“Thoughts, and Prayers” — Grandson
“One second makes a memory, two seconds shatters a friendship, and five seconds realizing your in love.”
Fourth grade’s fierce fire of hope had its warmth wrapped around my neck. My teacher being Mrs. Gillsby, a prudent young woman with dirt hair, and teal eyes with a harsh rumor for dishing out hard work. But treated us with care. Tough love being her middle name from many parents.
Amanda and I seperated this year. Our social attachment to one another became worrisome just like the ice cream that they yanked out of our vending machines. My first year without her is a lot like the year without Santa Clause.
The fire to learn washed away within two days. Mrs. Gillsby caught the whiff of defeat on me quicker than a dog can sniff up its own treats.She called my name dreadingly after class to tell me that I wasn’t alone. At least, not completely alone but I beg to differ.
Alone isn’t about what if I am surrounded or not. It’s just a feeling like blue is just a color. Her hands shoved over a bright pink fuzzy diary with a promise attached to it. Write down my feelings…If only the habit stuck with me-
Driving me to socialization my teacher designed a group project for the year Form the solar system in a creative way. Groups naturally united as if their essential togetherness meant better luck on grades. Braving the awkward air of class, I approached two new students in our class hoping my antisocialness hasn’t been attached to my name yet.
“My name is Rachel.” Her leafy eyes held curiosity like a cat’s upon seeing snow. “ I just started here.” Excitement attached to her yappy voice.
“Where you move from?” The shy boy next to her spoke while holding his creamy hands behind his back.
“A tiny state. It looks like a square with a little squiggly line.”
“A squiggly line. Got it.” We forged a triangle without desks in the corner of the room nearest a window. We could overlook the wood-chipped playground, and black pavement. We are the nobodys. All the other kids have friends. Not me. I just have these annoying newbies to work on our blank page.
“I’m Daniel.” His introduction came as we grabbed all the art supplies to place on our desks. “We can’t just outright draw the solar system.” A tone reminiscent of a southern Chinese farm boy escaped his lips. It was soothing.
“Let’s use the animal kingdom. Pick an animal for each planet, and mark the stars as the animals home.” Rachel fessed up using a light blue colored pencil to sketch out her sudden plan.
“We could use the name of the planet to help us determine the animal.”
“ Detail the creatures, homes, and colors of planets to form it. Anyone got a name?”
“Animal Solar system?” Rachel chimed in.
“Nah, How about the ABC’S of the Solar system?” Daniel’s eyes lit up. Agreement unanimously seen by our nods of agreement. This is the project which defines our friendship like a ring of promise. A tide is changing..
The black paper about the size of our three desks became our background project. Rachel detailed out each planet’s animal, color, and survival needs on plane white paper. When we finished copying down her layout on the paper in color we ran it up to Mrs. Gillsby’s desk. Everyone else already fled off to recess.
She waved her hands to us for dismissal. We slipped our hands together charging down tarnished pools of teal green walls till we hit the stairs the color of a blue summer sky.
“ Alana.” Amanda folded her arms in front of me with a tone sounding of an iceberg collision with a boat.
“Wanna play tag using a stick outside?” Daniel broke the tension. A lone hero.
“Sure.” She grabbed Rachel’s hands instead of mine while giving me a piercing glance.
From this day forward we were to remain tight as family. We would cater to one another’s downfalls. This same day defined my future just as an Earth rattling quake can define a Tsunami.
Riding the bus home with daniel meant dealing with his ramblings daily. He’s a country bumpkin. I darted my head to the window where his index finger was pointing as we drove towards my street. Dancing Christmas lights, and loud sirens met my ears.Thunder beat as reality broke through our childhood window pane.
On the side of the road, cop cars littered the sidewalks, and a faint echoing from their walk-i-talkies blared through the window. Our big lemon bus veered around the corner dropping me off making the route for the rest of the kids longer.
I tried ignoring my gut instinct to run to my mother as I approached the front lawn. Her hands covered face. A common scene these days. It was as if I walked up on a bad crime drama except you see no silver lining at the end. Just a lot of darkness, and Christmas lights.
Her curly crow hair smeared to her neck. I could see blotches of wet on her jean jacket. What drew me in to the idea of a serious problem is my brother. He’s nowhere to be seen fleeing the scene like Sergeant Cooper.
Inching forward like a cat I tried to make sense of the words around me. My mother kept her head down as a sheet laid over an emergence bed came rolling out of the house. I stood there as a deer in headlights would. The commotion around me bickered on into a sweet poisonous hum. Officers desperately tried to cover my eyes. But I battled their hands away with mine.
Minutes passing. My mother chatted up a storm in a rasp to a man dressed in black. He reminded me of the Grim reaper as it takes away souls. A weight lifted as my backpack clunked to the ground. Chuckles turned into giggles, and straight our laughter. I could feel stares of outrage bleeding against my back. But I knew the true man couldn’t hold mom down anymore.
I swung my hands around with drops of happiness flowing down my cheek. I wasn’t sure what happened. But by the looks of things Daddy could no longer make law in the house. Mom’s a mess. But I was dancing as if rain pounded against the pavement.
Words traveled fast. Cops lost another brother. But not to duty. The best kind of gossip landing all over the news. Chitter chatter along lone streets. Mother kept us home for all of a week. She needed time. Lots of it.
Flowers, letter, family gifts, and other items landed on our doorstep. She only left her room when it meant going to the bathroom. My brother stuck to being a boy taking the litter of crap that everyone gave us and tossing it into the trash as fast as it was delivered.
A black dress adorned with little pink flower that blossomed upwards from the tail is what I wore to the memorial service. My brother wore a plain black suit trying to keep himself in the background. Mom didn’t want the world to remember the slum of a parent he was. She wanted him to be remembered for the good things that he wasn’t.
The memorial held inside Kingston’s funeral home. A common one used by rich folk. Outside the home has two wide pillars of Gargoyles on them from a family that donated the statues over. The grass freshly cut with a door made of old oak where you smell the dust plumes radiating off it like smoke.
Words like rain poured by me. Sorry spread around by the adults catching a sicking fever in my tummy. They bent down to hug me only to whisper things later forgotten. I stood next to the open casket.
My face dry, and plastered in a frown. Its hard pretending to be sad.Officers chatted about Dad, family gave fake hugs, and by the end of the day they would all walk out strangers again. A man known for being the best priest in town stepping outside in front of me. His robe of static from a television box with a white flannel under it. Did he even count as a priest?
The casket remained opened only halfway. Just my father’s thinned out face, and cherry lips could be seen to the world. I couldn’t help the desire to slam the casket shut. Out of the corner of my eyes I caught a little girl in a frilly dress about my age standing off to the side. Rachel. A man held her hand with sandy flecks popping out of his Navy baseball cap.
Her father sat in his seat watching the priest set down a book on a metallic stand. He cleared his mouth trying to shush out the hums in the room as he began to read the Eulogy in his hands written by my God Forsaken uncle who pretended to care about us.
“If I should go before the rest of you, Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone, Nor when I’m gone speak in a Sunday voice, But be the usual selves that I have known. Weep if you must, Parting is hell, But life goes on, So sing well.” Words spoken brought tears to my eyes as I imagined father bending down to read me poems before bed. Few of my memories of him could Jar me into tears like this one as most had moments of severe dislike for him in them.
Tiny hands wrapped around me smelling of sweet bubble gum. Someone’s bad ability to follow protocol. I latched my fingers with Amanda’s as she dragged her mother halfway across the city just to check up on me. Her fingers wiping away tears off my face relentlessly.
Time edged by as if dangling from a ledge. I just wanted everyone to fade away. Words zipping around me as the two hours slugged by,, and people began to disperse. Both Rachel, and Amanda remained as the crowd shriveled before me. Mom sat beside the casket asking why…why he succumbed to the snow.
Year in passing
I threw my suitcase into our green Volkswagen. All the while trying not to think about leaving home. Goodbye diamond picket fences. Hello to downtown’s innermost hood. Our Volkswagen filled to the brim with only appliances, pictures, bed supplies, and toys that made us leaving a perfectly flawed place to somewhere less safe.
A smooth back top road switched into a bumpy crusty one that flung my Game-boy advance against the front driver’s seat. Plumes of factory smoke flew through our windows making my asthmatic older brother hack our a lunk while sipping up Pepsi.
Sprays of soda fell onto my device. “ Can you not hack all over my game?”
“Come on, you now you love this scent of destruction emanating from our window.” He covered his mouth with his sleeve as a show of kindness towards the screen.
“I don’t smell anything other than your rotten breath.” Pulling over to the side of the road we stumbled upon a neighborhood made of metal fences, boarded up houses, glass on the ground, and garbage littering the sidewalk. I found it nothing like the diamond life. I absolutely love it already.
The building made of old rose bricks had wedges of grass stuck between them with crooked stairs. Inside our floors were clean wood with sea tiles for the bathroom, and a magnificent marble floor for the kitchen. Not quite perfect. I climbed the first step smiling at the squeak it made from the pressure.
“Hey sis, I think I found something for you.” He tossed a snake plushy around my neck as he ran past.
“Keep your snake or I’ll just leave it on the stairs to collect dust.” I hefted my box up a little continuing my journey for my new room.
The apartment is an old smokers domain with walls discolored into a faint beige for the kitchen. Our floors made of a floral tile pattern that collected dust in between its cracks.
Next to the kitchen is my living room rug greeted me with a fuming maroon color with dark splotches everywhere. The static television wide-screen fitting against the pale beige walls of the living room, and from there it split off into an open hallway with a bathroom fainted by baby pink and rust. Houston, I think I left Kansas for the Ghettos.
Throwing down the box in my hands I released a yawn. I wanted to go back for my bookshelf. But knowing that Amanda lived a block away…guess my mom knew a thing or two about keeping friends in touch.
A curse if you ever ask me. Day of the damned be made.
