The Man in the Brown Tweed Suit

From our window we watched him, the man in the brown tweed suit, as he made his way cautiously down the street. His hair was long and grey, whipping about his face with each new gust of wind. His back was stooped, made more evident as he pulled his coat tight against his body. He clung to a wheeled basket which he dragged behind him, overfilled with unknown items tied up in Glad Bags, and stopped at each crack in the sidewalk to hoist it over. He stepped into the fast food restaurant where we were eating and tottered towards the counter. We Wish You a Merry Christmas blared over the intercom.

“Just a ten-cent coffee,” the man said, fishing around in his trouser pocket for some change. “I’ve already eaten too much today.” He patted his belly and smiled at the lady who passed him a small, Styrofoam cup. He made his way towards a booth in the corner, dragging his belongings behind him, nodding at me and my daughter as he passed. He drank slowly, cuffing both hands around his coffee to draw out its warmth. His coat looked thin and I wondered if he had any clothing beneath it.

“That looks like grandpa.” My daughter whispered to me.

 I nibbled on the end of a french fry, wondering how she remembered her grandfather. He had passed away four years ago when she was barely out of diapers. “Yes, honey, he does.” I agreed, watching as the man closed his eyes and seemed to settle into an uncomfortable sleep.

"Is he homeless?" She asked.

 I shrugged, unsure. He was wearing sneakers with his suit, small holes where his toes peeked out. But he seemed clean.  "I doubt it," I said. My daughter was still at the age where she believed that life was fair. That if you worked hard and did what you were supposed to you were guaranteed a happily ever after. Time would take this away from her. I could not. “He looks too kept."

"But he could be, right? He could be without a home."

Memories of my dad flooded me. My father, ashamed by the pantry full of nothing but canned beans in his kitchen. My father, who had lost so much weight because he wouldn’t accept food stamps, that he didn’t have one pair of pants that fit him. My father, who would only go out to lunch with me on the day he received his social security check so he wouldn’t have to ask his daughter to pay.

I took the last bit of my burger and wadded up the wrapper. I should go to this man, I thought. Find out his story. Wake him up and ask, “Excuse me, sir, do you have a home?” Then maybe he would rouse, looking up at me with clouded blue eyes. "I used to," he’d say, "a long time ago." And then his eyes would be somewhere else. Lost in a place with people he loved and home cooked meals and grandchildren crawling on his knee. Or maybe, if the world really was the magical place my daughter believed it was, he would rise, square his jaw, furrow his brow, and say "Here! Here! I am no beggar. I have land, and cattle, and a castle! How dare you mistake me for a vagabond." And he would wheel his cart away.

But I didn’t move. As much as I wanted to prove to my daughter that men who looked like grandfathers all had a warm, safe place to sleep every night, I was afraid. Because if I was wrong I would have to dig through my purse until I found five dollars and clumsily shove it at him so that he could get something in his stomach besides a senior citizen coffee. Or he might look at me in that way my father did. Shamed, accusing eyes that told me I had no business in his affairs.

“I’m sure he’s fine.” I said, driving my daughter home in our brand new Suburban. The back seat was filled with packages we would put under our tree.

“Are you sure, mommy?” She looked at me with wide eyes and upturned nose. In a few days she would be covered in wrappings and ribbons and the man would be forgotten. "Are you really sure?"

“Yes, baby," I said, pulling into our driveway. "I’m sure.”



(by April Aasheim, originally published in Welcome to Wherever,  2012)

A Not So Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving

When I was a kid I used to look at the old Saturday Evening Post magazines my grandmother kept in her house. I’d spend hours staring at the Norman Rockwell paintings on the covers, wishing my life resembled those pictures.  For a girl like me - one whose family was always in transition – they were glimpses of a normal life. A Perfect life.

The Thanksgiving editions were especially appealing. I’d make up stories about the family that sat around that perfect turkey. The dad was cheerful, employed at an advertising agency. The mother stayed home and baked cookies. The kids got along. Grandpa told stories about the good old days and grandma always had treats in her pocket for her favorite grand kids. In my eleven-year-old heart I believed that when I grew up, I could recreate the scene and have my own perfect holiday.

What follows is the week leading up to this year's attempt:

              Thursday (One Week Before Thanksgiving)

I’m heading to the grocery store with my husband, clenching a sales ad and a handful of coupons. I am on a mission:  if we buy four hundred dollars’ worth of stuff , we ‘win’ a free turkey.  But as the realization that Thanksgiving is less than one week away hits me, I start to hyperventilate.

“I can’t do this,” I tell my husband as he pulls into the grocery store parking lot. It’s hot in the car. Almost balmy.  I roll down the window and suck in big pockets of air.

“Every year you go through this thing of yours…trying to create the perfect holiday. I say relax. Things are only as difficult as you make them.” He almost hits a pedestrian and a cat as he parks. The cat meows and the pedestrian flips him off. He doesn't notice. “Just calm down.”

Calm down? Easy for him to say. He has exactly three jobs during the holidays: Carve the turkey, pick out a tree, and watch TV.

“You’re just anti-holiday.  If it were up to you, the only holidays we’d still be celebrating would be July 4th and Superbowl Sunday.”

“You forgot New Year’s Eve.”

Somehow I'd chosen a husband who hadn't factored into my Normal Rockwell scene. For the time being, I would just have to make do.

              In the parking lot, I spot a woman with a long pony tail, a Santa’s hat, and a bell.
I fumble through my pockets, removing a bobby pin, a button, and a dime. I look helplessly at my husband to see if he has any spare change.

             "You're wanting to give our money away already?" He nods towards my dime. "Just give her that."

 “The poor lady is sitting out here, shivering, and you want me to toss her a dime?” I glance around, hoping there's another entrance. There's not.

“Sorry.” My husband smiles at the woman before I can make my getaway. “We will have to catch you twice next time.” She woman smiles back. I forget how charming my husband can be to females who don't wash his socks.

Inside the store, we pile groceries into our cart, filing every available nook and cranny. Still, it's not enough to win my turkey. My husband wants to check out, whether or not we get free poultry. In a panic, I throw in twelve cans of Spam and a case of split pea soup. 

I grab a turkey, the biggest one, and perch it atop the mountain in our cart. “We’ve made our quota!” I gloat. We pay and head for the exit.

My husband elbows me as we leave. The charmed bell ringer has left her post. In her place stands a little person wearing an eye patch, dressed like one of Santa's elves. He swings his bell in my direction and I shrug helplessly as he appraises my haul. I offer him a can of Spam. He takes it, but his eye shows no signs of twinkling.

“We can never come back here,” I say, racing for the car.

“Sure we can. We just have to wait till January.”

              Friday

I call my family, trying to figure out who is coming for Thanksgiving. Getting a group of people  together for anything is a challenge, especially my family, who like to ‘play it by ear.’ To complicate matters, half of them have changed religions this year (and dietary restrictions) and the other half has converted to veganism. Suddenly, I wish I hadn’t won such a large turkey.

By the end of the day I have the final count. It looks like we are down to: Videogame Boy, Holidays-Are-A-Waste-Of-Money-Girl, and Dude-Who-Just-Wants-To-Watch-Football.

Oh, and my mother.

              Saturday

It’s housecleaning day and I’m surveying my home, inspecting it through the eyes of someone who has never seen it before. I notice things – crooked pictures, hand prints, a beige carpet that used to be white.  How can we live in all this filth? I get out the Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and go to town, scrubbing walls until the sponges fall apart. My husband walks by on his hourly pilgrimage to the refrigerator. He sees tears in my eyes and stops to check in. I tell him about the dead Magic Erasers and then send him to the store to get more. He comes back with a six pack and a bag of Cheetos, but no Magic Eraser. I tell him that he doesn’t care about me or family or traditions, because if he did he would have remembered cleaning supplies.

“You’re trying too hard,” he says, but returns to the store.

I stare at the wall, looking at a spot that’s been there for so long I thought it was wallpaper. Maybe he’s right. I almost put away my bucket and gloves but the image of my mother, rearranging my cupboards, pops into my head. If I have to endure one more year  of her telling me that I'll get an infection down there if I don’t properly scrub the bath tub, I’m going to jump into the oven with the turkey.My husband returns, hands me over the box of cleaning pads, and I scrub the walls until the paint chips off.

              Sunday

I’m thinking I should decorate. The house, while clean now, is sparse in the holiday cheer department. I wonder if it would be okay to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving even arrives. The stores do it, so I guess I can too.  

            I start small: a wreath and some holiday hand towels. Hmmm? I add a Santa cookie jar. But these few items aren't enough. It looks like someone sneezed Christmas instead of welcomed it. I bring out the big bins. Soon, I have a living room that rivals Santa's Workshop. I might go blind from all the blinking lights.

“Too much?” I ask my husband.

He pats my head and heads for his man cave.

              Monday

I wake up at four AM, sure I've forgotten something necessary for our big day. I wander around the house for five hours trying to remember what it is. Finally, I decide to go to the store, hoping it will trigger the memory.

The one-eyed bell ringer is there. He catches me in my car. I put my foot to the gas as he wags his bell at me.

“Shit.” I dont have any spare change, or Spam, today.

"Get what you needed?" My husband asks upon my quick return.

"Whateverwas I needed, can wait another day."

             Tuesday

I look in the mirror. I’m pale and my hair is stringy.  I know that someone will be taking pictures and tagging me on Facebook. And now with Instagram…

I rush out and get a spray tan. It’s cold and costs as much as a turkey.  I try to secure an appointment for a haircut. They are booked up through next week. I decide to cut my own bangs - just a little trim. Then a little more. Next, I cut the sides of my hair, adding layers. This isn’t so hard. I consider becoming a cosmetologist.  

By the time my husband gets home, I’ve got a mound of hair in the sink and I’m dual-wielding scissors. “You’re going to be bald if you don’t stop!” He takes the scissors and bans me from the mirror for three hours. When I finally check my reflection again, I see that I look like an Oompa Loompa with a Daryl Hall haircut.  

I take a shower and go shopping for a hat.

              Wednesday

I sleep in. There’s still one more day until Thanksgiving and I'm already exhausted. I’m starting to miss being a kid, when the only stressful thing about the holidays was making sure Santa didn’t catch me on a naughty day.

There was still so much to do: Cooking all that food, displaying it on a perfect table, and making sure that no one kills any body else for the next 48 hours feels insurmountable. Not to mention I need to look up "Holiday Spam and Split Pea Soup Recipes" on Pinterest.

All I want is one perfect day. I don't even have the strength to get there.

I tell my husband who is getting ready for work. He sits on the bed next to me.

“There’s no such thing as perfect. And for the record, those Saturday Evening Post images aren't real.”

“You’re family had perfect,” I argue. I have been to his parent's during the holidays. If Rockwell were still alive, he’d be painting my husband’s family.

“Again, there is no such thing as perfect.” He kisses my forehead and leaves.  But if his family wasn't perfect, whose was? 

I ponder this as I dress, looking out my bedroom window. It’s raining. I stumble down the stairs to my coffee pot, grab a cup, and make my way to the computer to search for Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving Images. I locate the famous 'family around the table scene' and stare at it.  

The people in the picture are happy, healthy, and clean. Their hair is combed, their teeth are white, and no one is wearing a Meat is Murder t-shirt.

I look closer. Suddenly, I notice that one person is looking away from the others. And Grandma is doing all the heavy work.

Maybe they werent perfect, after all. Maybe they all just put on their finery, posed, then went back to arguing politics and bad football calls. Somewhere between passing the salt and the dinner rolls, life is bound to happen.

I stare more, transfixed. I re-imagine the scene: Grandpa is worried about his pension. Uncle Pete announces he's leaving Aunt Berta because she whistles in her sleep. And sweet Mary Jane wants to quit school to become a professional mime.

Maybe what Rockwell painted was one perfect second, caught between a myriad of imperfect seconds. Rockwell painted an ideal world, not the real one. He was a dreamer. Like me.

I looked around my now chaotic house. Just yesterday, it was in perfect shape, but today its back to normal. The hand prints on my stainless steel appliances have returned. The dishes are all dirty. And that mysterious spot has reappeared. 

              I sigh and sip my coffee.

I take down some of the decorations, leave the dishes in the sink, and smile at my husband. But I don't let him see it.

            I may not have the perfect house, or family, or life. But I have something better. I have my house, my family, and my life.

          And that really is enough, and possibly more than I can handle on a normal day.

         ***


        April Aasheim is a wife and mother living in Portland, OR. She is the author of the best selling witchy series: The Daughters of Dark Root. Find her on Facebook or at aprilaasheimwriter.com.

A Thanksgiving Adventure

     I was determined to host Thanksgiving Dinner that year, though my mother - she of the longest memory - firmly opposed the idea. You send twelve kindergartners to the hospital with a batch of botched brownies and you are branded an unsafe cook for life. But this time would be different. I had been reading books, watching the Food Network, and accumulating twelve pounds of potatoes that needed to be cooked by Thursday, at the latest.

"This Thanksgiving will go down in history!" I informed my husband as I planned the seating arrangements. We had four stools and a high chair, and five grown-up sized diners.

“I don’t mind eating in the living room.” My husband offered.

“Oh, no you don’t. If I have to watch my mother eat yams, so do you.” I checked the decor. The last time we had actually decorated the place was around the time of Lent, three years ago. "We need new place mats," I said, eyeing the plastic Easter Bunny mats that still graced our table.

"We just got those!" My husband gripped his wallet. "Here’s a marker. Color in some feathers and a waddle and no one will ever know.” His eyes darted towards the oven, pausing. "You do realize you’ve never cooked a turkey before?”

"How difficult can it be? It's just a big chicken, right?"

“And you’ve never cooked a chicken either.” He walked away. I caught him on the Internet that night when he thought I was asleep. Researching. There are apparently nine restaurants in our neighborhood that are open on Thanksgiving Day. Two deliver. One even sells something resembling a turkey, plus or minus a few key parts.

Filthy traitor.

That a boy, husband. Way to sap my holiday enthusiasm.

Still, as crazy as it sounded, he could be right. I had never cooked a chicken, a hen, or any other member of the fowl family. The closest I had come was reheating a bucket of chicken from the KFC, and even that turned out disastrous. They should put warning labels on those paper buckets: highly flammable.

Reluctantly, I sought out the wisdom of my mother.

"I had hoped you would have changed your mind and let me handle dinner, April.” My mother had always ‘done’ dinner and had a hard time letting go. “How were you thinking of preparing the bird?"

"I’m brining it."

"Brining?" My mother’s voice wavered. She had the same tone the year in Junior High when my softball coach asked if he could take me camping. "Do you even know what brining is?"

Honestly, I hadn’t a clue. I had read about it in a magazine while I was in the Supercuts. Unfortunately, I had only read the part that said Want to start a new Thanksgiving tradition? Try brining your turkey this year, before the stylist called me to the chair.

"It’s our new Thanksgiving tradition," I explained.

There was a long pause over the phone, followed by my mother uttering a Catholic prayer. My mother isn’t Catholic.

"Please, honey. Find a recipe. There are a million of them out there."

As always, she was right. I googled Turkey recipes and almost instantly, found the perfect one. I called my mother and gave her the news.

"Guess what? I’ve got a recipe!"

"I'm so glad.” My mother sighed into the phone. “What spices does it call for? Rosemary? Sage? Thyme?"

I blinked as I tried to recall where I had heard those words before. Weren't they the gifts from the three wise men? That seemed almost heretical. I shook my head, glancing at my six-gallon bottle of Season All purchased from a recent Costco expedition. “Don’t worry mom. I’ve got it all under control.”

My mother hedged. "Would you like me to at least make the stuffing? I can have it ready in the morning before you stuff the bird."

"Stuffing the bird is not on the recipe.” I checked my meticulously written note card hanging on the refrigerator door: Defrost turkey for two hours...bake for four.

Any variation and I risked disaster.

“Okay,” she said, but I could tell she wasn’t done yet.  “Can I at least bring the pies?”

“Sure mom. I couldn’t find any pie recipes that didn’t require hours of dough rolling and ingredient mixing. Pie duty is all yours.”

Thanksgiving Day I woke up at the crack of ten to begin my long reign as culinary queen. Of course, a good cook is a happy cook so I spent the first few hours of my morning watching reruns of Real Housewives of Atlanta. They were airing a holiday episode and I wanted to get properly ‘in the spirit’.  At noon my mother called to ask how dinner was progressing.

"Fine”, I told her absently. Someone was pulling out someone else’s hair extensions on TV. Shit was getting real. “I’ve got it all under control.”

“You sure. I can come by. I don’t mind.”

Sigh!

My mother is from a different generation. In her day you got up at four in the morning, baked, chopped, basted, broiled, and basically worked your patooty off for a meal that was consumed in under seven minutes. I however, am a modern woman with gadgets and gizmos my poor misguided mother had never seen. Such as a DVR. So I finished Real Housewives and watched three episodes of The Big Bang Theory. All was going according to plan.

At 2 PM I removed the turkey from the freezer and let it sit on the counter to thaw and poured myself a glass of wine.

"Mom, turkey's still frozen." My son reported. It was 4:30 and I had put him on Turkey watch duty. I went into the kitchen and knocked on it. Solid as a rock.

"Put it in the microwave for an hour," I said. Lucky for us I had made the executive decision last year to buy an industrial sized microwave. My foresight was paying off and I intended to brag to my husband about it the second he emerged from his man cave.  

Sixty minutes later I heard the microwave ding and I plodded into the kitchen. It was time to bake that bird. But the microwave had done more than defrost the turkey. It had aged it. The skin was yellowed and cracked, bunched up and broken. It looked about half the size coming out of the microwave as it did going in.

"This thing okay to eat?" My husband asked sticking a fork in it. “I think it’s burned on the outside and still frozen on the inside.”

"That's how all turkeys look before you bake them. If you helped out more around the house, you'd know that little piece of trivia, wouldn't you?"

“All I know is that is not the way the turkeys my mom cooked looked.”

He was lucky I didn’t beat him with a drumstick.

I handed him a turkey bag, a large plastic sack that guaranteed our turkey would come out moist and delicious. He opened it and I dumped in the bird.

Thwak!

That is the sound a turkey makes when it falls through a turkey bag and onto the floor. Additionally, fliffttthhhh is the sound it makes when it slides across that same floor, knocking over unsuspecting family members along the way.

"Catch it!" I cried. My dogs had entered the room and were circling like bandits around a wagon train. The only thing that kept them at bay was their inability to reconcile the smell of turkey with the shriveled thing slithering across the floor. My husband hurdled the chairs and seized the bird just as three canine jaws snapped shut behind it.

“I knew I should have played sports in high school,” he said, handing me over the turkey and rubbing his shoulders.

Before anything else could go wrong I shoved the turkey in the oven - sans bag - and turned the dial to 450 degrees. The temperature was a little higher than what the recipe called for, but my parents would be here soon and we didn’t have time to wait. I suppose I should have preheated the oven, but I had already strayed dangerously away from the recipe. I was close to going rogue.

“I did all the hard work,” I said to my husband and son as I opened a can of Cranberry sauce. “You gentlemen can take it from here.”

With that, I went to pick up my vehicularly-impaired parents. The roads were dark and still. The fog swallowed up the flickering Christmas lights from the lights on neighboring houses. The only sound came from my father, who yelled at me to slow down as we approached dizzying speeds of seven-miles-per hour.

When we finally arrived, it hit me: I was a bad, bad daughter.

Holidays had always been important to my family, especially my mother. No matter how many recessions, lost jobs, or tragic family events that occurred, she had always made sure that holidays were special. She had cooked, baked, sliced, diced, and cried in order for us to celebrate together, something I never fully appreciated until now. I had taken this day from from her- demanded it actually – and thought I could replicate what she did with a few modern conveniences and some prepackaged stuffing.

As my parents climbed the stairs to my front door I wanted to warn them, apologize for what would come: Franken-turkey, canned yams, and lumpy gravy from a jar. But they seemed so happy there, holding their pies, buzzing about Black Friday sales and what Santa might bring their grand kids. So I said nothing. I wouldn’t take this moment from them. It would be like the Grinch announcing to Cindy-Loo Who that he was stealing Christmas. Better to just let the Who’s sleep for now. They would find out soon enough.

We walked through the front door and I was greeted by something I hadn’t expected: the sights and sounds of the holidays. My husband had lit pine-scented candles and decorated the tree and my son was dancing to Christmas music from an old Bing Crosby CD. Store bought cookies sat on a silver tray on the coffee table and my dad reached for one, and then another. My dogs greeted my parents with loving licks, almost knocking the pies out of mother’s hands. The house wasn’t filled with the traditional Thanksgiving sights and sounds and smells, but it didn’t matter. It was the holidays and there was a certain magic that couldn’t be undone by a shriveled turkey and a lazy cook.

I still remember that Thanksgiving fondly, even though the food was so bad we spent most of the evening joking about it, threatening to send it to our enemies during times of war to weaken their morale. We made up for it by playing games, making wishes, and sharing jibes the way that only families do. That fourth Thursday in November the world was filled with potential and unlimited possibilities. And innocence.

 *

It was the last Thanksgiving I had with my dad; He passed the following spring. Poor guy. His last Thanksgiving and I nearly poisoned him. I’d eat that horrible, wretched turkey every evening for the rest of my life to have that night back. I’m sure my mother would too.

I’ve given my mother back her cooking torch. It makes her happy and keeps her busy. As for me, I’ve learned a valuable lesson: everyone has a talent and a passion and we should all focus on what we love to do.  I stay out of the kitchen now, unless I’m asked to help (rarely) and do what I do best: live life, observe the world, attempt to find some meaning in it, and record it.  

 

John Says Goodbye (Excerpt: The Universe is a Very Big Place)

Six

       John stood in front of his pickup truck, all his earthly belongings tied up in the truck bed under an old tarp. Before him stood his family and friends––the majority of the community––all of whom had come to say goodbye and to wish him luck in his new life.

"I can’t believe you’re going," said his mother, grabbing hold of him, her press-on nails digging into his back. Tears ran down her cheeks, etching rivers through her pancake makeup. Standing there before him John realized what a tiny woman she was and he was surprised he had never noticed. She always seemed so big, strong and capable, but as he hugged her goodbye he realized she wasn’t Superwoman after all.

"It’s not forever, Mom," he said, standing back to look at her. He could see the roots of her hair, grey with the beginnings of grow-out. She spent two Fridays a month at the Samson Beauty Parlor to maintain her natural color, but time was winning the war on her head and it would have horrified her to know.

"I got you a present," his mom whispered in his ear. She presented him with a package wrapped in pink and purple paper, probably left over from his niece’s birthday party last week. His mom, a proud Scotch-Irish woman, wasted nothing. No wrapping paper, bow, or even tape was discarded. Each was placed in an old shoe box ready to serve again at a moment’s notice. His family had been recycling long before it was fashionable.

"Open it now," his auntie called out from somewhere in the crowd, and his brothers elbowed each other good-naturedly. They were obviously privy to the contents of the package. John smiled and nodded, turning his head away from the sun.

"Ah, thanks, Mom. I can never have too many pairs of underwear." John waved the stack of white Fruit-of-the-Looms in the air, bringing laughter from younger members of the crowd and nods of approval from the elders. His mother squeezed his arm.

"That’s so in case you get in a car wreck you will always have clean underpants. Read them," she instructed, hiding her mouth behind her hand so that John wouldn’t notice her bottom lip tremble. John flipped the pair on top. On the back were the words John Smith delicately embroidered in cursive scrawl. "Me-ma did those for you last week," said his mother, nodding to his grandmother in the front row. "Even though she has the arthritis."

John walked towards his grandmother and gave her a long hug goodbye. She broke free and saluted him, assuming he was off to war because that was the only reason anyone ever left Samson. Generations of Samson men had died for the Red, White, and Blue and his grandmother lovingly sacrificed every one of them because that was the cost of freedom. John saluted her back and then he went to each family member and friend, shaking the hands of the men and hugging the women.

"Remember," said his grandfather. "Buy American, vote Democrat, and don’t wear colored bandanas or people will think you’re in a gang."

John nodded and grasped his grandfather’s hand firmly, feeling the heavy veins in the man’s thin arm. "I won’t forget."

John made it through the crowd, doing his best not to cry. Midwest men did not cry. When he had finished his goodbyes he made his way to his truck and watched as his mother turned away. She had said she couldn’t watch him leave. He waved once more and then drove, refusing to look back in case he changed his mind. It wasn’t until three hours later at a rest stop that he saw the card on the passenger seat.

 

Dear John,

You are a good boy. Losing you is like losing my arm. But if you really love something (or someone) set them free. And so I am. Follow your heart. I hope you find your adventure.

Mom.

My Mom's Coming to Visit

My mom's coming to stay with me for an entire month over the holidays. She is set to arrive, twelve suitcases in hand, the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and stay until the Friday after Christmas.This will be the longest she has stayed with me and I'm a bit nervous. Hoping my brother will take her for a few days now and again, maybe like a library check out system. If not, it's going to be an interesting month for me.

As a writer I'm a solitary person during the day. I get up, slog to the computer, peck out a few thousand words, eat cereal by the handful straight from the box (I have a special talent I can pick out the pink hearts from the Lucky Charms without even looking), brush my teeth, and repeat the process again at lunch. Having my mother here - she who processes every thought she has out loud - is going to be a challenge.

"April, do you know where I put my coffee?" "April, do you ever watch Bones?" "April, you should really dress more like the girl on Numbers. She has your personality and shape."

I'm going to have to find a different spot to write. To read. To exercise. To think. My house is not that big and there may be little reprieve for me. She settles in, roosts, swallowing up the entire room with her presence. Worst of all, she hogs the video games.

Still, I wouldn't change it for the world. I miss my mom. Some way, somehow, she has become one of my best friends. It will be worth the constant updates on Murder She Wrote reruns, the declarations about how much better we were in the 1950s, and the TV blasting at sonic boom levels just to have her here.

Mothers are interesting. You love them. Resent them. Move away from them. Come back to them. Seek comfort and wisdom from them, then tell them to stay the hell out of your life.

And my mother, with her tarot cards, neon red hair, penchant for losing things, and a heart of gold, is the most interesting mother of them all. I'm a lucky woman.

The Swan and the Lake (For Halloween)

Carlton took one final glance at the fog-covered lake, screening his chest against the wind with one hand and tossing his partly-smoked Winston into the water with the other. The lake was dead. Not a fish, snake, or bird took refuge in it for as long as anyone could remember. Scientists had come, trying to discover the mystery of the barren lake, but they all left more bewildered than when they had arrived. They shook their heads and filed their reports away in vaults that would never be opened.

The old-timers of the nearby town knew the answer, and if the scientists had bothered to ask they would have fixed one steely eye on the querent and whispered, “It’s haunted.”

“Most likely by the ghosts of loose women,” Carlton said, a rare smile snaking it’s away across his gaunt face. “Penelope should feel right at home.”

Carlton shivered as he remembered her lithe dancer’s body turning shades of alabaster, fuchsia, and silvery-blue as she went limp in his bare hands; hands his father said were too delicate to ever do a real man’s work. Happy now, daddy?

 The wind picked up and Carlton cast an almost sympathetic glance towards the lake. “Good bye, Darling.” His lip began to tremble. He hadn’t always hated her. Love had turned to odiousness only yesterday, when he had returned from a trip to his father’s house a day early and had seen…

He shook his head, fingering the flask in his pocket that would soon erase the memory.

As he turned to go he was startled by a sound. Strange. The lake was usually as quiet as it was empty. He cocked an ear to listen. A wailing, high and sweet,whipping across the waters, ending in a crescendo. Most likely the wind, thought Carlton, though he had never heard a wind like that.

Suddenly, there was movement in the fog. With unbelieving eyes Carlton watched a small, white form emerge from the middle of the lake. It slithered, winding its way towards him, yet causing no ripples, until it rested at his feet.

“Is that a…?”Carlton blinked and looked again. Sure enough, perched at his feet was a beautiful white swan.

Where had it come from? He scanned the area, looking for a clue to its origin. The wind had subsided but Carlton felt cold down into his bones.

The swan stood, shaking water from its feet and Carlton heard the jingling of a collar around its neck. It was a pet. Of course! He laughed at his paranoia. What would his father say if he had seen him spook so easily? Carlton wiped the sweat from his brow and stooped
to give the bird a pat.

The wailing returned. He recognized it now: not a wailing but a song - a song from the ballet. It was the last thing he ever heard. Both his hand and his heart stopped cold as he read the lone word etched into the swan’s collar:

Penelope 

 
**
My submission for the Blogflash Halloween Event.

Growing up in the 70's (For Jimmy)

My nephew recently told me that he wished he could have been alive in the 70s to see what they were like. I had to pause for a moment as I was hurled through memory lane. I was a kid in the 70s. Maybe I could help him.

The first thing I remember is the simplicity of the decade. Plain clothes, straight hair, muted colors. We lived in a world of plaid and paisley but it wasn't blinding. Mustard yellow was a wardrobe staple.

We didn't spend our weekends at the Mall or the movie theatre. Going out to the Ihop was a treat. McDonalds was a luxury.
We spent our summers in the front yard running through sprinklers, zipping through neighborhoods on our bikes, or huddled under yards of sheets in makeshift forts. We had toys, but I had never seen a Toys R Us. My parents purchased my Christmas gifts at Kmart. I'm not sure where the other kids got their presents, but it must not have there because the K word, in the third grade, was a dirty word.

There were no vidoe games to keep us occupied. There was just one TV. We had three channels to choose from. Four if you were lucky and could get the clothes hanger your father installed as a makeshift antenna to work. My mother guarded our TV by day, and my stepfather took over at night. Occasionally, I was able to sneak in Mork and Mindy or Happy Days, but only because my mom found neither of those shows deplorable. She hated The Brady Bunch though, so I had to stay in the closet about that one until I came of age.

Homes were large and mostly one level. If you were lucky you got your own room. Most of the time I was unlucky, having to share a space with two sisters and several family pets. But once we lived in a four bedroom house and for two glorious years I had an entire room to myself. It was painted white and I dreamed of yellow fluttering curtains that my mom never got around to hanging up. I littered my room with Nancy Drew books and Slurpee cups from my weekly treks to 7/11. I put on shows for money to keep up my Slurpee habit. Bad singing mostly, but the kids in the neighborhood had few other options for entertainment and so they came to see me and my cousin perform. It was like Little Rascals without the really cool clubhouse.

Our living room was panelled to offset the green cabinets and yellow appliances of the kitchen. My mother would say that the panelling provided warmth. It also helped hide the drawings of my budding artist brother. The adults drank coffee together, brewed in our our house, discussing music and politics as they visited at speckled tables. And they played cards. Lots and lots of cards. The days of gathering on front porches and whittling had vanished but community, conversation, and neighbors were still very important. My mother opened up her house to everyone. This didn't sit well with me. There were six kids in our family and our house was always a mess. But my mother didn't care. She was as friendly as she was undomestic and the only people who seemed to notice were her own children who teased me about it the next day at school.


The adults of the 70s were the children of the 60s and they had come to this decade with the ideals of their youth, even if they were now saddled down by 'the man'. They talked about them too, oftentimes around children. We weren't as protected from words back then. We learned about wars and sex and who was doing what with who as our parents gossiped over chocolate fondue. But we also learned about freedom, sacrifice, and what it meant to be an individual. My mother was very open with me. She told me things that would make parents today gasp. She told me about a man she knew who shot children in the Vietnam War and never came out the same. She told me about the importance of a woman having control over her own body. And she told me that it was okay to love whoever I wanted, regardless of race or gender. Maybe that was too much to tell a child, but even then, I respected that she saw me as a person, not just a kid.

Speaking of protection, our generation was probably the least protected groups of children in current times. We didn't wear helmets when biking, and there were no bark chips on our playgrounds. In our day we played on hot, metallic monkey bars and if we were dumb enough to do an aerial flip and crack our heads on the pavement below, it served us right if we walked around drooling for the rest of our lives. I was too chicken to try most of the flips and so I (and chickens like me) stayed safe. But we watched with wonder as those kids, like my brave cousin, twirled around the bar three times, flew high into the air, and landed gracefully on their feet. There were no adults telling them to be careful. We had walked to the park. Alone. If it was during school hours you might have a playground attendant blow a whistle in your ear before she waddled away, but that was about as much attention as our stunts ever received.

We were the last generation to go to Drive-In movies and one of the first generations to witness the giant, naked breasts on the screens that surrounded us. My parents may have taken us to see The Fox and the Hound but we were gawking at the half-naked women running from a masked psychopath on the screen to our left. The movies of the 70s were a feast for those who love scifi, fantasy, horror, and boobs. And at seven years old, lying on a blanket on the hood of our my car with a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, I had front row seats to a world formely privy only to adults.

We were an interesting generation, unprotected from the adult world yet somehow spared the fears of global annihilation that generations before and after knew. The Bay of Pigs and Vietnam were old news, and the threat of Russia was years away. All we had were long days of bell bottoms, great music, and Gilligan's Island reruns. Time stood still in this decade. At least when you are seven years old.

I got my first radio in 1977. It was shaped like a ladybug and when you pulled its wings out you could hear music. It picked up two channels but I can still remember the thrill of tuning in and hearing Top of the World playing for me alone  the very first time. With my radio came freedom. I was no longer at the mercy of my mother's Bee Gee's albums. I was introduced to a new world of music to explore (if I were patient enough to wait for the song to come on), and as I was listening, I was dreaming. I started writing my own songs. Really, really bad songs. My sister would mock me as I'd tell her, all fists and seriousness, to leave me alone because I was going to be a famous songwriter one day. Once, she even stole one of my songs to piss me off and claimed it was hers. I was sure that she would get famous for it and no one would recognize the creative genius behind it, but that never happened. It turns out a song entitled Boy Oh Boy Ardee, written by an overzealous eight-year-old, was not destined to pop the charts. We weren't the first generation to have been inspired by music, but the mellow sounds of Bread and The Eagles, and later the harder sounds of Zeppelin and punk and early metal bands, all changed the way we thought and felt forever. Maybe I'm turning into an 'old fogie', but as I look back now I can't think of many songs as powerful and enduring as Hotel California.

You can't stay locked in a world forever. The 70s, like childhood, was about simplicity. But adolescence was on the horizon and another decade was about to roll over. New music was being recorded. Malls were being erected. Kids were wearing things that cost more than their parents made. We grew tired of simplicity and patches on our knees. We wanted new.

I was watching The Facts of Life one day and thinking...if all I ever get in life is a real pair of Jordache Jeans, a really cool blazer, and hair like Blaire's, I will be happy. Please, God. Please let me have those things. Brooke Shields, who had made her fame by living on an island in The Blue Lagoon, was now telling us to buy Calvin Kleins. And if Brooke was pimping jeans, we had to have them. My cousin and I wrote Brook a letter begging for a free pair since all the other kids would have them and our thrift-store shopping parents certainly wouldn't get them for us. Brook never responded. We resorted to cutting out the labels of my older sister's clothes and sewing them onto our own. I'm not sure anyone really bought that we were wearing Gucci cutoff shorts, but the power was in the words plastered across our butts. They made us superheroes, at least in our own heads. We started classifying each other. Those who wore designer jeans. And those who did not.

The 80's arrived and I was a decade older, ready to embrace the next chapter of my life. The world became nosier as gadgets and gizmos invaded our homes. We were one of the first houses to get an Atari and a VHS player, but one of the last to get a microwave. We also got an additional TV which mom put in her bedroom. She now had two to lord over, but I became queen of the remote during those hours when she slept and I'd turn on something called music videos and sing along. Maybe I wouldn't write songs after all. Maybe I would produce music videos instead. They were the future of the industry. With more TVs and gadgets came the necessity for more money and moms started going off to work. There wasn't after school care for us, there were TV's and VHS players to keep us entertained until our parents returned. We were the first and only latchkey generation, raised on the wisdom of Meatballs and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. We were free. Independent. And knew how to make our own macaroni and cheese.

More access to information also meant more news. We learned about the doom and gloom of a dissipating ozone and the real possibility of a global nuclear war. The 80s brought me into the real world and it was scary. So I did what every other kid of my generation did. I listened to loud, obnoxious music, ratted my hair out, and drowned out the world in the most gaudy pieces of fabric I could drape across my body. When the movie The Day After came out in 1983, depicting the horrors of humanity after a nuclear attack, I checked out of the real world and disappeared into the fantasy of the early 80s. If simplicity hadn't saved me, then excess might.

The 90s, of course, brought me back. While the 80s had taught me to Rock and Roll all night, the 90s reminded me of the frailty of human existence. The artists of this era sent out a wake up call, reminding my generation of the things we had tried to forget. Wearing hot pink and having hair that rivaled the height of the Space Needle was no longer in. The 90s meant you had to get real. I couldn't live in a pretend world anymore. The world was sticky and messy and at times rather unpleasant, but it was the world I lived in.

My nephew wanted to know what it was like to live in the 70s and I hope I told him. But that was my experience as a child. I knew nothing of what haunted the adults of that generation, those who had lived through wars and depressions and civil unrest. I only know that for me, it was a shelter before the storm. Maybe that's because i was a kid, and that's how it should be, in any era.

Husband Helps with Laundry

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m walking around the house, trying to figure out how I’m going to complete everything on my weekend to-do list. I’ve been so busy with other projects lately that housework has taken a back seat - and it’s beginning to show. The dishes are dirty, the floors unswept, and the smells emanating from the garbage disposal have set off the carbon monoxide alarm. I have two choices: Clean or move.

I scan the living room and my eyes find my husband, lounging lazily in front of TV. He’s munching on Cheetos and cycling through a series of football games, completely unaware that our house is one mouse shy of being condemned. He has, I’ve discovered, a superpower: the complete inability to see filth.

“What’s wrong babe?” He asks. He may not notice a mess but he can always feel my disapproving eyes on him. Another superpower. When I don’t answer he extracts himself from the couch and plods towards me, offering me his bag of chips. “Anything I can do?” His gaze stays with me only for a second before sliding back to the game. Someone in a blue uniform catches a ball and my husband raises his arms in victory, launching several Cheetos in my direction.

I rarely ask my husband to help. After all, I’m the one who works from home. And since I don’t earn enough income to feed our plants, I try to make up for it by taking care of the house.  But even I know when I’m licked. “I’m overwhelmed,” I admit, hoping that fuzzy thing looking at me from the corner is my daughter’s doggie slipper. “There’s just too much to do.”

“The house looks fine,” he says.

“I’m not sure why I told you.” My lip starts to tremble. “I knew you wouldn’t understand.”

“Come on babe,” he says. “It’s not that bad. I can help. Just let me know what you need.”

“You?”

“Yes, me.”

“What do you know how to do?” I ask dubiously. To this day the only evidence I’ve seen of his domesticity is that he lives in a house.

“I can do laundry,” he says confidently. “I used to do my own laundry, you know, before I got a wife.”

“Are you sure? Maybe you should dust the furniture."

“No. Laundry is perfect. Wash. Dry. Fold. Easy Peasy. And…” he says as he hustles up to the guest room where we store our dirty clothes, “I can do it all during commercial breaks.”

My husband is in the room and I hear the swish-swish of flying clothes. When he doesn’t emerge I call to him. “Need help gathering?”

“Don’t worry babe. I’m on it.”

My husband is a smart man. He wears khaki pants to work, crunches numbers, and manages people at his office. If he says he can handle the laundry, I have to believe him. I start on the dishes, wondering if we should just get a new set, when I see my husband trot down the stairs with a basket of clothes piled so high I can’t make out his face.

“I didn’t realize we had so many dirty clothes,” I say.

“There were four hampers in the guest room. I managed to fit them all into one stack.”

“You combined the clothes from the green hamper with the clothes from the red hamper?” I gasped. I had explained to him countless times that clothes in a green hamper were clean and clothes in a red hamper were dirty. Even if he hadn’t listened it should have been easy to figure out: Green - clothes were ready to GO. Red – the next STOP was the washing machine. “Now the clean and dirty clothes are mixed up.”

“Sorry babe,” my husband says, offering to do a sniff test. I tell him that it’s okay, we will just wash them all again, and I follow him down to our laundry room.  When we get there he turns on the machine, dumps in half a box of detergent, and starts adding the entire contents of the basket into the washer.

“First of all,” I say, yanking out the things that appear to be mine. “That’s too many clothes. It will break the machine. Secondly, you can’t wash them all together, in the same temperature.”

“Sure I can. Saves time and money.”

“But you didn’t sort the colors from the whites.”

“No need. I was them all in cold.”

“Do you really want to wash your socks and underwear in cold water?” I ask. “That’s not hygienic.”

“Marilyn vos Savant says that all clothes can be washed in cold water. The germ thing is made up by the gas company to get you to use more hot water.”

I groaned. Whenever he wants to win an argument he quotes Marilyn vos Savant. But I wasn’t buying this one and I googled it.

“Aha!” I say triumphantly. “Socks DO need to be washed in hot water. Otherwise you might get athlete’s foot. And who knows what you will get if you don’t wash your underwear in hot water?”

“You don’t say,” he says scratching his head. “I wonder why Marilyn said otherwise.”

The bell on the washing machine rings, letting us know the wash cycle is over. He removes the wet clothes, which have all turned the same shade of murky blue. I raise an ‘I told you so eyebrow’ and he shrugs.  “I don’t mind wearing clothes that are all the same color,” he reassures me, “easier to match.”

At least I saved mine, I think. And then a terrible thought occurs to me.

“Honey…what did you do with the clothes that were in the washing machine?” He didn’t have to say a word. A buzz from the dryer confirmed my deepest fears.

“You put my clothes into the dryer!?”

“Yep. You’re welcome.”

“Oh my God. You can’t do that”

“Why?”

“Because my clothes fit just right, but if they get hit by so much as a gust of wind on a warm day, they shrink.”

I opened the dryer and a load of clothing that could have fit my daughter’s Barbie Dolls tumbles out. I hold a skirt up to my body. In its current state it would either make me some extra money or get me put on probation. “I can’t wear these.”

“Why not? You’ll look hot.”

“We live in the Suburbs!” I say. If I went out in this I’d be banned from schoolyards, libraries, and The Home Depot. But maybe not Lowes.

“Suit yourself,” he says. “Anyways, laundry is done. Need help with anything else?”

I look at the pile of what had once been people-sized clothing and fight back the sigh that is welling up inside me. Maybe it’s not that bad. A few short years on Slimfast and I’ll be wearing them again. I kiss him on the cheek and hand him a new bag of chips. “No, honey,” I say. “I don’t think I need any more help today. Why don’t you go and watch your game?”

“Okay, baby. But only if you’re sure.” My husband takes the chips and disappears into his mancave, and somehow I manage to do everything on my list that day. I guess all I needed was a little extra motivation.

And maybe that's his real superpower after all.