Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Dead Things: An Introduction of Sorts

Nathan remembers when his puppy died. It was hit by a car. He found it, with its innards pouring out over the asphalt. Its eyes were unfocused. Its breath was ragged.

Its name was Ludwig.

He was seven.

And as he kneeled by it he thought, I can see how its insides work.

And with his bare hands, he had pulled apart the tears in the flesh, and Ludwig had whimpered. But he kept going, poking organs as the tiny heart pumped blood over his hands. Then slowly the whimpering stopped, and so did the heart.

He carried Ludwig up to his tree house, where he kept a Swiss army knife his dad had given him but his mother wasn’t supposed to know about. And he took Ludwig apart then, the way he had taken apart the TV remote. He laid its organs across the tree house in a line, wondering what they all did. This must be the heart, and this must be the stomach, he remembered thinking. But he had known nothing about anatomy then.

Then he had turned to the bones. He carefully cut the skin and fur away to stare in awe at how perfectly Ludwig’s skeleton must have fit together before it had been smashed by the car. And how perfectly all the inside bits must have worked together, to make one perfect little terrier.

He wished be had spent longer watching Ludwig as it had died, to see such perfection in work.

He watched the body bits rot slowly over the next few weeks. The flies were annoying, but he liked running his hands over the decaying flesh, pondering how it had all once been wrapped up as a warm little puppy.

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Second and final part of SHOTGUN WEDDINGGGGGGGGG

He arrived late that night– pulled up in his old Buick. Matilda’s parents were already asleep. They were in the guest room, with me and Matilda each taking a couch in the family room. Your grandpa was taking my old room. Matilda liked my old room, with the grand looking mahogany desk I got from when your grandpa redid his office. It was tres chic, she said. She did that sometimes, spicing up her conversation with French. Like, instead of just saying RSVP, she’d say répondez, s’il vous plaît. She took it for three years in high school. I thought she was brilliant.

Your grandpa didn’t even knock. He just walked in, kicked off his boots, sat down at the kitchen table, and waited for us to find him. Matilda was falling asleep in front of the TV, but I woke her up and dragged her over to meet him. She was groggy and he was pissy from all the hours of driving– he did it all in one shot, can you believe it?– but I thought them meeting went as well as it could have.

Is it a boy or a girl?

Was the first thing your Grandpa said. I guess he thought it was obvious who he was and who she was. So she answered,

We want it to be a surprise.

Got any names? He asked.

And it went on like that. She didn't even blink at how blunt he was. And I think he approved of that, because he never complained about her later. He never said anything about her later, actually, but if he’d known something was up then, he would’ve complained.

Your grandma didn’t show up to greet him that night. She was awake, knitting, but she didn’t go to meet him. She still talked to him regularly and they got along fine, but seeing each other face to face was always awkward for them. See, they hadn’t really been getting along right since I entered the fifth grade, but then this whole thing about an affair he had when I was a baby came out and she couldn’t even look at him for weeks. She’d just leave notes. That was a hard time for me.

So some part of me was afraid he’d be like that with Matilda, since that’s how I had always pictured him interacting with women: they couldn’t make eye contact the first time. But it went fine, like I said.

And after maybe an hour of talking we all went to bed. Just like that. We were all in this one small house, all asleep, all just a few paces from each other, and nothing happened. Looking back, I can’t believe the whole house didn’t explode from that.

And then breakfast came, and Matilda’s dad and your grandpa must have met. I’ll never know how that went, because no one will talk about that damn morning. But when I walked into the kitchen, both the men and Matilda were sitting around not talking. Matilda was still in her pajamas. Her dad was reading the newspaper. Your grandma was cooking bacon and scrambled eggs, but she didn’t seem bothered at all by your grandpa being right there, so I was relieved. I sat down in the one free chair next to Matilda and took her hand in mine. She smiled at me.

It was her last smile.

And then her mother came in, dressed in one of her favorite sun dresses, and asked where the spare chairs were.

And your grandpa just looked at her with the most peculiar face. And when she managed to drag a chair from your grandma’s room into the kitchen, he asked,

Who are you?

She stopped and blinked and laughed.

You must be the last in-law, she answered, beaming.

But he just repeated,

Who are you?

And she stared at him in confusion, and he stared back at her, glaring hard. And they just look at each other for a while, and we didn’t really think anything of it. Until her mother suddenly started screaming. And she ran out of the kitchen, and I guess went back to the guest room. Her husband rushed out afterward along with Matilda, and your grandma and I could hear then trying to comfort her through her screams. She was just saying gibberish at that point, and it didn’t make any sense.

What was that all about? Asked your grandmother angrily, waving a spatula at your grandpa. What did you do to her?

He just sat there and stared at where Matilda’s mom had been standing for a while, then finally he said,

We’ve met before.

And he stood up and walked out of the house to his Buick and drove away. He hasn’t visited your grandma since.

Matilda’s mom cried for hours, curled up on the guest bed, and we couldn’t get her to say anything. Matilda tried comforting her, but she’d just get more hysterical with Matilda in the room. So Matilda and I sat on the couch in front of the TV where she’d slept and didn’t say much to each other. I rubbed her back and she rubbed her expanded belly. Your grandmother just went back to making breakfast. She brought it to us on plates, but we didn’t eat it.

Then finally the screaming sobs stopped, and her mom limped out and collapsed next to her on the couch.

My baby… my poor, poor baby… she kept saying, and stroking Matilda’s hair.

I’m glad you’re feeling better, I said after a while. But then the woman glared at me.

This is all your fault! She bellowed, and she pick up a ceramic bird your grandma had on the coffee table and threw it at me. She almost hit Matilda, who jumped up and grabbed her arm.

But her mom was back into her hysterics again, and she was screaming and throwing things at me, telling me it was my fault, my fault such an awful thing would happen to Matilda.

Then Matilda cuffed her mother across the face finally and told her to cut it out; she loved me.

And her mother said,

Matilda, you are not your father’s daughter.

And she collapsed on the couch again, crying and crying. Matilda looked very confused, but then it suddenly clicked in my head, and I couldn’t move. I just stood there blankly like your grandpa had sat there. Matilda left her mom after a few moments and waved her hand in front of my face.

What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What the hell is going on? She kept saying. Then she punched my shoulder when I didn’t say anything. But this one thought kept going through my brain:

Dad had had an affair when I was a baby. And he had met Matilda’s mother before. And Matilda was not the child of her father.

And I really hope I don’t have to spell it out for you.

After I snapped out of it, I kept repeating that to Matilda until she got it.

That’s crazy, she said, laughing hoarsely. You’re insane. Or joking. But that’s impossible.

Impossible.

It was a crazy theory. I tried to explain it to my mother and Matilda’s father, but they had about the same reaction.

Crazy. Impossible. Insane.

But then, through all her sobs and hiccups, Matilda’s mother confirmed it. We all sat for a while, just staring at each other. We didn’t know what to do. My mother started crying. I wanted to cry. Matilda’s father eventually got up and locked himself in the bathroom.

But Matilda didn’t cry. She just rubbed her belly and stared out the window. Then after a while, she quietly got up and walked out the door. I tried to stop her, but she gently pushed my hands away and said she just wanted to take a walk, sort some things out in her head. It was a reasonable request, so I let her go.

And she never came back.

We called the police that night when we couldn’t find her after driving around the neighborhood. We stayed up all night, and the next night her parents relocated to a hotel. They couldn’t stand to be around us anymore.

The police found her six days later. They tracked her down to an abortion clinic using her credit card transactions. She had apparently hitchhiked down to Atlanta from your grandma’s neighborhood. She had had a hard time finding someone to abort the baby, since she was so far along, but she had done it, and physically she was well enough. She was reunited with her parents at a police station, and they went back home to Arizona.

I found this out through a police phone call. Her family never contacted us again after her parents left.

I never went back to Arizona. I don’t know what happened to all my stuff there. I don’t know what happened to Matilda or Bill Manellas or any of my friends I had there. There was nothing I could do, and facing Matilda and her family would have just made it worse for both of us. Everyone just wanted to forget those months I’d spent in Arizona ever happened. I stayed in Georgia and went back to college. I met your mother a few years later. I was never quite over Matilda, but your mom. She was amazing. I hope Matilda got over what happened and found someone else too.

So kiddo, now you know the darkest secret of our family. Don’t worry; you don’t have any long lost siblings running around out there. But here’s what I want you to remember:

You go on in life, you’ll get hurt. You may never recover fully. Crazy, impossible, horrible things can happen to you. You’re not invincible. And I don’t want to ruin your mood for your wedding, but know that these things can happen to you, no matter how nice a person you are.

But the world will go on, whether you like it or not. I found my happy end, and I pray to God Matilda found hers.

Naruto Fanfic of which I HAVE NO MEMORY

One.

The most awkward moment of Sasuke’s life is not when he tripped into the kitchen table and knocked a bowl of hot soup into a visiting Hyuuga representative’s lap, nor when Kiba thought it would be funny to take his clothes while he was in the shower and he was forced to walk across the gym to Iruka’s office in nothing but a towel. It is not even the time when some idiot pushed Naruto into his face and then– well. Some might call it a kiss, but it most certainly was not a kiss and don’t you dare hint that is was, cretin. (And he most certainly did not enjoy it, no no.) No, the most awkward moment of Sasuke’s life is sitting down for tea with Orochimaru and his henchman Kabuto for the first time.

He has been here for about a week, gotten lost twice (why does every room look exactly the same?), and coolly explained his way out of admitting to being lost twice. He has met a wide variety of freaks, and learned a total of three new jutsu, all of which are useless.

Everyday at about 2:00, Orochimaru had given him an hour break from training and disappeared for said hour. Apparently, it was teatime.

“This is quite an honor for you,” Kabuto says to him as he pours three cups of tea. “Not many are allowed to Orochimaru-sama’s teatimes.”

“Hn,” says Sasuke. It is secret code for “I am not quite sure how to respond to this.” Having tea is not strange. The floral saucers and matching cups, along with the cucumber sandwiches and mini-hot dogs, however, are quite strange indeed.

“I’ve been quite pleased with you so far, Sasuke,” says the Sannin. “But I fear you have a long way to go to beating Itachi.” Sasuke’s eyes narrow.

“Hn.” This is secret code for “Don’t bring up touchy topics at teatime.”

“I hope you will continue to work as hard as you have this past week. After all, we can’t have you slacking off.” Orochimaru smirks before taking a sip of tea from his rose-encrusted cup. “Oh, minty.”

“I hope it’s not too strong,” says Kabuto anxiously. “I noticed I let the Earl Grey sit a bit too long yesterday and you only managed to finish one cup.”

Orochimaru waves dismissively. “I never really cared Earl Grey anyway. What brand is this?”

The two converse about tea for a good fifteen minutes as Sasuke glares at his own drink. He refuses to touch such a girly cup¬– it would lose him too many man-points.

Man-points are very important to Sasuke. Ever since that conversation he overheard between Ino and Sakura about how he’d look good in a certain dress, he’s been keeping tabs on his man-points. He got man-points for going head-to-head against Kakashi during the bell test. He got even more man-points for becoming a human pincushion during the whole wave country thing. And he THOUGHT he’d get major man-points for going up against Gaara during the Chunin exams, but that… that didn’t work so well.

“Sasuke!”

Our brooding shinobi abruptly looks up from his tea upon hearing his name.

“What?”

Orochimaru’s brow furrows slightly. “You should pay more attention, Sasuke-kun.”

“Hn.” This is secret code for “Shut the hell up.”

“You’ll need to be most attentive for your mission next week.”

“Mission?” Sasuke very carefully controls his face. He didn’t come here to do Snakeman’s chores.

“Yes,” replies said Snakeman. “You’ll need to practice in a practical setting after all.”

“Hn,” says Sasuke, which is secret code for “Tch.”

The Snake Bellyache Curing Jutsu, the Fuzzy Slippers Jutsu and the Fang Shining Jutsu hardly needed practical application to perfect. In fact, Sasuke doubted he would ever use them. Ever. He would much rather learn something he could use to maul a certain brother of his–

“Oh, and I’d like you to join me for tea from now on. So we can… get to know each other.”

¬–but getting out for a while seemed like a good idea.

-

“Hey Sakura, what do you call a fish with no eyes?”

Naruto grins at her across an empty bowl that once contained ramen. She smiles weakly back at him, looking up from her own untouched bowl.

“Only you would be telling stupid jokes at a time like this,” she says.

“’Time like this’? Sakura, cheer up! I’ll only be gone a few years.”

Sakura snorts. “You’re right; you’ll only be gone three years. It’s not like that’s a long time or anything. It’s not like that’s over a hundred and fifty weeks or a thousand days or anything.”

Naruto frowns slightly, then brightens up again, “You calculated that fast.”

This produces a small laugh from Sakura, “Only fast for you, Naruto.”

“What! I’m not that bad, you’re just– are you going to eat that?” It dawns on Naruto that his bowl is empty and hers is full.

“Naruto!” Sakura whines. “I’m all depressed and too upset to eat, and you’re telling fish jokes and trying to take my food.”

“No!” Naruto puts on an exaggerated face of horror. “I’m asking you if you’re going to eat that because you should and I’m concerned for your health.” He pauses. “But if you’re REALLY upset and on the verge of tears and all that, I could totally give you a nice, comforting hug. And then I could totally help you finish that ramen because, you know, you’re too depressed to eat and it’d be a waste to let it get cold and stuff.”

Sakura glares at him, grabs her chopsticks, and shoves as many noodles as she can into her mouth. “Nod on yewr life, Nalutow.”

Naruto grins again. “What was that, Sakura?”

Sakura takes a moment to chew the massive starchy blob and swallow. “This ramen is MINE, Uzumaki Naruto.” She skillfully maneuvers a piece of pork into her mouth and chews it defiantly at him.

He snorts. “Are you SURE Ino’s the pig, Sakura?” She sneers playfully at him in response.

Naruto’s final dinner at Ichiraku and in Konoha– at least for a few years– continues in a similar manner. He and Sakura tease each other, carefully avoiding the topic of his absence in the coming year and a certain Uchiha Sasuke. He even follows Sakura back to her parent’s house, not because she needs to be walked home, but because this is the last time he’ll see her face to face for a long, long while.

“You’ll write to us?” Sakura asks as they stand awkwardly in front of her door.

“Yeah. Definitely.”

Silence. They’re only twelve and have no idea how to say a proper good bye. So Naruto improvises.

“Sakura, what do you call a fish with no eyes?”

She rolls her own eyes in response. “Not that again.”

“Please?” Naruto does his best impression of a puppy face.

“Ew, creepy! Now you’re going to give me nightmares.”

“Ah, Sakura, you’re so mean.”

She beams at him, reaching behind her for the doorknob. “I know.” She opens the door and looks back at him, unsure what to say. “Um.”

He smiles sheepishly back at her. “Good bye?”

“Yeah, good bye.”

Sakura enters her parents’ house and closes the door behind her. Naruto turns from her house and walks casually back the way they came– his apartment is on the other side of town.

In the morning while Saukra is washing her face, he meets Jiraiya at the Konoha gates. As she’s double-checking that the scrolls she had being studying with Tsunade the day before are still in her bag, he takes one final look over his shoulder at his village.

-

Sasuke’s mission turns out to be some dumb assassination thing. Some guy ran off with the results of some experiment and Orochimaru wants him dead and the data back. No details except the necessary profile of the soon-to-be-dead man are provided, which irritates Sasuke. Almost as much as his teammates irritate him.

“If you’re so good at finding things, then why couldn’t you find a brush this morning? Or some breath mints?”

“Wow, Suigetsu knows what breath mints are! My eyes are opened!”

“Screw you, Karin.”

Sasuke discreetly turns from them and rubs his temples. He’d met with them at a smaller training ground than usual to work on “teamwork.” The group of three Sound-nin they should be beating to a bloody pulp (for practice, of course. It’s not like Sasuke ENJOYS such things) are staring at them, bewildered.

It had started off alright. They had introduced themselves, glared at the practice team some, then started the spar. Karin had fluttered her eyelashes at him a few too many times, but Sakura had done worse. Then Suigetsu had cracked an inappropriate joke about Karin’s short shorts and she replied with a snide remark about his teeth and it had all gone downhill from there.

“My haircut is very stylish and sexy, thank you very much, unlike THIS thing.” Karin reaches out and grabs Suigetsu’s hair, yanking it toward her. He grabs the offending hand with his left hand and tries for her neck with the other. She ducks, her spare hand flying for her kunai pouch.

Someone clever on the opposing team takes this moment to send an Earth jutsu their way, and the two suddenly find themselves up to their waists in dirt. They stare down at themselves in horror for a moment, but then Suigetsu remembers Karin’s hand is still in his hair and he punches her squarely in the shoulder.

“You can’t hit a girl!” Karin screeches in anger.

“Women’s lib, stupid.”

Sasuke smacks his forehead. He’s definitely lost some man-points.

-

“Ero Sennin! What do you call a fish with no eyes?”

“Really bad porn.”

“…I am never going near anything you write EVER.”

It is these delightful words that start off Naruto’s three-year journey of training fun. Incidentally, by the end of it Naruto will be completely immune to the horrors of fish porn. And even though the idea scares whatever bajeebies are out of him, his morning of marching down the dirt road with Jiraiya goes much better than Sakura’s.

-

Sakura walks into Tsunade’s office, hangs her bag on a hook by the door and turns to smile at her shishou, only to have a fist collide with her mouth at top speed. It has enough force to send her through the still open door and across the hallway.

Sakura lies on the tiled floor, stunned. Too stunned to notice the pain in her now bleeding lip and too stunned to even consider getting back up.

A shadow falls over her, and she leans her head to stare up at Tsunade’s scowling face.
What the HELL crazy woman what does she think she’s–

“You just died,” the hokage announces, “And now no one’s left to heal your dying teammate.”

Oh.

Sakura sits up and nods dumbly back. “Understood.”

“Did you reread those scrolls we went over?”

Tsunade extends a hand and pulls Sakura to her feet, her expression still hard. Sakura watches her wearily, afraid of another surprise punch to the face.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can you recite them by heart?”

“Forwards and backwards.”

“Good.” A small smile. Tsunade returns to her desk and Sakura follows to stand awkwardly before her. She’s only been training under Tsunade a few days and she’s still quite intimidated by her title as Hokage and reputation as a Sannin.

“Go find Shizune have her fix up your face. Then go do your usual exercises– add fifteen laps.” Tsunade then gives her an almost pathetic look. “Then come back and help me do paper work for a few hours.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Sakura’s outward expression is determined. Inwardly, she wants to cry from the torture of physical work she is about to endure. Not only will it freaking HURT, but by the end of it she will have most definitely lost several sexy-points, not including the ones she just lost of getting randomly punched in the face by the Hokage. Ino would so be in the led by the end of the week. Or day. Or hour.

And on top of that, Tsunade expects her to do paperwork afterwards. While this is more sexy than running fifteen laps, it is an offense to her apprenticeship. And her lip hurts. Her entire face hurts, actually.

Sakura grits her teeth as she marches down the hall to Shizune’s tiny office and reminds herself why she is doing this. She is going to become an awesome shinobi, she is going to get Sasuke back and dammit, she is NOT going to lose to Ino in sexy-points.

“SHANNARO!”

Shizune opens her office door in time to watch Sakura punch the air and scream SHANNARO for no apparent reason like some sort of crazy person who would punch the air and scream SHANNARO for no apparent reason.

“Can I help you?” Shizune is bemused. Sakura is embarrassed.

And that’s how the morning started.

Two.

It takes four days for Sasuke’s “team” to develop some semblance of unity. As long as he stands in between Karin and Suigetsu, the two annoyances don’t try to kill each other. And if they do, Sasuke chucks shuriken at both of them. Incidentally, Kabuto ends up sewing Suigetsu’s ear back to his head.

“What were you telling me about a ‘semblance of unity’ this morning?” The medic-nin asks as he leans over the stretcher containing Suigetsu and his bleeding ear.

“They weren’t listening to me,” Sasuke explains.

Kabuto smirks as he pokes Suigetsu’s ear with a needle and an unnecessary amount of force. “You really weren’t meant to be a Konoha shinobi.”

This bothers Sasuke for some reason and he hns. This is secret code for “Don’t talk about touchy subjects while sewing ears back to heads.”

“I didn’t come here to have my ears cut off,” Suigetsu whines at Kabuto. “And why is prissy-boy in charge? He’s been here like two weeks.”

“Sasuke is… special to Orochimaru-sama.”

Sasuke finds this statement very creepy and excuses himself to let Karin out of the closet he had locked her in after she had tried to run off with Suigetsu’s severed ear. Because Karin’s the type of person who’d take a severed ear if it got attention from Sasuke and infuriated screams from Suigetsu.

The three of them leave tomorrow to find run-away-research-man and babysitting these two was severely straining Sasuke’s man-points (although talking off Suigetsu’s ear in a rage filled shower of shuriken had won him a few). He is not going to enjoy this mission. He knews it.

Sulkily, he opens the closet he had pushed Karin into after he and Suigetsu had wrestled the ear away from her.

Karin explodes from behind the door, throwing herself at him. There are straws from a broom in her red hair.

“Sasukeeeee,” she shrieks. “I’m afraid of the dark!”

As a trained ninja, Karin is by no means bothered by the dark. In fact, she is rather skilled at maneuvering herself about in the dark without being detected. Or getting straw from a broom in her red hair.

“Save meeee, Sasukeeeeeee,” she whines into his ear.

She has officially out creepy’d Sakura and, grabbing her wrists, Sasuke throws her back toward the closet and slams the door shut. He braces his shoulder against to prevent her from opening it has he fumbles with the lock. Her creepiness is getting to him.

“Why are you so mean, Sasuke?” the redhead croons through the keyhole.

“Hn,” Sasuke grunts. This is secret code for “Oh my god please someone make her go away.”

He finally hears the click of the lock and bolts down the hallway. It’s 2:00 and teatime with Orochimaru suddenly seems more fun than training.

-

The first stop on Naruto and Jiraiya’s journey is a brothel. Typical, thinks Naruto. He ends up sitting in a backroom with an off-duty prostitute. It is a position no twelve year old should ever be in and wonders if he could sue Jiraiya for child abuse.

“Probably,” says the off-duty prostitute when he voices this question. Then she offers him a cigarette. “Smoke?”

Naruto stares at it disgustedly. “No thanks.”

“Whatever.” She places the cigarette she had offered him in her own mouth and leans in toward one of the candles on the low table to light it. Her thin hair comes dangerously close to the flame and Naruto winces. She straightens up, takes a drag, and blows smoke across the table at him. Naruto winces some more.

“So, um…” Naruto squirms as she stares at him with a look of utter boredom on her face. “Why aren’t you… uh… working?”

She takes a long drag on her cigarette. “Herpes flarin’ up again.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Naruto isn’t really sorry; he’s just confused about what you say to a whore with herpes.

-

HOW DO I NOT REMEMBER THIS
HOOOOOW

Monday, December 14, 2009

My aunt was raised
being told she couldn't
go to college
because she's a woman.

And my grandmother was raised
being told that because she's white
she has more rights
than some other people.

And my grandfather was raised
being told because he's
the wrong type of white
he shouldn't speak his native language
and he should try to blend in
with other whites.

And if they aren't forgiven
then how can
your upbringing
validate that marriage
is just for a man and a woman
or a woman and a man?

Sunday, December 13, 2009

When it rains
it leaves behind that damp smell
of grass and earth and trees
and i think of the mountain
where i spent the my summers
wading in a pond and catching
newts and tadpoles
and how even in july
it got so cold at night
that we built fires.

And when i hear that song play
i think of the book i read
while i listened to it over and over
and the story and the song
are unrelated
but i can't think about one
without the other.

And when i drive down this one stretch of road
even in the day
i feel the tension and paranoia
that was brought on by the scary story
someone told me
as we drove to my house.

And so i wonder
if you me tell this is a nation
an entire nation
over and over
will i one day
see only what you told me
when i think of this nation
and forget all
other faces?

Saturday, December 12, 2009

SHOTGUN WEDDINGGGGGG.... part 1 :D

I’ll start in the middle, simply because that’s where you’re heading off to now. Marriage, I mean. I’ll start with my wedding. Not to your mother though, but to Matilda. I know you’ve always been curious, seeing as she’s a bit taboo in our house and all.

It was a shotgun wedding, you know. She was two months pregnant. Not even showing. But we had it two weeks after she came out about it– her mom insisted on it. The old lady still had her wedding dress, and I rented a suit, and we went down to the chapel and had the smallest ceremony you’ve ever seen. Your grandparents didn’t even have time to fly down for it. Not that your grandpa would have, he’d never travel that far. He’s stubborn like that. Just as well, I guess. Anyway, bada-bing, bada-boom, we were married.

I liked her, you know. Matilda, I mean. She wasn’t just some floozy I’d happened to knock up. I hadn’t been as in love with her as I was with your mother, but I was twenty and I thought hey, this could work out. I’m telling you this so you understand I didn’t mean for it to turn out so bad.

She didn’t move in right away. I was still in a one-bedroom apartment, she still had too much attached to her parents’ house. She still had a ton of stuff from her childhood. Toys, photo albums. Stuff like that. I offered to help her clean out her stuff and her parents said they’d find us a bigger place to live. You know, somewhere where the bathroom wasn’t so small the door wouldn’t open all the way because the sink was in the way.

I remember sitting in her room in her parents’ house with its rose-covered wall paper. I was on the floor, and she was piling dolls into my arms. She had tons of them– all different brands and sizes. She was going through them– she kept this all in this huge plastic bin– and picking out all her favorites.

If it’s a girl, she said to me, patting her stomach.

It’s okay if you want to keep your dolls, I said, thinking she just didn’t want to let everything go.

No, I have to grow up. Why can’t you understand that? She said.

She sounded kind of mad at me then. I kept suggesting she keep things if it made her sad to throw them out. Like her prom dress. She was just nineteen, you know, it would’ve still fit her. Not in a few months, of course, but maybe after the pregnancy she’d’ve still been able to squeeze into it. I guess we’ll never know now. Anyway, she nearly cried while she was putting it into the trash bag full of clothes her dad was going to take down to Good Will. I didn’t want to see her cry.

I don’t know what happened to all those dolls she dumped on me. I just handed them over to her mother. I hope they went to little girls who wanted them.

After a while Matilda’s dad found us a new apartment. It was still pretty small, me still working at the gas station and all, and Matilda’s tips disappearing and all that, but it was a bit bigger. Matilda wasn’t all that satisfied with it– she wanted this duplex her dad had found, but there was no way we could’ve afforded it.

Hey, you know why your grandparents divorced, right? Grandpa had an affair. Can you believe that? Guy as strict as him, shacking up with some tourist chick he met downtown. Said he was getting frustrated over Mom’s behavior, whatever that means.

Anyway– oh, how we met?

I met her at my work– I’d just dropped out of college. Gone west. Not far enough west though, never made it all the way to California. One minute I was filling up my truck in this godforsaken town in northern Arizona, the next I was talking to the gas station owner, who’d noticed my plates.

Georgia, eh? He said to me. Been driving a while?

Yeah, I said. Hoping to make it big on the West Coast.

He laughed. Then he said, Hey, you know, you don’t really sound like you’re from Georgia.

Nope, I said, Grew up Baltimore. Moved South in high schools when my folks broke up. Mom had some family in Athens.

Hey now, said the man, I have some family in Athens to. ‘Cept my Athens is in a whole other country. That’s how I put up with all this sun.

We both laughed over that. Then we got to talking, and since it was late in the day anyway, he offered to up me up for a night. So I went home with him, met his wife and two little boys, and I slept on their couch. I didn’t eat dinner with them; I just excused myself and went to a McDonald’s or a Burger King or something. I felt guilty enough as it was.

Then in the morning I woke up to the guy– his name was Bill, Bill Manellas– is telling me about how someone just called in sick and he’d pay me for the day if I filled in. And since I was near out of cash by that time, I agreed.

Now, I didn’t know anything about working gas stations, but I’d done retail before, and so he set me up at the cash register, and I sold people chips and colas and crap all day. And what do you know, the poor guy who actually worked for Bill had some horrible disease and couldn’t come in for two whole weeks, and so I just filled in for him and stayed with Bill and his family. Then next thing I knew Bill was hiring me full time and I was renting a run down apartment.

Matilda came in looking to buy cigarettes. She asked me what brand was good, and I thought wow, what’s this girl trying to do? So, not being a smoker myself, I said my father liked Marlboro. Then she laughed and said her mother used to smoke a pack of them a day.

Used to? I asked.

Well, she says she quit, but I’ve seen her lighting up out behind the diner we both work at, she answered.

Wow, I don’t think I could ever work with my mother or my father, I said.

So she said, It’s not so bad. Mom’s always forgetting her tips, and so the other girls just hand them over to me, and you know, I don’t always give them all over to mom in the end.

And so we kept talking and twenty minutes later I had her number and she walked out without buying anything. Then the next day I called her up, we set up a date, and it all went from there.

After the second date she took me home to meet her folks. I remember her mom taking my face between her hands saying,

Gosh does your face look familiar. Doesn’t he look like someone from church?

I don’t think so, her husband said back.

And no one could place who I looked like, but it was enough that I got her approval.

At least until I got Matilda pregnant, then she slapped me across the face. And she screamed,

You men, you think you can just take a girl to bed with you and just send her off. Well you listen up, you’re marrying her good and proper, and you make sure she’s happy and your kid stays healthy.

And I didn’t know why she yelled this, because like hell would I have just sent Matilda off. I told you, I loved her.

Anyway, I told her mom that and that we’d get married right away, and she still looked mad, but she still put up with me.

So we had our wedding, and Matilda and I managed to settle into our new apartment. She was pretty bloated by then, and her mom wanted her to quit work. But Matilda liked her independence, and she had that thing about wanting to grow up, so she kept working. I think that’s why she went to buy cigarettes that time we met, you know. To make herself grow up.

Then one day we were having dinner with her parents and she said,

You know I’ve never been out of Arizona?

And her dad said,

Nonsense, you went to Utah on that field trip that one time.

No, she said, I had a stomach virus and the teacher made me stay behind, remember?

And they prattled on about that for a while, then she suddenly announced that she wanted to met my parents before the baby was born.

Oh honey, her mom said. But plane tickets are so expensive.

And then Matilda got up, went to the back off the house and came back with a jar full off money.

I’ve been saving my tips, she said.

And then I knew her tips weren’t being stolen, but that probably she was stealing some of her mom’s tips. And what do you know, she had nearly enough in that jar for two round-trip tickets down to Atlanta.

And so it was settled. We were going to visit my mom in Athens. I called her, and she was so happy. And she called my dad and got him to agree to come down for the weekend to meet Matilda. I don’t know how she convinced him– guilt or black mail maybe. Or maybe it was the Braves game he wanted to take me and Matilda’s father to; I have no idea.

Oh yeah, Matilda’s parents came. It was a last minute thing, you know. They decided they’d rather meet their in-laws than buy a new washing machine. I almost wish their old one had broken down completely so they wouldn’t’ve.

So we all flew down to Atlanta and my mom picked us up in her old van. Everyone got along real well– I was thinking the whole time, Hey, won’t our baby have such a nice family? Maybe we can get together again for Christmas or something.

Then the next morning your grandpa showed up and it all went to hell.

Friday, December 11, 2009

(>*_*)># <(*g*<)

LOOK I GIVE YOU INTERNET WAFFLE

(>*_*)>o <(*g*<)

THIS IS ME GIVING YOU INTERNET COOKIE

NOT PANCAKE

PANCAKES SUCK