And everywhere her bare foot stepped my words fell off her heels...

Since the day of my birth I have been sick. A bafflement to the medical fields, I have a rare condition with no name and no history of it happening to anyone else. The place I was born is where I have to spend the rest of my life, luckily I was born in fathers study and not some cold over lit hospital. My steps have been limited by a house, and the farthest my eyes will ever see is out of sixteen windows. I have no visitors nor do I have any friends. When I became older and more aware of what my future held I started to write my dreams, thoughts, made up memories anything that came to my mind on the palms of my hands. At night I would offer to rub my sisters feet, my palms pressing against her foot letting her heels soak up every word. Sister never wore shoes when she left the house, her bare feet felt meadows, river beds, the cobblestone of the town below and even the shop floors where she defied all "no shoes no service" laws. And everywhere her bare foot stepped my words fell off her heels, soaking into the earth, collecting in the corner with dust or washing down streams. I was bound to four walls but my words had no boundaries. My nightmares were soaked into the flowers that men picked for the gals. Every made up friend was collected in the dust between stones. The fields sister ran through were now plowed, upturning all my thoughts. Seeds were planted and mighty rows of crops were produced. Corn with memories of my first made up kiss, tomatoes full of secrets about mothers hidden liquor bottle in the medicine cabinet. Potatoes holding witness to the first time I saw mother and father fight. Every ocean in the world had a piece of me in it. The creek beds riddled with the images of my father passing away and how sister sat in the corner not saying a word, just shaking her legs. Eager to run away, eager to spread my words. She had no idea that her heels were writing to the world, the morning before they put her in the ground I wrote to her. Telling her all that she had done for me, thanking her. I'm not sure what happened to those words, maybe they soaked into the casket and kept her company while she passed over. Maybe a few even touched heavens floor, I like the thought of them saints soaking me up. I have no one to spread my words now, mother will occasionally go out and i'll sneak a few secrets on her. But most of the time it's just me, writing on anything I can find. So when I pass on over and they burn this old house down, the wind will pick up the ashes and this little girl who never left the house will touch every corner of the world.

Ole tub water

We used to fill up that old tub in the back and share the bath water, when folks heard word of it they made a fuss but we defended ourselves. Saying "Ah, we're just saving some water, no need in wastin' two tub fulls" But truth is. We were scared. We were scared of washing off our sins alone, so we shared that tub. Scrubbing at every little sin we could find, and if some were to stick back on our bodies when we got out..well, that'd be fine, cause we'd be carrying them together. And Lord knows we could use all the help we can get.

part I

I never owned many pairs of pants. Sure I could have bought a pair for every occasion. Some flashy pair for when I go dancing down at Ed's. A pair with fine hems for paroosing around town. A pair that matched my jacket and tie for when I fill a seat in the old Baptist church. And of course a good pair for sitting on the porch and ignoring the ever so changing world around me. Well I actually own that pair. AS for the other, I don't need special occasion pants because I don't partake in "special occasions" I find dancing redundant and a hurt on my feet. I got no need for "paroosing" around town..making a spectacle of myself just so I can go into ole Maney's store and buy some pipe tobacco and whatever nickel book they got stuffed behind one of them flashy girl magazines. I can do all that in my regular pants. I owned a suit and on the day they put my daddy in the ground next to momma and her sister I went down to the river, wrote a letter to dad. Confessing every lie. every time I took a sip of his jug or a pinch of his baccy. I thanked him for the things a boy should thanks his father for. I also put a few secrets along the edges then stuck it in my right pocket. Filled the left pocket with a handful of creek rock and I drowned that old suit. Maybe the creek beds got a use for a suit. I sure didn't. Besides I ain't filling no seat in that church, I got no problem with a church and i've been talking to the good Lord before I even had a tooth in my head. But that ole building with its velvet pews and a preacher who couldn't hold water if it wasn't for a little whiskey in his blood. That ain't for me. There's an old spring house in the valley, it's mostly a spot for kids to break their bottles and see how far they can get their hands up some good mans daughters shirt, but for me. It was the first place I was put on my knees and just hollered to the Lord. for me. It's my broken down springhouse church.
Some call me bitter and others don't call me at all, I've slipped between the floorboards in their minds and that's just fine by me. But I think all to often my lack of interest in people and their going ons has been misunderstood as "being bitter/hateful a mean old hermit" ah hell..maybe I am. But don't get me wrong I don't hate every person who comes strolling by my house(but I must say for one to "stroll by my house" one must abandon his or her vehicle. Trek in woods that even deer get lost in and avoid old mine-shafts that i've "forgotten" to mark off) there are the occasional fellas whom I don't mind sharing shade with and there's been a few lady folk who stuck by me for a bit. no longer than three months. I guess ladies get bored with the same ole thing everyday, beats me. There's also two youngins that i've taken a liken to. Brother and sister. The sister acts more like the boy, always got her finger in something and blood on her knees. She constantly reminds me that i'm alright by myself: "You know, ain't nothing wrong with a man who sticks to himself, if I was a man i'd stick to myself" she always followed that up with a long stare at my boots, a subtle grin and a quick spit onto my porch. Then she'd be off the poke at my ole goat or see what I had to eat "All you eat is bolonga and stale saltines!!" she said that every time..she's consistent. I liked that, hell it's one of few things I can actually respect. Now the young boy..men say i'm quiet, even my mother said so. But this boy beats all you've seen. If he didn't have such a haunting presence about him you'd forget he was there. When they first stumbled on my house she ran her mouth a mile a minute. Asking me everything from how many hairs I think I got to what I thought was really in the sky besides the clouds and good parents. But the boy he just sat in the corner picking at his britches and winding the dial on an old broken watch. The more they came around the more comfortable he became, he brought me stories he had wrote in school or the old watches he found. He gave me one for my birthday. Well it wasn't my birthday. "Here, I want you to have this. It don't work or anything but you've been around for a while and I assume you've had a few birthdays so think of this as a make-up gift." he handed over a bulky fake gold watch with "To Pete, my strong strong man" engraved on the back. My names not Pete and i'm sure as hell ain't strong. The boy knows that. at least I think he does. I wore it for a few months, I knew it didn't work but I caught myself checking it anyways. Fortunately I had no need for time. still don't. doubt I ever will. Eventually the band broke so I stuck it in my pocket and that's where it's slept ever since. The day I get buried I'll have that watch in my pocket unless some dimwit rummages around in my pockets and steals it. Stealing from the dead, now that's something that ought to make folk lose sleep at night (I don't) stealing in general disgusts me, mainly because i've never truly wanted to own something I didn't already have or knew would come in due time.
When the boy first came around he wore "special occasion" pants, now everyday, he wears those same ole "watching the world pass by" pants. Maybe I should tell him that just because I find "special occasion pants" absurd doesn't mean there's anything wrong with them. It'd break my heart to know the boy passed up life just to be like me. I've never once hated myself. But i've also never wished this life upon anyone else. The boy and girl always came together and outside the view of my porch and yard I didn't know what their lives were like. I never asked. Well I did once, but I didn't ask them. I asked old Maney, he called me a "pervert" and said he had half the mind to tell their folks I was asking about 'em. "Old man Maney! you're right about one thing, you do got half a mind. Now stop sucking air around me before I burn this store down." That's what a part of me wanted to say, that part never gets what he wants. Instead I bought my bolonga and stale saltines for half the price not bothering with friendly salutations or bonding farewells. A man like me shouldn't ask questions, it's not because i'm undeserving of an answer. It's just that when I really think about it..I either already know the answer or i've went this long without knowing and i've been doing just fine. Occasionally the kids will bring me a left-over plate of roast and taters, sometimes even a jelly biscuit. I feed the roast to my goat when they leave, I love roast..well I used to but a man becomes accustom to a certain diet and adding change upsets my stomach. I eat the taters though, the kids watch and you can tell they feel accomplished. On the days they bring biscuits I act extra stuffed from my taters and insist they eat the biscuit. I'm sure they know i'm not stuffed and i'm sure they know I feed their mama's roast to my goat. But it's our routine. It's consistent and it's safe.
Now about my goat, she's a good goat. Of course I have nothing to base this opinion off of but I still like to think she's a good goat. I got her when she was no bigger than a fat ole baby, I found her father with his head stuck in a fence, the breath from his lungs long gone and she was gnawing on a root half expecting him to wake up. or hell I don't know that, she probably knew what was going on. I never named her, the kids call her anne. I call her goat and i'm sure she calls me: dad, roast man or David(that's not my name but she heard it repeadatly one night when I felt real good and sang an old church song about David and Bathsheba at the top of my lungs) or for all I know she don't call me anything. And that's just fine by me. I know my name, although I forget it sometimes. Not on purpose..I just lose track of words.
In the children's eyes I had always been the man sitting on the porch in his "watching the world go by pants" who forgot the use of a razor and owned a goat. But I assured them that I was their age once. Telling them brief stories of my childhood and about growing up. I told them I was an only child, I was on purpose. I hear so many people say their kids was an accident. "an accident?! did they just fall out of your wife?" that's what a part of me wants to say, but that part doesn't say very much. My parents promised me I was on purpose. Mom cleaned for elderly folks around town and dad knew everyone's secretes. He was the garbage man. When I was too young to remember I laid at my mothers ankles while she washed clothes, the water was dripping on me. Mama said that's why i'm such an old soul(now i'm actually an old soul who couldn't stop himself from pissing the bed if his life depended on it..who knows maybe one day it will.) She'd say all the water dripping from those old folks clothes must've got in my soul and aged me real fast. She sang and read to me, songs she made up and words she read off of anything she could find. I learned how to read at an early age, I'd read anything and i'd read it carefully,slowly and close. So close that mama would slap my head "ruin your eyes doing that!!" I listened. That was my only fear growing up. To lose my eyesight and never be able to read. Forced to only hear what people had to say for the rest of my life, even back then what folks had to say did me no good. I'd been in school for years till one day it burnt down, by that time I had found myself..well somewhat, I recreated myself in works of fiction and lined my pockets with poetry and prose and only let my mom and dad see the true me. Thirty-seven days after the school burned down moms sister-my aunt-moved in. She took kindly to drinking and making eyes at anything that walked by. She died a year later, why? i'm not sure. The police came by a lot after the funeral, constantly asking questions and requesting to speak in private. Dad gave them a shoebox of hers one day and that was the last I saw of them. I was starting to write more, on the days I wasn't working with dad I wrote. Filling notebooks and napkins with children's stories or fictitious love letters. I quit working with dad and sold neck ties to men with dry necks and damp pockets. That didn't last long and in the next few years I tried out many jobs. Always leaving after getting to comfortable of just the lack of interest. I cut trees, I sold pets, dug graves, sold magazines and was the only guy to ever bar-tend in the next town sober. During all this I wrote and mailed off Three-hundred and seventy-five children's stories. In which seventeen got published under the pseudo name Thomas Brauty. I didn't receive much money but it was enough to put away for old age (it gets my bolonga and stale saltines) also nobody(minus the kids) knew I wrote them. I told dad in the note that I wrote on his funeral, i'm sure he would have been proud. I was twenty-three when mom fell victim to "old age" she wore a blue dress and even on her death bed her fingers were wrinkled from the washing of people who were long gone. I was somewhat seeing a gal when mama died. After the service she made the comment that blue wasn't my mom's color. That was the eleventh time in my life where that brutally honest part of me got his way. I didn't tell the kids what I told her. And I never plan on repeating those words ever again. Exactly One-hundred and four days after mama died dad sat in his chair. Lit his pipe with the cheapest tobacco he could find. Drank two fingers of thirty year scotch. Opened the paper and died. That was the day I started to smoke a pipe, never read the paper again and put on my suit for the last time..

I was seven the first time I sewed scripture to the cuffs of my suits. I was attending my uncle’s funeral. I say uncle because legally that’s all he was to me. I don’t even know his name, mom had this to say about him: “oh him? yeah sweety(I hated when she called me sweety) he’s your uncle. Wanna have a little secret? before your daddy married me your “uncle” used to make kisses on me” I ignored mother that day, I ignored mother most days. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved her. But I did not love her words. I haven’t loved someones words since I was three. The last words I loved I heard on the radio “we offer a discount on towels” we offer something about those two words stuck with me. Anyways. I borrowed thread. I kidnapped a needle and I sewed a chapter of Habakkuk to the cuff of my “dashing suit” thats what my aunt called it. She’s the type that calls everything dashing. Makes me sick. I sat in the pew of a musty church, pinching my leg. stepping on one foot. occasionaly peeking at my scriptures. I do the same thing now that i’m older. My wife. when she picks me out a shirt she asks: “Hey babe, what scripture do you want to wear today?” I never answer. She knows. That was a day. Thats what I would say, “That was a day” I never learned descriptive words. Later when my age became larger I learned that “weird” would have been an appropriate word. “That was a weird day, I saw my first bra, dead person and realized I look nothing like my family” You’re probably wondering what my age is. Well by calender talk i’m 27. But in the world of science i’m only 13. I never paid much attention to science. Why do people want answers for everything? I have to stop talking now, sorry for such a weird ending but I have to sew.

Evelyn made sure the sleeves of her sweater or the hems of her skirt never rose up around the other children in school. She wasn’t ashamed of her skin, Evelyn used to sit in the tub on the nights she was allowed to use water admiring the fairness of her skin. But that was before her mother started losing things. That was before Evelyn sat up at night pulling off the sins and memories that stuck to the bottom of her mothers foot. Ones that had slid off her body without her knowing or even if she did know she no longer had the strength to hold onto memories or sins. Not after the “storm”. Not after the night her mother came home crying with two men from the Police station all wrapped up in a blanket and led to her bed to sleep the storm away. Evelyn didn’t want to overhear the Policeman as they left, but a child’s ear is a mysterious thing. “I’ve seen her before, she never was a lady of the evening..but she also never favored the mornings.” Evelyn’s ears made no sense of what they heard and that was for the best. A child’s ear has no need for ignorant words. She stayed up with her storm battered mother, reciting her poems, singing made up songs and counting the hairs on her head. Now things are much more complex, her mother never recovered from the storm. She lost all her memories, the humanity of sin, the grace that lived in her. It was falling off her as she walked, washed off her wrists when she scrubbed the same dish for 20 minutes. But Evelyn walked behind her, slept at the edge of her bed and drained the tub for her. Collecting all the memories, grace and sin that she so unwillingly lost. Evelyn saved her lunch money for a ink and quill set so she could take all things lost and write them between her thighs, under her arms. Covering all her flesh with her mother in hopes that one day she would want it all back. And if not..she would walk this earth with her mother on her skin…

sleep writing

I used to bury my nickles under mothers porch so the aunts and uncles of my father wouldn’t steal them from me. I buried my shoes behind the old truck that dad pretends to drive. I cover the cuts on my ankles with the mud from the hill. In hopes that one day I will grow roots and become one of those trees that sit so safely in the distance.

3 nights ago I was sleeping in granny and papaws old bed while dad slept on the couch, I woke up that morning and was throwing my pillow around trying to find my shirt and I found this wadded up piece of paper that I had scribbled on. I seem to always hide my sleep writing under my pillow

How Whales Communicate

When I was seven I knew a man who collected paper cuts. He traveled from library to library adding to his collection. The collection he hid on his spine and under his socks. When I was eight he showed me his spine. riddled with cuts. A spine painted in fiction, horror, living and children's books. When I was nine he would lay on his stomach and let me read his spine with eager fingers. That's where I learned what a kiss was. What it is to lie to your parents. How to grow flowers in a tub. By the age of twelve I had started my own collection of paper cuts. "How Whales communicate" was the first cut to sink itself behind my knees. When I turned fifteen he let me peak beneath his socks. He wouldn't let me read. Just look. He promised by my eighteenth birthday I could read the cuts between his toes. By the time I was seventeen he had moved on. He hadn't died, in fact i'm not sure if he was ever born. He simply moved on. Leaving me. a young man. a young man with knees full of paper cuts and fingers that craved a spine.