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The Hall of Fame - March 2002 |
Just One More Left
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| I sat on the couch with my rifle
beside me; of course it was loaded, and clean. One should never
commit suicide with a dirty rifle. I remembered reading some
story--in a back issue of New Yorker, or some damn place--and some
lady killed herself in it. The last line was something about how
she’d scrubbed the kitchen floor first, that all women
everywhere would understand exactly why she did that. One should
never kill oneself with a dirty rifle. I looked around my apartment for the last time. I had the rifle in my hands, and it was propped in position. My eyes fell on the cabinet, and my mind flashed on the scene the cops would eventually find. Me sprawled and bloody, the gun on the floor. Dusty floor. ‘Fuck it, I’m not gonna vacuum it,’ I thought. ‘And every man in the world understands exactly why I won’t bother.’ The cynical cops won’t wipe their feet anyway. They’ll just romp right in and start rooting around. They won’t be looking for clues, they’ll just be browsing. And they’ll open the cabinet, find all those porno books. They’ll look at the pictures, pass them around laughing, reading bits of the stories aloud to one another. Probably steal a few of the better ones, as if for a joke, because they’ll want to take them home and rub something--not that it matters--and eventually my name, Mark Anthony Carothers, will show up in the paper along with the phrase ‘massive collection of pornography.’ Everyone will know; how depressing. I decided to heave the damn things out in the dumpster first. Pain in the ass, yeah, but I won’t need ‘em where I’m going, and let the cops get their own. I got a few paper bags from the hallway down the stairs to the basement, came back and filled them up. I admit it; I let a few of the magazines fall open, my zipper too. Looked at the pictures of that girl from the "Open Sesame!" story, and I let the genie loose one time. What the hell. Then I dragged the bags out to the dumpster and let them go. What the hell. Walked back into the house, sat back down on the couch, picked up the gun again. ‘Damn the cops,’ I thought. I brought the barrel up to my mouth and put it in, moved it to just under my chin, put it back in my mouth. I couldn’t decide, couldn’t remember which one I’d heard was the more foolproof. Doesn’t matter, I guess, as long as I don’t miss. My mind popped back to the cops, and I realized that the cabinet was completely empty now. I could just hear one of ‘em looking in there and saying in a stupid cartoon cop voice, "Duh--That’s not logical!" Then they’d look around even harder, check the dumpster, all that. Crap. I set the gun down and looked around for some things to fill the cabinet with that’d look normal. My mind went blank. What do people keep in their cabinets? Besides books and magazines. It’d be a junk drawer. A few light bulbs, a screwdriver, a spare set of keys. Stuff like that. I grabbed another bag, and spent about twenty minutes wandering around the house gathering weird odds and bits. In a genius moment, I grabbed a half eaten sandwich, and a plate out of the sink, and went back into the living room to create a normal cabinet full of nothing shit. I smiled. A few minutes later, it was good enough. Looked pretty normal to me. Regular slobby guy-stuff in there, all in perfect disarray. Half eaten sandwich on its plate right on top like usual--everything. I went, sat down, grabbed the gun, and my mind flew to the fridge--how my ex-friend Chuck always walked straight to the fridge, pulled it open, grabbed whatever looked good to him, never even saying hi first. Fucking pig. I’m a rocket scientist, ok? That thought led me to the cops. They might not do the same thing, but I didn’t want to take the chance. That line from Platoon came into my mind: "Police up your ammo and your frags--don’t leave nothin’ for the dinks." So I set down the gun and went to check the fridge. Pulled open the door, and its half-cool hum and its dead lettuce smell issued forth; nothing to eat. Just one beer left. Fuck ‘em. I pulled it out, and popped the top. Drank from the can. The tight, bitter bubbles clenched on my tongue, and I swallowed my first chill gulp the way a chain smoker inhales that first taste of death smoke in the morning. I was rabid for it, and chugged another stony swallow. It tasted like the gun barrel. I smiled, and took another hit, then one more. It was gone. I looked around for a place to set the can down, decided fuck it. I threw it on the floor. It bounced loudly, and skittered over toward the window. It landed weirdly, propped diagonally, floor to wall, as if it had been painstakingly placed there. I went over, and kicked it away so it wouldn’t draw any attention. I glanced out the window. Someone was in the dumpster. Someone was rooting through my bags. I’m not sure why it pissed me off, but it did. I barged out the back door and was halfway across the yard before I saw her face. She was young, beautiful. She was holding the one about the neighbor who peeks in at his sexy new neighbor while she showers every day. She was engrossed. If she wasn’t enjoying it, I don’t know a damn thing at all. I walked over to her, all casual now. "Find anything good?" I asked. "I saw you throwing them out. I hope you don’t mind." "Yeah, whatever." I stood there. I couldn’t think of anything to say, couldn’t think of any way to leave. I stood there, stupid, watching her. She seemed to sway even though she was standing still. "These are great. Do you mind if I take some?" It was too casual the way she said that--this girl was on fire, and she wanted me to know it. "Ok by me. Want some help carrying them..." I paused because I had no idea where she lived. She pointed her thumb over her shoulder to the garage apartment across the alley from the dumpster. She accepted without a word, handed me a bag full of my slut books, which I set down. She handed me them all--every damn one--then she climbed out of the dumpster. She grabbed a bag, and I grabbed two, and we walked in silence to her apartment. It was dark, and everything was in boxes. I looked at her. "In," she said. I stared at her, confused. She motioned to the boxes. "Only two reasons to have everything in boxes like this," she said. "Moving out, or--" "--in," I said, finishing her thought. She smiled. I walked outside and got the other bags for her. Brought them in and set them beside the others. "These look like they’re in good shape," she said, indicating the bags of erotica I’d been collecting for so long. "Why’re you heaving them out?" "I, uh, won’t be needing them anymore." "You getting married, or dying?" She was kidding, but I answered her anyway. "I’m not getting married," I said. She looked at me for a long moment. "You look healthy enough." She paused. "Suicide?" I nodded. She did too. "When?" "Any minute now." "Oh." I was expecting her to ask me why, or to try to talk me out of it. Call 911 maybe. But she kicked off her shoes and undid her pants. "Dumpster goop," she said. "On my jeans. You don’t mind anyway, I’m guessing." She toed a bag of porn by way of explanation. I didn’t mind at all, and wordlessly allowed my eyes to say as much. "Most of mine is pictures of guys, but I can see that’s not your thing." She handed me a book. "I was reading this one when I saw you dumping your collection." I looked at it briefly; it was a compilation of stories about women exposing themselves to strangers. I set it down. "I won’t touch you," I said. "You can show me if you want." She did want to. She quickly undressed, then slowly made me a cup of instant coffee. Then she went and took a shower. I followed her into her bathroom and watched her through the shower curtain as we talked. I dumped the unwanted coffee down the sink while she told me more about her sexuality than she had probably ever told anyone before. I’m not sure if she was trying to interest me in life again by opening up so intimately, or if she figured what the hell because I was going to off myself pretty soon anyhow. I didn’t particularly care. I took down my pants, watching while she dried herself off, then cleaned off on her panties when I was done. I didn’t really care if she liked it or not, but she didn’t say anything. She got dressed. We just sat around, not talking, for a long time. It was starting to get dark out. "I should go," I said. She knew I was going to go back home and waste myself, and she didn’t want me to go. She didn’t really care about me, I don’t think, she just didn’t want my suicide to ruin all those books for her. Who wants to get all sweaty looking at a dead guy’s porn? She got dressed, I guess because once you’re naked there’s not really anything left to show, if that makes sense. And she amused herself by trying on different panties in front of me, buttoning and unbuttoning her blouse, brushing her body against me as if by accident. She was worse than I was. Finally, I just said the hell with it and left. I walked down the stairs, and cut back past the dumpster and through my yard in the dark. I looked up at her window as I passed it, and saw her standing topless on a table for me, one last time. I went back into the house. I sat down, and picked up the gun. Would she hear the shot? Had she called 911 on me? I figured she’d hear the blast, but I doubted she’d call 911. None of that showoff stuff was for me anyway; it was about her, and she wouldn’t want to get involved. My fingerprints all over her apartment, my traces on her panties. No, she wouldn’t call. I looked at the gun. I imagined the cops barging in, rooting around in my home. Would they bother to ask her about me? Would they press the issue when she lied about knowing me? I didn’t think so, and it depressed me. But it would almost be worse if they did. Big sex scandal between her and the dead guy, tons of press pundits speculating on our relationship. Hell, she might even get charged with murder. I didn’t really care, about her or her bad luck, but it didn’t seem fair. I thought about the half a sandwich on the plate, and the tiny flash of joy it had given me just thinking of doing that, putting it there. I hadn’t had any joy like that in a long time. Without unloading it, I stuck the gun back into my gun safe, and locked it shut. Maybe there were a few more flashes of life still out there for me in between all the eons of death sweat I’d have to go through to find them. I walked back over to her apartment and rang the doorbell. She came down the stairs, asked "who is it?" through the door. "It’s your dead neighbor," I said. "You got any beer?" She opened the door. Copyright ©2002 Tom Hilgartner. All Rights Reserved |
Renovation
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| New house i red Copyright ©2002 Jenna Ledingham. All Rights Reserved |
Main Street USA
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| I grew up on Main Street, USA. Actually, it was the
Main Street of a small town in north west Indiana, but I did grow
up there. I lived on Main Street, went to school on Main Street,
graduated on Main Street and got married on Main Street. .
My first memory of Main Street and our new home was when I was five years old. We were moving in and my brother, Frank, and I were carrying in our treasures. One of mine was a large slate blackboard which I never should have picked up. It fell, broke a corner of the molding and sliced through my right big toe. It was on a Sunday, but fortunately, our new neighbor's brother was a doctor and he stitched me together while I sat on our kitchen table. Daddy disposed of my blackboard and I sat through the rest of the moving-in process. My first little dog is buried on Main Street. Tippy came to me one day as I walked home from school. It was cold and rainy and I had only two doors to walk home but I made sure we took long enough for him to look miserable. My mother, a kind hearted woman, let me keep him. Tippy stayed with me for three years, then disappeared. I was later told he had mange, and back then, the cure was worse than the disease. I grieved and refused another dog to replace Tippy. I was 15 before I relented and got Peanuts. But he's another story. My grade school was two houses down from where we lived on Main Street. It was a typical two-storey school building with a formal entrance in front and the student entrance at the rear. A large concrete area in back yard served as a delivery spot for bussed in rural students. It was also our favorite place to skate. There were no jooints, only one huge, level concrete slab that was great for skating. I cut my leg open on that concrete slab when my brother's friend dropped his scarf in front of me and I tangled into it. My first nightmare came from that school on Main Street. Back then it was common to heat buildings with coal. Many times I watched the coal truck back up to the basement windows of the school building, lower a trough and dump the coal into a bin. Each time I watched, I imagined a big blue, fire- eating dragon who kept the school warm, and lived in the basement. I dreamed that one day he would get mad - maybe a load of bad-tasting coal - and attack the kids as they walked by his window. My dreams were filled with fire shooting out of the school's basement window and my fellow students being devoured by the dragon. Fortunately, it never happened. The closest we came to it was when two fifth graders dropped a match in a waste basket and we had to evacuate the school. . News of December 7, 1941, and Pearl Harbor, came to me on Main Street at our local church. I don't remember the time, only that it was the quietest it had ever been in our Methodist Church. Then someone began to sing "The Star Spangled Banner," women started crying and men clenched their jaws and fists. It was the beginning of a strange period for my small town and its Main Street. Shortly after the attack, a defense plant started production about 30 miles from my town and all of our town's men, who hadn't been taken for the military, went to work there. Many women went to work, too, and that brought about the largest change, the divorce rate. A bit later, a housing project for incoming workers for the plant blossomed at the end of Main Street in an isolated area near Pottowatomi Park, our local nature area,. Our 4,000 population grew to over 5,000 in a matter of weeks and we could no longer say we knew everyone in town. A USO opened in a store front on Main Street. We were too far away from any military base for soldiers to come, but it became a haven for teenagers and young adults for dances, games and just visiting. By that time, my parents were divorced, and Mom, Frank and I moved downtown into an apartment above the Post Office on Main Street. The lady in the apartment behind us managed the USO, so I spent a lot of time there when I wasn't helping Mom at the store. Mom managed the local grocery store on Main Street. Since she couldn't get help because of the war effort, and especially the high wages paid at the arms plant, my brother and I worked with her at the store. It was fun, as I look back on it now, but no twelve-year-old wanted to be stuck in a job when everyone else is skating, dancing or bicycling. Frank and I put up with it, though, because we helped Mom, and it was nice to be paid 50 cents an hour for the few hours we worked. At our ages, we couldn't make that anywhere else. We marched in our Memorial Day Parade down Main Street, through the business center and into cemetery. By the end of May, we could pick Iris, Tulips, Lilacs (my favorite) and daffodils to place on a grave, any grave. Some bouquets held little American flags that were popular during the war, and those were placed on veterans' graves. None of my family was buried there, so I would spend weeks before the event looking at names on gravestones until I found one I liked and wanted to honor. My friends thought I was crazy but I wanted my contribution to be personal. An Indiana Governor lived on Main Street. My Dad liked to brag about knowing him. I was too young to know if he was a good governor, but he was a nice man and always kind to us kids. On Halloween, his wife invited us into their home and fed us cookies and cocoa. It was usually chilly on Halloween and we loved stopping at there. My high school was on Main Street about a mile and a half from where I lived Each morning, two or three friends would stop by, Mom would give us each a hot biscuit with her homemade jam, and we walked to school together. It was a fun time. It never occurred to any of us that it was too far to walk. We didn't have bussing in our town except for the rural areas, and we had no public transportation. I don't remember snow days, either. We were supposed to be in school, so we were. Snow came in December and covered the ground until February. Walking in snow was part of growing up in our town. Main Street played an important role at the war's end. When our soldiers came home, we held a big parade for them. To us, the kids, they were heroes when that term meant something. We didn't have sports heroes or movie star heroes, only our war heroes. We were proud of them. My first real job, after the grocery store, was in the local teen hangout, an ice cream parlor. Yes, it was on Main Street. I learned to mix Cokes, Green Rivers, sodas and malts. It was nice to be in on all the gossip that passed through the store. I was shy and didn't mix well, but at work, somehow, it was different. I could talk to anyone, even the upper class men, without being shy. I felt so good about it that when our school did a play with a role for a soda jerk, I auditioned. I didn't get the part but I kept my job for a year or more. Main Street in our town was the true heart of our community. You could buy jewelry, real estate, groceries, clothing, attend movies, enjoy a restaurant, mail a letter and pay your respects at the local mortuary. You could also play Bingo at the Odd Fellows Hall above the bowling alley. I loved the nickel slots and enjoyed them while Mom played Bingo. The nickels I won were a treasure. The last time, I visited Main Street in my home town, I attended my forty-fifth high school reunion. I drove from one end of Main Street to the other. It was the same street I remembered but most of the businesses had changed. The movie house was closed and there was a six-plex outside of town. The restaurant was gone and the eating business was picked up by two chain hotels. The mortuary had moved to a location at the edge of town with lots of parking. Only the jewelry store remained and was run by my classmate whose parents had started the business. Many of the buildings I remembered had been torn down and replaced by strip malls. Somehow, Main Street had moved and I couldn't find it any more. Our reunion was on Main Street at the new free-standing Odd Fellows Hall. I met with the remaining twenty-eight members of my graduation class. Two of our teachers attended but my two favorite teachers had been gone for many years. Eighteen classmates had departed. It's hard to remember the young faces from school years and then realize they no longer existed. I was grateful to be able to visit with the ones remaining. My best friend from school was there. Strange, she was petite and lively in school and I was heavy and shy. At our reunion, we had switched places. Time enjoys playing tricks on us. I can never think of my home town without Main Street being a part of my memories. I remember I could walk it's length and meet almost everyone I knew. Small towns are like that. When I lived in Chicago, I often crossed Main Street but I never had the desire to drive or walk down it. There, every block looked the same. That wasn't true of my home town and my Main Street. Every block was an adventure. Copyright ©2002 Mary Benninghoff. All Rights Reserved |
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