Perform with a southern accent
Teaser
As a child I would relish
The two-week period set aside
every summer
for us grandchildren
to be with my Grandparents
on their farm
Each of us
Alone
in turn
I was the middle
So fourth in the rotation
The heat of July
I was a bit clumsy
Never quite fittin’
in
but
I was never more special
More important
Than on that farm
My favorite
Breakfast,
Quisp cereal
Whenever I decided to get
up
Lunch,
bologna sandwiches
with mustard so deep
It soaked through the bread
Oozing out the sides
Supper,
homemade chicken-n-noodles
With frozen corn from last
year’s garden
Were each prepared because
I was who I was
A standard generic grandchild
Made to be a king
But when Grandpa passed away
Grandma moved to town
And the summers I cherished
Came to an end
End Teaser
Last year,
Grandma ask me to write
About my favorite moment
from all those summers
She said Grandpa always said
the time
Was worth it because,
“We’re building
memories for the grandchildren”
I guess she wanted to see
if it was true
If we did remember
if it mattered
No different than any other
human I suppose
Did my
life count?
Seemed a reasonable request
I also knew she would take
the stories to bed at night
reading them to fill the
void left by
being old
living alone
Mom told me she did this
with letters
we had written to her in
the past
letters worn from wear
too few
from me
I told her I would
I would write the story
But
I didn’t
You know teenagers
we have too much going on
Too much going on until…
something brings us back
making us aware of things
that are really important
and
that we really have nothing
going on
My high school English teacher
Is new to Kentucky
To put it politely
He’s a Yankee
And
He is always
Preachin’ of a powerful
progressive plotline
Dissected with conflict
at the foot of the hill which
is
riddled with obstacles
rising
action
rising, RISING
until finally
masterfully
shattering the shins of the
reader
with a Louisville
Slugger CLIMAX
then
s a u n t e r i n g down
the slope;
a casual stroll
where one might smoke a cigarette
to a satisfying
denouement
a big fancy word he always
flings about
as if it were as common and
everyday as:
Y’all
or
Coke-a-Cola
“A GREAT story,”
he soap-box spews
“is ALL about the plotline!”
He is eloquent in his presentation
A distinguished greyed-goatie
bobbing rythmatically
Just below the hypnotic musical
alphabet
Floating from his rehearsed
lips
And…
I hate the man
“Your assignment…”
He managed to sound condescending
“is to write a story
from your life,
remembering that it will
only be good
if the plotline is….
well… good.”
I smiled to myself at his
inability
to come up with a new word for “good”
Even I could have managed:
Swell
All right
Cool
Prime
Tiptop
A phone call late in the
night
waking me up
quiet whispers from mom
followed by long, awkward
silence
then the hushed sobs of woman
who just lost her mother
I chose to write about the
time
I caught the biggest fish
of my life
Grandpa worked during the
day
so it was just Grandma and
me
We dug worms from the garden
Plump, juicy creatures excreting
slime
There had been a rare rain
the night before
And as I trudged back and
forth
In my size 4
Keds
from shovel to Styrofoam
cup
mud gathered
the width
the weight increased
until I fell face first into the strawberries
A brown masked boy
Stared up
Spitting bits of soil from
his lips
Grandma laughed so hard
she didn’t say she was going to pee her pants
she actually peed her pants
I washed up
She changed her underwear
And we were on our way to
Drake’s pond
As we bounced down the cattle
path
The bobbers dangling over
the bed of the pickup
Hit the tirewell in a sporadic
rhythm
“Hop out and get the
gate will you hun?”
It made me feel grown up
Like a man
when she gave me the responsibility
to open the make-shift barbed
wire gate so
we could get to the pond
My dad always would get out
and do it himself
Making me feel like a kid
When we arrived at the spot
Grandma looked disappointed
The moss had grown completely
around the sides
Leaving’ just a doughnut-hole
of clear water in the center
She knew I was a bit of a
walking fishing catastrophe
My father and brothers all
made fun of me
Being left handed I always
held my open-face reel
Upside down
Which meant right side up
I had spilled an entire bucket
of minnows once
after pleadin’ my case
of how I was old enough to carry them
I watched in horror as every
last one of them flopped to their escape
My hook seemed to seek out
trees that hid in the shadows of my back cast
My fishin’ line just
wanted to knot into three dimensional spiral-graph renditions
My lure seemed to always
snag on submerged debris
that others who cast in the
same spot seemed to be able to avoid
These things frustrated anyone
who had to take me fishin’
and often times they found
excuses not to take me
soon I stopped askin' to
go
