The Rules are Clearly Spelled Out in the Brochure

          The rules are clearly spelled out in the brochure.  Yeah, but maybe, just maybe not clear enough for a guy like me to understand.  They must have been in fine print, just small enough and in a space just inconspicuous enough for a guy like me to miss, but just by that much; high and inside, just enough to force the batter out of the batter’s box and take a long, hard look out at the pitcher, trying to catch his eye, see if it was intentional and charge the mound if he sees the faintest tinge of red.

          I need a cup of coffee and head slowly for the kitchen.  It’s small but cozy, and I feel comfortable enough to have one or two people over at a time, as we can eat in the kitchen and not feel too crowded.  The carafe clinks against the cup sitting on the counter and I return it to its place, having finished pouring.  Black.  No cream, no sugar.

          I’ve waited for this moment all week.  Not the coffee, not sitting at my breakfast nook.  These rituals I perform daily, along with the retrieval of my mail.  These are regular items on my daily agenda.  This week, however, is different.  This week I knew it would be here.  They told me it would be here this week, the third week in June, 1999.  I have waited for it since the time I mailed off my submission, almost eight weeks ago to the day.

          I look at the opening two sentences of the letter again, feeling more self pity than anger.  How could they do this to me?  I worked so hard.  Write, rewrite, rewrite again.  I followed the submission guidelines, making certain every line, every paragraph was clear and concise, every semicolon in its proper place, every dash used correctly.  Yet here I am, faced with this letter of rejection typed up on fancy, company stationary and looking very professional.  I personally don’t see the need for professionalism when smashing a guy’s hopes and dreams.  Just do it and get it over with, no need to go overboard and get all fancy in the process.

          I sip my coffee.  It’s hot as it runs down my throat.  Taking another sip, holding this one in my mouth and swirling it over my tongue until it cools, I begin reading aloud to myself:

          Mr. Davis:

          Thank you for submitting a sample of your writing to our 1999 Summer Fiction Open.  We are sure you submitted only your best, as the rules are clearly spelled out in the brochure.

          It went on, I’m sure, but I stopped at this point, feeling too humiliated and ashamed at having received yet another rejection slip.  More of my precious time wasted, churning out mere drivel in the eyes of  the more experienced.

          Walking over to the garbage can, I begin ripping the letter into a thousand tiny pieces, only stopping when my fingers can no longer shred, when the letter is a substantial amount of Mardi Gras confetti.  Feeling both satisfied and drained at the same time I retire to my room, resolving to sleep the remainder of the day away.

          As the confetti flitters down towards the garbage can, two pieces almost touch.  If taped back together with delicate fingers these two pieces would, without a doubt, spell out the word, “Congratulations.”

Orphan Train: The Journal of Alexander Wood (first in a multi-part series)

                      28 Nov. 1916

My Ma’s way of arguing with you is staring at you hard in the face.  She does it with Pop all the time and even if he’s yellin’ his head off, when she stares at him real hard there really isn’t much he can do except look away.  She did it tonight when Pop came home from work.  I thought she was gonna make him cry the way she was looking at him.  It would have made me cry.  Pop didn’t, though.

                       

Ma was in the kitchen of our apartment doing something, I think ironing, and I was in the bedroom, supposed to be keeping my brothers and sister busy.  I was having a pretty tough time of it, though.   They don’t wanna ever do anything I like doing.  I don’t understand little kids.  Ma says I don’t have no patience, just like my father.  I tell her I don’t know what patience is and she tells me to go play with my brothers and sister. 

That’s what I’m doing when Pop comes home.  I mostly tickle my brothers on the bed and they laugh and sometimes fall off and then my sister laughs and we have a pretty good time, so I think I have some patience, anyway.  When I hear him come in, I tell the other three to get real quiet.  They stare at me with wide eyes and all of us just sit, knowing the yelling will start. 

Ma stopped her ironing when she heard the rattle of the doorknob.  I could see her through the doorway of the bedroom that leads to the kitchen.  We all sleep in the bedroom on cold nights and on warm nights Pop stays in the kitchen with a worried look, deep lines running like rivers across his forehead.  I don’t know what he’s worried about, but I’m pretty sure it’s got something to do with money because Pop comes home grumbling about wages this, wages that.  Ma asks him where are his wages.  Pop says he can’t understand how she can nag him about wages all the time when they’re out the window as soon as he steps through the door, what with so many mouths to feed and a roof to keep over our heads.  Ma says it wouldn’t matter, roof or no roof, it’s so cold in here anyway. 

"Alex, what’s wages?" Irene asks me.

My sister is four and she doesn’t understand much.  I put my hand over her mouth and we all lay back in the dark bedroom, light from the kitchen spraying across the bedspread and the voices getting loud and louder.

_______________________________________________________________________

                                                                                                                        30 Nov. 1916

Yesterday, Ma took us kids down to Nesler’s Market to get some things.  My sister, Irene, is four.  I have two brothers, Howard and Ollie, who are five and seven.  I’m Alexander and I’m ten, the oldest.  Ma makes me take care of the kids and I don’t know if I really take care of them because that’s something adults do, but Ma is a lot nicer if I just agree and do like she says.

I got them all bundled up and we sat in the hallway right outside our door to wait.  It smells out in the hallway.  There are no windows and mostly all of the light bulbs are burnt out.  The walls are black and you can see bits of the wood floor from underneath the tattered carpeting.  When we sit on the floor it’s cold, and we can see tiny black specks that we think are droppings from mice.  We’ve seen them scamping across our own floor and it’s just on the other side of the door that we’re sitting up against, so why couldn’t the mice get out here too?

Inside our apartment, Ma was screamin’ herself red in the face, emptying out cans that she stores money in, slamming cupboard doors when she finds Pop has found all her hiding places.  I wish Pop wouldn't take all the money Ma hides.  I don't know exactly what he takes it for, but I think it's so he can put it in a better hiding place than a tin can.  I hope Ma forgives him. 

Finally she came to the door.  I scrambled the kids to their feet and she cussed Pop out, even though he wasn't with us.  I started to tell her that, but she said, "let me talk Alex, just let me talk."  I let her talk, even though I’m not Pop.

When we got outside, Ma hurried us along the sidewalk faster than we could run.  It was cold; wind slapped at our faces, Irene started to cry even though I was carrying her.  Ma doesn’t have a coat or mittens and by the time we got down the street to Nesler’s Market, her hands were cracked and bleeding from the cold and the wind.  Irene’s ears were bright red and snot from her nose ran down her lips, into her mouth.  I swiped at her with my sleeve. Ma just stared at me and I know I should have asked for a tissue instead, but I was too cold and didn't think to ask for one.

Inside, people stared at us and shook their heads.  Ma keeps her face to the floor and doesn’t seem to notice.  I notice though, and think real hard about askin' one of 'em what it is they're starin' at, but I think I already know.  I look back at Ma to see if she's looked up yet, but she's still starin' at the floor.  I wonder what she’s lookin’ at and almost ask her how she knows what she’s shoppin’ for if she doesn’t ever look up.  Mrs. Nesler greets Ma at the counter then and asks about Pop, how he’s gettin’ on and has she heard about the layoffs down at the plant where Pop and Mr. Nesler both work.  I wonder what a layoff is. 

Incident in the Backyard at Noon on a Sunday

It was strange, how it happened that day, with the clouds becoming increasingly darker, and the boys playing in the yard.  It was surreal, and I couldn’t imagine myself ever in a predicament as such.  Yet there I was, and there they were, and no one else around. 

            The boys were playing with a bird they had found.  Well, not actually playing with it but, rather, torturing it.  Yes, they were torturing a baby Robin they had found.  It had fallen out of its nest, and was hobbling along in the yard.  Prior to this, the boys had been jumping on the trampoline, arguing about who would jump first and about who could spell “yellow” faster or some such argument, when the bird fell out of the tree and they both noticed it at the same time because of the way it had fallen.  It sort of jumped, helter skelter, from one low branch to the next until it landed on the ground, like in those action films you see where the man falls out of a four story building and bounces, rather luckily, from the third floor awning to the second floor awning, to the first floor awning, and finally the ground, where he gets up and runs, unscathed, away from his predator.  It was like that.  Totally unbelievable.

            It was fun; I mean to say, they were having fun, and I was watching it all from the kitchen window.  I was washing dishes.  Or maybe I was just standing there thinking what to make for dinner.  I don’t remember.  Either way, I was kind of lost in the moment, standing there and thinking, wondering what it would be like to be a boy again, to be young and running around and chasing a bird. 

            And then, all of a sudden, I began to think that perhaps this thing they were doing, this chasing the baby bird around and yelling at it and making fun of it, that it couldn’t yet fly, was not fun anymore.  At least not for the bird.  And I didn’t think it was all that great, but I stood there still.  Watching.  

            They had trapped it in a corner, up against the fence, and were standing there and laughing, pointing at it and slapping each other on the back.  I couldn’t understand the slapping each other on the back – some male bonding type of thing, some ritual rite of passage into male friendship, boyhood – but either way, they were having the time of their lives there in the back yard, as the baby bird, a Robin as I have said before, hopped back and forth and couldn't find a good chance to break free, to break past them.  And I wondered if it knew what was happening then; I began to wonder what it could possibly be thinking and if it could think at all, and if it knew the potential danger it was probably in. 

            The boys closed in on the bird then, and the sky was beginning to turn a metallic, shark gray.  A clap of thunder rolled along the outer edges of the horizon, and this made them jump and the bird jumped a little as well.  Something behind me made me turn, I don’t quite remember what it was now, maybe a click from the oven that I had pre-heating at the time, or a sound coming from behind the wall – a mouse, perhaps – and I took my eyes off of the display of evil transpiring in the backyard. 

            That must be when it happened.  That must be when the baby bird took it’s last breath and my son came running toward the house screaming my name and sounding quite hysterical, quite unlike anything I had ever heard, or ever want to hear again, for that matter.

            His friend, Matthew Sharp, a friend from kindergarten who lived down the street from us, was standing in the back still, by the fence, near the gate that leads out to the pasture, with his back to me, his back to the house, and I wondered what he had done.  That was the first thing I wondered.  What had he done?

I remember when I was about ten or eleven, and standing in the Snowwhite’s driveway, hanging out.  Maybe it was a Saturday, maybe it was summer, but either way, it was a tenuous feeling, my being there, as these were my enemies one week, my friends the next, something which was in short supply during the years I was growing up. 

Anyway, there was AC/DC on the stereo and motorcycles up on stands in the garage, and cuss words flying out of the mouths of every boy there except mine.  A frog had jumped from the grass onto the drive and Ben Snowwhite had taken his boot-covered foot and stomped the life out of it, blood squirting out from beneath the tread of the boot.  And they all laughed.  Like crazed hyenas, they all laughed like it was the funniest thing they had ever seen, and Johnny, Ben’s older brother, made some crack about how he’d like to see my brother’s head under that boot, and I laughed too at that because if I didn’t, I likely would have gotten the tar kicked out of me right then and there. 

            And this is Matt.  In the backyard, this is what Matt is doing, laughing hysterically as he turns around with the twisted bird in his hand and a wicked grin upon his face.  There is something like guts or blood running down his forearm and up underneath the sleeve of his t-shirt.  I am still unclear as to what happened exactly, but I think it makes pretty good sense to me now, and I quickly check the hands of my son, who has found his way up the back porch steps and into my arms.  I check his hands for blood.  This is the first thing I do.  He is still crying hysterically and I know that this is not how he had intended for the game to end up. 

            I am afraid, suddenly.  I am afraid of approaching Matt and trying to speak to him.  I am afraid that all of my childhood fears about the Snowwhite’s and about growing up without friends, and without a father to show me what it is like to be a man, will come spilling from me - blood from a slit throat, a twisted neck. 

I am afraid that I will take my anger out on this boy of five. 

I fear that everything I say to him will sound wrong. 

I fear what he will think of me as his friend’s dad, and that he will go home today and tell his father that his friend cried and that only babies cry and that I was upset about a stupid bird that was probably going to die anyway.

I hold my son and let him know that everything will be okay, that the bird didn’t feel any pain, that Matt made a mistake today by killing that bird, and that God will punish him one day for being cruel to animals.  This I don’t know if I believe, and a whole flood of memories rushes back just then, memories of the catholic church and of Father Harlan, and of Sunday mornings as an altar boy, and of my ruined family, the one that did not stay together even though they were catholic, and of the priest who touched me inappropriately even though he was a catholic, and all of this and more that has happened to me, all of this stuff that should never have happened because it wasn’t the Catholic Way.

So I don’t know right now, as a father of three, a married man of thirteen years, if I really believe that everything is going to be all right; I don’t know if I really believe that there is a god who will punish people for their earthly wrong-doings, for the crimes they somehow get away with while enjoying their time here on earth.  And I lump five-year old Matt into this category, into this category of evil because of what he has done to the bird and for laughing and thinking it funny; but even more so because of how he made my son feel. 

And I don’t know anything in this moment, really, except that my son will be a good person, that he has feelings, and that I am at least partially responsible for this.  I clean Matt up, drive him to his home, leave him with his father.  We don’t say a word to each other, where usually there is at least light conversation about the weather, our jobs, our kids.  It is awkward, but all I want to do is get out of there; all I want is to forget, and to bask in the glow of the knowledge that the past is the past.

Silent Affirmations

It was her silent affirmations that kept her from going completely insane.  Merely being in the same room with him was not enough anymore, talking to herself, answering herself.  No, it seemed there was something lacking, something not quite right.  And telling herself that things would eventually turn, that there would be some incredible change in the course of things that would make it all go back to the way it used to be?  Well, this was the most nonsensical thing of all, and only served to fuel her already overloaded imagination.

Her mind wanted to rest, to be set free.  As vulgar as it sounded, she needed him to go.  And how to tell him?  This, of course, was always the question.

Mrs. Mercer? 

The attending appears out of thin air, or perhaps from the recesses of her mind.  Summoning her now, it seems.  Mrs. Mercer gets up, follows the nice, young nurse, her hospital smock a blue the color of a clear northern sky.

It is November.  Outside, lawns are still green and flecked, here and there, with spots of brown, patterns of fallen leaves, reminders of a changing season; reminders that change is imminent - a cloud that has shifted shapes, a reminder she did not want.

Inside, white painted walls, sterile corridors filled with the bleeps and whirring of machines, framed prints of flowery landscapes and sandy beaches, places the inhabitants of the Hearthstone Manor Rest Haven will likely never see. 

            Mrs. Mercer is led through a set of double doors marked Employees Only and into another room contiguous with the faculty break room.  It is here where they gather and talk about their families, their troubles, sometimes their patients.  But probably not this last item.  Probably not the patients, what with constantly soiled bed pans and under-garments, crying through the night and begging to be set free of this plight, like old age or illness had happened upon them as a result of some evil-doing. 

            And one of these patients is a Mr. Frank Mercer.  Frank waits for his wife every day, inside of a room that he does not share.  She had requested a private room for him, the very most private of rooms, for they were still quite young when the accident occurred and, well, a private room was only appropriate.   

            Now, it seems, none of that matters, and she sits down in an over-sized leather chair opposite the wide, polished mahogany desk that is Dr. Bloom’s.  She has not been in this office before today, and wishes never to be here again.  It has an ominous feel to it, dark and desolate, a rainy day turning to an even rainier night. 

            Dr. Bloom extends an arm, offers her a chair, the attending retreats to a dark corner of the room.  Will she wait there for this meeting to be over?  Will she listen to every private word the two, Doctor and Patient’s Wife, share in this most intimate moment?  Mrs. Mercer hopes not, but then realizes it does not matter in the least.  She plans only on listening.  She can almost predict the words that will escape the good Doctor’s mouth. 

            Mrs. Mercer.

            She waits for him to speak, to continue, stares at the corners of his mouth, how they seem to turn ever so slightly up on one side and down on the other. 

            All right, then.  Mrs. Mercer, your husband.  I do not give him more than two weeks at most.  His health is deteriorating rapidly, and he still will not breathe on his own, of course.  It is my professional opinion that you call the family in to say final goodbyes.

            Mrs. Mercer?

            Mrs. Mercer?

            Dr. Bloom has come out from behind his desk, having been standing the whole conversation, unable to sit down, wringing his large hands inside and out of one another.  He sits now, opposite Mrs. Mercer in a matching leather chair, and takes her hand in his.  It is ice cold, though she does not feel him take it. 

            Mrs. Mercer?

            Perhaps, in our silences, we can imagine……..

Waiting at the Curb

My mother drove me to school that day.  I am going to St. Edward Catholic High School and at the time, I think I am a sophomore.  I hate this school.  I hate this school and I hate these kids and I hate dressing up and wearing these goddamn cloth neckties every day.  I don't look right in these clothes and I don't say too much about it to my parents, but I hate it more than anything else I can think of.  And the kids make fun of me.  But there is something I hate more than the clothes. 

These fuckers. 

I hate these fuckers. 

She pulls up and it is just me because my brother is still at the junior high school.  She sits there for a minute and I go to grab the handle and get out, and she says my name. 

She never says my name when I get out of the car. 

She just lets me go. 

She always just lets me go. 

I look at her and she asks me how I would feel if she were to leave her husband, my step-father.  She tells me she has been thinking about it for some time now, that she is not happy, and that Lisa, my step-sister, is old enough now to understand divorce.  

I just look at her.  

I've been through this before, although I was pretty young and don't remember all of the details of my mom and dad divorcing.  It was a good number of years ago.  I look at her still, not really believing that she is saying this to me, that Lisa is old enough to understand divorce. 

Understand divorce? 

Really? 

What's there to understand? 

That you're not willing to try anymore?  That you're actually willing to take that risk to allow your children with only one parent, when everything tells you that two is better than one; when you know for a fact, without a shadow of a doubt, that one and one is two?  

But maybe, I tell myself, maybe I am wrong.  Maybe I am wrong to want my parents to stay together if they just don't love each other anymore.  Of course!  For fuck's sake! Of course!

I look at her still and I know she is waiting for an answer.  Her face is wrinkled, deep lines like a crumpled piece of paper run over her cheeks, make creases at the corners of her eyes. 

Crow's Feet. 

They call them Crow's Feet. 

She looks old to me and I do not answer her, only shake my head and leave her there at the curb, watching me go and I remember that this is not the first time I left her waiting.  Back in freshman year, waiting at the front door and leaning forward to grab a kiss goodbye.  

Only I couldn't.  

The carpool had just pulled up and Becky and Joey D. were in there with Becky's mom and I could just hear the shit I would get if they knew I still kissed my mother goodbye.  Is this where it started?  

Is this the point, the crucial point where she began to pull away from me?  

Would she really think it was me pulling away? 

Shouldn't she know that this is only teenage stuff? 

That what she really needs to do at this point is hang on and never let go?

Force me to talk to her?

Force my brother and I to get along no matter how much we told her we hated each other? 

Force this goddamned family back together again? 

Couldn't she make that happen? 

Couldn't she?

Coupla' Days, Pt. III

It is night. Micki took the kids to her mom's house for a couple of days. It’s funny to me how she calls her mother "mom," while mine I call "mother." Seems impersonal, uncaring.

She sits across me from in our small but comfortable kitchen. I have made coffee, but only because I plan on having some. Though she drinks a mug of it, I do not make it for her. 
I hope she knows that. 
It's not something I can actually tell her without sounding like an idiot, though. "I didn't make this for you, you know. I'm not doing anything for you, you know." Yeah, that would sound real good. Not at all immature.

While the kids were here, my mother pretended to be asleep the whole time. 
"It must be hard, raising girls," she says now. 
Her voice is soft and gravelly, barely more than a whisper. I do not wish to engage in this conversation. I will not allow her to continue.

"I love them, mother. I guess you wouldn't know about that." I look her straight in the eye and I speak each word slowly, with conviction. I regret them almost as soon as they are out, as a tear spills to her lap and her face drops.

No, I will not allow myself this feeling. I have no right to feel pity for this woman. She's the one who did the crummy job raising me, the one who decided to move away when the going got tough, when she had made more mistakes than she knew what to do with. She cannot possibly provide me anything I don't already have in abundance. I will simply let her stay until I can figure out where else she can go.

Her head slowly rises from its defeated position. The tears have dried up, and I can hear her shallow breathing. We sit and stare at each other. Her eyes are glossy and she is far away. I wonder what she thinks, but do not ask. There is an impressive display of pill bottles set up next to her on a TV tray that I set up for her because I didn't want her wheeling around the kitchen, taking up everyone's space and making a nuisance of herself. Not that she could actually wheel herself.

And how did we get to this point anyway? When I glance up and look at her, and she's looking at me like this is the place for her, like this is what all kids should do for their dying and aging parents, I have to quite literally hold myself back from jumping up and wheeling her out to the curb.

No one else in the family could take her. That's what I'm supposed to believe. They actually said that to me, that I was the one who should take ma because I was the oldest, and they would do it too, had they the extreme misfortune of being born first. 
Lovely. 
What a prize for being first. I always thought it was supposed to be a trophy, a big ass-kicking, shiny, gold plated trophy with my name engraved on the front name plate, and the word "WINNER," in great big, shiny gold letters. 
Gee, I won. 
Yeah.

________________________________________________________________________

In the morning, I get up to leave for work and the phone rings. It's grandma.

"Well, how does she look?"

"Not so good, gran. All she does is sit in her wheelchair and look around the place or sleep. Wanna talk to her?" I honestly don't believe she will want to talk with her only daughter, but she surprises me. It is to be a morning of surprises, regardless of what I might have to say about it.

"Yeah, sure. Put her on." Rustling on the other end of the line, gran's poodle yapping away, grandma breathing her smoker's breath. Carlton Reds. I remember them well.

I bring the phone into my mother, who sits at the TV and stares at a blank picture tube. She looks up at me but I'm not sure she knows I'm there. I hand her the phone and go into the kitchen. I can barely hear her as she speaks to grandma.

"Ma? Yeah, pretty good. You? No, Ma, I don't want you to come over. I don't need anything. Yeah, kids are great. Such angels they turned out to be, huh? No, look, no, Ma, I really should hang up. I really shouldn't get into this with you."

She hits the off button on the cordless. For a moment I don't hear anything. I make another half pot of coffee and head to the door for the paper. 
A cold hand reaches out to touch me as I walk past. It feels like rubber, like a cold, rubber hand; a prank hand you'd buy at the novelty shop. 
I don't want to turn around. 
I don't want to see the tears well up in her eyes, sit and listen like a good son to her sorrows and all the things she regrets. 
I don't want to sit and listen to how much she missed me while I was growing up, how much she wished she hadn't made the choices she made, and how damn much she wants to be a good grandma. 
I don't want to hear. 
I won't listen to it.

Lowering my gaze, I note that her eyes are dry. Her lips, too. Her hand, the one on my arm, barely touches me, but fights to maintain some type of a grip.

"Johnny, when I go…” That is all I hear. I am outside for my paper before she gets the chance to finish.

At work later that day I think about ma. I think about how I walked out of the room on her, not a word of comfort from my mouth, not a word at all. She is dying and it's not like I didn't know that this was the inevitable end for her. For any of us, for that matter. But it was a different feeling, a feeling that it would go on forever, that she would live with us indefinitely, that maybe we would even talk peaceably. Maybe the girls would come to know their grandma, listen to stories from her childhood, laugh when they heard baby stories about me, like the time when I smeared poop on the wall next to my crib. I thought a lot about what could happen. I have dreams on many nights; forever it seems, about what it would be like to have a mother, a grandmother for my girls, a mother-in-law for my wife. Everything in its place, a place for everything.

________________________________________________________________________

The girls are still at Micki's mom's house. They called today to say they would be staying on a coupla' days longer. I sit here with a beer in one hand and a cigarette dangling from the fingers of the other. Billowy gray plumes of smoke drift up to the ceiling and linger there awhile, then disintegrate. Carlton Reds. The dark living room becomes sinister, obscure. If Micki came home now, she would probably think she had the wrong apartment because I don't smoke, only on occasions. I’m glad she won’t bring the kids home to this.

Mom died sometime during the day. I found her still sitting in the same position I had left her in this morning. Her head is covered. She wore the hat to conceal her head, bald from cancer. Her shriveled hands lie still in her lap, the urine bag and catheter lie on the floor next to one big wheel of her chair. I unhooked the dreaded contraption for her when I got home.

I take a drag from the cigarette, inhale deeply. I think about the smoke and how it rages through my lungs, looking for a place to hide, a place to sleep for awhile, the cancer soon to follow, claim my life, too. I think I'll sleep for a coupla' days, dream about my Mom and how it should have been, dream about the perfect place to scatter her remains. I try and remember why I had become so bitter, and realize that I cannot.

I'm glad the girls aren't here right now to see their grown daddy cry. My littlest angel always used to tell me she wanted to see my cry. She didn't think boys knew how. And to tell you the truth, I didn't think I would remember how. Certainly not over my Mother, anyway.

There is something so final about death. All the possibilities in life are taken away, all the chances you wanted to take, all the things you wanted to say, the people you could have comforted. I don't regret much about the way I have lived my life, about how unforgiving I may have been, how unwilling to take chances, give people chances. But looking at my Mother, her lifeless body slumped in her wheelchair, I think that maybe that part about my life has changed. I'll have to think on that one for a coupla' days.

Coupla' Days, Pt. II

The airport. 

Shiny, chalk white. 

Almost too white.

I feel like I am in a hospital waiting to be seen by a doctor. I don't like it one bit. 

And then I see her. Only what I’m seeing is not her; it can’t be her. 

It's a skeleton and I'm back in my room at the house on Chester Street. The skeleton moves slowly yet certainly and I know I will not be able to do a damn thing except lay there under the covers and wait until the vision fades. It comes across the floor and it jangles its bones. They clank together as they swing toward me and I begin to feel a wet spot between my legs where I have just pissed myself. 

And here is my mother as I am thrown back into reality. 

And I am repulsed.

She is wheeled across the shiny linoleum of the airport lobby area. 

The stewardess looks at me. 

And I don't move. 

I only stare.

Yes, she is my mother I want to tell the stewardess, only I don't want her. I smile at her. The stewardess, that is. She is pretty and I would rather take her home instead. Think of the fun we could have, you and me, I think. Dinner, movies, the beach, trips to foreign countries.

My mother motions to me. The stewardess turns and disappears, heading back up the tunnel to the plane.

Mother’s eyes are an uncertain color. Oily, dark, sunken into her head. Black rings engulf them, and the glasses upon her nose can serve no imaginable purpose. Her hands are shriveled, crippled, and there is a tube leading out from under her hospital smock. It leads to a bag under the wheelchair and as I watch, it fills some of the way up and still she motions for me to come closer.

I take large steps and quickly I am behind the chair, pushing her to my car, not wanting to speak to her. I only want to get her home before anyone sees me with her and I have to identify this hideous woman as my mother. If this sounds illogical, it probably is. It's not like I would run into anyone I know at the airport in the middle of the night on a weekday. Only I don't care, I am so damned ashamed of this woman.

We do not speak on the car ride back to the apartment. 

A one hour drive from the airport. 

I had no idea the silence could be so thick. 

It is rich and syrupy and I love it because I have no intentions of speaking with her. 

What would she have me say?

Once in the apartment, I sit and stare at her until light breaks through the living room shades. Micki doesn't ask why I did not come to bed the night before, and she keeps the kids away from me for most of the next day. I love them, I miss them, but I need time to process this thing that has just happened.

The phone rings.

"Johnny boy." An old childhood name only my brother can get away with, except I don't think it is all that funny at the moment.

"Lee, what do you want?" My mother sleeps across from me in her wheelchair. I don't know if she would have been more comfortable somewhere else for the night, but I didn't care enough to ask. It is 7a.m. and Lee is talking to me as if nothing has happened. Maybe in his life nothing has, but mine is a whole different story.

"John, what's ma doing?"

"I don't know."

"What? She's in a wheelchair, for God's sake; it’s not like she went out for the night. What time did you get in, anyway?"

"I don't know. Listen, can we talk about this some other time? Mick wants to go out today, some outlet mall. Will you be around later? I'll call you back." Anything I can do to get him off the phone.

"Yeah, sure. 

Listen, Johnny, you're a good son to take her in, man. 

You should know that."

I hang the phone back in its cradle and look at my mother. Her eyes are closed and her glasses rest in one hand. I have a sudden urge to snatch them from her and smash them under my foot. Elsie, my youngest daughter, creeps into the living room and sits next to me on the couch.

"Daddy, is that grandma?" She whispers this so close to my ear that I can feel her breath and my ear tickles and I love her so much that I don't want her to get wrapped up in all this... this crap, but I don't know what else to do. I nod my head. It doesn’t require much effort.

"What's that?" She points to the urine bag that is still only filled as much as it was when we came in last night. And then she notices her hat. "Why does she sleep with her hat on, Daddy?"

"Cancer, honey. She lost her hair."

"Does it hurt?"

"No, honey, it doesn't hurt." 

I wish it did, though, I want to add. 

I don't. 

Coupla' Days, Pt. 1

When my brother called to tell me my mother was dying, I didn't know how to respond.

Anger?

Frustration?

Pain?

Memories of ma came in waves, hitting me hard. It wasn't fair. What did he want me to do? See her? Call her? 

I hadn't seen her in all of ten years. You make life choices, you know? I mean, everyone has to decide where his or her own life is headed. And mine? Well, mine was headed nowhere fast and it was all because, at the time, she was in it. 

And then she left. 

Just left, one day when things got a little weird. Not to be seen nor heard from in ten whole years. 

And now this.

Coming from my brother, things didn't sound all that bad. Really, that's the way with him. I mean, his wife will go out and cheat on him, he’ll call me up the next day and say, "Johnny, she cheated on me. What do I do?" And that's it. No tears, no emotion, just a question. And he doesn't even take my advice, that's the real let-down with the whole deal. I told him I would kill her if it were me dealing with my wife, but what that means in the language of brothers is to find the guy, mess him up a little, and don't talk to her for a week or two. That should set them both straight.

He lets her off the hook with a couple of nights in the sack, and it's over. Man, I don't know how he could do it. Sleep in the same bed with her, I mean. That stuff is pretty hard to take, if you ask me. I don't deal with things all too well.

My mother is mean. She says one thing and means the other. 

My grandmother, her own mother, doesn't even like her.

"Your ma, Johnny, she's a rare bird, she is. What's the matter with her, doesn't even call me on my birthday? I tell you what, she's outta the will if I don't hear from her in the next coupla' days." 

My grandmother's a bit crackers herself, if you ask me. Always taking people out of the will, then putting them back in if they do something nice for her. Piss her off, though? You're out of the will. Nothing to it. Just like that with my grandmother. It kind of makes you wonder when she's going to kick the bucket, just to see if there really is a will. 

Sort of mean, I know, but look where I get it.

Anyway, my mother is baby-sitting one night - my wife and I, we hardly ever get a night to ourselves - and she brings a bottle of vodka with her. This wouldn't be so bad if my kids were older. But they're not. A one year old and a five year old can't take care of themselves all too well. So I tell her not to drink in front of them and maybe take it easy until we get home, we won't be too late. She passes out cold on the living room floor with the kids still up. I mean, they're climbing on her, my oldest daughter screaming in her ear, "Are you dead, Nana, are you dead, Nana?"

When I spoke with her the next morning, she was actually surprised that I would point the finger at her for being drunk and irresponsible. Accused me of being a bad son, that's how far she takes it. I haven't seen her since that night. And now this. 

Hate it Here

Her room is dark, an old pull-down shade hangs haphazardly from the curtain rod, clothes are scattered in multiple piles throughout the room, falling off of the rocking chair in the corner, lying in puddles on her dresser, her bed, her floor.  

And there is a stench.  

It is a strong, sour smell… something rancid.  

And there is the alcohol.  Jack Daniels.  

You hate it here.

She sits up in bed and motions you over.  She is smoking, and it is clear to you that she has been drinking for some time.  You are not sure how long you had been in your room, only that it had to have been for some length of time; it is deathly dark out.  The entire house is quiet and you wonder if your brother has fallen asleep.  You wonder if he is in his room, under his bed, the usual hiding spot when things don’t feel quite right.

You get as close as you dare, trying to stay out of her reach.  She wants you closer, tells you she’s not feeling all that well and that she’s not fucking around.  You move to the side of her bed.  There is a bottle or something shiny poking out from under the sheets, you can see that now.  You can also smell that the rancid stench in the air is coming from her.  As your vision adjusts to the dark, you also think one of her eyes is swollen shut, but you can’t be sure.   

-What did you do to today, Jordan. 

It is a statement, not a question, and you know that she knows about your dad moving and what you told him, but you play it safe.  Maybe she’s just drunk.

-Went to a movie.

-What else did you do, Jordan.

You don’t answer.  Scratch your nose.

-Went for some pizza, but Ben said he felt sick so we came home instead.

-So you know your father is moving.

Again, this is not a question.  She takes a drag on her cigarette - a long, deep drag that invades her lungs.  She exhales a great plume of smoke directly into your face.  It rolls out of her mouth, a dirty factory belching smoke into the polluted sky. 

-Yes, I know he is moving. 

-You also know that he doesn’t love you.  Or Ben.

You don’t answer.  You want to scream at her, tell her to shut up, that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. 

You don’t.

You stand there, frozen, not able to feel your legs.  You have the sensation that you may fall over, right onto the floor, spilling right onto the floor next to her and then what would she do?  Would she panic?  Would she leave you there?  Would she laugh?

-Jordan.

You hate her.

-Jordan.

Her words slur and the liquid from the bottle, you can see now, has spilled out and left a deep, dark stain on the bed sheet.

She has a hold on your arm.  Not tight, but she has you. 

You are not scared, but have an overwhelming feeling of sadness, of regret.

Regret for what?  What did you do?  It is not clear what you should be feeling, all of these things running around in your head, but it is definitely regret. 

Of that much you are sure.

Maybe because you don’t feel anything at all. 

Maybe it is regret that you don’t feel anything at all. 

Not even love. 

She lets your arm drop and does not speak another word.  The cigarette has gone out and is lying limp between two fingers.  You take it from her and place it in the overflowing ashtray next to the bed.  It topples onto the floor, the bedside table already full of whiskey and pill bottles, a mirror with a razor blade, cut up pieces of a drinking straw – the bendy kind -  and little specks of white covering everything;  you are not sure if it is the white of ash or of cocaine.  You are pretty sure, however, that it is not ash from her cigarettes.  

Another Untitled Piece

Your sorrow is too much to bear.  You look around the apartment, devoid of feeling.  You stare at rich colors of the paintings hanging on otherwise pale walls, finger the knick-knacks on the mantel of the fireplace.  You listen, wait, hoping for the thing that will make this right.  It does not come.  Of course it does not.

Only days before, you were out watering your garden, meticulously kept by you and only you, and envied by mother and all of the ladies she gathers with for brunch and whom she calls friends.  Your garden has been featured in numerous magazines, hailed as a “masterpiece of vegetative splendor.”  Your mother is jealous and no longer comes to see you.  This is how you would have it. 

Your thoughts turn back to him.  You are certain you loved him, at one point, at one critical juncture in your life.  Was it the point at which you realized you were pregnant for the first time?  For surely there could be no purer love than the love a man gives upon the birth of this, his first child.  Was it the time he brought home a bouquet of freshly picked flowers, yellows and pinks and oranges, all right out of Mrs. Pingree’s flower garden?  For surely no man in his right mind would risk being shot at while pilfering from the old lady’s precious beds. 

And there.  You have said it.  No man in his right mind.  Of course he wasn’t.  Couldn’t you see that?  Maybe you couldn’t.  Maybe it was you too blind to see the truth, that this one was incapable of love.  Or so you thought.

You walk to the kitchen, the counters are bare.  In the sink are dishes from the breakfast you ate by yourself and in the bathroom, towels still wet from the shower you took just fifteen minutes ago.  They hang over the shower curtain, pink and blue towels with little angels embroidered onto them, all in gold with silver lining.  And your bed, unmade, untouched, really, for you haven’t slept in two nights.  At least not here.

Untitled #1

He takes big swallows of hot coffee that she has made for him, opens his throat wide, his knobby Adam’s Apple barely moving.  The hot liquid does not seem to bother him so much, nor the fact that he drools as much of the liquid onto the floorboards as makes it down his throat.  The cut to his mouth has caused this, and although she has helped to suppress the bleeding, he still has not much use out of the mouth’s left corner. 

It is night - a great, big dark night with a piss-yellow moon hanging in the sky and not much in the way of stars that he can see.  He is on a porch that is not his, but that of the woman sitting next to him, a woman he met two days ago and has not said more than fifteen words to since she let him stay with her upon seeing his sad and broken face.  

And he knows he should probably say more to her, make her feel that he appreciates her generosity and kindness for making him a couple of meals and letting him use her shower, although he has not taken her up on that just yet.  He is not much for talking, though, and so he just sits with her and lets the night wash over them.  

It has been a couple of days and the really sad thing, the most horrible thing about this all, is that he really wishes he could go back and do things over.  Not that it would do any good.  Wishing to do things over requires that people wish to do things differently and he just could not see that happening.  She would still piss him off and he would still feel like killing her, and that was where any difference would end.  Right there with the whole killing part and he tells himself that he would not do it this time, would not plunge the knife into her heart and watch her sink to the ground and watch her look up at him with pleading eyes for the first time ever, and he tells himself that he would not be thinking it is a little too late for that honey.  That’s all I ever wanted from you was to look at me with eyes that were pleading - soft, sensitive eyes that do not lie and cheat and steal a man’s soul from the depths of his being.  No, things would be different were he given the chance to do it all over again.  He just didn’t know how and he was smart enough to know that this second chance would not come to pass.  There just are no second chances for men like him.

He looks at the woman sitting next to him and wonders what her name is, if she has any children or a drunk-ass husband who would come home any day now and stagger past them sitting on the front porch together and not so much as look at the two of them, and he would smell like beer and puke and sex and she would watch him stumble up the steps and normally go after him and scream at him about where he had been and all the time knowing that he would lie to her, but she would do it anyway.  

Except that this time would be different.  This time, she was sitting on the font porch with another man, and she didn’t know his name and he hadn’t asked her to sleep with him yet but she would if he did ask, just as soon as that drunkard husband fell flat-faced asleep on the kitchen floor. 

He wonders all of this as they sit here together.

Yet nobody comes home.  Not this night, or the next morning either.  They sit side-by-side in old wicker rocking chairs that creak like it is cicada season and stare out at the day growing new and don’t say a word to one another.  At one point he wants to reach out and grab her hand and see what she would do and what it would feel like but he doesn’t know her name yet and even men like him know to abide by certain rules of dating and just being with women in general. 

Eventually they go to the kitchen and rinse their mugs out with slow running water from a kitchen sink still full from breakfast lunch and dinner things from the last two days.  It is light out, morning now, and the sun is hazy and shaded and the day looks like it will never come to full light.  

He looks at her and wonders will she ask him to her bed or should he just rent some space on the living room floor, cold as it is on the bare floorboards and dirty too with filth plenty of days old he is sure.  He looks at her and wants to tell her how he is sorry for having to put her into this mess and realizing as well that it is not his fault entirely, as she is the one who chose to let him stay.  No matter.  She’s full grown, after all.  A woman can make up her own mind about a man.

He wonders does she have a phone, looks around the dingy kitchen where they stand, and realizes he hasn’t heard the annoying trill in the two days, now three, since they have lived together if you could even call this living.  He doesn’t ask her, only looks around some, and thinks that this type of woman probably has no use for a phone anyway if even she has electricity at all.  He trods heavily over to a sofa with a pattern of faded roses and doesn’t look back at her in the kitchen but knows she is there watching him, wondering about him.  He falls to the sofa in a dead heap.  Dust rises angrily and then settles back into crevices and onto surfaces, carefully covering everything, a soft blanket of dead skin and fragments of earth.

He dreams of the woman that night, alone in her bed, only it is not her.  And she is not, he can see as he creeps silently closer, alone.

When he wakes it is night again and he doesn’t know how long he has slept and he doesn’t know where the woman is.  He wonders what the townsfolk are doing, wonders if the discovery has been made yet, why no one has been to find him.  How long would it take?  Surely, it was only a matter of time.