Subbed on 10/3/09 to Smokelong Quarterly
***
Eternal Grains of Sand
Grainy red twilight streamed through the billowing kitchen curtains of an Ohio farmhouse.
Standing in front of the sideboard, a young housewife blotted her palms on her apron. She then reached out and wrapped her fingers around an egg-timer. She flipped the egg-timer over and watched with awe as fine yellow grains trickled through the egg-timer's cinched center.
On a secluded beach in the Indian Ocean a team of artists gathered at the base of a mound of yellow sand that had drizzled down from the heavens. Working together, the determined artists molded the sand into a huge block. Once their huge block of sand had been moistened with frothy seawater, the artists began to painstakingly sculpt. Armed with bottomless buckets, high pillars were formed. Crafting additional blocks of sand in the same manner, the artists erected the four ornate walls of an ancient temple.
The temple was shaded by wide-canopied, fruit-bearing trees. Then colorful birds and screaming monkeys and creeping mammals were brought in to fill the sky above the trees and the crotches of the trees themselves and the earth beneath the trees and the hollows beneath the earth. Metallic-armored insects were released to provide glint and buzz to the silent nights. Stars and a moon were tossed into the air to sparkle the black sky.
Satisfied with the world they'd put together, the artists stepped into the temple they'd created and began to etch a smaller block of sand into a low round table.
Once finished, the artists departed the temple and disappeared like vapor into the misty forest.
For a long time, time stood still. Vines tangled the walls and the pillars of the temple. Gnarled roots of the trees the artists had planted grew up out of the earth around the temple. The insects and animals multiplied, evolved into different creatures.
Then one night a monk robed in orange appeared from a gap between the trees that surrounded the temple. The shadows of the leaves of the trees shivered on the monk's pale and solemn face.
Slowly, he made his way over the earth and entered the temple. Stooping over the low table that the artists had built, the monk began to chant. He removed his chakpu from inside his robe and tapped it over the low table, releasing a flow of red sand. The sand dripping from the chakpu changed colors. Orange and blue and yellow. Working throughout the night, the monk tapped out a brilliant rainbow; circle encircling circle encircling circle.
His work complete, the monk departed the temple and disappeared into the same surrounding forest in which the artists had gone.
Inside the temple, on top of the low table, in the rainbow's vibrant red center – its eye -- a young Ohio housewife stood in the glow of the grainy red twilight streaming in through the billowing curtains of her kitchen window and blotted her palms on her apron. She then reached out and wrapped her fingers around an egg-timer.
Showing posts with label Shopping Now. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shopping Now. Show all posts
Saturday, October 3, 2009
An Incident at the Ice Rink
Subbed to Mudlucious on 10/10/09
***
A Pink Evening at the Ice Rink
by Robert Aquino Dollesin
The woman skating ahead of me slipped and struck her head on the ice. I scraped to a stop and dropped down beside her. A pool of pink blood was beginning to blossom on the ice around her head. She was unconscious. Her face contorting, her limbs twitching. Before long other skaters crowded around. Some older guy who claimed to be a doctor took charge, started to bark out instructions. He told some of those who'd gathered around what to do -- what to get. He swung his arms to clear the crowd away so he’d have room to work.
But I couldn’t move.
My gaze was fixed on the sweat running off the woman’s face. Her open mouth. Her closed, but flickering eyelids. The snapping joints of her arms and legs.
The man who'd taken charge shouted at me. “Grab her feet, dammit! Keep them steady.”
When I didn’t move, the gray-haired man slammed a fist on the ice and said, “Do it!”
I blinked. Everything was dreamlike, hazy.
I got myself positioned between the woman’s feet and held her ankles through her pink woolen socks to keep the heels of her skates from pounding the ice. My hands slid down to the tops of her white shoes, keeping them in the crotch between my thumbs and forefingers, keeping the razor sharp blades tight against the ice.
Everything was happening quickly. Panic. Distorted voices hollering back and forth. People skating past. Shadows falling over me. The nervous voice of a woman over the speakers, trying to calm everyone down.
I held fast to the downed woman's feet, determined to do everything I could to help.
I felt her feet shake in my grip. I held tighter, pushed down harder. The blades slipped, sliding, bringing me with her knees up and close to her bottom. The knees drew apart.
In the hysteria of the moment I held my breath, then furtively peered up under the woman's pink skirt and sneaked a glimpse at her panties. Like her skirt. Like her socks. Her panties were pink. They were sheen, her pale skin and dark pubic hair were visible beneath them. Everything exposed except for the triple knitted square that concealed her most private part.
“She’s not going to make it,:” someone shouted. “God damn it. She’s not going to make it.”
The doctor started pounding his fists on the woman’s chest. People screamed frantically. She went limp in my grip. The doctor sighed.
"She's gone," he said. "You can let go now."
But I couldn't unwrap my fingers from her shoes, no more than I could pull my leer away from the pink panties underneath her skirt.
Even the doctor peeled my fingers one by one from the woman's shoes, I kept thinking -- Pink. Pale pink. Wide bit of thin pink fabric separating the pink waistband from the elastic leg holes that dug into the dead woman's pink thighs.
***
A Pink Evening at the Ice Rink
by Robert Aquino Dollesin
The woman skating ahead of me slipped and struck her head on the ice. I scraped to a stop and dropped down beside her. A pool of pink blood was beginning to blossom on the ice around her head. She was unconscious. Her face contorting, her limbs twitching. Before long other skaters crowded around. Some older guy who claimed to be a doctor took charge, started to bark out instructions. He told some of those who'd gathered around what to do -- what to get. He swung his arms to clear the crowd away so he’d have room to work.
But I couldn’t move.
My gaze was fixed on the sweat running off the woman’s face. Her open mouth. Her closed, but flickering eyelids. The snapping joints of her arms and legs.
The man who'd taken charge shouted at me. “Grab her feet, dammit! Keep them steady.”
When I didn’t move, the gray-haired man slammed a fist on the ice and said, “Do it!”
I blinked. Everything was dreamlike, hazy.
I got myself positioned between the woman’s feet and held her ankles through her pink woolen socks to keep the heels of her skates from pounding the ice. My hands slid down to the tops of her white shoes, keeping them in the crotch between my thumbs and forefingers, keeping the razor sharp blades tight against the ice.
Everything was happening quickly. Panic. Distorted voices hollering back and forth. People skating past. Shadows falling over me. The nervous voice of a woman over the speakers, trying to calm everyone down.
I held fast to the downed woman's feet, determined to do everything I could to help.
I felt her feet shake in my grip. I held tighter, pushed down harder. The blades slipped, sliding, bringing me with her knees up and close to her bottom. The knees drew apart.
In the hysteria of the moment I held my breath, then furtively peered up under the woman's pink skirt and sneaked a glimpse at her panties. Like her skirt. Like her socks. Her panties were pink. They were sheen, her pale skin and dark pubic hair were visible beneath them. Everything exposed except for the triple knitted square that concealed her most private part.
“She’s not going to make it,:” someone shouted. “God damn it. She’s not going to make it.”
The doctor started pounding his fists on the woman’s chest. People screamed frantically. She went limp in my grip. The doctor sighed.
"She's gone," he said. "You can let go now."
But I couldn't unwrap my fingers from her shoes, no more than I could pull my leer away from the pink panties underneath her skirt.
Even the doctor peeled my fingers one by one from the woman's shoes, I kept thinking -- Pink. Pale pink. Wide bit of thin pink fabric separating the pink waistband from the elastic leg holes that dug into the dead woman's pink thighs.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Prickface
Submitted to Dogzplot on 10/11/09
Prickface
He, kneeling on the carpet with his big balloon head hovering over the Scrabble board, reminds me of Baby Huey. I chuckle inwardly and lay my tiles out, spelling 'IDIOT.'
He, scrunching his face into a perfect walnut, plays off my 'O', spells out 'GGOZZ.' He laughs, spit dribbling all over his chin.
Wanting to shriek, I slam my cream-colored tiles onto the board – 'PRICKFACE.'
He, his enormous head lolling like a Weeble, tries to claim my word is a non-word. I have to slap the stammering fool's plump fingers each time they dart forward to try and scatter the tiles.
Finally, He, off the 'P' in 'PRICKFACE,' spells out 'PLTRE' and claps his mitt-sized hands, looking more satisfied than ever.
The doorbell rings. I tell him to get off his lumpy ass and answer it. He stares at me, rocking back and forth, his head shaking and his idiot grin widening.
"Prickface," I say, getting up myself. At the door I glance back to see the cheater shifting the tiles.
After I shoo the stupid paperboy away, I return to find the idiot grinning at what He'd spelled out on the board:
'POMPOUS BITCH SISTER NEEDS A MAN.'
Prickface
He, kneeling on the carpet with his big balloon head hovering over the Scrabble board, reminds me of Baby Huey. I chuckle inwardly and lay my tiles out, spelling 'IDIOT.'
He, scrunching his face into a perfect walnut, plays off my 'O', spells out 'GGOZZ.' He laughs, spit dribbling all over his chin.
Wanting to shriek, I slam my cream-colored tiles onto the board – 'PRICKFACE.'
He, his enormous head lolling like a Weeble, tries to claim my word is a non-word. I have to slap the stammering fool's plump fingers each time they dart forward to try and scatter the tiles.
Finally, He, off the 'P' in 'PRICKFACE,' spells out 'PLTRE' and claps his mitt-sized hands, looking more satisfied than ever.
The doorbell rings. I tell him to get off his lumpy ass and answer it. He stares at me, rocking back and forth, his head shaking and his idiot grin widening.
"Prickface," I say, getting up myself. At the door I glance back to see the cheater shifting the tiles.
After I shoo the stupid paperboy away, I return to find the idiot grinning at what He'd spelled out on the board:
'POMPOUS BITCH SISTER NEEDS A MAN.'
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Wardrobe
Subbed on 10/5/2009 to Abjective -- Rejected on 10/6/2009 Note:
Thanks for sending this along. Unfortunately I am going to pass on it.
Subbed on 10/6/2009 to Wigleaf --
***
Wardrobe
Up she stood from the stool next to mine then danced her way to the jukebox. Under the lancing lights, like oil slicking a driveway, the iridescent blue spots of her butterfly skirt continuously writhed in shape and hue.
She spun tight circles when the song she'd selected -- something by Elton John -- began to play. Teetering on fresh hooves, she returned to the bar, smiling, and sat beside me.
When she leaned for her drink, her left hand rode up the sweat-slicked skin of her midriff to blanket the amphibious webbed feet that concealed her nipples.
"You're amazing," I said.
She threw her head back to laugh and the garden snakes circling her neck twined tighter; the spotted wings of the ladybugs on her lobes shuddered.
Drink and conversation brought confidence and courage. I touched her hips, felt her skirt shiver. "I wish you were wearing parts of me," I said.
She drew back in her stool, squinting her eyes. I tried unsuccessfully to keep my nostrils from flaring and steaming.
But I knew. I knew exactly what she was doing.
She was sizing me up, studying the squareness of my shoulders, counting the points on my
antlers.
***
Rewrited
Wardrobe
Up she stood from the stool next to mine then danced her way across the bar's wooden floor to where the jukebox squatted in the corner. Under the spoking neon lights the iridescent blue spots on the wings of her butterfly skirt, like oil slicking the sea's surface, continuously writhed in shape and hue.
When the song she'd selected -- something by Elton John -- began to play, she spun tight circles, when the song she'd selected -- something by Elton John -- began to play. Teetering on her heels, she returned to the bar, smiling, and sat beside me.
When she leaned for her drink, her left hand rode up the sweat-slicked skin of her midriff to blanket the webbed feet of the croaking frogs that concealed her nipples.
"Can't have those hop away," I said.
She threw her head back to laugh and the garden snakes circling her neck twined tighter; the spotted wings of the ladybugs on her earlobes shuddered.
Drink and conversation brought confidence and courage. I placed a hand on her hips, felt her skirt shiver under my palm. "So what does a guy have to do to become a part of your wardrobe?" I whispered.
She drew back in her stool, squinting her feral eyes. I tried unsuccessfully to keep my nostrils from flaring. But I knew. I knew exactly what she was doing.
She was sizing me up, studying the squareness of my shoulders, counting the points on my antlers.
Praying for Angels
Submitted to Fringe on 10/10/09
***
Praying for Angels
by Robert Aquino Dollesin
I was stuck fast on the sidewalk, my Nike knockoffs caught in the clinging grip of an enormous mound of chewed bubble gum.
How could I had been so stupid?
The pocks and pits cratering the gum's pink surface suggested that the gum had to had been chewed, then spit out by somebody with incredibly large molars.
Each time I tried to raise my captive feet, the gum tightened its grab on the soles of my shoes.
Neighborhood kids raced past snickering. None or them stopping to help.
I'd been warned a million times to watch where I'm going, cautioned to check both directions before crossing the street. Hardly a day went by when I wasn't reminded to keep alert for huge slabs of discarded gum.
The sticky strings of melted gum yanked back each time I tried to lift my feet.
Helpless and afraid, I struggled with against the adhesive gum, and kept recalling the stories I'd heard of kids who'd been stuck in gum before, how they used a pocketknife to free themselves. They sliced their legs off, just below the knees. If only I had a knife. But my mother claimed knives were too dangerous.
I bent awkwardly and fished out of my jeans front pocket the few things I did own: a plastic magnifying glass, a rabbit's head, and fifteen feet of hairy rope.
Just then a redheaded boy skidded his scooter to a stop at the edge of the gum puddle and watched me struggle.
"Can you help me?" I asked.
He shoved his hair out of his face and grinned. Then he slowly raised one of his feet a couple of inches off the sidewalk to mock me.
“Please,” I said, sobbing.
He all of the sudden stamped his foot down and broke out into a fit of giggles.
Once when I was younger I climbed into the shallow end of an indoor pool. I bounced on the balls of my feet, the water rising with each step, to the rope separating the deep end from the shallow. I ducked underneath the rope and a moment later the ground beneath me disappeared. I was submerged completely underwater, swallowed by the pool itself. My lungs were exploding. As I slowly sank to the bottom of the pool, I closed my eyes.
Next thing I knew I was hovering above the pool, floating toward the ceiling, where beyond the twining duct work a brilliant light awaited
I reached the light and felt an unexplainable peace.
Then just as suddenly I was drawn away from the light. Something that felt like forklift forks shoved under my armpits. The light shrunk and I broke through the water surface gasping and coughing.
A teenage girl with braces told me to shut up and quit flailing. She cradled my head in her arm, dragged me to the safety of the pool's edge and hefted me out of the water.
After instructing me to stay in the shallows, my Angel hoisted herself back onto her high perch and while water still dripped off her red swimsuit, she went back to diligently studying the pool.
But on city sidewalks there are no Angels. Right?
Still remembering the near-tragedy that took place at the pool, I caught sight of two ponytailed girls skipping along the front of the boarded up storefronts across the street. The girls carried buckets of stones that clattered against their thighs. When they stopped in front of a red fire hydrant, I raised my arms above my head, scissored them repeatedly and pleaded, "Can you help me?"
One of the girls pointed at me. Her friend plunged a hand into the bucket she was carrying. The hand came out of the pail clutching a handful of stones, which flew from her hand in my direction. I held my rabbit's head in front of me for protection. Still, I was pelted over and over by the barrage of stones. Finally, when the girls had exhausted their supply of stones, they both flung their empty buckets at me. The steel pails fell short and smashed against the curb with deafening clangs.
The girls ran off, laughing, and once again I started to cry.
A long time later – I'm not sure exactly how long – a battered old garbage truck rumbled around the corner. It stopped in the road beside me. The grinning driver leaned out of the window.
“Please, Mister,” I begged. “Help me.”
He grabbed his ball cap by the bill, removed it, and swiped his sweaty forehead with a dirty forearm. He said, “Throw me your rope.”
I coiled the long rope and tossed it into the truck's open window. The driver picked it up, examined it by turning it over in his hands. “Fine rope here,” he said, then set it down on the passenger seat next to him.
I twisted my hips wildly, tried to free my feet but only sank deeper into the gum. “Please, Mister, please. Could you help me?”
He threw his head back and laughed. Then he stomped his accelerator. His whipping tires slung coarse gravel against me, then the truck disappeared down the street, the driver's laughter still roaring in my ears.
Looking skyward, I prayed for Angels. Like the Angel in the swimming pool.
Then it hit me that if I could harness the sun's heat, I just might be able to melt the gum. I held my plastic magnifying glass up to the blinding sun, shifting it until a beam streamed through and fell with a shimmer onto the surface of the gum. I waited for the sticky mess to melt.
An hour crept past. I abandoned the effort.
Trying not to think about dying, I closed my eyes and uttered the prayers my mother taught me. Soon, a familiar peacefulness enveloped me. It was the same peaceful feeling that had consumed me every other time: warm air passing over my face. A bright light swelling through my eyelids. The lyrical sound of harps and the sweet fragrances of freshly-bloomed flowers. Flashes of past near-tragedies flickered in my mind: the swimming pool, the cliff overlooking the rocky beach, the lion at the zoo, the airplane that had lost one of its starboard engine. So many different occurrences.
The light surrounding me grew more intense. I stepped into it, accepting my fate.
But then, abruptly, the sound of metal scraping against concrete filled my ears. I felt myself being dragged back. I snapped my eyes open and the light faded.
Orange-vested Angels were all around me. Hard-hat topped Angels armed with shovels and power tools. Angels whose faces were strained as they worked away at the clamping gum.
One of the angels stopped chipping with his chisel and glared at me. “You are one stupid kid.”
"Thank you," I said, smiling brightly to thank him.
***
Praying for Angels
by Robert Aquino Dollesin
I was stuck fast on the sidewalk, my Nike knockoffs caught in the clinging grip of an enormous mound of chewed bubble gum.
How could I had been so stupid?
The pocks and pits cratering the gum's pink surface suggested that the gum had to had been chewed, then spit out by somebody with incredibly large molars.
Each time I tried to raise my captive feet, the gum tightened its grab on the soles of my shoes.
Neighborhood kids raced past snickering. None or them stopping to help.
I'd been warned a million times to watch where I'm going, cautioned to check both directions before crossing the street. Hardly a day went by when I wasn't reminded to keep alert for huge slabs of discarded gum.
The sticky strings of melted gum yanked back each time I tried to lift my feet.
Helpless and afraid, I struggled with against the adhesive gum, and kept recalling the stories I'd heard of kids who'd been stuck in gum before, how they used a pocketknife to free themselves. They sliced their legs off, just below the knees. If only I had a knife. But my mother claimed knives were too dangerous.
I bent awkwardly and fished out of my jeans front pocket the few things I did own: a plastic magnifying glass, a rabbit's head, and fifteen feet of hairy rope.
Just then a redheaded boy skidded his scooter to a stop at the edge of the gum puddle and watched me struggle.
"Can you help me?" I asked.
He shoved his hair out of his face and grinned. Then he slowly raised one of his feet a couple of inches off the sidewalk to mock me.
“Please,” I said, sobbing.
He all of the sudden stamped his foot down and broke out into a fit of giggles.
Once when I was younger I climbed into the shallow end of an indoor pool. I bounced on the balls of my feet, the water rising with each step, to the rope separating the deep end from the shallow. I ducked underneath the rope and a moment later the ground beneath me disappeared. I was submerged completely underwater, swallowed by the pool itself. My lungs were exploding. As I slowly sank to the bottom of the pool, I closed my eyes.
Next thing I knew I was hovering above the pool, floating toward the ceiling, where beyond the twining duct work a brilliant light awaited
I reached the light and felt an unexplainable peace.
Then just as suddenly I was drawn away from the light. Something that felt like forklift forks shoved under my armpits. The light shrunk and I broke through the water surface gasping and coughing.
A teenage girl with braces told me to shut up and quit flailing. She cradled my head in her arm, dragged me to the safety of the pool's edge and hefted me out of the water.
After instructing me to stay in the shallows, my Angel hoisted herself back onto her high perch and while water still dripped off her red swimsuit, she went back to diligently studying the pool.
But on city sidewalks there are no Angels. Right?
Still remembering the near-tragedy that took place at the pool, I caught sight of two ponytailed girls skipping along the front of the boarded up storefronts across the street. The girls carried buckets of stones that clattered against their thighs. When they stopped in front of a red fire hydrant, I raised my arms above my head, scissored them repeatedly and pleaded, "Can you help me?"
One of the girls pointed at me. Her friend plunged a hand into the bucket she was carrying. The hand came out of the pail clutching a handful of stones, which flew from her hand in my direction. I held my rabbit's head in front of me for protection. Still, I was pelted over and over by the barrage of stones. Finally, when the girls had exhausted their supply of stones, they both flung their empty buckets at me. The steel pails fell short and smashed against the curb with deafening clangs.
The girls ran off, laughing, and once again I started to cry.
A long time later – I'm not sure exactly how long – a battered old garbage truck rumbled around the corner. It stopped in the road beside me. The grinning driver leaned out of the window.
“Please, Mister,” I begged. “Help me.”
He grabbed his ball cap by the bill, removed it, and swiped his sweaty forehead with a dirty forearm. He said, “Throw me your rope.”
I coiled the long rope and tossed it into the truck's open window. The driver picked it up, examined it by turning it over in his hands. “Fine rope here,” he said, then set it down on the passenger seat next to him.
I twisted my hips wildly, tried to free my feet but only sank deeper into the gum. “Please, Mister, please. Could you help me?”
He threw his head back and laughed. Then he stomped his accelerator. His whipping tires slung coarse gravel against me, then the truck disappeared down the street, the driver's laughter still roaring in my ears.
Looking skyward, I prayed for Angels. Like the Angel in the swimming pool.
Then it hit me that if I could harness the sun's heat, I just might be able to melt the gum. I held my plastic magnifying glass up to the blinding sun, shifting it until a beam streamed through and fell with a shimmer onto the surface of the gum. I waited for the sticky mess to melt.
An hour crept past. I abandoned the effort.
Trying not to think about dying, I closed my eyes and uttered the prayers my mother taught me. Soon, a familiar peacefulness enveloped me. It was the same peaceful feeling that had consumed me every other time: warm air passing over my face. A bright light swelling through my eyelids. The lyrical sound of harps and the sweet fragrances of freshly-bloomed flowers. Flashes of past near-tragedies flickered in my mind: the swimming pool, the cliff overlooking the rocky beach, the lion at the zoo, the airplane that had lost one of its starboard engine. So many different occurrences.
The light surrounding me grew more intense. I stepped into it, accepting my fate.
But then, abruptly, the sound of metal scraping against concrete filled my ears. I felt myself being dragged back. I snapped my eyes open and the light faded.
Orange-vested Angels were all around me. Hard-hat topped Angels armed with shovels and power tools. Angels whose faces were strained as they worked away at the clamping gum.
One of the angels stopped chipping with his chisel and glared at me. “You are one stupid kid.”
"Thank you," I said, smiling brightly to thank him.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Piano Studio
Subbed to Monkeybicycle on 10/06/09. Rejected.
Subbed to Left Hand Waving on 06/08/10.
The Piano Studio
By Robert Aquino Dollesin
The three most daunting days of the week were the three days our mother rounded me and my sister up and drove us to Mrs. Hernandez‘s home for our piano lessons.
The studio, which Mrs. Hernandez often boasted as being a premier academy of music, was really little more than a rickety wooden shed -- four walls, low ceiling, concrete floor -- that had been plugged dead center of a stand of mature banana trees in the Hernandez‘ back yard.
The Wurlitzer on which we played sat against the shed’s back wall, beneath a dangling yellow bulb.
The only other thing of significance in the shed was an electric fan that had been tucked into the one corner not littered with springy spider webs. The fan oscillated constantly. Its jittery whir nudged the stale air from one side of the studio to the other.
I was thankful for the fact that my sister, Shirley, had her lesson before mine.
Sitting thigh-to-thigh with Mrs. Hernandez on the wooden bench,, Shirley demonstrated her knowledge of scales, arpeggios, and recently learned songs. Once warmed up, she spidered her fingers above the black and white keys and begin her plunky rendition of whatever song she was currently learning.
Wishing I was anywhere but the studio, I sighed loud enough for Mrs. Hernandez to hear. She glared over her shoulder. I turned my face out the propped open door to stare at the leaves trembling on the branches of the trees.
To pass the time I tracked the geckos that prowled the walls. I found it amazing how translucent the lizards were, the way the outlines of their tiny organs pulsed beneath their skin. I watched awed as they scampered the seams of the ceiling, veering off course only to snatch from the wall a foolish, idling mosquito.
Once, I watched a gecko stalk a large moth that had been batting the bulb. The moth left the light and landed on the wall. The lizard pounced and clamped the moth's maggot-like torso between its jaws. For a long time the moth flapped helplessly. Unable to wing itself free, it surrendered to the gecko.
One evening after a rain, the piano studio filled with mosquitoes. I waited in my chair for one of them to glide gracefully onto my arm. While it perched poised to pierce my skin, I slowly raised my palm, then quickly brought it down to splatter the mosquito dead.
The resounding swat brought an over-the-shoulder frown from Mrs. Hernandez.
Later that hour, Mrs. Hernandez scolded my sister for striking the wrong note. Glancing toward them, I noticed tears of frustration trickling down Shirley's face. Just then a plump mosquito landed on the wall beside me. I raised my palm slowly, then slammed it against the wall. Rolling my hand over, I discovered a red splotch tainted with flecks of black.
Mrs. Hernandez, who was still busy reproaching my sister for her mistake, did not pay me any attention.
"Like this, like this, like this," she was scolding, her own fingers dancing deftly over the piano keys to demonstrate how the song should be played. “Now do it right,“ she told Shirley, straightening her back and dropping her hands into her lap.
If I hadn’t been so afraid of Mrs. Hernandez, I would have shouted out, told the old witch to leave my sister alone. If she didn't frighten me so much, I would have gone outside and found something to stake her heart with.
Shirley began to play again.
Mrs. Hernandez squirmed on the bench and dug-dragged her fingernails over a swelling, reddening node that had suddenly erupted on her left thigh. I looked at the blood on my palm again. I raised my hand, toward the studio's wall and, sharply twisting my wrist, smeared the freshly sucked blood onto the wood.
While Mrs. Hernandez continued to fidget and scratch her thigh, I leaned back in my chair, grinned with satisfaction, and waited for my lesson to begin.
Subbed to Left Hand Waving on 06/08/10.
The Piano Studio
By Robert Aquino Dollesin
The three most daunting days of the week were the three days our mother rounded me and my sister up and drove us to Mrs. Hernandez‘s home for our piano lessons.
The studio, which Mrs. Hernandez often boasted as being a premier academy of music, was really little more than a rickety wooden shed -- four walls, low ceiling, concrete floor -- that had been plugged dead center of a stand of mature banana trees in the Hernandez‘ back yard.
The Wurlitzer on which we played sat against the shed’s back wall, beneath a dangling yellow bulb.
The only other thing of significance in the shed was an electric fan that had been tucked into the one corner not littered with springy spider webs. The fan oscillated constantly. Its jittery whir nudged the stale air from one side of the studio to the other.
I was thankful for the fact that my sister, Shirley, had her lesson before mine.
Sitting thigh-to-thigh with Mrs. Hernandez on the wooden bench,, Shirley demonstrated her knowledge of scales, arpeggios, and recently learned songs. Once warmed up, she spidered her fingers above the black and white keys and begin her plunky rendition of whatever song she was currently learning.
Wishing I was anywhere but the studio, I sighed loud enough for Mrs. Hernandez to hear. She glared over her shoulder. I turned my face out the propped open door to stare at the leaves trembling on the branches of the trees.
To pass the time I tracked the geckos that prowled the walls. I found it amazing how translucent the lizards were, the way the outlines of their tiny organs pulsed beneath their skin. I watched awed as they scampered the seams of the ceiling, veering off course only to snatch from the wall a foolish, idling mosquito.
Once, I watched a gecko stalk a large moth that had been batting the bulb. The moth left the light and landed on the wall. The lizard pounced and clamped the moth's maggot-like torso between its jaws. For a long time the moth flapped helplessly. Unable to wing itself free, it surrendered to the gecko.
One evening after a rain, the piano studio filled with mosquitoes. I waited in my chair for one of them to glide gracefully onto my arm. While it perched poised to pierce my skin, I slowly raised my palm, then quickly brought it down to splatter the mosquito dead.
The resounding swat brought an over-the-shoulder frown from Mrs. Hernandez.
Later that hour, Mrs. Hernandez scolded my sister for striking the wrong note. Glancing toward them, I noticed tears of frustration trickling down Shirley's face. Just then a plump mosquito landed on the wall beside me. I raised my palm slowly, then slammed it against the wall. Rolling my hand over, I discovered a red splotch tainted with flecks of black.
Mrs. Hernandez, who was still busy reproaching my sister for her mistake, did not pay me any attention.
"Like this, like this, like this," she was scolding, her own fingers dancing deftly over the piano keys to demonstrate how the song should be played. “Now do it right,“ she told Shirley, straightening her back and dropping her hands into her lap.
If I hadn’t been so afraid of Mrs. Hernandez, I would have shouted out, told the old witch to leave my sister alone. If she didn't frighten me so much, I would have gone outside and found something to stake her heart with.
Shirley began to play again.
Mrs. Hernandez squirmed on the bench and dug-dragged her fingernails over a swelling, reddening node that had suddenly erupted on her left thigh. I looked at the blood on my palm again. I raised my hand, toward the studio's wall and, sharply twisting my wrist, smeared the freshly sucked blood onto the wood.
While Mrs. Hernandez continued to fidget and scratch her thigh, I leaned back in my chair, grinned with satisfaction, and waited for my lesson to begin.
Pale Horses and Old Churches
Subbed to 'The Collagist' on 10/6/09 -- Rejected
Subbed to 'Tayo Magazine' on 06/16/10
***
Pale Horses and Old Churches
Simbahan
a short story by Robert Aquino Dollesin
During the Grandfather‘s service the boy shuffled his feet and studied the grief-stretched faces of everyone around him. Standing next to his mother, he felt no emotion. Nothing. Not the slightest sense of bereavement.
Once the slings had been hoisted, the boy's mother took his hand and they fell in line with the others to file past the Grandfather’s grave.
He stood a moment at the edge and struggled to catch a final glimpse of the brown casket before it disappeared beneath a sea of white petals. He opened his hand and released the rose he’d been holding.
The procession trudged past long rows of skyward-spiking headstones. The boy, looking over his shoulder, marveled at the way the moss-covered pathway sprung back to form after being trampled.
A rumble from above brought his face upward. An American jet was crossing the rust-colored sky. The boy raised a thumb into the air in front of him and blotted the airplane out. It was something he’d learned from his cousins. But no matter how far he held his thumb from his eyes, he couldn’t hide the white contrail left in the plane’s wake.
He was twelve, almost thirteen, and whenever one of the planes from the nearby Air Base flew overhead, the boy imagined himself in the cockpit. He pictured himself now, peering down through the window at the procession below. From high above it resembled a long dark serpent, writhing toward the graveyard exit.
A fleet of vehicles crowded the rutted road outside the cemetery. Jeeps and sedans, horse-drawn carriages, motorbikes with sidecars.
The boy climbed aboard the carriage his mother had hired to haul them from the services to the Grandfather’s celebration.
His mother slid onto the wooden bench next to him. She said, “We call this vehicle a kalesa.”
He ignored her. What did it matter if it was called a buggy or carriage or kalesa?
“Kalesa,” she said again. He remained quiet. Even though his mother’s eyes were screened behind dark glasses, the boy knew his silence grated her. She often reminded him that he needed to take more seriously her efforts to teach him the language and customs of her native country.
But why should he bother? Neither the decision, nor the desire to divorce his father and return to his mother’s homeland had been his. It had been hers. Completely hers. He could hardly stand, much less understand the people of this country. He felt not the slightest inkling to be a part of their culture. Moreover, why should he bond with people who gave him wide berth and kept him at a distance simply because he was different?
Fanning herself with the Grandfather’s funeral program, the boy’s mother gestured with her chin to the kalesa driver and said, “The coachman we call a kutsero.”
The boy glanced away. The gritty morning breeze struck his face. On the opposite side of the heat shimmer, the cemetery workers labored to fill the Grandfather's grave. Kalesa. Kutsero. Kutsero. Kalesa. Who cared?
In her gutteral tone, the boy’s mother gave the kutsero directions to the Grandfather’s house.
When the old driver stooped for his reins, the torn brim of his straw hat threw dappled shadows down the back of his neck and across the whole of his steeply sloped shoulders. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and pulled back hard on the ropes until they were taut in his hands.
Those hands. The boy paid close attention to them. The gnarled fingers. The blackened knuckles.
“Mano,” the driver shouted to his horse. “Mano. Mano.” But the horse did not spring forward. The old man clicked his tongue again. The horse swung its lowered head side to side and swished its tail, slicing through the cloud of flies behind it.
The kutsero then reached down and took up a bamboo switch resting at his feet. He brought the switch up and snapped it forward.
The crack against the horse’s flank startled both the boy and his mother.
The boy’s mother said, “Was that really necessary?”
Grinning over his shoulder, the kutsero replied, “The more stubborn they are, the more severe a shock they need.” He turned back to the horse and raised his lash again.
“Don’t!” cried the boy’s mother.
But the second blow had been delivered. This time the horse raised its head, rolled its lips back and whinnied. And then the kalesa’s big wooden wheels began to turn in the dust.
The boy watched his mother shake her head in frustration the same way she shook her head earlier in the chapel when she’d asked him to show respect by kissing the Grandfather's cold, motionless hand. He protested, but she insisted.
Gray scarves of clouds drifted above. The boy recalled the Grandfather’s hands; the trenching folds of pale skin, the same sterile odor of freshly washed clothes drying on a line, and the way the Grandfather's fingers burned stiff against his lips.
And now, with the cemetery rolling past, the boy asked himself why those hands had never reached out to touch him, to gently knead his shoulders, or to playfully rake his scalp.
The morning breeze and the kalesa’s gentle sway lulled the boy. He closed his eyes and focused on the rhythmic clip-clop cadence of the horse’s hooves striking the dusty pavement.
The last time he visited the Grandfather's home he was bothered by the cruel jokes his cousins shared. Each time the Grandfather kissed one of them, they soured their face. They scrubbed at their damp cheek with the ball of their palm. Later they complained about the way the Grandfather’s grizzled chin rasped sharp against their skin.
It was during those moments, while he stood listening to his cousins laugh in the courtyard, that the boy told himself if the Grandfather had nuzzled him, he would not have made such remarks. Never. He would not have wriggled free of the Grandfather’s grip and raced out the door onto the sun-scorched courtyard. He would not have moaned about the way the Grandfather’s old-man-odor clung to his clothes and skin.
His mother nudged him. He opened his eyes. Ahead, smoke from burning garbage was eating up the sky. In the distance, bells from twin belfries rolled plangent and empty through the sultry morning air.
The boy’s mother reached up and pushed her dark glasses onto the top of her head. She touched her son’s arm, gently. “Bakit?,” she asked. “Bakit umiyak ka?”
“I’m not crying,” he said. He looked down at his hands resting folded in his lap.
His mother’s arm slid across his back. Without raising his head, he said, “ Did he hate me because my father was white?”
She did not respond right away. When she finally did, she said, “He didn’t hate you. He was protecting himself from the day he’d lose you to another world the way he lost me.”
The boy felt his throat constrict. He heard church bells tumble through the air and he looked past the kutsero, past the pale horse that pulled the kalesa, to a great cathedral looming ahead.
He raised his trembling thumb and tried to hide the old and weathered Spanish structure from his frame of view. It was much too large.
As the kalesa drew alongside the spear-tipped rails of the high iron fence, the boy could feel the walls of the church leaning close. For an instant the sky cleared and everything surrounding the boy was dusted in gold. He swung his head around. Brilliant colors streamed from the stained glass windows. Unlike the American plane he'd earlier watched soaring overhead, the church did not shrink and fade.
He heard his mother‘s voice: “Simbahan.” He turned to face her. She reached out and thumbed the corners of his eyes and said, “In the Philippines we call a church a simbahan.”
“Simbahan,” he repeated. “Simbahan.” He kept his gaze on his mother‘s face. “In the Philippines we call a church a simbahan.”
Subbed to 'Tayo Magazine' on 06/16/10
***
Pale Horses and Old Churches
Simbahan
a short story by Robert Aquino Dollesin
During the Grandfather‘s service the boy shuffled his feet and studied the grief-stretched faces of everyone around him. Standing next to his mother, he felt no emotion. Nothing. Not the slightest sense of bereavement.
Once the slings had been hoisted, the boy's mother took his hand and they fell in line with the others to file past the Grandfather’s grave.
He stood a moment at the edge and struggled to catch a final glimpse of the brown casket before it disappeared beneath a sea of white petals. He opened his hand and released the rose he’d been holding.
The procession trudged past long rows of skyward-spiking headstones. The boy, looking over his shoulder, marveled at the way the moss-covered pathway sprung back to form after being trampled.
A rumble from above brought his face upward. An American jet was crossing the rust-colored sky. The boy raised a thumb into the air in front of him and blotted the airplane out. It was something he’d learned from his cousins. But no matter how far he held his thumb from his eyes, he couldn’t hide the white contrail left in the plane’s wake.
He was twelve, almost thirteen, and whenever one of the planes from the nearby Air Base flew overhead, the boy imagined himself in the cockpit. He pictured himself now, peering down through the window at the procession below. From high above it resembled a long dark serpent, writhing toward the graveyard exit.
A fleet of vehicles crowded the rutted road outside the cemetery. Jeeps and sedans, horse-drawn carriages, motorbikes with sidecars.
The boy climbed aboard the carriage his mother had hired to haul them from the services to the Grandfather’s celebration.
His mother slid onto the wooden bench next to him. She said, “We call this vehicle a kalesa.”
He ignored her. What did it matter if it was called a buggy or carriage or kalesa?
“Kalesa,” she said again. He remained quiet. Even though his mother’s eyes were screened behind dark glasses, the boy knew his silence grated her. She often reminded him that he needed to take more seriously her efforts to teach him the language and customs of her native country.
But why should he bother? Neither the decision, nor the desire to divorce his father and return to his mother’s homeland had been his. It had been hers. Completely hers. He could hardly stand, much less understand the people of this country. He felt not the slightest inkling to be a part of their culture. Moreover, why should he bond with people who gave him wide berth and kept him at a distance simply because he was different?
Fanning herself with the Grandfather’s funeral program, the boy’s mother gestured with her chin to the kalesa driver and said, “The coachman we call a kutsero.”
The boy glanced away. The gritty morning breeze struck his face. On the opposite side of the heat shimmer, the cemetery workers labored to fill the Grandfather's grave. Kalesa. Kutsero. Kutsero. Kalesa. Who cared?
In her gutteral tone, the boy’s mother gave the kutsero directions to the Grandfather’s house.
When the old driver stooped for his reins, the torn brim of his straw hat threw dappled shadows down the back of his neck and across the whole of his steeply sloped shoulders. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and pulled back hard on the ropes until they were taut in his hands.
Those hands. The boy paid close attention to them. The gnarled fingers. The blackened knuckles.
“Mano,” the driver shouted to his horse. “Mano. Mano.” But the horse did not spring forward. The old man clicked his tongue again. The horse swung its lowered head side to side and swished its tail, slicing through the cloud of flies behind it.
The kutsero then reached down and took up a bamboo switch resting at his feet. He brought the switch up and snapped it forward.
The crack against the horse’s flank startled both the boy and his mother.
The boy’s mother said, “Was that really necessary?”
Grinning over his shoulder, the kutsero replied, “The more stubborn they are, the more severe a shock they need.” He turned back to the horse and raised his lash again.
“Don’t!” cried the boy’s mother.
But the second blow had been delivered. This time the horse raised its head, rolled its lips back and whinnied. And then the kalesa’s big wooden wheels began to turn in the dust.
The boy watched his mother shake her head in frustration the same way she shook her head earlier in the chapel when she’d asked him to show respect by kissing the Grandfather's cold, motionless hand. He protested, but she insisted.
Gray scarves of clouds drifted above. The boy recalled the Grandfather’s hands; the trenching folds of pale skin, the same sterile odor of freshly washed clothes drying on a line, and the way the Grandfather's fingers burned stiff against his lips.
And now, with the cemetery rolling past, the boy asked himself why those hands had never reached out to touch him, to gently knead his shoulders, or to playfully rake his scalp.
The morning breeze and the kalesa’s gentle sway lulled the boy. He closed his eyes and focused on the rhythmic clip-clop cadence of the horse’s hooves striking the dusty pavement.
The last time he visited the Grandfather's home he was bothered by the cruel jokes his cousins shared. Each time the Grandfather kissed one of them, they soured their face. They scrubbed at their damp cheek with the ball of their palm. Later they complained about the way the Grandfather’s grizzled chin rasped sharp against their skin.
It was during those moments, while he stood listening to his cousins laugh in the courtyard, that the boy told himself if the Grandfather had nuzzled him, he would not have made such remarks. Never. He would not have wriggled free of the Grandfather’s grip and raced out the door onto the sun-scorched courtyard. He would not have moaned about the way the Grandfather’s old-man-odor clung to his clothes and skin.
His mother nudged him. He opened his eyes. Ahead, smoke from burning garbage was eating up the sky. In the distance, bells from twin belfries rolled plangent and empty through the sultry morning air.
The boy’s mother reached up and pushed her dark glasses onto the top of her head. She touched her son’s arm, gently. “Bakit?,” she asked. “Bakit umiyak ka?”
“I’m not crying,” he said. He looked down at his hands resting folded in his lap.
His mother’s arm slid across his back. Without raising his head, he said, “ Did he hate me because my father was white?”
She did not respond right away. When she finally did, she said, “He didn’t hate you. He was protecting himself from the day he’d lose you to another world the way he lost me.”
The boy felt his throat constrict. He heard church bells tumble through the air and he looked past the kutsero, past the pale horse that pulled the kalesa, to a great cathedral looming ahead.
He raised his trembling thumb and tried to hide the old and weathered Spanish structure from his frame of view. It was much too large.
As the kalesa drew alongside the spear-tipped rails of the high iron fence, the boy could feel the walls of the church leaning close. For an instant the sky cleared and everything surrounding the boy was dusted in gold. He swung his head around. Brilliant colors streamed from the stained glass windows. Unlike the American plane he'd earlier watched soaring overhead, the church did not shrink and fade.
He heard his mother‘s voice: “Simbahan.” He turned to face her. She reached out and thumbed the corners of his eyes and said, “In the Philippines we call a church a simbahan.”
“Simbahan,” he repeated. “Simbahan.” He kept his gaze on his mother‘s face. “In the Philippines we call a church a simbahan.”
Your Sixteenth Birthday
Submitted to 'You Must Be This Tall to Ride' on 10/08/09
***
Your Sixteenth Birthday
It is your sixteenth birthday. You are almost a man. But not quite. Although you've already experienced sex, you still collect baseball cards. Even though there is a new lime-covered Chevy Chevette in your driveway -- a gift from your mother and father -- you still prefer the go-carts that you and your friends have painstakingly put together using scavenged Big Wheel tires and plywood and thick rope. Although you have a real job working after school and weekends at a fish market, you sometimes on Saturdays arrive late, delayed by the awesome lineup of new cartoons.
Before the guests arrive, your mother asks you to sit at the dining table for a photograph. Of course, you don't refuse because pictures are something big with Filipinos. A kind of tradition. Your entire life has been documented with photographs. In those images your mother treasures there is a white kid who stands out from the Asian family. That is you.
Your cousin Tony, who'd come up from San Francisco to spend the weekend with you, stands posing behind you, to your right. Although you can't possibly know it yet, in the years to come he will lose his slow, lingering battle with cancer. Your sister, Shirley, stands to your left. She will marry three times before settling down.
Your mother says, 'Say cheese.' And in the blinding flash, you intuit the onset of change.
But it is not until later, during the hours that follow the photographing of you and your cousin and sister that an event will take place in your own backyard. An event in which you will be tilted into adulthood.
The guests, many of whom you don't know, begin to pile into the house and yard. Among so many Filipinos, you feel alone; out of place; undesired. But this is not an unfamiliar feeling. It's a feeling that has been present your entire life. And this is not a feeling that surfaces only when you are among Filipinos. It also occurs, more frequently even, when your white friends find out that your family is not white.
That event that changes you is not the moment when standing outdoors by yourself the lapels of your coat are grabbed and you are thrown suddenly against the wall of your own home by someone you don't even know. No, that's not it.
Nor is it when the stranger begins slurring, his face in your face, how much he hates white people. And how you made a huge mistake showing up at this party, one in which, if you had bothered to look around, was meant for Filipinos.
It isn't when the stranger releases a groan from his mouth and his grip on your coat, either. He drops to the grass in front of you, and is rolled onto his back and straddled by one of your cousins.
And it isn't when that same cousin reaches for a bulge in his coat and removes a pistol and presses the barrel hard against the stranger's forehead.
Not when your cousin thumbs back the hammer, either.
Nor is it when through a dizzying blur of screams and excited voices the stranger begins to sob, begging your cousin not to squeeze the trigger. No, that's not it.
The moment that tilts you into adulthood is the instant your cousin turns to ask you with his eyes if he should pull the trigger. That's the moment when you are no longer a boy.
The backyard has grown quiet and you can't stop yourself from sweating and trembling. A simple nod of your head and so many lives would be changed.
The choice belongs to you and nobody else. The choice will mold you in the eyes of all those who are quietly waiting; nervously watching.
But that choice is whisked away the instant your sister's boyfriend pushes through the crowd and makes the decision for you. The stranger is helped to his feet and led out of the back yard with his friends to his car.
Of course your shoulders are popped by friends and relatives, your back is slapped, and you are asked if you're all right. Then, while you once again retreat to the shadows of your own back yard, the party continues, late into the night, as if nothing has happened.
When everyone leaves and you are alone in your bedroom, you replay that moment in your mind. You weren't strong enough, confident enough, or adult enough to make a decision.
And when you think of the choice you might have made if your sister's boyfriend hadn't stepped in, you begin to cry.
Nothing you try and do makes the tears stop flowing. You don't have a real clue as to why you are crying. The only thing you are sure of is that little of your life makes sense.
Little of your life has ever made sense. How, you wonder, does a boy who is by all appearances white, become a part of something foreign.
After groping in the dark for the nightstand lamp, you sit on the edge of your bed, damp with sweat.
Across the room, on top of your desk, sits a stack of baseball cards. You push off the bed, walk over, pull the stool out from under the desk and, for a long time you sit studying the photographs of the players on your baseball cards. You read the histories and statistics and cartoons on the backsides. You bring the cardboard pictures close to your nostrils and breathe in the sugary scent of bubble gum.
But not even this once endearing pleasure can erase the hazed images of the stranger's frightened face from your mind.
When the sun starts coming into your room through the edges of the curtain, you gather all of your cherished baseball cards and stuff them into a tattered shoebox.
Then you look at yourself in the mirror and say, "I am white. I am not white. I am me."
At first I laugh at the absurdity of the situation, then I realize that I am suddenly empowered with identity. I am me. I am me. I am me.
After replacing the lid on the shoe box, I shove it under my bed where it remains, like the insecurities I'd harbored prior to that night -- forgotten until now.
***
Your Sixteenth Birthday
It is your sixteenth birthday. You are almost a man. But not quite. Although you've already experienced sex, you still collect baseball cards. Even though there is a new lime-covered Chevy Chevette in your driveway -- a gift from your mother and father -- you still prefer the go-carts that you and your friends have painstakingly put together using scavenged Big Wheel tires and plywood and thick rope. Although you have a real job working after school and weekends at a fish market, you sometimes on Saturdays arrive late, delayed by the awesome lineup of new cartoons.
Before the guests arrive, your mother asks you to sit at the dining table for a photograph. Of course, you don't refuse because pictures are something big with Filipinos. A kind of tradition. Your entire life has been documented with photographs. In those images your mother treasures there is a white kid who stands out from the Asian family. That is you.
Your cousin Tony, who'd come up from San Francisco to spend the weekend with you, stands posing behind you, to your right. Although you can't possibly know it yet, in the years to come he will lose his slow, lingering battle with cancer. Your sister, Shirley, stands to your left. She will marry three times before settling down.
Your mother says, 'Say cheese.' And in the blinding flash, you intuit the onset of change.
But it is not until later, during the hours that follow the photographing of you and your cousin and sister that an event will take place in your own backyard. An event in which you will be tilted into adulthood.
The guests, many of whom you don't know, begin to pile into the house and yard. Among so many Filipinos, you feel alone; out of place; undesired. But this is not an unfamiliar feeling. It's a feeling that has been present your entire life. And this is not a feeling that surfaces only when you are among Filipinos. It also occurs, more frequently even, when your white friends find out that your family is not white.
That event that changes you is not the moment when standing outdoors by yourself the lapels of your coat are grabbed and you are thrown suddenly against the wall of your own home by someone you don't even know. No, that's not it.
Nor is it when the stranger begins slurring, his face in your face, how much he hates white people. And how you made a huge mistake showing up at this party, one in which, if you had bothered to look around, was meant for Filipinos.
It isn't when the stranger releases a groan from his mouth and his grip on your coat, either. He drops to the grass in front of you, and is rolled onto his back and straddled by one of your cousins.
And it isn't when that same cousin reaches for a bulge in his coat and removes a pistol and presses the barrel hard against the stranger's forehead.
Not when your cousin thumbs back the hammer, either.
Nor is it when through a dizzying blur of screams and excited voices the stranger begins to sob, begging your cousin not to squeeze the trigger. No, that's not it.
The moment that tilts you into adulthood is the instant your cousin turns to ask you with his eyes if he should pull the trigger. That's the moment when you are no longer a boy.
The backyard has grown quiet and you can't stop yourself from sweating and trembling. A simple nod of your head and so many lives would be changed.
The choice belongs to you and nobody else. The choice will mold you in the eyes of all those who are quietly waiting; nervously watching.
But that choice is whisked away the instant your sister's boyfriend pushes through the crowd and makes the decision for you. The stranger is helped to his feet and led out of the back yard with his friends to his car.
Of course your shoulders are popped by friends and relatives, your back is slapped, and you are asked if you're all right. Then, while you once again retreat to the shadows of your own back yard, the party continues, late into the night, as if nothing has happened.
When everyone leaves and you are alone in your bedroom, you replay that moment in your mind. You weren't strong enough, confident enough, or adult enough to make a decision.
And when you think of the choice you might have made if your sister's boyfriend hadn't stepped in, you begin to cry.
Nothing you try and do makes the tears stop flowing. You don't have a real clue as to why you are crying. The only thing you are sure of is that little of your life makes sense.
Little of your life has ever made sense. How, you wonder, does a boy who is by all appearances white, become a part of something foreign.
After groping in the dark for the nightstand lamp, you sit on the edge of your bed, damp with sweat.
Across the room, on top of your desk, sits a stack of baseball cards. You push off the bed, walk over, pull the stool out from under the desk and, for a long time you sit studying the photographs of the players on your baseball cards. You read the histories and statistics and cartoons on the backsides. You bring the cardboard pictures close to your nostrils and breathe in the sugary scent of bubble gum.
But not even this once endearing pleasure can erase the hazed images of the stranger's frightened face from your mind.
When the sun starts coming into your room through the edges of the curtain, you gather all of your cherished baseball cards and stuff them into a tattered shoebox.
Then you look at yourself in the mirror and say, "I am white. I am not white. I am me."
At first I laugh at the absurdity of the situation, then I realize that I am suddenly empowered with identity. I am me. I am me. I am me.
After replacing the lid on the shoe box, I shove it under my bed where it remains, like the insecurities I'd harbored prior to that night -- forgotten until now.
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