May 3: Story Curse, Frogs and Snails, Hunger

I'm really hungry right now.  Not just eat a few jelly beans hungry.  I want to sit down and eat a three-course meal.  I don't know why I'm this hungry.  I know I don't have a tapeworm, and I haven't been starving myself this morning at all.  I just want to eat.  And eat.  And eat.  Just thought you'd like to know.

Well, I e-mailed my new short story to my sister, who is really good formatting and making documents look pretty.  I asked her to read my story and add whatever graphic she thought was appropriate.  I didn't give it another thought until I got home.  My wife told me, "Your sister called.  She sounded really upset."  I listened to the message my sister left on our answering machine.

"I did what you asked me to do.  But I really didn't appreciate it."  She sounded like she was crying.  "You should have warned me."  She hung up.

When I tried to call her, she refused to talk to me.  When my wife read my story later, she handed it back to me, crying, and said, "I never want to read that story again."

The story seems to evoke really strong reactions in readers.  I'm not sure if that's good.  I try not to be emotionally manipulative with my writing, and I really tried to make this story ring true.  You, my readers, need to tell me if this story is a sentimental piece of crap or not.  As it is, I'm getting a little gun shy about giving it to my friend this afternoon.

Well, I will post the story, and if I start getting death threats, I know something is seriously wrong.  I don't really want to have to hire body guards.  But I'm beginning to think this story is cursed.

Saint Marty is going to post his story now, but then he's going into hiding until the dust settles.



Jeepers, peepers!

Frogs and Snails 

for Karen on her birthday

I found myself at my son’s tree house three months after I killed him.  The peepers sang under the full moon, and Nick, our cocker spaniel, raced through the tall grass, stirring up clouds of fireflies that winked and sparked.  In the distance, I could see the black water of Mud Lake, still as sleeping crows.  I could smell fish and something else.  Skunk?  I couldn’t be sure.  Wild and secret, the musk sat on my skin like sweat.

Cooper, my son, loved the smell of skunk.  A few weeks before I murdered him, we’d paced a skunk as it waddled down our road, nosed through garbages.  I had to hold Coop back, kept saying, “Too close, too close.”  Nothing would have made him happier than to be sprayed.  To be able to take that stink to bed with him like a favorite pillow.  Smell it all night.  Wake up with it.

Nick bounded to me, his red hair slick with night dew.  He jumped up on my legs, left muddy prints on my jeans.  Before I could scold, he leaped away again.

I hadn’t wanted to go for this walk, but Nick had been desperate, insistent with his whines and scratches at the door.  As if his life or my life depended on it.  I avoided going outside as much as possible these days.  I couldn’t stand the looks of my neighbors.  Most wanted to say something to me, but nobody knew what to say.  So I spared them the effort.  Spent most evenings on the couch, listening to Billy Joel.  My son’s favorite song.  “Goodnight, My Angel.”  I’d sing it to him before he went to sleep.

Good night, my angel

Time to close your eyes

Nick barked a few yards away from me.  He’d been my son’s dog, bought right around the same time Coop was born.  Nick slept next to my son every night, his black nose tucked under my son’s chin.  The day after Coop’s funeral, I almost took Nick to the county Humane Society.  Had him sitting in the Sable next to me.  But I couldn’t.

I looked down at the base of the oak that held my son’s tree house.  On a root, a frog perched, its throat expanding, contracting like a bubble of milk.  On the dirt beside the frog was the knuckle of snail shell.  I held my breath, listened to the frog call.  Pweee-pweee-pweee-pweee.

Good night, my angel

Now it’s time to dream

Nick was at my side again.  He stared down at the peeper at my feet.  I expected him to pounce, bat the frog around with his paws.  But Nick just stood, pink tongue hanging out, panting.  The frog didn’t seem to notice, just kept crying.  Pweee-pweee-pweee-pweee.

I reached down, rubbed Nick’s back.  His tail swayed back-and-forth.  Slow.  Content.  I could feel his quick breaths.

I closed my eyes, remembered the last time I’d had my hand on my son’s chest, felt the work of his lungs under my fingertips.

Coop had been hiding behind my Sable, waiting to jump, surprise me as I stepped out of the car.  It had been a long workday, and light was already faded from the sky.  My wife had asked me to pick up a gallon of milk on my way home.  I’d forgotten.  Sighing, I shifted my car into reverse and started backing down the driveway to go to the IGA.

And dream how wonderful your life will be

Cooper was heaving liquid breaths when I got to him.  I heard myself saying, “Oh, God, God, God, no, no, no, God, no.”  I put my hand on his eight-year-old chest, stared into his wide eyes.  “Sshhhh,” I said.  “I’m sorry.  I’m sorry.  Sshhh.”

Before my wife got to us, Coop smiled up at me,  “Surprise,” he said.  Then he was gone.

Then in your heart

There will always be a part of me

I kneeled beside Nick, kept rubbing his wet back.  He looked up, licked my chin, the way I’d seen him lick Cooper hundreds of times.  I never cried for my son.  Not at the hospital or funeral or after the funeral.  I reached down, touched the thick finger of Nick’s tail, which moved and moved.

Over my son’s crib, my wife hung a plaque when he was born.  Precious Moments, which I hated.  A poem:

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?

Frogs and snails and puppy-dogs’ tails,

That’s what little boys are made of.

At the base of the oak.  Underneath the tree house and stars and moon.  In air of fish and skunk.  The peeper sang.  The snail crawled.  Nick nosed my hand.  And I wept in the dark.

Someday we’ll all be gone

But lullabyes go on and on...
They never die
That's how you
And I
Will be