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It began a long time ago. Back when I was told and somewhat remember my mama feedin me peach juice from a spoon. I lived in an old house I wish I remembered and took a bath in a white basin trimmed in blue. I played with coke bottle tops in all colors and loved frozen fudgsicles with a wooden stick. I was a preacher's kid who wanted to be a nightclub singer. I didn't want to be a missionary. I became both. I played in cemeteries because there were no parks in my area. I grew up eatin mayonaise sandwiches and drinkin small cokes when my mother and I would have a picnic on the front church steps. It was a glorious time. I had a calf named nigger. I remember that. I loved it. I caught cats and plunged them into round things on the ground, butane gas holes, where I would imprison them and sit on the lid until my mother caught me. She made me let them go. I am a cat lover today.
I moved from town to town giving me the impression that it would be a good idea to work in a circus somewhere. Hearing my father preach on the subject of hell, I envisioned a giant fireball chasing me down the street of the town I lived in. Shortly after that I wrote my first poem about Halloween. It has become my favorite holiday. I walked home from school, stopping at a crabapple tree in somebody's pasture. I lived in a town that had a stockyard and on nights when the wind blew it would blow your senses out. That was the town I saw my first girlie magazine, pieces of it torn up in the woods up the road from the elementary school. My friend and I were scavenging and the two us us jumped on one bike and peddled home. It was the town I first kissed a boy in.
I moved up near Elvis' gated house and would glance that way to and from shopping trips with my mom. She was a good lady to me. When I needed a new dress I got one. Growing up not far away in a smaller area, it became a community in my dreams at night. I learned things there I'll never forget. I considered myself the ugly cheerleader if there is such a thing. My face broke out; my hair was not the longest and my boobs were not big. Somehow I managed. I'm not sure what made that place so special. Maybe it was falling in love. I was 11. He was 13. He was a football hero and later on chose to date older women.
The last year of my high school days was spent in a new town, a different place. I cried buckets. It began the beginning of my growing up in another way.
I had sex for the first time. My grandmother was staying with me and my boyfriend crawled into my bedroom window. We were supposed to be studying for a history or government test. We decided we would always remember one question. What was the symbol for The Speaker of the House? I remember it to this day 34 years later. I grew up, became a teacher; in a way wanted to be an actor; had a child of my own, and taught her about life.
I taught her that you have to be careful without seeming so. I taught her to grab a bull by its horns and look it square in the eye. I taught her to shun from nothing and believe when you don't know you have any strength left. I taught her to never settle. We've both had our moments. We've been lied to, spit on, slammed, told we are ugly and we're still standin.
We all have our stories. I made corn necklaces and swam in creeks. She went to Grand Cayman. It's a day for writing. I wondered what I would do today. I understand nothing about a higher power. I heard it preached about all my life. And still I don't know. I don't know where it is and I don't know what it looks like. I don't even know what it feels like. But I believe in it. I have to. It guides me. It tells me things and I listen. I started learning about it when I sat in my grandmother's mimosa trees and watched the world go on by. Kind of like now.
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It is a night when the quinces bloom. It's a night dirt feels good underneath my feet.
She wrapped her legs like a ribbon might spool a cylinder. It was enough to make everyone talk. It was as if she had come up from the center of the earth when nobody else was looking this woman. She stood as if to leave and quietly sat back down. It wasn't time for her to go. There were other things for her to consider. Many people had brought her to this place. It was time for a sorting, one by one.
a beginning
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and so she began like pulling plums from a tree. It was a night for cashmier. If the breeze wasn't just right, it could momentarily be mistook for a tepid time. Rain from the afternoon promised and delivered vapors allowing one to wrap a body in something soft and warm. It was her night. Her night to stop pretending and make everything right. She felt the presence of the man awaiting her. He had been there a while. He waited hoping for another chance to tell his version of what really happened. She rose (stood?) from the table and left. It was a quiet night. Things had been accounted for. And this time she left. Tomorrow she would think about it. Tomorrow she'd cross herself two or three times. Tomorrow she would make things right. Tonight she'd sleep.
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By 3 a.m. the sound of the phone had awakened and roused her. She answered it in the dark. She was sleeping alone tonight. He was in the house but it was her turn to unplay the mistress, a role she was ept to do. "Why have you called me?" And then she hung up. This time turning the off button on low so she could neither hear nor be bothered next time. She knew why he had called. It was because of the sister.
Morning came later.
Inside of one's fears are rooms sometimes left unattended. These are the spaces we find ourselves when we aren't looking. Her hair was brown and her skin hadn't seen sun in a while. Everything was as it should be. Everything in this house, in this room. It had to be.
And so it was. Stepping into her shoes could have been an effort but wasn't. She had learned so many years ago about the weights of perfection. She had learned it in an unforgiving way. She learned it the day she stood at the window. (And) She thought of it now. It was a dress day. It was time to be pretty. It was time to peel back the skin of reality. It was a time of loathing.
It was 7:30. He was awake and would be gone. Something about him made her stay.
She turned the fawcet on and let it trickle just as she had everytime before. She looked at the floor. She sat down. It was as if her body was made of clay; a soft portal to be dredged and formed by the passing and pressing of a hand to shape it. It gave her meaning and she let it.
By two o'clock she had read the rites, some say of passage. They weren't. They were words which could have pressed themselves into a mausoleum bench somewhere. She wasn't sure what they were. But they weren't hers. They weren't (meant) for her. Once again, she stood when it was time to leave and left the building. He was there waiting for her. This time they met.
"I thought you would forget again." This time he meant it.
She found the thing in her purse when she slid her hand inside and she recalled why he had given it to her. They walked casually as if they'd never spoken a word.
"It was good", she recalled telling him, confiding in him. He let her speak. She found the pocket on his right side and returned the rounded gesture he had given her. It would be night again before she tore the pages. Tonight would be different. Tonight was his. It had to be.
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On the Other Side of the Parking Lot