Collecting

At the end of the day, we sat on the steps and listened to the adults talk. They each filled an ancient chair, white paint peeling away from the wood in long strips. Almost like the hide from a squirrel on its way to stew. Some drank Grandpa’s whiskey from tall glasses and Mason jars. Some drank beer. Mom sometimes crocheted. Truman leaned his chair back against the house. His shoulders braced against the wall. A long, thin man. You could see Grandpa in his face. The way he wore his hair. His hands, though, never stopped. Batting around. Twitching. Out over the yard, bats flickered, hunting mosquitoes. Cigarette smoke rippled around the porch light like the ghosts of so many suicidal moths.

Because we were young, we kept the peace. We pressed our faces to our knees. Tired from the day’s chores. The long walks in the woods. The crawdad hunting down at the creek. If we had questions, we kept them to ourselves. One word and they’d chase us off.  

Summer was ending. Heat still ruled the days but the nights were cooler now. In the garden, the corn turned from green to gold. Squash lay, fat bellied, in the loose dirt. Soon, we’d harvest. We’d put things up for winter. 

It was on the veranda that we learned Mrs. Panario had cancer. “Poor woman,” Betty said. “All she ever did was raise those babies.”

“I still have that book of Dickinson poems up in the attic,” Mom said.

“She’s gotta be, what, ninety?” 

“Something like that.”

“Well, bless her heart.”

We heard about Mr. Breen’s wife having a baby. “That man,” Mom said. “He could scare the brass off a door knob.” Everyone laughed. Even me. Even if I didn’t quite understand why it was funny. Cruelty wasn’t Mom’s way. People knew her for her kindness. She never forgot to say “please” and “thank you.” At work, she called her customers “doll.” She let people cut in line ahead of her at the store. Often, she’d stop and kneel down to talk to random children about elves and owls and their favorite football teams. Temporary conversations that ended quickly. Easy to walk away from. Less permanent than me. My stories were her stories. “I know,” Mom said. “What it’s like to have a baby like that.” Sometimes, Mom let things slip. Sharp tongued when she wanted to be, Mom could say the most startling things.

Mom went off to work the swing shift at the truck stop out on the interstate, and Truman snored in his chair. A habit he picked up in Vietnam. Sleeping when he could, where he could. I remembered the stories. I wrote them down in a small leather book Mrs. Panario gave me. Not a diary. A journal. That was important. A record of things said and things hinted at. Secrets. A silent confessional. A collection of memories, both cruel and kind. 

William L. Alton started writing in the Eighties. Since then, his work has appeared in Main Channel Voices, World Audience and Breadcrumb Scabs among others. In 2010, he was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He has published several books: one collection of flash fiction, Girls, two collections of poetry, Heroes of Silence and Heat Washes Through, a memoir, My Name is Bill, and three novels: Flesh and Bone, Comfortable Madness, and The Tragedy of Being Happy. He earned both his BA and MFA in Creative Writing from Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon.

A Song for Bill