#4- Guest Post by *Johnny Peepers (438 words)

*Please visit www.http://dillsnapcogitation.wordpress.com.

 

Reflections on Reg

I first met Reg in elementary school. He was buck-toothed, had a sandy mop of hair, and seemed to own only one pair of blue jeans. I would later find out why they were never traded in for shorts, even in the sweltering months of late spring.

Reg fought against the world’s binding judgment, and emerged the desperate product of his father’s violent behavioral lessons with only his tear stained pillow to comfort him. He might have made it, had it not been for the latent demon creeping into his mind. Mental illness eventually emerged to snuff out his aspirations like a candle in an air-tight Tupperware container. I wanted to save him, but there is little one can do when you know a man is marked for destruction and personal failure.

Banished to the basement floor of a house, Reg was imprisoned by fear and delusion. Duck patterned wallpaper covered his room. Reg loved ducks and his parents used the wallpaper as a pacifying theme to calm Reg and remind him of a happier time and childish giggles. For Reg, the memories of childhood were ushered forth not with glee, but horror and constant fright.

The man with the strap, or switch, or clenched fist was never more than yards away. The piercing eyes and virtual omniscience could not be escaped. “I know what you been up to boy” was the verbal elixir used to usher the truth forth from Reg. He could not lie to his father, even when it meant being denied his freedom. His father would trail him in his vehicle, staying just enough back to remain unseen, but Reg always knew he was there.

Reg lived a lifetime in a matter of several years. Beset with losses of love, sanity, and a father’s pride, Reg struggled to unfetter the burdens that hurled themselves upon him.

I am sure Reg is lying strapped to a gurney, in a puke-green tiled room, swimming in a Thorazine haze and drooling on his pink Polo shirt. A man like Reg could have only existed for a snippet of time. Like Johnny from the BadCo song “Shootin’ Star”, Reg’s star was too bright and could not sustain itself indefinitely.

Reginald P. Harris emerged beaten and weathered, shown no mercy time-outs or first-downs in life’s wicked game. He became a shell of a man, defeated by tricks of the mind and cast aside like a small-time informant after the bust goes down. Reg is a man whose destiny will not be denied; nor will the memories of his achievements be lost in the never-ending ebbs and flows of time.

reflections on reg
by Johnnypeepers
(Copyright 2008)
02.28.08

#3 (492 words)

Daddy said he’d be right back. He went over to a little house with sheets for curtains and walked in without knocking.

She rolled her window down, leaned out. She looked up at the sky. It wasn’t hot or cold. Not smoggy. A few thin stretches of cloud slid toward the mountains. It was breezy. She grew dizzy with the feeling of it slipping over her face, in her ears, of floating up toward the sky. Two crows glided above electrical wires. She wished she were a bird.

She sat up and looked over at the door of the house. It was still closed. What was Daddy doing in there? She looked in the side mirror. She licked her lips and made them shiny with her spit. She smiled. She winked. She looked up her nose, each nostril a different kind of round. Moving a little to the left, she could see a faded red truck parked behind them down the street, other yards, a boy on roller skates. He was skating toward her. He grew bigger and bigger in the mirror, then he was there. He skated circles in front of her on the sidewalk.

“You wanna play?” he asked. He didn’t look at her. He watched his skates and kept up his circles.

“I have to wait for my dad,” she said. The boy skated away. She was sad, a soft glob in the back of her throat. She checked the house again. Nothing. She bit her fingernails, stared at the cracked dashboard. What if Daddy forgot about her? Should she go knock? The thought made her stomach flutter. Maybe honk the horn? Daddy might get mad.

She had to pee.

She wanted Mama now, to hug her tight. Then, she heard Daddy’s voice. He was walking to the car. A laughing woman followed him. The woman was tall with shiny legs. Her teeth were big, white, frightening. Big Tooths leaned into the window. Plump pieces of the her boobs curved out of her shirt.

“Hey,” Big Tooths said. “Thanks for bein a good girl.” She tried to hand her a candy bar.

She didn’t like this woman, looked away from her, crossed her arms. She loved candy and didn’t have it often, but she didn’t want this woman’s candy. Daddy said, “Don’t be rude.” She didn’t want to embarrass him. She took it but she wasn’t going to eat it.

“What do you say?” Daddy’s voice sounded like he was annoyed but trying to hide it.

She mumbled a thank you, not looking at Daddy or the woman, who said, “Bye, Benny.” Benny? She hated the way it sounded in Big Tooths’ mouth.

“Aren’t you going to eat your candy” Daddy asked, driving away.

“I don’t like that woman,” she said.

Daddy looked at her with mean eyes. “Shut up and eat it.”

She unwrapped it but didn’t take one bite. She let it melt all over her fist.

candy
(Copyright 2008 beezies)
02.25.08

#2 (495 words)

Mrs. Duke says to practice, looking down her nose at me. She can tell I haven’t been practicing. Daddy had a used piano delivered and tuned. “Practice,” he says. I bang out chopsticks, bang out scales. I destroy Have A nice Clam Bake. Daddy sighs. Mama shuts the bedroom door. Finally, he puts a hand on my shoulder to stop me.

“You’re getting better,” he says. I’m not. He’s had enough. Me, too. My knuckles ache.

Mrs. Duke smells like an ashtray. Her house smells like an ashtray. I sit next to her on the piano bench. She is smoking a long brown cigarette. I look up her nose. A crisp red booger- like a twig- is sticking out of it. This embarrasses me, glees me. So when she smacks my fingers for a mistake, I take comfort in that gross display. I know something she doesn’t. She opens the music book.

“Have A Nice Clambake,” says Mrs. Duke. “You practice like I say?” I nod. I lie. The lines around her mouth droop. Her yellow-gray bun droops. Her long curved line of cigarette ash droops. She pushes on my back. “Sit up straight. Don’t I always say to you?” Smoke chugs through her nostrils down into my hair, face. Her bloody booger trembles.

I hope it doesn’t fall on me, on my head. I watch it to keep track of it. This aggravates Mrs. Duke. “Don’t stare at Mrs. Duke,” she says. “Play!” She puts her cigarette into one of several filled ashtrays and places her hands above mine. They are translucent, her veins large and green bulge over her bones. The hills of her knuckles are spotted. Her long nails are painted bright pink. pressed into my nail beds. It hurts. I don’t say anything.

“Look at music, not hands!” I look up at the notes, odd shapes- some pointy knives, heavy bottomed like stinging wasps, others droopy like Mrs. Duke. Her fingers play my fingers. My fingers stumble over the keys like drunks. Whole notes like eyes stare at me, mocking my assault on the keys. I can’t find them- the notes.

“Oh word, oh word,” Mrs. Duke gulps at her cigarette and pushes the smoke out through her nose. And it falls, the booger, but I don’t see where. “That is sloppy work. You not practice like I tell you. You will regret this for the recital.” She crushes out her cigarette and begins to play the song herself. It’s light, happy. I watch as her fingers dance and pop, picking out the right notes. Her eyes are closed. I shrink. I should practice like she tells me every Saturday.

Mama and Daddy pick me up after an hour. I burst out into the clean air, drinking lungfuls greedily. “She smells like an ashtray,” Daddy complains. “Well, you chose her,” Mama says. “She was the cheapest, remember?” They argue. I don’t listen. I’m wondering where Mrs. Duke will find that booger.

at the piano, mrs. duke
(Copyright 2008 beezies)
c. A. Hughes

#1 (459 words)

Under the bathroom sink, it sits among rolls of toilet paper, a box of tampons and one of cotton swabs- Mother’s bag. It is thick black cotton and red and yellow hibiscus grows up from the seam along its bottom- an inanimate garden at midnight. She loves the bright flowers. She believes they grow out through the loops of black thread. There is a ball-clasp top made of hard and shiny wood. The bag is pretty and heavy. Her hands, puffy and curious like baby-girl hands tend to be, struggle to unfasten its clasp. She uses all of her strength but it is not enough to open Mother’s bag.

Mother goes into the bathroom each morning. Her eyes puffy and her hair is wild. C. C. stands at the door listening to Mother sing in the shower. She cannot hear the words, but Mother’s voice rises and falls, drifts from beneath the door. She pushes her fingers there and wriggles her fingers. She wants to catch these sounds and swallow them. All she is able to grasp is steam, which melts moist on her fingers.

The water stops drumming the tub. The rings of the shower curtain skate across the pole. She takes back her hand and waits. She knows Mother is opening the black bag- easy for Mother with her big hands. C. C. hears the rattle of objects as Mother searches through it. She’s seen its contents before. There are plastic tubes of color, little dishes of glittery powder, a little silver mirror with a lid, paintbrushes, small jars of liquid skin and perfume (she likes to imagine the bottles of smell come from the flowers on the bag) and plastic combs with flowers on them, but she likes to imagine new items that are secret. Maybe there are fairies, too. They fix Mother’s hair like the birds in that Cinderella cartoon. Maybe that is where Mother keeps the medicine that fixes her lips when they are swollen and cracking.

Sometimes C. C. pictures Mother stepping into the bag, because it is actually a magic bag, and disappearing into another world. That world is always night and its sky is filled with yellow and red blooms. The ground there is made up of shimmering dust from Mother’s cakes of eye color- a powdery muted rainbow. Mother is the queen of that place. Little people like in The Wizard of Oz greet her every morning, giving her lollipops and flowers and songs about how pretty she is.

C. C.’s heart quickens. What if she decides to stay? That is her fear. Maybe she would be happier there because there she is a queen. There, she get gifts and songs instead of headaches and bruises.

mother’s magic
(Copyright 2008 beezies)
02.21.08