love sometimes on the swing chair and on the table. My mother
called telling us my father coughed and shivered all night. At first, I started to tell my
mother that he might have pneumonia or something banal, even trusting in my own
words. My mother’s tone slowed and her words spread out evenly so that I could
understand.
The drinks were all empty on the coffee table and my father’s nurse sat explaining
that while my father was on his medicines he stood an even chance of getting ahead on
the coughing and the chills that came in the middle of the night, shaking his whole body
and the bed around him. The nurse’s name was Carol and my father joked about how I
might get confused between Carli and Carol, slipping in to kiss the wrong girl goodbye.
The women laughed and I smiled, turning away to look at the pictures on the mantle, or
next to the fireplace. My son’s toys were on the ground, littered around his playpen.
“John,” my father said.
“Yes?”
41
“Get up and say goodbye to Carol.” I walked her out telling her I’d see her next
Friday for check-ups on the new medication. Carol walked down each step of our
walkway out to her car. She wore a cardigan that seemed out of place. Her breasts were
large and perfect and her clothes hid some other woman underneath, one my father had
seen and kept a secret all to himself. My father seemed unafraid now. Unsure of how to
talk to women. Perhaps that was why he picked Carol.
I walked back in. My father was crooked on the edge of the couch looking at Jason
sleeping in the crib. The news was on TV. Some men talking about the election and
things that may or may not matter to each opponent. I sat next to him on the couch
watching TV, seeing Jason and my Father out of the corner of my eye. Jason slept very
quietly and almost too much of the time.
My father turned to the TV.
“You know, your mother and I almost named you Antony.”
“Anthony?”
“No, Antony.” He looked over to me, but only for a moment in the eye. “Your
mother and I both loved Shakespeare.” He looked over to Jason again and then back to
the TV.
“Lucky I wasn’t a girl, then you would have had to name me Cleopatra.”
Jason stirred a bit and my Father continued to watch TV.
“I don’t like this senator Masterson, he has a bad look about him,” he said pointing
with the side of his hand. He looked back to me, so I nodded. Jason rolled his head to the
42
other side and made a small noise in his sleep. My father looked over at him and
scratched the side of his face.
I don’t suppose the priest knew very much about my father because he started to
read passages from Job and some Proverbs to summarize and plot out my father’s life;
the people sitting around the casket returned blank stares to the priest nodding when they
were supposed to in his speech. The large eight-by-ten picture stood on a small table next
to the casket was the one of my father in the navy, bright young smile and teeth that
seemed to never stop. Some of the people hushed to eachother that they never knew that
Emmit was in the navy. They laughed at his bright smile and rosy cheeks. I had to stand
next to my brother and shake everyone’s hand as they walked up to touch or stare at the
coffin on their way back to their seats. Most of the people gave their ideas of sorrow for
my brother and only said, “I’m very sorry for your loss,” to me. My brother’s head
swayed a bit each time someone shook his hand. His eyes were bloodshot and he couldn’t
talk without burping. The people shaking his hand paid no mind and shook for their own
will. I looked in each person’s eyes and they would avert theirs, wanting to return to their
seats. One woman eyed the picture of my father and smiled but only looked into his eyes.
She shook my brother’s hand and maybe she couldn’t see the resemblance in his face.
She looked into my face and my eyes and shook my hand saying, “I’m very sorry for
your loss.” I looked back at her and could tell she wanted me to talk in my father’s voice.
I shook her hand and said, “I’m sorry for your loss as well.” She walked away and looked
back at me two or three times. She hadn’t shown up at the reception to look again. My
43
hand might have been too familiar to her. The creases of it. The touch of it on her skin.
That must have scared her. My skin and my father’s skin too similar. Too much alike to
pretend that it was his hand touching hers or just touching her. Something so close to
what she might have wanted that it became exactly what she wanted. I had never met her
before either.
My son started to walk and babble and roll around the house in his mobile, moving
up to every piece of furniture making noises or coo’s to explain what it was to me. I
nodded. He rolled around the house and smashed into the coffee table. I was watching the
Nets’ game and smiled. He smiled back and looked at me real hard, staring not into my
face’s mysteries, but into my actual face.
“Da da,” he said, smiling afterwards. I grabbed the remote and turned the TV off. I
sunk down low to his face and raised my eyebrows as if I didn’t hear.
“Da da,” he said again, with resolution this time.
“Yes, I am your Da da,” I said back.
“Da da.”
I grabbed hold of him and pulled him out of the mobile hugging him close to my
body. I could hear his laughter and he could hear mine.
44
Prayer(s) and Conversation
There was someone in the field and they were praying, close to the ground with
their knees bent and their hands pushed close together. The dry perspiration had gathered
in the skinny place of the hands where nothing gets through. The tree next to him sprung
out of the ground, out of the gray green grass, out of the roots that clutched to the dried,
cracking earth, and went to the sky, throwing its own branches, like hands praying to God
for rain or even a break in the sunlight, further and further into the air. Except the tree
prayed to a woman, a mother, the man on the ground prayed to a man, a father. The man
didn’t know the tree was praying to someone else, he wouldn’t have thought that proper.
The man knew that when he closed eyes and had his knees to the ground and there was
no sound but his breath, that his breathing became that of God’s. He always nodded to
that. God listened through him. Listening. The man’s name was Jeremy Pyke, and he
prayed. Sometimes for things that didn’t happen, and they probably never had any
likelihood of happening. Once he prayed for the White Sox to win the World Series. The
team did so badly that year that the manager killed himself. He asked his pastor once, a
straight up and down man whose attire was normally a tucked-in plaid shirt and khaki
slacks, whom the parishioners knew only as Pastor Jenkins, his first name being a
mystery, if it was okay for his prayers to differ from the mundane to the tantamount. The
pastor straightened his glasses that moved down his face because of his short and
undesired nose and told a story about an old man who had lost everything at the
racetracks. Every day betting on a different horse and every day bringing a rosary to the
45
track, rubbing the beads to try and get a reaction from God. Give his horse a break. “Sure,
his horses would win every once in awhile,” Pastor Jenkins said, leaning back in his
office chair so that the springs resting directly beneath his buttocks creaked, “but never
enough to make a difference, it was never enough for him.” The pastor continued his
story, telling Jeremy how the more he prayed, the more he lost. He thought he was Job,
going through some trials before the big money hit, “before,” the pastor said, “God really
showed he was a big softy for prayer. That God was a big softy for his faithful.” That
never came and he lost everything. He was down to his last dollar and placed it on the
counter without picking the right horse or even looking at the odds. “Just placed his
money on the counter and went out to the track,” the pastor said. “He had placed a bet on
absolute worst horse, 75-1 odds. And he won!” The pastor hit Jeremy on the shoulder.
“He won! The money he got he placed on another horse, and won again, with no prayer.
He won all as money back, every dime. He’d been tested, by God that is,” the pastor
moved his hands to his chest snapping suspenders that weren’t there, “and after that day
he never gambled again and only used prayer to help others. In fact,” he said, poking
Jeremy’s arm, “his mother-in-law had cancer and he prayed for her and she lived.
Although,” he leaned forward and whispered, his eyes looking over his shoulder, “he
only prayed to be nice, seeing that it was his mother-in-law.” He laughed and Jeremy
nodded, smiling, to say he really did get the joke. The pastor nodded and smiled every
time he was in church, winking, like that was a story no one else had ever heard, a
parable in the Bible that said ‘members only.’ Jeremy kept his eyes open during prayer
and looked at the crucifix on the wall, Jesus’ head hung so low.
46
His head was like that in the field with the trees branches looking up, praying to
the clouds. Some thunder called far off in the distance, being carried north in the blue
cabs of clouds. Jeremy heard the cold ramble of the thunder through the ground. The tree
started to move in the wind, the branches falling against one another to make a rustling
sound that makes you wake up at night. In the gray field it was just another sound
emanating from the ground, disappearing up into the air and into the thunder of the
clouds. The tall grass that could have been hay felt strong against the backs of his legs
and felt rough under his knees. He knew that he would have indents in his knees from the
bent over pieces of grass that tried to push through his jeans to leave marks on his legs,
going through one thing to reach into the other.
“Please,” Jeremy said. He got up and brushed off while looking at the clouds
carrying the noise across the state and showing it off with a light show. He walked back
towards his house and could feel the light moving off his back and towards the sound.
The wind made noise moving across his shirt, noise to noise, all moving together past
Jeremy.
---They still used a typewriter at his office. It was a large electric machine that
hummed when you flipped the switch into the on position. The roller squeaked a lot when
anyone slid the paper in and the return notice never rung so you had to pay attention to
how far you typed on the page in order to push the carriage, with a whoosh, back to the
left. It was right behind the area that served as Jeremy’s desk. It was more of an ‘L’ of
desks, pushed together so that he could use his computer on one side and have his papers
47
out on the other. He had some pictures. Four. Samantha was in three of them. On a swing.
An action shot of her holding the fishing reel while he pulled in a fish that was splashing
both of them. And a glamour shot of her with her chin on her fist and her head cocked to
the side. The other picture was of him and Julie sitting with the dog they had before Julie
had gotten pregnant. He liked that dog. She was old and wouldn’t have taken to the baby
so they gave her to his brother who didn’t have any kids. He never really looked at that
picture, just the one of them catching a fish together. He liked that picture.
Someone was using the typewriter behind him. The keys warmed up and started
their buzzing routine and whoever was using it forgot to put the ink in black and started
to type in red. “Shit,” they said. Jeremy looked at the water splashing onto the boat. The
person pulled the paper out of the roller and squeak fed a new one into the ream.
Whoever it was was typing in a clumsy fashion, stopping, Jeremy hearing the whiteout
un-screw, then continuing to type. He counted the drips of water that were falling out of
the boat, looked at the tension of the line, saw the green water breaking for the fish to
jump out of it. The keys of the typewriter were coming into the lake. The person at the
typewriter typed words and the typewriter accepted them. Each word and idea put into it
without question. The typewriter could write down things and ideas but it could never
write down the lake or the fish or Samantha and the way that her face scrunched up when
the fish jumped into the boat. The typewriter could say it but never mean it. Jeremy
changed his mind, the keys weren’t in the boat anymore.
Jeremy turned around. It was Lee from accounting and his thick glasses, hunched
over the papers that he was correcting on the typewriter. Jeremy hated the short-sleeved
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button shirts he wore every day, regardless of the weather. A short sleeved button up with
a tie, always rotating from navy blue to blazer red. Jeremy got up from his desk and
walked towards the break room.
“Hello, Lee,” Jeremy said continuing to walk without turning around. Someone
else glanced up to look, and saw Jeremy and shook their heads and went back to work.
The bland paper harbored less ability to scorn.
Jeremy liked the water cooler because it talked back to him in a way he could
understand, like a child, one action leading to an equal reaction. Water came out in a
bubble and its noise popped up like an answer. Like laughter. He stood there sipping his
water. He could feel the floorboards moving and someone’s steps getting closer to the
water cooler.
“Hey there, Jeremy.”
“Hello, John,” Jeremy scooted over a way from the cooler to let John come in and
fill his own glass of water. The cooler talked to him while he did it but his face was
turned sideways to look at Jeremy. He liked John because he made no assumptions as to
who anyone was, just questions to get answers, never answers asked to questions that
didn’t matter.
“How’s the wife?”
“Good. Good.” Jeremy took a sip.
“And how’s…” John paused. The water cooler bubbled a bit, “Samantha?”
“She’s doing good, John. Real good.”
“That’s nice, weather’s been nice, not a lot of thunderstorms this year huh?”
49
“Not many, but a few big ones.” Jeremy looked back over to see if Lee was still
hunched over the typewriter. He had his glasses lifted and was correcting what he had
written. “A couple of them scared Samantha last week, she woke up crying and had to
sleep in our bed.” He turned back to look at John. His head was tilted sideways and had a
small smile on it when he talked about Samantha. He hated that stupid smile, like people
couldn’t figure out what to do with their mouths when talking about something
uncomfortable.
“That’s nice,” John said looking over his shoulder at the other people typing and
working, “but really, Jeremy, how are you both holding up? Are your parents helping
you? It’s good to have help sometimes.”
Questions.
Jeremy looked into his face. John’s face. It honestly just wanted to know. Just
wanted to be helpful or kind or caring. Just wanted to feel human and mental and not
stuck in a stasis that encases everyone in a lullaby of soft tones and loud symbols. John
just wanted to sip water and ask about Samantha, but Jeremy didn’t want to tell, no, not
about the fish or how it got away or how her nightmares made her clutch close to his
chest with the clouds hurling sound down on their sleepy house.
“Have you ever read “Heart of Darkness?” Where he looks into the African’s face
and all he can see is black shadow and bright white teeth and eyes and that’s all he thinks
the natives are, just pieces? Each day feels like that. Pieces, not a whole, pieces.”
John looked to Jeremy and took a sip of water. He didn’t look away.
“I’ve never read it, but I’m trying to understand.”
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“I know.”
“I’m sorry, Jeremy.”
“I know.”
Lee had left the typewriter. Jeremy threw his cup away and walked back to his
desk. John watched him go and drank the rest of his water and went back to his desk.
Someone coughed in the office.
---“Daddy,” Samantha said, “does that tree have flowers on it in the spring time?”
“No, it doesn’t sweetie, but little flowers grow at its base. They’re yellow and
have white tips on each petal.”
“Could you pick some the next time you go out?” She reached out her hands and
put them on top of his.
“Yes, I could, but say please next time.”
“Please?”
“Okay,” he said. A noise came from the hallway and Julia poked her head around
the corner.
“Time to go to bed sweetheart.”
“Okay.”
“Yes, Master.” Jeremy said. They looked at each other from across the room.
They both started to smirk. Julia jumped across the room and her hands started tickling.
Both of them. All three laughed as fingers searched for bellies and armpits and necks.
51
Samantha laughed so hard that she started to cough. She coughed a few more times
before both Jeremy and Julia stop tickling.
“Everything okay, sweetie?” Julia asked rubbing her back.
“Yeah, just a little tickle cough.” They both laughed and Samantha smiled. Julia
got up and went out of the room. Jeremy put his hand on the side of Samantha’s face and
rubbed a little bit.
“Goodnight, Sweetheart.”
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Remember the flowers?”
“Okay,” he turned off the lights.
---Jeremy had stopped listening to the typewriter. The spring release and the people
typing their constant mistakes and curses at having to get a new piece of paper because
their eyes couldn’t decipher one-inch margins drove him crazy. He wore headphones all
the time. At first he just wore them when someone sat at the typewriter chair. A quick
burst of Bach or Mozart. Now he just kept them on all the time to make sure that one
person might not sneak through before he could get the headphones up to his ears. Now
he listened to anything from Schopenhauer to Limp Bizkit. First the music was soft and
just blocked out the people sneezes, but some of the sneezes got through the sound of
violins and adiagios. He, like everything progressing, turned the volume up gradually.
Entire days spent at 10 gave him a constant earache but he felt good listening to it. It was
52
good to be hearing someone who wasn’t there talk to him. No, sing to him. Everyone
seemed to be fine with the headphones on. He didn’t have to worry about the noise they
made when they creaked out of their chairs to look over the cubicle walls at him. They
could cough and he wouldn’t hear them and that was okay with about everybody. The
typewriter even liked it. Jeremy figured it hated him staring at it. Hated the negative
energy. And that’s why it broke and made everybody commit errors. Errors of words. He
didn’t know.
Jeremy took the headphones off and walked past Juliana at the typewriter. She
looked up and followed him into the break room with her eyes. Jeremy pulled a cup out
of the water cooler and filled it with water. John came around the corner and took one as
well. They stood side-by-side drinking their tiny cups of water. Jeremy nodded hello to
John.
“I read Heart of Darkness, John said.
“Excuse me?” Jeremy said, still having a bit of ringing from his headphones.
“I read that book you were talking about.”
“Oh.”
“It was good,” John said after a second.
“Why did you read it?” Jeremy said throwing away his cup.
“Well, I wanted to try to understand what you meant by ‘pieces.’”
“Understand?”
“Yeah.”
“That was nice of you.” Jeremy said looking back over to the typewriter.
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“I don’t think he meant pieces,” Jeremy turned to look at John, “I think he was
trying to give an example of how the British colonizing state of mind was. That these
people were not people, just things. And compartmentalizing their body features was
another way to do this. I think.”
“That’s just a superficial reason.”
“I know,” John said cutting him off, “but I think the author also wanted you to see
that while they were treated like garbage they still had all their body parts sewn together
to suffer. Suffering as a whole is bad, I suppose, and he wanted us to see that as the rest
of the world moves in one sense at a time, like his speech in the book’s description. So I
understand.”
“That was well thought out, John.”
“I just wanted to try and help.” John pulled his arm away from the cooler and put
it on the Jeremy’s back and squeezed.
“Thank you, John.” John nodded his head.
Jeremy left and walked back towards his desk. Robert had replaced Julianna at the
typewriter. Robert turned over his shoulder and gave a peace sign. Jeremy nodded back.
He sat at his desk and put his headphones on. The picture of Samantha on the boat with
him and the fish caught his eye. He looked at it and looked into her eyes. Her hair.
Mouth. Arms. He wondered if the fish was scared when they caught it and why they
didn’t think about that and let it go. He put the picture down and thought of Samantha’s
eyes and what they’ve seen. Her mouth and what it said. He turned back to his computer
and started to work. A violin echoed. The fish was still jumping out of the edge of the
54
water. His eyes were drawn to it again. The picture was in his hands and he looked at
Samantha’s face and the fishes face. In the picture they weren’t breathing. The fish out of
water. The air drowning it. It couldn’t breathe and they didn’t think about that either. He
put his hand on the picture, on Samantha’s face. He could feel her breathe, as close as she
got when she was next to him in bed, scared of the storm. He could hear her breath too.
As noise.
The typewriter clicked in the background but Jeremy didn’t hear.
55
Chapter 3
Intermission
56
Back Home
I
I was six and dropped her favorite bowl. It had blue dahlias etched onto the sides.
One of them etched itself over the top of the bowl, falling down into the whiteness and
whatever was being mixed. And I was the one who dropped it, and it shattered. Breaking
the blue dahlia on the white surface. Breaking it in half.
II
You remember trick-or-treating, or getting ready for trick-or-treating. Standing in
the hallway with the mask over your face, pinhole sight of yourself in the mirror, seeing
portions of yourself, one arm missing, even your whole torso. You thought that you
looked excellent, as Wonder Woman. You had the lasso and the cape and the magical
belt. You looked excellent. Your mother said, “Yes, you look exactly like Wonder Girl.”
“Woman,” you said. “Woman,” your mother corrected herself. Your father pat your hair
while he was on his haunches saying that you were his sweetheart. You smiled.
Your mother trailed behind you from door to door, asking for candy placed in the
little orange jack ‘o lantern bucket. Everyone smiled at how pretty you were. One man
said he wanted to know where your invisible jet was. Every house’s candy is collected
and you were pulled along the streets by your mother’s fingertips. The candy’s lure is too
much to focus on directions.
57
At home you spilled the candy out on the table and picked out your favorites. “Not
until tomorrow,” your Mother said. “No, now.” You ate and ate in secret. You ate with
your mother frowning. Your stomach hurt. You belched and rolled in pain, your stomach
was on fire. The rustle of candy wrappers was paired with the sighs of your mother. You
sensed she was at the door but you fell asleep, another belch came from your stomach.
III
I stole the car and drove it down the block. It wasn’t any car, it was the GTO. I
crashed it into a trash can and scraped the paint. She showed up when I got home and saw
the scrape. “Put it in the garage,” she said. She repainted the front of the car and he never
found out. Then she said later in the week, “Girls at 15 shouldn’t get in car accidents,
don’t do it again.” And she bought me a bike.
IV
You started to hang around the wrong crowd. Marijuana and uppers. At different
times, of course, you knew to blend was to end the night. You got in fights at school and
punched Suzy Valentino so hard you knocked her left bicuspid out. You got sent home
time and time again and ate pot brownies on the way. The teachers didn’t know about the
drugs but started to worry about the behavior.
You sat in a chair across from the guidance counselor who thought he could “save
you” with your mother by your side. She had her hands folded on her lap and you
slouched down in your chair. The guidance counselor was talking about life goals and
58
charismatic personal development. All dealing with school activities and functions
dealing with school. “Dances, in fact, promote a 37% chance of better social development
and therefore, better academic development.” She pointed her arm out towards you and
looked right back into her arm.
“My daughter has no time for dancing.” Your mother said. She stood up and picked
you up by your coat collar. “This won’t happen again, I promise you.”
At home you started to count eighths in your head at the kitchen table. Your mother
sat across from you placing her hands on the paisley yellow table. “I’m telling your father
about this one.” You sat at the table and she got up and your fingers tried to scratch into
the pale yellow, feeling its plastic cover that protected against spills. You stayed at the
table, comfortable, until your father got home. The yellow was a nice color, you thought.
V
Rebecca’s children cried at night and she wondered if they would ever stop. Her
house, her home, her apartment had bleached white walls with little speckles of
dimension on them. The babies liked to walk up and feel the wall, its roughness. Rebecca
would never let them lick it. Lucy had cried all night when she was a baby and Robert
was no different. Wailing out into the black until she came or Jim came with arms that
soothed. A ring in the carpet was tracked down by their feet walking in circles.
Rebecca was tired.
Jim was going out of town for 12 days. To Toronto. A client merger. They kissed
briefly and she packed to go to her mother’s house. She had seen that done before when a
59
man left, so she figured to see what happened. Her father had left long ago. First with a
younger woman, then with cancer.
The children were quiet for the ride, looking at new buildings passing by. The
house was still well groomed. Crabgrass had started to grow at the edges of the lawn, but
not enough to notice. Rebecca’s mother opened the door and saw them pull into the
driveway. She left the door open and went back into the kitchen. The TV was on
Antiques Roadshow, then Nickelodeon. Rebecca brought the kids in.
“Put them in front of the TV for awhile.”
Rebecca stood for a moment holding Robert; Lucy vaguely clutched at the hem of
her shirt. She placed them in front of the cartoons and went into the kitchen shutting the
door on the way. The dishwasher was running and she was washing dishes next to the
sink. Three or four cake pans piled up on the side.
“I made a cake for the children, I hope they like vanilla cream.”
“When did you start baking? You never touched the oven when I was a kid.”
“Mind your own business and eat the cake. You won’t care why I didn’t bake for
you when you were a child.”
Rebecca sat for a moment at the table, her hands rubbing the yellow Formica,
looking for fingernail size scratches from long ago. The appliances were all new. Making
better food. The table remained the same dull yellow.
“Anyway,” she said looking over her shoulder, “how’s Jimmy.”
“He’s good. Busy. At work.”
“Busy is good.”
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“Not always.” Rebecca looked over her shoulder at Lucy and Robert in front of the
TV. Robert had fallen asleep on the top of Lucy’s thigh. Lucy’s hand grabbed at the
carpet and her eyes glazed and the cartoon was reflected to Rebecca. She turned back
around and her mother was sitting across for her, a cup of coffee in her hand.
“When did you get the new TV?”
“Few months ago.”
They sat and stared at each other. Rebecca’s mother sipped loudly.
“The kids wont stop crying at night. Robert won’t stop crying. Tell me what to do,
Mom.”
Her mother got up and put the coffee cup in the sink, letting water rinse it.
“Come with me.”
They made their way through the house, up the stairs and down the hallway to the
bedroom on the end. Rebecca’s fingers trailed along the wall to feel its flatness and paint.
Her mother opened the door into her room. The bed had been moved from one side of the
room to the other. Rebecca stood for a moment reversing the image of her parents
sleeping together. She got dizzy.
“Come here,” her mother was at the dresser and held out a small silver chain with a
dull metal globe at the end. “This was my mother’s and hers before. I wore it, now you
will.” She put it over Rebecca’s hand.
“Thank you, Mom. What does it mean?”
Her mother nodded for a second and touched Rebecca’s hand on the top.
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“I’m going out on a date tonight, so I need to get ready. You’ll be ok with the
children. Dinner just needs to be put in the oven.” She kissed Rebecca’s forehead and
went into the bathroom. Rebecca’s hand went up to the globe and felt it, all around it.
Then she went back downstairs. The stairs creaked.
The children ran and played in the backyard while Rebecca sat on the stoop
laughing when Robert giggled and fell over. The brass railing was smoother than it had
been before. It smelled nice. The dinner tasted good from the new oven. Robert spilled on
the table and Rebecca cleaned it up. They all went in the living room to watch a movie.
The only two VHS tapes that her mother had were Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and The
Grapes of Wrath. The shelf was empty and dust collected were VHS tapes used to sit. She
put Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in and they watched. Robert fell asleep and so did Lucy.
Rebecca turned the volume down and wandered around the house. The house started to
make sense. The pictures on the mantle were changed to landscapes. The furniture was
skewed. Light bulbs changed to CFLs. Everything in the house started to revolve in
different directions. Rebecca had been thrown off. The house moving in sync with the
rest of the world. Its appliances leaving and sitting in dumps. The bed moving itself. She
wandered back down the stairs to the study. The piano was still in the same spot, between
the bookshelves and the desk. Papers still spilling out of the bench. The keys cover was
dusty. She lifted it and looked at the keys. Some were paler than others. Her fingers
wanted to play but she knew that sound would wake. They hovered over every key, each
making a small note in her head, playing together with the others. She closed the lid and
walked back into the house, the rest of the house.
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She sat in the recliner away from the children. The film moved on and Rebecca
fingered the dull globe. Her mother would be home soon and that would be nice.
63
Chapter 4
64
Dates
The phone rang and she picked it up waving at me from the hutch to come closer.
“Yes, ok. Well, ok, we’ll be right in. Yes, thank you, goodbye.” She hung up the
phone and looked up at me.
“Doctor?” I said. I raised my eyebrows.
“No, secretary, she sounded positive, happy. That’s good right?”
“If she sounded good, it has to be good.”
She had on her blue cardigan that her mother had sewn for her just before she had
died. It had a large “C” sewn on over the left breast pocket. For Catherine, your name.
She had said. But Catherine was your sister’s name, mom, she said back. Her mother
nodded and patted her hand. She wore the cardigan every morning to protect against the
draft that came from under the front door. She rubbed at the “C” when her hands showed
how nervous her mind was. She reached for the “C.” I grabbed her hand away and kissed
it.
“Everything’s going to be fine, let’s finish our coffee and then head to the clinic.
Ok?”
The phone rang and she picked it up. I could hear our son say hello on the other
end. I walked away into the kitchen and sat in front of my cup of coffee. Her cup sat
across from me. The steam escaping, trying to make it out the window but dissipating just
inches from the top of the glass. Her cup had a green vine etched onto the side that
wrapped around the handle and back onto itself. Her voice was still coming from the hall.
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I couldn’t hear my son’s voice but could tell what he was saying. I looked out at the yard.
The grass was getting a little long. I thought I might mow it when we got home from the
hospital but before dinner. I sipped the coffee and thought that I might need to buy a new
lawnmower.
We got in the car and started to drive to the hospital. I took the long way around
the lake where all the rich houses sat perched on the very edge. We used to drive around
and park in front of a different house each time and talk about what our lives would be
like if we could afford to live there. The twenty cars we would own. Almost like the
Kennedys except more lifelike.
“I think we always should have chosen that one.” I pointed to the largest of the
houses that had been vacant for over ten years. She smiled and rubbed the “C.” She stared
out the window so I just drove the rest of the way to the hospital driving.
The secretary was positive when we walked in, nice and cordial. The doctor
would be in in a minute. I remembered that her chart had said that the chemo had killed
most of the cells that fractured under responsibility. The door started to open. The doctor
was always putting on his white coat when he would come in the room. Dr. Jameson.
Fluffing it out at the edges to sit across from her. I had my hands on her shoulders. I tried
to look at the doctor from across the room even though he was right in front of me. Like
looking through a tunnel. He was standing at the other end, not even yelling, just talking
plain. Speaking softly. I couldn’t hear. I looked down at Julia and her head was down.
Her hand moved up to mine and grabbed at it. She couldn’t quite get it to mine. I looked
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back at the doctor looking at me. I couldn’t stand it, so I looked at the tops of Julia’s head
and how her hair spilt, re-grown and fresh. That was all I could look at.
It wasn’t necessarily cold but the wind clawed at your clothing, pulling it open so
you felt like you were standing naked out in the wind, raw and blistered. I stood at the top
of the steps to the church watching the hearse pull up. My son’s Mercedes pulled up
behind it. Some of her cousins got out, her male friends from church. Her brother. My
Son waved at me. I stood still looking at the tail end of the hearse. They picked up the
coffin and put it on a roller and rolled it up the ramp. They stopped next to me. The
funeral director shook my hand and said something to me but I was looking at the tail
door on the hearse, how large it was. And his assistant closed it and just stood there with
his hands behind his back. I wanted to see his hands.
“Dad,” my son was standing in front of me, “how are you feeling?” I looked at
him for a few seconds. He had his shoulders slumped and his eyes were red.
“How do you think I’m feeling?” I said that and turned to head into the church. I
didn’t touch the doors but they opened anyway. All of the people in the church turned
around. Some of them looked at me, some looked at the coffin. A few faced forward and
cried or prayed. Everyone was occupied with something.
I walked the rest of the way down the aisle and took my seat at the front pew. The
rest of the men and the coffin rolled past me and stopped next to the flowers. The flowers
that were already dying next to the wooden coffin.
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The ceremony started. Everyone was silent and wavering in the pews. One
woman Julia knew from Bunko cried until she started to wail and her husband had to drag
her out. I heard some people whispering but the way the pastor kept saying a line of
scripture, then looking down at me made me stop caring about the people whispering to
eachother. My eyes were supposed to be glossy with tears. I just looked down at my pants
and at the stain that nothing could seem to get out. I rubbed it with my fingernail while all
of the people sniffled and listened to the pastor. We, I, never really liked him anyway.
But, I suppose I should have listened. So I stopped scratching and put my head up to
listen, looking past the pastor’s head to the large wooden cross behind him and the small
wooden coffin below it. And the flowers.
The house was empty and bland. I tried to fluff the pillows at night. I tried to cook
eggs the way Julia had. In the pan with the metal handle. The pan got hot and I touched it
and it burned me. I threw the pan out the window, crashing through the glass and falling
into the yard. I thought I might start a fire so went outside and pulled the hose off the
fence and sprayed the pot. I kept spraying and spraying until the sun went down.
Somebody was in the back window looking out at me, but not coming out.
My son showed up and grabbed my shoulders. I wouldn’t stop spraying the pot so
he walked in front of the stream to grab it.
“It’s not hot, Dad.” He put his hand on mine and loosened it from the hose, the
sprayer, pulled my hand away. I walked in the house and locked the door and sat at the
kitchen table all night long.
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I think I started to cry with my hands covering my face but every time I would
just start coughing and coughing until blood showed up on my hands. I wiped it on my
jeans and coughed more.
The doctor told me I was sick. There was no tunnel, no voice from far away. I had
my hands closed on themselves grabbing each other. It was Julia’s doctor. His hair was
gray on one temple. When he turned and looked the other way the other temple was still
brown like the rest of his hair.
“Something traumatic happened to you?” I said to him. He closed the drawer he
was opening and folded his hands on his lap like mine.
“Why do you say that?”
“One of your temple’s changed color.”
He sat for a moment. Pulled at my bluff, stared, tugged and tried to drag out a
smile. Both of our hands stayed grasping each other. He looked down.
“Well, Mr. Pykes,” he said, “I’ll probably die the same time you will if that’s
what you mean.”
He stared at me for a long time with his shoulders hunched over.
“You try to die first so that way people know you were good doctor and kept me
alive,” I said.
He laughed. He laughed and laughed and then started to hunch over more and cry.
I stood up and put my hand on his shoulder and laughed a bit.
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“We’ll both be okay, it’s just a thing that happens, son. Just a thing that happens.”
I rubbed some more and he cried some more. I watched the door to make sure no one
would come in and see a doctor crying. He started coughing and sobbing at the same
time, his body moving back and forth under my hand.
I went home and pulled the blankets and sheets off of the bed and placed them in
the hamper. I sat in the recliner with a beer and watched TV. Some of it made me laugh
and pay attention. I dozed. I dreamt. I was in some sort of wheat field. Horses were
running by. They had golden eyes and long mane hair that spread out and whipped
around in the sun and next to the tops of the wheat. The horses looked at me when they
stampeded by. I woke up and had dropped my beer. My truck was in the driveway and
the sun was shining off of the hood, glinting into my eyes. I grabbed some things and
walked out to my truck.
I’d never been to Coney Island and I had never had a Coney Island dog, so I did
that. I rented a car and drove up the interstate to Coney Island. My dog spilled a bit on
my khakis but I didn’t care. I sat on a bench and looked out at all the people. Couples and
children and lovers and such. I kept seeing children walking ahead of their parents. Girls
with short skirts on. The roller coaster made this whooshing noise while it passed by
overhead, shaking things and making the people next to it look up at the screaming
people flying by. I closed my eyes and heard the whoosh again. The bench shook.
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I opened my eyes and a girl was looking at me. She looked like a picture, holding
a balloon in one hand and her mother’s hand in the other all at the same time. I got up and
walked over to the girl. Her mother was looking up at the flying coaster.
“Should I ride the roller coaster?” I said to her.
She shook her head and pointed out to the waves that were rolling in. The mother
turned around.
“Can I help you?”
“I was just asking your daughter a question.”
She pulled her closer into her chest. The balloon wobbled the bit in the air.
“Oh,” she said.
“Thank you, sweetheart,” I said and turned around. The mother’s eyes were
probably on me the whole way to the beach.
The beach was littered with trash and trashcans that were empty. I took off my
shoes and tied the laces together and sat with the water. It got my toes and my calves and
my thighs. The whoosh was far away now. The water pulled out and away. Someone
screamed on the roller coaster. I thought about horses again.
I drove to Atlantic city and went into the casino and started playing blackjack.
The dealer was nice, so I left and got most of the money out of my checking account and
went back to the table. Some people came and gambled and lost and left, but I stayed
about even, considering I had pulled out most of my money. Three women and I, two
men, the dealer and I. Then, one man. He looked like my son. He sat next to me and we
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started to play the dealer together, making him bust so we could both safely get paid. I
won two grand and he won four. The dealer was laughing at how bad the luck of the
house was and he got switched out. The pit boss sat near us and looked out at all the other
tables while we waited for the new dealer. I looked the man over for a second.
“Pretty good night,” I said. I sipped my beer.
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“You play blackjack often?”
“No.”
“You don’t talk much do you?” I turned in the chair to look at him. Then he
turned and looked to me and was just a guy playing blackjack at my table.
“I just want to win my money and go home, that’s it, okay, old man?” He stared at
me and picked up his rum and coke and sipped at it. I looked down at my chips and
pulled away the two grand and pushed it towards him. He kept sipping his drink and
looking down at all the chips. I picked up the rest and got up . The pit boss smiled at me
and I smiled back.
The truck got a flat tire on the way home. I pulled and tugged at the tire iron,
cussed and fell and cut my hand. I got all four lugnuts on and leaned up against the truck
at the back axle for ten minutes, wheezing and coughing periodically. I coughed and
couldn’t catch my breath. I drove home the rest of the way veering from left to right.
My son took me in because I couldn’t make it up the stairs. My doctor died. He fell
asleep at his desk working on transferring his patients to new doctors so he could some
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spend time with his kids and his wife. Then. He didn’t wake up. My son took me to the
doctors for my new appointment time and they had failed to get me a doctor. I told them
to just extend my prescription and I’d be okay. My son shook his head but didn’t say
anything.
I had the guest bedroom and everything was clean and arranged so as to look
country and polite. Mary Engelbreit. My grandchildren huddled around me sometimes at
the dinner table and asked me to tell them stories about things. I made up some pretty
good ones about the Civil War and the way women and men treated each other in the
past. My daughter-in-law laughed at all the jokes I told. I had never been this close to
them. Touching the wood on the kitchen table. Drinking coffee from cups that weren’t
Styrofoam. The curved handles of white coffee mugs. Coffee was the only thing that
tasted good anymore. That and toast. My son got me a French press and made my coffee
fresh in the mornings. It tasted good. I sat with him out on the front porch and made him
tell me about his time in college because I had never asked him before. He laughed and I
laughed. The coffee tasted good.
I realized when I moved all my things into storage or the trash or my son’s house
that all I had were calendars. A stack of calendars. Almost three feet high. I opened a few
of them, little scribbles everywhere. Over dates and birthdays and the parties we had to
go to. All the handwriting was hers, except a few that said “fishing trip,” or “reunion with
guys.” I think we met at a bar and drank all night long and I had to call her and tell her
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that I was drunk and needed her to pick me up. Then I scribbled the word “Poker Night”
out of the next months.
I kept the calendars and took them to my son’s house. I labeled the box “X” and
put it next to my bed, my son’s guest room bed. I couldn’t sleep with the box there. I
would roll over and look at the edge of the bed, how it dropped off. At the bottom was
the box. The “X,” like a landing mark. I’d rollover but I could still tell that it was there,
behind me, over the edge, crawling under the bed, becoming a monster, reaching out and
grabbing at you when you walk by. Little clutching claws with dates on them. Little dates
with even smaller scribbles of hand writing on them. That was how the creature learned
to speak.
I got up and pulled my pants on. The box was heavy but I made it downstairs to
the fireplace, my son’s fireplace. Fiddling with the controls and turning the steel knob the
fire flared up and softened.
1968. I pulled that out first and looked at some of the dates. Tom turned three. I
had a root canal. I put my tongue in the back of my mouth to feel for the metal. The
calendar scared me. I didn’t want to see any other numbers and their events. No, each day
was happening and scratched out all at once. I threw 1968 on the fire. It caught, turned
metallic green, then slithered in on itself and to black – and then into the fire itself.
1994. 1970. 1952. They all burned the same.
1972 had just gone and I heard footsteps on the stairs. My son walked beside me
and sat on his recliner.
“Morning, Dad,” he said, leaning back.
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“Is it?”
He nodded.
I picked up 1965 and handed it to him. He examined the front, a Mustang, Fire
Engine red, and opened it to September. Tracing his finger over to the 13th.
“Mom almost died giving birth to me, right, Dad? Tell me that story before you
burn it.”
The fireplace wavered a bit when Tom closed the calendar.
“No,” I said, “I don’t think I want to tell that story, Tom.”
He nodded his head and handed me the calendar.
“I’m sorry.” I couldn’t tell if I said it or not because I felt my lips move but they
also didn’t. So I said it again. The house creaked.
“It’s okay, Dad.”
“You can help me burn these though.” I handed 1965 back to him. He reached
across the space between us grabbing it over all of the other calendars spread over the
floor.
“I can do that.”
He placed it on the fire and it was eaten up through the middle of it, erasing
September and November and then all the other months. We handed them back and forth
and placed them on the fire watching them disappear, always checking what year it was
first.
We sat and watched the fire. I turned to say something to Tom, to my son, but he
was nodding to me so I didn’t have to.
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Walking
I was 18 and had had enough of my father telling me what to do, how to act, what
to say. So one day I knocked him into the dirt while mom was watching and said to both
of them, “I’m sick of this place!” And I left. Neither of them tried to stop me. My father
just sat in the dirt of the driveway watching me go. Mom went back inside to finish the
dishes in the sink. My brother was working in the garage on his cherry red Trans Am and
just leaned up against the garage door and watched me punch Dad. Wiped his hands and
leaned.
I walked down the road a ways and got picked up by some people heading to
Alabama, so I rode with them. Figured nothing else I could do. I wandered around a
while, getting this job and that, figuring I was only one in the world at that time doing
that. Where I lived there must’ve been 15 other drifters just on my floor alone.
Birmingham is apparently a place for drifting. Every room in the place, in every place,
had a shoddy chair made out of wood that resembled balsa, a dresser that was Oak or
something valuable and was chained to the floor, and a bed, or cot, or board with straw
placed on top of it. Just a place to lie down. Just a place to sleep. In Birmingham, I think,
I sat in one of those flimsy chairs and looked out at the river and dreamt of splashing in it
like my brother and I had done back home. The chair must have not liked those thoughts
because it broke while I was on it. At the time I wasn’t eating much so I could only have
weighed 170, 160. I took the remainder of the chair downstairs to get a new one and the
lady who ran the place looked up from her magazine shrugged and looked back down. I
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took the chair outside, sprayed some lighter fluid on it and lit it with my zippo. They
kicked me out. I left with just my lighter and my cigarettes.
Work was never easy. All the bosses wanted was a man that worked like a
machine. But I heard one of the guys, he was a college man, say they were all Luddites
and only wanted us to work like machines but be men. I didn’t know exactly what he
meant but I figured he was right. It was always dark and cold next to the guy who started
the work. Then I put another piece and someone else finished it. I never really saw what
we were making, just the parts of it. A beginning or an end.
In the lunch hall you couldn’t tell what it was you were eating. Just bits of things
that reminded you of food. All of the guys had their faces down in their trays shoveling
everything on them. No words or laughter, just the clink of metal to tray, rows of
hunched backs. Then a whistle, a bunch of shuffling of dirty trays and hurrying men, then
the machines started up again, loud and whirring.
I could do my work without thinking so I paid attention to the conveyor belt and
the crease line where it had been sewn together. It kept flying by and making me dizzy so
I looked up to the ceiling where the light was coming in from the rafters. My hands had
been doing all the work and I didn’t hear the guy behind me yelling.
“Henry!”
I turned around and nodded, pulling my head close into his.
“Boss wants to see you.”
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He replaced me and I walked up to the Boss’ office. The stairway was narrow and
metal grated. Every time I took a step it squeaked a bit and shifted under my weight.
Everything moving under me. The light was still coming in sideways from the windows.
The boss’s office was all made out of wood. Wood desk. Wood paneling. Wooden
chairs. Wooden lamp and filing cabinets. I thought maybe he was afraid of metal and the
rest of the factory and that he kept wood in his office to say he was an outdoorsman. I sat
in the wooden chair that creaked under my weight.
“Henry, I got some news for you,” he said, putting his hands in front of him,
crossed.
“Am I fired?”
“No, Henry, news from your parents.”
“How do my parents know I’m here?”
“I’m not sure son, but your mama’s been trying to contact you.”
“About what?”
“She said it to me over the phone,” he paused a second and sighed, getting ready
for something, “that your daddy’s sick and that you need to come home as quick as
possible.”
“That’s what she said?”
He waited a moment and stared at me.
“Yes, son, that’s what she said.”
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He talked for a minute about getting some time off because family was more
important than work. I could feel the wood of the chair and wondered if it felt the same as
the paneling on the wall or the door.
A bus seat is a terrible place to make a promise. All the way I had a man sitting
next to me telling me that he promised to do his taxes and promised his ma and his wife
that he was a faithful, good Christian man. He kept promising things to me and I was
stuck against the window of the bus feeling the sealant and not knowing what the guy
was promising but hearing him say it anyway. Then he would look away for a few
seconds. I couldn’t see his eyes but I imagined he was eyeing all the other people on the
aisle. All those people looking forward, glad that they weren’t me and didn’t have to
listen to the things he kept promising me. All they had to do was sit in their aisle seat
with their feet stretched out and focusing on not looking into his eyes. Even as a kid I
wanted to sit in the window seat and look out at all the things passing by. I thought
maybe that a barn passing by had all the things a man who was moving by needed. A loft
with some hay. Some animals that purr and hum all through the night, all the sounds
playing together to make it so a man can fall asleep. Then, taking the ladder down in the
morning so he can look at all those animals that had lullabyed him sleep and pat them or
such and walk out and look at the sun and how it comes up over the hills behind the barn.
But this guy was promising again next to me. Nudging me in the arm to have me turn
around and look into his eyes, his bulging eyes, and tell me that he promised his wife that
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he would take out the garbage and he had to get back to Tallahassee as soon as possible. I
got fed up.
“Tallahassee’s back east, friend.”
“Call me Richter,” he said.
“Richter, I hate to tell you but Tallahassee’s back east. We’re heading west.
Maybe you should get another bus heading east if you promised to take out the garbage.”
He stared at me for a few seconds. I could feel his eyes, bulging out towards me,
blink. They did. Everyone else in the aisle looked at us too. Fighting the urge to look
away and staring. Mr. Richter looked back up the aisle at all the people. Some of them
looked away. He looked back at me and said, “I guess you’re right, I suppose I should
transfer buses at the next stop. Where do you think that is?”
“I believe it’s Boison city,” the man across from Mr. Richter said.
“Thank you, sir,” Mr. Richter said and looked forward putting his hands on his
knees. He stayed like that the entire way and made no more promises. At Boison he got
off and walked around the bus to get on another.
I walked down the dirt road again, in reverse. A couple of people who were
planning on buying the lots next to ours had, and had built up two huge houses. One on
the left and one on the right. They built so close to my parents, their yards opening up on
both sides. Bunching in close to the sidewalls. A kid was playing in the yard on the left
with his father. They both had baseball gloves on and were throwing a ball back and
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forth. I started up the walk when the father caught the ball. He kept the ball in his mitt
and waved at me. I waved back.
I turned and walked towards the garage. The paint had started to go. It used to be
a barn red and now its large chunks of paint pulled off the side and dropped down all the
way to the tall grass that spread out of control underneath it. My brother was at his Trans
Am. The hood was no longer connected to it and was missing from the garage. He stood
up from the open front of the car and wiped his hands with the dirty red rag.
“Dad’s sick,” he said.
“Why do you think I’m here.”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Mom in the kitchen?”
He nodded.
“Where’s the hood?”
“Sold it for a new carburetor.”
I nodded and headed into the house. He put the cloth back in his pocket and then
leaned over the open car, pulling his wrench against the gray metal of the bolts.
I opened the kitchen door and stepped in. I wiped my feet and looked at the
kitchen table. Normally it was spotless, with a small towel at the middle of the table with
sugar and salt and pepper on it. There were dirty dishes with food still stuck on them,
small bites taken from the edges of the main course. The plates had a dried mashed
potatoe spotted corner that was almost all gone. Mashed potatoes were good but my
mama made them better. The sink was still white and spotless, my mother’s scrubbing
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pad next to it, food stuck on the scrubbing side. Seeing that didn’t bother me but the table
did. The stove was going and the tea kettle had steam coming out of it ready to whistle. I
turned it off and looked around the counter for the cup of tea my mother had ready. I
poured the water and steeped it for a moment looking out the window at the front yard
and the road that lead to the highway. She was using the old white china that they had
gotten for their wedding. I stepped out of the living room and my mother was sitting on
the couch reading. Good housekeeping, June’s edition. I sat next to her and gave her her
tea. She sipped at it for a second and looked at me.
“Your father’s sick.”
“I know.”
She nodded and blew on her tea again. I looked in the cabinet next to the front
door that had my father’s World War II model airplanes. Some were missing. On the left
was the cabinet that had my mother’s quilting fabrics. Samples and patches of quilts and
pictures of quilts. I always thought her hands would bleed when she made quilts but her
hands stayed light and floated around the edges pushing the needle through every time.
“He doesn’t know I sent for you.”
“I figured as much.”
She looked at me and put her hand on my knee.
“It’s good to see you.”
“Its good to see you too, mama. He asleep upstairs?” She nodded. “I’ll go up
then.”
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She took her hand off my knee and went back to her tea. My brother swore from
the garage and she shook her head.
The stairs still had the red runner worn down the middle, a light gray, and solid
red on the edges. The banister was still well-oiled and polished and still had that notch
where I had tested my first knife out. I walked down the hall pushed open my mother and
father’s door. The shades were drawn and the light from the hall lined the bottom edge of
the bed. I closed the door behind me and made my way to the opposite side of the bed,
my father’s moving lump facing the wall with the door. I sat down next to the window
and looked at the dresser. Just like the sink, clean, my father’s bolo ties still hung from
color to color. My mother’s jewelry placed in each respective dish. I felt the weight of
myself on the bed. Pushing the blankets from left to right. I felt my hands and the patches
of dirt on them. My mother would have slapped me if I’d come into her room like that,
dirty hands and face. The chair by the closet. The closet door, always closed with the
clothes on long, old wooden hangers my grandmother had given them. The carpet. The
wall. Painted red with the wallpaper trim that had wild fish jumping across it. My hand
felt how much weight I put on the bed. My father moved. I turned my head to look at
him.
“Linda? Who’s there?”
“It’s me, Dad,” he put his head down on the pillow. I could feel him breathing. I
could feel the house moving and wanting me out of the room. I could feel the dust rising
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the day I knocked him to the ground. I still felt the dust in my hands, shaking them to get
it off. The bed shifted under both of our weights. He shifted a little bit.
“I’m sorry I let you knock me down the day you left,” he said. I placed my hand
on his shoulder. He winced back a bit, my hand, foreign. I saw the dirt under my
fingernails.
“I know, Dad.” I patted his shoulder once and got up. I heard him roll over in the
bed, creaking, to face the window. Then his breath continued, different from mine,
different from the breath of the house. Outside the door I brushed my hands together to
get the dust.