Misery Guts

“Hotdog? What do you say, boy?” asks my father, cruising east down Chestnut in the Fleetwood. “Sure,” I say as he takes a sharp left on Main, circling about East Side Square. We skid to a stop in front of the Opera House and a new poster in the window of a hooded man on a reared-up stallion that reads: 

D. W. Griffith’s: The BIRTH of a NATION—

The supreme picture of all time!

“Two dogs with mustard,” says my father to the vendor.

“One shiny dime, Mr. President!” 

Father and son lean against the back of the Fleetwood and munch on dogs, looking out over Jones Park, where a half dozen boys play ball. Jimmy swings but misses, and I’m relieved to be with my father. Try and slug me now, bastard! A giant white-footed Clydesdale trots by, and I freeze as I spot Clarence dressed like a dog’s dinner. 

Clarence: Holes in the knees, hair a shaggy mess. Clarence waves, and my father says, “You don’t know that boy, do ya, son—Riffraff!” 

I look down at my dog and say nothin’.

“Appease you mother, will ya? Go on and play a round with the boys. But be home for dinner,” and he gets in the Fleetwood and speeds off, leaving me standing on the curb but fifty yards from Jimmy. I wonder if my number is up as the Fleetwood circles around the square and takes a right on Elm, disappearing behind Baldwin Piano. Jimmy, the loose cannon, hollers something in my direction, but I can’t make out words. I wave at Clarence and duck behind a horse’s ass—out of sight of Jimmy, who again strikes out and curses and wails at the poor tree with a profanity and kick a’ dirt. With a ring of the bell, the trolley passes. The Bennet Ice wagon, water drizzling out the back as Clarence darts into the street, a Ford honking and swerving around him, nearly flattening him like a toad. 

Now, everyone thinks Clarence ain’t quite white—a bumpkin, dirty, rural, ignorant, a spawn of incestuous-ness and such and so on. And word has it, his mother is his father’s sister. Anyhow, I wouldn’t doubt it, judging by the ears. 

Hell, on the other hand, Jimmy’s eyes almost touch each other. And though he’s big as a hog, his arms barely hang to his hips. Yeah, Jimmy can sure knock a fella’s lights out, but he’s gotta lean in real close. Jimmy curses and whacks a tree with the bat after missing another ball. 

“Hey, Oscar! Wanna kick bottles?” says Clarence, hole in his toe.

“Sure,” I say, stepping out from behind the horse. 

“Lost a tooth,” he says, “look!” sticking his tongue through the hole as we walk into the alley, bottle clanking across the gravel. “That dang magpie stole my tinfoil ball, again, so I rolled up my sleeves and climbed that old dead hickory in the backyard for her nest. ‘Clarence Junior,’ hollered Ma, ‘get down here ‘fore ya fall on yer head and end up like yer pa!’ ‘What...?’ hollered Pa—” 

Now, with all the hollering, there wasn’t anything unluckier for Clarence than being named after his pa.

“‘Not you, ya dang idiot,’ hollered Ma, ‘your godforsaken son!’” 

Clarence Sr.: Unemployed by trade, side-hustle collecting pots of piss. They sell the piss to Mr. Tucket, who owns a tannery on the edge of town. Every Sunday, he drags Clarence Jr. along, and while the townsfolk are at church, they make their way around town, gathering pots from folks’ front porches. 

Mr. Tucket: A kind old man gives Thomas an extra Indianhead for candy, “Why here ya go, feller,” messing his red hair like a shaggy mutt. 

Mr. Tucket uses the piss to remove the hair and fat from hides before turning them to leather. And for every bucket of piss, Mr. Tucket pays two pennies. According to my calculations, the math goes as such: just enough for pork and beans.

“Anyhow, sure as heck, I lost my footin’ with all that dang hollerin’ and snagged my dang tooth on a dang branch on the way down—knocked the dang wind clean out of me. And Yeller—” 

Yeller: an old sun-bleached lab that spends his days chained to the old dead hickory. 

“Yeller slobbered up my dang face. And Ma—” 

Ma: Raggedy dress and greasy apron, handkerchief on her head, permanent scowl, one dirty-faced twin on each nipple. 

“Ma hollered, ‘What the hell ya doin’ down there in the dirt?’” 

Tongue plunged into the newfound gap in his teeth. 

“‘Did ya lose your dang tooth?’ ‘Yep,’ I tells her. ‘Clarence, yer idiot son lost his dang tooth!’ ‘What?’ Pa hollered.’ 

Pa: Silver beard down to his chest and a sandwich short of a picnic. 

“Pa—” 

Pa: high on a branch in his overalls; shirtless; long hairs coming out of his ears, nose, and armpits; searching for Clarence’s lost tooth. 

“Pa hollered, ‘Yep, sucker sure is lodged in there, root an’ all.’ And Granny—” 

Granny: Short and squat, with her balled-up fists on her wide hips, speaks straight as an arrow. 

“‘I can see yer dick, idiot!’ seeing Pa has that hole in his crotch he refuses to let Ma patch up. And with all the dang hollerin’, the neighbors poked their necks out their winda’s like turkeys!” 

Taking in the top-drawer spectacle, the whole lot, born to purple—the great unwashed—even on the wrong side of the tracks. 

Later: Granny stirs ham and beans on the stove with her knotted up old hands; her tiny, round, wire-rim glasses fogged up; underbite; shriveled lips.

Clarence Sr. sits on the saggy front porch in his best and tucker and, with a whistle, rattles the dags of two ladies strolling by in their best—weeds grown about the lawn. Clarence Sr.: a window peeper. Ms. Phillips once chased him down the road with an ax. He had claimed he was doin’ a good deed fixin’ up her crooked shutter. Clarence Sr.: his words are like a fart in the wind. Hell, he spent two nights in the town jail for public indecency. 

While up in the loft: “I pulled a mummified possum out the trunk an’ was wonderin’ if I can’t pickle ‘er when she goes to dog heaven jus’ when Ma—” 

Chewin’ on a pickle, a filthy-faced twin on each nipple. 

“When Ma hollered, ‘Clarence Jr., get down here ‘fore ya fall on yer head and end up like yer pa!’ ‘What?’ hollered Pa, ‘Not you—you dang idiot!’ she tells ’im.” 

Clarence Junior is my only friend. 

“Wanna Tootsie Roll?” he says. “Stuck my hand right in the jar when Mr. Gustine wasn’t lookin’.”

“Thanks,” I say, and chewing away, “I got to shoot a gun today! Out at the dump with the mayor,” my finger in my ear, trying to wiggle out the last of the cotton.

“Ahh—I love the dump!” says Clarence, green with envy, as I suddenly see you walk by on Main.

“I gotta go,” I say, runnin’ off, makin’ the excuse, “my father will have my hide if I ain’t home for supper!”

“Hey, where ya goin’? I wanna shoot a gun!” And kicking a bottle, “Ah, come on!” 

But I ignore Clarence and chase you down.

Jimmy shouts a profanity, but you ignore his heckling and head south down Main. My heart drags me by the toe. Passing the bank, it doesn’t take long for you to take privy and look back over your shoulder. I stop cold in my tracks and kick a pebble. And with a ring of the bell, the trolley rolls on, but you continue on foot. Well-off the square, you stop at the corner of Maple and turn squarely around to face me. I panic and step behind a large oak on Ms. Clancy’s front lawn, back to the bark. Now, everyone knows not to step foot in Ms. Clancy’s yard. “The Hound,” they call her, as she has a hawk-eye for wayward kids. 

“I can see you,” you say. 

I take a hard swallow. 

“I know you’re following me,” you say. 

And in no time, Ms. Clancy lives up to her name, rushing off the porch—hammer and trogs—the best her old arthritic knees can wobble, broom in hand, “Get off my lawn, you little scoundrel!” Poodle cowering behind.

Wanting nothing more than to run up the tree like a squirrel, I swallow a toad, drop my head, and walk out from behind the tree—tail between my legs. 

“Don’t mind her—she’s just a lonely old lady,” you say.

I turn back to see Ms. Clancy grumbling as she struggles her way back up her steps with great difficulty, asking the poodle just what kind of dog he thinks he is. 

“I ain’t followin’ you,” I say, “I was goin’ this way anyhow.”

“Well, ‘spose if you are going this way anyhow—how about walkin’ me home? What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” you ask.

I say nothin’, as the cat has, indeed, got my tongue, but looking into your eyes, they suck me right in like a whirlpool, fearing I might drown in the oblivion. “Sure,” I manage to say.

“I see you found your trousers,” you say and blush, thinking about that day in the field.

At Rail Road Street, I pause—I’ve never crossed Rail Road Street in my life—the boundary that separates us & them, my father says—he’ll have my hide, I worry. You look up at me, wondering why I’ve paused mid-stride, and I make a sheep’s eye back at you. And suddenly, possessing more courage than I knew I had, I put one boot before the other, taking that first step across the threshold, Rail Road Street, the tracks, and a block on, we cross Oak. Hustling after you—hurried in your huaraches, hell, we skip across Hickory[CMP1] . But I soon tense as I can’t help but notice the houses growing smaller and duller each block further south—from two stories to one, from five, six, seven rooms to three, four, two, crooked, dilapidated one-room shacks, about heaps of trash, stray cats licking tuna cans. 

“Come on,” you say, taking a left on Cherry Lane.

On Cherry, we cross First Avenue, Second Avenue, and Third until we approach the last house on the left, just before the train yard, on the corner of Cherry and Fourth. I can see P&O down the way and a pair of twenty-foot-long skid marks making their way through the T-intersection, and I think of the robbery. We stand before your humble home. The front door—with but one jarred[CMP2]  window on either side—situating itself, the two-room shanty making a sad face, and I, back toward it. Walking up the dirt path, past a dead, leafless tree, you turn back to thank me. For what? I wonder, havin’ sewed my wild oats. Blushed, I scurry off but suddenly feel overwhelmed with a sense of where the hell am I? And the mangy felines now appear larger, eyes greener and meaner. The scent of trash is suddenly so pungent; hell, I’ll never eat tuna again! Anxiously, I count the number of rooms as they grow in number but don’t take my first fresh breath until I cross the tracks before my father, indeed, has my hide. 

A dinner plate waits, heaped with turkey breast, mashed potatoes, and corn, smothered in gravy, my favorite but unquestionably cold. Nonetheless, my stomach rumbles as I spy far enough into the kitchen to see that my mother has forgotten the green beans again. But with the crinkle of a newspaper, I lose my appetite, as I can tell by the glare over the top of his wire-rim glasses as he uncrosses his legs and stands and walks past me with an empty tumbler in hand, his mood has shifted. His silence turns my bowels. Ice clinks into the crystal, shattering the stiff silence. Where is my mother? I wonder as I run upstairs while I can. Walking to the window, I look out above the maples and oaks for the low part of town. “Josephina, can you hear me? Josephina, are you there?” And I hear the back door slap, and my mother’s soothing voice says something about flowers, and my father hollers, “Oscar, get down here!”

Saturday morning: My mother removes a modern beige Chanel drop-waist dress she’d purchased from Mrs. Willard Milleny’s Dress Shop and hollers at me as she stands in her knickers, diggin’ through a drawer for a proper day-chemise. She calls on me to help her lace her digestive organs into a suffocating s-curve corset. She puts on an outdated afternoon dress—taking the gilt off the gingerbread, so to speak. And the simple pastel affair rightly suits the Women’s Club Meeting that gathers every Saturday morning for tea and liberal discussion. The Woman’s Club: An association of like-minded neighbors, white, Protestant women of comfortable means, with husbands in positions of local prominence, intending to push referendum, initiate scholarships for girls, improve street lighting, protect the environment, and hold free milk clinics for impoverished mothers—but seems to me, nothing more than a book club, where they sit around and gossip over tea.

“I left you ten cents on the table,” she says; Charley Dickens held snug against her compressed breast—apparently opting out of the act of breath, as the rest of mere mortals are so inclined. 

I peddle for the square on my gent cycle, and, low and behold, I spot you exiting the flower shop. I’m thrilled as I catch your eye just as I crash into a Ford parked in front of Gambles, flying over the hood. I come out of a daze to see the car’s owner staring down at me with wide, concerned eyes, and immediately I check my front teeth with my tongue—thank God they are all there.

“You alive there, son?” says the driver of the Ford, hands on his hips, leaning slightly toward me as though inspecting a toad squashed in the road. And the dangdest thought pops into my mind: A flattened squirrel I once saw, flat as a sheet of Bible paper, puffy tail, fluttering in the breeze—darndest thing I ever saw. 

You run over, and I scurry back into my right mind and scamper to my feet as you ask, “Oh my, Oscar, are you hurt?” 

Embarrassed, I dust off my knickers, saying, “Nope, I’m okay!” as though nothing happened, as though it was a stunt—look. I’m in one piece, two teeth, I show with a dance about, shine in my tooth—two teeth—in your direction. Not recognizing my own self, I think of poor Clarence—riffraff as I try to shake off my father’s voice. “Wanna get a pop?” I ask. “My mother gave me a nickel.”

“Yes,” you say. Oh, your heavenly eyes, you think.

Oh, your heavenly smile, I think. The owner of the Ford crinkles his forehead, paper under arm in disbelief, as he retreats a step backward from his curious inspection, hand to his brow, blocking the midday sun—thought on his mind, quite the peculiar edit to his otherwise typical Saturday. 

“Wanna get a pop?” I ask again, looking around for my nickel.

The soda jerk slides two Cherry Smashers with long-handled spoons down the counter. Drooling over endless candy jars in every shape, color, and flavor imaginable, I say, “Ever had a Bosco Bar?”

“Nope,” you say with a shrug and a slouch.

“Licorice Twists?”

“Yep.”

“Mothballs?”

“Guácala!” You crunch your face in disgust.

“Candy Cigarettes?”

“Nope.”

“Sea Foam?”

“Yuck!”

“Boston Baked Beans?”

You snarl your nose.

“Cherry Bombs?”

“Nope.”

“Turkish Taffy?”

“Yep.”

“Hot Bullets?”

“Nope.”

“Contraband?”

“What’s that?”

“Flicks?”

“Yep.”

“Wax Lips?”

“Nope.”

“Why do you know so much about candy?” you ask.

“I don’t know,” I say, “I suppose because my father used to bring me here before the—”

“Before what?”

“Nothing,” I say, thinking of the robbery.

Dillydallying about Jones Park, my fingers crossed we don’t run into Jimmy as two wayward townies walk our way. Bills curled up, ball tossed back and forth, one with big ears, dirt around his mouth, as noisy as a cookstove falling down a flight of stairs. Overalls, straps held up with stubby thumbs. He shows off his collection of cuss words, “Flapdoodle, gibface, arfarfan’arf, zounderkite, hedge-creeper, mutton[CMP3]  shunter, wagtail,” and so on and so forth, tongue drug in the dirt. “Move it, spic lover,” he pauses to add, and you grab me by the hand.

Walking down Chestnut, we pass a funeral home housed in a large Victorian mansion. “Built by a friend of Abraham Lincoln’s,” so said my father. I look up at a second-story window cloaked in a white lace curtain, and I point up, saying, “I once saw an old lady looking out at me. I think she was a ghost.”

“S’not true,” you say.

“I swear, it is!”

“Were you scared?” You ask with doe eyes—oh, your eyes!

“Not really,” I say.

“Wanna see something?” I ask.

“Sure,” you say, shrugging, your lime green dress falling off one shoulder, oh your flesh like soft clay. I try not to stare.

Amidst the gently bowing branches of Greenwood Cemetery, rows of freshly chiseled monuments stand amongst century-old tombstones. Crumbling and decaying with time, smoothed over by the wind and rain, marble angels left behind by souls who have passed on—returned to the earth’s embrace—praying solemnly. As engraved in stone, final thoughts and words and epitaphs read:

A good life hath but few days,

But a good name endureth forever—

A fine and faithful wife.

And:

A kind friend to all—

Bury him deep on the meadow,

Drop on his grave a tear,

And sigh as you read the inscription,

A soldier and a friend is buried here.

I stop and drop to my knees just past the Civil War plot and clear the overgrown grass from a small, flat marble slab. You kneel beside me as I run my fingers over the inscription and say, “Look!”

Limb of unknown child

You stand and stroll on without a word. I wipe the dirt from my palms on my trousers and we come upon a tomb—copper as green as moss—and you stand before it.

An Angel Visited the Green Earth and Took a Flower Away—

MOTHER

Your eyes become sad, and you say, “I don’t like it here.”

“I don’t either,” I agree, and grab you by the hand.

In the woods, about the valley bottom, enormous branches jutting, outstretching like the arms of a goliath, our eyes widen beneath the colossal oak. I hold out my arms and circle around its broad trunk, feeling the rough bark beneath my palms, exclaiming it to be the oldest tree in the woods.

“How do you know?” you ask.

“Because—it’s the biggest tree in the woods,” I say, as a breeze softly caresses its leave, as I peek at you from around the backside of the tree.

“I’ve seen bigger,” you say.

Dangling our bare feet above the muddy waters of the meandering creek, we toss little pebbles and watch shadowed minnow dart. I try to grasp your muddied toes with my own, and you giggle, toes curled, bright red wax lips in your mouth.

“What do you wanna be when you grow up?” I ask.

You spit out the lips into your hand, “I don’t know—no one ever asked me that before.”

“Why do I never see you at school?” I ask.

“When we first moved here from Mexico, Papá took me to school, but the teacher said the best thing I can do to be a good American is be a good homemaker,” you say, and I think of my mother, and how she used to work in a law firm back in Chicago, and how she burns eggs like a good American. A Brown Thrasher flies up and lands in the shrubbery across the creek—singing out the most exuberant song. You whistle back, doing your darndest to mimic its tune. Miraculously, it responds before fluttering away.

“Wow,” I say, sitting forward, “where’d ya learn to whistle like that?”

You smirk and shrug your shoulders, kicking your huaraches together in nervous excitement. I reach in my pocket and pull out a pack of Wrigley’s Double Mint gum.

“Want a piece?”

You take a stick from my hand, unwrap it, and fold it in on your glistening tongue, and away we chew, smacking our chops.

With a sudden thrash through the ivy, I leap off the ravine and splash like a cannonball into the creek below. A fish jumps, you scream out, and I laugh hysterically, and you scold me. But I can hardly catch my breath, and I love you, and I splash you and wet your lime green dress.

“Guácala,” you shout. 

“Don’t be a cry baby,” I say, and you cross your arms, scowling, eyebrows in that way—meeting in the middle. I use the outside of my forefinger to wipe mud from your cheek—flesh, so soft! You look back at me. As I cast into your gaze, I read somewhere in Grandpa’s books—ain’t nothin’ less a love’s young dream.

SMACK—I’m hit with a stank wad of black mud in the face, and you giggle. And I splash you again and, again, you scream. And, again, I laugh hysterically as the sun pierces the branches above in brilliant shafts, sparkling off the ripples in your eye. Love birds, a monarch butterfly fluttering about as a bloated dead body floats past me in the slow, muddy current. My eyes widen, and I scurry from the water, scrambling up the muddy embankment. But I slip on the clay, and I slide back down into the dark waters and sink beside the bloated mass as you jump to your feet—chest heaving, gasping for air. We scream, and the birds flee from their perch.

I climb onto the beaver dam with a stick to where the body has jarred into a log. I take a few careful steps toward it and reach out the nimble branch. You can’t believe your eyes, and you call out my name. I feel brave. You hold your hands over your mouth, and I stretch out my arm. Pushing down on its shoulder, it bobs, and I push with more force until the swollen purple mass spins around—dark, empty sockets staring up at the sky. A chill runs down my spine as a sudden wild wind scatters the branches above as your own eyes bulge and go vacant. Your lip quivers and face pales, you feel you might faint as your arms drop haplessly to your sides, and you stand as frozen as marble, jaw gaping wide as I beg to keep my balance.

But suddenly, you break free of your freeze and bolt off—your rebozo caught by the thorns, and again I splash.

“Josephina,” I shout out, “wait!” as a cry carries on over the hills. You vanish from sight into the brush, leaving me all alone with the waterlogged corpse streaked in red, a rotten bullet hole just between its eyes—looking shocked and shaken to be dead, just as I do, to be alive.

The floorboards squeak, and I freeze as a gust blows open the door behind me. And I take one slow step back. Damn, it didn’t latch. “Where have you been?” he asks, and I jump in my shoes as he appears out of nowhere, tumbler in hand.

“For a walk,” I say.

“In the rain...?” he asks.

My mother from the kitchen, “Oh my, you’re soaking wet. Go get yourself dried off—typhoid is going around! And put on your best—the mayor is coming over for dinner!” 

I run upstairs as “Damn boy is up to no good” follows me, rumbling through the floorboards.

CRACK, RUMBBBLE—it thunders as I peer out the window, clenching onto the seal with my cold, stiff hands. Leaves free from the maple. Blots of rain trickle and bleed. I think of your tears behind the glass. “Josephina, can ya hear me? Josephina, are you there?”

A sudden rap at the door.

“Mayor—”

“Mr. President—”

“Come in, come in out of that weather!”

Footsteps and creaks.

“There’s my favorite gal! Roxy, how you doin’, sweetheart?”

“Mabel, can I take your coat?”

“This weather is atrocious!”

“Oh, it smells wonderful.”

“Roxy made her famous pork chops. They’re delicious if you don’t mind a bit of char!”

Clomping heels on hardwood floors.

“Can I get you a Mint Jubilee, Mabel?”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“Mr. President—brought you a little something!”

“Single malt, Mayor, you shouldn’t have! I’ll crack ‘er open—”

“Darling, you are looking as gorgeous as ever! Now, let me give ya a smooch!!”

“Oh, Mayor—”

“Oscar, get down here!” Yells my father.

“Deviled eggs, my favorite!”

“I know they are, Mayor!”

“Roxy, you little devil you. You shouldn’t have.”

“Oscar, NOW!” Yells my father.

My cold, stiff hands hold on tight.

“On the rocks?”

“Straight up!”

“Little early, isn’t it, Frank...?”

“It’s five o’clock somewhere—oh, how do you like it? It’s 5:15, right on time!”

“A Hot Point Automatic...? Oh, how do you like it, Roxy?”

“She’s still trying to get the hang of it, isn’t that right, honey?”

“Well, I—”

“OSCAR!!” Yells my father.

Clink-clink. Clink—clink.

“Here’s to the next crook who thinks twice about locking you up in a vault!”

“Cheers to that!”

“I keep asking Frank for a new stove, but he’s as tight as a drum—”

“Is that right, Mayor...?”

“Well—”

“Roxy, will you get that godforsaken boy down here...?”

            “Josephina, can you hear me? Josephina, are you there?”

I toss a bottle at the wall, but it bounces off and clanks across the ground.

“Yeller’s dead,” says Clarence.

“What happened?” I ask.

Chomping on a Tootsie Roll, Clarence tells the story.

“Well, I was sittin’ out back, lookin’ up at the branch with my tooth stuck in it when Ma hollered. And the second I jumped to my dang feet, that ol’ dead hickory for no dang reason, tumbled right over—almost flattenin’ me like a toad—broke Yeller’s chain and all. And he howled to high heaven and ran for the hills. But soon as Yeller hit the road, a Ford done plowed him over just like that—flattened ‘im like a toad.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, somewhat confused on the receiving end of yet another of Clarence’s odd tales, wonderin’ if it’s a flat out lie.

“First and final run for the ol’ mutt.”

Such is a dog’s life, anyhow.

“But hell—gotta see the bright side, ‘least he died free! And anyhow, Pa buried Yeller under the porch ‘fore I could get ‘im up in the loft an’ into the trunk, and hell he had that hickory chopped up to bits by noon. Gustine gave ‘im some medicine while back, says it’ll help ‘im in his devilish ways. Some cocaine, er a ‘nother.” Clarence throws a bottle, shattering it against a brick wall, and pulls a Hershey bar from his back pocket.

“Wow, Hershey’s—where did ya get that?” I ask.

“I snagged it when Gustine wasn’t lookin’,” he says. “Pa sent me up to get ‘im ‘nother bottle. I took a nip, not too bad, wanna try sum?”

“No thanks. Hey, why are you always stealin’?” I ask.

“Jus’ like stealin’, I guess.” SHATTER “Guess what, my jar of dead flies is almost full!”

“Yuck,” I say as he takes a nip.

“Thought to collect ham bones next, but Granny smacked my wrist with her dang wooden spoon. Four days for that dang welt to go away—she’s got one hell of grip with that ol’ spoon, I tell ya!”

“My mother is baking an apple pie today,” I say.

“Granny’s cookin’ ham and beans, again,” says Clarence.

I throw a bottle, but it bounces off the wall as he pokes around in a trash bin.

“What are ya lookin’ for?” I ask.

“Nothin’, jus’ like diggin’ through trash, I guess,” he says, and I cringe as he buries his arm deep. “Damn, ain’t nothin’ worthwhile in this one,” he says and shrugs off the stench. “You should come an’ sit in that ol’ hickory hole with me!”

“I can’t—I gotta get home for supper,” I say.

“Apple pie sure sounds mighty fine!” he says, finger in his nose, and he rolls a booger and holds it up to the light. “A booger—ain’t it a thing...? Hell, maybe I’ll start a booger collection. Fill up a whole pickle jar in no time!” He sneezes. “Weeds are a’ bloomin’,” he says, hackin’ and spittin’ and snortin’ a big snort. He sticks his finger back in his nose to scrape the inside of his nostril with his nail again—knuckle high, and I watch in amazement. “Caught me a trophy,” he says, a genuine smile spread across his face. Tooth shining bright.

“I found a dead body,” I say.

“What? No, how—where?”

“Down in the creek—had a bullet between the eyes.” And with a flash, I spot you brisk by in your lime dress. “I gotta go!” I say and sprint down the alleyway after you.

“I wanna see a dead body!” he hollers. “Hey, why you always chasin’ that girl?”

You turn back slowly, and I notice your solemn face.

“Hello, Oscar,” you say.

“Wanna get a pop?” I ask.

“I’m not thirsty,” you say.

“Wanna—take a walk...?”

“Sure, I guess,” you shrug, but not in that usual way, and your dress stays in place.

I kick a pebble that bounces over three good sleepers as the backs of our hands touch in the train yard. “That’s where Papá works,” you say, “Arturo too,” nodding toward P&O as we pass by, but I am not surprised.

“Josephina, I’m sorry,” I say.

“Why are you sorry?” you ask.

“About the dead body,” I say.

“Oh,” you say. “I can’t sleep. I kept seeing his face looking in through my window. His voice calls out from the dead, saying, ‘Josephina, can you hear me? Josephina, are you there?’ Oh, it is terrifying, Oscar,” you say as you wrap your arms around me, crying into the nook of my shoulder. You look up at me, and I, down at you. Your eyes are soft now but welled with tears. “I saw a dead body before,” you say as you grab me by both hands. “When I was a baby, we lived with mi abuelo in Mexico—my grandfather. He was a judge. One Christmas Eve, there was a knock at the door. When my grandfather answered, a man stabbed my grandfather to death. After that, it wasn’t safe for us no more, so we left in the middle of the night. We traveled by foot to El Paso—it took many, many days. In Texas, we stayed in a migrant camp. Papá worked in the mines, and Mamá watched over Arturo and me during the day. But sometimes, people came to the camp to scare us, and we would run off into the desert and hide from them until they left. When we’d come back to the camp, everything would be broken, and we’d have to make new our tents. And when they burned them, we slept under the stars. The stars in the desert are beautiful, but they came back one morning. And this time, they did more—they did bad, bad things. They started shooting people. There were so many screams and the banging of guns. Papá tried to get us out of the camp, out into the desert where it was safe, where we could hide in an arroyo like before. Mamá ran, holding me in her arms, but then there was a loud bang, and she tripped and fell on top of me. Papá pulled me out from under her and covered my face in Mamá’s rebozo, and I heard her tell Papá to go, to run, and when he took the rebozo off my face, I didn’t see Mamá anywhere. I cried for her, but we had lost her. Later we went back to look for her. And there she was, lying on the ground where she had fallen. The buzzards had pulled her guts out. And her eyes, her eyes, they were empty. Papá and Arturo buried her under some stones, and sometimes I dream of her alone out in the desert.”

You tremble all over as I do in my jaw. You look deep into my eyes; yours, bloodshot, with tears streaming down your face. I try to wipe them on my sleeve, but you rise up on your toes, and I lean toward you, and slowly, our lips touch. And after a long moment, of your heart beating into mine, you pull away. I say, “I am so sorry,” but the cat has got my tongue, no, the cat has shredded my tongue to pieces, and I say no more. I drop my jaw and shake my head foolishly back and forth, and you hug me tight. And I say, “I have your cloth,” and you pull away, and your eyes light up and you seem suddenly so weightless.

“Mamá’s rebozo?” you ask with more hope than I’ve ever seen in my twelve long years.

“Yes, I guess, so,” I say, “it was in the stickers—it’s at my house. Do you wanna come with me to get it?”

“Yes,” you say with a wide smile, tongue caught between your teeth. True and honest joy in your eyes. And I feel for the first time that you’ll love me forever. That I have somehow given your mother back to you. No, more than that: I have replaced her eyes, stuffed her guts back into herself, and risen her to her feet, where she holds you tightly in her arms, singing in your ear as you pick wildflowers under the brilliant blue desert sky.

I pull a pack of Victoria’s out of my back pocket, “Want a candy cigarette?” I ask.

“Sure,” you say, so fully lightened up, I feel you could find your own way through the darkest night. And stepping from sleeper to sleeper, fingers interlocked, we puff on powdered sugar and make our way for the high part of town.

Ms. Clancy’s poodle is on the porch peering timidly, but The Hound is nowhere to be seen. We take a left at my father’s bank and walk west down Elm passing Edison Phonograph and Baldwin Pianos. “Move it,” grunts a man shuffling under the weight of a Mason & Hamlin. 

By the tightening of your grip, I can tell that you never ventured far beyond the post office. Your pace slows as we cross Ave A. West Elm is lined with sidewalks on both sides of the street, and I grin, feeling foolishly proud. You look up at the third-story attics and the windows of third-story bedrooms of homes fenced with freshly painted pickets—pearly white, of course. At Ave B, we dip down into a narrow valley, where the houses have classic Greek columns, tall chimneys, and ancient shade trees towering out front. I kick a chestnut, and it hobbles over the fine brickwork. And over the top of a gentle rolling hill, we stroll across Ave C. With each step, I feel pleased as your eyes see green and widen in awe as we’ve made our way to the land of milk and honey. Down into a more expansive valley, we approach an estate with sprawling acreage of clover behind wrought iron gates of ivy. Set well back, the four-story Prairie School chateau has two prominent gables and a steep terracotta roof. Its face: a geometric grid of large timbers. Confounding, I can tell. A carriage house and gazebo sit by a small twisting stream. And a bronze plaque on the perimeter wall of river stones reads: 

RED CREST

“Oh my, I’ve never seen such a house,” you say in bewilderment. “I wonder who lives there—”

“Ulysses Orendorff,” I say.

“Papá’s boss...?” you ask in surprise, brow crinkling in that way, rising like the wings of a crow caught in a sudden, disturbing gust.

“I guess so,” I say, stopping in front of 315 West Elm—my home.

“You’re—Mr. Orendorff’s neighbor?” you ask, head shifting back on your shoulders—in that way it does.

“I guess so,” I say with a shrug all my own.

You gawk at the veranda of my large, picturesque home, crisp white, behind a broad Sugar Maple. Dutch-gabled, my house has three red-brick chimneys. But your eye, naturally, shoots up the front-facing Queen Anne tower, topped with a cupola—finished with slate, fish-scaled shingles, and copper weathervane. “Wanna come in?” I ask, eager to show off our silver spoons. 

“No, I’ll wait here,” you say, stepping back from the looming edifice as your tone suddenly dampens with sour grapes. You are feeling quite noticeably uneasy. 

“Oh, okay,” I say, a bit disappointed. “I’ll be back at the drop of a hat!”  

Your mouth gapes at the extravagance before you as I walk up the pathway lined with roses for our front door—freshly painted brilliant red. The overdoor gilded in gold lettering reads: 

Hawthorne

(A name entirely unfamiliar to me.)

I quickly return with the rebozo in hand, but my father hollers from the porch behind me—and I freeze at his tone, “I need a word with you!” he demands.

I slowly turn back to see that look on his face, and my stomach drops, “But—” I utter. 

“Now!” 

“I’m sorry, one second,” I say as you cover your head with your rebozo.

“So,” he says, as I enter his study, “I see why we’ve been waiting dinner on you.” 

“Um—” 

“Now, think twice before you lie to me, son. You tell me, what are you, dead from the neck up?”

“She’s just my friend,” I say.

“Your friend? And where does your friend come from?”

“Cherry Street,” I say, clenching one hand tightly in the other. “Can I go now?”

“Did I excuse you?” he says, taking another sip from his tumbler.

“No, sir,” I say.

“Cherry Street.” He says, lips wet with whiskey, “Hmm. Now, you know you’re not supposed to be in the low part of town. Nothing good comes from that side of the tracks, only riffraff. You know that! I’ve told you a million times, son!”

“But—”

“Not to mention south of the border—” 

Walking into the study quite confused, my mother says, “What’s goin’ on?” 

“What’s going on, Roxy—your son has been playing merry hell in the low part of town with none other than a goddamn spic,” he says with a whip of a tongue, losing his composure in my mother’s presence.

“Spic...?” she says, puzzled.

“Take a look—the filthy girl standing in front of our godforsaken house, wearing nothing but sackcloth and ashes, frightening the godforsaken neighbors!”  

I worry you can hear him shouting as my mother opens the front door. She hollers back, doesn’t see anyone, only Miss Smith walking her dog, and that Miss Smith doesn’t seem frightened at all, and I run to see for myself—and my mother is right. You are gone. And Miss Smith is, indeed, walking her dog, not frightened at all. 

“You are not to see her again! You hear me, boy?” says my father. 

“But why...?” I ask, voice cracking.

“Now, if you know what’s best, you’ll zip those lips shut before—” 

“Before what?” Exclaims my mother, as any following words jam up in her throat—lips fluttering uselessly. Nonetheless, she searches for reason and meaning behind such sudden madness. I feel my soul slipping from my body and wait no longer, running past her up the stairs. “Oscar!” she shouts. And toward my father, she scolds, “What is wrong with you?” 

“Josephina, can you hear me?” I ask, but I catch myself as I do not want to frighten you again. So silently, amongst muffled shouts, I look out over the sugar maple for the low part of town, out of sight, exactly where you are supposed to be.

“You need to get that boy off your knee,” words that carry up through the floorboards, slide in under my door, and the clink-clink of ice cubes against glass, crackling as he refills his scotch.

Single malt: A gift from the mayor.

Copyright © Cory Zimmerman, USA. All rights reserved.