Fame, not fortune
I learned one name on the evening news.
Surprisingly, pictures on milk cartons still happen. I recognized somebody and chuckled.
The stretch of I-90 west of Sioux Falls is interesting. It reminds me of movies with signs saying "last chance for gas!" but I guess the midwest figures fuck it, you'll figure it out. Lucky for me, that highway is a helluva place for pretty girls to have a flat.
Youtube has cold-case stuff on familiar faces. I know names from the driver's licenses stashed in my special place.
Sunday School lied. God ain't the only one who makes stars.
Who wakes up next to you
This is where I'll leave your note.
The first one I ever received was pinned to my shirt. It was yellow construction paper, cut out into the shape of a school bus. "832" was written on it in one of the eight most important colors that exist in the world, according to Crayola.
You're still one of the 8 most influential people in my world, according to every woman I've loved since last we spoke.
The first note I gave wasn't folded cleverly. I didn't learn how to do that until well into my teen years, when I had a reason to do the cute little tucks and tails. To her credit, she didn't laugh, but the subtle shake of her head was indication enough that the words she would use after reading would be empty attempts at mollification or hollow apology.
It's alright, though. Because later, I found someone worth walking 500 miles for.
Until she wasn't.
The note I found at your apartment, it wasn't mine to find. It was an accident, really. I wasn't looking for it, but there it was. It spelled out in clumsy verse, in my best friend's handwriting, words that I knew in my heart but hadn't yet seen with my eyes.
You were gone, and he was with you.
Not me.
Until he wasn't.
Oh, I am now fine. I wasn't fine. I didn't think I would ever be, but, well. Time heals, and all that. And wow, it's been a lot of time. A lot of todays between you and me and then.
A problem of mine, though, is that I linger. I still bleed a little when the trees move from green to smokeless flicker-flame. It's spring now, but everything turns to autumn when I remember you.
So this is where I leave the bloody trail, smeared for everyone to see and experience along with me. Pictographs written in clear language with unclear resolutions, red-fading-to-rust, scrawled for pondering and perusing.
I think the issue here is the time of year. I don't love the spring and all its promise, because promises get broken. Fall doesn't lie, it lies in wait. It's coolness is fact instead of false hope. Frost is a guarantee instead of a final, rude surprise. Spring gives way to hazy days, but autumn gives way to lazier days, shorter in duration and sepia around the edges of afternoons. Each morning stumbles in from the dark, shaky and a little weak.
We've force-Marched into April, but you always remind me of October. Fall.
I tripped, once. Fell. Landed hard, battered and bruised and bitter.
The bruises have faded, I think. The bitterness sometimes slips away into more of a bittersweet.
Which brings me to today.
This is where I'll leave your note.
I'm sorry. I can't say I didn't mean to bring you fear, anxiety, worry. I meant to give you those things. I wanted you to feel those things. I did that to you. I wish I hadn't done that; it was hurtful and hateful and born of spite and resentment and resistance to inevitable change.
I was absolutely withered. Everything good and right and just had been chewed up and what was left in me was envious and angry. I was poisonous and miserable, and I wanted poison and misery visited on you, too. I'd been done to, and I wanted to do. I spoke in anger, I spoke with hatred. Fury was my world, and our worlds were parted.
My emotions ruled me, and I should have done better.
You told me you were afraid, and I was appalled. I was aroused. I was proud and I was ashamed and I was disgusted and I was pleased.
Mostly, though, I was saddened.
I never wanted you to fear me, but you did. You were afraid of me because of me. I should have done better. I should have been better.
I have done better since then. I learned from us. You taught me. You taught me so much, and only now can I see the lessons written those decades ago. The words are the same, but now they convey different meaning, like shadows flickering in different light.
I've channeled the anger. I've funneled the pain, I've processed the emotions, I've done better with others. There are scars, there are aches, but they're stories and allegories and ways to learn and do better. Be better.
I am better.
I wish you'd see me. I wish we could talk; I wish laughter was our language.
These things can't happen, because there's no bridge to be built. The ashes all floated downstream decades ago. I understand that, and I respect the borders and the boundaries and the barriers. We're worlds apart now, with the light of years between.
Me leaving things alone is the best case for you and for me and for us.
I'd like you to forgive me.
I'm pretty sure you've forgotten me.
I know it's best that I stay here on my side of the world, so I'll leave a note here for you. A note for autumn in the spring, a note for a deciduous love that tries to be evergreen when 'what if' wanders in and whispers poison.
In maudlin moments, I wish you could know I want to walk those 500 miles that separate us, just to be the man you once thought I was. When clarity sharpens my focus on the here and the now, though, I realize how lucky I am to not wake up next to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ6wJqaE6o4
Escape Plan
"How did we get here?"
He asks the question rhetorically, and she watches his face carefully. She's grown accustomed to his monologues, but she's never sure if he's seriously asking until she looks at him.
Her eyes dart from him to her fingernails. They've been freshly painted, but she looks for chips and waits for him to continue.
"It seems like only yesterday." He looks down at her and she catches his eye. She grins convincingly, and he leans down to place a hand on her head.
She ignores that it feels so very like when she used to scratch her dog.
"Do you need anything from the store, love?" His voice is soft, but she knows the kindness is only temporary. She is one missed que, one wrong word away from wrath.
Sometimes wrath pays a visit anyway.
"Could you bring me some peanut M & Ms?" She lays on a little charm, but not too thick. Puppy-dogs her eyes but doesn't bat her lashes. Lips set in just the right amount of pout.
"You've never asked for candy before! Certainly. Anything for my best girl."
She's reminded of that dog again, but she pretends to laugh good naturedly. "Thank you," she purrs.
He sighs. "It seems like yesterday when you hid in my little corner shop."
She nods. It was seven hundred and thirty two days ago, you fuck, she thinks, but can never say. "I love you," is a lie that slips past her lips so often that it leaves her mouth feeling oily.
"Be back soon." He leaves, and she sighs when the padlock clicks against the steel door. While not gilded, the cage is comfortable enough.
Buried twenty feet below the man's Brooklyn bodega, she remembers the night she dodged the cops and became a fly stuck in a far worse web. He let her into the store room, gave her a slushy, and she woke up a literal kept woman.
Her escape is imminent, though. For years, she'd studied him. Learned what made him angry, what made him happy. She feigned hope and good cheer, even though both had withered on the vine and rotted away long ago.
What he didn't know was that she nearly died in the sixth grade when she was at a slumber party. The host never considered severe allergies when she served peanut-butter chocolate chip cookies to the kid who didn't pay attention before taking a bite.
She'd never asked him for candy before, and she felt lucky to know she would never need to ask again.
Rescue
She'd been behaving differently for ages.
Long bouts of sadness followed by incredible highs; there was definitely a cycle of ups and downs that no one had noticed earlier on.
Sometimes the lows would go on for days, if not weeks. Nothing could seem to get her interested in the games she used to play, the foods that used to be special treats.
She'd spend hours stretched out on the couch. The television would be on, but she'd not be paying any attention. Instead, her eyes would dart from the windows to the door, every now and then straying to follow shadows and listen to whispers that may not have been there at all.
In her manic phase, she'd be incredibly animated. She'd jump up from that sofa, run around the house, begging to be seen and heard. Her voice would sing, and her breath would be ragged. It was truly a sight to behold, in that most joyous of joys.
It took almost two years to notice a pattern.
In the beginning of those two years, the whispers were thought to be imaginary.
Turns out, they were just hard to hear.
It was late October, or maybe the first of November, when Margaret heard him speak.
"Hey, girl."
Just that. Nothing more, and the reaction was instantaneous. Like a switch had been thrown, she'd leapt up and began dancing with excitement. Her voice elevated as surely as her mood; there was wordless song and boundless joy.
These fits of happiness would last anywhere from minutes to hours, and everyone who witnessed them couldn't help but smile.
When Sadie danced, the world danced with her.
When Sadie smiled, the world grinned.
His girl would instantly brighten, and people who've never lived with a dog can't possibly comprehend their capacity to smile.
Margaret was the woman of his dreams, but now she is his widow. Sadie was and will always be his best girl. She was a rescue, more Heinz than Golden, but they were 57% sure she had Retriever running through her veins. Sadie had been with him since before the wedding, long before the funeral. He used to joke that he wasn't sure who rescued whom.
The incredible thing is, for the last two years, Sadie has still been playing with her master.
It never occurred to Margaret to be afraid. She would cry and she would laugh as that big, adorable mutt jumped on the furniture, chasing a man years gone, but impossibly here.
"I love you," she once managed to choke during a Sadie celebration.
Tail wagging, the dog came up to her and put her head in the widow's lap.
"I know," the room whispered, and for the first time in months, Margaret laughed.
March 2024 Drabble Winner: Luck
Here's the winning entry: https://www.theprose.com/post/808545/as-luck-would-have-it
Taliaferro
I suppose it shouldn't be much of a surprise why Great Uncle Elroy's pond had the biggest, best catfish in all of Taliaferro County. Hell, maybe even the South.
Unc used to say it was on account of the depth of the thing. His grampa had it dug as a public works project back in the New Deal. A crew was cuttin' a firebreak just east of his place, along the property line of Jenkins land.
Well, Old Man Evans, he went on down to the courthouse and had some words with a few county commissioners and a judge or two. As I understand it, they was pleasant words, with mentions of reelection and campaign funds, along with a couple of plain envelopes that never saw the inside of a mailbox.
Next thing you know, that work crew took a detour off the firebreak for a coupla weeks. Even the fellah from Atlanta in charge of organizin' all the labor, he seemed happy to help. 'Course, "helping" for him pretty much meant helping himself to quarts of the good stuff revenuers used to get all tied up about. He spent more than a few afternoons in a rockin' chair chasing the shade of the front porch while them fellahs went at the dirt to earn their keep.
Anyhow. That's the story as I've heard it told.
Old Gramps, he made em go extra deep on that pond. He swears it made for cooler water and better livin' conditions for them fish he had stocked before the War.
Times was lean when our boys landed in Normandy, 'cept over on Uncle Elroy's place. He always had plenty of ration cards, hell, he even managed to have chocolate and gas when everybody else was ridin' bicycles or walkin'.
Nobody never thought nothin' about it, not really.
But it did seem he always had comp'ny out of Atlanta a fair piece. Real city-slicker types. Greasy hair and easy smiles that never lit up them shady eyes. I reckon it shoulda seemed odd, them folks always visitin' a country bumpkin and his ponds and pigfarm.
Anyhoo. Wasn't long after the war things picked up, so much as things've ever picked up in Crawfordville. Folks was comin' from all around, payin' a fee to fish the pond. Atlanta folks, especially; a whole mess of em always came out for nightfishin.
A right good business started to boom out on that place. It got to where he had to limit the number of tickets he'd let get out, on account of he didn't want to have to restock his pond any more than necess'ry.
Come to think of it, the whole thing was genius, really.
National Geographic came out one time in '64. By then Uncle Elroy was the only one left, runnin' the whole show.
Them magazine people came out 'cause of the catfish, see. They was big.
Goddamn, but they was big.
I remember once, I paid my fee to fish. Me! Family! Can you believe that? Anyhow, I just sat up on the bank with my cane pole. It was a slow day, maybe just one other couple out and about.
Before long, I hooked me somethin'. Damn thing near-bout broke my pole.
It was a monster. Had to be twelve pounds or so.
In a pond.
Goddamn anomaly, is what it was.
But I didn't mind. Made some fine eatin'.
I never spared too much thought on it, to tell th' truth; what fryin’ them fish meant, in a we-are-what-we-eat sense.
Not until that mess that came-to here a few years ago.
Worst drought we ever did have.
That pond, it dried right up. Damndest thing I seen. That thing been 'round long as any of us can remember. The pig farm went sideways, too, once't Uncle Elroy died.
By then, the pay-to-fish thing had done played out. Folk had just lost interest, I reckon. So it took a while to catch notice.
The Eff-Bee-Eye, though. They sure paid attention when word got out.
It was the bones, see. Down in the mud. They eventually got bleached out by the sun. All these little white specks in the gray-green muck. 'Spite what my dentist says, turns out teeth are damn durable.
That's what started it all.
It's no wonder them catfish was so damn big, and less wonder that the place was always filled with Cadillacs and Town Cars.
For decades, they'd cruise in to town to feed those catfish. My uncle and his bunch charged every one o'those big city folk for the privilege of throwing things in a pond, and every one of us locals would pay to pull things out.
Goddamn, they was good catfish, though.
If you got ’em
There's an awkwardness that my parents used to fill with smoking. Not sure what to do with your hands? Light up. Finished a good meal? Burn one. Need a break? Step outside, shake out a menthol (mom) or a Basic-light (dad).
I say an awkwardness, but I'm not sure. Maybe they weren't awkward at all. Maybe they just didn't know what to say. We never really discussed politics, religion, or anything important. I'd get asked about school, but I never had much to share.
My grandfather smoked a pipe, but sometimes he liked a Tampa Nugget. That was rare. Mostly, he was packing the bowl with Carter Hall. I don't ever remember him smoking it in a restaurant, though.
I tried it, but the habit didn't take. I found the pipe too rough and the cigarettes unfulfilling. All they did was leave me tasting ashtrays and wondering where my money went.
I used to always carry a Zippo in college, though. Some of the jobs I worked, I'd hang out with the smokers. They were an overall affable bunch, friendly, chatty. They appreciated that I always had a light. A girl asked me once where my smokes were, and I just grinned. "I save them for bed," I cracked wise.
She was disappointed to learn that was a lie, when she came over later.
I'd be lying if I said that was her only disappointment, but we can't win 'em all.
I have no idea where that Zippo is now. Maybe I found it not long ago when I did some cleanup of my storage building, but I likely tossed it right back into the box with all her old loveletters.
All of them.
I smelled her perfume in that cheap plastic tub as soon as I lifted the lid.
She flirted with smoking for a short while, but gave it up pretty quickly.
She flirted with marrying me for a while, but gave up that idea pretty quickly, too.
My parents don't smoke anymore. My dad, because he's dead. My mom, because I told her one of the reasons I didn't visit was because I had to wear dirty clothes to her house and wash them while I took a shower just as soon as I got home. That was a long time ago, when we lived in the same town.
I remember that conversation when I look over at the dry erase calendar on my wall and realize I don't have a visit scheduled in the foreseeable.
I should change that, but there's an awkwardness that my parents used to fill with smoking, and I don't know how to fill it anymore.
with a blue dress
"How will I explain this?"
"Why must you?"
He can't argue with her logic, not really. He is his own man, owing justifications to not a single soul.
"Yeah, okay, so you have a bit of a point, but we don't live in a vacuum."
She raises an eyebrow, but he ignores it and keeps on. "I have parents who will wonder who I'm dating."
"You haven't seen your mom in three months, your step-father doesn't care, and your dad lives in Iowa."
He rolls his eyes.
"I never told you those things."
She smiles, and his heart flutters. He shivers, but his heart turns cartwheels. She has shared his living space for quite a while now, and he still hasn't gotten used to the things she simply seems to know. It's infuriating, endearing, terrifying, and arousing.
Some of the things she knows are downright biblical in their sweet sinfulness.
She floats across the hardwood of the living room and runs a finger along his jawline. She leans in and whispers, "Let me show you other things I know."
He does, and forgets all about explaining his new girlfriend to the parents.
__
They met at work. He took a gig as a videographer for one of those idiotic reality shows that air on formerly respectable cable networks. This one specialized in sending in a handful of "regular people" to reportedly haunted places, where they had to spend a full 24 hours.
The crew isn't supposed to interact with the "talent," but the lady now in his house started flirting with him around three in the morning on the job. One thing lead to another, the shoot wrapped, and here they are.
He didn't find the "haunted" asylum particularly frightening. Honestly, he thought it was boring, except for the minor dramas that unfolded between the two efinitely not actors competing for who could behave like the biggest scared toolbag. He played along when he needed to, running down hallways and giving the producers plenty of shaky-cam footage to edit and play up. Every chance he got, he put his now-girlfriend on film, since she was easy on the eyes and didn't behave like an imbecile.
__
His phone rings and it's the director from that stupid ghost show. He steps out of the bedroom so he doesn't wake her.
"Hello?"
"No, I did."
"No, I changed memory cards several times. I turned them all in."
"Uh huh."
"Nope, nope, I did, didn't you see?"
"What do you mean?"
"That's not possible."
"Gimme a break, man. I was there. It's all on tape."
"You have the tapes. Well, cards, whatever. The recordings."
"Bullshit, I shot all night."
"The girl in the blue dress, yeah, on my recordings."
"What?"
"I don't understand."
"How did you not see? We had conversations. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to talk, but what am I supposed to do when I'm asked direct questions, man? I'm not a robot, and hell, you hired her. She's hot."
"Explain that."
"Well who hired her?"
"Never mind, that doesn't matter. No, look again, I don't know what to tell you. It's all recorded, I did my job."
He turns around, and she's standing right next to him, smiling that smile that does things to him.
"Listen man, I gotta go. I'd love to work for you again, but I'm not feeling the accusations. I specifically recorded the girl in blue most of the night, and she's standing right here with me now."
He hangs up, she kisses him, and he forgets all about the director saying there was no actress in a blue dress at the asylum.
He has never heard the word succubus and he never will.
February Drabble Winner
I'm a little late on this posting, but February's Drabble winner is https://www.theprose.com/post/802267/undying-love by beatricegomes. Honorable mention to Mr. Sadhill: https://www.theprose.com/post/803784/petals
Excused From The Table
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVgixOjGhVU&feature=youtu.be
The table was set for ten.
Standard fare for Holidays with my family: turkey, ham. Broccoli with Cheez Whiz, because I once said I liked that, so it became present at each gathering. Sunbeam Bread's yeast rolls, drizzled with liquid Parkay and baked in one of the two stainless steel ovens mounted in the wall.
There were other things, of course. But these were omnipresent at Easter, Mother's Day, the Birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
The Birthday was a double celebration for me and my Great Grandmother. Hers was one day ahead of mine, so we gathered yearly for us both.
No one else garnered such an honor.
Uncle D passed, but I was too removed, too young, too preoccupied to pay much attention. His was my first ever funeral.
The things I miss most about him, those odd things I associate with his memory, are his cats and his tricycle. He had an adult-sized trike, complete with basket and bell. Riding it around his neighborhood was such fun, such joy.
He had white cats, and I used to chase them through the pet doors. He used to laugh at that; his laughter, I can remember. His leathery tanned skin, his white hair that matched those cats, those stand out in my memory.
The table was set for nine.
She was the first to go who truly meant something for me. She, of the Banks of That River. She, of infinite kindness and endless games of Monopoly and Sorry and Go Fish. She, of recipes cooked to order and teaching me to read. She, of whom I know so little but for whom I care so much. I wish I'd known her better, but through it all I think the greatest tragedy was that my mother was only 30 when she lost hers.
I was ten.
My grandmother was a schoolteacher, and the line for her visitation stretched around the building, beyond capacity for the funeral home.
Former students waited hours to pay respects.
She taught sixth grade, and these people heard. They came.
I never cried at her funeral, but I've cried since. Every time I immortalize her on these pages, my head aches and the light prisms.
The last gift she gave me was less than two weeks before she died. Wrapped in newspaper, (I didn't mind) I discovered a gift that no one understands why I've kept all these years. To them, it is merely a toy jet. Just a silly thing for a grown man to keep. It takes up an awful lot of space. But within me, so does she.
The table was set for eight.
He died when I was at work. It was unexpected, but not particularly sad. I still wept, for he was a strong influence on me and in my life.
My grandfather was not a kind man, but he was always good to me, until he wasn't. At the end of his life, he turned away from his immediate family in favor of the family he left behind when Eisenhower ran the country. I stood against him when he railed against my mother, my father, us. I ended our relationship when he ended his respect for my family; he chose the bottle. He chose the past.
Years passed before we again spoke.
He was my mentor and my friend, and I missed him the whole time he lived right next door.
The table was set for seven.
The Matriarch languished, her mind remaining razor sharp while her body crumbled around her. My Great-Grandmother was a survivor, having nearly sent one daughter to war and having sent another to the grave. The Great Depression, the Great War, and a single Great Grandson.
She had a scar on her right forearm. As she aged, the skin beneath that scar became almost translucent; I could see the bone beneath, and the purple of veins crossing over it.
I never got more than, "I cut it when I was younger," from her.
I wish I'd gotten to hear the story of that scar, I wish she'd opened up to me about the truth of it.
I wish I'd heard more of her stories, so that they could be retold here or somewhere like here.
Her passing was an end of an era.
The table wasn't set as often, and when it was, it was set for six.
My dad died shortly before I attended a police academy he helped found. My name brought looks of recognition and words of consolation, but the truth is, I hadn't spoken to him in years.
When he left my mother, I was left with a house to run.
When she left the house for a new country and a new start, I was left alone.
The table was set for five.
My Great-Aunt and Great-Uncle died within weeks of one another. His was a large affair, practically a State service.
My Great-Aunt wasn't at the funeral, because she was in the hospital. It was in one of her lucid moments that she realized he'd died, and days later, she followed him.
Her funeral was much smaller. No governors, no senators, no mayors came to pay their respects, which was fine. She had friends, people who truly knew her, and she had us. Her family.
My mother's sister died at forty. She was somewhat estranged, she was a bit removed from us, but I still feel for my mother. There used to be love there, once, and those are the memories my mother holds.
The table is now set for two.