Old Man Lacey hightailed it one day

he was a boy he couldnt say when

he could only say that the fixture of the man over the hedges and chainlinked fence who sat in his backyard in a vinyl-strapped chaise lounge beside a low white-painted metal side table a sweating glass of beer on it was gone

gone as day passes or a slight breeze kicked up cooled his sweating skin and dissipated too

he didnt remember a big fuss among the adults an as-a-matter-of-fact acknowledgement at best

he was after all Old Lady Laceys husband and no one knew what kind of man might tolerate her

he understood later that scarcely a step behind the Old Man the coals still warm still shedding grey ash she beat it down to the courthouse and filed desertion and divorce papers

the clerk who lived up the street around the corner told his grandmother and mother that she dressed him down at the top of her lungs in her corrosive voice as a no-good a scoundrel a drunk a dillydaller then gasping eyes near-bulging took a curt breath and spewed a selfish Godless man

immediately afterwards Old Lady Lacey argued and tried to submit paperwork shed brought to the courthouse completed in a steady clear hand completed years earlier according to the date beside her signature to marry

Jesus Christ in absentia(her ace in the hole)

the clerk now bemused her foot casually at rest on the first broad step of the staircase to his grandmothers house sheepishly admitted she muttered to Mrs Lacey under her breath  Whos in absentia

she said Mrs Lacey offput shrilled and left declaring that the citys the states and the USs secular concerns and beliefs would not inhibit her  she would take the Lord as hers ecstatically  ecclesiastically  Matthew 19:6 she declared

And no man shall put it asunder

Mrs Lacey is one for the books she remarked  casually looking up she started My goodness she lives right next door

his grandmother turned ever so slightly and saw she was looking at her address stenciled on the postbox on the front porch railing  Yes she said Next door 

Ive said too muchI hope not too loudly  she hastily excused herself backed down the walk and turned to go down the street in the opposite direction of Mrs Laceys home

his mother touched his knee as he sat beside her  That my dear is a good reason and example why we do not speak of others  If you ever have something to say of someone you tell them to their face

hed been telling people to their faces since

he didnt have to ask Mother May I

it went without saying

it was a stellar lesson for a young boy to learn though unbridled by the example when notes began coming home from school pinned to his shirt  --  at school he protested Put it in my hand Ill be sure that my parents get it  --  his parents his grandmother were flummoxed by his audacity not that it was incorrect several teacher conferences principal conferences allowed his reasoning was sound but firm in his conviction he refused to step away he preferred the debate unfortunately disrupting the classroom

none of the other children sided with him or encouraged him

Authority must have seemed different to them he thought

he also overheard his father say too many times Who the hell do they think they are They put their pants on one leg at a time Theyre no different than me

a teacher confided Hes a terribly critical listener And thinker Anything he disagrees with his hand is up Not waving Just stabbed into the air and firm Like a stick in the mud Precisely a stick in the mud Its funny you rarely see a saying personified Hes impossible not to acknowledge He refuses to relent We have our hands full and youll have your hands full until he leaves home

he and Old Lady Lacey had nothing in common or between them except her leering her abject distaste of him or any of the neighbourhood kids and the abuse her son Edwin chose to level on him 

emboldened by this lesson hed rather climb her long scarecrow body cloaked in a drab housedress pull her unruly hair than ever again provide her satisfaction or deviant pleasure of a little boy fearing or upset by her

they tangoed until his parents could afford a house of their own

  

 

afternoon, Saturday,  23  7. 16

 1300,  Monday,  1 8. 16

he hated the incessant back and forth

                                                                                 no he didnt

but he suspected if he didnt put-up a miniscule protest inculcate some sense of PC it might not carry water 

he . .what was the word . . . . unabashedly. he unabashedly relished confrontation                                                                                          

his relish enveloped its mystical sense  he relished the back and forth as he relished the rock of sex  though perhaps what he disliked of these particular volleys were that the arguments were between his selves

An interior monologue?

give im a fuckin break

they were diatribes  houndings  his varied aspects back and forth which at once were as aggressive as he

they were Contrarians Provocateurs frothing eidgets

                                                 he figured one day itd break out in a fistfight

and he could only begin to hope that someone with a smartphone might walk by and film it or whatever they did with it for prosperityhed really like to see what that looked likehis imagination to struggle otherwisehis selves bullying his selves would be comical

but thats what comedians did

though they had the commonsense perhaps to script it sanitise it

he waylaid himself at every opportunityhe couldnt help himself

he didnt have eyes to peer over both shoulders of all hes at once

                                                         he was a sitting duck

fish in a barrel . . .

                      . . . NO    catfish in a barrel . . .

. . . he carried them home to his house from next door . . . the Laceys . . . carried them off away from the barrel of Edwins pellet gun . . . Edwin shot them the three fish in the back of the head and when he cried Stop Youre killing them Edwin backhanded him knocking him down in the backyard bloodying his nose . . . he smeared the blood with the back of his hand and looked at it to confirm he was bleedingit felt like he was . . . standing over him Edwin told him if he really wanted to he could save the fish . . . he could bring them back to life . . . Jesus came back to life didnt he . . . he didnt know about that . . . he knew Church and Jesus . . . he knew that because of Edwins stories when the Laceys returned after dressing and going to Church several times a week . . . Edwin said they went to please his mother . . . Old Lady Lacey Edwins wildhaired mother who resented the neighbourhood kids and treated them spitefully so badly that his mother and grandmother told him to steer clear of her . . . he hid when he saw her . . . she rarely saw him first unless she watched from inside her house .. . watched from between her closed curtains her dark angular form behind the white embroidered linen panels . . . hed see her watching him and spooked he beat it into his grandmothers house where he lived with his family and a young uncle

he carried the catfish home in a ballia a tin-metal basin and hid them under the wooden backporch stairs tucked away pushed forward against the bottom of the treads covered with a burlap onion sack so they wouldnt be seen unless someone was looking for them

Edwin said he could raise them like Jesus was . . . You feed them bread like the host given at Mass at Church  Everlasting Life  and feeding them you pray Pray yes You wish them back to life and if you wish or pray hard enough they will come back to life but you have to believe they will you have to believe they will . . . And he did with every fiber of his body

his grandmother discovered the catfish two weeks later under the humid heat of a Chicago summer

she had been complaining of a foul smell for a couple of evenings

at dinner at the large kitchen table she wondered to the family if someone hadnt paid their garbage collection bill to the city as it sought to shut down people from incinerating their garbage in the alleys behind their homes

she wondered if someone hadnt paid the garbagemen and they refused to pick up their garbage this week 

Now the whole neighborhood has to suffer she said

she had an acute nose

everyone in the family would admit as much but they couldnt smell anything  during the heat of day they were usually at work

she didnt complain a third day
she found his rotting catfish in the ballia in the tepid unchanged water among scabs and swirls of the white bread he snuck out of the house to feed them

he fed them host as Edwin called it and believed they would come back to life with his help and spite Edwins cruelty

shooting them in the head while they were helpless to defend themselves

they were unable to defend themselves and he too puny to stop Edwin

that was his angst  though not that he knew what to call it

his grandmother called him out of the house and standing in the backyard before the ballia she asked him in broken English if he knew anything about it and the dead fish

Im trying to bring them back to life

Edwin said if I believed I could I would

I tink you try very hard but dey are beyond saving

I tink you ought to bury dem now

You understand dey are dead

I do I just wanted to save them

she rest a quiet palm on top his head caressing him  You tried  We dont always succeed when we try

Do you need help burying dem

No grandma

Would you bury dem in da unturned ground in da back corner of garden

By the fence  By the alley

Yes

I will

I go get da shovel from da garage and leave you to your fish for bit

bitter hot tears flooded his eyes

he slowly knelt on the grass before the catfish in the ballia he silently told the three that he was sorry he couldnt help themhe couldnt stop Edwinhe couldnt raise them like Jesus

he closed his eyes in his childs misery to stop the burning of the tears  and to stop seeing the terrible state of their once smooth beautiful bodies

when he opened his eyes again the spade his grandmother went for laid beside him

he covered the ballia with the burlap and went to the garden plot and dug a very deep hole a quiet hole a hole that might feel like the river bottom that might feel good to them

he poured them with the water into the hole and stood over the catfish until the water was sucked up by the earth

they laid side by side head to head facing back towards his grandmothers house as if they acquitted him of his failure and would watch over him forever be his guardians

that he didnt arrange them to lay as they did spoke to him  and the latent tears he thought hed shed while he gently covered them with unnatural earth unnatural to them were stayed pent up turned into stronger blood in his veins passing through his heart lions blood changed blood   changing him

nothing was said at the dinner table that evening about the smell

nothing furthur was said to him about the catfish by his grandmother or his parents or uncle

. . . No  he didnt have eyes to peer over both shoulders of all hes at once 

he only had his own eyes 

                      and what he had lived informed him what he might expect and not expect

he preferred confrontation

1040,  Sunday,  24  7. 16

 0804,  Sunday,  31  7. 16