Write a flash about something that is lost and then found again.
Three variations on a theme. Took seventy minutes to type all three. Two of them I did my thinking with my fingers.
One
“No!” He shouted so raw I thought I heard stones rattle in his throat where the skin was red, mottled and loose.
“Dad?” He was prying something out of my sister’s tiny fist.
The place where knuckles would be when the pudgy dimples flattened out were white, they’d straighten out with years of skipping rope, worn down crayons, tether ball and the curse all girls are born with; cooties. Even moms and sisters. Sure, John Carew’s jaw had scarred my knuckles, he said my mom had cooties. I knew it was true. It’s just a fact. It’s also a fact that John Carew needs help in shutting his big fat mouth.
“Dad?” He had three fingers up without calling a single one a little piggy, a church or a steeple.
They each had their jaws set; one plump and red as a braeburn apple, the other craggy and fuzzy as a dried peach.
“Jenny!” She ignored me too. They were locked in a struggle of wills over something small enough to fit in her fist. I couldn’t see. I was frozen too, if I had to kill one of them who would it be? The last finger was up but two more had gone back down and she was trying to pull her fist, her father, and whatever had come between them to her mouth. He could heave her up on his shoulders or throw her into the air and catch her, I’d seen him do it a hundred times, but sweat was beading on his forehead and his hair was sticking to it; he was losing.
I heard the tires on the gravel drive, the car door slam. The attic window was decorative and didn’t open. I pounded on the panes and shouted for my mom. She looked up, shading her eyes, waved and smiled. John Carew was right. How could she not feel the steel cage death match going on in her own attic?
“Honey?” click, click, click. “Kids?”
He just gave up. He heard her voice and he just gave up. Click, click, click --- and her head popped up at floor level.
“Mom!” I said with urgency.
“I ate a bug” Jenny said.
“Honey? What are you doing up here?”
Dad was slumped in on himself, his spine along the slant of the wall, defeated, destroyed.
“Nothing.”
I looked at each one in shock, studying each face; one round and dimpled, one gray now, drained, and one powdered and fresh. I had nothing. I thought of a peanut and jelly sandwitch, my mitt, clean socks and cleats tied in a bandana on the end of a stick, I could hobo to Chicago where the Cubs were sure to sign me.
“A bug?”
“Yep. Daddy wanted it but I et it first.”
Dad wouldn’t even look at mom.
Two
“What is that?” she asked.
She traced the line from my sternum down my belly playfully tugging hair along the route. She was cradled in my right arm. I didn’t answer her, I just brushed my hand along her ribs and smelled her hair.
“Seriously.”
I let her go and sat up, her hair spilled over my chest and belly.
“I’m thirsty, you want some water?” I asked.
“Yeah, thanks. What is that?”
“Just a scar.”
“No it’s not.”
I was already out of the room. I let the sound of running water block out her voice. I drank a glass of water, and half of a second one, and carried two full glasses back to the bedroom. She was sitting up, hugging her knees.
“Did you hear me?”
“No, sorry. Here hon, um, Karen.”
“What is that?”
I sighed. She looked mad about it so I feigned afterglow exasperation or bliss or whatever a sigh could be misconstrued as and kissed her, I kissed her deep the way lovers do. She let me, but when I stopped she was right back at it;
“What is that?”
Not a lot of people see me this naked, not a lot of different kinds of people. It’s limited to women in their forties who are attracted to me and out of that very small demographic I have to be attracted too and one of us has to say enough to do something about it. Doesn’t happen all that often. But when it does they always ask. I knew this coming halfway through dinner.
“Honestly?”
“I just fucked your brains out. No. Lie to me.”
“Huh. I thought I fucked your brains out.”
“Ok, we’re both fucked and brainless. What is that?”
I stared her in the eye. I have too. I have to win the staring contest before I tell the truth. Scar is the only lie I have the patience for. I’ve imagined having this talk before sex, I fly into a rage and stomp out or call a cab for her. It’s never happened and I’m not sure I could even do it. It’s a fantasy, the rage is a happy fantasy.
She blinks and turns her head to the side.
“I don’t know, exactly, I’m … missing something.”
She stares back. I let her win.
“That’s not a surgical scar either.”
“I don’t mean something that tangible, I’m sorry, I really don’t know a better way of saying it.”
Third staring contest. I’m calling it a draw. We both let our eyes go soft.
“So, you weren’t born with it. You remember when you first noticed it?”
I laid back down and started talking, softly, she cradled herself against me again, lightly running her fingers along it as I spoke.
Three
“Alpha Foxtrot one eight niner, come in, over.” I listened, waited, turned the frequency a hair “Alpha ---“
“Hey kid, take a load off, you get any sleep?”
“Yes sir, if it’s all the same …”
“It’s not all the same kid, you been at it for three days, you think they took a little time off to tan?”
I set the mike down.
“Sir?”
He handed me a protein bar and a canteen, we’d been boiling water all week not trusting any water source. He sat down cross legged on the ground, leaning his back against the large elm, a tree I hadn’t seen since I was a kid. Leading by example. I tried loosening my stiff joints, they creaked and cramped, took all my will not to whimper.
“Can you hear that kid?”
“What sir?” I’d been listening hard to static for seventy two hours.
“Birds, crickets, the chittering of squirrels, cicadas, do---“
“Yes, sir, I hear it.”
“What kind of force or predator doesn’t send all of them critters to ground?”
“Ground?”
“Just mean quiet and hidden son, what sort of force or predator don’t spook a twitchy squirrel?”
I gave it due consideration. “None I know of sir.”
He sighed. “Yeah, me either.”
“What are you saying sir?”
“That I’m a lot less worried about being lost than I am about being found. Turn off the radio willya?”
Loading comments...