When I was in my late teens/early twenties, I would eat the occasional moth, grasshopper, ant, etc. to entertain my young children and their neighborhood friends. I also swallowed other things, goldfish and guppies to name a couple, to amuse them (and myself I suppose). This was great fun on camping trips.
Haven ridden motorcycles all my life, I’ve ingested countless flying things I’d rather not think about. During the eighties there was a group of crazies who called themselves the Moon Men. They’d show up unannounced and uninvited at motorcycle rallies and campsites. Their wild antics were high entertainment so, in most cases, they were not chased away. On one such trip, I stopped at a mountain restaurant to eat on a balmy summer weekend in Colorado. Half a dozen loonies, Moon Men extraordinaire, were flitting about the café to the consternation of cooks and waitresses, catching moths, picking up bugs off the floor. Each had a glass jar into which went all the creepy crawlies he captured. Later that evening, around a blazing community campfire, the Moon Men cavorted and entertained me and a host of other midnight riders. The Moon Man with the most critters in his jar was the star of the show. He was acknowledged in low ritual, rewarded as it were, honored by his peers, encouraged and slapped silly (no far reach) while he smacked his lips, yummy-yummy, and ate the day’s catch of the entire group.
Somewhere along life’s path, I decided not to intentionally kill any more bugs. That is, bugs not biting or stinging me and/or my children. Those I promptly stomp, swat, chase, generally swear a sincere vengeance upon. Flies are not a part of my amnesty on critters. I hate the filthy, slimy, sometimes biting little bastards. I collect Rosie the beagle’s doo-doo every morning, drop it in one of those plastic grocery bags and tie it loosely in what I call a half-knot. I hang the bag from a light fixture in the backyard, go my merry way and wait. A couple of times a day I retrieve the bag, hold the top firmly closed at the half-knot, and literally punch the living caca out of the flies that have crawled into the bag. Yesterday, I am glad to report, I took out over a hundred of the little vermin and hardly got any on myself. I am determined and easily amused.
Last week, driving back from our wedding in Colorado, I was chatting with Kathy about what bugs me in life (no pun intended, heh-heh). She was driving (what a good and special girl to give me a break) and I felt it my duty to entertain her. A tiny green bug was crawling around on the windshield on my side of the car. Using my right index finger, I encouraged him over and over to hide himself in the corner between the rubber molding and the glass (I knew he was a he because I saw his little peesqueeter very clearly, thank-you very much). I asked him what he thought about the graveyard just the other side of the windscreen. “What goes through all your little buddies’ bug brains when they smash into that invisible barrier at eighty miles an hour other than their butt-holes?”
Kathy, amused at my discourse (I think), decided the little green bug deserved a name. After some deep consideration, she christened him ‘Nevada Bill’ in honor of the wide and ‘less than scenic’ state we were motoring through. Bill, as if excited to finally have a name, exhibited an amazing ability to hop several times farther than the length of his tiny bug body when I poked his little butt with my finger. He landed on my shirt pocket and perched there looking up at me as if to say, “Now what?” It was either that or Bill needs glasses. I pursed my lips and shot him a little whoosh of breath. Bill didn’t like that. In one little giant hop (I think maybe Bill can fly), he landed on the side window. I tickled the down button on the door panel and out he went into the wind-stream. I kind o’ liked that little guy. Sure hope he doesn’t run across any Moon Men.
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~Larimer Street in Denver~
~it’s the place to be for the in-crowd~
~sports junkies, girls on the make~
~the haves pushed the don’t haves out years ago~
~it used to be skid-row~
~I liked it better then~
~spilled some blood there~
~not all of it my own~~George’s Hands~ His knuckles were pushed back, forever swollen in his huge hands whose fists had made him king of the Larimer Street Bars. Quiet and soft-spoken, he took this sixteen-year-old kid under his wing. I worked the yard with him at a scaffolding company. It was my first job and he was my boss.
George took me to the bars some Friday nights after work. The Yellow Cab would pick us up and drop us off in skid row downtown. When we walked into the bars loud voices hushed in respect. Madmen and wild women parted and made way for me and my gentle giant friend.
George put my hand to a wrench, taught me to drive the Case forklift, though he never drove a car and I asked him why. He swore me to secrecy then showed me a document from his wallet that stated his driver’s license was revoked for the remainder of his life for driving getaway cars from bank robberies in the thirties and forties.
Within a year I was George’s boss. He pushed me ahead of himself, told me I would be a man of words, that he was a man of hands. A year later, when George was fifty-six years old, his cigarette smoking and bar room brawling days caught up with him in a rush. I’ll not forget his gasping breath, its halting whoosh as emphysema put him down.
I had helped George tag all his tools and wondered why he would paint them bright orange to separate them from the others in the shop. At seventeen-years-old, after my first pall bearing, George’s wife asked me to gather them up and bring them to her. When I brought them to her house she informed me he meant for me to keep them, every single one of them. They were many, amassed over twenty hardworking years. I loaded them back into my hotrod Mustang, shed a tumble of hard-bitten tears. I have been haunted and blessed the whole of my life by memories of George’s hands.
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~here one minute~
~gone the next~
~my youngest son creates clone videos~
~snaps characters in with his fingers~
~amazing to watch his work on you tube~
~zoodious he calls himself~
~I have seen many people snap out~
~very few snap back~
~before we are aware we are…~
~gathering descent~
~porch light in the afternoon~
~neighborhood covenant~
~golden leaves falling~
~rustling beneath the breeze~
~raspy sound~
~ventilator~
~respirator~
~breathing underwater~
~is he in there~
~the man~
~my brother~
~that husk lain open~
~wiggly feet~
~puffy fists of hands~
~straining against restraints~
~sky eyes looking~
~down on me~
~through bare branches~
~of late autumn~
~Colorado~
~brother’s eyes wide~
~vacant~
~beseech me~
~look through me~
~into some nether void~
~opiate~
~celestial~
~angels & demons~
~surround us~
~we are~
~discovered at last~
~jettisoned~
~golden the fall~
~the full moon~
~its attendant star~
~how decades altar~
~their appearance~
~in our sight~
~our human blindness~
~animal desires~
~bestial delights~
~diminished~
~our steps shortened~
~halting breath~
~the sureness of youth~
~leaking away~
~bloodless & aging~
~we stand~~we barely stand~
~remember the path~
~moss on stones~
~our fascination with shadow~
~conversations~
~hollow whispers now~
~that we were mere~
~& powerful shadow images ourselves~
~we were so wrong~~but there along the way~
~certain to be eclipsed~
~by our children~
~grandchildren~
~deep canyon smoke~
~echoes in your eyes~
~tell me we walked~
~in tall strides~
~in some small~
~insignificant way~
~we were right~
~& brave to do so~
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~this is the end~
~beautiful friend
~the end~
~this is the end~
~my only friend~
~the end~
~of our elab’rate plans~
~the end~
~of ev’rything that stands
~the end~
~no safety or surprise~
~the end~
~I'll never look into your eyes again~
~James Douglas Morrison~
~midnight 31 December~
~the final click~
~on the citizen time-clock~
~marking the year 2011~
~a young man in Colorado~
~stared into the internet tunnel~
~the only light in his room~
~watching & listening~
~to apocalyptic doomsday~
~wizards & witches~
~the electronic medium~
~he erased the badgering rhetoric~
~from his mind-space~
~posted the words of the poet~
~James Douglas Morrison~
~to his Face Book page~
~closed his eyes & went to sleep~
~fourteen hundred miles away~
~in a place named California~
~& unbeknownst to him~
~the young man’s father~
~practiced the precise steps~
~of the ritual~
~word for word~
~these poets share a~
~familiar rain~
~earth creatures~
~ghosts & men~
~stand down for this one~
~whose memories are shadows~
~wispy glimpses of that which~
~has not yet occurred~
~sacred guardian of the afterlife~
~ruler of the night~
~keeper of spirits transitioning~
~from one plane of existence~
~to another~
~brother owl watches children~
~brown in the sun~
~laughing & running through~
~pale lavender/deep violet~
~fields of alfalfa~
~a spool of string between them~
~trailing high into the sky~
~brother owl knows what children know~
~the bones of the kite where the string is tied~
~are not its beginning or end~
~nor is the spool spinning in their hands~
~they are creatures of moment~
~children~
~ecstatic & so caught up living~
~its delicious bits are all~
~that cannot end has not begun~
{continued}
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~Quodlibet~
~The Hundred Bites~
~II~
~Uncle Max was a quiet man~a family man~
~came to visit me when I was a hog farmer in Wyoming~~spoke with him about my daughter~~going to college in Colorado~
~word had it a Jewish boy she was dating~ ~liked to smack her around~
~they’re coming to visit in a couple of weeks~
~don’t know if I can behave myself~
~I confessed to Uncle Max~
~those pigs’ll eat a man~he told me~
~say his legs are broken~they’ll kill him & eat him~
~Uncle Max scratched his chin~
~you have to crush the skull though~
~pigs can’t get their jaws around it~
~II. Uncles & Ants~
~this city rises up~
~his wife~
~is asleep in the trunk~
~too many reasons to leave her~
~it swallows people whole~
~generations are lost~
~dinosaurs tripping on ants~
~where do the little people go~
~sometimes you just wanna run away~
~to live in the hills~
~make a pile of dirt~
~& crawl on inside~
~we can pretend we is white folks~
~we got a history of uncles~
~sisters hanging from trees~
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Quodlibet was published by Howling Dog Press
Staying with grandparents, nine-year-old Timmy defies grandmother’s orders. He receives a scolding & her hand on his back side. He turns his back on her, just walks away.
~a man on fire~
~in an empty room~
~six ways out~
~indecision rules~
Chapter Four
~Children ... It’s Elementary~
Denver, Colorado
Fall, 1959
There was nothing Timmy could do to rectify the situation but he couldn’t stop thinking about it so he ignored Grandma’s voice, sobbed and kicked stones, and continued to feel sorry for himself. He enjoyed a bit of relief from his problems as the larger stones jarred the bones in his toes and gave him something else to think about. He knew they were right, Grandma and Grandpa. They shouldn’t have to take care of Daddy and his family. He wondered if he really was a dirty little bastard. As they always said, Grandma and Grandpa, they had worked hard and raised theirs. This should be a time of peace and rest for them. Grandpa was employed as a baker afternoons and nights and Grandma was a cookie packer for the Bowman Biscuit Company. They were trying to lay a little money aside for their retirement. Grandma had varicose veins and her legs hurt. She stood her place on the assembly line six nights a week, two to eleven. She rode the city bus to work and back home with the midnight crazies. Grandma didn’t drive.
Timmy blinked his eyes in surprise when he realized he had reached the crossroads at the bottom of the hill. Cars swished back and forth on Hampden Avenue a few steps away. He turned to his right, squinted his eyes, and stared at the building where his mother worked. Coors and Pabst Blue Ribbon neon signs winked at him and, his favorite, Hamms ... the beer refreshing with the big smiling bear and the blue running water. He wasn’t so sure about his decision to walk down the hill now. He felt a tight fist form in his chest and knew he was between a rock and a hard spot when he recognized Daddy’s truck parked by the front door. There would be hell to pay for leaving Grandma after she had ordered him to turn around and come back home.
Timmy was in a quandary. He had never seriously considered running away before but this might be just the situation for it. He wished for Jerry. His brother wasn’t very good at getting along with Momma and Daddy but he knew all about running away and making it on his own. What would Peter and Lisa and Leda do without him, Timmy wondered ... and Momma. He didn’t have long to worry about the problem as Daddy came staggering out the front door of the bar. He started to climb in his truck, then noticed Timmy standing by the side of the road.
“Get yer ass over here!” he ordered. When they were both seated in the old truck he administered his favorite punishment where Timmy was concerned, an open handed slap to the top of his head. “What in hell gets into you, Timmy? Ma’s all shook up now. She thinks you’ve run away. She really got pissed when she called here to talk to your mother and they called me to the phone. I’m afraid you’ve messed it up for all of us with that bullheadedness o’ yours. She don’t want me drinkin’, y’know?”
The top of Timmy’s head smarted and he winced in anticipation of another slap as he replied sadly and truthfully, “None of us do, Daddy.”
Daddy surprised him by rubbing his head affectionately. “’S okay, son. You sit tight while I run in ‘n tell your mother you’re all right. I think I found us a place to live. We’ll pick up your brother and sisters and go have a look. I’ll talk to Ma when we get to the house but you’re gonna have to apologize to her for your behavior.”
Daddy went into the bar and came right back out. He drove his old Ford truck up the bumpy dirt road and parked in front of the little house on the hill. There was a clothesline set up at the back of the driveway just in front of Grandpa Webber’s car. He kept rabbits in hutches against the rear wall of the house and was busy outside tending to them. He waved nonchalantly and walked behind the house as Daddy and Timmy came up the driveway behind his Packard. “Go see your Grandpa while I go inside and have a couple words with Ma,” Daddy ordered. “I don’t even want her to see you since you took off without her permission. You hurt her feelings and there’ll be hell to pay.”
Spending time with Grandpa Webber would never find itself on the list of things Timmy would like to do. He knew better than to argue with Daddy. His head still smarted from the slap by Daddy’s hand, so he walked slowly past Grandpa’s car toward the rear of the house. “Don’t walk so God-damned close to the car!” Grandpa warned, “You God-damned brats are bound ‘n determined to scratch the shit out of it!”
Timmy sidled over next to the house. When he came to the corner, Grandpa was standing next to the hutches holding a large rabbit. “Get a handful o’ clothespins out ‘o that bag,” he said to Timmy. Timmy stepped over to the clothesline and did as he was told. Grandpa was right behind him with the rabbit clutched close to his chest. It was kicking and clawing furiously with its rear feet. Its nails were long and blood oozed from a deep cut on Grandpa’s wrist where it had scratched him. “Nice bunny, bunny,” Grandpa cooed. He scratched the rabbit behind the ears and rubbed the back of its neck. “Bastard bitch scratched me,” he muttered to himself. “Gimme a couple o’ them pins,” he said to Timmy.
Timmy handed them to him while Grandpa lifted the rabbit up and bent one of its ears over the thick clothesline wire. He clipped the ear to the wire with the pins and held his hand out. “Gimme two more,” he ordered. He took them from Timmy with his free hand and fixed the other ear to the line while gripping the animal close to his body. It was struggling madly, its eyes wide, wet, and full of fear. Grandpa hugged the rabbit close and made purring sounds deep in his chest. He massaged the back of the rabbit’s head and neck while slowly releasing it until it was hanging sedately by its ears from the clothesline. With a deft flick of his right hand he dealt it a blow to the base of its skull. The animal shuddered, kicked a couple of times, and then slowly relaxed into its death.
Grandpa winked at Timmy. “That’s tame meat right there. It’ll be tender in the pot, melt in your mouth. She died real good, didn’t she? Kill ‘em fightin’ an’ the meat’s gamier ‘n hell. Ever had rabbit stew, boy?”
“No sir,” Timmy replied. Watching the slaying of the rabbit, he was reminded of Grandpa Jim’s rooster in Missouri and hoping he wouldn’t have to partake in the meal soon to come. As it turned out, he didn’t have to eat rabbit that evening. Daddy called him over to the house to help gather up his siblings and their belongings while he and Grandpa Webber said goodbye. Timmy’s emotions were all screwed up. Being walloped by Grandma, head-slapped by Daddy, and witnessing the death of the rabbit by Grandpa Webber was just about all he could take. Not quite, he thought, now he had to face Grandma.
“Don’t you ever turn your back and walk away from me like that again,” she admonished sternly when he entered the house. Her eyes always looked like they were swimming behind the lenses of her thick glasses. They were wet now, full to the brim with tears soon to be spilled. She pulled Timmy to her, hugged him to her breast and wept for a moment. Her tears ran down her cheeks and onto his forehead, then into his eyes. He imagined they burned more than his own did. She took a deep breath and pushed him away, held him at arms’ length, her hands on his shoulders. “You look out for Peter, Lisa, and Leda, hear me? I’m sure gonna miss all of you around the house.”
Timmy was struggling with tears of his own. He felt as if he was abandoning Grandma Webber. After her complaints, he couldn’t understand why she was crying when Daddy was doing what she had asked, taking them somewhere else to live. It was difficult to believe they’d be missed in the Webber household. “You have to stop drinking,” Timmy heard her stern rebuke of Daddy as he and his siblings piled into the truck.
“I’m tryin’, Ma,” Daddy replied, “Doin’ my best.” He hugged her, waved at Grandpa and the dead rabbit, climbed into the truck, let out the clutch and pulled slowly away from the curb.
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~Larimer Street in Denver~it’s the place to be for the in-crowd, sports junkies, girls on the make~the haves pushed the don’t haves out years ago~it used to be skid-row~I liked it better then~spilled some blood there~not all of it my own~
~George’s Hands~
His knuckles were pushed back, forever swollen in his huge hands whose fists had made him king of the Larimer Street Bars. Quiet and soft-spoken, he took this sixteen-year-old kid under his wing. I worked the yard with him at a scaffolding company. It was my first job and he was my boss.
George took me to the bars some Friday nights after work. The Yellow Cab would pick us up and drop us off in skid row downtown. When we walked into the bars loud voices hushed in respect. Madmen and wild women parted and made way for me and my gentle giant friend.
George put my hand to a wrench, taught me to drive the Case forklift, though he never drove a car and I asked him why. He swore me to secrecy then showed me a document from his wallet that stated his driver’s license was revoked forever for driving getaway cars from bank robberies in the thirties and forties.
Within a year I was George’s boss. He pushed me ahead of himself, told me I would be a man of words, that he was a man of hands. A year later, when George was fifty-six years old, his cigarette smoking and bar room brawling days caught up with him in a rush. I’ll not forget his gasping breath, its halting whoosh as emphysema put him down.
I had helped George tag all his tools and wondered why he would paint them bright orange to separate them from the others in the shop. At seventeen-years-old, after my first pall bearing, George’s wife had me gather them up and bring them to her. She said he meant for me to keep them, every single one of them. They were many, amassed over twenty hardworking years. I loaded them back into my hotrod Mustang, shed a tumble of hard-bitten tears. I have been haunted and blessed the whole of my life by memories of George’s hands.
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The Turner family has moved back to Colorado from Montana. It is winter & the family is destitute. Tim Turner’s half-sister, Phyllis, & brother-in-law, Jerry, have agreed to let the family stay with them until Tim finds work & is able to take care of his wife & children. Uncle Jerry despises his nephew, Timmy. It is late & all are asleep. Seven-year-old Timmy is hungry, decides to take a chance & get himself some bread with sugar on it.
Excerpt from “Momma’s Rain,” a novel by Tom (WordWulf) Sterner.
~when love comes crawling~
~a child is born~
~reality of years~
~& the babe is torn~
Chapter Two
~Children of Chance/Endings~ Denver, Colorado Winter, 1957 He tiptoed up the seven steps in his stocking feet, peered cautiously into the sleeping kitchen. It was eerily lit by the face of the clock and bluish shafts of light from the street lamps outside. Aunt Phyllis was a cleanliness freak. She kept plastic covers on the furniture. Her kitchen was all sharp and gleaming edges. Timmy felt the house watching him, a stranger in its midst. He took the last step up and stood outlined in the doorway. Nothing moved and neither did he. The sound of his breathing was a roar he wished to silence. How did Jerry do this, he wondered.
The refrigerator was a giant white monster standing just to the left of the door. His back against the smooth wall, he shuffled sideways until he stood before it. His hands trembled as he walked them up the side, to the top of the big metal box. A low rumble issued from inside it and he shuddered with fear. He felt as if it was a night watcher, a monster machine installed to keep food cold and gobble up thieves and trespassers. The rumble settled itself into a steady hum and Timmy realized it was the motor of the thing, a sound he had never noticed in the daylight hours.
He took a deep breath to settle himself down and, with a halting resolve, let his hands do their hungry raccoon business on top of the refrigerator. They found the open half loaf of bread in front and moved it aside. When he felt the next loaf, a full one, he undid the wire tie. Though the heel was his favorite part, he shuffled past it and the first half dozen slices. After pulling two from the middle of the loaf, he fluffed the bread back in place, retied the wire and placed the half loaf back in front of the others.
This done, he worked his way slowly across the kitchen, thankful for the cover of darkness but wishing he could see better. Uncle Jer took sugar in his coffee so there was always a big bowl of it on the table and a spoon ready for him to use. Timmy laid the two slices of bread down side by side on the table. They stared balefully at him, large blank accusing eyes, and white holes in the dark room. He had never stolen before but then he had never been this close to sugar bread. His raccoon hands were unable to find the spoon so he held up the bowl and tilted it toward his body. Sugar sifted over the edge and piled itself up on the bread eyes.
From the corner of his eye he glimpsed a shadow shape. All at once he was unable to hear the tick-tick of the clock or the now-comforting hum of the refrigerator. His heart beat, thumpity-thump, like a bass drum. It thundered in his ears, erased all other sound with its pumping of fear through his brain. Terror owned each of his senses and, in its monster grip, his love for sugar bread was forgotten. He knew what the blind know and never mind how. All doubt aside, there was someone in the kitchen with him.
Fear owned him as Timmy summoned up the courage to turn from the table and face whatever was behind him. He managed to turn around and, just as he did, a shape hovered over him. He was assaulted by its tobacco breath. Terrified, he felt a scream in the very pit of himself. Before it made its way out, a strong hairy hand planted itself firmly over his mouth and another clamped like a vice onto the back of his neck. He was dragged backward through the kitchen and thump, thump, thumped down the stairs. He had been physically punished by Momma and Daddy but this was something very different. Momma and Daddy loved him; the thing that had him now hated him. That knowledge flowed into him from the unforgiving grip of its claws, the spittle of its breath on his face.
“I got you, Little Jesus! I knew it was you sneakin’ around and gettin’ into the bread!” Uncle Jer pushed Timmy’s face into the cot and hissed into his ear, “I’m gonna take my hand from your mouth, you slobbery little bastard. You so much as squeak and I’ll tear off your fuckin’ head and shit down your neck! Do you understand?”
Timmy nodded his head in the iron grip of his uncle’s hands. Uncle Jer let go of him, turned him over, on his back, and pinned him to the bed. Timmy inhaled a ragged breath, a half sob, and stared into the monster face a fraction of an inch from his own. The eyes in the face were darker than the night. They glowed menacingly in the hatchet of Uncle Jer’s face. Hate lived there and nothing else. He wiped the hand with Timmy’s saliva on the front of the boy’s coat and glared at him in disgust. His voice was a feral snarl, dripping with the promise of pending violence. “It’s all about you with your Mom and Pop, ain’t it boy? Well, I got somethin’ else for ya. Mebbe a l’il bit what your brother gets all the time. You ain’t a pimple on his ass, boy.”
He put his hands around Timmy’s throat and squeezed slowly. Unable to breathe, the weight of his uncle’s body pinning him down, Timmy glared back into the dark face with a growing hatred of his own. Uncle Jer laughed low and mean, released the pressure on Timmy’s throat, and then slapped him lightly on both cheeks. “Go to sleep, Little Jesus. Steal from me again, cross me in any way, your ass is mine.” He got up and left the room without another word.
Timmy pulled himself up and huddled against the wall in the corner of the creaking cot. He tucked his feet under him and felt his body trembling violently. Cold sweat swarmed over him. It started in the bare toes peeking from the holes in his socks and crept across his body to the end of each standing hair. Ice is cold but fear, that lone province of low dread, is frigid beyond any material liquid dimension. His eyes would not close in sleep. They were afraid, in fact, to blink. He was trapped in the cage of Uncle Jer and Aunt Phyllis’ house. If he told his parents, trouble with no end would begin. Where would he and his family go? What would they do? He drifted into an eerie and fearful half-sleep, alienated in a bare and square world, halfway up the stairs and halfway down.
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~Written On Glass~
A sun/heart drawn in the corner splashed wavy rays across the window. Small stick-figure girls jumped rope and played hop-scotch sill to sill. A dog with a head larger than its body frolicked with them, a big smile drawn across its doggy face. There was writing across the bottom of the scene, a caption of sorts.
He was cold, standing out there in the yard. Having spent the day working in the chill Colorado weather, Jeremy had entertained himself with thoughts of coming home to a warm house. Scrutinizing the front-room window, he forgot all about the cold. Lacy, his six-year-old daughter, must have gotten busy right after school to create such a busy picture.
Jeremy stepped closer and bent down, the better to see her artwork. The writing was scrawled and awkward to read; he was hard put to make it out and there was the artist’s own finger! He looked into Lacy’s big brown eyes and she blew him a kiss through the window. Jeremy caught it on his cheek and headed for the front door. Lacy wheeled her chair to meet him and hugged his head warmly when he bent to kiss her face. “Mrs. Wiley baked us a cherry pie,” she whispered into his ear.
Jeremy held her at arm’s length. “Did she leave you alone again?”
Lacy’s eyes swam behind thick lenses. She was tiny and frail, appeared even more so between the wheels of her chair, to everyone but Jeremy, that is. His number one girl was gifted in every way and he knew it. “Mrs. Wiley knows I’m a big girl and can take care o’ myself ‘til you get home,” Lacy beamed.
“So you are!” Jeremy chortled. “Now how ‘bout some o’ that pie?”
“I’m gonna have a little nap,” Lacy replied. “Now you’re home to watch me, I bemembered I’m tired.”
Jeremy lifted her from the chair and carried her to the bedroom. He laid her on the bed and smoothed the hair back from her forehead. “That’s a wonderful picture you drew on the window.”
Lacy smiled. “It’s you ‘n me.”
Jeremy removed her glasses and set them on the nightstand. Lacy was already asleep, the smile still on her face. Oh yes, this was the warmth he had longed for all day. He went to the window for an inside view. There was his little girl, doing all the things little girls do. He imagined Lacy running in her dreams. And there he was, not a dog after all, with that big Daddy head and smile.
He bent over to read the caption. It was even harder to read from inside the house because Lacy had written it backwards. A tear rolled down Jeremy’s cheek. Frontward or backward didn’t matter; Lacy’s message was the only truth he would ever need to know: ‘I LOVE MY DADDY’
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~Momma’s Rain~ (excerpt – chapter one)
Momma is getting ready to go to work. She is speaking to her oldest of four children, Timmy, telling him to tend to his three younger siblings. Six-year-old Jerry has been punished and is standing in the corner for eating the last two slices of the family’s bread. It’s a cold winter night. Momma is saying goodbye to her children.
Excerpt from “Momma’s Rain,” a novel by Tom (WordWulf) Sterner.
~for life is a fiction~
~birth~
~a sad truth~
~death~
~a just reward~
~still children smile~
Chapter One
Children in Passing
I don’t like Country Western music
Billings Montana
Winter, 1957
Momma came in, picked Lisa up and kissed her chubby cheek. She glanced at the boys. “You guys behave yourselves and no going outside. Keep the door locked. Daddy will be right back to fix you something to eat. Lisa’s other diaper is soaking in the toilet. Rinse it out and hang it by the stove, Timmy. If she needs changed before it’s dry go ahead and use a dishtowel instead of a diaper. There’s one hanging from the oven handle on the stove.” She set Lisa on the couch, gave Timmy a reassuring smile, and hurried away.
The front door slammed shut. The children heard the sound of Daddy’s old truck starting up and pulling away from the curb. Jerry turned around, stared imploringly at Timmy. “Let me out of the corner.”
Tears brimmed up in Timmy’s eyes. He bit down on his sore finger to stop them. “I can’t, Jerry. He’ll find out, then we’ll all be in trouble.”
“How’s he gonna find out?” Jerry challenged. “Who’s gonna tell?”
Peter sat on the edge of the couch. “I will,” he said, a cruel grin on his little-boy face. “I’ll tell ‘cause you took the bread an’ got me in trouble. It’s all your fault. You knocked me off the couch when I was sleepin’.”
Jerry took a step from the corner, threatened Peter with a raised fist. “I’ll pound your face, you little brat! You ate half!”
Timmy ran between them, pulled Jerry’s arms behind his back and forced him back into the corner. He gave Jerry’s head a swift bump against the wall for good measure. “Stay there! Don’t be picking on smaller kids!”
“Yeah!” Peter agreed smugly. “You’re a stealer, Jerry. You’re bad!”
Lisa began to wail. She was hungry, upset by all the commotion. Timmy picked her up and she stuffed a thumb in her mouth. She snuggled against his chest and closed her eyes, sucking contentedly.
Daddy didn’t come home after taking Momma to work. The children were hungry, and there was nothing in the house to eat. Timmy pumped some water and they sipped at it but water is a poor substitute for food. Lisa and Peter cried and Jerry moaned and groaned, then finally slid down the wall and rested in a bony pile.
Timmy roamed around the confines of the shack, despairing for a crumb but, as on many a previous night, there were none. The night was long and the radio was singing. His siblings asleep, Timmy went into the kitchen and sat at the table. He rested his head on his arms, ignored the growling of his stomach and drifted into a troubled rest. A few hours later he heard a rattling at the door. He stepped quietly across the room and peeked out the window. It was Momma come home from work. As he unlocked and opened the door, a car pulled away. It was soon lost in its’ own steamy exhaust in the freezing winter night.
“Where’s Daddy?” Momma asked upon entering the house.
“He never came back,” Timmy replied, “I been worried.”
She kissed him on the forehead and handed him a heavy paper bag. It was greasy wet, close to falling apart.
“Never mind your Daddy for now,” she said, “Thank God for the Big Boy.”
Big Boy was the restaurant where Momma worked as a waitress. She wasn’t allowed to take food home but she would bus the tables she waited on and dump the leftovers from the plates in a bag she kept hidden in the kitchen. On nights when Alvin, the cook, brought her home she could sneak the bag out past the owner. The next trick was getting it past Daddy; he didn’t approve of his family eating garbage.
Momma touched Timmy’s face with her cold hands and kissed him again. She glanced at the clock radio wailing Country Western, Marty Robbins all dressed up for the dance. “Twelve thirty,” she murmured, “He’s probably at the bar. That gives us ‘til two to eat. You start sorting and fixing. I’ll get the kids.”
Timmy set the bag on the table and opened it. Though it was full of rotting salad, coffee grounds, and cigarette butts, all he noticed was the smell of food and best of all... meat! He grabbed a piece of chicken fried steak and wolfed it down, coffee grounds, cigarette ashes and all. He had never tasted better food. Momma came back into the kitchen and smiled at him while he wiped his face on his shirt- sleeve.
“They look so peaceful, I decided to let them sleep while we get everything ready,” she whispered. “Tonight we’ll have a feast. I see you found some of the steak. It was the Big Boy special today. There’s lots of it in there.”
They worked together, mother and son, to scrape cigarette ashes, egg yolk, coffee grounds, and soggy napkin off the meat, and began to warm it in a pan on the old stove. Experts at this, they even managed to salvage some mashed potatoes and corn on the cob from the bottom of the bag. The cigarette butts went in Momma's apron pocket to be worked on later. They didn’t have to wake the younger children as it turned out. Peter and Lisa came stumbling into the kitchen, their noses following the aroma of food cooking even before their eyes were ready to open. Momma smiled. “Go get Jerry,” she said to Timmy.
Jerry was standing up straight and stiff, nose stuffed into the corner. He flinched when Timmy touched his arm. “Come on, Jerry,” he whispered excitedly, “Momma brought some really good stuff home from work for us to eat.”
Jerry turned his head from the corner; eyes big and round, he stared at Timmy. His mouth made one word. “Daddy?”
Timmy tugged at his shirtsleeve. “Come on, Daddy’s not home yet. You better hurry up!”
“Wait!” Jerry pleaded. “Is she... Is she in a good mood?”
“The best,” Timmy replied, “Now come on.”
Jerry shielded his eyes from the light as they entered the kitchen. They ate and ate, then sat around burping and smiling like contented chipmunks.
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