U.M.Ph.! Prose #6
Does anyone really read these intros anyhow? You just want to jump in to see if Timothy Gager is in here, then to the end to check out Brian White, right? Well, go ahead. See if I care. Harumph!
--mignon ariel king, autumn, 2010
₪₪₪₪₪
You Deserve Someone
By Timothy Gager
Travis stands in the grass by Jamaica Pond with his arm held high, finger pointing out. A week ago his skin turned the color of piss.
“What are you doing?” Sabrina asks.
“If you get the birds used to you, one day they will fly down and land on your finger."
"You think?"
How do they learn about trees or wires?” he asks.
“I don't know.” Sabrina used to hang out most weekends until one day she didn’t go anywhere. “They might just shit on you though.”
"Proximity…repetition," he says. “It brings comfort.” They search the sky; no chance of rain today.
“Look a gold finch!” Travis shouts. It flies overhead away from its partner in the tree. He stops. “Do you want to fly away Sabs, like that song?” Travis starts singing “Yellow Bird”.
“You can’t ever leave. I'll have no one.”
“I am fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“Before I die, it’s going to happen.” He gets up on his tip-toes as the gold finch flies back overhead with a twig.
₪₪₪₪₪
FACEBOOK
And there is always
Someone I may know
Someone I am advised to contact.
Some twit
On tweeter
Want to meet her?
I used to ask my neighbor
How to make soup.
I sat high on a chair
Waving from a city stoop.
And we were all
in the flesh
and all
in the loop.
Feeling shitty in the city
“ Any idiot can face a crisis, it’s the day to day living that wears you out.” --Chekov
Is it more heroic
To face the burning flash
The torrential flood
Or the day to day
Asphalt and the
Disheartening sludge?
After the bust--
Past,
The Financial District's
Highly lauded boom
When you are way past
The purple bloom,
Can you face
And endure
The grinding
Gloom?
--Doug Holder
₪₪₪₪₪
asphalt flowers bloom on Townsville streets
knock down
lock down
fear in the streets
vomit in the basin
blood on the sheets
running through the alley
pricks on the beat
you’re putting on cool
but you’re feeling on heat
night time
fright time
lover I’m back
skin off my knuckles
cue in the rack
I want a little loving
and a private dance
need a little comfort
and some sweet romance
jig time
big time
sirens in the night
chills down your backbone
come and hold me tight
fate is already loaded
in the shooter’s gun
we’re too late to care
and too slow to run
knock down
lock down
fear in the streets
vomit in the basin
blood on the sheets
--john holland
₪₪₪₪₪
Stars & Stripes in a Boston Square
Bee Bee's scarf had silver stripes
that matched the glitter sparkles
embedded in the red formica bar.
The black-silked bartender was
the hottest thing in there, a maybe-
paramedic second simply because,
hell, he saves people for a living.
And what do Black women creators--
writers, teachers, mothers just too
busy to just date, one too square
to dance with men who don't speak
English--talk about on a summer's
Saturday barhop: "How in Hell
did we end up here on 'salsa night'?"
No man in the room is tall enough.
--Mignon Ariel King
₪₪₪₪₪
Flashing Back
I look around at
all the people &
wonder
If they have ever
been in the tear gas
chamber at Ft. Polk, LA
If they ever caught
a sailfish or flounder
or monster black bass
If they ever worked in
a zinc smelter or built
a fireplace with fool's gold
Or seen Hendrix or Led
Zeppelin or Black Sabbath
Or scuba dived through
a sunken airplane off
the tip of Mexico
Or been to a bullfight
& watched six bulls die
Or fired a cannon
or hitchhiked
or hopped a freight train
or lived in a 63 Chevy
Or lived in a cave
next to a warm springs
full of tiny neon fish.
The journey can be
a flickering candle or
a stick of dynamite.
--Catfish McDaris
₪₪₪₪₪
Armstrong Gardens
“Well,
with the hass tree you’re
looking
at a harvest time
from December
to May,”
he said, mouthing
the words and wiping
sweat from the
corner
of his mouth.
Jeff was fat.
His name tag was
hung awkwardly
perpendicular
to his round frame
and he had a
salt and pepper
moustache that
looked like
it was composed
of wires.
“And with the mango
tree, you’re looking
at a similar
pattern of growth
but with a little
bit more difficulty
in basic cultivation
and stability.
However, once these
bad boys
start growing,
they’re rooted,”
he said, getting
excited.
“In fact, I was at
a buddy’s house
the other day
and asked him
if his mango tree was
yielding good fruit,
and he said
‘what mango tree?’”
he exploded, spit
flying from his
lips and a smile
erupting to
each ear, displaying
chunks of processed
hamburger bread
wedged between his
teeth.
Pointing to the
two citrus trees
I asked:
“how much for
all four? The avocado,
the mango and
both citrus trees.
Factor in the
compost and
the citrus food.”
“Eh,”
he said, running
his thumbs along
the inside of
his stressed
pant line.
“You’re looking to
run around $170-180.”
This was pleasant
to hear.
“Will they talk?”
I asked.
One eyebrow dropping:
“Eh. Excuse me?”
“If I talk to them,
will they talk back?”
I asked.
“This a joke?”
Jeff said,
wiping the sweat
from his cheeks.
“Look, I just want to know
if I talk to any of
the four, will they talk back?”
“No. They’re plants, man.
Plants don’t talk,”
Jeff said, matter-of-factly.
“Will the avocado get
jealous of the citrus
if I pay more attention
to it?”
I asked.
He looked around.
“I don’t think plants
can get jealous,”
the words slowly
forming from his mouth
like the cartoons
where they exhale
the bubble letters.
He was cheerful again
when I told him I
would take all four
and helped me load
them into my truck.
He continued to tell
botany jokes
I didn’t understand
but he got a kick
out of
them,
but this time it
didn’t get to me because
the plants didn’t
laugh either, and
I knew there was
smooth sailing
on the
horizon.
--Jordan Menard
₪₪₪₪₪
Selma’s Zumba Class at the Malden YMCA
Every woman in the class
wants to have her ass.
The way she moves it like a weapon,
shaking, twitching,
pointing, shooting.
We imagine her man keeps it locked
in a treasure chest, with his medals
from the war.
Every person in the class
wants to own her ass.
Is she laughing at us
because we can’t shake the sugar like her?
Is she laughing through her ass?
She appears to be having fun,
possibly at our expense.
Nobody can move their things
like the diva in the front.
Everyone in the class
wants a piece of her ass.
All ethnicities represented –
no one’s hips like hers.
She could make the straightest
woman lust. The men running on the track
stop to stare,
cleaning men drop their Windex
and paper towels, the whole gym stops
when she shakes her ass.
It could cause earthquakes,
or political strife.
It could make us thinner,
striving to shake our asses
up and down, back and forth,
round and round, till we’re all dizzy,
passing out from fatigue, falling
to the ground, no sound, except the fireworks
that used to be our eyes.
--Shannon O’Connor
₪₪₪₪₪
Teaching Journalism
For Victoria Snelgrove
"Victory Edition"
2004 Boston Globe.
Front page framed,
hyper-font orgasms "Yes!"
Baseball as wartime.
"Years of torment end…"
"Victory transforms…"
Dethroned despot uncited.
Next frame, later edition
slightly less victorious.
Still celebrated players,
city united, armchair victory.
Below fold, real world
rudely interrupts,
three inches of story
continued two sections later.
Her name ends lead paragraph,
as afterthought as period.
Lawyer’s noted murmur
only moment of silence.
--Chad Parenteau
₪₪₪₪₪
South End, Boston, 1980
For Byron Rushing & Frieda Garcia
I never see you...but I know you've been here in the night.
Every morning, when I walk the dog, I see your ghosts and skeletons--
the tiny empty and broken bottles gleaming in the sun.
There are new ones every day.... No matter how early, or late, I go,
I never see you. But I know you've been here in the night,
sipping, slipping away by the half pint,
89 cents-worth at a time.
Now
this morning at the bus stop, I look up from my book
and there you are…standing in the middle of the street,
under the elevated tracks, leaning back, a bright orange girder
framing your deep brown face turned up toward the grey sky;
water from your closed eyes, running down into your coarse
black beard…. Now I see you, and now I know there is nothing
I can say to you--nothing I can give.
--Kate Rushin
(A different version of this poem appeared in The Black Back-Ups, Firebrand Books, 1993.)
₪₪₪₪₪
Death On The Playground
Boston, MA
Dark city, night is coming and he plays basketball alone practicing his shots from all distances, from different angles, some with the left hand, some with the right, dribbles between his legs, stops, pumps, a swish, no rim no noise until the ball bounces, until the gun shot echoes off the walls of the projects and there is the noise of doors slamming shut, windows being closed, people running and a car speeding off into the dark city, into night and someone has called the police and the siren’s alarm cuts the thick summer air like a plow in snow and the blood from the boy lying on the court turns the foul line red as it spreads over dark tarmac and he is dead before the police get there, he is dead before the ambulance arrives and helpless EMTs check for signs of life then pronounce him dead, not vital signs, just red where two bullets entered and now people are gathering around, coming out of the projects to see the latest victim to mourn a teenage boy, the latest youth slain by the passion of crime and they ask why he was killed and is it possible he was doing something he should not have been doing or associating with those he should have avoided or is it another mistaken identity and someone else was the one to be killed?
--Zvi A. Sesling
₪₪₪₪₪
Urban Paranoia
It’s cold in here --
grey, gritty light keeps falling,
somebody started the fog machine early
and over the hall
they’re throwing garbage down into the street,
dead dogs, a flat rubber ball,
things to catch at my feet.
These windows don’t fit, and they rattle
as traffic and people collide.
Neighbours have turned their noise machines up;
screeches and sirens, shrieking and screams
grow louder and louder and louder….
Someone selected the city machine
for random, shuffle, loud
and somehow plugged the aeroplanes in.
They know how much that upsets me.
They do it deliberately.
I need to stay calm.
I’ll take an Uzi.
--Mercedes Webb-Pullman
₪₪₪₪₪
CARS
By Brian White
“Remember the yellow Dodge Dart?” I ask.
“The Big Banana,” my brother responds.
“Yeah.”
My brother is half a foot shorter and almost four years younger than me. That sometimes makes me feel as if I know more, but what do I know.
“Remember it wouldn’t start on the last day of our trip to the Amana Colonies? And you were so scared that we were going to be stuck in the Amana Colonies for the rest of our lives.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, hell yes. And you were all upset that you wouldn’t be able to play video games ever again because the Amish didn’t believe in electricity.”
“Fuck you. I never said that.”
“You were probably too young to remember.”
“I remember things quite well, and I never said that, so fuck you. Again.”
“Once we got the car jumped, we were told not to shut the engine off until we got back home, or the car wouldn’t start again. So even when we had to stop for gas, Dad had to leave the car running. The gas attendant screamed at us to shut the engine off, but Dad told him what was up. Dad even made Mom fill up the car while not dipping the nozzle all the way into the gas tank for fear that the tank and the whole car might explode. Once Dad finally got us home and pulled the car up to the house and turned it off, the car died, and the engine never turned over again.”
“I remember that,” my brother says.
“What do you remember?” I ask.
“I remember Dad bought that red Subaru soon afterwards.”
“Ah, The Ladybug. What make of car was it?”
“I dunno.”
I look at my brother sideways and smile.
“Don’t start that, asshole,” my brother responds. “You tell me since you’re such the expert.”
“You know I should remember, but . . .”
“That car had over 150,000 miles on it when Dad bought it, and it still ran smoothly for another five years.”
“The best investment he ever made.”
“Yeah.”
“Remember that day we both came home from school at the end of the week, and Dad was rushing us off into the car saying, ‘The Falls, boys! You’ve got to go see The Falls before you die. They are amazing!’ He told us he’d call Mom from the road to tell her where we’d gone once we got through the Friday evening rush.”
“Did he ever?”
“He must have. I mean, I’m sure he told us he did.”
My brother narrows his brow in my direction. “Dad told us a lot of things.”
“Well, he had to have called Mom eventually, or she would have had the FBI after us.”
My brother chuckles. “I guess.” He then looks at the ground. “Niagara Falls was quite impressive.”
“That was the same car Dad left Mom in,” I say.
“I remember him saying, ‘This is not about you, boys. This is between me and your mom.’”
“But he left us just the same.”
There is nothing now but a faint breeze rustling through the trees creating a patchwork of sunshine on a fading day. And the sound of dirt.
“Remember when he eventually came back sans car?” I ask.
“He borrowed Grandpa’s old Oldsmobile Delta,” my brother replies.
“The Blue Whale.”
“Used it to teach his new 21 year old Peruvian girlfriend how to drive. And she almost got us all killed.”
“No, she did not.”
“Fuck yeah. She inches out into the intersection to make a left hand turn. It’s just past sundown, and she somehow can’t see the road very well. She begins making the turn up onto the sidewalk when dad blurts out, ‘STOP!’ She panics, hits the gas, the car does a 180 and narrowly misses the light post by a foot or two.”
“So?” I reply. “That car was goddamn impenetrable anyway. Even if we had actually hit the light post, we would have been fine.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that she almost got us fucking killed.”
“Remember that we pleaded with Dad to take the wheel after that?”
“Well, at least he did the right thing then.”
I shake my head. “One of the very few times.”
The workers are almost finished.
“And then there was the lime green Toyota Camry,” my brother says.
“The Putterer,” I sigh and then smile.
“Who the fuck decides to make a car lime green?”
“The Japanese?”
“There was always something wrong with that car. Dad would say, well, maybe it’s this, or maybe it’s that.”
“Or maybe . . . ‘it’s the fact that you don’t take care of the fucking car.’” My brother and I say this last in unison and laugh.
“Dad,” I say.
“Yeah, Dad,” my brother responds.
“Remember when we took that canoe trip with Dad up to Wisconsin? Blew two tires on the way up.”
“And the other two on the way back. I was just waiting for the whole car to burst.”
“You were such a chicken shit.”
“Fuck you. It was always an adventure with Dad since he never looked after anything he owned.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I kick some imaginary rock on the ground. “Do you remember when he drove The Putterer up onto our front lawn that night?”
“He was drunk.”
“No, he wasn’t drunk then. He was sober.”
“When was he sober?”
“He begged mom to take him back that night after so many years. Said he was sorry for everything. Said he was sorry for skipping out on her and the two of us.”
“His only apology.”
“Made such a raucous he woke half the neighborhood. But Mom still wouldn’t let him into the house.”
“Yeah, I remember that. The car finally died on the lawn that night. Mom got stuck with the bill of having to get it towed.”
One of the workers takes out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead even though it is the beginning of November. I hand them an extra twenty and then gently place some flowers on the freshly filled-in grave.
I say, “Dad sure knew how to pick his cars.”
My brother sighs. “Yeah.”
₪₪₪₪₪
U.M.Ph.! Prose #6 Copyright September 1, 2010 contains words nobody will believe you wrote, so save us all a hassle and don't steal. The umphatic editor, however, gets to borrow the work herein until 6 Earth months from whenever I slap it up on the Internet. Then, each work belongs exclusively to its author, and the editor will have to admit to writing the rest of this stuff. (Hands off the visual art too.) Happy new school shoes, Halloween, Gobbling Day, tinsel tossing, and matzo ball soup! Thanks mucho to the swell writers who passed in all their homework on time and totally legible.
Does anyone really read these intros anyhow? You just want to jump in to see if Timothy Gager is in here, then to the end to check out Brian White, right? Well, go ahead. See if I care. Harumph!
--mignon ariel king, autumn, 2010
₪₪₪₪₪
You Deserve Someone
By Timothy Gager
Travis stands in the grass by Jamaica Pond with his arm held high, finger pointing out. A week ago his skin turned the color of piss.
“What are you doing?” Sabrina asks.
“If you get the birds used to you, one day they will fly down and land on your finger."
"You think?"
How do they learn about trees or wires?” he asks.
“I don't know.” Sabrina used to hang out most weekends until one day she didn’t go anywhere. “They might just shit on you though.”
"Proximity…repetition," he says. “It brings comfort.” They search the sky; no chance of rain today.
“Look a gold finch!” Travis shouts. It flies overhead away from its partner in the tree. He stops. “Do you want to fly away Sabs, like that song?” Travis starts singing “Yellow Bird”.
“You can’t ever leave. I'll have no one.”
“I am fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“Before I die, it’s going to happen.” He gets up on his tip-toes as the gold finch flies back overhead with a twig.
₪₪₪₪₪
And there is always
Someone I may know
Someone I am advised to contact.
Some twit
On tweeter
Want to meet her?
I used to ask my neighbor
How to make soup.
I sat high on a chair
Waving from a city stoop.
And we were all
in the flesh
and all
in the loop.
Feeling shitty in the city
“ Any idiot can face a crisis, it’s the day to day living that wears you out.” --Chekov
Is it more heroic
To face the burning flash
The torrential flood
Or the day to day
Asphalt and the
Disheartening sludge?
After the bust--
Past,
The Financial District's
Highly lauded boom
When you are way past
The purple bloom,
Can you face
And endure
The grinding
Gloom?
--Doug Holder
₪₪₪₪₪
asphalt flowers bloom on Townsville streets
knock down
lock down
fear in the streets
vomit in the basin
blood on the sheets
running through the alley
pricks on the beat
you’re putting on cool
but you’re feeling on heat
night time
fright time
lover I’m back
skin off my knuckles
cue in the rack
I want a little loving
and a private dance
need a little comfort
and some sweet romance
jig time
big time
sirens in the night
chills down your backbone
come and hold me tight
fate is already loaded
in the shooter’s gun
we’re too late to care
and too slow to run
knock down
lock down
fear in the streets
vomit in the basin
blood on the sheets
--john holland
₪₪₪₪₪
Stars & Stripes in a Boston Square
Bee Bee's scarf had silver stripes
that matched the glitter sparkles
embedded in the red formica bar.
The black-silked bartender was
the hottest thing in there, a maybe-
paramedic second simply because,
hell, he saves people for a living.
And what do Black women creators--
writers, teachers, mothers just too
busy to just date, one too square
to dance with men who don't speak
English--talk about on a summer's
Saturday barhop: "How in Hell
did we end up here on 'salsa night'?"
No man in the room is tall enough.
--Mignon Ariel King
₪₪₪₪₪
Flashing Back
I look around at
all the people &
wonder
If they have ever
been in the tear gas
chamber at Ft. Polk, LA
If they ever caught
a sailfish or flounder
or monster black bass
If they ever worked in
a zinc smelter or built
a fireplace with fool's gold
Or seen Hendrix or Led
Zeppelin or Black Sabbath
Or scuba dived through
a sunken airplane off
the tip of Mexico
Or been to a bullfight
& watched six bulls die
Or fired a cannon
or hitchhiked
or hopped a freight train
or lived in a 63 Chevy
Or lived in a cave
next to a warm springs
full of tiny neon fish.
The journey can be
a flickering candle or
a stick of dynamite.
--Catfish McDaris
₪₪₪₪₪
Armstrong Gardens
“Well,
with the hass tree you’re
looking
at a harvest time
from December
to May,”
he said, mouthing
the words and wiping
sweat from the
corner
of his mouth.
Jeff was fat.
His name tag was
hung awkwardly
perpendicular
to his round frame
and he had a
salt and pepper
moustache that
looked like
it was composed
of wires.
“And with the mango
tree, you’re looking
at a similar
pattern of growth
but with a little
bit more difficulty
in basic cultivation
and stability.
However, once these
bad boys
start growing,
they’re rooted,”
he said, getting
excited.
“In fact, I was at
a buddy’s house
the other day
and asked him
if his mango tree was
yielding good fruit,
and he said
‘what mango tree?’”
he exploded, spit
flying from his
lips and a smile
erupting to
each ear, displaying
chunks of processed
hamburger bread
wedged between his
teeth.
Pointing to the
two citrus trees
I asked:
“how much for
all four? The avocado,
the mango and
both citrus trees.
Factor in the
compost and
the citrus food.”
“Eh,”
he said, running
his thumbs along
the inside of
his stressed
pant line.
“You’re looking to
run around $170-180.”
This was pleasant
to hear.
“Will they talk?”
I asked.
One eyebrow dropping:
“Eh. Excuse me?”
“If I talk to them,
will they talk back?”
I asked.
“This a joke?”
Jeff said,
wiping the sweat
from his cheeks.
“Look, I just want to know
if I talk to any of
the four, will they talk back?”
“No. They’re plants, man.
Plants don’t talk,”
Jeff said, matter-of-factly.
“Will the avocado get
jealous of the citrus
if I pay more attention
to it?”
I asked.
He looked around.
“I don’t think plants
can get jealous,”
the words slowly
forming from his mouth
like the cartoons
where they exhale
the bubble letters.
He was cheerful again
when I told him I
would take all four
and helped me load
them into my truck.
He continued to tell
botany jokes
I didn’t understand
but he got a kick
out of
them,
but this time it
didn’t get to me because
the plants didn’t
laugh either, and
I knew there was
smooth sailing
on the
horizon.
--Jordan Menard
₪₪₪₪₪
Selma’s Zumba Class at the Malden YMCA
Every woman in the class
wants to have her ass.
The way she moves it like a weapon,
shaking, twitching,
pointing, shooting.
We imagine her man keeps it locked
in a treasure chest, with his medals
from the war.
Every person in the class
wants to own her ass.
Is she laughing at us
because we can’t shake the sugar like her?
Is she laughing through her ass?
She appears to be having fun,
possibly at our expense.
Nobody can move their things
like the diva in the front.
Everyone in the class
wants a piece of her ass.
All ethnicities represented –
no one’s hips like hers.
She could make the straightest
woman lust. The men running on the track
stop to stare,
cleaning men drop their Windex
and paper towels, the whole gym stops
when she shakes her ass.
It could cause earthquakes,
or political strife.
It could make us thinner,
striving to shake our asses
up and down, back and forth,
round and round, till we’re all dizzy,
passing out from fatigue, falling
to the ground, no sound, except the fireworks
that used to be our eyes.
--Shannon O’Connor
₪₪₪₪₪
Teaching Journalism
For Victoria Snelgrove
"Victory Edition"
2004 Boston Globe.
Front page framed,
hyper-font orgasms "Yes!"
Baseball as wartime.
"Years of torment end…"
"Victory transforms…"
Dethroned despot uncited.
Next frame, later edition
slightly less victorious.
Still celebrated players,
city united, armchair victory.
Below fold, real world
rudely interrupts,
three inches of story
continued two sections later.
Her name ends lead paragraph,
as afterthought as period.
Lawyer’s noted murmur
only moment of silence.
--Chad Parenteau
₪₪₪₪₪
South End, Boston, 1980
For Byron Rushing & Frieda Garcia
I never see you...but I know you've been here in the night.
Every morning, when I walk the dog, I see your ghosts and skeletons--
the tiny empty and broken bottles gleaming in the sun.
There are new ones every day.... No matter how early, or late, I go,
I never see you. But I know you've been here in the night,
sipping, slipping away by the half pint,
89 cents-worth at a time.
Now
this morning at the bus stop, I look up from my book
and there you are…standing in the middle of the street,
under the elevated tracks, leaning back, a bright orange girder
framing your deep brown face turned up toward the grey sky;
water from your closed eyes, running down into your coarse
black beard…. Now I see you, and now I know there is nothing
I can say to you--nothing I can give.
--Kate Rushin
(A different version of this poem appeared in The Black Back-Ups, Firebrand Books, 1993.)
₪₪₪₪₪
Death On The Playground
Boston, MA
Dark city, night is coming and he plays basketball alone practicing his shots from all distances, from different angles, some with the left hand, some with the right, dribbles between his legs, stops, pumps, a swish, no rim no noise until the ball bounces, until the gun shot echoes off the walls of the projects and there is the noise of doors slamming shut, windows being closed, people running and a car speeding off into the dark city, into night and someone has called the police and the siren’s alarm cuts the thick summer air like a plow in snow and the blood from the boy lying on the court turns the foul line red as it spreads over dark tarmac and he is dead before the police get there, he is dead before the ambulance arrives and helpless EMTs check for signs of life then pronounce him dead, not vital signs, just red where two bullets entered and now people are gathering around, coming out of the projects to see the latest victim to mourn a teenage boy, the latest youth slain by the passion of crime and they ask why he was killed and is it possible he was doing something he should not have been doing or associating with those he should have avoided or is it another mistaken identity and someone else was the one to be killed?
--Zvi A. Sesling
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Urban Paranoia
It’s cold in here --
grey, gritty light keeps falling,
somebody started the fog machine early
and over the hall
they’re throwing garbage down into the street,
dead dogs, a flat rubber ball,
things to catch at my feet.
These windows don’t fit, and they rattle
as traffic and people collide.
Neighbours have turned their noise machines up;
screeches and sirens, shrieking and screams
grow louder and louder and louder….
Someone selected the city machine
for random, shuffle, loud
and somehow plugged the aeroplanes in.
They know how much that upsets me.
They do it deliberately.
I need to stay calm.
I’ll take an Uzi.
--Mercedes Webb-Pullman
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CARS
By Brian White
“Remember the yellow Dodge Dart?” I ask.
“The Big Banana,” my brother responds.
“Yeah.”
My brother is half a foot shorter and almost four years younger than me. That sometimes makes me feel as if I know more, but what do I know.
“Remember it wouldn’t start on the last day of our trip to the Amana Colonies? And you were so scared that we were going to be stuck in the Amana Colonies for the rest of our lives.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, hell yes. And you were all upset that you wouldn’t be able to play video games ever again because the Amish didn’t believe in electricity.”
“Fuck you. I never said that.”
“You were probably too young to remember.”
“I remember things quite well, and I never said that, so fuck you. Again.”
“Once we got the car jumped, we were told not to shut the engine off until we got back home, or the car wouldn’t start again. So even when we had to stop for gas, Dad had to leave the car running. The gas attendant screamed at us to shut the engine off, but Dad told him what was up. Dad even made Mom fill up the car while not dipping the nozzle all the way into the gas tank for fear that the tank and the whole car might explode. Once Dad finally got us home and pulled the car up to the house and turned it off, the car died, and the engine never turned over again.”
“I remember that,” my brother says.
“What do you remember?” I ask.
“I remember Dad bought that red Subaru soon afterwards.”
“Ah, The Ladybug. What make of car was it?”
“I dunno.”
I look at my brother sideways and smile.
“Don’t start that, asshole,” my brother responds. “You tell me since you’re such the expert.”
“You know I should remember, but . . .”
“That car had over 150,000 miles on it when Dad bought it, and it still ran smoothly for another five years.”
“The best investment he ever made.”
“Yeah.”
“Remember that day we both came home from school at the end of the week, and Dad was rushing us off into the car saying, ‘The Falls, boys! You’ve got to go see The Falls before you die. They are amazing!’ He told us he’d call Mom from the road to tell her where we’d gone once we got through the Friday evening rush.”
“Did he ever?”
“He must have. I mean, I’m sure he told us he did.”
My brother narrows his brow in my direction. “Dad told us a lot of things.”
“Well, he had to have called Mom eventually, or she would have had the FBI after us.”
My brother chuckles. “I guess.” He then looks at the ground. “Niagara Falls was quite impressive.”
“That was the same car Dad left Mom in,” I say.
“I remember him saying, ‘This is not about you, boys. This is between me and your mom.’”
“But he left us just the same.”
There is nothing now but a faint breeze rustling through the trees creating a patchwork of sunshine on a fading day. And the sound of dirt.
“Remember when he eventually came back sans car?” I ask.
“He borrowed Grandpa’s old Oldsmobile Delta,” my brother replies.
“The Blue Whale.”
“Used it to teach his new 21 year old Peruvian girlfriend how to drive. And she almost got us all killed.”
“No, she did not.”
“Fuck yeah. She inches out into the intersection to make a left hand turn. It’s just past sundown, and she somehow can’t see the road very well. She begins making the turn up onto the sidewalk when dad blurts out, ‘STOP!’ She panics, hits the gas, the car does a 180 and narrowly misses the light post by a foot or two.”
“So?” I reply. “That car was goddamn impenetrable anyway. Even if we had actually hit the light post, we would have been fine.”
“That’s not the point. The point is that she almost got us fucking killed.”
“Remember that we pleaded with Dad to take the wheel after that?”
“Well, at least he did the right thing then.”
I shake my head. “One of the very few times.”
The workers are almost finished.
“And then there was the lime green Toyota Camry,” my brother says.
“The Putterer,” I sigh and then smile.
“Who the fuck decides to make a car lime green?”
“The Japanese?”
“There was always something wrong with that car. Dad would say, well, maybe it’s this, or maybe it’s that.”
“Or maybe . . . ‘it’s the fact that you don’t take care of the fucking car.’” My brother and I say this last in unison and laugh.
“Dad,” I say.
“Yeah, Dad,” my brother responds.
“Remember when we took that canoe trip with Dad up to Wisconsin? Blew two tires on the way up.”
“And the other two on the way back. I was just waiting for the whole car to burst.”
“You were such a chicken shit.”
“Fuck you. It was always an adventure with Dad since he never looked after anything he owned.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I kick some imaginary rock on the ground. “Do you remember when he drove The Putterer up onto our front lawn that night?”
“He was drunk.”
“No, he wasn’t drunk then. He was sober.”
“When was he sober?”
“He begged mom to take him back that night after so many years. Said he was sorry for everything. Said he was sorry for skipping out on her and the two of us.”
“His only apology.”
“Made such a raucous he woke half the neighborhood. But Mom still wouldn’t let him into the house.”
“Yeah, I remember that. The car finally died on the lawn that night. Mom got stuck with the bill of having to get it towed.”
One of the workers takes out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead even though it is the beginning of November. I hand them an extra twenty and then gently place some flowers on the freshly filled-in grave.
I say, “Dad sure knew how to pick his cars.”
My brother sighs. “Yeah.”
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U.M.Ph.! Prose #6 Copyright September 1, 2010 contains words nobody will believe you wrote, so save us all a hassle and don't steal. The umphatic editor, however, gets to borrow the work herein until 6 Earth months from whenever I slap it up on the Internet. Then, each work belongs exclusively to its author, and the editor will have to admit to writing the rest of this stuff. (Hands off the visual art too.) Happy new school shoes, Halloween, Gobbling Day, tinsel tossing, and matzo ball soup! Thanks mucho to the swell writers who passed in all their homework on time and totally legible.