Lucky Kids
By Ann Howley
Lucky kids grow up next to the neighborhood crazy. I don't mean dangerous body-parts-in-the-freezer psychopathic crazy. I just mean a little nutty - like my Grandma. In her later years she firmly believed that Cher had been her next-door neighbor and used to frequently pop in to have a cup of coffee with her. While the reasonable adults in my family tried to convince Grandma that Cher was not her BFF, much less her neighbor, my Aunt Kim took a different approach. She took her to a Cher concert. I don't know how many eighty-year-olds in wheelchairs went to that concert, but my Grandma was one....Show More
I felt particularly lucky because we lived next door to the Cappelanti's. The Cappelanti's were the first people I ever knew who didn't speak English. They were from the "Old Country" and word around the neighborhood was that they really missed Italy. Grandpa Cappelanti was an elderly, stooped, frail man who walked with a cane. While his health was good, he went out for a walk every day, which meant he slowly made his way from his front porch to the end of his asphalt driveway and back. Occasionally he ventured onto the street, but the driveway loop was usually strenuous enough and appeared to tax the limit of his physical endurance. Because of the infirmity of his age, he seemed to be completely dependent on Mrs. Cappelanti, who cooked and cared for him. While she was probably just as old as her husband, she was energetic and spry and could break into a quick trot to retrieve one of our balls if it flew over the hedge and landed in her yard. She never threw it back. Like a hawk, she would watch us play, just waiting until the ball sailed into her yard. Then she would make a dash into the yard to scoop up the ball and scurry back into her house, chattering in Italian. Over the years, she probably stockpiled a decent collection of our softball, baseballs and Nerf balls.
Mrs. Cappelanti knew my name. "Ahhhnnnnnaaa," she used to call out to me in her low, gravelly voice as I walked home from the elementary school, which was a block down the street. Occasionally, she would try to give me some foil-wrapped, chocolate coins. "Ahhhnnnnnaaa," she would say as she hunched over, holding out the gold candies with a gnarly, old lady hand. She scared me, mostly because she reminded me of the wicked witch who gave the apple to Snow White.
"No thank you," I would say, knowing full well the fairy tale apple was poison.
Mrs. Cappelanti never took "no" for an answer. If I refused, she would force the coins into my hand and I would bring them home and show them to Mum, who would warn me again not to accept any candy from strangers or Mrs. Capellanti. I was never quite sure why Mum lumped Mrs. Cappelanti into the stranger category, since she lived right next door for my entire childhood, but her mistrust only made me more afraid and suspicious. I didn't find out until years later that Mrs. Cappelanti used tell the neighbors that my brothers and sisters and I were thieves, which greatly offended my mother. Even though I was unaware that Mrs. Cappelanti had publicly accused me of stealing, I never ate the chocolate coins.
I doubt that anyone believed Mrs. Cappelanti anyway because everyone knew that while Grandpa Cappelanti was old, feeble, and didn't say much, there was clarity in his eyes that indicated he still possessed his faculties. Mrs. Cappelanti, however, was completely nuts. Every morning at 5:00AM, Mrs. Cappelanti opened a window, put an Italian record on her turntable and turned up the volume as loud as it would go so that everyone on the block could hear her crackly opera music. Then she opened her garage, took out a hand push lawn mower and proceeded to mow her driveway. Not the lawn, but the driveway. Up and down the driveway she went, sometimes singing along or talking loudly to herself in Italian. Sometimes she stopped to yell at Grandpa in the house then continued pushing the mower. The noise would often wake me up and I usually listened for a few drowsy minutes to the music, her chatter and the clackety blade of the push mower before drifting back to sleep. As a kid, I knew that Mrs. Cappelanti's early morning routine was completely abnormal, but curiously, it didn't bother me. It was crazy, but familiar and I came to expect it.
I didn't expect it, though, when she watered my bedroom. It was summer, so my bedroom window facing her yard was wide open. I'm not sure what possessed her, but I suspect she had a sudden burst of creative crazy after mowing her driveway one morning. She walked to her backyard, turned on the hose and at first she started watering some shrubs on her side of the fence. As I drifted in and out of sleep, I was aware that Mrs. Cappelanti was on the other side of the fence watering, not six feet away from my bed under the open window.
I was probably about ten years old, and I was about to experience my first true, real-life premonition. As I lay there, sleepily listening to the old lady muttering in Italian as she watered the plants, a surge of adrenaline shot through me. My eyes opened wide and I suddenly knew what she was about to do.
"No," my rational, ten-year-old self said. "She wouldn't squirt water INSIDE our house!"
"Yes, she would!" warned this odd, new intuitive version of me.
In a split second, it happened. Mrs. Cappelanti suddenly aimed right at the open window and soaked me and my bed with a deluge of cold tap water.
"Ahhhhh!" I screeched, jumping out of bed. As soon as I yelled, she turned the spray back to her plants and responded in an instantly defensive tone that I thought was the Italian equivalent of "I didn't do anything! It wasn't me!" – a denial which sounded as crackpot to me as if it were spoken in English.
In case I needed to prove anything, my wet bed and the dripping window screen and sill seemed proof enough. But I ran out of the room and down the hall to find Mum and do what any ten-year-old would do. I was going to tell on Mrs. Cappelanti.
Mum didn't respond the way I thought she would. I thought Mum was going to finally decide that Mrs. Cappelanti's early morning antics had gone too far. Mowing the driveway was one thing, but you can't just squirt water into your neighbor's house. This, in my mind, was beyond the pale of neighborly decency. I believed it was time for action and I really thought Mum was going to march next door and give Mrs. Cappelanti a good piece of her mind, warning her to never infringe on our property with her garden hose again. To my surprise and disappointment, Mum just sighed heavily at the news and did not run next door in a fury to put an end to this outrageous behavior. With her characteristic Job-like patience, she just took a deep breath and kept wiping off the kitchen counter.
I was sorely dissatisfied. It felt like defeat. How could Mum let Mrs. Cappelanti get away with this? There was a principle at stake. Didn't kooky people still have to behave with a modicum of neighborly decency? Squirting a sleeping girl with a hose in the wee hours of the morning was clearly outside the boundaries of acceptable decorum in my mind. I was ready for a fight. I was ready to draw the line with Mrs. Cappelanti.
To my chagrin, Mum was not.
Although at the time, I believed that Mum had caved in to Mrs. Cappelanti's tyranny, I found out many years later that my mother and father didn't necessarily sit back and take it. The Cappelanti's grown son apparently lived in the area and my parents not only knew his phone number, but dialed it periodically to complain. I don't know whether they ever called to voice concern over the bedroom-watering incident, but at the time, this sort of backdoor negotiation wouldn't have mollified me. I wanted in-your-face, fightin' words to fly. I wanted to see Mum display some huffing, stomping, righteous anger. I wanted to peer over the prickly green hedge between our two properties and watch a big showdown. I wanted to feel vindicated for the shock and inconvenience of being so rudely showered with water.
Of course, direct confrontation was never my mother or father's style.
"Consider the source," my dad used to say, which I understood to mean there was no point in trying to reason with someone who was unreasonable… or batty. And besides, the Cappelanti's son spoke perfect English.
I only had one real conversation with Mrs. Cappelanti. I was playing in the back yard with my older brother when I heard her calling through the wood fence.
"Ahhhnnnnnaaa," she called.
We tried to ignore her, but she kept calling. Hesitantly, we went to the fence and climbed up the bottom two boards to see over the top of the fence. Mrs. Capellanti seemed to be in a very good mood that day, meaning maybe this would be the day that she didn't steal our ball if it went into her yard. She was trying very hard to communicate something to us, telling us some kind of a story using a lot of hand gestures that were almost as incomprehensible to us as her Italian.
I was never very good at the game "charades," which requires one player to act out a word or phrase while the other players have to guess what that person is pantomiming. It's hard enough to play this game when everyone speaks the same language, but as my brother and I watched Mrs. Cappelanti waving her arms and pointing to the sky and her backyard grass, we both got the distinct impression that she was trying to tell us that she had seen aliens in her backyard.
"Martians?" I asked.
That word seemed to hit the spot.
"Si! Si! Si! Ahhhnnnnnaaa!" she nodded vigorously, delving deeper into her story.
Because we had been taught to respect our elders, we weren't about to snort and giggle to her face. We painfully listened to her story, nodding our heads, as if we understood and believed every word she said. Of course we didn't, and as soon as Mrs. Cappelanti finished her story and went back into her house, we laughed uproariously, half because we were so relieved the conversation was finally over and half because her story was so silly.
The reason why I felt lucky to live next door to a crazy lady is because it was fun. It's not every day that someone tries to seriously convince you that Martians landed in their backyard.
Mrs. Cappelanti was funny and colorful and had an impressive knack for creating minor neighborhood chaos, which greatly amused an impressionable, aspiring teenage drama-queen like me.
I'm sorry to report that Mrs. Cappelanti's final act of neighborhood bedlam was not quite so minor. It happened after I had already grown up and moved away, so I only heard about it when Mum told me. By this time, Mr. and Mrs. Cappelanti must have been truly old, even though I had considered them as old as dinosaurs twenty years earlier. By now, Mr. Cappelanti had been bedridden for a long time and his health was precarious. I don't know if Mrs. Cappelanti still had the energy to mow her driveway every morning, but she still liked to stand at the end of her driveway and talk to the kids walking to and from school, just like she used to greet me with her growly-voiced "Ahhhnnnnnaaa."
One day, Mrs. Cappelanti convinced a couple of young schoolgirls to come inside her house to say "Hi" to Grandpa, and when they did, the girls were savvy enough to realize that Grandpa, sitting there in his favorite chair, was stone cold dead. Traumatized, the girls ran straight to school and told the principal, who, in turn, called the authorities. I wasn't there to witness it, but I suspect this was about the biggest ruckus Mrs. Cappelanti ever generated. Turns out, Grandpa had been dead for about three days and poor Mrs. Cappelanti was so confused and mentally scrambled, she didn't even realize it.
When I heard this story, I felt sad. As kooky and unpredictable as she occasionally was, I still thought of her as a harmless little old lady who missed the Old Country and craved attention. I even felt a tinge of guilt for laughing and making fun of her for believing that Martians had landed in her backyard. After all, even my own Grandma thought her best friend was a rock star.
Wherever Grandma and Mrs. Cappelanti are now, I hope that Cher lives next door… and the aliens are friendly.
Three Little Words
By Evie Novotny
I would wake up and start each day feeling fine. Going through the motions of the day posed no problems for me; I was fine, felt fine, felt "normal," but the moment the last ray of sunshine slyly seeped behind the horizon, it dragged with it my soul, my unresisting soul; it did not kick and scream and struggle to be released as one would imagine; it went willingly, lifeless, as if it knew it was defeated. It was as if the setting sun was replaced by a dark cloud that washed over me nightly and everything I saw through my clear, blue eyes during the day, now looked a depressing shade of grey. I would sit in the dark nursery and hear nothing but the loud rhythmic suck of this thing that was attached to my breast. I could feel it's heartbeat against my chest keeping time like a metronome; it's breath calmly seeping from its nose onto my skin, but the only thing that I could not feel was the one thing that should have been most natural. Love.
What did feel natural to me was not feeling any attachment to this tiny being that I held in my arms. I would sit and stare out of the un-covered window impatiently, desperately, waiting for the first ray of sunshine to emerge and bring my soul back to me. The day provided an escape; I craved that escape. The night trapped me in this nursery with this thing; I was its prisoner. Even though the bars that imprisoned me were invisible, they stripped away my freedom and made me a prisoner in my own home with great force. The nursery was my prison cell and this thing was my warden, dictating my actions, yet still unable to control any of my emotions....Show More
In the cold, hospital room, I lay there waiting for my life to change. I awaited the sound that every new mother yearns to hear, the beautiful first yelp that creeps past the most perfect pair of lips, innocence in its most natural form. This was the moment when I was supposed to feel as if my meager life now had meaning. This was the moment when I was supposed to feel gratified, overjoyed, like every little piece of my life was now perfectly placed together, and I was now complete; however, for me, this was the moment that I felt a huge piece of me being taken away.
The moments leading up to this change are not as significant as the exact moment it all came to an end, the moment I saw it.
The doctor laid this wet, bloody, screaming thing in my arms and what is usually the moment that most mothers can recall with perfect precision, I can remember almost nothing. I only remember the intense urge of wanting to close my eyes and drift away. Everything around me was spinning and seemed to be on fast forward. I saw all of these smiles and all of these faces stained with tears of joy, but I just lay there, silent, waiting, pleading with my heart to do what I knew it was supposed to do, but yet it did nothing; there was nothing.
I couldn't understand why I couldn't allow myself to let go and fall in love with this thing, this thing that came from my body. It was a part of me and yet I couldn't feel a single ounce of connection to it.
It cried and I felt nothing.
It cooed and I felt nothing.
It smiled and I felt nothing.
I thought, as I looked down and stared endlessly into those tiny eyes, that this was the defining moment of my life. I looked into those eyes, searching for a glimmer of hope, but there was none to be found. I knew she couldn't be mine. She didn't feel like mine. This wasn't possible. My daughter had to still be inside me; I could feel her. This thing wasn't her in my arms, but it was. This was my child, but why didn't it feel like she was?
I panned the room trying to make eye contact with someone, anyone. Didn't they realize what I was seeing? Wasn't the terrified expression painted on my face a red flag for anyone? My heart was draining and I was starting to feel the coldness rush over me. In my head, I was screaming for help, but I couldn't produce nor speak the words to express what I was feeling. I needed help, but I couldn't ask for it; I didn't know how. How do you ask for help with loving your own child?
While still in the hospital, I must have learned how to wear a fake smile fairly well. I went through all the firsts that a new mother experiences within the first few hours with her new baby wearing a caring, loving smile, while deep down inside, I was begging to go back, to leave this thing, and run away while those around me were none the wiser. Each and every first was now tainted with this feeling of nothingness for this thing that that I created. My days now felt like weeks, my weeks felt like months, and the months came and passed with no resolution. I did each and every motion with perfect precision. My life was now a routine with no emotion involved. My once irreplaceable smile had been secretly stripped from my face, and my once bright, blue eyes were now nothing but a hollow gateway to my faltering heart.
It was the day we were supposed to be coming home to start our new life. The sun snuck into our hospital mocking us with the warmth and comfort of the new day. The crying coming from the bassinet was loud and overwhelming, but worse than that, it was unstoppable. I could see the comfort level in my husband's eyes sinking away. I could tell he was struggling and quickly losing control.
"I can't handle this," he said, then simply turned and walked out the door.
With him went my sense of security and every hope and dream that we ever had. I sat there and felt myself just let go. I tried to convince myself that everything would be okay. I repeatedly said to myself the only thing I knew to say, "You can do this." I looked over at this tiny, two-day-old child and felt hatred; finally an emotion, although not the emotion that most new mothers feel for their child. Tears were streaming down my face as I picked her up considering the unthinkable, when suddenly then the door drifted back open, and there he stood as if nothing had happened just moments before, as if he didn't just say he didn't want this, as if his actions weren't the catalyst to these awful thoughts raping my mind.
We were now as different as two people could be. We rarely touched, we couldn't talk, I never felt love from him. I watched as everything I knew and cherished turned cold. My once perfect marriage was gone. I told him at that moment that what he did "was fine," that "I could handle it" that he should "do whatever he needed to do." At that moment, he should have realized that something was wrong. A wife doesn't tell her husband that it is okay to walk out on her and his newborn child, but I told him that, because that's what he did; what else was I supposed to say? I couldn't seem to say anything that I desperately needed to say to anyone. Within a few months, my entire world had turned into nothing but smoke and mirrors. Everything was an illusion. On the outside we were this perfect, beautiful, and happy little family that left this secret back in that hospital room, but within the four walls of privacy that our humble home provided, we were none of those things.
Every night I lay in bed, alone. I had a gut wrenching suspicion that he had taken the love that should have been given to me and was willingly giving it to another. That premonition came to head when I heard him on the phone, whispering:
"I love you endlessly."
I was entranced, focused, unmoved, and then it happened suddenly, as if someone clicked her fingers to make me focus and bring me back to reality; something in me snapped, just like that. I felt as if my mind is teetering, quite wobbly, on the edge of sanity. It was like watching a piece of glass that had fallen, and all I could do was stand and listen as it quickly echoed, tink tink tink tink. All I could do was wait to see if that sliver of glass, my mind, shattered into a million pieces or landed safely, undamaged, all in one piece.
My heart stopped at that moment. I switched into survival mode; I made a plan and within a few days I did what I knew I needed to. I went to see for myself.
Because I was crouching down underneath an oversized pine tree, desperately trying to remain unseen in the shrubs, I could feel the pine needles poking at my toes, through my tiny, purple, plaid, ballet flats. I remember that I was thankful that it wasn't freezing outside. For it still being dark, and a few hours before dawn, it was unusually warm. I was so uncomfortable, not because of what I knew I was about to witness, but because my legs kept falling asleep, and I had to repeatedly switch positions, silently; every inch I moved, the needles and mulch below me would loudly crack as a reminder that I would need to remain completely still very soon. The birds were beginning to chirp and the crickets were becoming silent; my breathing was calm, until the back door opened. I froze. My breathing stopped, my heart raced, and my life was forever changed as I witnessed my husband walk out of that door, at this extremely early morning hour, hand-in-hand with her..... smiling.
I did nothing. I said nothing. I sat in the background frozen, continually blinking, hoping that one of those blinks would erase what had happened, what I had just seen. I watched as he opened her car door, just as he had done for me for the past decade. I listened as he told her that he loved her, just as he had said to me more times than I could count. My skin tingled and ached as I watched my husband embrace and passionately kiss her lips. She easily slid into the passenger side of our car, and he strutted around, so proudly, and got in the opposite side. After what seemed like forever, they simply drove off. I stood there, frozen, until I could no longer see the bright red shine of the taillights. I knew at that moment that I had no choice. I wasn't just paranoid. I wasn't merely having unfounded suspicions. This was happening.
Days passed before I had the guts to approach him and utter the word, "Why?"
My voice cracked and instantly I felt my skin flush as I got embarrassed for myself. I was embarrassed that I had to ask my husband this. I was embarrassed that I did nothing when I witnessed it. He just stared at me with his now cold eyes. It must have been mesmerizing to watch me fall apart so quickly, to watch as my entire world teetered just outside my grip, to watch the life quickly drain from my eyes as if my purpose on this Earth was destroyed. I thought he would run to me and hold me, comfort me, love me; however, I was wrong. He just stood there, looking at me. I was shaking slightly, fighting to hold back a flood of my previously non-existent emotions, when he opened his mouth to speak. All of the wonderful things I thought he would say were gone as he had nerve to ask me to "calm down." At those words, I morphed into a maniac. He didn't even attempt to comfort me and those words that he did utter instantly transformed me. I could see myself screaming, but I couldn't stop. He was looking around nervously as I was lashing out and screaming things that made no sense, even to me.
"I don't even want it anymore, but I can't shove her back," I screamed through the gasps of breath I was struggling to maintain.
"Shhh, lower your voice or people will …"
I didn't even let him finish his train of thought, because I knew what he was going to say. It wasn't anything I needed to or wanted to hear anymore. He could offer me no response that would make me feel any better. He could have said a million things -he could have lied, he could have said it's not what you think, and he could have said I'm sorry, but he didn't. I knew, right then, my marriage was over.
Almost instantly, my anger was gone. When he uttered those disgusting words, it was as if I was outside of my own body looking down at this situation from a place where I was safe from all the fighting, all the screaming. There was no love in this scene, no apology. There was a wife, scorned, and a husband who seemed more concerned with his neighbors overhearing the argument than with the fact that he just crushed the soul of the woman who had loved him for years –well, what was left of her soul, anyway. In that moment, I wasn't even hurt. I continued to watch this scene from somewhere that kept me away from the pain, tears, and the finality of this life. I looked at this with acceptance. I knew already what had to happen; this just made it crystal clear.
Then I heard it crying, wailing as to announce to the world that it was awake. That cry thrust me back into reality and I walked away from him. I left him standing there; alone in the cold, on what once was our front porch, and went into her room where everything, for once, felt so warm. She was so fragile and tiny. For the first time, I really looked at her; I really noticed her. For the first time, my mouth made a small, unforced smile. Because her instincts told her I was the one who should provide her with love and protection, she was looking up at me lovingly, and finally it seemed so clear to me. With tears running down her face and cries echoing from her mouth, I picked her up. I began to go through the motions that I had done time and time again, but this time, it felt different. As I sat down in the over-sized, tan glider, and I felt it nestle in and begin to nurse, I looked down and softly whispered, "one day sweet child, we will be alright."
I can't say that what I felt was what a normal mother feels for her child. I can't even say that it was love, but I knew, right then, that it was different. I knew that my heart and my brain were finally working together in an attempt to love this thing, this baby, my daughter. I knew that there was hope and I finally felt relieved.
If someone would have told me that it would take losing my husband, the one person I valued more than life itself, to another woman for me to begin to feel for my daughter, I would have chuckled. For one, I would never have thought that my husband choosing another woman over me would even be possible, and for two, how could I not just naturally feel for my own daughter? But, he did choose someone else, and I didn't feel anything for her. Those are the plain and simple facts.
In retrospect, I suppose life rarely turns out how we expect and things don't always go as planned. There have been times when I have thought that my life has gone so far off track that there was no way to get it headed in the right direction ever again, but time heals most wounds, and time offers new opportunities. I have learned a tremendous amount about people, the world, and myself over the last few years.
I guess my heart just didn't have room for both of them. I spent so much time trying to keep him with me, that I didn't have room for her. With time, I learned to let him go and to let her in. Life isn't perfect, but I've learned that life just never is. I've also learned that no matter what, I'll always have this thing, and when I'm at my best and when I'm at my worst, that thing, my child, my daughter, will always be the one person to remind me that I am loved, I am needed, and I, too, will be alright.
The Stump will still stand
By Ta'lor Pinkston
The wind whistled around me slowly creeping from my head down toward the soles of my aching feet. The entire day had been filled with walking, and as I looked down at the long paths ahead of me, I knew that my family and I had only just begun. I could feel the warm breeze intertwine in and around the cracks of my toes. I wiggled them for relief, looking down at my lime green flip-flops. It was miserably hot, yet even in my irritation for another one of these "African American history" trips, I walked down the dirt paths, feeling ashamed of myself and bitter for this land that my people worked, where cotton stocks once stood.
My father walked ahead of us, intensity in his eyes and urgency in his heart, to show us more. I wanted him to see that I cared as much as he did. Shortly trailing behind him, I made sure that I looked everywhere he looked so that I wouldn't miss a thing. Three hours prior, my eyes only saw a big brick house, grass, and land, but with each step I took beside my father, I became proud. He spoke with such passion about black people, and how we should know where we came from. I knew he was right, and I only wanted to learn more."So Dad, why didn't anyone just stop the white people from doing this?" I asked, looking up at my father....Show More
"Slavery is not something that can just be stopped. When the white man went exploring, he saw people of color, and saw them as a threat somehow. They wanted full control over everyone and everybody, so they used their fire arms and gun powder against black people who did not have these types of weapons and used them to bring them to the U.S. as goods to sell for work."
"Why did God let this happen?"
"God does not control man. Our free will allows us to choose what we do; we're not robots. The white man made a choice, and now that choice has inspired black people to become greater than they ever thought we would be. We are inventors and we can make something out of nothing; they knew that they needed us."
My two sisters and I gathered closely together when we peaked inside of an old slave shack. When my father stood his head almost touched the ceiling. The wooden walls and floor crept with each touch and step. There was no air conditioning, fans, heat, electric- none of the luxuries that we all have today. The cracks in the walls clearly showed the sun in the day, so air and light can easily pass through. The thought of each individual body, within a family, that had to live everyday in one tiny shack, made my spine shift.
A small garden was enclosed toward the end of the long path in the center of the land of Bacon's Castle. Small summer snowflakes circled around me, falling from the scattered trees placed neatly all over the grounds. The different floral arrangements were covered with the little white leaves, almost shading the flowers from the sun. When the wind blew, the leaves would scatter leaving the flowerbeds spotless. Each flowerbed was surrounded by a white picketed fence. The soil inside each bed was preserved, moist, and a rich brown. The flowers were beautiful and clearly, well taken care of.
My mother loved them so much, she grabbed the disposable camera, and took a few photos of us smelling them and playing in the garden. I smiled for her, and ran around with my family. As I ran around the flowerbed, sitting in the middle of the garden, I saw my dad and older sister standing and staring at something up ahead. I could see some old tree stump, stretched out on either side of them as they stood and looked below them.
"Ta'lor, Payton, Doe come here!" my dad yelled.
Running up beside him, I instantly dropped my jaw. It stood strong, even in its death. The mastery of its circumference was outrageous. My entire family could stand on it together. The lines engraved deep in the wood, looping around toward the center solid circle in the middle. Each nook and cranny in the weakened wood showed how many years it had been on the earth. The roots stuck out of the ground, past ankle height. They seemed to shoot down into the ground like a dip in a rollercoaster, forcing them downward.
This tree had seen the lives of the ancestors that walked this land before me and still it sits to see me walk beside it on this day. I waited there for a moment, just looking at each detail, thinking about the many possibilities that this tree could have went through. An African boy could have been whipped for a simple crime, holding on to the tree begging for Master to stop. A father could have been stripped away from his wife and children, when Master told the white men to hang him from one of the tree's branches. My ancestors could have had wedding ceremonies for an unwed teenage couple in love. African men, women, and children may have been buried right here, beneath this tree stump.
In an immediate moment, I instantly felt as if I could see them, a clear picture in my mind of a family that could have been my own father, mother, and two sisters. A family of loved ones; anyone of us could have been slaves, on this plantation, staring at a tree that was once alive, standing tall, stretching toward each end of the Bacon property. I could have been a little black slave girl, standing beneath that tall tree, praying to God for freedom from this enslavement, out of captivity, and back to my homeland.
~
She lay in her bed with her three older sisters Jamila (jah-mee-lah), Zaina (zah-ee-nah), and Bah-hee-yah), and two younger brothers, Gatimu (Gah-tee-mo) and Usiku (oo-See-koo), crowded and snug close together, as they slept awaiting another dawn for a day's work. Etana (eh-tah-nah), wide-awake could hear them all dreaming eyes wandering left and right. Her father snored, almost in hibernation, leading her brothers in an acapella Negro spiritual in the middle of their sleep. Lying in the depths of darkness, she felt her pupils widen as she tried to look through the cracks in the wood roof at the stars in the sky. Her eyes bounced back and forth as she tried to locate the sounds, she heard on that hot summer's night, making sure that the Masters watchmen were out lurking.
The darkness covered the murky shade of her skin, completely hidden, so she continued to lay still. She was careful each night not to wake anyone, using precise skill, to sneak away easily. Even if she wanted to move an inch, she knew that she couldn't, not yet anyway. She had to wait until the right time, until the perfect hour down to the minute and the second in the darkness. The sun would soon rise in the east so she would have to move steadily.
When the moon crept over the tiny shed, she began to see the light reflect on the family through the fault in the wood. She would risk her life once again because she knew she had to, for them. The clear light from the moonlight stealthily came and landed on her cheek just as it always had this time of night. The cool glow sank into her aching pours, forcing her to make her quick moves out of the shack.
Her two brothers were closest toward the outside of the bed, facing the door. She eased herself out from beneath Usiku, careful not to move him much. Once her shoulders were free, she released her legs from beneath the sheets, crawling out like an East African Serrated Mud Turtle, crawling out of its shell. She placed one hand on the outside of her brother, creeping her legs over top of them slowly; her youngest brother Gatimu, shuffled in his sleep as she lifted her leg off the bed. She maintained the pose, until he drifted back into a deep slumber. Reaching her leg over bit by bit, she stepped on the edge of the bed. Standing still, she waited to take another big step, reaching the crate that sat beside their bed, below the window at the rear of the shack. In her young and wise mind, she knew that the wooden floor would squeak if she'd walk on it. She grabbed hold of the window ledge, and first looked around for anyone watching. Slowly, she crept out into the open night careful not to wake her father or the Master's goons.
Even in its peacefulness, she could sense the danger lurking in the fields. Walking straight ahead away from her family's hut, she headed sneaking through the powdered dirt on the small pathway. When she reached the end of the path, she looked up and saw the Grandfather of all the trees on the plantation. It stood about a mile high. Each branch reached out to touch sky, as if to fly with the birds above. Waving in the wind, the limbs said hello to the earth and was pleased, providing the oxygen in order for life to breath. The fruit it bore was rich and healthy, providing nature with the nutrients to live. Even in the dark of night, the leaves shined bright forest green, wiggling on each stem. The base of the tree stood strong; completely untouched or bothered. The roots protruded out of the ground, sinking into the earth, feeding from the soil beneath it.
The Smoking Lamp
By Michelle Bradley
The hot air in my grandfather's house was heavy with dust and time. If felt as though the thermostat was permanently set at eighty degrees, even in summer. Decades of pipe and cigarette smoke colored the flat wall paint dingy nicotine yellow. Nearly twenty years had passed since my grandfather became a widower, and the house bore the tell tale signs of life without a woman's presence. Tiny brown spiders lovingly nestled in their corner webs quietly contemplating the comings and goings of the humans. A fine dust layer covered most of my grandmother's trinkets. Ceramic bells with little pink flowers and glass kittens perched in stoic remembrance on their corner shelves. A well-worn path led from the front door to the side table by the recliner marked the procession of grandchildren and great-grandchildren in search of the not-so-secret treasures of the candy drawer.
My right toe gently powered the rocking chair in its motion: back and forth, back and forth. The sensation is not unlike swinging on the playground: soft, weightless. My grandfather was on my right, settled into his Lazy-Boy. His trousered left leg propped up by his right, arms locked behind his head with interlaced fingers that appeared as if it would cause the pins and needles effect after a while, but is actually quite comfortable. His white undershirt crinkles softly above the slight ridge that begins his late-age belly....Show More
This was the one place that always felt like a childhood home should. Relaxation settled in, creeping its way down my body from shoulders to elbows to waist to knees then out of my fingertips and toes, into the universe like warm sunshine. It was a quiet moment. A still moment, left unmolested by the ruckus of the visiting family. A moment that belonged to me and my Pawpaw.
The TV screen flashed images as Pawpaw searched absently through his favorite channels. First, the local news, then Encore Western, Turner Classic Movies, and then the distinct buzz of fighter planes met my ears as he settled on the History Channel, playing one of Pawpaw's favorite's, a program on World War II air battles. My fingers still worked the soft yarn around my brass crochet hook as I glanced up at the fighter planes zooming their way through the black and white war torn skies of Western Europe. My eyes shot sideways, and a small smile turned up my mouth as I looked over at my Pawpaw, knowing what would come next.
Behind the images of gray P-51 Mustangs and RAF Spitfires reflected off his glasses, I saw Pawpaw's milky blue eyes gazing beyond the television into a time of his youth, back to one of hundreds in a convoy of liberty ships destined for the mainland of Japan, steaming full ahead to a certain fate. With a slight tilt of his head he looked over the brass rim of his spectacles and met my eyes, he began casually, "You know, I'll never forget Captain coming over the bitch box…"
The U.S.S. Storm King had been at sea for a little over two weeks now. Few of the two thousand or so souls aboard knew where she was taking them. When Lester and his shipmates left California, they didn't have a clue where they were heading. He had an inkling, though, as he glanced over at the group of Japanese American soldiers across the way. Rumor had it there was to be an invasion of Japan proper, and the thought had crossed his mind that just maybe that's where they were going. Lester looked around at his comrades. They all looked to be about the same age, no one over 19 he figured. Some joked, some played cards, some wrote letters, some prayed. All were scared shitless. He sat in his bottom bunk, the other four above his folded up and latched to the wall, bent over studying the toe of his right boot. Even though he'd already shined them to a mirror finish, Les reached down with a thin finger and brushed away some invisible dirt, feeling the power of the ocean through the steel of the ship. He wasn't seasick. Oh hell no, he'd been on the water all his life. The Mississippi could kick up waves as big as this ocean when it took a mind to. Already in his eighteen years, he'd seen those dark muddy waters rise, taking businesses, homes, livelihoods, and lives down to N' Orleans with it.
Still, he couldn't deny the knot of nerves in his stomach that felt like a ten-pound block of ice. Maybe he should've taken the pass the principal offered him. He was only six months away from graduation when he got his draft card. It's easy to be brave when all you have are youth and an Uncle Sam poster telling you it's your duty to your country. Les loved Missouri and he loved his country. Way he saw it, it was his time to serve, so serve he would.
Basic training at Camp Robinson seemed like a lifetime ago. Arkansas was the farthest he'd ever been from the hills of Southeast Missouri. Backcountry boys from all over were there. Some from his neck of the woods, some from Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky, they all were pretty handy with a rifle. Naturally they would be after a life of picking off squirrels and other game at three hundred yards or more; where they were from, if you couldn't hunt, you wouldn't eat. Hunting skills were just one of the survival techniques that had seen his family through the Depression.
Being good with a riffle was a source of pride for Les, and it came as natural as breathing. It was no surprise when he was tasked as the lead scout of is rifle company. He was pleased with that, but nervous all the same. He would be leading the way. He just prayed he would lead his fellow soldiers well. "Wonder if the rumors are true?" he thought to himself. Les didn't know what was worse, not knowing where they were going or the speculation running around his brain like a headless chicken.
The crackle of the bitch box broke his revere. The hold fell silent as all soldier's eyes rose toward the invisible voice of the Captain. "Now hear this. The smoking lamp will be lit tonight. The War is over!" The U.S.S. Storm King shook with the cheers of the soldiers. Fate was not certain it seemed, after all.
"We liked ta towr that ship apart!" Pawpaw's eyes returned to me. A small smile played on his lips, relief still evident in his voice over sixty years later. "I consider myself blessed by the good Lord that they dropped the Atomic Bomb when they did. If they hadn't, well, I wouldn't be here." He sighed, "You know, Shell, it was a terrible thing how the war ended, but what else was there to do?"
Pawpaw went on to recant the tales of his days in the Philippines and Korea, but my mind was elsewhere. Realization dawned in my mind like the spring sun shining on the last cold day of winter, and I felt for the first time, the sobering reality of how close I came to never existing.
What else was there to do, Indeed. I know that I also thank God that the Smoking Lamp was lit for my grandfather that night.
Another Day
By Michael Farina
Dad was grinding fresh coffee beans before he made what would be the first of many cups. He hated store bought grounds. They were never strong enough. Apparently he hated shirts too; his was thrown over the back of a chair out in the living room.
I could hear the hiss of the gas on the stove; mom was already busy with breakfast. Honestly, I must have been the only four-year-old to know about hot cereal. Not oatmeal, an honest-to-god hot cereal like Malt-o-Meal, Cream of Wheat, or even Farina— I always found that name amusing. Dad and I both liked it when we got lumps in the mix. They were easy to make. All you had to do was let it go unstirred for a bit and then it would start to clump together. Mom thought we were both crazy.
This was another in a long string of bright days. I would wake up early in the morning, or as early as a four-year-old could get up, and go downstairs while Mom and Dad talked. It was one of the few times I got to be with both of them at the same time.
Mom worked at an accounting firm downtown so she was gone most mornings and occasionally on Saturday too. She once said that accountants were the most anal people you'd ever meet, but from the few times I'd been to her office, and seen the papers spilling off the desks, it was hard to tell....Show More
My Dad was a mechanic with USAir back before they had any problems with bankruptcy. He worked the night shift, so during the day it was just the two of us. The thing I remember most about these days with him would be when we went to the Starbucks up the road from South Park.
It was there I learned what a Double Shot Red Eye was, and, after my Dad's nonstop coaxing, that I couldn't stand the powerfully bitter brew. Even now, I still can't drink it black. It was also here that I learned that the largest of our three dogs, Howard, loved the stuff. If my dad left him and the mug alone in the car for over five minutes, every drop would be gone by the time we got back. Dad thought it was hilarious, but only after he got a refill.
Howard was an odd dog. Because of him I grew up thinking that Doberman Pinschers were lazy good natured oafs that would sooner sleep away the day than move afoot. It wasn't until years later that I learned that the breed was well known as attack and guard dogs. The idea of Howard as a guard dog is still funny to me. If a burglar tried to rob our house he'd sooner be licked to death than anything with Howard around.
That morning the sky was a stark blue dawn, the only clouds were far on the horizon. The crank window in the kitchen and the sliding glass door to the porch had already been opened when I made my way down the stairs, the warm breeze slowly twirling the wind chime in a slow cascade of fragile notes. Dad had picked me up and placed me next to him on the countertop. It was my usual place. Every morning he and Mom would talk, while I sat by him listening, fidgeting horribly, but listening. Sometimes it would be Mom telling about the crazy thing her boss had done the day before, or it might be Dad recounting the latest article to grab his attention from National Geographic or Scientific America. Those were the conversations I grew up hearing.
Today, though, was a rehash of the day before, another row between them. Re-runs are hard enough as an adult, for a four-year-old they're torture. With nothing to keep me busy I scooted across the counter to watch the blender grind the coffee beans into the fine powder that my Dad was after. I still don't know what I was thinking at the time, but, for some reason that only a child would understand, I removed the lid and stuck my finger in. I don't remember if I screamed before I blacked out.
I Believe in Fruitcake
By Kaelyb Suchevits
Yes, I Believe that fruitcake is the divine truth, our answer to the world, our existence, and life as we know it. Many people do not realize what fruitcake signifies that is so reflective of today's society, and the way we live. Few appreciate this hidden diamond of culinary mastery. Its flawlessness goes under appreciated and unloved except by the few who have had their eyes and taste buds opened to this magical piece of the holiday season....Show More
My love for fruitcake started with my grandmother who would make her fruitcakes every year, and I will say that hers are the best ever. Granted, there are some good brands out there with good fruitcakes, Shirley Jean, Hostess, but none of them come close in comparison to my grandmother's. How she made hers will forever remain a mystery to me, and its secrets are heavily guarded still to this day. The way she was able to expertly combine all the ingredients of a fruitcake recipe into this beautiful work of culinary perfection is a wonder itself.
The one fruitcake she made was not enough to satisfy my lust for this deity of the bakery. One was not enough to satisfy the craving that held me like a heroin addict waiting for his next fix. I needed more, and more is what I got. Every year for the past two years I went to Big Lots for their after Christmas sale and bought as much fruitcake as I could afford at their reduced after Christmas sale prices, stocking up my closet with enough fruitcake to barely hold me over till next Christmas. Last year I bought 23 fruitcakes. Sure they sufficed me, but they could never satisfy my need for the God of all fruitcakes, my grandmother's.
Fruitcake explains to us that we need to learn to pay close attention to the randomness of the world. Life is a long list of random events, with every bite we experience of life that we need to experience the randomness because in the end we actually will enjoy it. You take a bite of the cake and sometimes you get a date and all your love life problems are fixed, or sometimes you get an orange peel and you feel down in the dumps, or if you are really lucky, you end up finding a candied cherry and those are the times you cherish the shining jewel in the pile of shit that is the boring cake surrounding it. Also, the world needs its candied cherries and citrus rinds mixed in with the cake part. If you go on nonstop eating plain white, chocolate, or red velvet cake, then you will soon learn that you will get bored very quickly.
Now another point about fruitcake; I would like to point out is that it has been abused. It has been through racism, beatings and riots. People have created stereotypes about it, how its nasty, how it has so many preservatives that can make it last forever, survive through a nuclear holocaust like a Twinkie, how it can be used as a door stop, the list goes on and on. What many refuse to realize is that it is actually a good thing, its sweet and cuddly; it means us no harm, it's just chocked full of love and nuts.
What fruitcake does is that it is a small thing, a small act of kindness that family gives to you, a grandmother's gift to her grandson. It is the smallest act that usually goes unnoticed and unappreciated. Cherish the small things, no matter how small it may be. The intention of it is greater than you can ever possibly imagine. It will prove its worth to you over time. That one small candied cherry you find in the whole cake, cherish it, cherish the small little happy moment, you never know when it will be gone, when it will disappear from your grasp, leave your body through digestion and go away. You may not appreciate it now, but you will wish you did when it's gone. No one notices how much they love something till it is gone.
Now if you excuse me, there is a fruitcake with my name on it in the closet.