The Cryogenics of Tar Paper
(chapter 2)
in case you missed chapter 1 - click here
She had never been so cold. She was almost five- and-a-half, and it was the coldest winter she had ever seen. Grampa Tyler said it was the coldest he had ever seen, too, and he was old, at least a hundred, she figured, give or take a few years, and that was back in November, before the ice on the pond had gotten so thick you could walk on it, and even Mama wasn’t afraid of falling through, though her wide eyes and the tentative shake of her head each time she stepped out on the crystalline surface echoed the disbelief of all the old people in the state that year, “This is Louisiana. It just doesn’t get this cold in Louisiana.”
But it was that cold, and now, Laura thought, it must be even colder. She huddled with her sister beneath the old army blanket Mama had wrapped around them when she placed them here, backs against that big old pine tree to break the wind. But nothing could break this wind as it howled down from the north. Nothing had broken it for weeks now, and Laura thought she could hear it laughing as it swirled around the trunk of that pine and folded back in on itself, worrying the edges of the blanket, slipping needles of ice underneath to sting chapped faces, and numb ears so that the ring of the ax as it connected with the hardness of burnt-over lighter pine became a repetitive, dull thud.
Laura sniffed and studied the stiffened sleeves of her ragged flannel shirt, looking for a soft spot to wipe her raw and reddened nose, and finding none, sniffed again, more loudly this time, then fearing the fleet hand of retribution, glanced quickly up at Mona. The set of Mona’s jaw told her that Mona was angry, but, thankfully, Mona’s gaze was fixed, not on her, but on a place outside the questionable warmth of the blanket. Laura stretched her neck up like a biddy packing growing mash down its gullet, peering over Mona’s arm, to where Mama stood in her cotton house dress, legs apart, her thin sweater fastened around her slim middle with a safety pin, the buttons having long been harvested to replace the missing ones on the girls’ flannel shirts. Laura watched as she lifted the ax again and again, raising it high over her head, then bringing it down into the burnt pine stump, first chopping away the blackened exterior, then cleaving off long slivers of the golden warmth beneath. Laura wondered briefly at the red streaks that grew and thickened on the ax handle each time it slid through Mama’s hands, but was quick to bring her attention back to important things, like who Mona was mad at, and why. She must be mad at Mama, because she was staring at her with those angry eyes.
Laura couldn’t figure out why she would be mad at Mama, but was glad that Mona’s gaze was not directed at her. She knew well the depth and breadth of Mona’s anger, and would do almost anything to avoid it and to avoid the inevitable welts and bruises that accompanied it.
Laura pondered the situation for a while, then returned to the task of studying her sleeves, searching vainly for a soft spot. Once again finding none, she sniffed, and began the task of flaking the hardened stuff off her cuff in preparation for the next intractable leakage. She guessed it was okay for Mona to be mad at Mama, although the reason for the anger eluded her. She, herself, had been mad at Daddy when he left.
That was back in the beginning of October, before the first icicle had begun its slow progress from the roof of the goatshed to the frozen ground beneath.
At first Laura thought of them as drips that wouldn’t drop. Then, having never seen an icicle before, she became quite frightened of them, hanging there over her head, all pointed and evil looking..
It got so she was afraid to go out behind the goatshed, even when she had to do number two, “behind the goatshed” being the appointed “bathroom” since the outhouse had stayed where it was when they moved the house down from by the store to where it stood now. Daddy said they were gonna have a real flush toilet soon, so there was no use digging another outhouse.
Mama had wanted the house up on that little hill in the back, but the house moving truck had broken down, and Daddy had said for them just to go ahead and unload it here. It was low here, but the summer had been dry so the mosquitoes weren’t too bad. Mama had turned away with her hands on her hips and stared up at that hill. Her eyes got wet, but she wasn’t crying, so it was okay.
“Just some dust.” she had said, wiping her face hurriedly with her apron. That was way back in the summer, so long ago it was just a fuzzy memory that tickled Laura’s brain as it fuzzed its way out of her thoughts, and she focused again on her sleeve, and thought about October.
Daddy had left in early October to go and stay at the V. A. Hospital in New Orleans, and get his skin cancers burned off. He had chopped plenty of wood to last through the winter, two cords, split and stacked by the porch. Laura had been lying under the kitchen table, pressing one bare foot against the single board- and-batten wall that separated “outside” from “inside”, watching it swing out and away from the floor, so that she could catch glimpses of the chickens scratching and pecking in the hard-packed dirt of the yard, and she heard him telling Mama about it before he left.
“Now, Iris, there is plenty of wood, if you don’t waste it. You can’t heat the whole house with that one stove, and just keep the living room warm when you have to.”
She couldn’t tell if Mama was trying to laugh or cry, but her voice was all quivery when she spoke.
“Ryan, you said the butane tank would be hooked up by now. We can’t make the winter without butane. How will I cook?”
“My mama’s old propane stove is on the back porch. Bring that in, if you want to, but you’ll have to do most of the cooking on the wood stove in the living room. There’s not much propane left in that bottle, and damn Fred’s hide. He wants the money up front. He knows I’m good for it, but he won’t hook up the butane till I pay him for the first tank, and you know there is no money for that right now.”
Mama had lifted her head and set her shoulders like she always did when Daddy mentioned money, or the lack of it.
Laura had once asked Mona why Mama did that and Mona had told her that Mama was “proud”. Laura had wondered how you could be proud of not having any money, but figured that was Mama’s business, and that Mama had a right to be proud about anything she wanted to be proud about and it seemed now she was proud about not having any butane.
Daddy had left the next day, and Laura was so mad at him for leaving that she hid under the house and wouldn’t come out even to hug him goodbye. He had leant down and waved at her, though, sticking his tongue out at her to boot and making those funny google eyes that always buried her beneath a pile of giggles. But she wouldn’t giggle, not this time, and she scooted her be-hind around ‘till her back was to him, and stared out from under the backside of the house, throwing an occasional tear-streaked glance over her shoulder as he walked down the double ruts that cut across the slough and through the field to the gravel road.
Charlie Pullins was gonna pick him up in his beat-up old Model A Ford and drive him the twenty odd miles of gravel roads to DeRidder so he could catch the bus to New Orleans. Laura had envisioned the bus whizzing by on that hard black road that ran through DeRidder and Daddy running after it, chasing it for the longest time before he finally caught it.
“Serves him right for going away,” she mumbled to herself as she crawled out her dusty throne beneath the four tiny rooms and rotting walls of this little cypress shack to which they had been exiled when Daddy leased the store to Robert Elliot in preparation for his hospital stay.
Mama couldn’t keep the store like she did last time Daddy was away. They had lived in the store, then, and all five of the rooms that formed the back two sides of the store had been warm and toasty all the time. The walls were solid with great logs to hold them up instead of the thin little boards that tried vainly to hang on to the cypress walls of the house.
Mama had been P.G. then, and had to carry heavy coke cases. Laura didn’t know what P.G. was, but she gathered that people who were P.G. weren’t supposed to lift anything heavy, and she was glad Daddy wasn’t P.G. because then he wouldn’t be able to swing her in a great dizzying arc up to his shoulders, where she seemed to spend a lot of time since Mona started First Grade. But Daddy was away working on the pipeline, and Mama was keeping the store and she WAS P.G.
Then one day Aunt Clytie was supposed to come baby-sit, but, when Laura woke up, the bus had already picked Mona up and taken her off to school, and Mama was still in bed. When Laura had tried to climb in with her, Mama hadn’t let her, which was odd. Then Laura had seen the red spots on the sheets and known that Mama must have spilt her fingernail polish there, so she gave up whining and sat on the front steps waiting for the nail polish to dry, or for Aunt Clytie to bring her little cousin, Veronica, to play with her.
When Aunt Clytie got there, she had set Veronica down on the porch in a patch of sunlight, thrown a few toys in her direction, and disappeared into Mama’s room. Laura could hear them talking for a while, their voices low and hushed. Then Mama had said she had to go pee, and she and Aunt Clytie had gone out the back door and down the path toward the outhouse. Laura had followed with Veronica in tow. Mama must have had to pee really bad, because she didn’t even make it to the outhouse. About halfway there she had kind of moaned low and said, “Stop, Clytie, I have to stop.” And she had pulled down her panties and squatted down to pee right there. Laura, always wanting to be grown-up, had pulled down her panties and squatted down and started peeing, too. Aunt Clytie was standing right behind Mama, and Mama sort of leaned back against her legs and Aunt Clytie held on to her. Then Mama had clenched her teeth shut and groaned just once through them, and then she started peeing out blood, a lot of blood. It came out in great squirts and plops that formed thick red puddles in the dust. Laura had been amazed, and had tried to pee out blood like Mama, but no amount of teeth clenching and groaning would change her stream from yellow to red. Then Veronica had toddled over, her hands and face stained purple with the blackberries that grew along the dusty trail, and Laura suddenly remembered that she hadn’t had any breakfast, and forgot about peeing out blood as she and Veronica focused on avoiding as many thorns as possible while filling their mouths with the juicy purple sweetness that hung in grape-like clusters on either side of that trail all the way back to the outhouse.
When Mama finally stood up, she and Aunt Clytie had just hugged each other for the longest time. Then Aunt Clytie walked with her arm around Mama all the way back and up the back steps. Laura watched them closely, because if Aunt Clytie went in with Mama, she and Veronica could make a dash for the hen house and hide among the hens like she and Mona had done last week. It had been so funny. Mama had called and called and even opened the hen house door, peering into the dim light that found its way in slanted bars through the cracks of the shed. But Mona had pressed her finger to her lips, and they had both stifled giggles because Mama had kept saying, “Girls, when I find you......” but she never finished it and they both knew that meant she didn’t quite know what to do to them, and would end up collapsing with laughter at their antics And they had hidden well, too. Mama didn’t even see them when Laura could no longer hold the giggles inside her throat. They built up such pressure they exploded out of her all on their own accord, and Mama had said, “Hummm, well......I never heard a chicken giggle before.” Then Mona had also exploded with laughter, and then Mama KNEW it wasn’t a laughing chicken, and she had found them.
But Aunt Clytie didn’t go in with Mama. She came right back and collected two sticky, purple girls, herding them straight into the large kitchen behind the store, stripping off sticky purple clothes and setting each of them in a basin of the big double sink, she quickly scrubbed away the stickiness, leaving only a few purplish spots here and there. She haphazardly dried them off on the flour sack towels that Mama kept under the sink, and hurried into Mama’s room, both children, of course, naked except for the flour sacks that draped the words “General Mills” in bold black letters about their faces, following closely at her heels. But when she got to the door, she opened it only enough to slip inside, and turned sternly to them, index finger extended, pointing down into disbelieving eyes.
“YOU stay out here!” she commanded in a voice Laura had never heard before, “and watch Veronica!” she had added as she closed the door behind her.
It was only then that Laura had realized that something serious had happened, and she sat down on the floor outside Mama’s door and began to cry. Louder and louder she wailed, until Veronica joined in and they were both sobbing and calling “Mama” as loudly as they could.
Mama’s voice leaked through the door, soft and comforting, “It’s okay. Let them in, Clytie. They’re both scared and I need to explain this to Laura. She saw everything.”
And she did explain, in her own way. “Laura, you know how I was P.G.?” and Laura had nodded, still not knowing what P.G. was. “Well, I’m not P.G., anymore.”
Mama’s voice broke on the “anymore,” and she held Laura close and began to cry. Laura cried, too, because Mama was crying, but she didn’t know why Mama was crying. If Mama wasn’t P.G., that meant there were piggy back rides to be given and available shoulders even when Daddy was off working on the pipeline, and those were happy things. But Mama wanted to cry, so Laura dutifully cried too, snuggling down softly in the curve of Mama’s arm, weeping until her tears were all used up, then drifting away slowly to the sound of Mama humming the low, soft, sad notes of “Louisiana Lullaby.”
She had been awakened by the squeaking of the hinges as Mama opened the bedroom door. She left sleep with the ease that only children know, and came into awake with her mouth full of words.
“Mama, where you going , Mama. I’m coming, too.” Mama had come back to the bed and made a futile attempt to tuck her back in.
“Laura, please,” she pleaded, “go back to sleep.
Aunt Clytie and Veronica had to leave because they have to take the car to Uncle Floyed over in Port Arthur, so they won’t be back here for days and there’s just something I have to do outside right now.”
“I wanna help, please, I can help good, Mama. You know what a good helper I am. I wanna go outside, too. I’m not sleepy anymore, I wanna get up now.”
The whole time Laura’s mouth had been emitting this staccato diatribe, her body had been oozing slowly from under the covers, toward and finally off the edge of the bed, and she landed on the floor with a thump, her eyes stretched wide to show how very unsleepy she really was. She dashed for the door and waited for Mama. Mama looked at her and sighed.
“Well, come on then. Let’s get this over with,” Mama had murmured, and she led the way out the back door and down the trail, once more toward the outhouse. Mama walked kind of bent over at the waist and so slowly that Laura had to pace herself to keep from running into her. She stopped along the way and picked up a stick. Not wanting to seem ignorant, Laura picked up a stick, too. Finally, they reached the place where Mama had peed blood. The red pools had sunk into the dust, creating a thick sticky mud of sorts that the flies seemed to like, for they rose and settled in waves as Mama began carefully poking and stirring this mud around as though she were looking for something.
“What’cha looking for. I can find it for you.” and Laura thrust her stick into the mud, frantically stirring, determined to be first to find whatever it was that Mama was looking for. Mama caught her hand and pulled it back. Laura’s stick came out of the mud with a pop.
“Laura, listen to me. It’s very important that you do exactly what I say now.” The seriousness of Mama’s tone forewent any argument, and Laura stared into her sad, dark eyes and nodded. “ I want you to take your stick and go look over there.”
Mama pointed to a spot on the trail about eight or nine feet away from that sticky patch of mud. Laura hesitated slightly, and only the buzzing of the flies broke the silence of the moment that rose between them, as Laura stared down the trail, evaluating the worth of the spot to which Mama had pointed. There was no mud to play with over there, only dust.
She looked back at Mama’s face.
“If your really want to help me, Laura, you will do what I say.” and Laura went, and stirred in the dust with her stick, all the while envying Mama’s patch of mud.
It was only a couple of minutes until Mama found what she was looking for. She carefully nudged it out of the stickiness and into the dust of the trail, waving her hand over it to shoo away the flies that attacked it in multitudes as it came out of the mud. She bent closer, examining it tentatively with the aid of the stick. Whatever it was very sticky, and the dust clung to it in a soft brown coat as Mama rolled it gently from side to side to get a better look.
Laura hurried over and, placing hands on knees bent down, studying the thing that lay unmoving in the dust. The parts that weren’t dust-coated looked to her very much like a purplish turd of some sort, but Mama’s eyes were silently spilling tears again, and her shoulders shook spasmodically from time to time as she knelt in the brown dust of the trail, her head bowed. It wasn’t like Mama to cry so over a turd, in fact, it wasn’t like anyone to cry so over a turd, so Laura questioned her eyesight, and examined the thing more closely, but it still looked like a big turd to her.
“Mama, what IS that thing?? What is it , Mama? Why are you crying, Mama?” and dutiful tears began to well in Laura’s eyes again, too.
“You ask too many questions, baby. You wouldn’t understand. Now, run up to the outhouse and get me that shovel.”
Laura knew the “you wouldn’t understand” answer was final, a venerated and untouchable sanctuary available only to those older and wiser than you, so she brought the shovel with no more questions.
Mama took the shovel and scooped the purplish turd looking thing up on it with a care that bordered on reverence. Laura thought sure she would throw it in the hole in the outhouse with all the other turds, but Mama whispered softly, “I’m going to bury him under the dogwood out by the chicken coop. It’s pretty there.”
The word “him” bounced around in Laura’s awareness for a moment, trying desperately to form a connection, and finding none, it slid away into that secret place where children store things they don’t understand, where they lock away words they must never say, and where they hide bad dreams and worse realities from the light of day so they can laugh and dance and grow, fearless and strong, in the sunlight.
“I think I’ll stay here and pick some more blackberries, Mama.” And Mama nodded, and turned to begin her slow and painful progress up the trail, past the outhouse, to the dogwood that still rained its white crosses down on the roof of the hen house.
Laura reached for a cluster of berries, but withdrew her hand suddenly as she was struck by a lightening bolt of awareness. Mama was walking really slow today and she just might be able to make it. A wide grin lit her face as her legs fairly flew, carrying her past the shed to the long trail. She slid through the door of the henhouse just as Mama came round the last turn of the short trail. Tiptoeing carefully over the fat white bundles so as not to turn their quiet mutterings into raucous cacklings, she made her way to the far reaches of the shed, hunkered down among the hens, and locked both hands across her mouth to keep the giggles inside. Only her eyes were visible in the dimness, shining bright with the innocence and mischieveousness of childhood, and there she waited, tucked in among drowsy afternoon feathers, waiting for Mama to come and listen for chicken giggles, waiting to make Mama laugh again.
The scraping of the shovel against the hardened red-brown clay seemed to go on forever, then there was silence for a long time, and Laura listened intently for Mama’s footsteps to come around to the door. The silence was broken by the thwack of the shovel handle falling against the hen house, and the slow shufffle of Mama’s footsteps along the side of the little, low building.
Laura could barely contain her excitement. This was going to be soooo much fun. Mama would creak open the door, stick her head in and whisper, “Is there, by any chance, a giggling chicken in this hen house?” , and Laura would press her hands tightly against her mouth, attempting to stave the tidal wave of laughter that welled up from the tickle spot in the pit of her stomach and into her throat, finally spilling over into the muttering of the hens, and Mama would say, “I’m gonna get you, giggling chicken. No giggling chickens allowed in my hen house,” and Laura would squeal with anticipation as Mama descended upon her, scooping her into her arms and swinging her around in the hen house, then holding her so close she could feel the waves of deep, throaty laughter that would bubble up in Mama, and spill out to mingle with her own breathless giggles. This was going to be so goood!
But Mama’s footsteps did not make the turn to the door of the hen house, continuing, instead, slowly on down the trail toward the outhouse, and Laura caught a glimpse of her through the wide crack in the door as she shuffled her way around the first little curve in the trail, walking bent over, her arms holding her lower stomach, and her legs wider apart than usual, and then she disappeared from sight.
Laura was not sure what the feeling was that settled over her as she huddled in the hen house, listening to what seemed a never ending silence, but whatever the feeling was, it threatened to spill her tears, and she focused on the glinting dance of the dust motes swirling within golden shafts of light that careened in at crazy angles through the cracks in the western wall of the hen house. Then Mama’s voice broke the silence.
“Laura, Laura,” she called, “where are you?”
That was it! Mama hadn’t known she was hiding in the hen house.
“I’m here, Mama, betcha can’t find me!” Laura called back.
A momentary silence, then Mama’s voice floated back to her, but something was wrong. That couldn’t be Mama’s voice. It was strained and almost angry, “Laura, I don’t feel like playing games. Now, you come here, right now!”
Mama would never say that. She always loved playing the games that Mona and Laura invented, always taking at least a few minutes out from even the most pressing chore to join them, never letting an opportunity to laugh with them pass unfulfilled.
Laura was confused and hurt and she didn’t know quite what to do. One part of her expected Mama to burst through the door of the hen house any second, dizzy with laughter at the trick she had played on Laura, but the other part of her was afraid, terrified, in fact, but terrified of what, she didn’t know. She sat motionless for a moment, listening to the sound of her own rapid, short breaths. Then Mama’s voice came again, and this time she knew something was very, very wrong.
“Laura, if I have to come get you, I am going to give you a spanking you will never forget!”
Laura popped to her feet, and stood stock-still for a moment, pale and trembling. Neither Mama nor Daddy had ever hit either one of the girls, nor even threatened to for that matter, and then her feet found a mind of their own, and tore through the hen house leaving in their wake a cacophony of squawks and flying feathers. Something was terribly, terribly wrong, and she flew down the trail toward the store and Mama. As she rounded the last bend, she saw Mama standing there, holding onto a corner of the pump shed. When she saw Laura coming, she let go of the shed and stumbled backwards, collapsing onto the back steps of the kitchen, burying her face in her hands.
By then Laura was stumbling, too, blinded by hot tears and cold fear, crying out over and over, “Please don’t hit me, Mama, please don’t hit me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” and gasping “I only wanted you to laugh,” as she folded into a pale and trembling ball of terror at Mama’s bare and bloody feet.
“Oh my god, Oh my god,” Mama muttered over and over again as she drew the little girl into her arms and rocked her back and forth. “ Oh my sweet baby, I’m so sorry. Nooo, I will never hit you, I will never, ever hit you. Oh, god, Laura, I’m just so sick, and I couldn’t go get you out there. I had to say something that would make you come to me, and I didn’t know what else to say. Oh, god, my baby, I will never hit you.” And slowly Laura’s sobs subsided, and her trembling body quieted. Mama nuzzled her hair and whispered, “I love you,” as she lowered her gently from her lap.
And Laura, her eyes dark and deep against her still pale skin, stared up at Mama, as she solemnly replied, “ I love you, too, Mama.”
And Mama’s eyes teared again, then, but she took a deep breath and blinked the tears back, this time. She turned her face skyward for a moment, studying the scattered white puffs that dotted the blue, and squared her shoulders and when she looked down at Laura again, Mama’s eyes were dry and serious. Then she spoke, her voice low and steady, but there was something in the intonation that penetrated the child’s playful mind, and reached her on a level of understanding that she had not, before this very moment, possessed.
“Laura, you have to try very hard to understand what I am about to tell you. Will you do that for me? Will you listen very carefully and try your hardest to understand?”
Laura fixed her eyes on Mama’s and nodded.
“Laura, I am very, very sick, and there is no one here to help me take care of you and your sister. Do you understand that?”
Laura’s eyes swept slowly over Mama’s body, taking in the redness that had seeped through to the front of her dress as she had held the child on her lap, the rivulets that had run down her legs to mix with the dust of the trail, becoming thick globs upon her bare feet, then back up to her bloodless face, and bluish lips. Then her wide dark eyes fixed on Mama’s, projecting a realization far beyond her few and carefree years.
“Yes, Ma’am,” she replied quietly.
Mama nodded and continued. “Laura, your are going to have to grow up some now. No more games. You are going to have to take care of yourself for a while.”
And Laura nodded her understanding and acceptance of this without thought, for the truth was, she had already grown up. In that one moment of true realization of the gravity of their situation, she had taken as much of the child in her as she could carry, and locked it away in that secret place where children store things they can’t understand, where they lock away words they must never say, and where they hide bad dreams and worse realities from the light of day. But now it was February, and she was so very cold, and the last of the wood Daddy had cut was gone, had been used up weeks ago in a futile competition with the icy wind that poured into the little house through the rotting walls, and Mona was staring out at Mama with those angry eyes as she swung the ax high overhead and let it fall again and again, and Laura remembered that she didn’t like to think about the time that Mama peed blood, because that was the time she had learned that she was “evil” and that wasn’t something she wanted to know.
Mona had told her just how evil she was that day after she had countered Laura’s explanation of the big purple turd that Mama had buried with, “That was our baby brother! He died and Mama peed him out and buried him!”
Laura, horrified at the thought of having a purple turd as a brother, had blurted out, “Uggh!! I’m glad he died, then!”
Mona’s hand had flown quickly and Laura was crying and holding her reddened cheek, but the sting of the slap was nothing to the burn of Mona’s words.
“How could you say such a thing! You are an evil, evil girl to think that, and the devil is gonna take you to hell for it. Evil, that’s what you are. Just plain evil!”
Laura was too shocked even to cry. She hadn’t known she was evil, she had always tried to be good, and she just sat silently there on the floor, thinking about her evilness for a long time after Mona had gone in to take care of Mama. Mona had been so mad that it must be true. She WAS evil and surely the devil would take her to hell. For weeks after, she had stepped carefully, fully expecting the devil to reach up from hell, grab her by the ankle, and pull her down into that forever fire at any time.
Thinking about that made her shiver harder than the icy wind that whipped under their blanket, and, suddenly Laura could hear the devil’s voice in the thud of the ax against the stump. “Evil, evil,” it repeated over and over.
She cupped her hands over her ears to try to block it, and hid her face against her knees, squeezing her eyes tight against her jeans, and soon she was asleep.
A clanging noise woke her, and, for a brief moment, she fought for breath, feeling the devil’s hand around her throat. It took her a minute to shake off the feeling and return to this reality, but the high grated window and the cement floor settled slowly into her consciousness. The stiff cotton hospital gown scratched at her skin as she sat up. Stupid dreams, stupid, stupid dreams. Why the fuck was she dreaming about that now? That was another life. Gone, forgotten. That imbecilic, frightened little girl had nothing to do with her now. She was nineteen, on her own, independent, and locked in this fucking nuthouse without her coat, and, damn, she needed a fix. This time, when the nurse’s face appeared at the little window in the steel door, she didn’t argue. It didn’t matter what the pills were anymore. Anything, she would take anything at this point. Hopefully among the four or five multicolored shapes in the little cup was something that would put out the fire that danced over her skin, and calm her aching legs and stomach.
“Fuck it,” she muttered as she tossed the pills from the cup into her mouth and guzzled the water from the plastic glass the nurse slipped through the little slot.
“Just fuck it.”
(end chapter 2)
in case you missed chapter 1 - click here
Swimming in an Antique Hat
She takes the deepest breath she can
and dives in,
unsure of direction.
The roadsigns you leave are
written in symbols she can't read
and she has to erase all the
canine tracks and trails
so she can find your footprints
before they have been completely
obliterated by her
obtuse flailings.
You leave little for her to follow,
yet she is driven to look for mirrors
in each coded enclave that bears
the fragrance of your intonation,
the harmonics of your elusive meanings.
She thought she saw one, a tiny gleaning,
but it disappeared when she blinked
and she is having trouble telling right from left,
or right from wrong, these days, it seems,
and it might only have been the leavings
of man's best friend that so deluded her senses.
She never told you this, but she used to study
the encryptions you left on the walls of that
cave you shared for a while,
but remained illiterate in spite of her efforts.
She pretended to understand them all,
trying to hide her shortcomings from
your quick and easy brilliance, but she did love
the weavings and the patterns of light they cast
upon the dankness beneath them.
You were Monet to her Grandma Moses,
handing her bouquets of blossoms
she could not hope to name, and she would take them
and smile, then lay them aside,
for holding them too long might expose
her ignorance of such eclectic beauty.
Only when you had gone
would she gather them into her arms
bury her face in the petals
and inhale the exotic perfume
of your extraordinary knowledge.
Bach to her Janice, you played morning symphonies
to court and rightful queen while she,
peasant in lady's clothing, dreamed
her fingers upon the frets,
her bow upon the strings,
and when the overture came at last,
she, unworthy of such rare and precious tones,
pretended not to hear the orchestra,
and hummed a bluegrass refrain,
strained and badly off-key,
masking the allegro forte
that pounded forbidden rhythms within her.
How she wanted to fling those notes across your staff,
to place her fingers alongside yours
upon the neck of that violin,
softly fingering vibratos
to weep from the bow with such passion
that the slur of notes
would blend into a symphony
of your duet.
But she could not allow her clumsy fingers
to soil the purity of the early morning chamber
where viola and violin blended
in unadulterated harmonies,
could not bring herself to pull you
from the pedestal she had created
and so carefully elevated to the heavens.
Then, as you watched,
she peeled away each layer of culture and normalcy
until only soot-smudged peasantry remained,
and painted her diametrical reality
across cave walls in deepening shades of grey
loading the brush again and again
with the blackened mire that had birthed her
until you retreated from the darkness
and looked only upon the light that reflected your own.
And she wept your leaving.
Cursing the darkness,
tearing it out of her and casting it away,
she tried to follow,
but found the path you had taken
had been swallowed up
by her unholy night.
Carefully repaying her debt
to the savior,
counting the pennies into protesting hands,
she cleared the way to the door of the cave
and rolled away the stones
which cleaved the darkness
from the light
and emerged into the fragmented blues and greys
of life.
She still thinks of you, and misses you,
and returns often to swim in the multi-colored pools
of that old hat where you occasionally
toss stray thoughts and lost desires,
searching always for a glimpse of herself
in the mirror of your eyes,
scanning the staff of your song
always hoping to find some hint
of Da Capo al Fine.
Love Storms - 30 page poetry chapbook
email W. Laura Alleman for more info
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Hi. My name is W. Laura Alleman. No one, remembers what the W. is for and only my chidren, who are various and sundry, ranging in age from 21 to 4, of whom, thank god, only four entered this world through my vaginal canal and of whom, thank god, only four still share this rambling monstrosity we call a house, call me Laura. Almost everyone else knows me as "Phant", "Phantie", "Phantom", Phantomheart", or "Oh my god, there she is again." I am old as dirt (47), although I think by the time dirt is that old it has mostly been recycled into worm poo, so I guess I am holding my own faily well, because I haven't completely turned to shit, yet...at least, I don't think so. My husband, however, might argue that point...Oh, yes, I do have some of those husband thingys, one current, several previous, and I also have a big gray tomcat who likes to rub on my legs after he goes out whoring around the neighborhood.
I began my long and illustrious university career in Louisiana in 1971 where I majored in Psychedelia, continued my education in California, where I studied Street Bands and Washtub Base Techniques, returning to Lousiana to collect the various assortment of three letter tags that I can hang at the end of my name when the mood strikes me, and the stack of framed documents that collects dust on the top of my hutch. After trying on several different careers, from greasy spoon waitress to oilfield truck driver, I settled into the teaching profession where I spent fifteen years filling my students' heads with literary bullshit and social activism, and from which profession I am currently taking an unspecified leave of absence to decide what I want to be when I grow up. And that brings us here, to The Hold, where I am going to attempt to drive both our devoted readers and our eminent editor completely insane with my flagrant and often incoherent ebullitions and my penchant for erratic and remonstrative ramblings. |
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