Sunday mornings the paper come pregnant with inserts, comics, coupons and adds. Mom, nestles in her hooded lime almost monastic overcoat slicing coupons and storing them in a retired shoebox. Sunday’s dad revs up our 88 station wagon with tinted windows, bushels thick as beer crates. The papers are dropped off in front of our house in thickly trussed stacks. Dad gets me up in the morning and accompanies me on my jaunt, asking nothing for the money in return. He slides down the opposite side of the street, bag lumped over his shoulder, scooping into the contents, creasing the inked bulletins, placing them inside mailboxes and screen doors. The oval yawn and intermittent buzz of the streetlamps cast a yellow cone above our morning amble. Across the street father is my mirrored image. Fishing his hand into the pouch, traipsing up to the front porches. It is early morning. My school books remain home. The locker I will go to. The gourmet coffee I will grind first and then brew. The flakes I scoop into my mouth calling it nourishment. I count the days down, wondering when I will leave wondering what I will discover when I go to that place and never come back.
ASs I arrive home from the route my mother is smiling. She is holding the paper open.
It is a copper centerfold. It takes up the entire page. The headline is THE JOURNAL STAR SALUTES THE BEST OF THE BEST. The top of the page shows the finalists from both the county and city competition. It is a page high spread of Big Ben and parliament, the bottom of the page features the winners visages sprouting out of the House of commons in two giant screens, it as if the house of Lords is wearing reading lenses.
The paratactic bio is basically a synopsis of the article which ran Thurs. It says that I am active in Track, Cross country and bridge.
I am embarrassed by the full page spread.
I cannot wait to meet Nat Plederer.
I feel I will find a brother indeed.
During the church service I am the crucifer. I wear robes that are slightly reminiscent of a bridals veil concocted out of kleenex. I sit in the front of the church, next to the associate pastor, robes drooping down into a billowy pond near our ankles. As the service begins I configure my hands in the fashion of a color guard cadet around the bottom stem of the crucifix, lifting high the emblem of Christ, leading the pastors and the choir from the community narthex, sailing down the center aisle like a ships as all the parishioners attired in their dated Sunday best tilt in the direction of the staff I am hoisting as the cross above my forehead all I can think about is Renae, naked, lying on my bed, the peninsula of her legs slightly forming geometrical angles.
News begins to spread like spring arriving early of my accomplishments. That Sunday I turn around and see Mr. Wilber and Mr . Schaffer, two elders at church, each hold out hands as if wanting to be the first to shake mine and congratulate me. I am coy. I am nervous. I am not used to this much attention. People inquire what I plan on doing over seas. Russell Disbro, the pastor’s son, asks if he can borrow my Sega genesis during the two weeks in which I am away. While walking out of the sanctuary, Rev Schudde comments my name rather loudly in his stately baritone applauding the Judges selection by saying congratulations as his hand grapples mine
As is seemingly his fetish Eggplant Elmore follows me into the bathroom at
“I can’t believe you broke up with Renae.” Eggplant says to me, his face a riddled doily of acne and post-adolescent blemishes.
“The time was right.” I say to him, perhaps mimicking a line I heard from a televised drama.
“She was really in tears. All day in class. You really broke her heart.”
I stand over the urinal placing the confirmation bible that my aunt gave me and the Styrofoam coffee cup above the urinal. The bible has my name and confirmation date emblazoned on the bottom front cover in silver font, her cursive loops inside the front cover reminding me that God is always there for me and urging me to go to God even with the little things in life. I unzip and try to concentrate as Elmore continues to blather in a eunuchesque monotone claiming that he can’t believe I had the gall to call things off with Renae Holiday when things were apparently going so well between the two of us.
“Quit standing behind me, I’m trying to concentrate.” I say, my legs arched apart in a aqueduct.
The door to the Eggplant Elmore looks both ways as if he is about ready to say something important.
“Personally Dave, I would have effed her first.” Eggplant Elmore says to me. I frisk the side of my pockets as if I am going through customs, verifying the position of the moss colored Gideon bible. I look at myself in the mirror and winder if I did the right thing.
“Effed.” I say to myself, as if I am looking at a French test in Mme Suhrs class and have somehow failed.
***
After church I go for a run. I run the cross-country
course at the golf course three times for a total of 10 miles. The snow is melting. It is unseasonably warm
for the month of January.
I am purportedly going to England.
It is Super bowl Sunday. The Buffalo Bills are in their third consecutive Super bowl though they just can't seem to win. Michael Jackson is the halftime entertainer
When I get back home I call Dawn Michelle and get no
answer. I call Renae and the line, as always, is busy. Part of me was somehow
expecting that Renae would perhaps call me up and congratulate me on winning
the trip and somehow I would tell her
that I was wrong and ask for forgiveness and somehow we would agree to meet and
kiss and get back together a week later.
Part of me is wondering if she knows I one the
contest.
Part of me is wishing that I would have effed her
first.
***
It is Superbowl Sunday It is the SuperBowl. Buffalo Bills are wresting against the granite defense that is the Dallas Cowboys. It is the SuperBowl. It costs 800,000 to air a commercial that will be seen by twice that amount. Michael Jackson is scheduled to perform at halftime. Stats are projecting that over a billion people will be watching, that half the earth will be an watching.
During the SuperBowl I go out collecting knowing that
if my subscribers are home they will be watching the game. When I get to Bob
and Frank’s house they are testing the strobe-lights for their Club thirty gala
sometime in the next year.
Bob answers the door. He is wearing pants.
He answers me with the colloquial Well Hey.
The moment I enter their abode. There are cheers. Both
Bob and Frank are pelting handful of confetti. There are streamers. Above the half-finished
stage near the singular strobe light testicle is a banner. It reads: CONGRATULATIONS DAVID!!!
They are clapping. They are patting me on the back.
They say they have been waiting for me to come.
“We are really proud of you winning the trip. That’s really
amazing man!!!”
I look at the banner. The two of them are smiling at
me.
I am humbled. I can tell they went to work in decorating their house. I tell them they didn't have to do that. I tell them thank you again for writing that recommendation. They tell me it is no bug deal. They smile. They ask if I would like to have some of that Hawaiian coffee that I enjoyed so much before and watch the SuperBowl.I smile and tell them I would love to.
We eat cake. We watch the Superbowl. For the first time in my life I partake in the global majority and watch Michael Jackson defying gravity in sputtering dyslexic pirouettes accompanied by accelerated motown panache. I have another cup of the doctored Hawaiian coffee.
They are smiling . Bob and Frank are my friends. I thank them again for writing the recommendation. They lift their cup of Hawaiian coffee and say no problem.
"Just remember when you are over seas to pose naked
next to Big Ben, Frank and I have a bet on which one is larger. He has you.”
I am confused. The two of them laugh. Bob and Frank
are my friends. I am laughing as well.
It’s hard not to laugh when Bob and Frank are
around.
When I get home from collecting my sister is yelling
that there is a phone call for me. When I go to take it downstairs Beth says
that it is a girl that I should take it upstairs.
I take the stairs two at a times. It is Dawn Michelle. Perhaps it is Renae. When I get into my parents’ bedroom I take my glasses off and look in the mirror.
I take the stairs two at a times. It is Dawn Michelle. Perhaps it is Renae. When I get into my parents’ bedroom I take my glasses off and look in the mirror.
When I answer the phone I hear someone address me as
Dave.
It is not Renae. It is not Dawn Michelle.
It is Amy. Patrick’s Amy. I wonder what he has done
now.
The last phone conversation I had with Amy was one
week ago when she drilled me a new asshole for breaking Renae’s heart.
“Hey, listen I just wanted to call and say congratulations
on winning that trip to England. That’s really cool.”
“I am smiling, It was nice of her to call.” We have
been bithcy-bantering back and forth ever since she dissipated from Patrick and
then I dumped Renae.
“It was crazy. We were paging through the Sunday
paper today when I saw your face. I remember Renae saying that you were in some
sort of contest.”
I wonder if Renae gets the paper. I wonder if she
saw my visage in the paper today. I wonder if she is using it as a dartboard.
Thanx for the Compass (and) the scans Valena K....the jangling stars of.South Dakota await us....
ReplyDelete