Off the Rack
Indie Short Stories from an Indie Bookstore
by
Helen K. Bailey, Teresa Jones, Brigette Kinney, P. V. LeForge, Jesse Murphree Kemper, Nancy H. Rainey, Len Schweitzer, Shannon Taylor, Stephanie Tillman, Sara Warner
Copyright
2012 P. V. LeForge
Published by Black Bay Books at
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Table of Contents
Introduction,
by P. V. LeForge
The
Student, by Teresa Jones
Drown,
by Jesse Murphree Kemper
The
Carnival, by Nancy H. Rainey
Time
Will Tell, by Stephanie Tillman
Big
Daughter, by Sara Warner
Wexford
Strawberries, by Brigette Kinney
Invincible,
by Helen K. Bailey
Nice
and Easy, by Len Schweitzer
Titillate,
by Shannon Taylor
The
Last Things We Do, by P. V. LeForge
About
the Authors
This book is dedicated to the dozens and dozens of clerks and shelvers and ledger-keepers that made The Paperback Rack such an institution in Tallahassee for over 30 years, And also to the thousands and thousands of book-loving customers who kept it afloat, a dollar or two at a time. May there be many more like you.
P. V. LeForge
In March of 1984, Len Schweitzer and I opened the doors of The Paperback Rack Bookstore in Tallahassee, Florida. The stock consisted primarily of books we had taken from the shelves in our own homes, augmented by trips to thrift stores. There were maybe 1,800 books in the store on that first day. I happened upon the name Paperback Rack in Larry McMurtry’s novel All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, a novel both Len and I enjoyed. Coincidently, McMurtry himself also owned a used bookstore, although it wasn’t called The Paperback Rack.
It’s not hard to realize that one opens a bookstore—a good bookstore anyway—because of a love of books. But for me, it was more than that. I had found that, as a writer, I needed to surround myself with books. Immersing myself in literature was like relaxing in the waters of a hot spring. Around literature, I was able to write, without it I stagnated.
I was not the only one who felt this way. I’m sure Len felt it, as did many of the employees that came and went over the next twenty years. For many of us, being a part of a vibrant bookstore contributed to our creative energy. This collection, which I have wanted to produce for over a decade, is proof that this energy found form.
Over the years, The Paperback came to be considered one of the very best independent bookstores in the Southeast—a bookstore that survived a recession and the invasion of the megastores. It is only fitting, then that this book is an indie book as well.
As advertised, all the stories here were written by people who spent quality time working at The Paperback Rack. Several were English majors, who considered writing their primary interest. Others are publishing their first stories in this volume. We all have other professions now: security, social work, education, librarianship. I live on a horse farm. But wherever we are, books and literature continue to be important in our lives.
An electronic book, unlike a paper publication, is a living, growing, and changing thing. Typos can be corrected, bad words can be exchanged for good ones, stories can be added or deleted. Readers are encouraged to be proofreaders and copyeditors; if you see an error, let me know and I will fix it. By the same token, there were far more Paperback Rack workers than are represented here. Some simply had no stories to contribute, others have dropped out of sight. If any of them see this collection and want to submit in the future, they will be welcome to do so.
Teresa Jones
It was a Colt Python .357 Magnum. Nickel-plated, heavy, cold in my hands on that hot day. It was the only gun I’ve ever shot and when I did I aimed it up into the air at an angle, not at anything. It kicked so hard when I squeezed the trigger that I had to take a step backward. I was wearing sandals and I almost twisted my ankle in the sand. The blast was crazy-loud. The bullet flew over the trees.
Tony and I were alone in the clearing. It was after school. I didn’t have to work that day. Cicadas droned all around us, but after the shot and the echo there was dead silence. It was weird. I was afraid it might stay that way forever. I felt like I’d just done something I wasn’t meant to do, and it seemed possible that everything was changed because of it. Then the cicadas started again, and the world returned to normal, except my ears rang for half an hour.
Tony was pleased, I could tell. He gets a peaceful look when he’s happy about something. He grins a bit and his eyes sort of glaze over and it’s like he’s gone, he’s someplace else, left his head. At any other time you have his full attention. He’s so intense it’s scary, especially when he’s mad. Then he’s extra-focused. He looks at you like you’re the only person in the world besides him, and you feel that way, too. Like if you ran it wouldn’t matter because he’d just go after you and find you. He’d track you down. There’d be no place to hide. So you might as well just stay and take it, whatever it’s going to be.
Tony’s my brother, but I’m afraid of him, even now. My mom says he’s like his dad was, that there’s nothing we can do about it except pray. He hit me in the face once when we were kids and made my nose bleed. I don’t even remember why he did it. He never did say he was sorry.
Tony was nuts over guns. He’d had them for as long as I could remember. He loved to show them off. He was always excited to get a new one, but the Python was extra-special. He couldn’t wait to take me out to shoot it. He acted like it was some kind of present he was giving me. He said most girls don’t get a chance to even hold a gun like that. Like it was a secret rule--guys only. You can look, but you can’t touch. I never wanted to touch a gun anyway. I only went with him to shoot it that day because I was afraid not to. I didn’t want to make Tony mad. After I shot it he polished it and wrapped it in a purple cloth and put it back under the driver’s seat in his car.
Tony was in love with that gun, but I hated it. And I hate it now, wherever it is. I hate that Tony let Lima use it, and I hate that DD’s dead because of it. But things are what they are, right?
That's what people say.
DD thought that because I was a virgin, if he slept with me he could get away with anything, no one would touch him. He thought that being with me would make him safe. He was so freaked out after his brother died, he had lots of crazy ideas. He thought the government was listening to him pee! When we first went out he talked about how much he loved Gary, and how much he missed him, and how it was killing their mom that the cops hadn’t found who did it. He said the cops weren’t even trying, that they didn’t give a shit about Gary because he was dealing.
DD was convinced that he would be next, that someone was going to kill him, too, but I don’t know why. He was completely straight as far as I knew, had never been arrested for anything. He didn’t do drugs and he didn’t sell them. When we first started talking he came on tough like all guys do. But he joked around, too. Flirted with me some, told me I was beautiful. He thought I was smart. He told me so, I guess because usually I was doing homework whenever he came over to get Tony.
Once he brought me a box of four chocolate truffles. I’d never had truffles before. The box was gold, tied with a skinny gold ribbon. DD set it down on the notebook where I was working some math problems. I looked up at him and he smiled. Tony saw us then and said, “Hey, man, don’t get any ideas about my sister.” DD told him, “It’s just candy. Don’t sweat it.” Then Tony gave me that look, like it was my fault. So I didn’t even eat a truffle then. I waited till after he and DD were gone. It was the best thing I ever tasted.
We started sneaking around. When DD took me out we went to a cafe across town on Murat Street. It's something else now, but back then you could sit at a table for two in the courtyard there. The patio was shaded by huge oaks and edged with terra-cotta pots of geraniums. There was a stone waterfall sculpture, and music playing. I felt like I was in a movie when DD took me there.
We went to the cafe six times before DD told me his idea about my virginity. I got really upset. I almost started crying right at the table. My throat was like, locked. I couldn’t even finish my sundae and it melted into pink and white glop. I was stupid, I guess. Up until then it was like a kind of game. I was doing it because I wanted to, and hiding it from Tony added a thrill. DD was nine years older than me, though. I was thinking of him like another brother, one who was nice to me, one I didn’t have to be afraid of, or maybe just a friend. I thought Tony was wrong about the truffles. But DD asked me straight out, and I said, “No, I’ve never been with anyone,” and then he smiled. When I didn’t smile back, when I didn’t even want to look at him, he sat back in his chair and rubbed underneath his chin with his thumb, watching me. He said, “Come on, Marie, don’t cry,” and he sounded like he cared, but I was so confused. He leaned forward then and reached across the table. He put his hand on mine. He said, “You’re the only pure thing in my world.” I pulled my hand away and asked him to just take me home.
I wouldn’t talk to DD for a few weeks after that, but then I started missing him. I missed going to the cafe. And I started thinking, Why not sleep with him? I didn’t care too much about staying a virgin until I got married, even though I was supposed to. All of my girlfriends, every one of them, had already done it. My girlfriend Anjee was already pregnant, and I wasn’t interested in any of the boys at school. DD was a man, and I had never in my life met anybody who treated me like he did. Plus, we had something in common. We were both afraid. So I thought if I could help him, that would be a good thing to do.
I knew DD wasn’t in love with me. He never said that he was. And I wasn't in love with him. I was just a kid. Still in high school. It was more like, if I slept with him, because I was a virgin, he’d be protected by magic or something. He must have been out of his mind.
Lima was really nice to me, too, but it was different with him. First of all, he wasn’t good-looking like DD was. DD had black hair and dark blue eyes. That's my type. Plus, he worked out. He really took care of his body, and he spent good money on his clothes. He was sort of in love with himself, everybody said it, but that was okay with me. Lima was sloppy, and most of the time he didn’t smell very clean. He needed to lose weight, too. I think he drank a lot of beer. But still, he was nice. Sometimes he brought me presents when he made deliveries to the flower shop where I worked. Once he brought me a clear plastic tube filled with star-shaped glitter in some kind of liquid. I don't know what happened to it. I remember thinking they were so pretty, the floating stars.
Lima’s name got mispronounced a lot. His mom named him after where she was born. People would read his name tag and call him lima, like the bean, and ask him if it was a joke. Lima hated it when that happened. He said people are just stupid, but he said that didn’t mean me. He called me Rose Marie, which is not my name. He said I was the most beautiful flower in the shop.
The last time I saw DD was three days before he died. I went to visit him in the hospital. The nurse wasn’t going to let me see him, but then I told her who I was. “I’m his girlfriend,” I said, and she looked at me. I looked right back until finally she said all right. She told me I couldn’t stay long, though, because he was heavily medicated and he shouldn’t be stressed, and anyway he might not know me.
I didn't know what to think when I walked into the room. He was strapped face down on a metal frame like a cot, instead of laying on a regular bed. I found out later they had to do that because Lima shot him in the back when he ran.
The man in the other bed was asleep, so I tried to be quiet. I stood next to DD and whispered his name a few times, but he didn’t move or answer. I thought he was probably sleeping, too.
I stared down at the back of DD’s head, at the swirls of his dark hair. I laid my hand on the cool metal frame and looked at all the tubes they had running into him. Bandages were wrapped around his middle really thick, and his bare legs and feet stuck out from under a blanket. He wasn’t wearing a shirt or anything. His shoulders were bare, too. There was just that folded blanket over him. I thought he must have been cold, but I went and asked the nurse about it, and she said he couldn’t feel anything, so it didn’t matter. That made me so sad.
When I got back to the room I wanted to see DD’s face. I wanted him to look at me. I sat down on the floor and scooted under the metal frame, then laid flat on my back so I could look up at him. His eyes were closed. The lids were purple. His face was so pale that I swear, I thought he was dead. I whispered to him again and then again when he still didn’t answer, and finally he opened his eyes. I don’t think he knew me at first, but then I could see that he did and he said, “Hey.”
“Hi,” I said, looking up at him. I couldn’t think of anything more.
We stayed like that for a while, without talking. The floor was freezing cold, but I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay there with DD until somebody told me I had to leave. He was so doped up. He’d slowly open his eyes and slowly close them.
As I laid there I started thinking about how weird it felt to be beneath him again. We were only together one time. I’m lucky I didn’t get pregnant because we didn’t use protection at all. DD said that would ruin it if we did and he asked me how close I was to getting my period so we could do it at a time when it was safe. We met at his apartment, one day after school. It was over in twenty minutes. It wasn't making love. It was like a transaction. DD said it would be better next time, but next time never came.
Lying there on my back on the floor at the hospital, I wondered what Tony would do if he saw me like that. He put his fist right through the wall when I told him I’d been with DD. I had to admit it, though. He already knew anyway, and I was too scared to lie. I don’t know where he was that day I went to the hospital. I figured he wouldn’t come there, but I was worried because things had got so crazy. It was unbelievable to me that Tony wasn’t in jail. He gave Lima his gun, I know he did. He gave it to him after he told him about me and DD, but he lied to Lima and told him I was raped. He told Lima he wanted DD dead, but he couldn’t pull the trigger because he and DD had once been friends. That was a lie, too, I think. Tony was just too chicken to do it himself. So he lied to Lima and gave him the gun. Then he told the police that Lima stole it.
I've tried for so long to forgive them, Tony and Lima both. I know that would be the right thing to do. But that’s not the only reason to forgive. I want to forgive them so I can stop feeling angry. I don’t want to wind up like the two of them, consumed by hate.
Once, when DD opened his eyes, his lips parted a little, like he was trying to say something, but then they closed again. His lips were cracked, I remember. I heard DD swallow--that’s how quiet it was in that room. I stared up at him, hoping it was true what the nurse had said, that he couldn’t feel anything, because I couldn’t stand the thought of him being in pain. But then I thought that was stupid, because not feeling anything would be bad, not good. To live and not feel--what kind of a life would that be? Then I felt something hit my cheek, something wet, and I wiped it away. It was a tear. It fell from DD, and I swear, it broke my heart. That tear was like a bullet, it went straight to my heart.
Jesse Murphree Kemper
My grandmother drowned herself. So when I close my eyes at night I see the cold black water she died in.
I try to imagine what it must have been like to walk out into that water and start to swim, and then keep on swimming until she sank.
At least this is what my mother told me. She said, your grandmother walked into the water and she swam in a straight line until she sank.
I didn’t understand. I was five years old. At first I did not believe my mother, because my grandmother had always been afraid of the water. But then I thought maybe that was why she picked it, so it would be the last worst thing.
My grandmother’s body washed up on the beach. My uncle, the husband of my mother’s sister, went and identified the body. He said it was her.
My mother would not let me go and see my grandmother in the funeral home, laid out. She said my grandmother had been scraped up against the sand. She said my grandmother had been in the water for a long time, and she said I would not recognize her. She said there were things in the water with her and I did not realize until I was older that she meant things that bite.
I saw my grandmother floating, her body a shadow, everything around her completely silent.
After my grandmother was dead, we went to the ocean and threw flowers into the water. My mother, her sister, and my two cousins were there. My hand was sore because I had put it into a cactus plant at the florist shop. My aunt was buying roses, carnations, baby’s breath. I watched her. Then I put my palm flat into a wooden bowl full of cactus plants and I closed my fist, driving the spines beneath the skin.
At the ocean, my youngest cousin tried to throw her flowers into the water, but she was too short, and they landed on the sand. She picked her flowers back up, carefully, and put them back in her basket. She ran along the sand screaming, goodbye grandma goodbye, as if she really believed there was someone there to hear it.
When I am in the water now, I am afraid of something eating me. If I am bleeding, if I am having my period, I don’t want to swim in the ocean. I imagine my blood mixing with the water and a giant shark rising beneath me, his mouth open, waiting to strike me where I am blind.
When I told the other children, my friends, right after my grandmother died, that she killed herself, they were impressed. They asked me if she took a big knife and stabbed it into her chest. They raised their arms and pantomimed this, hands rushing down, like men in moves committing Hari Kari. They were disappointed to hear she just drowned, just swam out into the ocean until she couldn’t swim anymore.
After my grandmother’s funeral, we went to where my mother’s sister lived, by the ocean, by the same water in which my grandmother drowned.
The two of them, my aunt and my mother, sat in the kitchen drinking cups of coffee and saying the same things over and over.
My aunt said what she thought my grandmother had been thinking. What she was thinking when she was dying, when she was drowning, was that she would make her children feel miserable. She would make my aunt go crazy with guilt.
I watched my aunt’s hands, her oval fingernails tapping and tapping against the table. These same hands, earlier, pulled the cactus spines from my palm. On the porch she held my hand in her lap and pulled the spines out with tweezers. My cousin, the one who called out to my grandmother on the beach was inside the house, on the stairs, sliding up and down the banister, eating a tube of toothpaste. When my aunt finished, I held my hand up to my face and made a circle with my fingers in front of my eyes. I closed the circle and the world got smaller and smaller and disappeared.
I didn’t want to listen to my mother and my aunt talk about my grandmother so I left the kitchen. I walked through the living room, the Florida room, trying to touch everything my grandmother once touched. I put my hands on her embroidered pillows and left them there, trying to feel where her hands had last been.
When she was young my mother wet the bed, so my grandmother pinned a towel around her every night, like a diaper. In the dark my mother laid swimming in her own urine, moving and moving, rubbing the place between her legs.
For a while we lived near the ocean, and my mother and my brother and I went there every day. We got very tan, but my mother’s skin was darker than mine, like we were a different species, like the blood in her body was not the same as my own blood.
My grandmother had been dead for years then, but I remembered what it felt like to be with her. I was with my mother all the time then. I floated in her life, the two of us together. She wanted to share everything. She would put her face close to mine. She would kiss me and I could taste what her mouth tasted like. It was different from my own mouth.
At night I didn’t sleep because my bedroom was filled with black water. I thought if I closed my eyes, I would drown.
My father never thought about water. It meant nothing to him. When he swam, he floated easily on his back. If he looked at anything, it was the women on the beach. Sometimes he tossed me out into the ocean to see what I would do, to see me suddenly swim.
The time my grandmother drowned in the water was not the first time. Once she shut herself in a house and turned on the gas, and twice she took a bus to different towns and swallowed a bottle of pills in a motel room.
My grandmother lived with us when I was very young, before either of my brothers were born. But then my mother made her leave. And my grandmother moved into my mother’s sister’s house, the house that was near the ocean.
When she lived with us, my grandmother, my mother, and my father argued in her room at night. My father yelled, my grandmother cried, my mother stood off to the side with a certain look on her face that was not a smile, but was like a smile, even though her mouth was not moving.
I hid in the kitchen. I made cards for my grandmother with red hearts on the front. I put them in her lap while she was crying, and she held them with both her hands but I could tell they did not make her feel any better.
My mother said, Mamma, this is my family and it’s time for you to get your own life.
My father just stood over her, my grandmother. He stood over her while she was in her bed.
I have read that it is painless once you stop trying to fight, once you give up and go under, once you stop trying to live.
My grandmother and I bathed together. I thought her body was beautiful. She was soft and white under the hot water. There were intricate blue veins beneath her skin. But my grandmother did not like the way she looked. She tore her face out of every photograph she had ever been in.
My mother left my father when I was four because he had sex with another woman, a math major who, my father said, was more intelligent than her. My grandmother came to live with us. We moved to another town and while my mother went to school, my grandmother took care of me.
We walked to the mall every day and got ice cream cones that looked like Mickey Mouse heads, candy eyes, vanilla wafers for ears. My grandmother made costumes for me to wear instead of clothes. She stole books for me from her doctor’s office. She bought me a Shirley Temple doll and gave me a permanent so my hair would be curly like Shirley Temple’s hair.
My grandmother was magic. She made butterscotch candies rain from the ceiling. She lit the grill in the backyard to cook hamburgers, and while we were waiting, she passed her hands back and forth through the flames without ever burning herself.
After a while, my mother decided she didn’t like school and went back to my father. My grandmother went with us and the four of us lived together. Sometimes we left her. We went on trips and left her at our house, alone. Before we went, I would go into her room and crawl into her bed with her. My mother and father sat in the truck with the truck’s engine running, and I went to my grandmother’s room. I put my arms around her and I said goodbye grandma. It always seems like this time could be the last time.
Now it would not matter to me what her face looked like, or her body looked like, or how long she had been in the water. I just want her however she is, to come back to me.
Nancy H. Rainey
Have you ever been to a carnival? I mean, you know—the kind with rides and weird people and all them gold fish? The kind with funnel cakes and cotton candy and thangs on a stick you don't know what is but it sure tastes good? I never had because them thangs cost a lot of money which is somethin we don't have much of. And when we do have it we have to waste it on thangs like shoes and peas. Who wants peas?
Anyway, I finely got to go to one of em and boy was it a strange day. My brother got his bull in some contest and tole me I could go with him for free if I was to wash his belly and bottom half while he washed his top half. As much as I like ‘at ole bull I really don't care much for washin his you-know-what. But I wanted to go to that carnival somethin fierce so I did it. Every one of them girls from town talked about it all thru recess all week long and this was my chance. I knowed it wount make them like me any different but it sure would be nice to be able to talk about it on Monday when school started.
I guess I should tell you who I am and all that stuff. My name is Mae Ella and Ima gone be eleven this year. I's borned rightcheer in Watauga county an aint never been nowhere othern inta Boone a coupla times. I got three brothers oldern me and one of the brothers is a twin to my stank sister, Lorna. She is some sorta beauty queen in her own mind. Momma says we gonna have to move off the farm in order for her to 'go far' whatever that means. I don't care to move. I'm fine right where we are. Why in the world Lorna wants to go to town is beyond me. Them in town got to get their corn and thangs from the store and they all in cans and when you open em up it’s like they forgot to put the flavor in. And what Diddy will do for a livin in town is beyond me. You sure can't make no money drinkin, which is what he does mos the time. If you could make money drinkin and starin into space, we'd be pissin in high cotton. Excuse my french. Momma woulda kilt me if she’da heard that.
Anyway, back to my story. I tend to wander so if I wander again just know I'll get back in line sooner or later. My oldest brother Fred is 17 an this is his last year in 4-H; if he don't win a prize this year it'll just be too bad for him an we'll never hear the end of it. Well, we'll never hear the end of it ifn he wins too but it sure will be a nicer thing to hear tell about. So we washed up ole Bobo real good and Fred even cut the hair rount his face so he looked all nice. Fred was so pleased with the job I did he gave me a half- dollar and tole me to go have fun but not too much an don't ask for no more an be back by…I didn't wait to hear no more. A half-dollar! That is 5 different thangs I could go see or ride or eat or combine it all or…it was too much.
I set down against the Future Farmers of America booth to think it over because I knowed I wanted to ride the Ferris wheel and an it sure would be fun to eat one of them candy apples because momma said we couldn't have 'em because they rot the teeth right outta your head. One thing was for sure—I had to get away from them booths because even though I smell it all the time, all that animal sweat and poop was startin to wear me out. I decided to walk around the whole carnival—it's in a circle so I figured I'd walk arount it oncet an then decide what was the best then go an do them but save a dime for a candy apple.
“Mae Ella! I didn't think we'd see you here, honey! Does your momma know you is here? I know your Mammaw don't!” I looked up to see Miss Melody the church organist and her ole better-than-you crowd gigglin and lookin at me like I had rolt in hog shit or somethin.
“She knowed it, Miss Melody, thank you just the same. I come here with Fred so's I could help him with Bobo. I didn't thank I'd see you all here either. I thought the preacher said it were a sin to be up in here, walkin arount all these evil doers an stuff.” I smiled my ain't I sweet smile so's they would think I was bein nice but really I wanted to kick them in they you-know-whats. It's hard for me to look at that Miss Melody without snortin up a laugh. Miss Melody one time played a whole sermon with her dress stuck in the back of her painties and I swear it's hard for me to look at her without thinkin bout those big hams we have hanging in the meat shed. So's it's pretty easy for me to smile arount her- it's just hard for me not to laugh.
“Well, Miss Priss, if you must know, we's here being judged in the jam and jelly contest over at the Home Cookin tent? And I have the best persimmons jelly you've ever tasted—you want to you can stop by for a sample or get some for your poor momma? I'm sure your momma would appreciate somethin sweet in her life? What with all you youngins an that Bill Nash diddy of yourn” she said with a smirk and wink at the ladies.
“I thank you very much, Miss Melody but my momma is watchin her weight. She says she don't want to get big like a lot of other folk she knows who have to sit for a livin. But thank you all the same. Ima tell her though that you said hello.” I knew I'd pushed it a bit too far so I ducked into the crowd and tried my best to disappear but I could hear them ladies scramblin to beat each other with “well I never!” and “that child!” an all that. Sometimes youda think people could remember that Jesus sayin bout where he says to take the stick out from your own eye afore you try to get the splinter from someone else’s. And that stick in Miss Melody's eye is biggern a headboard.
“Mae Ella! Mae Ella! Wait!” Panting, David ran up to me an grabbed my arm. He bent over an put his other hand on his knee an tried to catch his breath. David is one of my brothers too. He's a mean one though. His kind of fun is to jump out of closets and scare you half to death or to burn your dolls’ heads off and thangs like that. But sometimes he took you to that kind of bad fun you knowed was gonna be trouble. I mean you just knew you'd be real close to doin somethin’ wrong any time you was with him. “You ain't never gonna believe what they got up here! They got a real bona fide side show! With freaks!” David had sweat making a road map on his face through the dirt and it looked like it led straight to him using up my money. I just knowed it.
“David Allen, you ain't gonna get my money for no freak show. I see a freak show ever day when you get up outta the bed.”
“No Mae Ella, I'm serious. You got money? Well, that's good an all but I got my own money—I had to rake some of ‘em stalls out over in the 4-H booth to get it but I got a whole dollar and I'm gonna see them freaks. The sign has a paintin of a woman with a beard and a man with horns comin out his head and a man that has a snake body and women with no face and…”
“Slow down, David Allen. I cain't keep up with you! Ifn you want me to come you better just hold yer horses.” But his excitement had got to me. I had to see them sideshows if nothin else here. I mean a Ferris wheel is one thang but a woman with no face? I had to see that. We took off, me right on the heels of his Converse All Stars. You know, that's another thang I don't get. Why is it boys get to wear them cool high tops and all we get are these little red cloth Keds? That ain't hardly fair now is it? I bet I could have kept up with him better if I had me some of them Converse All Stars.
We could hear the man callin out as we got closter to the tents. Them tents was old and raggedy and we tried to lay down and look inside first but we couldn't make out nuthin in the dark.
“You see that man there, Mae Ella? They call him a barker and hit's his job to get the people to come see the show—he gets you all heated up and curious-like.”
“I know that, dummy. I ain't stupid Lorna and I want borned yestidy. I'm only 10 months youngern you, ya know. Let's go listen.”
“Step right up ladies and gents! Step right up! Now this ain't no sideshow like you've seen before! This is somethin’ else en-tire-ly! See thangs you ain't never seen before! Thangs with no explanation! Have a conversation with a woman with no face or better yet speak di-reck-ly with the horned demon man! See a woman with the beard of ole Rip Van Winkle! Watch you don't get eat up by the gator lady or the snake man! See the dead baby in the jar—that baby with you guessed it SIX eyes! SIX eyes, ladies and gentlemen! Now you've heard all this before I'm sure but this time? It is all REAL! GUA-RAN-TEED REAL! And you can see it all for only a quarter! Now THAT ladies and gentlemen is a bargain! Only two bits! Twenty five pennies! Five nickels! Now when you ever gonna get that kind of deal again? Step right up…”
When he started sayin the same things again, I figured it were time & I started in to lookin at all the pitchers painted on the sides of the tents an decide if it was really worth half my money. You know it an I knowed it. I wanted to see them folks. No doubt about it. There is something bout people different than you that makes you want to see them for yourself. But half my money? I just didn't know if I could do it.
But David—David was already reachin into his jeans for his money and that did it. I dug into my overalls to find my old half-dollar but lo and beholt, David paid for both of us! I could tell by his grin he hoped to get me scared out of my mind but I didn’t care. He paid, an that’s something else. We got our tickets an got in line with all the other curious folk. They was all so tall an wide, I was sure hopin I'd get a chance to see everythin cause right then all I could see was coats an old dresses.
As the line began to slowly crawl toward the tent, you could tell people were gettin less excited and more nervous or somethin because they voices all seemed to drop as soon as they went through the flap. When we got up to that flap, it was like a wall—no sound came from the other side, an it was dark in there and that had me a bit scared. I thought I was alone in bein scared but David took my hand. “just sos you don't get too sceert or lost” he whispered but I knowed he was scared too. With a silent slam, the tent flap whooshed closed behind us an we was lost in the darkness.
Our eyes slowly adjusted an we made our way toward a slight glimmer of light. It was the baby with six eyes in the jar. I got to tell you, if that thang was real, hit was nothin but a real pity. It looked like a pink pig with little lines of eye lashes and tiny hands clasped into fists and them sure enough were real baby feet. I wanted to look at it more but I never wanted to see it again. Just when I thought I couldn't stand it any more, David tugged at my hand and we moved forward.
Next thang I knowed we was lookin in at a woman playin cards with this little bitty man. He want no bigger than my baby cousin, RoseAnn an he was dresset up like a little prince. They was both lookin tired out an like they done did this ever day. But that woman? She had her a beard longer than any I ever seed. That beard was long, curly and grey. An when I was lookin at it she caught my eye an there want nothin there but meanness. She looked at me like I was the freak. Then she made this hmmf noise an spit at the grount. That little man he laught like he aint never seed nothin that funny. “Go on little girl and boy. Go on an GIT!” We did. Fast.
“Don't worry bout it, Mae. Just come on,” David tugged me on but my heart was startin to feel real funny an I was ready to jus turn arount and leave. They was tall people ahead a us an tall people behint us an I aint had nowheres to go but go on with em all.
When that barker said they was a woman without a face? He want lyin. They was. But you couldn'ta talked to her if you wanted to. She laid there with nothin but a hole of a mouth, suckin in air an makin little strangle kind of noises an she had a man who sat with her an gave her dranks from a straw. He had these big ole lumps all over him an the sign said he was a mushroom man but what I seed was two really tired an sad people.
They was two more a them sittin arount together? One didn't have no arms or legs an was turnin the pages of his book with his tongue and the othern had him a long snake body but that didn't much matter. What mattered was them faces. Both of em looked so tired and like they'd never slept an they just wanted to find their momma's laps an cry the rest of the day away.
I'm not gonna tell you bout what the rest looked like or if they was real or fake or if they talked to us or not. I'm just gonna tell you this. Them freaks made you feel really bad for lookin at em. They made you feel really small for feeling so much better offn em. Want a happy face in that tent.
Lookin at them freaks was like bein stuck inside a rain cloud that refused to rain. Seein them freaks made you feel like your insides was all squeezed up into one little fist like if you didn't scream soon that fist was gonna come punchin outta you and you was goin to explode.
Maybe they didn't mean to make you feel that way and maybe some a them other folks didn't feel like it at all. But I did. And by the quietness of my brother I knew he did too.
We got to the end of the tent. There was a man there with a tall hat and long mustache in a suit. He had a large cane that opened the flap and as soon as he opened it, the lights, fresh air, an the noises of the carnival came right up and slapped us in the face. Other folks came out and shuffled around jokin ‘bout what they'd seen but David and I just stood there, all quiet like. I never seen him so serious.
David's head was bowed and he studied his shoes. He slowly lifted his head and looked me in the eyes and said real quiet like, “Mae Ella, I don't want to ever think or talk about that. Ever Ever, Ok? That just wadn't right.”
“I know. Me neither. Pinky promise?”
“Pinky promise.” We latched pinkies and the headed back toward the livestock booths. There were still the same ole songs playin, the same voices lifted in laughter, an rides spinning their colored lights but it all seemed far off. Together but apart we walked toward the booths as slowly as we could. Somehow it didn't seem right to just go back to our normal God-fearin lives. Not after seein’ them freaks.
“Hey. You wanna get a candy apple? I still got half a dollar and we could get one ‘n’ split it and still ride the Ferris wheel.” David held out two coins in his hand, proud to still have somethin left.
“That's ok. I don't really feel like eatin right now. A coke might be good though.”
David went up to buy us a coke at the High School Civinettes stand. As he walked away I could see he was a bit older and more stooped than he were before. His arms hung by his sides and there was no swagger in his walk.
Well, we did go ahead an ride that Ferris wheel an it was nice to see our entire town stretched out in front of us like some sort of fantasy world of lights an miniature life, but kinda sour too.
We got back to Fred who was beamin to beat the band. He had won that blue ribbon after all and Bobo was already rented out for stud to six other farmers—that was gonna be some good money for Diddy to drink away if Fred wadnt careful!
The ride home in the back of Fred's truck was like the end of a dream; you know when you are half asleep but half awake, the dream fading but it's still there somehow stuck in the back of your head? It was like that. We could see the stars goin by, the air was chilly, the chords from the radio in the cab an Fred's flat voice singin out drifted in an out along with the sound of other cars. I could feel David next to me, our arms barely touchin as the truck swayed back an forth on the old gravel road toward the farm, but still neither one of us talked. I think we was both just too tired an too sad to think of anything to say. I knew we'd both be back to normal soon, him torturing me and what not, but it was kind of nice to share this strange and unexplainable night with him.
This night when we both understood our blessings.
Stephanie Tillman
My mom tells me she has a new sister in an email describing her and dad’s weekend travel plans:
I hope you’re doing something fun over the weekend. We’re leaving Saturday morning for the Virginia mountains. We’re going to stay at the same B&B for at least two nights and then we’ll see where else we may want to go. I think I have another sister so we’re meeting her and her husband at the winery. Cool, huh? You have another piece of mail from Conlextis. Is this something that needs to be saved or sent to you?
She’s always preferred the iceberg technique in her correspondence, covering topics as varied as the weather, dinner plans and my old high school classmates she runs into at the grocery store. I think a recently discovered sister could be followed up with more than a “cool, huh?” She decides, however, that I have all of the relevant family reunion information and moves on to the important stuff, like what to do with my junk mail.
Another sister? That IS cool! Throw the Conlextis letter away. Mail addressed to me will most likely be junk, so throw it all away.
Maybe the details seem unimportant to her since she met another half-sister at the winery five years ago. My mom could have just as easily typed, “I’m going to meet another stranger who is my sister, blah blah blah.” Her online review of the winery would read something like: “Beautiful views of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Nice wine. Great place to meet family members that you just found out existed.”
On Saturday, my dad sends me a text with an emergency update from the meeting:
Your new aunt and uncle seem to be very nice, though they are a little less refined than what I was expecting. Time will tell.
This coming from a man who eats fast food every day and refuses to go to the doctor for the hernia that pokes out of his stained Maytag repair shirt. Now that he’s replaced his 64-ounce chewing tobacco spit cup with soggy, gnawed cigars, he’s gotten snobby.
When I was about 10, I wanted older siblings so badly I made them up. Fake Ben and Lauren were six and seven years older than me, respectively. Ben was handsome, muscular, and wore a leather bomber jacket. Lauren had every Liz Claiborne purse my mom wouldn’t buy for me. She wore oversized sweatshirts and teased my bangs like hers. They both loved me so much that they’d invite me into their titillating teenage world, but they were also very protective and would only let me sneak a peek. I didn’t see much of them as they were always driving around in their cars or at the mall.
I could come up with hundreds of reasons I loved my fake siblings, but I couldn’t manage one for my real-life younger brother. Like all other seven-year-olds, he was useless, always playing and asking questions. He’d barge into my bedroom with dirt on his face and ask, “Who are you talking to?”
“You are such a brat! Get out of here!”
“I’m boring,” he’d say because he didn’t know the difference between bored and boring.
Ben and Lauren told me to be nice to my little brother because he’s family. They were too kind to say it, but I could tell they didn’t like him either. He was an embarrassment to us all.
I became so obsessed with my phony family that I even roped my friend into playing along at school. I’d loudly tell a group of kids in the cafeteria about how my older brother, Ben, is so annoying when he drives me to school, ignoring the speed bumps and blasting his car stereo. I’d nod to my friend and she’d quickly interject, “Yeah, but he’s so cute.”
“Gross, no he’s not! He’s my brother!”
Not wanting to brag, I’d come up with different ways to express how much they irritated me and how I longed to be an only child, but the message was clear: I had a very cool family.
Where are they now? Ben is bald and probably a dick. Lauren wears Crocs and ties her frizzy hair back with a scrunchie. They are undoubtedly overweight and bored. I imagine an email from them saying something like, “We haven’t heard from you in 20 years! We’d love to catch up. How about meeting for a drink? We think you are the best!” I’d probably reply something like, “Cool.”
On Monday I get an email from my mom. I know this is the last I’ll hear about my new aunt:
Meeting went well. I’ve attached pics. Dad thinks they’re hillbillies, but look who’s talking. I forgot to tell you, you have something from the credit union. It looks official. Do you want me to save it?
I click on the photos and see a thin white-haired woman posing with my mom and her other half-sister of five years. The three of them politely smile like strangers sharing a bottle of wine and a dad. I’d print it out and put it in a “Sisters” frame as a Christmas present if I thought my mom would laugh. It would only confuse her. She’d lovingly display it on the mantle anyway, taking it down the second I left.
I’m glad the meeting went well. She looks nice. On second thought, please save anything addressed to me. I’ll figure out what to throw out when I come for a visit.
I search for a cheap roundtrip ticket home, already dreading the stack of junk mail I have to sort through.
Sara Warner
The problem with my daughter was there was no place she could stand where all of her fit in the mirror. When she was ten she could bend this way and that to get her pigtails straight, but by the time she was twelve she needed to see if the curve of her bottom went with her new breasts and how it all looked with her long legs. She thought her feet were too big and so it didn’t matter so much that the bathroom mirror cut her off at midcalf, but by the time she was thirteen, even the full-length mirror inside her mamma’s closet cut off her head completely. As her father, it seemed there should be something I could do.
I took her and the mirror outside one day so she could get back far enough to see herself entirely. I held the mirror up while she backed across the yard. When her whole body from shoulder to shoulder and head to toe came into the mirror I yelled, “There! Stop!” But from thirty feet away she couldn’t see much. She was having to stand in the neighbor’s yard and worry all the time about them seeing her, maybe saying something about not stepping on the new grass. On top of that, nothing else fit in the mirror with her so it couldn’t give her much idea of herself.
But I happened to think about a big building downtown, fifteen stories high, and all its windows were like mirrors. We used to go down there evenings after all the traffic had cleared out. As we walked along I could see her lean toward the place where she would be able to see herself in the windows. We would climb a long hill and round a corner, and there a long plaza stretched before us right to the base of the mirrors. Then she would straighten and her eyes fix on the distant mark, studying the blurred image that was hers as it grew larger and larger. She enjoyed these trips. I would point out to her the lovely balance of her shoulders and how round her kneecaps looked at just that point in her stride when her foot left the ground. I often remarked how unusually good her posture was. She had a grace uncommon in a woman her size, and I think these outings, the chance to study herself that way, fostered her symmetry a great deal. But, as things would have it, a hotel went in and then a department store, until the plaza was little more than a sidewalk, and the mirrored building, sandwiched between stone and brick that way, no longer caught her reflection.
Of course, the kids at school were hard on her. I tried to tell her that it wasn’t personal. That’s just the way people are. But at fifteen that kind of saying isn’t useful and perhaps isn’t even true. It often happened that when I tried to talk to her I found I had no idea what I was saying. Everything turned into nonsense. I guess I was just trying to console her, as if telling a person, It’s not your fault, could keep the world from hurting. When she accidentally shattered the concrete floor of the locker room one day, sending a gaping crack through the new gymnasium and splintering all that smooth, freshly varnished wood—well, I couldn’t make her go to school anymore. No truant officer came; the school never even called. Some kids rode by in a car and yelled a lot of stuff at her—cheerleaders and ball players.
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