The Artists

Morning

He sits and looks at her, on his face sleep still falls.  “I take it black,” he says.
She nods then pours.  “Why even have it if you can’t sweeten it up like a desert?”
“I like it black,” he says.  She pushes the cup at him…it slides smoothly,
like on ice and lands by his hand, not spilling a drop.

“That was amazing,” he says.

“You should see me cook an egg.”

Noon

His eyes are wide….”Turn a bit to the left…no, my left…”

She moves, her breast peaks in the sun.

He waits, brush in hand….”Turn a bit more, just a smit…”

“Smit is not a word.”   She moves again.

“Good,” he says.  “Now open your legs a little more…”
“I’ll look like a whore.”
“I’m not even painting.  How do you know how you’ll look?”
She makes a face….doesn’t move.
“Fine,” he says.  “It is finished.”

“Fuck you.”   She gets up and dresses.

Evening

The sun sets, red and purple and pink.  She mixes paints for him.  He lies on the floor observing the cracks of the ceiling, how they radiate from the chandelier’s base, spokes of a wheel, he thinks.

She mixes paints for him.

“We did good work today,” he says.

Midnight

In the moonlight
she crawls in his bed.
Why she can’t resist him.
She fondles him softly in his sleep.
Then climbs on top of him.

“Are you done with the paints, girl?”
he asks, his eyes closed.

“Mmm,” she says.

“When you are done…make me that egg.”

Below Ground

This little tale came from the legend that if a black cat walks across a grave during a full moon, the dead person will rise.  Hope you enjoy.  Pic by winterwillow89-photobucket

Below Ground

It has not been easy
you know….the wait.
We’d all been there too many times.
Waiting for the full moon…
waiting for the black cat…

Then it happened.
Barnabey, over there, plot 182
on that full moon in October
caught himself a black kitty,
that traipsed right across his goddamned
tombstone.

Barnabey hardly knew what to do.
Suddenly his arms worked
and his face muscles (well, what was left of them)
and he took a breath, he sneezed,
all that fifty year dust.
We all sent him messages, “GET UP!”
“GET OUT!”

He rolled over, which wasn’t easy in a coffin,
but Barnabey was a skinny guy,
and he pushed up with his back
and his skinny ass
busting through the rotted wood, and
the worm-worked soil.

It was a quite fresh and pleasant.
Scared the shit out of the cat!

“Now what?” he said.
God, he was so stupid.
Then the cat ran, ran, over more graves.
A regular celebration.  Many re-births, many awakenings.
What a sight it was.  Not for the faint of heart.

Mine was missed, yet again,
yet I was the loudest.
All the others got to rise up…
some dead only a year or two,
like that screwball drunk  who killed
three people last year with his car…
he got up…he dug himself out.

Not me, dead for a century….waiting
for the precise conditions…

The moonlight still glowed.
“What do we do?” they were all saying, stupid idiots.
“What do we do?”

“Go get that fucking cat for me!” I kept screaming.

Then I waited…

 

7 or 8 Things

Whenever I write a new story, I take a tip from Michael Ondaatje, one of my favorites, and write out my own version of his short piece 7 or 8 Things I Know About Her  as a character study.  It always brings out curious, things un-thought of previously…I’m not sure why.  Here’s one.  This is a fiction piece.

               The Father

She waited every day for her father to return.  He’ll be home, probably tomorrow, her mom would lie.  She didn’t know it was a lie.  She’d listen for the Camaro’s engine every night until she fell asleep:  it was always quite loud when it came up the drive. 

              The Music

She loved the rock band’s songs.  When her mother took her to what everyone called the club, she thought of the tree house Sandy down the road had in her back yard and the ‘club’ the two of them created.  They played music on Sandy’s tape recorder.  They threw their supply of fist-sized stones at the boys who tried to climb up the ladder.  They played “I Love Rock and Roll” by Joan Jett and the Black Hearts and sang at the top of their lungs.

              One Dog

They adopted a dog with three legs that had been hobbling around the neighborhood.  He was old and raggedy but her mother patiently gave him a bath.  He slept on the rug by the kitchen door.  She took him out before school.  He hobbled off one day and never came back.  Mr. Pierce, who owned the bakery down town, said the dog was living with him for three weeks.  His name was fluffy.  She had called him Scruff.

              First Criticism

She is five years old and her parents are screaming at each other.  She sits and watches Sesame Street with her hands over her ears.  Look at that silly, stupid girl, her father yells.  She doesn’t know whom he is talking about.   She covers her ears tighter.

             Listening In

Over hear her in the bathroom of the dorm:  “You could have started over, you could have started over, you could have started over.”

              Self-Criticism

“I don’t like to feel sorry for myself but I always do.  Why do I always wear these same clothes?  Why don’t I get the highest grade, even when it’s an A?   Why do I have to wait to get picked every time?   I wait patiently for my time to come, because my mother says it will.  But when?

             Fantasies

To be picked as the lead singer of the famous rock band.  Her father says she’s got the chops.  She is given the spot without even trying out.   Everyone loves her.   She becomes more famous than her father.  He sits in the audience every night and claps for her.

             Reprise

At Sandy’s old house in the neighborhood, they tore down the tree house.  It had been up there for over twenty years.  She imagines she can hear that old Joan Jet song again as she drives by in the custom tour bus that is painted black and silver with her name emblazoned on the side in gold.  When the bus stops at the drive way a crowd of people she doesn’t know are there to greet her.  Her mother and father stand on the stoop smiling.