Prose

Prose by me and others.

Snapshots- Memoir

The way to Logan School goes like this:
One, two, three steps from the porch.
Then one, two, three, four, five and six to the sidewalk,
then across the street and through the neighbor's driveway for the
shortcut.
You turn left and stop to console the loud sad dog. He's big. If you lay down next to him you could kiss his head and tangle your toes in his tail- but you'd have to stretch to do it- that's how big he is! He has short black hair and will bark at you through the chain-link, air-and-diamonds walls that make up his home. You see his tail wag when you walk up to the sad-making place.
You'll want to let him out sooo bad because his bark says, "This is not fair. This place is only twice as long as I am long and you're out there in a place a quadrillion times longer than you!"
So you talk to him, and tell him to shush, that you would let him out if you weren't afraid he'd get hit by a car, and you put three fingers through the diamonds and you'll want to cry when he pushes his head against your hand. You tell him you'll be back on the way home from school.
Then you leave the sad dog and walk down 27th Avenue until you reach the house with the sweetest apple blossoms ever in front, and the scariest most-haunted-by-the-devil fountain EVER in back.
When you reach that house, you smell the blossoms or pick an apple and walk carefully, quietly past the green fence. You keep your head turned to the left so you can watch the stone devil-face on the other side of the yard. It's stuck on a brick wall the same color green as the fence. The green reminds me of granny smith apples. It makes my face scrunch up just like green apples do when I bite into the. The devil has water coming out of his mouth and falling into the pool below during summer, but just sits there all thirsty when Mom makes me start wearing sweaters, then jackets, then those winter jackets that are so thick you get lost behind their trying to keep you warm. I know he's the devil.
I know because I see his eyes follow me past his yard sometimes.
They are red with a yellow dot right in the middle of each one. I lock my eyes on them and stare right back until I walk backwards and pass his yard and can't see them anymore. I make a snow angel under the apple tree on the way home to protect the front yard from the back yard.
On days like that you should just run the second you see red, just run right past the house with the apple blossoms in front and the devil in back. You run and run and run- until you reach crossing guard and you're all out of breath and try telling her about the devil and all she does is hug you and call you, "Child," and tells you to "Look at how you're upsetting all of your friends."
Friends who aren't really your friends but because they're not grown-ups they must belong to you and you start to feel stupid, like the devil probably wants you to, and yous ay things like, "OK," and, "Yeah." Then the crossing guard holds your hand half-way across the street and all the kids that aren't your friends look at you weird and some make faces at you and you eventually end up across 27th Avenue. Across 27th Avenue is different than on This Side. This Side has Grandma and Grandpa's house and Jeremy next door and Shirley who lets me into her pink kitchen and gives me licorice while she smokes long brown cigarettes in a long black "cigarette holder" and tells me stories about her cats and some place called the "1920's." This Side is home. Across 27th Avenue I am visiting. On days the devil is too busy to bother with you; you walk past the stone face and turn left down the second alley. Three houses down you stop and wait for the Queen. The Queen is the most beautiful dog (other than yours) in the whole world and walks like the ground is made up of red carpet. The Queen is a collie and her hair is so long it takes three days to brush and she has two servants whose names I can never remember. You should pet the servants, too, even though you'll just want to pet the Queen and snuggle her and wrap her hair around you like a shawl and sleep the day gone. But you can hear the crossing-guard from here so you just pet her one, two, and three times and tell her what you think about everything.
Once everything has been said, you walk back down the alley to 27th Avenue and turn left. Three sidewalk squares down is the Crossing Guard. Cross 27th Avenue and keep going straight, past the dark tall trees and the red white and blue house dressed up in flags. Walk with the other kids until you see a building with a million windows on your left. That's Logan School.
That's where mom made straw dolls and I played marbles and red rover. That's where I made a candle, tie-dyed a shirt, and wore my first bra. Out front is where we played Farmer in the Dell when Mrs. Mitchell had "enough our tom-foolery." It is where I made my first best friend forever and cried when I found a tick hanging from my chest and I ran and ran and ran and screamed and screamed all the way home instead of going to the nurse. It's where freeze-tag and tornado sirens made me curl up like a roly-poly bug and hold so, so still. That's Logan School.
***

Rainy days were my favorite. Rain brought yellow galoshes and raincoats and puddles and fairies. Every time it rained the water gathered in the cracks and holes in the streets and push open the tunnels that led to the fairies' world beneath the puddles. Sarah's mom said the rain was tears falling
off God's face but I knew better. It's just the people in the clouds watering their lawn, pushing the dirt from the bottom of their world to paint the top of ours. I'd crouch over puddles and look for the fairies swimming up to our surface. I'd tap the surface with a stick and wait for a response. At night I dreamt about flying through the clouds to visit the people up there. I knew there was someone bent over a puddle, waiting for me.
***

"I can hit that tree from here," Grandma said, and puckered her lips like she was about to kiss the ugliest toad on Earth.
I giggled, "No you can't!"
She nodded her head and pointed like Babe Ruth to a tall oak on the edge of the ravine.
She took a deep breath, arched her back and threw back her head, and made a loud, "thuhpt" sound as she threw herself forward.
I felt my eyes widen as I watched the cherry pit fly from her mouth like a sweet, wet bullet. It flew over the railing above the sidewalk below, just over the bank of the ravine and knocked against the oak's trunk.
We laughed, and walked back to the bench to sit down.
"You know what they say," she said.
"What?"
"Life is a bowl of..." her voice trailed off as she looked at the bowl of mostly stems and pits between us.
"Seeds and handles?" I guessed, trying to make the best of it.
"Naw," she said, "just pits. Sometimes it's just the pits," and we laughed while a cardinal fluttered through the leaves of the quiet oak.
***

Bozo garbled at me and whale song called. Hours at the radio. Book in hand. Walls made of wood and glass. Distant kitchen noises and Grandpa whistling outside. Rough brown carpet snagging skin, I never wondered what possessed a clown to go beneath the ocean in full on costume,
or why he didn't need scuba gear. I never doubted the whales sang for me. I always closed my eyes and answered.
There is a tape recording of my mother singing. Her voice is deep and resonating, strong and passionate. She sings about sifting through a loved one's belongings in a trunk in an attic after they've died. It is beautiful and haunting. Part way through the song the music just stops. There is a click a hum, and then a child's sing-song voice, "Cherry, cherry in the tree. Please fall down just for me," then there is that hum again, another click, and my mother's voice come's back stronger than ever. A minute or so more of music and then that silence, click, hum, child.
"Hello, Mr. Bluebird I love you so. Hello, Mr. Bluebird, hello."
Hum, click, guitar and mother's voice.
Click , hum, seven-year-old me singing whatever came into my mind.
My family is gathered around listening to this tape at Christmas. It has been six years since she died of complications from diabetes. My grandfather is standing, bent over with a hint of shaking, the first signs of a disease that will eventually take him, only we don't know it yet. He is laughing through tears. A quick scan around the room and I see everyone is gargling out some strange mixture of sobbing and chuckling. It is as ridiculous looking as the click-hum-sing-song-hum-click-music performance sounds sputtering out from the stereo speakers. I turn to my new boyfriend and smile, "Welcome to the family."
It is our first Christmas together, and the first time my future husband met his future in-laws.
This is how you go back home:
Wait.
Wait for a cross-country trip to use as an excuse to "stop by" the old neighborhood.
Drive 1619.27 miles.
Face the Mississippi River and wonder if you will recognize anything.
Take one, two, three breaths and snap a picture of the "Welcome to Illinois" sign. Stop at a gas station on the other side and note the junkie standing outside the bathroom, talking to the girl with a yellow wood-paneled station wagon piled to the ceiling with junk. You will want to run because this is an intrusion on your memory, your childhood. These are the observations of an adult. Don't run. Ignore the vomit on the ground next to your car and purchase a bag of unsalted Planter's peanuts and try to see everything you might remember at once.
Follow a map to where you think you used to live. The streets that used to be huge are now tiny. Big city has crawled into you and this seems so different, quaint even. Try to find the house with the devil and the apple tree. Walk up and down 27th Avenue for three blocks. Note the crosswalk painted brand yellow new. Count one, two, three cracked sidewalk blocks to the alley. Follow 27th Avenue to where the devil used to live. Scrunch your face, doubt your memory, shake your head and throw your arms in the air. Cross the street. Pace the curb. Circle the house on the corner where you remember the apple tree being, So different, so different. Give up. Walk to 14th Avenue and stand in front of a house that used to be home. It is a new color. There are other people living in it. Debate asking to see the inside, decide that's just creepy and weird, and tell your son you are ready to go. Climb in the rented van. Kiss your husband and thank him for indulging you. Turn the radio on, lean back, close your eyes. Wonder how much of anything is real and how much is made up. When your husband takes your hand and squeezes, that's it. That's home.