Clamhead

801 words

Hi. I’m tired and this was difficult and I’m tired. Enjoy.

He’d ended up there again. It was as if his fingers were tapping out a predetermined pattern; an obedient player piano. This tended to happen on Friday nights, though one night was pretty much the same as any other. It wasn’t as if Friday night held any sort of magic. There was no regular job to go to, no morning obligation to wrench him from his stale sheets.

If he’d stopped to think about it, Robert would have deduced why it was that Friday night was a trigger. But he’d never taken a moment to explore the ramifications, introspection not being high on his abbreviated list of admirable qualities. Instead, his fingers clumsily drummed a familiar sequence and he was again treated to a vision of himself 30 years earlier.

He took a long, shuddering swallow of his vodka and pressed play. His young—oh God, so young—face grinned smugly from the screen. His snub features exuded the precociousness and confidence that only someone who had been offered no criticism during his formative years could produce. The expression inspired equal parts infuriation and envy.

The younger Robert—Bobby—was currently explaining to his on-screen mother (Barbara, he remembered; she was a bitch) that of course, he would take care of the classroom tarantula, Harry. That, of course, the terrarium was safe and escape-proof. And of course Pickles the cat would not be allowed near it. Spoiler alert: later in the episode, the tarantula escapes and evidence emerges that leads the family to believe Pickles had itself a spidery meal. He hadn’t seen this one on YouTube yet. It looked like it was just posted the week before.

“A New Day for Don” lasted three seasons, from 1979-1982 every Friday night. Little Bobby Bailey starred as mischievous Donald “Don” Dabner, a cherubic troublemaker who always seemed to land on his feet, much to the chagrin of all of the adult characters around him. As far as sitcoms went it was no better or worse than any other, but it was his “woah-ohhhhhh-MAMA!” catchphrase that made him a cultural icon.

He scrolled past the sequences in which he was absent, and stopped right before Harry’s disappearance was discovered. He delivered his signature line out loud along with the video and basked in the explosion from the studio audience. He remembered hearing it in person, all those years ago. Although at the time he had known the audience had been prompted—all of those tourists from Kansas or Missouri, sunburned from the beaches and sporting Mickey Mouse t-shirts—he knew the applause was for him and him alone. There was nobody who could deliver that line as well as he did, with the dimple punctuating his left cheek and his nose scrunching skyward. And that’s why his parents had demanded more money.

He tipped the bottle into his sweaty glass and clicked the comment box.

“That little dude was a fuckin genious,” he typed and hit “enter.” He scrolled down to see the other comments.

“OMG i had such a crush on Bobby,” said Tasey1969.

“I loved this show,” said GrammCrakkah.

“the DIMPLE omg 2 cute!!!!” said TakeMeHome2Nightxxx

“cats dont even eat tarantulas this show wasn’t very rilastic,” said SuperDuperChrist35811.

Robert frowned at the screen. “Well, they do if they can catch them,” he said out loud. He knew should stop scrolling. He knew he shouldn’t read any more.

He scrolled.

“Whatever happened to that little boy? Did he die?” said ChipNorris.

“Nah, just his career,” said BenJovvi.

He scrolled faster.

“Drug addict.”
“Arrested.”
“Loser.”
“Bad movies.”
“Drugs.”
“Broke.”
“Alcoholic.”
“Probably at home in a bottle of whiskey.”

“Vodka,” he said. “Get it right.”

“Fat.”
“Ugly.”
“Washeduphasbeenformerchildstarwhereishenow.”

He snuffed out the rest of his vodka in a single gulp and dropped the glass to the floor. The bottle was empty anyway.

“But what have you done, BenJovvi?” he said, pointing a stubby finger at the screen. “Have you been on a TV show? Have supermodels hit on you in bars at age 12? Gone to parties with Jack Nicholson and Angelica Houston? No. No, you haven’t. But I have,” he thumped his palm on his chest. “I. Have.”

His words became thick and lazy as the deluge of alcohol he’d poured down this throat began to take effect in earnest.

“And I bet you’ve seen all of the episodes and had a ‘woah mama’ t-shirt or a lunchbox or something. Because I was funny. I made you laugh. I did,” he said, double-checking the bottle. “I did I did I did. And for that, I think a little respect would be nice.”

He maneuvered away from YouTube and over to PornHub.

He clicked, stuffed his hand down his sweatpants, and sighed.

782 words

Today’s entry is extremely silly and not very well-written. However, it was fun, and it does have the distinction of including an actual ending. So it has that going for it.

Jason was smashing the ESC key with the pad of his right index finger. His tablet skipped with the ferocity of his insistence.

ESC ESC ESC ESC ESC ESC

“You’re going to break it!” Amanda said, grabbing his arm right above the wrist. She could feel the fibrous tendons contract against her palm. She didn’t slow his assault.

“Does it matter?” Jason said, holding down various keys simultaneously as he molested ESC. “I mean, at this point, does it matter? This is completely fucked.” To punctuate his sentiment, he pounded his entire fist in the center of the keyboard. Amanda’s breath caught as the projection scrambled and disappeared for a moment, but then righted itself and came into focus. She let her breath out slowly.

“Jason,” she said, “please tell me the wedding memories weren’t in there.”

“Jesus, Amanda. You’re not getting this. Everything is in there.” He made a gesture with his hands that looked as if he was stretching a piece of gum between them. “EH-VER-EE-THING.” He looked at the projection helplessly. Collections of memories were winking out like one of those old tube-based TV sets. “There goes 2019,” Jason said.

It had started as soon as he waved the tablet to life an hour earlier. There was a message asking if he’d like to continue. Jason had never seen that before, but hey, what does he know? Sure, continue. What the hell. He waved toward “Yes”.

There was a shudder and the image dissolved. It was soon replaced by another message:

CLOUD DELETION VERIFIED. PLEASE STAND BY.

Jason watched, uncomprehending, as items he had meticulously catalogued and filed in his approved cloud allotment appeared, only to neatly evaporate a moment later. By the time he’d figured out what was going on, 2012-2014 were no longer a part of his past. Well, part of any past that could be observed, and that was pretty much the same thing.

He shut down the system and restarted—usually the remedy for such things—but if anything, the process sped up. 2016 was being consumed into nothingness when Amanda walked in. She’d understood what was happening almost immediately, and had connected with tech support just to be put on hold. She was told by a soothing manufactured voice that the wait time would be “only 95 magical minutes.”

Jason was watching memories of a terrier materialize, produce a wet, pink tongue, then fade away.

“Oh no, oh God, oh no,” Amanda said, pressing the buttons with renewed desperation. “Not Toby. No, please, no, not Toby.”

Toby playing tug-of-war with a dirty sock. Gone.

Toby sleeping with a paw over his scruffy snout. Gone.

Toby begging for a bit of cheese, bouncing a stuffed toy on his nose like a seal, curling up against Jason for a belly rub. All gone.

Amanda was wiping her face with an increasingly soggy sleeve. “How did this happen? I mean, what did you do? You just changed the password last week.”

Jason glanced quickly at Amanda, then back at the projection. His brother was disappearing, but he didn’t care that much.

“You did change the password, right?”

He didn’t look at Amanda. “I, um. I meant to. But—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake! You were still using your iris?” Amanda jabbed an index finger toward her eye incredulously. “Jesus fucking Christ! How many times have I told you how weak that password is? You might as well use your fucking fingerprint!”

Jason covered his head with his arms as if he were expecting a blow. “I know, I’m an idiot. I’m really sorry, Amanda. I’ll fix this. I’ll—”

“Jason?” Amanda said, looking behind him toward the living room. You didn’t… you didn’t store any furniture in the cloud, did you?”

Jason sighed. “I told you,” he said, showing her his palms. “Everything went in there.”

“The couch is gone,” she said.

Jason spun around. Sure enough, there was an empty space where the couch had once been. The coffee table soon followed, as did the armchair. The rug shimmered and dissolved. The books flickered out, one by one, until the bookcase was left empty. And then it, of course, was no longer there.

Amanda gasped when Casper, the goldfish, blubbed his last. “You put Casper in the cloud?!”

Jason shrugged. “Yeah, I mean, why not? It was supposedly safe.” Jason surveyed the room, watching as their home became more cavernous. “Amanda,” he said. “I’m really sorry. But I promise you, we can fix this. We can’t be the first people this has happened to. I’m sure there’s a procedure, a back-up somewhere. We can fix this.”

There was silence. Jason turned around.

He was alone.

860 words

Once again, I spent so much time with character development I didn’t even get to the “under the mattress” part. (If you’re familiar with urban legends, you can probably guess where this is going.) Tabby freaking rules, and I’m betting she and Heather will get into lots of trouble in a few years.

Tabitha poked at the fire with an decommissioned wire coat hanger. A chunk of smoldering wood tumbled from the pile, shooting stars of embers into the violet sky. She thought it looked like a volcano, the kind she’d seen on that TV show. She’d been sitting right in front of the screen, entranced, while ribbons of incandescent lava unfurled down mountains, melting everything in its path. Tabby imagined her town—her school—engulfed in lava. It wasn’t an unpleasant thought. She was so hypnotized by her own thoughts she didn’t hear the end of Martin’s story, but she didn’t have to.

There was a gasp and a giggle from the younger children bundled around the fire in their too-large sweatshirts borrowed from older siblings. Martin looked pleased, but his smile faded when he saw Tabby wasn’t listening.

“There was an iron hook, Tab,” he said. “Stuck in the car door!” He clawed his fingers into a hook and brandished it in Tabby’s face.

“Yeah, I heard,” she said, backing away from Martin’s flailing hand and poking at the fire. She was trying to make a bigger cloud than last time, but the flames were dying.

Martin frowned. He was a year younger than Tabby and, even though she was a girl, still craved her older-kid approval. “Don’t you think that’s creepy? I mean, the guy was right there! He could have killed them!”

“I get it,” Tabby said, giving up on the fire for the moment. “But it’s only scary the first time you hear that story. I’ve heard it about a million zillion times.” She felt around for her Coke can and took a swig. When she glanced up, she saw her cousin’s disappointment in the firelight. He was a sensitive kid, her parents often said, and Tabby felt kind of bad.

“But hey,” she said, taking another drink of her warm soda, “you told it pretty well.”

Martin’s face cleared. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tabby said. “but don’t, you know, get all cocky.”

Martin beamed, then contained his pleasure. He shivered a little; he was wearing a brand-new Darth Vader t-shirt and couldn’t bear to cover it with a sweater. Tabby knew that tomorrow his arms and neck would be dotted with sickly pink peppermint lotion that would do very little to quell the violent itch perpetrated by the evening’s mosquitoes.

There was a whoop from the other campfire, the one inhabited by the parents. It was like the camping version of Thanksgiving, Tabby thought, and she was stuck at the kids’ table. She was the oldest of the cousins, but not quite old enough to join the adults and hear their raunchy jokes and stories about the stupid things they did in their youth. Tabby had heard a lot of these things when they thought she was asleep; many times during holiday gatherings she’d snuck downstairs and sat on the landing to catch snippets. Of course, she didn’t understand a lot of what was said, but she giggled when they had a good laugh. It made her feel a part of it.

She gazed at the adults. Phrases floated to her ears, things like, “so drunk” and “Pamela’s wedding” and “shotgun.” She heard the pop-fizz of Coors being opened, and she knew that tomorrow, while they were packing up the camp, the younger kids would be delighted to paw through ashes and dirt to retrieve the pull tabs. Tabby’s mom would give them a penny for each tab they found, and they were too young to know that even if they collected a hundred of them, it still wasn’t that much money.

“You got a story, Tabby?” Tabby looked up. It came from Heather, her nine-year-old cousin. She liked Heather. At three years younger than herself she was still kind of a baby, but didn’t really act like one. She was always the one who would go first on a dare and not be afraid of touching frogs or things like that. And here she was now, dark eyes reflecting what was left of the fire, asking for a scary story.

“Yeah, I got a story,” Tabby said. “But I think it’s way too scary for some of you.” She scanned the faces around the fire, enjoying the sight of all of their eyes getting bigger and darting at one another. “So. If any of you are going to be too scared, you should leave now.”

“I’m not scared,” Heather said.

“Me either,” said Marty.

The other kids professed their bravery, though some of them did so with shaky voices. “Okay then,” Tabby said. “But if you get all freaked out after I tell the story and it keeps you up for weeks or gives you nightmares, you have to solemnly promise not to tell on me. If you do, you’ll be banned from campfire stories. Got it?”

All of the heads around the fire nodded vigorously. Tabby jabbed the fire one last time, and, as if she was an ancient shaman creating a magical spell, there was a loud crack followed by an eruption of embers. She looked deliberately around at her tribe.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s begin.”

875 words

Oh hi, I’m at the airport. I got this out in a little over an hour. It wasn’t too bad today. And I really like what’s developing with William and Abe. They should hang out.

It seemed to William things were getting way out of hand. It seemed to him that it was an accident—just that, an accident—but the whole neighborhood was determined to Do Something About It. Now, what they could possibly do, William didn’t know. But instead of saying so, he took an Oreo from the selection of cookies laid out on the coffee table along with Chips Ahoy and some other no-name selection. He was required to attend these meetings, some sort of HOA thing, and he’d already missed two. Another one and he’d get a letter, or—God help him—an actual visit from Moira, the HOA president.

“Those sidewalks are way overdue to be serviced,” she was saying at the moment William was twisting open his Oreo and scraping off the sugary cream with his teeth. “They were put in at the same time as our homes were, and that was in 1972,” she said. William noticed that their condos were never “units” or even “condos”; they were always “homes” to Moira.

“Surely they’ve been repaired since then,” Abe said. “I’m positive I’ve seen work crews working on the sidewalks and streets.” Abe was a widower who lived in one of the older sections of the complex. His hands shook a bit as he raised a self-supplied Corona beer to his lips. William got the impression Abe didn’t want to be there any more than he did.

“Of course they’ve been repaired,” Moira said barely disguising her reaction to what she thought was a stupid comment. “Here and there. Patch jobs or holes filled. But what needs to happen is a full replacement of the sidewalks in the common areas.” Moira neatly folded her hands in front of her matching jacket-and-skirt ensemble. It was the color of yellow that flatters no one.

There was murmuring in the room, and William and Abe exchanged glances. When it was clear Abe wasn’t going to ask the obvious question, William leaned forward in his chair.

“And our HOA dues will cover this, correct?” William said. “This is exactly why we pay such high fees, so that the excess is set aside for things like this? I mean,” he said, gesturing to the other people in the room, “if we agree this is the best thing to do.”

Moira took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, William, I wouldn’t say our fees are higher than any other community,” she said.

“I would,” Abe muttered through swigs.

Moira ignored him. “And I have to say, it’s really difficult for me to hear you say you might not think this is necessary. After the accident, I would think you and everybody here would be on board with this plan,” she looked around the room. There were uncomfortable shiftings and throat clearings.

“And I have to say,” William said, “I noticed you didn’t answer my question. So I’m going to assume that—no—our dues will not cover this. So I’m going talk about a couple of things before we get to the distasteful subject of money. First, I’m really sorry about what happened to Vanessa. Truly sorry.” William was sincere. Vanessa lived two units over and was a bright, friendly woman. That is, before her head made a violent acquaintance with the landscaping brickwork. Her family said she’d been almost completely unresponsive since.

“But,” he continued, “I’m not sure redoing all of the sidewalks is going to prevent something like this happening again. Her heel caught in a crack. She happened to land in a bad place. What are you going to do, put baby bumpers on all of the bricks?”

“Of course not William,” Moira said. “But I think if we—“

“Make sure you and the board’s collective ass is covered?” There was a gasp from Moira and subdued snickers from the room. Abe lowered his head, but his shoulders were shaking.

“That,” Moira said, “is very unfair. I’m only thinking about the safety of this community.” She reached into a large handbag. Its handles were made from fashionable gold-tone chains, and they chimed as she pulled out a collection of papers bound in the corner by a black spring clip. “Take a look at this,” she said, wagging the papers over the cookie tray toward William. “It’ll show you nationwide statistics of injuries and fatalities—yes, fatalities!—that occur from deteriorating walkways.”

William looked at Moira, then down at the collection of papers. He reached, and Moira leaned forward. William ducked his hand under the papers and took a Chips Ahoy from the plate.

“You know, Abe,” he said, turning the cookie over, “you can’t take a bite without hitting a chip.”

“I’ve heard that,” Abe said, nodding gravely.

“Are you going to look at these?” Moira said, flapping the papers.

William took a bite and turned to Abe. “Yep, chip,” he said. He looked at Moira. “You know what? I’m not going to look at those papers. I’m sure people trip and hit their heads a lot, all over the world. I’m not sure why you’re so gung-ho about getting these sidewalks replaced, but I don’t think it has to do with us, or Vanessa, or ‘the safety of our community.’”

Moira’s mouth popped open. “William, I cannot believe you could be so heartless, so unfeeling as to—“

“How much, Moira?”

This is stupid. I wrote it in fits and starts, and I don’t like any of the characters. It was a slog.

The bar had the familiar stale smell of all drinking establishments: a mix of yeast and wood; decades of spilled fermentations absorbed into floors and counters. She’d found a booth toward the back, just outside the game room. The tech bros had descended on the pool table, their hoodies emblazoned with company names constructed from adverbs or curiously missing vowels. The billiard balls cracked against one another, and good shots were punctuated by guttural exclamations.

Polly sat quietly, nervously. She was nursing a vodka and soda and checking her phone. They’d planned to meet at 5:30 to beat the after-work crowd, but it seemed like there was no “after-work” crowd anymore. There were just people, everywhere, at all hours in this town. She was lucky to get the table at all, and she knew if she left it for a moment—even for a quick run to the restroom—she’d lose it. It was twilight at the watering hole, and all of the animals of the Silicon Serengeti were jockeying for position. Her phone informed her It was a little after 6:00; she hoped her friends would get there soon. She had to pee.

One of the bros popped his head around the corner from the game room. Eyeing Polly’s barren table, he slapped his hands on the back of one of the empty chairs and dragged it toward the room, simultaneously asking, “Using this?” Polly managed to seat tackle the seat before the chair disappeared from sight.

“Actually, yes, I am,” she said, scraping it across the sticky floor and back to her table. “I’m expecting people.”

He held up his hands. “Okay, my bad,” he said.

Polly thought that based on the sneer on his face, he didn’t really think the bad belonged to him. “Sorry for existing,” she thought. She thumbed her phone again. A floating blue bubble informed her they were almost there; they were circling the bar looking for parking. Polly had anticipated this scenario and had opted for a Lyft. She was a bit miffed they hadn’t done the same. What were they thinking trying to park in this neighborhood?

She was just finishing up her drink when she saw them scramble through the bar doors. They stopped a few feet in, making the people who had followed them through the door stop suddenly and walk around them, earning dark looks and eye-rolls. The three women scanned the bar, letting their eyes adjust, and Polly stood and waved her hands over her head. All three of them saw her at the same time, and they raised their hands in front of their bodies, “jazz hands” style as if it had been choreographed.

As then ran toward Polly’s table in abbreviated, choppy steps, she extracted herself from her chair so she could greet each of them with a hug. They collapsed on her in a heap of screeches and congratulations, giving her exaggerated, swaying hugs and audibly kissing her close to her cheeks.

Daphne grabbed Polly’s left hand. “Okay, let’s see it!” she said, waggling her own bedazzled hand at Polly. The other girls clambered around, leaning on the table and peering at her finger. Polly obliged, raising her hand as if she expected each one of her friends to kiss it. There was a hush around the table.

“Oh,” Jules said, arranging her face back into a smile. “That’s just… lovely. That’s really nice,” she said and moved closer to her hand. “Is that… Is that a diamond?”

“Yes,” Polly said. “It’s a diamond. I mean, the main stone is.”

Rachel leaned in even closer. “What are the other stones around it?” she said. Polly made a seesaw motion with her hand to make the ring catch what little light was available.

“Peridot,” Polly said. “It’s my birthstone.”

“Oh,” Rachel said, sitting back in her chair. “It’s pretty.”

Polly glanced at her friends’ faces, feeling the enthusiasm leave the room. “You don’t like it?” She steadied her own left hand with the fingers of her right. She stared at her ring. It was beautiful. A small diamond surrounded by several pale green stones; it was delicate and flower-like.

Daphne took both of Polly’s hands in hers. “Well,” she said, looking around the table as if she were making a proclamation. “I think it’s adorable. I guess it’s just a little smaller than we expected.”

“Yes,” Jules agreed. “but it’s very cute.”

Polly frowned at them. It wasn’t a toy or a puppy. It was a symbol; one her husband-to-be worked hard to acquire, and one she was thrilled with.

Rachel, seeing Polly frown, put her arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry! You can make him get you a bigger one later. Maybe for your five-year anniversary!”

844 words

I had a germ of an idea here, but I blew the whole 750 words on character development and didn’t get to the germ. Oh well. Maybe in one of the next ones.

Ryan held the crayon thickly in his fist. He dragged the point across the page, leaving behind a waxy, stuttering trail of red. He lifted the stick from the page and studied his progress. He doubled his efforts, scrubbing a thick line into a plastic sheen.

“Random means, ‘by chance,'” Audra said. “Be careful, you’re going to tear the paper.” She removed the last mug from the dishwasher and, turning it over, verified it was clean. She wiped it with a dishtowel and set in the cupboard.

Ryan didn’t look up. “You mean like an accident?” The red covered a third of the page, obscuring the black ink outline of Lightning McQueen.

“Mmm, no, not quite,” Audra said, surveying they counters. She frowned at a spot of dried egg the cleaners had missed and picked at it with her fingernail. “Accidents are, well, things that happen that are mostly bad.”

Ryan looked up. “Like the polar bear ornament?”

Audra wiped her hands on her apron. “Yes, like that.” They’d decorated the tree three weeks ago, but he still brought up the polar bear almost daily. Sure, Audra had been angry; after all, it had been her mother’s. And she had warned him to be careful. So it was a valid, reasonable reaction to be angry and disappointed when he’d shattered the delicate figure on the dining room floor. But she shouldn’t have said the things she did. He was only six. She remembered the look on his face when she said—well. She told him Mama was very sorry. And he seemed to be okay.

“But ‘random,’” she continued, is something that happens without you planning it to happen. So, a ‘random act of kindness is…?’” she said, rotating her hand at the wrist and raising her eyebrows in encouragement.

He set down the crayon and scrunched up his mouth. “Is… an act of kindness you didn’t plan?” he said.

“Yes!” Audra said, clapping her hands together. She pulled out a chair and sat down next to him at the kitchen table. There were filmy swipes dulling the tabletop wood, and she pulled her finger through one of them. Sponge marks. She would have to talk to the cleaners.

Ryan picked up the crayon again and positioned its now-dulled tip on the paper. Instead of coloring, he twisted his features and gazed at the ceiling. This, Audra knew, meant he was working through something. She had learned to be patient; more explanations or questions would throw him off track. His faced relaxed and he found the words to match his thoughts. “But you said we are going to do a random act of kindness.”

“That’s right, Ry-Ry,” Audra said, looking over his arm to his coloring. She saw the red was rubbing onto Ryan’s sleeve, leaving a faint wax patina on the fabric. She opened her mouth, but then closed it again.

“But,” he said, “isn’t that… like making a plan?”

Audra smiled. She had a smart kid. “Yes, I guess planning a random act of kindness isn’t random. But,” she said, poking him lightly in his belly, making him smile briefly, “what we’ll do will be random,” she said. “We don’t know what the act will be, do we?”

Ryan considered for a moment then shook his head.

“No,” Audra said, “we don’t.”

Ryan nodded and went back his coloring. Audra, thinking the conversation was over, pushed out her chair and retrieved a clean dishcloth from the linen drawer. Ryan turned from his work and all the way around in his seat, resting his arms on the chair back.

“Mama? Why are we doing this again?”

Audra leaned over the table and wiped vigorously at the sponge marks. “Because the girls and I thought it would be a good thing to do at Christmas. Don’t you?”

“Mm hmm,” he said, and sleepily laid his cheek on his arms.

“We’re so lucky,” Audra said, pushing the hair from his forehead. “We have this nice house, and lots of good food to eat, and you have your new colors and so many toys.”

“Mm hmm,” he said again. He turned his face from her hand and pressed his forehead to his arms. He stared at the kitchen floor, swinging a blue-socked foot.

“And because we’re so lucky—and a lot of people aren’t—it’s our responsibility to do nice things. Especially at Christmas. So the girls and I thought that even though we’re doing things like helping at the food bank, we should do something extra.” She paused. Ryan’s foot continued to sway, a hypnotic pendulum, but he said nothing.

She made her voice light, like a children’s show host. “So Miss Lila thought it would be a good idea for each of us to do a random act of kindness this week. And I thought it would be great for you and me to do it together. Just us. As a team! Don’t you think that would be fun?”

“Yes Mama,” Ryan said to the kitchen floor. His foot slowed and then stopped.

806 words

This is a continuation of this piece. It just fit so nicely, and I got to write words for Aunty, so win-win for me. (It came pretty easily; Aunty has a lot to say.)

They said nothing for a while and listened to an osprey call for a mate. The light was fading, the landscape dissolving into oranges and reds. Aunty poked a long finger into her glass, the ice remnants glowing with the remains of the day. A look of disappointment came over her face as she saw there was no more beverage—even a diluted one. She abandoned the glass on the rusty metal side table next to her.

“You want another drink?” Albert asked, pointing to her glass.

“Why? You want to get me drunk?” she said.

“Maybe,” Albert said. “If it would mellow you out a bit.” Aunty eased her whole body toward Albert, leaning against the right armrest and raising an eyebrow. She sighed as if with her last breath.

“Go on,” she said.

“What?” he said, lifting his palms to the darkening sky and opening his eyes wide, but she didn’t miss he wasn’t looking into her own eyes.

“You’ve got more to tell me,” she said. “Best get it over with.”

Albert absent-mindedly scratched the back of his head, then brushed away an imaginary mosquito. “She’s moving back in,” he said. “In the next couple of weeks or so. We’ve talked about it, and we think we can make it work. We’ve been seeing a counselor, and it’s been a really positive experience. We’ve been open and honest; we’ve told each other things we never had before. I think we have an opportunity to make this relationship stronger than it ever was before.” He paused, glancing at his aunt. He couldn’t read her expression. But then she did something he wasn’t expecting: she threw back her head and laughed. It was a real, full-throated laugh that came from deep inside her belly. He could see the pink of her tongue and the gold of her fillings.

“Listen to you,” she said, wiping her eyes. “You’re full of the Dr. Oz shit they’ve been force-feeding us from the television.” She lowered her voice in an exaggerated baritone and furrowed her brow. “We have the opportunity to make this relationship stronger dee doo deedee duh duhhhh,” she mocked.

“Aunty.” Albert wasn’t laughing.

“Lord, what a pile of horseshit. When did you start talking like you had a broom handle stuck up your ass? Are you finding your ‘inner child’ too? Exploring your feminine side?”

“Aunty, Lucy’s pregnant.”

Her humor evaporated in time with the daylight. Aunty’s face sagged into sobriety, shadows carving her face. There was an exhale.

“Oh,” she said, “of course she is.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Albert said. “We—“

“You poor, poor boy,” Aunty said, almost inaudibly. “She’s got you and good. And you don’t even know it.” She leaned back in her chair, sinking into the sunbleached cushions. She seemed to shrink; her neck collapsing into her shoulders. “You don’t even know it,” she repeated.

“We’ll make it work,” Albert said, resting a hand on hers. She didn’t react to his touch. “For the baby.”

“The baby,” she said, drawing the word out as if it were a wonderous new concept. “Do you even know it’s yours?”

“Of course it’s mine,” he pressed her hand. She remained still.

“You don’t know that. Not for sure. And if I know you, you won’t get any kind of tests done after the child is born. You’ll dote on it and be a good father, and never really know if it’s your blood.”

“No,” he said. “You’re right. I wouldn’t do that.”

“And with her carrying on like she has been—“

“It was a kiss,” he said. “One kiss.”

“That’s what she told you? That’s her story?” He could see her eyes snapping even in the dim light. “I don’t believe that. Not for a second. That’s what she told you because that’s what you saw. I want you to use that big brain of yours. What are the odds of you catching your girlfriend the one and only time she was kissing on another man?” She looked ruefully at her empty glass and wished she’d made it last longer.

“And I bet when you caught her, she looked you full in the face—cool as cotton—and told you what you needed to hear. You would have believed anything that woman told you. Because you’re a fool, Albert. And I want you to remember tonight. I want you to remember this old face on this old body sitting on this broken-down porch. I want you to remember what the light looked like as I said these words. I want you to remember what day of the week it was and what the weather was like and what I was wearing.”

Aunty heaved up from her chair and slid her feet into a pair of ratty slippers. She shuffled a step past Albert, then turned and put her hand lightly, kindly, on his shoulder.

“Because today is important, doll. Today is the day you fuck up your life.”

777 words

Hoo boy, I didn’t want to do this today. I started one version in which a stuffed head  looked down at a bunch of people at a cocktail party and made comments. It would have been funny had I been in a funny-writing mood. (Narrator: “She was not in a funny-writing mood.”) So I came up with this. Again, don’t know where it came from; just had the idea of a stuffed head being the only thing available to listen to a lonely woman.

“Hello! Anybody in there?”

He was dimly aware she’d been talking for a while. He’d been looking at his phone;  Grant had sent over a slew of messages about the account and expected an immediate response. The phrase, “work-life balance” didn’t mean much to Grant. Actually, he didn’t separate work from life. It was all one big blob to him. But even with this pressure, he managed to pull his eyes away from the screen.

“What?”

Her eyes went sharp and narrow, then relaxed into disappointment. “Did you hear anything I said?” she asked, pulling her hand from his knee and dropping it in her lap. Her other hand played in their sleeping daughter’s fine hair; she lightly pulled the silky strands straight up from her small head then let them float back into place.

“Sure. Sure I did,” he said. He was frantically trying to piece together words he think he might have heard, because he knew what the next question was going to be.

“What did I say?” she said.

“You said the garbage disposal is on the fritz,” he said with some confidence. He knew “garbage” and “fritz” were in there somewhere. “I’ll get it taken care of.”

“No,” she shook her head, “that’s not what I said. But I have to give you credit. You were kind of close. I said I’m sorry I didn’t take care of the garbage cans and that the fridge was on the fritz.” Her hand stopped fidgeting with the girl’s locks. The toddler didn’t stir.

He looked into Brenda’s face. She looked tired, older. But staying at home with a three-year-old all day—every day— would do that to you; he imagined it would make you exhausted in your body, mind, and soul. The limited interactions he had with Evie in the evenings and the weekends were enough for him. Sure, she loved her; he didn’t think he’d ever loved anything more in his whole life. But he was secretly glad that Brenda was the one who had decided to pause a career. Then again, he suspected it wasn’t much of a secret.

Brenda gently moved Evie off of her leg. Evie gave a long, powdery sigh and settled against the stuffed arm of the couch. Brenda leaned forward, cupping her calves and sliding her hands to her feet until her chest rested on her thighs. She let her head hang down; her caramel-colored hair obscured her face.

“Colin,” she said from beneath her hair. “I—“ she stopped.

Colin put his palm on her back, but stole a glance at his phone. Three more emails from Grant had come through. Brenda sat up quickly, and ran both hands through her hair, smoothing it. Colin turned his phone screen-down on the sofa. The gesture didn’t go unnoticed. He rubbed her back.

“What?” he asked. “What’s going on?” Her eyes became glassy and her mouth pressed and worked.

“I can’t,” she said finally.

Colin frowned. “Can’t what?”

She shook her head from side to side. “I can’t. I can’t. I just can’t.” She spread her arms wide to indicate the entirety of her world. “This. It’s not… It’s too…” she trailed off. Colin started to say something, but she continued.

“I know I agreed. I mean, I volunteered. It made sense. But Co, I’m so lonely. I feel like whatever I was before is gone, completely gone. And I know you have to put in the extra time at work,” she nodded at the phone, its body haloed with the glow of incoming messages, “but you’re gone too. And when you’re here, you’re there,” she pointed at the device. “And I have no one to talk to except… except…” she looked around the room until her eyes landed on the ironic buck head mounted over the fireplace. “Except that stuffed head on the wall. That stupid, ridiculous deer head.”

 

819 words

I don’t know where this came from. I read the prompt and was cooking dinner, and this popped into my head. Oh, how I love writing dialogue.

She took another sip of her Jack and Coke. The doctor told her she shouldn’t be drinking alcohol or soda, but her motto lately had been, “I’m 82 years old. Fuck it.” She nursed her drink; she was a “cheap drunk” as she liked to say, her weight refusing to budge the scale needle over 92 pounds. But she was a practiced drinker, and expertly kept herself “merrily tipsy.”

“I don’t know what you think I’m going to say to you,” she said, giving Albert the side-eye. “Or rather, you know what I have to say. Do I actually have to get the words out of my lungs?”

“She’s trying, aunty,” Albert said, but couldn’t look into his aunt’s eyes. He’d told the rest of the family but had left his great-aunt until last. Even tipsy, she had a tongue that told the truth and did not work hard to make it pretty. He had a good idea what she thought of his girlfriend.

“Trying.” She rattled her glass, warming up the ice cubes to melt them. It diluted the drink but it made it last longer. “That woman hasn’t tried in her life. Trying means effort. Trying means work. She doesn’t work.”

“Of course she works,” Albert says. “She—“

“I don’t mean job-working. I know she does that. That’s easy. You get up. You go to a building and you type on your computers and you sit in meetings and read emails. Then you drive home on your leather seats and have take-out dinners and talk about oh how tired you are and how hard your day was.” She turned to face Albert. He didn’t look up, but she gave him the full force of her eye-roll anyway. “That’s not work. I’m talking about the things that make you a better person. The things that make you uncomfortable or even cause pain. It means sacrificing something that’s bad or even okay so you can get to something real. Something better. I’ve known that woman for over a year. She takes the easy route. Every time.”

Albert looked at his aunt. Her gray head had turned to look out over the lake, and she opened her thin, shaking lips to wet them with the Jack and Coke.

“Aunty,” he said. “I don’t think you’re being fair. Lucy’s always been so nice to you and to the brothers.”

“Nice doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “Nice is learned manners. Nice is what you say when you know people are looking at you or when you want something. You don’t want nice. You want good. You want kind.”

“Lucy is kind,” he said, putting his hand on the arm of her chair. She looked at him and shook her head. “No,” she said. “She’s not.”

Albert retreated, pulling his hand off the chair. “Look. I know she’s done some things that aren’t—well, she’s done some things. But she’s going to be in my life for a long time. I know you don’t want to hear this, but this is the woman I love.”

She snorted into her glass. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he says he’s in love. Let me tell you about something—no, you sit there, you came to talk to me, and now you’re going to listen. Love isn’t a feeling. It isn’t that warm tickle you get in your regions,” she said, waving a bony hand at his crotch. Albert crossed his legs.

“You think love is walking down the street and catching a whiff of something and being reminded of her. You’re thinking, ‘That’s her perfume. I’m recognizing her perfume, so it must be love!’ But it’s not it at all. That’s just your parietal lobe putting two and two together so when you sniff something that smells like a tiger, you don’t think. You just get your buns out of there. That’s not love.”

She fell quiet, and Albert waited. When she didn’t continue, he started. “Aunty,” he said. She shook her head.

“Love is something you do, doll,” she said, more into her glass than to her great-nephew. “It’s something you choose. You chose her. Did she choose you?”

“Yeah, aunty. She did.”

“Naw,” she said. “She didn’t. She doesn’t choose anything. Things fall into her lap, and she either accepts them or shoos them away, like a stray dog. People are pets to her. She dotes on them when they please her. Treats when they’re good boys. But oh, lord, when they’re not? It’s a rolled-up newspaper and a trip to the pound.”

Albert chuckled and shook his head. “Aw, come on, aunty. You’re being overly dramatic.”

“Am I?” she asked. “I’m an old woman, Al. I’ve known a lot of people and seen a lot of things. Am I being dramatic, or am I telling it how it is and you just don’t want to hear it?” She drained her glass.

783 words

Okay, so, weekends are harder. Still trying to figure out what kind of schedule is reasonable yet challenging. I don’t know. Today’s entry was also hard. Why are these so hard?

She stood facing the river, her gloved hands stuffed deep into her pockets, her arms pressed tightly against her sides. Her coat would normally be adequate—she hadn’t forgotten what Chicago winters were like—but it seemed as if her heavy down coat was made of paper. She reluctantly untucked her hands to pull her scarf tighter around her neck and stuff the tasseled ends down the front of her coat. Her hat was pulled low, but the loose crochet pattern allowed the sharp, bitter wind to stab her inner ears. Her hat choice was a mistake; she felt her skull was turning to ice.

Her Lyft driver was warning her about the weather, and he wondered aloud why she’d want to visit this town at such an awful time. She thought about correcting him: she wasn’t visiting, she was moving back for good, and the timing was beyond his control. But he was on a roll, and she didn’t have the heart to interrupt. Chicago weather seemed to be a favorite subject of his; he’d found at least 15 different ways to say “cold.” She assumed his next passenger would hear a similar monologue, but maybe without such colorful adjectives as “ball-clanking.”

She should be sequestered in her hotel room, making calls to the moving company. Everything she owned was in that van, stuck somewhere outside Springfield. She was left with a choice: take her carry-on to an empty apartment, or check in to a hotel room. She chose the latter, and was determined to make the moving company pay for it—a battle she was relishing and rehearsing in her head. But she needed to get out.

The river was gray and sheeted with crackled ice. The surrounding landscape offered no respite of color to focus on. The steel buildings shot up from the ground, their spires and towers jutting into the clouds, their windows echoing the sky, its barrenness reflected into infinity. There was little movement on the streets, most people were inside guarding against the frost with Snuggies and glasses of scotch.

She stood as long as she was able, until her ears began to ache. She walked next to the river, watching as the floating ice bobbed and bumped against itself. She came to a corner she used to go to in her teens—it had a bodega where she bought her Mountain Dews and Twizzlers, two things she hadn’t touched in years. She crossed the street, finding the best route to avoid deep drifts or hidden ice. The bodega was still there, though the offerings had changed. Mountain Dew and Twizzlers were perennial, but Coke Zero was a new addition and Surge had disappeared. The woman at the counter was new too, but since the man who used to run the little market was probably in his 70s back when she slapped change on that counter to pay for her sugary snacks, it was unlikely he’d still be around.

She left the bodega empty-handed, earning a brief, suspicious look from the cashier. As she turned to head back to the hotel, she paused. There was a building right next to the bodega, one she was sure she hadn’t seen before. Was she on the wrong corner? She walked backward a few steps. No, it was the same place. There were the tiles that spelled out “Martin’s” embedded deep in the sidewalk, a holdover from a bar that had occupied the bodega’s space in the ‘50s and ‘60s. But the building next to it must be new, because there’s no way she wouldn’t have noticed that building before.

It was a gothic style, with gargoyles guarding the concrete steps leading to the front door. Ornate stone spiralled and twisted up the side of the building. It was a style usually reserved for churches or self-important civic buildings, but this one was neither of those. It was the same size as the buildings around it—shops, boutiques, salons. She looked for any indication of what it was and what purpose it served, but there was none. She was just about to assume that it was the work of an overzealous Anne Rice fan, when she saw the plaque carved into a column: “Founded 1838.”

Of course, it could have been added later, maybe at the same time as the gargoyles, but she didn’t think so. The stone was the same type and patina as the rest of the facade. She was tracing a finger into the carved letters when the door at the top of the stairs opened. A single, slippered foot stepped into the cold, followed by a dark head. “Hello, Raye.”