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VIEW THE SUPPLEMENT FOR
CHAPTER 1
·
I ·
They danced. A sheet couldn’t hold on and was taken away on the wind. Sometimes all the clothes would let go and sink out of the air onto the streets and the kids would have to stop and go get them all and they would always come back and need to wash the soot off and tie them down on the line again. This sheet was different though. The wind had picked it and it wasn’t going to stay tied down any longer. This sheet was going home. This sheet danced without holding back.
I looked through the window and the sheet was taunting the other clothes and it flew away. It was good today. Some of the boys played checkers or kick the can and I was always at the window and not where I really was. Someone knocked on the door. The dance stopped.
“What?”
“It’s time for dinner get your ass down there.” The voice said.
“In a minute Miss Lilith.”
“Not a minute. Now.”
Some books fell off my desk.
The sun was shining through the window onto the sill where I was. I got down and picked up the books that had fallen and then I closed the book and put it on top of some others I had been a part of.
I walked into the dining hall and I was one of the last ones. Some of the other boys were already eating but Horatio had saved me a seat.
“Yo man this one’s not that bad. Could’ve done without this skim milk though. Remember that time they gave us eggnog on Christmas two years ago? That was way better than this skim milk.” Horatio was one of the lucky ones. This was all he had.
“It’s alright.”
“Chris man why do you always wear brown?” I could barely hear him in the hall but that was because the food was bad again today. Most days it was really loud during dinner. But that was because the food was always bad. Horatio would always eat what we had and there were a few other kids like him but the rest of the kids didn’t eat if it was no good. I always imagined that it was some good food like the moms give their sons on the holidays and after they get good marks.
Horatio’s eyes searched for me.
“Why do you always wear brown man?”
“I don’t know. It suits me.”
“Oh.” He said. “Did you hear about that shit the other guys did?”
“Yeah.”
“Man how funny is that. When I first heard about it I thought that Lilith would find out who had done it and they would all get it real bad.”
My body was heavy. Some of the other kids had finished their food and were going to try to watch the TV and the room was a little more quiet without them. I didn’t like TV though. It wasn’t real. The people on the TV weren’t real and they were always pretending and they were all liars. Everything was perfect on TV but it wasn’t for me. All of them were liars. Lilith was a liar too.
“And they actually pulled it off. Right under that bitch’s nose! Goddamn. I wish you and I were a part of that and that we’d seen the face on her when she saw her car. She must’ve been fucking ripshit man.”
I thought of the sheet. Some nights I would dream that Lilith or one of the others would forget to close the front door and a great wind would sneak in and it would take me away and I would float over it all – over the markets and the houses and the families and the TV’s and all the liars and Lilith and it all.
“Yo Christopher what’s up with you?”
“I’m tired.”
“What’d you mean? You went to bed the same time I did.”
“No I mean I’m tired of this.”
“What?” Horatio stopped eating.
“This. All this. I’m tired of it Horatio. I’m tired of all this bullshit.”
“Oh.” We were the only ones in the dining hall now. Horatio’s plate lay on the table waiting for his fork to resume its prodding. “Well why don’t you go finish that book you were reading… which one was it again?”
“David Copperfield.”
“Oh yeah that one.”
“But I’ve read it all before Horatio. I’ve been part of that before. I don’t to read that one anymore. I want to get away. I want to read a new story.”
I thought Horatio could understand but he couldn’t and it was so sad. I was so sad for him. The sun set. I cleaned up my plate and washed my hands and went out into the yard and looked at the sunset and sighed. It was a great night out there.
·
II ·
I slept that night. My sleep was good. I dreamt that I had a family and that we were all watching Dick Clark on New Years and the ball was dropping and everything was good. My mom turned to my father and gave him a kiss and we all had champagne and toasted to our futures and our family and how great it all was. And I had a sister too. She was pretty and she was young so she had to go to bed earlier than us because she needed to get more sleep. There was a Christmas tree in the living room and only a few days before we had gotten lots of presents from all our relatives and it was the best time of my life. But the best part was the backyard. A stream strolled through some trees and we had a tree house in the woods behind the backyard that my sister and I always did our homework in and looked at the stars and we were always happy there. We were in the tree house and she looked at me and we watched a squirrel collect his things from the forest floor.
“Why is he packing his things? Is he going somewhere?” she said.
It was perfect. I was such a good brother and I didn’t want to correct her so I told her what she wanted to hear. “He’s going on a long trip.”
“Chris?”
It was snowing lightly and my sister and I were about to –
“Chris!”
I was back again. I was sitting in the sill in my plaid night pants and shirt and Horatio was shaking my arm and trying to bring me back.
“Oh hey man.”
“Hey. Miss Lilith said your friend called and she said you should go over there today for some reason I forget.”
“Oh thanks for telling me. When did she call?”
“A few minutes ago.” He said as he walked towards the doorway to my room. He paused for a moment and then he turned around and he looked me in the eyes and spoke quickly. “Some of us are going to go play basketball in the yard. If you want to come play I’m sure they could make room on one of the teams for you.”
“That’s okay. I have some other things to do.”
“Like what?” Horatio seemed dumbfounded.
“I have to go to the bookstore.”
“Oh.” Horatio turned around slowly and continued out of my room.
I hopped down off the sill and walked over to my dresser. It wasn’t really a dresser though I just called it that. I had these two milk crates I had stolen from the truck when they were unloading the food for us and one was on top of the other and they were against the wall to the left of my bed and I folded my clothes and kept them in there. It wasn’t much of a dresser. It worked well enough though and she wouldn’t give me anything better so that was all I had to keep them in.
I put on a tan golf shirt and replaced my night pants with a pair of corduroys and folded my night clothes and left them on the foot of my bed. I made my bed even though I didn’t know what the point of it was because it would just get messy again and I couldn’t control or stop it but I made it anyway.
The window was open and the summer breeze blew the thick city air into my room and it smelled like hot old trash and sweat. I closed it. It was always better just to look through the window and fantasize than to open it up and be part of the ugliness of it all – but sometimes the air in my room got too old and I would have to open the window or it would be too much. I never kept it open too long though.
Miss Lilith was cleaning around the downstairs when I came down. She spent hours making sure that there was no dust anywhere. She hated dust. When I got to the bottom of the stairs I saw her clearly and she was cleaning the dust out from underneath her desk. My foot hit the tile floor at the bottom of the stairs and made a loud clapping noise and she jumped around and then her eyes narrowed and she stared through me. I walked through the lobby to the entrance.
“You better be back by curfew Chris or you’ll regret it.”
By the time she finished her sentence I was already out the door and watching the pigeons fly out of my way and into the air where they were safe from me. The sun hadn’t come out yet but it was still early and the air hung heavy with his tears and I waited and then a soft breeze rose and helped me along.
I walked down to the end of the block and waited for the light to change and there was a woman waiting too. She was very thin and she was wearing black stockings with runs on both legs. Her pink leather skirt had stopped about a half of a foot above her knees and she was leaning against a streetlight. The smoke from her cigarette cast an eerie glow around her and she looked pale. Then she saw that I had been looking at her and for just a moment our eyes met and we knew each other. I looked away. The light changed. I crossed.
It had only been a month or so since I had gone to the Theban Prophet but since Faith had called I knew she had something for me. She was always finding me books that really meant something and talking to me about before she came here but I’d known her for years and she never told me where her home was. Sometimes I thought she lived in the store but I never saw any beds or even a couch to sleep on so I knew she had to live somewhere.
Her old Ranch Wagon sat along the curb. The blue had all but disappeared and all that was left was rusty cracked paint and scratched siding. The left headlight’s protective glass had broken and the bulb was hanging out to the ground by its wire. The roof had a large dent above the backseat that had made a small lake from the rain the day before. I don’t think she drove it anymore.
When I walked inside there was the musty smell of old thoughts and undiscovered writing and it was familiar and good. The invisible fish swimming in the ignored tank, the paintings a little off center, the dust hanging in the air, the face of the statue of the saint was still frozen, the flowers had gone years ago but were beautiful even though they were dry now, and the books were tidy and neatly cared for, each letter of the alphabet with its own row in the cabinet, its own purpose in the store: it was all the same. And it was great. I walked upstairs to the loft above the store.
“Oh hello baby you came right away now didn’t ya?”
“I had to take a walk. How has business been?”
“Don’t ya kid yerself Chris. Ya know yah my only custumah! How many times I gots t’tell you dis?” I laughed. We had a connection and that’s why I went to Faith to talk and laugh and discuss authors like Austen and Faulkner and Sophocles. She never did make me pay though maybe because I didn’t have any money anyway. “No one has de time for dese old tings anymore Chris. Ya’re the only one who still knows what value is in it ta imagine dese days. Dey all run ‘round with deir fancy automobiles and deir fancy newspapers lookin’ fer life’s answers in all de wrong places. ”
She offered me some iced tea and I thanked her and sat down in the mahogany leather chair. Its color had faded where people’s bodies had been and it had rips along the top and sides and the arms were fraying and parts of it were turning coarse and dry. It was the best chair I had ever sat in.
She shuffled through some books she had set aside for me and pulled out David Copperfield. She started flipping through the pages looking for something maybe she had written down or maybe she had wanted me to see or ask me about because I knew the story really well and it was so necessary. Then she stopped and slowly lifted her head and then she looked into my eyes.
“What’s de mattah baby? Did ya tink about what I told ya last time?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. It’s all so hard.”
“Ya can do’t.”
“Can I?”
“’Tis all there. Ya know de answers ‘tis all there. Ya just do what you have t’do and forget about e’erybody else cause ya’re the future of this place baby. Remember dat. Jus build a new bridge when ya come to dat river baby but ya can’t forget da’smoke or de water in yer eyes from all de others ya have burnt behind ya. Ya won’t be able ta’build new ones.”
A cloud moved and the sun shone through the window above her head and I had to squint when I looked at Faith. No. It had always been shining but now I believed her. She pulled a book out of the stack she had made next to her chair and her arm stretched it to me and I reached for it but when my hand held it she didn’t let go.
“This is a good story.” Her grip loosened and I took the book. “It’s about a boy like yerself who goes down de river with a man and dey don’t get where dey was going but it is okay.”
“Huckleberry Finn? You already lent me this one Faith.”
“I want ya to have it for yourself. Trust me baby read it again. Someone gave dis to me and I have always had it and now I wanna pass it on. It will help ya. It always helped me when I was lost.”
I felt the cover of the book and the golden letters and it all was kind of her.
She laughed. “Ya can’t jus fly away baby.”
VIEW THE SUPPLEMENT FOR
CHAPTER 1
RETURN TO THE ATDC WRITINGS SECTION
©2003 AlexThorn.com and the Trustees of