Unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned this is my good stuff. My only good stuff. But hey I should let you decide if you like it or not.
This will be long for a blog posting, short for a short story. Sit closer, let your eyes bask in the glowing screen and behold: Something I wrote a long time ago that kinda doesn't suck.
They don’t board up houses they way they used to. The door on its flaking hinges only holds its secrets by the philosophical meaning of door. No Physical obstruction would stop anyone from entering. Just a closed door hiding cold rooms. The sentinel portal who is as strong and protective as the day it was installed. Who’s only sign of time passing is a fourth coat of paint and the dent in the left door-jam where the wheel of the nuptial couch grazed it. That persistent door where every morning Mr. Havsham walked out with a thermos and lunch box and his pristine hat. Where very day Mrs. Havsham kissed him good-bye and retired to the kitchen where she read the paper and drank virgin coffee until it was time for her college Psychology class. The kitchen where dishes piled in the sink to be to be washed and stacked every other evening by the serene couple. Where the microwave worked harder the oven and TV dinners prevailed unless they had time to cook. Although there was no television they would reside in the living room where they would read or talk or listen to the radio or go dancing or cinemaing. Then walk down the hall to the nuptial bathroom where they would take turns brushing their teeth then out the second door to the master/mistress bedroom and turn out the lights and Mr. Havsham would wake up to piss in the middle of the night then stumble back to bed and throw his arm over the unconscious Mrs. Havsham until the alarm bell rang them awake to start the next day as the last.
To look through the smudged windows only reveals the vastness of absence in the house. There’s not even fading sharp-edged lines where the furniture once stood in the living room. The cramped kitchen through the back door is hollow and grey, no food stains or fruit bowls anymore. Heavy curtains drawn refuse insight to the empty bedrooms. The only signs of use in the ivy-grown back yard are the wooden rows where Mrs. Havsham would grow marigolds and white roses and four concrete holes that anchored the aluminum swing-set where Little Billy and his school buddies would swing as high as they could on warm sunny days and see how far they could jump onto the grass. Even the pole they implanted where they used to tether Noisy Pete has been fallen and cocooned by grass. In the front lawn thistles and ivy have stormed the snap-dragons and bougainvilleas that she would trim and dote on before studying Psychology until Little Billy came home from school and she would make him do his reading/writing/arithmetic at the table for an house then he could go be a robber in the neighborhood games of cops-and-robbers while she read on the same chair that Mr. Havsham sat when he returned through the monolithic door and relieved his feet from the black shoes and hung his service hat on the coat rack. He would kiss her hello and pat Little Billy on the head and change into a white tee-shirt and slacks and sit on her reading chair and watch the new color TV set and won’t you bring me a tv dinner honey. She brought them fresh TV dinners with the foil torn off and nursed Baby Jenny in the mistress/master bedroom and wrote term papers until the TV was over and Mr. Havsham tucked in Little Billy and read him Reader’s Digest abridged Melville and Hemingway and turned out the lights, brushed his teeth in the nuptial bathroom and drew the shades in the master/mistress bedroom.
Mornings the sun even now burns through the dirt on the front window where Mrs. Havsham would watch Mr. Havsham pull away and worry would he come home safe again and make Little Billy eat his oatmeal before school and nurse Baby Jenny before daycare and walk to the college for capstone meetings and counseling undergraduates. Then back to the kitchen with Baby Jenny in one arm, a glass of milk for Little Billy when he returned from school in the other. Then an hour at reading/writing/arithmetic oh mother did you see the picture i drew in class today, why yes its lovely but why so many gravestones? And while Mrs. Havsham boiled eggs for lunches and put the TV dinners on the counter to thaw Little Billy commanded straight rows of classmates to play Army in the back yard and Noisy Pete yapped and yapped and don’t throw dirt clods children it only makes him bark more. Mr. Havsham would purr into the driveway and throw open the sturdy door to her smile and Baby Jenny cries and can’t she stay quiet even when she’s happy? He changed into slacks and slippers and smoked a pipe and read the paper and Little Billy came home after this mother’s call with mud on his face tracking dirt on the kitchen floor; little billy go wash up this minute before dinner and no tv tonight because it’s a school night and you haven’t done all your homework. Then they all do dishes with water-bucket efficiency and read/talk/watch until its time for Little Billy to brush his teeth and pray that he lives one more night like all children do and they retire to the mistress/master bedroom which is the only room in the lonely house with a lock on it since one night when Little Billy ran screaming from a nightmare of bones and darkness and saw Daddy on the bed in leather and Mommy wearing a cucumber-sized phallus on her hips and um.. er.. well. son it’s like this you see.. and Mommy’s crying in the bathroom and Baby Jenny’s screaming and let’s just all go to bed and forget about it in the morning.
The shaken house won’t tell these things even if asked. The new carpet won’t show the wear where Mrs. Havsham paced by the window after he clipped his badge on his chest kissed goodbye and swung open the gate-like door thermos and pail in one hand, pristine hat tucked under his jacket against the rain with the other, thinking please god let him come home today, or the dust skirt from the bed in Little Billy’s room where it sat for years over the bloodstain after he cut himself with a kitchen knife and wailing all the way to the hospital, it’s all right ma’am/sir it wasn’t deep just ugly and well dear if maybe you were home more often with the kids this kind of thing wouldn’t happen and don’t give me that patriarchal oppressive bullshit Mrs. Havsham shouted while Baby Jenny hid behind her blouse suckling obliviously. Back through the horrific door with bandages and sponges and damn it this won’t come out and damn it it’s getting late so put the kids to bed and damn it when will baby jenny be able to sleep through the night. But Sundays is church so they’ll put on they’re whites clothes and blame Noisy Pete who will bark his own acquittal from the immaculate yard while none of them lay any sins before god who won’t ask for any and return through the indifferent door for Pythagreanistic cheese sandwiches and Little Billy’ll lead his Reich down the street to onslaught empty-lot weeds, emulating the endgame ward of the living room while Baby Jenny doesn’t nap but waits until nightfall to wake with endless crying and it’s your turn to feed her there isn’t a bottle prepared so you’ll have to do it again this time and i know i prepared a bottle but it isn’t there now but i made one but it isn’t there until the stars’ sand-dance lures them all to sleep again.
In the coldness of the night the empty house is dry and peaceful, unhaunted by poltergeists or spirits despite it’s accessible vacancy. Moonlight illuminates the jungles back yard where Noisy Pete stalked/tortured/killed the moaning snakes and pleading mice and won’t penetrate the master/mistress bedroom window which wasn’t tinted until faces in the glass appeared and little billy you and your friends shouldn’t be out past your bed-time damn it and Mrs. Havham is weeping in the nuptial tub because she forgot to pull the shades and Baby Jenny is undressing her barbies in the too-small crib while Mr. Havsham cleans his naked pistol that he straps under his shoulder every morning before a peck goodbye and be careful dear the world it more dangerous than it was back then like he always does now after his two-am piss. Now the bloated light reflects in Little Billy’s room showing no trace of the black/red/white paint, so why did you let him do that it’s only feeding his depression, it’s just paint it’s not like he’s mutilating cats or anything. It glows through the cobwebs on the now sanded-while concrete floor of the lonely garage where they put rug food and water for Noisy Pete after the neighbors cat lay dismembered on the front porch causing Mr.s Havsham to almost as he veered from his processional march to the translucent car in the driveway wan Mrs. Havsham just had time to clean up the mess and find the tether chewed-through in the back yard even though Noisy Pete’s teeth were so weak he at to eat canned dog food before sending the kids off to school before her first client arrived except for Little Billy who went to school early today because of wrestling practice. Then the gurgle in the driveway of Mr. Havsham’s customary two-hour late return to the folded arms toe-tapping of we need to talk about our son because this afternoon when she was washing his black jeans she found the bloody cat’s Van-Gogh in his pocket and that’s it damn it that boy is going to military school once and for all and no way in hell he needs to go to the psychiatric hospital those warmongering neanderthals will only give him a medal, he doesn’t need a head-shrinker like you to tell him to blame it all on me that boy needs discipline, hospital, military school, hospital military school hospitalmilitaryschoolmolotaryhosposchool all throught the night in a hoarse mantra to the gods and now Baby Jenny’s showering in the barely-nuptial bathroom with tears until she falls asleep with her head on the toiled like she’s heard Daddy do so many Friday nights and Mr. Havsham challenged the everlasting door to break as he slammed it over the dent where the not-so-nuptial couch had grazed and no one knew Little Billy was home hiding in his lugubrious room and Mrs. Havsham flung herself on the m/m bed and screamed in her malestromatic sleep until the accursed alarm-clock was flung to it’s timely assunderance as the crack of day widened through the broken window where she paced and read the note over and over again.
By now the cracks in the unhindering door have been repaired. The split windowsill that gave in to Little Billy’s escaping weight is square and level again. The weakening soil of the seething front yard has filled in the holes that Mrs. Havsham’s heels tracked the next morning, the left deeper than the right because of the weight of her suitcase. And the dust on the mantle has been wiped clean around the shine under where both notes lay as a trophy to Mr. Havsham’s emptiness after he read them over and over again. Where did mommy go Baby Jenny asked over and over again over toaster waffles and powdered milk and um.. er.. well.. these things happen you know and make sure you get yourself off to school tomorrow because i start the early shift again then out the vault-like door coat blanketed around him to keep off the hot icy snow. Back through the listless door behind brown tracks in the afternoon-white yard and driving off again so he could make city council meetings and Baby Jenny wanders the empty house alone and hits the reception on the old color TV set or sits on her down bed practicing lines for this semester’s play or hides in the solitary bathroom where she practices her blowjobs and brushes her teeth because she can’t stand the taste of football players and pushing them out the silent door, my daddy can’t see you here or he’ll kill you, yes of course i’ll call you tonight now leave before headlights glare around the corner through the static of the falling snow. He would knock his shoes on the absent welcome matt and dust the shards of cold from his fading service hat and be a dear and fetch day some coffee and she would serve him fresh reheated coffee from this morning, did you feed noisy pete this morning darling, no i thought you did, but it was your turn, so it was your, no go and do it anyway and i’ll make sure to do it tomorrow. She would kneel and look Noisy Pete in this sullen eyes watching him slurp tepid water and soaked bread, then make sure the space-heater was turned up and return to the week-old pile in the kitchen to stir family-sized portions of cheese and macaroni that would serve as breakfast and lunch. So when is mom coming home she would ask between commercials, well we’ll see what we can do about that would you grab me another beer out of the fridge and i think it’s time for you to go to bed and don’t forget to brush your teeth, Baby Jenny would lie in her fluff down bed and clench plush horses under screaming branches outside and two-hour screaming phone wimbledon inside and her pillow would be wet from tears when the time beeped daylight again.
Spring hail or summer rays won’t penetrate the sad a-shaped roof even after so many years of unrelenting season. Except once, though all the damage has been repaired, when an autumn leak pushed through the straining singles and a river of childhood toys, unwanted hand-me-downs, dusty dog leashes/collars/bowls, shattered picture frames tsunamied through the smudged hallways, marshed the unvacumed carpet and wet their toes like beach water while they strained their eyes to see the crippled TV with cold TV dinners on their laps saying isn’t that little billy again on the news i thought they’d catch him by now before it gave its last drowning speech of slight chance of rain. By now even the smell of rotted wood has evaporated from the sordid attic where Baby Jenny and her thespian comrades, snooping, bumped into the deflated corpse of Mr. Havesham’s mistress whom they revived with duct tape and a tire pump and took turns lobbing lawn darts at her not-so-private parts until he came shouting up the trap door stop that you’re punching holes in the ceiling and jesus christ will you kids never leave me alone. The sun has dried out the mattress of the mistress/mistress bed where Baby Jenny practices what she learned from Mommy and Daddy and doesn’t brush her teeth in the quite un-nuptial bathroom because valley girls taste so sweet. And the unchipped paint on the water-logged door won’t show where they scraped the anuptial couch on its final voyage to moldy oblivion to make room for new barcoloungers where Mr. Havsham would sit and Little Billy’s five-o’clock bloodbaths would reflect off his tarnished eyes as he peeled apart his treasure of empty weapons that bred like gnats under a smothered service hat and i’m gonna stay at mom’s this weekend is it all right if i take the car and sure honey let me write you a check for this month before you go. Then Baby Jenny packed too many suitcases and listened to the lukewarm water running through the crumbling pipes as he drew his nightly bath after slipping a check with too many zeros that she wouldn’t notice until the deposit under her pinkish door. The old house won’t remember these events, no matter how many times you search the new wall-paper or investigate the antiseptic closets. The won’t show the new tile of the anuptial bathroom after the standing water melted through staining the blue linoleum purple or the unseen heel divits tracing an imaginary line from the bedroom to the tiring, shut door.
