“Yo, what was up with that arm?” Hot-cha
says. “Isn’t she a little o.l.d. to be getting bitch-slapped
by some pigeon racer?”
“Little known fact: The Chinese are all born at age one,
making them, in essence, a year older than they really
are.”
“She ain’t no Chinese!” Hot-cha says. “Can you believe
this guy?” heaving his thumb at Carlton.
I pull my shades on so that I can watch our waitress as
Carlton tries to explain his segue rationale to Hot-cha.
She is older than we are, by at least twenty years, making
her roughly the age of our mothers, but she doesn’t in the
least remind me of any of our mothers. My mother, for
example, would never at any age have worn her blouse
unbuttoned so that her brassiere showed, nor would she
cock her hip sexily toward a customer who made her
laugh and then chew on a loose piece of her straw
colored hair while she thought about a rogue falconer
back home already drinking, though he promised he’d
quit, or at least wait until she got home. Anyone with the
ability to see all this would describe the falconer as
dangerous. Wanting to invite your sister to come over, for
example, can not be a good reason for him to get that
upset, and it certainly makes no sense that this falconer,
much, much bigger than she, would grab her arm so
roughly, the pinch and the pain of which would literally
buckle her knees until she hung from his grip, the tattoo
of a dragon roiled on the shaking sea of his forearm. Who
can tell what someone like that would be capable of?
Perhaps something no one could ever forgive; something
unforgiveable.
As we eat our meals Hot-cha learns that her name is
Mary-Anne, to which of course Carlton provides: “In her
signature song, ‘Proud Mary,’ Tina Turner actually changed
the word ‘pain’ in the lines ‘Cleaned a lot of plates in
Memphis, pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans’ from
John Fogerty’s original lyrics to ‘tane’ and in octane,
meaning fuel.”
“And?!?” Hot-cha replied. “Yo, Proud Mary, give my man
here another beer and put it on my tab. Maybe then he
can tell us how Anne used to be what Edith Wharton
called her guitar or some hoo-hah.” And so we called her
Proud Mary, which she seemed to like.
For several Fridays in a row, though, Proud Mary would
visit our table with new bruises on her arms, all of which
owed to the work of her falconer and not, as she insisted,
his falcons. Seeing these bruises sometimes gave me
such a deep & low, sad & tired feeling that I wanted to
return to the thermic core. Then she showed up with a
mark around her neck.
“You letting his little birdies sit around your throat now,
Proud Mary?” Hot-cha asks, when the more obvious
questions no one would ask.
“Well, I’m through with falcons, if that’s what you’re
wondering,” she said. “They’re loud, they smell bad, and
they don’t know how to treat a girl. So if any of you thinks
of a good place where an old chick like me can park her
behind for under $300 a month you’ll let me know. Now,
does the steak crew feel like living on the wild side, or
should I just turn in last week’s carbon to the cook?”
After our dinner Carlton finishes the last of his beer and
a long story about how the FBI has secretly reopened
Project Blue Book, their covert study of ufology that has
archived and suppressed hundreds of witness accounts of
ufos in all areas of the country including three in our own.
“No butter-bunk, Homes,” Hot-cha said. “My uncle’s riding
his tractor when he was just a kid on the farm and this big
disc comes out of nowhere, hovers over him until the
engine dies, and then blows out of there at a millions
miles an hour. And when my uncle got off the tractor his
dog came running up speaking fluent Portuguese for
about twenty minutes, but then he couldn’t talk no more,
in any language. Wouldn’t even bark, unless he saw a
squirrel. Yo. You homies ready to clip?”
“You two go on,” I say. “I’m going to walk home.”
“Walk home? W.T.F., man? You can’t hardly walk across
the room without your back sounding like Chinese New
Year!” Hot-cha says.
Carlton pushes his glasses up on his nose and then
looks around at the emptying restaurant until he figures
things out. “Let’s go, Hot-cha. You can give me a ride
home,” he says, shaking his head slowly at me as if he
does not approve of what I am about to do.
“Later Homes,” Hot-cha says. “But don’t go calling me
just cause you’re only down at the next block and can’t
make it no farther.”
“Your little friends leaving you alone tonight?” Proud
Mary says as she scoops up the remaining plates and
glasses from the table. The bruise on her neck troubles
me deeply. All bruises trouble me deeply.
“Proud Mary,” I say. “Can you give me a ride home this
evening? I might have a place that can help you out.”
She looks plainly stunned, but really I know that she is
frightened by me, which I wish wasn’t the case. And
perhaps you’re thinking what woman in her right mind
would let a giant into her car and then drive him home,
alone? But Proud Mary knows better than any of you. She
could see that though I am giant, I am a decent man with
only the most decent of intentions. To say nothing of my
safety, which you’ve probably overlooked. Some might
say that she’s trouble, and that trouble brings trouble. I
sit at my table for another half an hour until the last of the
customers heads out of the bar, sipping ice waters that
Proud Mary keeps coming with which, I can tell, means
she’s getting nervier.
She tries diffusing the awkward silences between us on
the walk through the parking lot with too much chit about
how I probably won’t fit into her tiny car, but little does
Proud Mary know her car is much larger than
Hot-cha’s voluble machine. Her car also makes it seem as
though a family of hobos live in it. A great unpiling of piles
takes place before we find the seat and before the seat
will recline. “I had to throw a lot of my stuff in the back
here as I’ve flown the coop. Truth be told I’m not a
neatnik, but I’m not this much of a slob. Usually. You’ll
have to guess on the in-between.” I direct her to my
home, which is close enough that there is kindly no need
for further conversing.
Getting out, though, never ceases to present a
challenge, but Proud Mary runs around to the passenger
side to assist me as best she can. At this point I see the
top of her head and the dark and white roots where her
color recently grew out. I also like the smell of her, like
steaks. So maybe this is not the smell of her that I’m
liking, but the smell from the entrepreneurial imagination
of Stiv and Lois, which would still fall into my extra sensory
peremptory purview to smell things like one person’s
imagination drifted onto somebody else.
“This is your place? All this?” Proud Mary says as I
fumble my keys.
“My father, he died a while back, and my mother moved
to be near my sisters in Kansas City. So they left me the
house.”
“I’m sorry about your father,” Proud Mary says, but she’s
already inside by the coat rack. Proud Mary carries the
steak smell all over the house. “How many rooms are
there?”
“Several,” I say. “I don’t go upstairs, much. Those rooms
up there don’t have such high ceilings. They were always
the women’s rooms, and you’re welcome to either of the
two on the south end, if you think you might want them.”
“These are beautiful ceilings,” she says, meaning the
crown molding which is something I’ve always thought
beautiful too, but didn’t realize until she pointed it out.
“What’s in here?” she says, reaching to open the door to
the dining room.
“Wait!” I say, and before I can control it my big hand
swings down hard-like and snatches her wrist from the
handle. I raise her hand up until I’m also pulling her off
her feet and then let go suddenly, back in my own mind
again.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” I say. “I should just show you myself.”
“You need to be careful,” she says, rubbing her wrist. “I
bruise easily, you know.”
I push open the door and duck my way past her into the
dining room. I leave the overhead lights off, which I
usually do anyway, so that she can take in the full effect.
I even make a little flourish with my hand as she enters
the room. “The thermic core.”
“What are these then? Snakes?” she says. I’d expected
more oohing and ahhing.
“You don’t like snakes?” I say.
“Not really,” she says. “I don’t mean I don’t not like
them, I’m just wondering what it is about men and their
pets. Men with dangerous pets usually want to make a
pet out of you, I’d say. Wouldn’t you agree that statement
to be a true fact?”
“But they’re beautiful things, these snakes. Look at this
one, for instance,” I say, taking my favorite right off his
hot rock and letting him slip between my fingers. “He’s an
albino ribbon snake – sweet as you please. Or, over
here,” I take out another little friend in my other hand. “I’
ve got a long nosed snake. He’s equally sweet, but very
difficult to get to eat…”
“You feed them mice and rats and the like?”
“Well, yes. That’s their natural diet in the world. Did you
know that the symbol for alchemy is the snake, the
science of turning-to-gold? Did you know that snakes also
represent medicine and healing? And I’ll bet you were not
at all aware that the snake was the symbol for Jesus the
Redeemer at one time?” This last fact usually floors any
denomination.
“So do you breed your own rats and mice or do you have
some enormous credit down at the Pet-Co?”
“I only have to feed them once a month or so, except for
some of the smaller ones. I just go get their food then,” I
say.
“That’s good, because I can’t tolerate cages of rats on
death row.” The various glows from the tanks all light up
Proud Mary from twenty different angles, as if she’s
suddenly a star caught in the frozen paparazzi bulb
crush. This glow does her well by brightening her skin
and eyes and evening out the color of her hair. “Hot in
here, isn’t it though?”
“It helps my back,” I say. “To keep warm. Most times I
fall asleep in here on the floor.”
“Don’t you have a bed?” she says with great incredulity.
“They don’t make beds for people my size. Not that I can
afford, any how.”
“Let me go look upstairs,” she says suddenly. “And then
maybe we can work something out. I’d planned to go to
my sister’s tonight, but I’m thinking that would just bring
more trouble down on her, and she’s got a new baby and
a bunch of slobbery dogs that won’t let me get no rest
anyway.” When she leaves the thermic core I crumple
onto the warm floor to let my spine unfurl, only the thin
sound of little, rustling bodies and the distantly familiar
echo of footsteps upstairs keep me from falling under a
deep sleep.
“This is great,” she says, sticking her head cautiously
into the thermic core from the hall. “Do you mind if I bring
some stuff in and get situated up there? I don’t have
much, and if this doesn’t work out I can take off in the
morning. Hello? Are you okay?”
“I have a bad back and an enlarged heart,” I say. “This
helps.”
“You just wait until I’ve had a shower,” she says, and I
mourn the loss of the warming scent of steaks on her. “I
know a trick or two about backs.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, and its too late, too familiar, the sound
of a woman’s voice scurrying around upstairs, the groan
of the pipes over me as the shower commences, and
before I know it I’m back these years, laid out on the
floor, while my mother is loading the car to leave for
Kansas City. What I didn’t tell Proud Mary, and why
should I, is that my mother left before my father died. As
his heart trouble grew worse so did his moods; he had
this anger deep inside of him, from years of being the
town freak, no doubt, from all those stares and all that
stooping over to walk through the doors every other
person in town walked through with ease. I suspect now
that some of his heart medications, which I’ve been
prescribed but refuse to take, led to his dementia because
what else could drive a man to lock himself in this very
dining room for a week or spray paint ‘HARLOT’ and worse
onto the upstairs doors? It took several coats of very
dark primer and a lot of embarrassing silence for Hot-cha
and Carlton and me to cover the sprayed on words.
My father’s moods roiled over and could not be
contained, even though he’d been loved by my mother, by
my sisters, and by me. “I can’t let him keep doing this to
us,” my mother finally said, meaning the tearing down.
She kneeled down in the thermic core (which was cold
then and without snakes) beside me while I pretended to
be asleep, immune to everything. “Please. Please don’t
ignore me. I want you to come with me. He’ll turn on you
too, and as big as you are I know you’re sweet inside,
and you won’t be able to keep him off of you when he
gets into a rage. He was a good man, Son, he was a good
man and I’ll always love that. But that’s not in him any
more. You can come with me, come be with your mother.
Please.” When the deep blue days come now I often try
to imagine different ways my hand could’ve flown up
accidentally, fantasies about still undiagnosed seizures
maybe, or some way my mother might’ve slipped, leaning
down to plead with me, so that, really, it was the hard
floor that hit her face like that and not me. At worst I
comfort myself knowing that I have matured enough now
to achieve complete self control, even if no one is around
to appreciate my new improved self. If I hadn’t achieved
this mastery do you really think I’d have these extra
sensory powers?
“Whew! It feels so great to be free from the day!” she
says, standing next to me now. Her feet are naked, her
toes painted bright red, and she’s wearing a pink robe
with pink feathered fringe that keeps falling off like snow
flakes behind her. The smell of soap has eclipsed the
warm smell of steak, which I don’t like as much. “Roll
over,” she says. “Onto your gut.” Which I do.
She climbs onto my back and I see the feathery robe
come fluttering down to the ground a couple of feet from
my face. She kneeds my back with her painted toes and it
feels both good and bad. “Not too high,” I say. “I have an
enlarged heart.”
“Well, it’ll take me a good fifteen paces to get to where
your heart is from down here, but you let me know when I
get too close.”
“I’m going to die young,” I say. “Giants die young. My
father only got into his mid-forties before his heart quit.”
“Make the most of your time, then,” she says, squeezing
the skin at the base of my spine and pulling it upwards
with her toes. When she hits a sweet spot I feel like I’m
flying, the pain holding me to the ground dissipates until I’
m soaring.
“I wasted the last ten of mine with that lout, so don’t
think we’re not running neck and neck.” I hear her
breathing and the gwish, gwish, gwish, of her steps under
the hum of the hundred lights and singing rocks and the
snakes rolling back and forth across the glass like
windshield wipers just after a rain stops.
“Do you think you’ll be bringing any, uh … bad choices
along with you?” No reply comes. “I mean, you don’t
think fouling up is like a permanent habit for a person, do
you?”
There’s no reply, just the gwish, gwish, gwish of her feet
on my back and the hum and sway.
“Lower,” I plead. “Lower. It feels like flying straight off
the ground when you’re in just the right spot.” And she
steps into the perfect spot, further away from the danger
with my heart.
You only wish you had such relief near the end.
says. “Isn’t she a little o.l.d. to be getting bitch-slapped
by some pigeon racer?”
“Little known fact: The Chinese are all born at age one,
making them, in essence, a year older than they really
are.”
“She ain’t no Chinese!” Hot-cha says. “Can you believe
this guy?” heaving his thumb at Carlton.
I pull my shades on so that I can watch our waitress as
Carlton tries to explain his segue rationale to Hot-cha.
She is older than we are, by at least twenty years, making
her roughly the age of our mothers, but she doesn’t in the
least remind me of any of our mothers. My mother, for
example, would never at any age have worn her blouse
unbuttoned so that her brassiere showed, nor would she
cock her hip sexily toward a customer who made her
laugh and then chew on a loose piece of her straw
colored hair while she thought about a rogue falconer
back home already drinking, though he promised he’d
quit, or at least wait until she got home. Anyone with the
ability to see all this would describe the falconer as
dangerous. Wanting to invite your sister to come over, for
example, can not be a good reason for him to get that
upset, and it certainly makes no sense that this falconer,
much, much bigger than she, would grab her arm so
roughly, the pinch and the pain of which would literally
buckle her knees until she hung from his grip, the tattoo
of a dragon roiled on the shaking sea of his forearm. Who
can tell what someone like that would be capable of?
Perhaps something no one could ever forgive; something
unforgiveable.
As we eat our meals Hot-cha learns that her name is
Mary-Anne, to which of course Carlton provides: “In her
signature song, ‘Proud Mary,’ Tina Turner actually changed
the word ‘pain’ in the lines ‘Cleaned a lot of plates in
Memphis, pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans’ from
John Fogerty’s original lyrics to ‘tane’ and in octane,
meaning fuel.”
“And?!?” Hot-cha replied. “Yo, Proud Mary, give my man
here another beer and put it on my tab. Maybe then he
can tell us how Anne used to be what Edith Wharton
called her guitar or some hoo-hah.” And so we called her
Proud Mary, which she seemed to like.
For several Fridays in a row, though, Proud Mary would
visit our table with new bruises on her arms, all of which
owed to the work of her falconer and not, as she insisted,
his falcons. Seeing these bruises sometimes gave me
such a deep & low, sad & tired feeling that I wanted to
return to the thermic core. Then she showed up with a
mark around her neck.
“You letting his little birdies sit around your throat now,
Proud Mary?” Hot-cha asks, when the more obvious
questions no one would ask.
“Well, I’m through with falcons, if that’s what you’re
wondering,” she said. “They’re loud, they smell bad, and
they don’t know how to treat a girl. So if any of you thinks
of a good place where an old chick like me can park her
behind for under $300 a month you’ll let me know. Now,
does the steak crew feel like living on the wild side, or
should I just turn in last week’s carbon to the cook?”
After our dinner Carlton finishes the last of his beer and
a long story about how the FBI has secretly reopened
Project Blue Book, their covert study of ufology that has
archived and suppressed hundreds of witness accounts of
ufos in all areas of the country including three in our own.
“No butter-bunk, Homes,” Hot-cha said. “My uncle’s riding
his tractor when he was just a kid on the farm and this big
disc comes out of nowhere, hovers over him until the
engine dies, and then blows out of there at a millions
miles an hour. And when my uncle got off the tractor his
dog came running up speaking fluent Portuguese for
about twenty minutes, but then he couldn’t talk no more,
in any language. Wouldn’t even bark, unless he saw a
squirrel. Yo. You homies ready to clip?”
“You two go on,” I say. “I’m going to walk home.”
“Walk home? W.T.F., man? You can’t hardly walk across
the room without your back sounding like Chinese New
Year!” Hot-cha says.
Carlton pushes his glasses up on his nose and then
looks around at the emptying restaurant until he figures
things out. “Let’s go, Hot-cha. You can give me a ride
home,” he says, shaking his head slowly at me as if he
does not approve of what I am about to do.
“Later Homes,” Hot-cha says. “But don’t go calling me
just cause you’re only down at the next block and can’t
make it no farther.”
“Your little friends leaving you alone tonight?” Proud
Mary says as she scoops up the remaining plates and
glasses from the table. The bruise on her neck troubles
me deeply. All bruises trouble me deeply.
“Proud Mary,” I say. “Can you give me a ride home this
evening? I might have a place that can help you out.”
She looks plainly stunned, but really I know that she is
frightened by me, which I wish wasn’t the case. And
perhaps you’re thinking what woman in her right mind
would let a giant into her car and then drive him home,
alone? But Proud Mary knows better than any of you. She
could see that though I am giant, I am a decent man with
only the most decent of intentions. To say nothing of my
safety, which you’ve probably overlooked. Some might
say that she’s trouble, and that trouble brings trouble. I
sit at my table for another half an hour until the last of the
customers heads out of the bar, sipping ice waters that
Proud Mary keeps coming with which, I can tell, means
she’s getting nervier.
She tries diffusing the awkward silences between us on
the walk through the parking lot with too much chit about
how I probably won’t fit into her tiny car, but little does
Proud Mary know her car is much larger than
Hot-cha’s voluble machine. Her car also makes it seem as
though a family of hobos live in it. A great unpiling of piles
takes place before we find the seat and before the seat
will recline. “I had to throw a lot of my stuff in the back
here as I’ve flown the coop. Truth be told I’m not a
neatnik, but I’m not this much of a slob. Usually. You’ll
have to guess on the in-between.” I direct her to my
home, which is close enough that there is kindly no need
for further conversing.
Getting out, though, never ceases to present a
challenge, but Proud Mary runs around to the passenger
side to assist me as best she can. At this point I see the
top of her head and the dark and white roots where her
color recently grew out. I also like the smell of her, like
steaks. So maybe this is not the smell of her that I’m
liking, but the smell from the entrepreneurial imagination
of Stiv and Lois, which would still fall into my extra sensory
peremptory purview to smell things like one person’s
imagination drifted onto somebody else.
“This is your place? All this?” Proud Mary says as I
fumble my keys.
“My father, he died a while back, and my mother moved
to be near my sisters in Kansas City. So they left me the
house.”
“I’m sorry about your father,” Proud Mary says, but she’s
already inside by the coat rack. Proud Mary carries the
steak smell all over the house. “How many rooms are
there?”
“Several,” I say. “I don’t go upstairs, much. Those rooms
up there don’t have such high ceilings. They were always
the women’s rooms, and you’re welcome to either of the
two on the south end, if you think you might want them.”
“These are beautiful ceilings,” she says, meaning the
crown molding which is something I’ve always thought
beautiful too, but didn’t realize until she pointed it out.
“What’s in here?” she says, reaching to open the door to
the dining room.
“Wait!” I say, and before I can control it my big hand
swings down hard-like and snatches her wrist from the
handle. I raise her hand up until I’m also pulling her off
her feet and then let go suddenly, back in my own mind
again.
“Sorry. I’m sorry,” I say. “I should just show you myself.”
“You need to be careful,” she says, rubbing her wrist. “I
bruise easily, you know.”
I push open the door and duck my way past her into the
dining room. I leave the overhead lights off, which I
usually do anyway, so that she can take in the full effect.
I even make a little flourish with my hand as she enters
the room. “The thermic core.”
“What are these then? Snakes?” she says. I’d expected
more oohing and ahhing.
“You don’t like snakes?” I say.
“Not really,” she says. “I don’t mean I don’t not like
them, I’m just wondering what it is about men and their
pets. Men with dangerous pets usually want to make a
pet out of you, I’d say. Wouldn’t you agree that statement
to be a true fact?”
“But they’re beautiful things, these snakes. Look at this
one, for instance,” I say, taking my favorite right off his
hot rock and letting him slip between my fingers. “He’s an
albino ribbon snake – sweet as you please. Or, over
here,” I take out another little friend in my other hand. “I’
ve got a long nosed snake. He’s equally sweet, but very
difficult to get to eat…”
“You feed them mice and rats and the like?”
“Well, yes. That’s their natural diet in the world. Did you
know that the symbol for alchemy is the snake, the
science of turning-to-gold? Did you know that snakes also
represent medicine and healing? And I’ll bet you were not
at all aware that the snake was the symbol for Jesus the
Redeemer at one time?” This last fact usually floors any
denomination.
“So do you breed your own rats and mice or do you have
some enormous credit down at the Pet-Co?”
“I only have to feed them once a month or so, except for
some of the smaller ones. I just go get their food then,” I
say.
“That’s good, because I can’t tolerate cages of rats on
death row.” The various glows from the tanks all light up
Proud Mary from twenty different angles, as if she’s
suddenly a star caught in the frozen paparazzi bulb
crush. This glow does her well by brightening her skin
and eyes and evening out the color of her hair. “Hot in
here, isn’t it though?”
“It helps my back,” I say. “To keep warm. Most times I
fall asleep in here on the floor.”
“Don’t you have a bed?” she says with great incredulity.
“They don’t make beds for people my size. Not that I can
afford, any how.”
“Let me go look upstairs,” she says suddenly. “And then
maybe we can work something out. I’d planned to go to
my sister’s tonight, but I’m thinking that would just bring
more trouble down on her, and she’s got a new baby and
a bunch of slobbery dogs that won’t let me get no rest
anyway.” When she leaves the thermic core I crumple
onto the warm floor to let my spine unfurl, only the thin
sound of little, rustling bodies and the distantly familiar
echo of footsteps upstairs keep me from falling under a
deep sleep.
“This is great,” she says, sticking her head cautiously
into the thermic core from the hall. “Do you mind if I bring
some stuff in and get situated up there? I don’t have
much, and if this doesn’t work out I can take off in the
morning. Hello? Are you okay?”
“I have a bad back and an enlarged heart,” I say. “This
helps.”
“You just wait until I’ve had a shower,” she says, and I
mourn the loss of the warming scent of steaks on her. “I
know a trick or two about backs.”
“Uh-huh,” I say, and its too late, too familiar, the sound
of a woman’s voice scurrying around upstairs, the groan
of the pipes over me as the shower commences, and
before I know it I’m back these years, laid out on the
floor, while my mother is loading the car to leave for
Kansas City. What I didn’t tell Proud Mary, and why
should I, is that my mother left before my father died. As
his heart trouble grew worse so did his moods; he had
this anger deep inside of him, from years of being the
town freak, no doubt, from all those stares and all that
stooping over to walk through the doors every other
person in town walked through with ease. I suspect now
that some of his heart medications, which I’ve been
prescribed but refuse to take, led to his dementia because
what else could drive a man to lock himself in this very
dining room for a week or spray paint ‘HARLOT’ and worse
onto the upstairs doors? It took several coats of very
dark primer and a lot of embarrassing silence for Hot-cha
and Carlton and me to cover the sprayed on words.
My father’s moods roiled over and could not be
contained, even though he’d been loved by my mother, by
my sisters, and by me. “I can’t let him keep doing this to
us,” my mother finally said, meaning the tearing down.
She kneeled down in the thermic core (which was cold
then and without snakes) beside me while I pretended to
be asleep, immune to everything. “Please. Please don’t
ignore me. I want you to come with me. He’ll turn on you
too, and as big as you are I know you’re sweet inside,
and you won’t be able to keep him off of you when he
gets into a rage. He was a good man, Son, he was a good
man and I’ll always love that. But that’s not in him any
more. You can come with me, come be with your mother.
Please.” When the deep blue days come now I often try
to imagine different ways my hand could’ve flown up
accidentally, fantasies about still undiagnosed seizures
maybe, or some way my mother might’ve slipped, leaning
down to plead with me, so that, really, it was the hard
floor that hit her face like that and not me. At worst I
comfort myself knowing that I have matured enough now
to achieve complete self control, even if no one is around
to appreciate my new improved self. If I hadn’t achieved
this mastery do you really think I’d have these extra
sensory powers?
“Whew! It feels so great to be free from the day!” she
says, standing next to me now. Her feet are naked, her
toes painted bright red, and she’s wearing a pink robe
with pink feathered fringe that keeps falling off like snow
flakes behind her. The smell of soap has eclipsed the
warm smell of steak, which I don’t like as much. “Roll
over,” she says. “Onto your gut.” Which I do.
She climbs onto my back and I see the feathery robe
come fluttering down to the ground a couple of feet from
my face. She kneeds my back with her painted toes and it
feels both good and bad. “Not too high,” I say. “I have an
enlarged heart.”
“Well, it’ll take me a good fifteen paces to get to where
your heart is from down here, but you let me know when I
get too close.”
“I’m going to die young,” I say. “Giants die young. My
father only got into his mid-forties before his heart quit.”
“Make the most of your time, then,” she says, squeezing
the skin at the base of my spine and pulling it upwards
with her toes. When she hits a sweet spot I feel like I’m
flying, the pain holding me to the ground dissipates until I’
m soaring.
“I wasted the last ten of mine with that lout, so don’t
think we’re not running neck and neck.” I hear her
breathing and the gwish, gwish, gwish, of her steps under
the hum of the hundred lights and singing rocks and the
snakes rolling back and forth across the glass like
windshield wipers just after a rain stops.
“Do you think you’ll be bringing any, uh … bad choices
along with you?” No reply comes. “I mean, you don’t
think fouling up is like a permanent habit for a person, do
you?”
There’s no reply, just the gwish, gwish, gwish of her feet
on my back and the hum and sway.
“Lower,” I plead. “Lower. It feels like flying straight off
the ground when you’re in just the right spot.” And she
steps into the perfect spot, further away from the danger
with my heart.
You only wish you had such relief near the end.
r.kv.r.y. quarterly winter 2008 fiction
snake by darren defrain page two
snake by darren defrain page two
dancing feet by tamar factor