Issue I - Fall 2007
Aftermath by Teresa Tumminello Brader
©Photograph by Clapboard House
The day was warm—warmer than it should have been—even though the sky hung heavy with dark clouds. The downed trees, the gaps where they once were, the missing shade—you noticed these things after the shock of the other changes had worn off some. The massive roots of the trees that had survived the hurricane buckled the sidewalk; those knotty lumps had been there as long as Jenny could remember.
Glancing up as she walked near the university, she startled upon seeing a familiar figure. He leaned over the open trunk of his parked car, his arm raised as if he were propping up both the trunk lid and himself. The sun emerged from behind the gray clouds and Jenny squinted. “Brian?” Her voice wavered. The clouds slipped back into place; the momentary brilliance disappeared.
Brian looked toward her and then back down at the open compartment. She hadn’t seen him since a month or so before the storm. Now, almost a year later, she still hadn’t heard from him. This silence from a boy—a man (he’s almost 22, after all)—who’d been like a son to her was troubling. He’d gotten out before the hurricane hit, but Jenny didn’t know that until months later. Her son Nick had learned then that Brian was safe in another city.
She strode to the car and touched Brian on the shoulder with the tips of her fingers. He slammed down the trunk lid and turned around, his face twisted with an emotion she didn’t recognize. Lines were sketched along the sides of his mouth and across his brow, creases that hadn’t been there the last time she’d seen him.
“Brian?”
“Hey, Miss Jenny.”
She suppressed a chuckle that threatened to turn hysterical. “That’s all you’re going to say after we haven’t heard from you in months.”
“You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”
“That could’ve happened sooner if you’d answer your phone or if I’d known where you were.”
“I don’t know where to begin. So much has happened.”
“I’ve got all the time in the world.”
She settled on the curb, Brian’s battered car to her right and a fire hydrant in need of paint to her left. A swirled debris of leaves and candy wrappers crunched under her feet. Ants scattered at the disturbance.
“You’ve already been through so much with me,” Brian said. He sat next to her. “I didn’t want to give you more to handle.” He started the now-familiar story of evacuation and separation from all he knew; enrollment at a strange college; attending class and studying while unanchored; and the return to a gutted structure devoid of all that made a house a home.
Jenny leaned on his shoulder in sympathy. Tears stung her eyes.
She gazed up at the live oaks that had endured. She was reminded that leaves don’t change colors here; they are green and then they fall.
_______________
Six years earlier
Brian was back for good; she was sure of it. He had his time away from his mom, away from his former life that he felt he had to shed like an old skin. While living with his dad and in a different school in a different state, Brian had remade himself by trading in the nervous child for a confident teenager. It was a convincing performance; and if you think you’re confident, then you are, right? Jenny, though, detected the cracks in the surface, the lingering anxieties.
Before he had left for his dad’s, Brian had constantly fretted over the imperfections of his world, school and home, and about the way others perceived him, especially his fellow students and even his teachers. Back then he had vented his worries to her. Now, no matter what they discussed, he became antagonistic.
“I can’t believe you won’t give the movie a chance.”
“You know I’m not interested in movies based on comic books,” Jenny replied.
“That’s close-minded.”
“You don’t need me to tag along. Nick’s going with you.”
“That’s not the point. I thought if you knew it was something I liked, you’d give it a chance.”
“I know I won’t like it.”
“How do you know if you won’t go see it?” Brian stared at her.
“I’m old enough to know what I like and don’t like.”
“I guess that means I’m not!”
“You know that’s not what I’m saying.” Jenny’s fingers flew to the sides of her head and massaged her temples. She wondered if Brian chose particular topics on purpose, already knowing what her responses would be. “Why don’t you go wake Nick up?”
His chest thrust up and down with the effort of taking a deep breath. Looking away from him, Jenny continued folding clothes, the task Brian had interrupted after emerging from the guest room. The mindless movements of her hands soothed her, as if she were rocking herself to sleep. Working all week and catching up on chores over the weekend didn’t allow for much else. She rested when she could.
Brian bent his head down, his shoulders rounded, as he walked under the doorjamb of the hallway. She heard a tentative knock on Nick’s bedroom door and Brian’s strident voice, followed by Nick’s deep mumbling. She was reprieved: with Nick around, Brian wouldn’t tease out these arguments with her. Jenny didn’t know why Brian had made her his confidante, but he’d done so since the day they met. He joked about being her other son, but told her things most boys wouldn’t tell their mothers, like how he had lost his virginity when he lived away.
Jenny would hear Brian on his cell phone talking to his new girlfriend, but doubted he saw her much. He seemed to be here all the time. Every weekend. Some weeknights too. Brian would say he needed Nick’s help with Calculus. But when Jenny peeked in Nick’s room, Nick was napping with a pillow over his head and Brian was lying on the floor reading a book from her shelves. Last time it was The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
She lugged the laundry basket full of folded clothes into her room and heard Brian’s cell phone ringing. He stood in the hall outside Nick’s room and glanced at the number. He didn’t answer, which meant his mom had called. She left Brian messages; he rarely returned them. Poor woman.
Nick appeared in the doorway to her bedroom carrying his socks and shoes. He rubbed sleep out of his eyes, though it was late afternoon. His curly hair stuck up in spots as if he’d just gotten a bad haircut.
“Mama, can I have some money? We’re gonna go to the mall and get something to eat.”
She handed him a few bills out of her wallet. There was no point in telling Nick she was getting ready to make dinner; he wouldn’t eat it anyway. Brian would. He’d eat twice.
She walked with the boys to the front door, instructing them to wear their seatbelts and to be careful. Unnecessary admonitions, she realized, but she couldn’t help herself. Nick was barely 17, but he was the most mature person Jenny knew. Brian, 16 for a few more months, had a longer way to go. That was more normal, though, wasn’t it? Nick slid into her aging compact car, scooted the driver’s seat up a bit, and adjusted the steering wheel and mirrors.
Brian hung back, an expectant look on his face. “I’m sorry, Miss Jenny, about earlier. I didn’t mean to get so angry. I’ll make it up to you. Buy you a book or something.”
“Don’t get me anything, Brian. It’s okay. Please don’t worry about it.”
She stood on the porch, looking up for a moment. The purple sky resembled a fresh bruise. Brian’s moving mouth and animated hands behind the windshield caught her eye, and she smiled and shook her head. Nick seemed attentive to Brian’s chatter as he competently backed out of the driveway and swung the car down the street. Jenny closed the door, anticipating a couple hours of quiet.
_______________
Four years earlier
Across the meadow of the sprawling city park, the boys raced ahead and then returned to Jenny and her unhurried pace. They sprinted to the merchandise booths and then back again to show her the Goldfinger patch Nick had bought.
Late spring and its low humidity produced ideal weather for an outdoor music festival; the heat would be sweltering in only a few weeks. The blue sky held only a few white feathery clouds. She hoped Brian wouldn’t get sunburned. Because she and Nick rarely had to use it, she’d forgotten about sunscreen. The boys’ legs were safe, though. Apparently, shorts weren’t the thing for 12-year-olds. She felt hot just looking at them in their jeans.
“Is this spot okay with y’all?” she asked. “I don’t want to be too close to the slam dancing.”
“It’s called moshing, Mama.”
“Yeah, yeah. Not originally.”
“Like when you saw Fear,” Brian chimed in. He fell back on the grass, his arms extended over his head and his eyes upward. “That’s so cool you saw groups like that. The Clash especially.” He closed his eyes and sighed as if imagining himself somewhere else.
“And then it was called pogoing.” Jenny laughed.
The boys dashed off again. The concert grounds weren’t crowded yet, but it was still early.
“Jenny? You got dragged here too?”
“Hey, Linda. Where are your boys?”
“Looking at the CDs and stuff. I didn’t wanna come, but I wasn’t letting Tony and Matt come here by themselves.”
“Same here. Except I did want to come.” Jenny chuckled, hoping she sounded self-deprecating.
“You’re younger and in better shape than me. I have a book and I’m going to find a tree away from the noise. See ya later.”
Nick and Brian strolled up as the first band’s roadies started the sound check.
“Here ya go, Miss Jenny. I got you a Diet Coke.”
“Thanks, Brian.”
“I figured you had to be thirsty.”
“That’s very sweet of you.”
The Refreshments appeared onstage. The group’s funny quirkiness appealed to Jenny and her son. They especially liked their song about the world being ‘full of stupid people.’ Brian preferred music with more serious themes.
“What were the lyrics about the hammer?” Brian asked.
“He wants the girl to pull the nails out of his heart,” Nick explained.
“I can relate.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Jenny stifled a smile.
Brian looked toward the stage. The next band was setting up. “I’m serious. I know how that feels.”
“Hey, Brian, it’s just a song.” Nick nudged him.
Brian smiled at Nick. “Yeah, sorry.”
_______________
Two years earlier
The last guest, the only boy Jenny hadn’t met before, arrived for the sleepover (boys didn’t call them slumber parties, according to her son) in honor of Nick’s tenth birthday. Brian’s dad brought his son to the door of her rented shotgun home, a narrow white structure stretching farther back than was the norm for these houses. Brian scampered off with Nick, and the man bent down in the doorway. His bulky frame filled the aperture. Uncomfortable with the man’s smirk, Jenny said she had to get back to the boys.
Nick had told her Brian’s parents were divorced and that he alternated living with each parent, a week at a time. Divorce wasn’t foreign to Nick. His own dad hadn’t been around since Nick was six months old. She would hate being without Nick for a whole week. She wondered if that kind of arrangement was hard on a child. Do the inconveniences outweigh the advantages or vice versa?
The boys crowded into the small den to play video games. Jenny had pushed the sofa her grandmother had given her against the far wall and shifted the old wooden rocking chair into the kitchen. They’d eaten pepperoni pizza (cheese only for Nick) and yellow cake with chocolate frosting she’d made from scratch. In the tiny kitchen adjacent to the den, Jenny gathered up and threw away burnt candles, crumpled wrapping paper, used plastic forks and dirty paper plates.
She heard a scuffling noise behind her and turned around. Brian sat in the rocking chair, arms folded and a brooding expression molded to his face like a rubber Halloween mask. When he realized he had her attention, words poured from his mouth. “Who cares about that stupid video game? Timmy says I stink at it. But if you have to be like him to play it, I don’t want to be that dumb.”
“Hey, hey, hey. Like you said, it’s just a video game. Don’t let him bother you.”
“I dunno why Nick invited Timmy anyway. He’s mean.”
Nick hadn’t had a problem with Timmy in the three years he’d known him. But then Nick didn’t have conflicts with anyone.
“I don’t have as many experience points, so Timmy thinks he’s so much better than me. Well, he’s not.” Brian trod on Jenny’s heels as he followed her from the trash can to the sink.
“Uh, huh.” Jenny decided noncommittal noises were the best response.
“I have better things to do. I don’t want to be good at video games anyway.”
She needed to stop Brian before he eventually followed her into the bathroom. She moved into the den, stepping over boys engrossed in the game on the screen, and flopped down on the brown and orange plaid cushions of the sagging couch. Brian hesitated at the threshold. Nick looked up, told Brian it was his turn and handed him a controller.
With the crisis averted and a chance for some time alone, she sneaked away. Past the kitchen, past the bathroom, past Nick’s room and into hers at the very back of the house. She closed the door and got into bed with the Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. The boys would be awake all night and when she heard some occasional noises—laughter, running—from the front of the house, she didn’t mind. She trusted these boys. She trusted Nick.
“Mama.”
Her eyes flew open. Light streamed through the open bedroom door and illuminated Nick standing by the side of the bed. How long had he been there? What time was it?
“Mama, Brian can’t breathe.”
Her mind cleared as if she hadn’t been sleeping at all. “He can’t breathe? Like an asthma attack?”
“I guess.”
Jenny rushed down the hall, her bare feet slapping against the wooden floor. Should she grab Nick’s prescription inhaler? Should she grab her over-the-counter one? Should she give someone else’s child medicine?
Brian sat motionless, his head down and his hands on his legs. His breathing was shallow and labored. The other boys stood around, worried looks on their vulnerable faces. Jenny perched on the edge of the sofa, resting her hand on Brian’s shoulder.
“Do you have asthma?”
He shook his head to indicate no.
“Has this ever happened to you before? Are you allergic to anything?”
Two more shakes of his head.
“I’ll have to call your dad. Nick, bring me the phone, please.”
“Don’t. I don’t want to leave,” Brian managed to utter.
“This could be serious. I have to.”
He looked distraught as he slowly pronounced the telephone number.
After being told his dad was on the way, he leaned into her. She barely heard him. “I don’t want to leave. I want to stay,” he whispered.
Teresa Tumminello Brader was born in New Orleans and lives in the area still. She received a B.A. in English from Marquette University and is the mother of two grown children. Her stories have appeared in Rumble, The Flask Review, Brink and Hobart, and will be appearing in upcoming issues of Route 66 and The Ranfurly Review. She’s been nominated for a 2007 Best of the Net
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Changing a Flat by CL Bledsoe
©Photograph by Clapboard House
Dark, green grass covered the pasture like millions of tiny fingers swaying in the heat. Matthew stood in the rough circle of crushed grass his six year old legs had stamped down, and watched his father slide a jack under the front end of a red-bodied, Case-International tractor, over by the fence.
“Watch out, Shug, it might slip. Ground’s not level here,” his father said, and wiped the sleeve of his brown work shirt across his forehead. Matthew could hear his Uncle Shug cursing as he unhooked a plow from the back of the tractor.
“All right, I’m ready, God-dammit,” Shug said.
“All right Shug, I’m lifting her up,” Matthew’s father called out. He worked the jack handle up and down, lifting the flat front tire. Matthew flinched as the side of the tractor leaned heavily toward him, and as the tractor jerked off the ground, Matthew reached out to steady it. Just as his hand touched the lukewarm metal of the tractor, his uncle snapped:
“Watch out, you little cock-sucker! You’re going to get killed!”
Matthew jumped back. His uncle shouldered past him and turned to the boy’s father, “That boy ain’t got a lick of sense. What in hell,” he twisted towards Matthew; “what in hell do you think you’re doing, boy? You’re going to kill somebody. Going to get yourself killed is what you’re going to do.” His uncle snorted.
“All right, all right now Shug,” Matthew’s father said in a tired voice. He twisted around to the boy, “Just stay back, son, you’re getting in the way.” He patted Matthew’s head and turned back to the tractor.
Matthew stared at his father’s back, then tucked his hands in his pockets and walked back to the truck. Two tire tracks led from the back of the old blue Dodge truck through the grass in a lazy semi circle back to the gate which led out of the pasture. Uncle Shug was still complaining behind him. Matthew focused his eyes on the tire paths, pretending he didn’t hear. The crushed grass was grayer than the untouched grass, and bits of cardboard-brown mud from the truck’s tires littered the path. Matthew kicked at the mud still caked on the bottom of the truck, and dislodged a large clump.
“Make yourself useful, boy, help me with this tire.” Matthew jumped as his father’s hand clapped down on his shoulder. “Get up behind it and push it out.”
Matthew climbed up the bumper of the truck quickly. The tire was sitting in the driver’s side corner of the truck bed. Matthew grabbed the rim, and struggled to slide the tire inch by inch until it was close enough for his father to grab. Then his father snatched it out of the truck like he was picking up an arrowhead from a gravel road. His father set it on the ground and rolled it to the tractor.
Matthew glanced at his hands. They were dirty and black. He started to wipe them on his jeans, but saved himself a whipping and jumped down and wiped his hands on the grass.
When Matthew looked up, they were lowering the jack. Behind them, he could see a rusty barbed wire fence with tufts of cow hair twinned around some of the barbs; left by cows scratching themselves. The cows were in a different part of the pasture today. Beyond the fence the wind blew through a field of milo that faded into the distance. The milo looked like corn, but shorter. All he could see beyond that was the grayish-green sky, with no clouds. His father lowered the tractor to the ground and Shug climbed up inside and started it. His father hefted the jack around Matthew, into the back of the truck. Matthew ran to the passenger side door and jumped in. Inside the truck, he could smell the mud and sweat on his father.
“Sorry I got in the way,” Matthew said. “I was only trying to help.”
“That’s all right. You just have got to be more careful. Might’ve dented the tractor if it fell over on your hard head.” He grinned at Matthew.
The tractor jerked to life. Matthew’s father did a U-turn and plowed through the grass behind Shug. They stopped at the gate, and Matthew jumped out and pushed he creaky aluminum rectangles out of the way, letting his uncle then his father roll through. His uncle turned left, heading for the rice field. Matthew re-tied the gate and hopped back in the truck. They turned right, followed the road beside the field of milo, and then came around the side, pointed towards the highway.
“Let’s get some dinner,” his father said. Matthew watched blackbirds drop onto power lines by the road. His father pulled the truck slowly onto the highway, heading back towards home.
“Dad?” Matthew asked. “What’s a cock-sucker?”
His father was silent. Matthew glanced at him. He was staring straight ahead with a strange look on his face. Matthew looked away and thought for a second. “Well, what’s a cock?”
His father glanced at him. “It’s a chicken,” he said, then reached out and turned the radio on.
“A chicken?” Matthew asked, “A chicken sucker?” His father didn’t answer. Slow country music filled the cab, and Matthew remembered last Halloween, when he and his sister had gone trick or treating. They’d gotten suckers from Ms. Beatrice, a spinster that rented land to his father. Matthew had gotten a grape sucker, and his sister had gotten strawberry. He’d traded his grape and a licorice stick for her strawberry. He had been very pleased with the deal. Strawberry was about his favorite flavor in the world.
His father eased the truck to a stop at a crossroads, and then he slowly executed a left turn. Matthew realized that they would be going by Aunt Mildred’s store, on the way
home. The store had three aisles, one of which had a huge assortment of candy. If there was anywhere that he could find a cock-sucker, it was at Aunt Mildred’s store.
He watched the fields flow by, tracking how near they were. He noticed the church on the other side of the road coming up. The store was right past the church. He tried to think of something to get his father to take him to the store. He watched the cross disappear behind them, before piping up, “Can we get a drink at Aunt Mildred’s?”
His father didn’t say anything. Matthew waited as they neared the store, and excitement poured over him like warm water as his father slowed and carefully turned the truck into the deserted parking lot of the run down store. The truck rolled past the rusty gas pump, and stopped under the white awning. Metal poles, most of them bent in peculiar angles, held up the awning like the spindly legs of an arthritic spider. Matthew opened his door and ran between the poles towards the store. His father followed.
The bell sounded as Matthew raced through the door, heading towards the candy aisle. His father strolled inside, walked down the aisle towards the deli area, and struck up a conversation with Aunt Mildred, who yelled a, “Hello, Matthew,” as the boy dropped to his knees, searching through the candy. He could hear his father talking loudly to Aunt Mildred, who was nearly deaf.
Matthew found the expensive suckers, the ones that cost ten cents each, some as much as fifteen cents; the ones with gum in the middle, and Tootsie Rolls. He hoped it wouldn’t be one of them. His father would complain about spending the money. Times were hard, Matthew knew. Rice just didn’t bring what it used to. Matthew dug around in the cheaper suckers, the apple, cherry; the little ones with paper sticks that came apart in his mouth if he sucked on them too long. None of them were chicken flavored. He moved to the bigger ones, rooting like a pig in mud, but again, none of them were chicken flavored. With a lurch in his chest, he heard the cash register ring. That was it. He searched the Tootsie Pops, but again, none of them boasted a chicken flavor. He went halfheartedly through the whole aisle, in case they were in some special section he’d never noticed before. The bell rang as his father opened the door.
“Let’s go, boy, I got your Coke,” he said.
“But Dad, I want a cock-sucker!”
Silence spread through the store like an ice floe, huge and impassable. The door clicked closed. Matthew’s father’s heavy footsteps pounded around the corner. Matthew looked up as his father stepped to him quickly, and jerked him by the arm to his feet. Anger and a sort of confused look were fighting each other on his father’s face. Matthew sniffled and lowered his head. As was so often the case, he knew only that he’d done something wrong; he had no idea what. His father was silent. Then his hand came down quickly. Matthew flinched and stepped back, but the hand was aiming at the bottom shelf. His father’s fingers paused at the cheap suckers, and then closed around one of the Tootsie Pops. His father stepped around him, then down the aisle. Matthew heard the register ring, and then his father stalked back up the aisle, grabbed the boy’s arm and led him outside. In the truck he handed Matthew the Tootsie Pop, without saying a word, and then backed quickly out of the parking lot, managing to throw up a couple of rocks. Matthew looked at his father. The boy wiped his face on his sleeve.
“Thank you,” he said. He twisted the wrapper off and stuck the sucker in his mouth and gave it a couple of tentative licks. “Tastes like a Tootsie Pop,” Matthew said.
His father cleared his throat heavily. “Thing is,” he said slowly; “most folks just call them Tootsie Pops. So, if you call them anything else, most folks wouldn’t even know what you were talking about, and might even get mad.”
“Well then why does Uncle Shug call it a cock-sucker?”
His father winced. “He’s just kind of mean; stuck in his ways. He never had kids. Only was married that one time, and that gal…well, she wasn’t much to speak of. He’s just kind of bitter. He don’t mean anything by it.”
Matthew studied his father for a few seconds, and then gave up on deciphering the meaning of his words. He rolled the sucker on his tongue and stared out the window as the fields and trees raced by. It didn’t taste like chicken, but it was one of the ones with a Tootsie Roll in the middle, and those were his favorite, next to strawberry.
His father spoke once more without turning his eyes from the road.
“Don’t tell your momma about this, boy. She’d get mad if she knew you had sweets before dinner.”
CL Bledsoe has work in over 150 journals, including The Cimarron Review, The Arkansas Review, Margie, Nimrod, and others. He is an editor for Ghoti Magazine http://www.ghotimag.com/
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Dropping It by Kenneth Pobo
Steve and Larry meet two or three times a week at night at the Wishing Well, a two-room bar outside of Knoxville with seating in one room and a pool table in the other. They were lovers for a couple of months fifteen years ago when they were both in their mid-twenties. Steve had entered the romance as he always did, full speed ahead. Larry approached it more cautiously, always sleeping on the side of the bed closest to the door. Steve still thinks it didn’t work because Larry is impatient, never gives anything or anyone enough time. Larry thinks it didn’t work because Steve is picky, often won’t budge on what newspapers are acceptable to read. It didn’t come to a slash and burn ending, so now, they remain friends, close friends, and in campy moods call each other “Sister.” Only Larry can tease Steve about his bald spot. Only Steve can get Larry to go for long walks.
Steve sometimes obsesses on his family. He bores Larry with the many injustices committed against him, but Larry endures, and sooner or later they can talk about baseball, gardens, or music. Tonight when they walk in to the Wishing Well, Larry sees that Steve is dark, remote. They order drinks, Steve a martini, very dry, and Larry a vodka gimlet on the rocks. Steve nurses his drink, speaking only in monosyllables, until Larry finally asks what’s going on.
“My mother died. Nobody even called me. My brother sent me the obituary. It’s postmarked May 10th, and since more than a week has passed, I won’t be able to attend the funeral–not that I would have gone.”
Steve hands Larry the clipping.
“I didn’t know your mom’s name was Muriel. Since you hardly mention your folks, it’s hard to picture them. I doubt I’d have wanted to know them.”
“I don’t think you would have. You wouldn’t have been an acceptable friend for me.”
Steve knows that brooding fury makes Larry uncomfortable. Larry never goes to serious films or reads angry books. Keeping his eyes focused on his drink, Larry says, “I thought your family cut you out totally when you told them you were gay. How did he find you?”
“I used to send birthday cards to my brother, mother, and father even though they sent me nothing. I always had a return address on the envelope, but who knows?”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not sorry. They all should have died years ago to make the world a better place.”
Steve turns silent and Larry, fumbling for words, can only reply with “Oh.” Jack, a man in his early fifties with a salt-and-pepper beard comes up to the table and says hi. Neither Steve or Larry like Jack who’s often loud, dirty talking, and favors ‘70s styles. Jack goes on about attractive men as if only he has discovered sex. He reminds Steve of straight men he hears talking in his gym’s locker room about sex, how the women are no more than walk-on roles in the tedious play of their desire. Otherwise, they’re fairly irrelevant.
“Hi Jack, ” Larry says while Steve glares at the table.
“Did you see the ass on the guy by the jukebox? I “accidentally” touched him on the way to the can.”
“Oh wow,” Larry says, in that do-not-disturb way Jack never catches. Someone yells over to Jack who says “Be right there, dude!”. Larry can’t help but laugh despite the dark pit Steve has clearly dropped into.
“I’ve been sitting here thinking about my mother, trying to remember her. When I was a boy I thought she had the most beautiful face, better than a movie star’s. Now I can’t or won’t remember it. Besides, I hadn’t seen her in twenty years. She had so many people to hate, I can’t help but think that hate eventually destroyed her face. Or living with my father’s demands, his eyes watching her weight.”
Steve can tell that Larry wants to be a comfort, but doesn’t want to talk about his family who are fine about his being gay. Whenever Larry has had a boyfriend, he knows he can bring him along without asking. “Just make sure we get the name right!,” his mother would say. Steve enjoys Larry’s family, even their family gatherings, but he comes home depressed. They treat him well and never sound phony when they say they hope to see him again soon. He has no photographs of his own family, no letters from the folks, nothing.
From the jukebox, Abba’s early 80’s dance hit “Lay All Your Love on Me” starts playing. Jack wanders back and Steve doesn’t glance up. Jack asks Larry to dance. Steve is surprised when Larry gets up since Larry would normally never dance with Jack or hardly anybody. He must want to have a breather from the quiet at the table.
Relieved to be alone, Steve doesn’t know what else he can say to Larry that Larry hasn’t heard before. When they were lovers, sex faded quickly into friendship. They figured they’d make better friends. Now Larry has the different frames of film from Steve’s life, but they aren’t in a logical order. Steve thinks those same frames don’t make sense to himself either.
To Abba’s baseline throb, he tries to remember his mother before she stood silently by while his father kicked him out, the “slimy-assed faggot” who wouldn’t do this to them if he really were a good son. They’d be the laughing stock of Naperville. He remembers recovering from the flu one spring in fourth or fifth grade, a chilly afternoon, yards beginning to green, elms leafing. His mother and he walked up to the post office two blocks away, the other kids in school, the street mostly empty, just he and his mother. The image vanishes.
Another frame is less pleasant: at fourteen he and Dave Danello are in Steve’s room. Horseplay to groping and kissing. Steve’s mother, who never knocks, bursts in the room. Seeing them, she yells and Dave runs out of the house. They’re never allowed to see each other outside of school again. Why was she so afraid? What were they afraid of?
Now she’s not even a face in a box, just an obituary. Her hair had always been luxurious, curly and black, what neighbors said was her best feature. Had it whitened or gone gray? Had she tossed him away with broken Christmas ornaments and broken lawn furniture?
His father had died four years earlier. Again, Tom informed him of this. Tom had called and asked him if he would come to the funeral. Steve went silent. “Well, gotta go, take care,” said Tom. Click. Dial tone. Steve often wondered why his father ever wanted children as he seemed not to enjoy being around them. Yes, he did praise Tom who was pretty much a standard-issue boy complete with football jersey and girlfriend. Steve hated games, usually played poorly, and the girlfriends he tried to have were never serious. They were names to have ready when family members asked at parties, “Do you have a girlfriend?” That question seemed to be the one thing they needed to know. His family kept life as clean as a glass coffee table, wanted to see their own faces clearly but nothing more.
Yet Steve feels drawn to that shiny surface world, too. When he was a boy he often watched Leave It To Beaver. Like his own family, the Cleavers had two boys. Ward was the commander and June always looked her best no matter what. If Ward and June had problems between them or with raising two boys, one would never know it.
It was not possible to think that Wally might be gay. The writers made sure he had Mary Ellen Rogers tucked away. Steve thinks that if Beaver had turned out to be gay, June would never have stood by silently while Ward evicted him. And Ward, strict as he was, wouldn’t have done that. He’d have probably made him get counseling and religious help. When those two avenues failed, he’d come around. He’d never approve but he’d come around.
Sometimes Steve feels that Tom is the most painful loss–even though Tom, unlike their folks, is the one who, sporadically, keeps in touch. Tom still lives only a few miles from their parents’ home. He and his wife Lauren, a fundamentalist, never invite Steve to come for a visit. Steve knows she wants no part of her husband’s brother. Tom adopted her religious views.
“She thinks you’re a child molester,” he said in one of his brief notes mailed several years ago.
Even as brothers growing up, they never got to know each other well. Tom is five years older. They had separate rooms, separate interests. Tom wants to keep things light. Question like “How are you?” aren’t intended to be answered. His other usual line, “I hope things are going well,” means “I don’t want to know what you’re up to or who you’re with.”
Or has he read Tom wrong, executed him without a trial? Has he decided those bland questions and comments HAD to mean rejection or indifference? He had never responded to any of Tom’s comments in more than a cursory fashion. Steve wonders if he is the one who wants to keep it light. Maybe the effort to speak–at all–is too much. And Tom was, after all, still a part of his parents’ lives, the did-it-right son who made grandchildren, who works for Acme Air-Conditioning instead of at Williams’ Flower Shop half a country away.
Steve hates to admit that what makes him most uneasy about Tom is that he still had contact, even a bond, with their parents. He knows he’s jealous and that his own envy helps to prevent any real connection, even if it could be possible despite Lauren’s misgivings.
“Hello HEY!,” remember me?,” asks Larry, snapping his fingers, having finished the dance with Jack. “That guy is a trip. He dances like he’s got fire ants up his butt.”
“Actually, I’ve heard that’s just what he has–among other things,” says Steve.
They order another round.
“I don’t want to stay long tonight, Larry. I’m not really into it tonight. OK?”
“Sure, sister.”
Tonight they don’t linger over their drinks. They settle with Zeke, the bartender, and Steve is glad to be out of there. Larry always had a tape on in the car, almost always something from the 1960s. Tonight it’s a Best of The Hollies mix. In spite of himself, Steve begins to feel better. “Carrie Anne” always helps.
“When you told your parents you were gay, did you expect them to freak out or were they always so cool?”
“I never told them directly,” Larry says. “They knew–or my mom knew and let the others in on it. I never had ‘the conversation.’”
“Sometimes I wish I never had that conversation. It might have been better to stay locked up in the closet. Just stay there and rot. But not be so alone.”
“Rotting wouldn’t suit you. You’d have burst if you’d been the good and dutiful son. What works for Tom wouldn’t work for you.”
Steve puts his hand on Larry’s shoulder. “Thanks. I needed to hear that.”
Sometimes he thinks they should try again, but their friendship is so confirmed,
could other feelings break in? He puts the obituary, half torn now, in his shirt pocket.
“When they kicked me out I was eighteen. For a long time I thought about killing myself, but a fury kept me going. I thought I had gotten numb, written them off, but tonight I don’t think I’ve done that. Not at all.”
Steve can see Larry’s discomfort bubbling up again by the way Larry taps his hand on the front-seat upholstery. Fortunately, Steve’s apartment is near. When they arrive, they kiss goodbye and Steve watches Larry’s red tail-lights disappear.
Rather than face his silent apartment, he decides to take a walk. He can always stop at the convenience store for ice cream. Walking alone is particularly pleasurable, nobody to interrupt the rhythm, nobody to destroy thoughts before they fully form. As he walks he imagines Larry is still with him, listening, adding insights, knowing when to back off, an invented Larry who makes the walk easier. A brisk night, the way Steve usually likes it, moonlight’s white scarf covering his shoulders.
Steve pulls the obituary out of his shirt pocket. Why should he keep it? The woman whose name is circled in red, who had given him birth, had sold him to his father’s anger. Her silence widened over the years and they lived in it. “Mother” did not fit her–the fact of her death changed nothing. “Let go!” and the obituary drops from his hand.
He remembers Mitsy, the calico cat that the next door neighbors, the Kreugers, owned when he was a teenager. How Mitsy would run to him and curl up by Steve under the Chinese Elm in his own back yard. And how driving home from his job at the 7-11 one July night, the cat had darted out on the street and he had run Mitsy over. He had to tell the Krugers what he had done, and how he was sobbing as he did so. His father yelled at him over and over: “WHY CAN’T YOU BE MORE CAREFUL? I KNOW IT WAS ONLY A CAT, BUT JESUS STEVE!” How could he have not seen that Steve felt that he had killed his best friend?
Steve realizes that he felt a stronger connection with Mitsy than with either parent. He imagines telling Larry these things. Larry isn’t uneasy now. His invented figment nods and understands.
Steve sees his house, red chrysanthemums holding moonlight. He remembers that he likes his life–his friends, books, music, flowers. Perhaps someone else someday will join him, become family for him. He opens his door, steps inside, and puts this day away for good.
Kenneth Pobo’s fiction appears in Illinois Review, Palimpsest, Galleon, Cricket Online Review, and Philadelphia Inquirer Magazine. A new book of my poems is coming out in 2008 from WordTech Press called Glass Garden.
_______________________________
High Heat in Low Places by T. R. Healy
© Photograph by Clapboard House
Budd Appling leaned across his cluttered desk and grabbed the baseball he kept beside the pencil sharpener. Other dispatchers, when they had a spare moment, worked crossword puzzles or paged through magazines or balanced their checkbooks, but he always reached for a baseball. It was so smooth and round and fit perfectly inside his throwing hand, like a comb in its holder, and all but disappeared behind his long, bony fingers. Sometimes he held it absolutely still as others held lucky charms, hoping some of its perfection would transfer to him for a few moments, but usually he moved it around, sorting through different grips.
A flamethrower when he signed with the Padres right out of high school, his favorite pitch was the two-seam fastball. It was the one he recorded the most strikeouts with, that when he was throwing it well made him feel as good as he had ever felt, so whenever he was feeling low about something he would instinctively place his index finger and middle finger on top of a seam. He was ready then for anything that came at him, as ready as he could be anyway.
The phone rang and immediately he set the baseball down and answered it. “911. This is Dispatcher Appling. How may I help you?”
“I want to report an accident on Bald Mountain Road,” the caller said hurriedly, almost out of breath, as if he had been running.
“Where about, sir?”
“Oh, I figure about a quarter mile east of milepost 8. On the south side of the road.”
“Was anyone injured?”
“What?”
“Do you know if anyone was injured?”
“I don’t have any idea. All I know is a car just veered off the road into the brush.”
“You saw this happen?”
“Right.”
“What kind of car was it?”
“A dark blue wagon. I don’t know what make but something the size of a Subaru.”
“And your name, sir?”
“What?”
“What is your name?”
The caller hesitated a moment then hung up the receiver.
Figures, Appling thought, seeing from his computer screen that the call was made from a pay phone three miles west of the scene of the accident. Many of the callers he spoke to declined to provide their names, not wishing to become more involved than was necessary. Indeed he was always a little surprised when someone gave his name, although it was often apocryphal.
_______________
A burly catcher, a nonroster player from Venezuela who knew only a few words in English that weren’t cuss words, hit a soft liner over third base. And immediately he employed one of those words. Appling, standing behind a low screen on the mound, threw the frustrated catcher another pitch and this one was lined into right field. The catcher swore again, smiling this time.
“Nice poke,” one of the other players standing around the batting cage grunted as the catcher got back in his stance.
“Keep hitting the ball like that,” Smoky, the hitting instructor for the Red Hens, observed, “and you’ll get in the lineup soon.”
Appling reared back out of his stretch and threw another fastball over the plate and scarcely paid any attention when the catcher hit it even deeper into right field. As a batting practice pitcher, it was his job to throw balls that could be hit hard and deep. If he didn’t, someone else would be hired by the club, and he enjoyed throwing too much to let that happen. He had thrown for two seasons on a Class A club in Charleston then was released because he was told he was not fast enough. He was devastated, felt as if all the time and effort he had put into becoming a pitcher was wasted. All through school and Legion ball he was always the hardest thrower on the teams he pitched for, collecting strikeouts in bunches, but that was not the case after he was assigned to Charleston. He had never seen guys throw so hard, many of them regularly getting in the nineties on the speed gun, while he was fortunate to reach the high eighties.
After his release, he returned home and did some bartending until an uncle recommended him for a position as an emergency dispatcher. He had worked for the county three and a half years, wishing every minute he was still throwing a baseball for a living. Then, to his amazement, he got a chance. Arriving early one Sunday afternoon at a Red Hens game, he noticed no one was throwing batting practice so he volunteered his services and had been doing it the past two seasons. He didn’t receive any compensation other than free admission to home games and a Red Hens practice shirt, but the chance to throw again from a real mound was reward enough for him.
_______________
“Morning, Budd.”
Appling nodded at his supervisor, Ike Dretzka, and sat down at his desk. “Say, have you heard anything more about that accident reported on Bald Mountain Road the other day?”
“Nah, not a word.”
“I’m surprised.”
“I’m not,” he said wearily. “I had a feeling it was probably a prank call.”
“We get our share of them in the summertime, all right, when the kids are out of school.”
Dretzka frowned, hitching his stubby thumbs through the belt loops of his mud-spattered trousers. “All anyone is talking about are those two nurses from Victoria who’ve been missing for the past two days.”
“I don’t think they are a prank.”
“Neither do I, Budd.”
_______________
“Give me something decent now,” McNally, a reserve shortstop, demanded after hitting a bleeder over second base.
“Where do you want it?”
“Where I can hit the cover off of it.”
Appling grooved the ball across the middle of the plate, letter high, and McNally stepped into it and hammered it against the left field wall.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” he bellowed, knocking the dirt from his cleats.
Appling grinned and wound up and fired another ball in exactly the same spot. He was, if anything, dependable, as accurate as any machine. He could locate a ball wherever he was asked and with enough velocity on it to make a batter work. “Everybody can do one thing better than anything else,” his grandfather told him repeatedly, “and the objective in life is to find what that it.” Clearly, throwing a baseball was what he could do best of all, maybe not well enough to earn a living at it, but certainly well enough to throw batting practice to big league prospects.
His next pitch dropped sharply over the plate and McNally swung and missed it entirely.
“Hey, what the hell was that?”
Appling smiled mischievously.
“Something with some moisture on it, I bet,” Smoky snorted after gobbling some sunflower seeds.
“I just want to keep you on your toes,” Appling laughed at the perplexed shortstop.
_______________
Soon after Appling arrived at work, he was told to report to Dretzka’s office on the fourth floor. He had no idea why his supervisor wanted to speak with him but thought he might want to know if he was interested in doing some overtime work to earn a little extra pay. He might be, he reckoned, if it didn’t interfere with throwing batting practice.
“As you no doubt know, those two Canadian nurses are still missing,” Dretzka said as soon as Appling entered his office.
“It seems like half the county is out looking for them.”
“Well, as you can imagine, we’ve had to go over all the calls we received around the time they were first reported missing. So far, nothing seems to indicate we got any calls concerning them.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“But, during the course of the review, we did notice a problem with one of the calls you handled.”
He was stunned. “What kind of a problem?”
“Last Thursday, about half past ten, you took a call about an accident on Bald Mountain Road.”
“Yeah, I remember,” he said, tugging at an earlobe. “The caller wouldn’t give me his name. I passed it on to the sheriff’s office, of course, but I wasn’t sure if it was for real.”
“Well, Budd, you didn’t pass on all the information you received.”
“The hell I didn’t.”
He handed him a transcript of the call, and Appling carefully went over it, still not clear what he had left out in his report to the sheriff.
“You look confused.”
“I am, Ike.”
“You reported that the accident occurred near milepost 8, but you were told something more specific than that, weren’t you?” he said pointedly, then with a red marking pen circled the words “about a quarter mile east of milepost 8.”
“I didn’t include that in the report?”
“Not according to the transcript, son.”
“I can’t believe it,” he stammered. “That’s not like me. That’s not like me at all. I always pass on exactly what I’m told.”
“I expect you do, son, but you didn’t this time.”
He smacked the heel of his palm against his forehead. “I just can’t believe it.”
“I very much doubt if it has any connection to those missing nurses,” he consoled him, “but I just wanted to make you aware of your mistake so it doesn’t happen again.”
“Oh, it won’t, Ike. I can promise you that.”
“It better not, Budd. If a person can’t be accurate, he’s got no business being an emergency dispatcher. Every little detail can be critical in our line of work.”
_______________
Appling threw another pitch too low to swing at and Wolcott, the batter, disgustedly picked up the grass-stained ball and threw it back at him. “Come on, Budd, give me something to hit.”
His next pitch was only slightly higher, but Wolcott swung at it anyway and dribbled the ball down the left field foul line.
Smoky then stepped beside Appling behind the screen. “You aren’t concentrating, Budd,” he told him. “You ain’t much good out here, if you’re not focusing on what you’re doing.”
He nodded.
“Something bothering you?”
“Oh, I guess I was thinking about those two nurses from Canada who were found this afternoon.”
“That was too bad about them. Come down here on a vacation and then they are gone for good.”
Appling slammed a ball into his glove, still furious with himself for not filing a complete report to the sheriff’s office. The women were found in their station wagon on Bald Mountain Road, a quarter of a mile east of milepost 8, just as the caller said, and if he had reported that accurately, they might have been discovered that day. Neither was wearing a seat belt so it was likely they died almost immediately from massive chest injuries when their car crashed head-on into an enormous oak tree. He was relieved that his error didn’t cost them their lives but because of it a great deal of time went into the search that could have been avoided. Still, he could not believe he had made such a foolish mistake.
“You want me to take over for you?” Smoky asked. “Out here you’ve got to be focusing on what you’re doing.”
Ignoring him, he placed his forefinger and middle finger together on the seam of the ball, reared back, and threw a perfect strike that was so fast Wolcott swung right through it. He was tempted to throw the next one just as hard, then remembered why he was there, and threw it much slower so Wolcott was able to slash if off the wall.
T. R. Healy was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. His stories have appeared in such publications as The Foliate Oak, Halfway Down the Stairs, Hawaii Review, and Riverbabble.
_______________________________
What the Dead Overheard by Fay Bella Whaley
©Photograph by Clapboard House
“Back off sister, or you’ll be pulling this Christmas tree out of your ass.” My head snapped to attention, as if Mother’s voice were the hiss of a rattler in the aisle opposite me in the flea market. Nose-to-nose, her red bouffant bobbed back and forth with an Elvis-jet-black bouffant, their shrill voices brittle on the cool air.
I had left her at a Christmas booth where Christopher Radko ornaments had been reduced to half price. New pieces were being brought out hourly. And there to snatch the best of the lot was a wide hipped woman, basket on arm, who had been blocking the way between the counter and the tree so that she had first choice of the ornaments.
Mother was still taking exception to her tactics when I reached the booth.
“You’ve been planting yourself right there so none of us can even see what they’re bringing out. Now you can just back your lard ass out of there or . . .”
“Mother,” I begged, pulling on her elbow. “Come along now Mother. Come with me. Cooperate please.”
I managed to shuffle her further down the aisle, her neck craning back to glare at the Radko hoarder.
“Mother, what in the world has gotten into you?”
“Ellen, didn’t you see what that heifer was doing?”
“Yes, I saw” I turned her face to mine. “Mama, ordinarily you wouldn’t care if a woman like that had toted off the whole tree of ornaments. You aren’t yourself.”
And of course, that is why I was with her that day. Dad had wanted me to see if I could find out what was up with her. He was certain menopause had set in. My brother Doy suspected some bad acid “Moms” dropped in the seventies was coming back on her.
I thought they might both be right as I struggled to steer her out of the building.
“Unhand me,” she said, twisting her arm free. “I will not leave yet.”
She marched toward the Christmas booth.
“Promise me Mother.” I caught her as she neared the cash register. “Just pay for the ornaments you want and let’s go. Okay? Please?”
“Okay, alright, just stop pulling and pawing me.”
She jerked her arm away again, rolling her eyes over to the man at the cash register.
She began chatting with another woman in line so I took the time to check out the Roseville Pottery at an adjacent booth. Moments later, above the booth owner’s lengthy lament about reproduction pieces, I picked up the black-haired woman’s conversation with the Christopher Radko proprietor.
“Ma’am if you would just step aside for a while and allow these other folks equal access, give the others a chance.”
“I got cash money and I was here first,” she said, grabbing another ornament from his hand. “First come, first serve. That’s what I say.”
“Yes ma’am,” the man said, snatching the box back from her reach. “But I think you’ve helped yourself to quite enough, thank you. Now if you’ll just move along please.”
“Who’re you, the Christmas fairy? All you faggots think you own Christmas, don’t you?”
“Okay . . . that’s it,” Mama hollered, plopping her ornaments in my hands. She pushed up the long sleeves of her red cashmere sweater, approaching the woman. “Ol’girl, I’m gonna . . .”
“Mother, please,” I said, toppling her off balance, pulling her back.
“Did you hear what she said to these . . . these nice boys? Can you believe it? At a Christmas booth for Christ’s sake.”
She faced the woman with a low growl through gritted teeth. “You’d better get from here or I’m gonna mop up this filthy floor with your fat ass.”
All that was keeping Mama from fulfilling her promise was my firm grip on her arm. Her popped, blood engorged blue eyes stared the woman down until she backed away, turning around frequently as she walked on, as if not trusting her back to Mama.
“Thanks,” the booth owner whispered to her. “I’m so sorry for this.” He handed Mama an ornament, a cupid sitting atop a red heart. “Please take him as a thank you.”
“Oh, you sweet thing.” She showed me the ornament. “Oh Ellen, isn’t it lovely?”
“It certainly is.” I nodded to the man. “Thank you.”
“Yes, thank you so much,” Mama said, cradling the ornament to her chest as if it were a newborn living thing. “Why do people have to be so mean?”
She choked, convulsed with sobs. “I can’t believe she could be so cruel. How could she say such mean things? I don’t understand. I don’t. I just can’t imagine . . .”
She looked up at us, startled, as if forgetting she had an audience. She ran out of the building, the ornament still cradled against her chest.
I found her sitting on the curb by the car, gently rocking, with the ornament held prayer-like between her hands, under her chin.
She hummed Christmas carols softly to herself as I drove. Her behavior and appearance were so unfamiliar to me that I didn’t speak, for fear of disturbing her calm, albeit a scary, post electric shock treatment calm. I watched her out of the corner of my eye and prayed nothing more happened during our almost three hour drive home from Atlanta.
__________
Whatever was going on with Mother began a few months before, the second day of January, the day my parents always, without fail, put Christmas back in the attic. Dad telephoned in hysterics, pleading for me to come over and, “See if you can do something with your Mother.”
The house was quiet when I arrived, except for the sound of Dad pacing the hall floor. “Thank God you’re here,” he said, hugging me and holding onto me as he led us to Mama’s sewing room door. “She’s in there with the Christmas tree.”
“Excuse me?” I looked back up the hall at the trail of scattered broken glass ornaments sparkling in the sunlight. “Dad, how did it get here from the living room?”
“Your Mother. You should have seen her drag that tree down the hall. You know how it always takes me and your brother, and the Simmons boy, to get that thing down from the attic and set it up. She put it on the hall runner and dragged it, just damned well pulled it all the way to her sewing room.”
“But why?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. Everything was fine. We had a nice breakfast, French toast, strawberries, and then we took the wreaths and lights down from outside, like always. But she was getting a little testy by the time we were taking the garland down from the stairway, so I left her to it and went in the living room to start on the tree. Thought I was being helpful. But she came running in, screaming at me, froze my blood I mean to tell you, hitting me and pushing me away from the tree. I never heard her . . .”
“It’s alright Daddy,” I said, holding his head to mine when he choked. “We’ll figure it out. Now just tell me what she said.”
“That’s just it. She wasn’t saying anything, just screaming every time I moved or opened my mouth.”
“Daddy, none of this is making any sense.”
“You’re telling me,” he said, releasing me, needing his hands to talk. “She dragged it inside and then proceeded to take every dadblamed piece of Christmas decoration we have in there with her. She locked the door and wouldn’t come out or answer me. I’ve been beside myself. I’ve . . . I . . .”
“Okay Daddy, let me see what I can do.”
Before I could knock, I heard a Christmas carol from one of her collection of Christmas music boxes and musical snow globes.
I turned to Daddy as another began playing and then another.
“What the hell is going on here?” I whispered.
He shrugged his shoulders, choking down again as yet another music box began playing.
“Mother, It’s Ellen.” I knocked harder, hoping she could hear above the dozen or so carols playing at once. “May I come in? Please let me in Mother.”
“Ellen,” she said, swinging the door open wide. “What a nice surprise. Come on in sugar.”
“Mother, are you alright?”
“Of course dear.”
She picked up a crotch mahogany box with holly inlay I’d given her that, oddly, played Bridge over Troubled Waters, not even a marginal Christmas song.
“You know, I’ve always wondered what it would be like to have them all playing at once.”
“Mama, Daddy is worried sick.”
She began winding another musical Christmas globe. “That’s it. The last one,” she said, her chin dropping, her eyes lifting upward as if the music boxes and globes were suddenly aloft.
“All at once.” She smiled, closing her eyes. “They’re all playing. But I declare . . . when I close my eyes and I’m completely still . . . I hear them . . . a chorus of separate angels.”
Eyes still closed, her hand reached out to me, “Ellen, listen. Hear them?”
“Mama,” I said, kneeling with her at the tree. “Mama, how about I make us some hot chocolate? We can sit in the kitchen, you and me, and have a long talk. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
“None for me sweetie,” she said, putting the tree skirt in place. “But you’re Father may like some. You know how he gets those post holiday blues. He’d appreciate the company I’m sure.”
I was clearly being dismissed, along with Daddy, from her sewing room, and, for the next few months, from her life. A room I had known all my life as a safe haven, a warm, chintz draped womb, where all would be made right by Mama, was now off limits.
__________
As I drove on, with Mama still humming her carols, I couldn’t help but wonder if she was missing her music boxes and the Christmas cocoon where she had spent the better part of the last three months.
“Stop!” she screamed. “Turn! Turn right. Now! Turn in there. Ellen quick . . .”
My left leg was shaking so I could barely keep my foot on the pedal as I braked to turn into a cemetery entrance. I brought the car to a stop just past the towering old rusted and warped wrought iron gates.
“Mama, what in the world?” I asked, fighting for breath, “scared . . . living . . . hell out of me.”
“This isn’t good enough,” she said. “No. This won’t do. Drive on.”
“What are we doing here?”
“Drive Ellen.” She motioned forward. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”
I drove deeper into the dimly lit cemetery. I coasted slowly, mostly to give myself time to decide if I should be obeying her or taking her to the nearest hospital.
“Here. Stop here. This is fine.” My car was swallowed by the massive jagged edged shadow of an ancient cedar tree.
“Why here?” I asked, afraid to face her. “Why this spot?”
“It’s dark enough.”
“For what Mama?”
“For me to talk. Dark is comfort.”
A bit of ornament glitter on her cheek pinpricked the darkness like a lightning bug and I faced her.
“Ellen, I’m not crazy,” she said, patting my white-knuckled hand, still clenched to the steering wheel. “Relax sweetie. Just listen.”
She grabbed my cold hand as I released the steering wheel. “Ellen, will you promise that what I say to you now stays here? We leave it all here with the dead when we drive out those gates?”
“Yes ma’am,” I said, squeezing her hand. “Sure Mama. Whatever you say.”
A few awkward moments passed in silence, Mama twitching and shifting in her seat. She made several false starts, after which we exchanged forced half smiles of embarrassment.
“This isn’t working,” she said, swinging the car door open.
I followed her down a narrow sidewalk, left cracked and uneven by bulging knobbed oak tree roots that meandered through an old part of the cemetery.
“Mama, I’m not sure we should be doing this. We don’t even know what town this is.”
“Does it matter?” she asked. “These people are just as dead as the ones back home in our cemetery. Follow me. I’ve spotted a place.”
“Mama, oh Mama it’s way too dark in there. You’re really scaring me now. Have I said that yet Mama?”
She stopped in front of an old family plot overgrown with cedar, azaleas and camellias. At the feet of the two above ground crypts was a lavishly carved marble bench. A large marble angel stood guard at the other end, opposite the bench, hand extended and lips parted, as if posed to speak to whoever sat there.
“Perfect,” she said, sitting on the bench, facing the angel. Then she nudged me. “No Ellen, I want you to sit facing the other way, with your back to me. That’s right. This will do.”
Our shoulders were touching. I turned my head slightly when she trembled. “Don’t look,” she ordered, shifting away from me. “I’m just going to say it outright and fill in the details after. That’s best. I’ll just say it, you don’t comment though, and then I’ll try to explain. And remember your promise.”
“It’s okay Mama. Nothing you could say now would change . . .”
“Last New Years Eve, in the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly, I kissed a nineteen year old bag boy.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or shriek in horror. I felt a strange mix of disgust and delight, relieved that she hadn’t murdered someone, yet revolted by the thought of my Mother in any remotely sexual context, especially with someone only several years younger than myself.
“Well, say something Ellen.”
“Who was he?”
“That Kuykendal boy.”
“Lucas?” I faced her. “You kissed Lucas Kuykendal? Doy’s friend?”
“Actually, he kissed me.”
“Mama, Lucas is not nineteen. He’s younger than Doy, not even eighteen yet.”
“Stop,” she yelled, her hands flying up. “If you go on I won’t be able to finish this. Now hush until you’ve heard it all.”
“What? There’s more?”
She shifted further away, folding her arms across her chest and rocking again, her eyes on the marble angel.
“Dear God, a broken wing.” She shook her head. “Oh. Oh no, that’s just too symbolic.”
She swung her legs over to my side and slid close to me. “Ellen, the boy had always flirted with me. I’d tease back, jokingly, not taking him seriously. I admit I was flattered. You know I do think I’ve held up well, face and figure.” She straightened her spine, lifting her chest as her red-nailed fingers smoothed down her trim torso. “Anyway, yes I was very flattered, having a big, good-looking young buck flirt . . .”
“Buck? Young . . . buck? Mother, really.”
“Okay, a stud puppy? A hunk?” She propped her leg up on the bench between us. “Oh, I see. Shocks hell out of you to think Mommy could ever . . .”
“You’re right.” I waved my hands, as if erasing the image from a chalkboard. “I’m sorry. Please, just continue.”
“Your Dad forgot to pick up our annual bottle of two ninety eight Andre Champagne that afternoon, so I had to make a run to the all night Pig. Creatures of routine, we couldn’t miss our yearly cheap buzz while watching the ball drop on the tube at Times Square.”
She laughed, placing her hand on my forearm. “Did you know that your Father asks me every New Years Eve, sitting in front of the television, ‘Mama where’s Guy Lombardo?’ And every year I tell him that Guy Lombardo is still dead. I hate it when he calls me ‘Mama’.”
I felt uncomfortable being so near Mama while she was doing this confessional thing. I dropped my rear off the bench, squatting in front of her on the even colder marble coping of the plot.
“I was putting my two grocery bags in the trunk when Lucas came up behind me, put his wide hands over my eyes wanting me to guess who. He was just going in to work. He flirted, for real this time, asking me to . . .”
“Mama,” I held my hand up, “please, just skip to the . . . that kiss.”
“Getting uncomfortable dear?” She slapped her hands on her thighs and leaned down to me. “Yes Ellen, your Mother has had orgasms, sometimes even with your Father in the room. And yes, if I had taken Lucas up on his overture, after drinking that champagne, I would have probably hurt that young BUCK that night.”
“Oh, I am not believing this.” I stood, pacing, hands on my hips.
“Get over it Ellen. This isn’t about sex anyway. Don’t let that get us sidelined.”
“Then tell me Mama, just tell me, what is this about?”
“A kiss. He said he would be working at midnight and wouldn’t get a Happy New Years kiss, so he asked if he could kiss me, just a peck on the cheek he said. I offered my cheek, but he took me in his arms and he kissed me full on the lips . . . firmly, with confidence, yet . . . sweetly.”
“Oh my God. How do I say this? I’ve got to know.” I stopped in front of her. “Mama, did you . . . was it an open mouth kiss?”
“Tongue?”
“Jesus Christ,” I said, spreading my arms wide. “I cannot believe I am standing in the middle of a strange cemetery at midnight, asking my forty two year old Mother what it was like to French kiss a seventeen year old Piggly Wiggly bag boy.”
“Open mouth? What difference does it make anyway Ellen?”
I flung my arms in the air, letting them drop clumsily against my thighs. “Oh, I don’t know Mama, maybe the difference between a felony and a misdemeanor.”
She closed her eyes, swaying again, and held her hand over her mouth. “It was never about sex,” she said, her crying muffled through her hand.
I squatted at her feet, placing a hand on her knee while carefully pulling her slender porcelain white fingers away from her mouth.
“Then what was it about Mama? I won’t say another word. I promise. Just tell me.”
“Oh sweetie, I don’t know if I can. I thought I could, but I’m not sure now. How can I ever tell you what it’s like to be my age, my age, and want to believe in Santa Claus again?” She sobbed. “I want to know that innocence again, to believe in dreams, that wishes come true. To just not know any better. Oh God, I do remember how wonderful and pure that felt, to believe.” She shook her head as a child would. “No. You can’t keep it. And you can’t recapture it. No, you can’t. You can remember, but you can never feel it again, never, not even for a second, not once it’s gone.”
“Mama,” I said, holding her. “I had no idea you’ve been this unhappy.”
“It’s not really about being unhappy either. It’s about being reminded of a time when I believed anything I could imagine was possible, anything. It’s about an innocent, sweet kiss from a beautiful young man that woke me up and reminded me of all that is lost and will never be again . . . never.”
After a few wordless moments her crying subsided, leaving her with soft child-like snivels and weak sighs. Her body lay loosely against me.
“I don’t have it anymore.”
“What Mama?”
“Through the years I’ve sold, loaned and given away, mostly bits and pieces of what wasn’t outright taken, stolen.”
“What Mama?”
“Me.”
Holding her, I rocked her as gently as she had rocked herself and she talked. I didn’t understand all that she said, but that didn’t matter. .
“Remember your promise?” she asked as I started the car. “Not a word?”
“Yes ma’am. I remember.”
“You know Ellen, this is really a beautiful old cemetery,” she said, looking out at the shadowed marble and granite headstones, slabs, statues and crypts. “I could have only said those things to you in a strange place, among strangers—these dead strangers.”
Fay Bella Whaley declined to provide us with a biography, but we’ve been told she is a cosmetologist on a cruise ship and has vowed to singlehandedly bring back the beehive.
_________________________________
Corey Mesler
©Photograph by Clapboard House
Listening to Dr. John’s “She’s Just a Square”
and Thinking about St. Joan
Really, I am thinking about you. I lied. I am, though, listening
to Dr. John. You used to love Dr. John.
I hate him now because of you. I listen to him to push on the
bruise. You are a bruise. You are a fire,
an ash. I am thinking about the time you told me you were leaving
and it had nothing to do with the other man,
the married one. I am thinking of the years I spent wandering
around the cemetery of our affair.
I know now that the past is a rough map and not a sweet playground.
And you are still there, an effigy, a burning
scrap of newspaper, black around the edges, still with a deadly headline.
I am thinking now that you remind me of St. Joan.
Memphis Music
“Boy, this is it. This is it, folks, it’s never going back to the way it was.”
Don Nix
A little mojo, a little mud,
a little sloppy guitar.
A choir of angels and janitors.
As bright as the Sun,
from the rooftops of Stax, now
Hi risen from the ashes.
Ardently midwifed.
It’s electric love is what it is.
It’s something found,
something needed, something
delivered. And the
river flows through it all, as
powerful as sacerdotalism.
We are sanctified.
We are the chosen, hidden.
And the song goes on and on,
spinning into blackness,
one path to the godhead.
One way to the dance, cater-cousins.
Poem found in Bluefield Woods, Raleigh, Tennessee
”One would have fancied that the genii of romance were illuminating their underground palaces to receive the sons of men.”
-Jules Verne
In Bluefield Woods
we were children.
The ravines may as well
have led to Hell.
Or at least to the Center
of the Earth
where dinosaurs waited.
We hid in the cane.
We spit and swore and
shot off our guns.
Bobby was a prince among
us. We knew it
even then, though we knew
little else.
In rain, snow, infernal heat,
Bluefield Woods
was our refuge.
The land was owned by the man
who invented
Fleer bubble gum. This
is what we understood.
He still had an outhouse
on his property.
We thought it a land at
least as exotic
as the Center of the Earth.
And when I found
a poem there,
in the muck,
folded as if in shame,
a poem written by a man,
a love poem to
a mystery woman,
I thought it the most farfetched
of treasure maps.
What poet wandered once
in Bluefield Woods?
It was a puzzle then
as it is now
all these years hence.
The woods are gone now,
of course, as
is the poem, as are all the
dreams we had
as we hiked around together,
young Muirs.
Most of us made it here,
into the next century,
that’s the happy
ending, though,
for that, it is not an ending.
In our fifties now,
out of the woods, we are
into life’s tender
stream, with children
of our own, some of us.
I hear from Bobby still,
every once in
a while, a brief email
that lets me know
he’s still around, still aware.
I want to ask him
now about the poem
I found in Bluefield Woods.
But I don’t.
Such things as poetry, as
sexual longing,
as mystery women who engender
such things,
seem foolish, as foolish
as our immature bluster.
And when I write a poem of
my own
I still hope that I am
up to the task,
the one begun by some long
ago hiker in
Bluefield Woods, the task
we are all given,
to reconcile past and future,
to resolve not to solve
the mysteries
but to enumerate them,
given to us each
and all,
if lucky, if cursed by desire.
COREY MESLER has published in numerous journals and anthologies. His novel, Talk: A Novel in Dialogue, was released in 2002. His second novel, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, came out in January 2006. He has also published numerous chapbooks. He has been nominated for a Pushcart numerous times, and one of his poems was chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. With his wife, he runs Burke’s Book Store in Memphis TN. He can be found at www.coreymesler.com.
____________________________________
Christopher Woods
©Photograph by Clapboard House
That Time of Day
Late afternoon
She came into our yard,
A confused black cow,
Her udders filled with milk,
A lost look in her eyes,
But I saw determination too.
She wore an ear tag,
And I recognized her
As a neighbor’s cow.
I called him and he came over,
Explained how they had baled hay
All afternoon, huge round bales,
How the men hadn’t noticed
A newborn calf asleep in the field,
How the machine had gathered her
And took her inside, killing her.
The neighbor went for help,
But has not yet returned.
It’s Saturday night.
Maybe help is in short supply.
Ever since the black cow
Has wandered, looking in vain
For her newborn calf.
She broke through a fence
To begin her longest journey.
She’s distressed, maybe dangerous.
We have taken the dog inside,
Locked the doors.
I can see the black cow now,
Out the window, wandering in circles
As she begins to fade away,
Blend with the darkness
Taking hold around us all.
Christopher Woods is the author of a prose collection, UNDER A RIVERBED SKY (Panther Creek Press), and a collection of stage monologues for actors, HEART SPEAK (Stone River Press). He lives in Houston and in Chappell Hill, Texas.
_______________________________________
Margaret Fieland
©Photograph by Clapboard House
Crack Up
Swish through car-lit darkness
Past squares of light
Street signs sparkling green and white
Roll down your window
Feel the lemon air
Ruffle what’s left of your hair
Kenny Chesney blaring on the radio
Loud enough to silence the thoughts in your head
Waiting to be drowned in a cold beer
Your wheels slide through ghosts of clouds
Past skeleton trees waving bare arms
Past lighted windows with families eating
Roast chicken, green beans, potatoes
While the letter from your daughter
crinkles in your back pocket
Your seat belt chafing as
Kenny croons Who you’d Be Today
The smell of leaf smoke drifts
Through the window
As you drive at twenty-five miles per hour
Past the cop in the turn-out on your left
As the rain starts dripping down your windshield
And your windshield wipers quit
You reach for a beer
as Kenny starts singing Keg in the Closet
Your car drifts into the center of the road
As you drop the empty on the floor
Reach behind you for another
One hand on the wheel
The car skids on wet leaves
Going around that curve in the road
You forgot was there
And Kenny sings Steamy Windows
The sweat drips down your neck
As you wrestle with the steering wheel
Brake on the empties
Your seat belt unfastened
Skid into the tree
Glass arrows your cheek your eye
You’re bleeding from your ear
Somewhere Kenny’s singing How Forever Feels
Spring Day, Subject to a Premature Demise
I find myself in a garden of cut-outs:
my mother’s bed of petunias,
your bed of roses,
my lilac bushes.
As I walk the pieces are tossed up and reassembled,
red roses replaced by burgundy mums,
pink petunias become scarlet geraniums,
the lilacs bud and flower.
I pass a lawn sprinkled with violets.
I turn, and the grass has vanished,
taken over by the small heart-shaped leaves
and delicate lavender flowers.
I am suddenly furious:
at the flowers for growing and thriving,
and at you, for planting them beside the patio
and then dying and leaving me with
just a bunch of violets.
Margaret Fieland, born and raised in New York City, has been around art and music all her life. She is the mother of three grown sons, an accomplished flute and piccolo player and the daughter of a painter. Her poems, articles and children’s stories have appeared in, amoung others, Main Channel Voices, Echolocation, a