Green Rusted Doors

-childhood story-

I wish I were invisible, so that he could not get me. He drives around in a green car, with rust covering the sides of the door, like a dirty child left uncared for.

I watch for Him.

He passes my street when the sun is high set in the sky, at the time of the day when it's too hot to run to the mailbox without sandals, black concrete on my driveway melts my feet like hot lava. When the driveway begins to melt like lava,

I look for Him.

I wish I were invisible. Now, I have to look & hide. Molly lives across the street. Her mom did it. This one real hot day when were doing the slip & slide she stomped across our yellow dying grass, ringing our doorbell three times in a row, but not by mistake. With that look in her eye, that mom worried look. She told my mom all about the man who drove around, she said he stopped up the street, asked Sandra to look at his kittens in the back of his car, but she said no and ran away. Her mother taught her not to talk to strangers. I used to be jealous of Molly's mom. they would bake cookies and do crafts, because she was the oldest, and her mom wasn't tired of kids yet. But now, my throat gets all tense like like I'm swallowing a golf ball when I see her. I am mad at her.

Now I look for Him.

Before the day she marched over to my house, I didn't know that HE was alive; I was just playing slip & slide but now...

Now,

I wish I were invinsible. The other night I heard channel 11 blaring from the TV, 9 (that's how I know dad is home from work). I crawled up right next to him and slipped under his warm arm. He smiled and gave me a cheese cracker w/a spot of mustard on top, his creation. Crumbs fell from my mouth all over the bed but he doesn't care.

"Dad?"
"Yes?" he muttered, his eyes fixed on the TV.
"I don't think I'm going to be around for my high school graduation."
Tears began swelling up in my eyes; I got that choked up feeling again in my throat. He looked at me suddenly and said:

 "Don't say such a thing! You & your thoughts. You worry too much!"
 I thought-See, I will be gone by then.

Some afternoons my girlfriends & I lay in a big field across from my house. We lay on our backs in the soft green grass, (not yellow like ours. Dad doesn't water it often). Our eyes skim the clouds. We imagine they are creatures crawling across the sky. We laugh. And sometimes for a moment, I forget about Him. Other times, though, I'll hear a car drive by, and if it's that time...I will sit UP real fast to see if it's the green car. Molly will look over at me, "You act strange sometimes," she says simply unblinking. I'll lie back down, imagine myself climbing on top of a cloud & floating away. I begin mapping out which clouds I will hop on to get to the biggest one in the sky, that one that will become my own sky island. But then, the dinner bells rings, & I see my mom smiling there on my front porch, with splattered flour speckled on her cheeks. She looks silly-I wave & run inside wondering what is for dessert.

Waiting

-a poem-

he waited for a bus that never came i told him sir the bus is not coming it stopped running five years ago but he didn't move his silver hair swept across the outline of his face his eyes held gray puddles staring wondering who took the color out i waited with him he spoke only a few words i am getting married today his fingers entwined melting into one mass a ring left unpolished sat on his finger she must be a lucky lady i replied he would not look at me he watched for the bus tip tapping his foot he glanced at his watch she smells like flour&redwine he replied after what felt like 103minutesofnothingness would he wait forever for a bus that would not come i nodded and said nothing there we sat sharing fireflies&silence it was delicious i became full ohimustgo i mumbled tripping quickly over my tongue he nodded turning slightly to smile a youreafoolishyounggirl smile i sat with him every night for three months we named fireflies august 4th i ran to the bench with my apron in my hand standing there on the corner waiting impatiently for traffice to clear i memorized his wrinkles&creases sculpted under his cheeks my lost job&apartment evicted faded behind me as i began running across the intersection for him my anchor he had become saltwettears flooded painting my face silk my hand swept shattering its grace my head lifted to see it

a bus pulled up at the stop he pressed his face against dirt streaked windows

and waved

The First Snow

When I see the first snow of the season, I think of Taylor Mali's poem, "Undivided Attention." I am reminded of the shear amazement children have for the world's small miracles & quickly I am humbled by my existence. Each year, at this time, I watch the snow fall outside my Chicago bedroom window & think about how I too, should be filled by this wonderment. When I wake up & set forth to teach my class of 9 year olds, I keep this inside my mind.

Undivided attention
By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com
A grand piano wrapped in quilted pads by movers,
tied up with canvas straps - like classical music's
birthday gift to the insane -
is gently nudged without its legs
out an eighth-floor window on 62nd street.
It dangles in April air from the neck of the movers' crane,
Chopin-shiny black lacquer squares
and dirty white crisscross patterns hanging like the second-to-last
note of a concerto played on the edge of the seat,
the edge of tears, the edge of eight stories up going over, and
I'm trying to teach math in the building across the street.
Who can teach when there are such lessons to be learned?
All the greatest common factors are delivered by
long-necked cranes and flatbed trucks
or come through everything, even air.
Like snow.
See, snow falls for the first time every year, and every year
my students rush to the window
as if snow were more interesting than math,
which, of course, it is.
So please.
Let me teach like a Steinway,
spinning slowly in April air,
so almost-falling, so hinderingly
dangling from the neck of the movers' crane.
So on the edge of losing everything.
Let me teach like the first snow, falling.

Our Shadows

A short story from Junior year in college (2003-2004)

I told my roommate, my freshman year, that I didn’t want to lose my faith in college. Some days I’ll think of that. I went running on campus this one night. That’s when I get to thinking about things I tell people. I get to thinking about myself and its odd. I start falling into this hole as I run trying to make sense of my being: past, present, and who I want to become, simultaneously. I was thinking about college, and myself. It was one of those nights.

Its dark out & cold, fall is here and the leaves stick to my feet as I run. My thighs are pink from the air & my hair is slopping all around my head as I go. I like to watch my shadow on the sidewalk when I run at night. I’ll look at my arms aligned carefully right above my hip bones, my back straight and steady. It’s mysterious and inviting to watch. So here I'm going along & thinking about God- but not too hard. If you think about things systematically they won’t invade you so fast. It’s a hard job to think of something so carefully. That phrase I said two years ago keeps doing jumping jacks in my head. It’s frustrating, because I’m already getting consumed by it all. College moments flash in my head, flickering and numerous. So many since freshman year. So much distance from that sentiment-I think as I run.

Right as my stream of consciousness begins to run endlessly, I run down this little hill on a narrow sidewalk. Suddenly there is this old man with a small round belly & white hair walking up the hill. He doesn’t even notice me, I run past him and then stop, because I hear something. He’s either crazy or he said something to me. I literally freeze and turn around. He is pumping his arms up the little hill with his red plaid button up shirt on, slacks and pearl white sneakers. He has over sized headphones on, and a walk-man in one hand, and he’s belting out lyrics. I can’t even tell you what he was singing. Something gospel. The little old man is bellowing out this song like there is nobody around him with this half smile on his face. He just keeps trucking up the sidewalk, swinging his arms, letting his voice meet the melodies without missing a beat. I laugh then, because he is the most beautiful thing I have seen in a long time. The leaves on the trees sit above-vibrant and changing. I know then I can’t tell anyone about this moment, because they wont get it. I turn back & run in the opposite direction. His phrase in my head slips quietly into the cracks in sidewalk behind me.

I Need A Hug-A Teaching Story

May 16, 2006

I have this little boy in my class. He’s nine years old. He has deep dark skin and a
huge white smile. It takes up half his face. He is pencil thin and I can fit my thumb and
forefinger around his wrist. I think he’ll get a baseball scholarship for college. At least I
tell him that every day. He says-OK I can do that.

He’s a smart kid but when he gets upset he regresses into this hurricane. I’ll be in the middle of teaching a math lesson and he’ll be acting up. The boy says he has a demon inside him that comes out after lunch. I told him to tell the demon to go take a nap.

Anyway, sometimes this side comes out and I have to scold the boy. I’ll take his recess or say that I’m going to call the security guard (that's our form of a social worker in the inner city).

I’m trying to teach him to walk away. It’s a hard thing to teach kids who live in the inner
city. How can you walk away? If you do, you may end up beat up or dead? So when he gets upset
he’ll pick up a chair and at times throw it on the floor. Or the boy will slam open the classroom
door and throw himself down on the hallway floor and cry. The tears stream out of those
little brown eyes like there is a hidden well inside him waiting to find its way out.

It worries me seeing him cry like that. That smile is so big and to see those kinds of tears,
well it’s a strange contradictory of sorts.

Today he comes up to me and lays his body on the desk.

–Get off the desk, I tell him. –Go do your work.

He likes to be dramatic. I think the boy believes he’s on stage half of his life or something. There is an audience and he likes to entertain.

It’s the end of the school year & I’m getting tired of telling my students to go do their
work. It gets really old, especially when you can’t help but think how nice it is outside.
So I’m a little more irritable than usual.

–I’m not kidding. Go do you work. You’re driving me nuts.

I'm a first year teacher and learning how to communicate with children effectively.

He sits up, -Give me a snack MS. O, please give me one!-looking at me & blinking his long eyelash eyes.

-I don’t have snack today.

Most days I bring the kids snacks. We pass them out sometime between the first bell and lunch. They don’t get enough breakfast & it’s a quick remedy to get them motivated.

He takes his worksheet and starts shredding it. I'm not amused, instead feeling exhausted. Nothing
phases me anymore. He takes the corner of the paper and rolls it into little balls and sticks
them in his mouth and begins chewing.

–What are you doing, I ask.

I am blank and unblinking.

–I’m eating paper, he says.

I’m at my wits end and feeling much older than 22 at that moment, but he looks so tired sitting there popping those little balls of paper in his mouth. So I ask him when he last ate.

-Yesterday at lunch he, he says.
-What about dinner? I say.
-We don’t have any dinner for awhile, he says chomping close to my face.
-Mom lost her wallet. Somebody took it and she got her money in it. So we only have
fifteen bucks til pay day.

He looks at me then like I’m a kid and he’s trying to teach me something.
-Payday aint til next Friday Ms. O.

I say to him, -Well you have to have something in your fridge. Tell me exactly what you
have in your fridge and we’ll think up something you can make.

-There’s nothing. Really I gots nothing in the fridge.
He chews his paper wads slowly. The boy is very matter or fact about it all. It’s like
somebody telling me about a friend they knew who got their house caught on fire.
Tragic yet forward. It is what it is. Kind of thing.

-But don’t worry, he states- the other night I told my mom I’m taking out the garbage and I walked
down to CVS to meet my uncle. He gave me twenty bucks. I bought her a wallet. It was a dollar so I
had fifteen left.

He stops and he’s thinking -Wait no the wallet was five and so I had fifteen left..yeah…that’s right.
The boy smiles that big white smile at me then; I laugh.

-So I take that extra change & I put it in the wallet and I gives it to my mom. I give it to her on Mothers Day.


-I smile big at him and pat his head.

-I’m proud of you. I say it a few more times because this is how you have to be with these
kids. You have to say get to work ten times, but you have to say I’m proud of you twenty
more because its even harder for them to get that.

-What did she say when you gave her that, I ask.

-She says, thanks and she was happy and then she said, ' I can’t worry about always
feeding you, first I have to make sure I feed me and this baby.'

He pats his belly like so. His mom has one inside her. I don’t ask about the dad. There is no need
to.

–Yeah she does need to make sure that baby grows huh, I reply.

He nods then and smiles. He gets it- this kid. I find that teaching has humbled me.
How I admire a child of a mere nine years.

Sometimes he comes up to me and gives me a hug in the middle of my lesson.

I'm about to tell him he should sit down & keep his hands to himself in a polite teachery way.

But he hugs me so tight, right there in the middle of teaching, subtraction with regrouping, that I just let him hold onto me for a moment. Then he goes back to his desk and does his math problems.

Once in awhile I ask the boy, -Why do you hug me so much?

Because, he states with eyes deep as canyons, - I need a hug.

I nod, then.
Don’t we all.

Boys-Without Last Names

2002-2003 Short Story

When I use to be an RA I would sit up at the big front desk and watch the
freshman girls go out to the bars. They had on those hip hugger jeans that were so tight
that their love handles spilled out ungracefully over the side. They would walk out with
their girlfriends laughing- while applying watermelon lip-gloss with one hand; the other
tightly gripping their cell phone, waiting for that boy I’m sure to call. And the sad thing is
he probably would, and worse yet, she would regret him calling the next day, but instead
would laugh about it in her girlfriends dorm room next store. It’s easier that way.

So I would laugh as I watched them go, because they didn’t even realize how they looked to
the rest of us, who had more college soaked into our skin and the aftermaths of drunken
nights in our memories. But sometimes I think now they did know, at least partly, and
they just didn’t care. I have to give a person credit for that. There are only certain parts of
your life you can come so close to being that carefree even if alcohol and drugs are the
ticket to get there.

My shifts were long enough that I would get to see the girls come back
at the end of the night. At this point I had read the same magazine twelve times and caved
in and ordered pizza-with pepperoni- with the other RA. The girl would come swaying in
like a delicate kite on a spring day that gets stuck in a tree, its fringes swaying ripped and
torn in the branches too high to reach. She would wobble in with a boy on her side, his
arm wrapped around her waist firmly, keeping her afloat. The boys, or guys if you dare,
they were all the same, button up Abercrombie shirt, dark jeans, and strong cologne. Her
mascara caked under her eyelids like a sad raccoon and I thought about how carefully just
a few hours before she applied it. Her face pressed soveryclosely to the mirror blinking
quietly as her fingers probed her eyelashes thickly with Cover Girl. But the boy didn’t
care what she looked like really. And the thing is whether she was too buzzed to care that
her hair was frizzed falling flapping all over her head & her face looked like a
watercolor left out in the rain, didn’t matter. Because all that mattered is that there was a
warm arm around her. Dark sheets don’t see imperfections. She’d trip going up the three
small steps on her way to the elevator.

I would sit there and watch girl after girl come in with the boy, without last names. As he touched every inch of her body with tainted hands and hallow eyes, she foregoes herself.

Flying the 'Friendly' Skies: 101

Recently CJ & I flew to Philly for a wedding. It was Sunday night-the gloom of Monday morning lurked ahead. We go through security relatively easily-searching for lines with speedy airport travelers. You know-the business type, the ones who wear slip on shoes & minimal accessories.

Naturally we are early-because God forbid 'cut it close'- courtesy of my well meaning husband. The thing about getting to the airport early is-you end up buying airport crap-to entertain yourself on your 800 mile journey home. I finished my novel & refuse to do work while on vacation. Instead, I find myself in one of the little shops. I grab a US weekly & Time Magazine. Toss in a NY Times, a bag of gummy worms and a Coke Zero. I'm set-I think handing the airport clerk $13.

Then it happens-oh and you know exactly what I'm about to say. Yep-that. United announces we are delayed. 90 minutes-2 hours-they say. Then they mumble something about Chicago being cloudy & backed up. To this day I've never understood a delay. We check the weather on my Blackberry-its mild weather in Chicago. Isn't that the thrill of flying? A delay or a nice 5 minute pat down through security? Isn't it worth it-for a little piece of adventure?

Two hours go by-gummy bear bag empty, magazines read, Facebook statuses checked 3 times.
Finally-they say we can get on the plane. I think about how relieved I am-and the Venti Starbucks I will need in the A.M.

Then it happens. The stranger who doesn't know airport protocol 101 arrives. Right as we are about to board, this older mom, her husband and 20 yr old daughter step up with their boarding passes. This is the thing. The mom has three bags-one is particularly monstrous.

The carry on size can be a bit tricky. Is it too big-could I risk not checking my bag and get this thing on the plane? I know what goes through your head-I've done it too. But THIS bag-she looked like she was ready to go to Europe for the summer. I mean-really?! She has two over sized purses as well. The lady taking the boarding passes tells the stranger mom that she can't take this many bags on the plane. She says it politely, and I appreciate people then-the ones that try to be tactful about their jobs.

The mom is abrupt & defensive. She says her daughter will take one of the bags and off she goes. The attendant lets her go-but I know its not over yet.

The mom gets down to board onto the plane when the flight attendant, who seems to be Head Bee, stops her. She explains to the woman, in a frank tone, that the flight is packed. Her bag is too big, she will need to check it (no charge).

The mother freaks out and begins screaming. My bag is NOT too big-she hisses.
Half the plane stands behind her, bugged eyed & in utter silence- waiting to see what will happen next. The daughter gets irritated finally-because she knows her mother has crossed the line.

The flight attendant blocks the front door-all 115 pounds of her-and says -Ma'm. Please set your bags (all three!) aside THERE (then she points with her forefinger) -You can pick it up in Chicago. Please cooperate!

There's already a pile building up over there, where the woman pointed, and I know right then I'm going to be in a middle seat crunched on this plane-the whole way home.

Now we're mad-the plane community and myself-at this mother, because she's crossed the line. Everyone is thinking about how crammed the flight is & the hours of sleep we are loosing tonight. I can tell by the way the plane community are poking at their cell phones angrily & shifting weight back and forth-waiting in line behind this woman.

The mom shakes her head side to side-like a child in Pre-K. Everyone has their territory in life-and we all know better than to irritate a flight attendant like that. Yep-that did it.

The flight attendant storms off the plane informing the mother she isn't getting on this plane! We finally take our seats-as the woman and flight attendant battle it out with her manager. Who do we sit behind? -the husband-who is reading a golf magazine-with no knowledge what is going on outside the plane. A passenger whispers to him &  he reluctantly gets up to see about his wife. I feel bad for the man then-because it seems as if life's day to day protocols are not one of his wife's stronger suits.

20 minutes later the mother and daughter get on the  plane. The plane and I don't even give a damn-because we just want to get home to Chicago. And that's the thing-airports are full of ridiculous rules & inconveniences. Yet- we all have to do our part. Pack lightly-or for God's sake-check the bag. In the end-we are all just trying to get to our destination-one US Weekly or Snickers Bar at a time...