101 Words

“Geez, I don’t feel like I belong here anymore.” Marvin Muttleman sighs about his beloved Clancy’s while commiserating with Pollack Joey.

They give a long stare at the young artsy couple now entering Clancy’s Bar.

“Jimmy O’Hanlon’s Place over in Maspeth…that reminds me of Clancy’s, before them!” Polack Joey grumbles.

“It’s like steppin’ back into 1978! There’s a bouncer at Jimmy O’Hanlon’s, like Studio 54 had. But NOW, you have that Hipster look? You don’t get in!” Pollack Joey whispers.

The old timers drink their Rheingold and mutter with disdain and resignation toward the artsy couple: “Fuck ‘em where they breathe!”

Whenever the clouds sag, I recall Mother’s coffee can: a pockmarked, rusted-out Caffé Vivo purchased in Newcastle during graduate school.

The repurposed can held Father’s hex bolts, eye lags, box nails. From it I filched the means with which to cement my idiocy.

To a ten-year-old, scouting for a tree house is a solemn rite. The warped oak, nestled behind the shed, was full of promise as a silent summer dawn.

With nails and branches I fashioned a ladder.

I slipped.

Thirty-four years later, the rain assails my collarbone. I remember Mother’s coffee can. I ache to finish what I started.

“Look at the way he walks, all twisted and limping. I remember him when he was a boy, running about in the street. A real live wire. His mother always said she dreaded the day when an accident would happen. It was bound to, she said. And then the crash, poor lad.”

“What crash? Is that what they told you when you came back from abroad? He attacked a girl—did terrible things to her—so half the town turned on him. Left him for dead. He never went near the hospital for the shame of it. Deserved everything he got.”

Janie’s husband was a gem.

He was considerate in all the ways women typically found their men lacking. He offered a kiss and a compliment to start each day. He texted flirtatiously. He arrived when and where he said he would. He brought flowers and left notes. He listened to complaints, nodding and expressing empathy instead of trying to fix every last thing. He was a slow and generous lover, always putting her pleasure first.

Yes, Janie’s husband was a gem. One of a kind. A catch.

As it turned out, all his mistresses would have said the very same thing.

I feel the sharp mahogany stab my hip bone, wince at the sharp sting of freshly torn flesh; I hear the echo of wood and bone, feel the pain arise at the intersection of man and man-made. My bags, too heavy from the years of memories packed inside, push me back, trap me in the house I’m trying to escape. I wait and listen for the crinkling of the sheets, for the friction of the fabric signaling the intrusion you are about to make.

Instead, I hear only deafening, disappointing silence. You do not wake. And I, I do not stay.

Colin sits in the fifth grade classroom. It was like a foreign land three months ago. Now it is his for nine months. Nine very long months.

He wears brand new clothes. They are nice, but he would rather be at the outdoor pool right now, wearing his worn, faded swimsuit.

His teacher gives out books. A book full of hard math problems. A book of endless spelling words. A reading book full of boring stories. He would rather sit under a tree and read a Hardy Boys book.

He looks out the window. He wishes it were still summer vacation.