Wednesday, August 27, 2014

OH, THE STORIES HERE ~ MCVICKER ~ 2014



Photo credit to Lady Thirteen, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Abandoned-Everything/496944700356415    Thank you!





....... "Kids, you listen yo mamma now. You get on in here and wash fo suppa, c'mon now." And the air hung, wet, like the moss on the live oaks; Mamma’s laundry on the line three days now. No breeze rattled the screen door and the flies knew their way to the kitchen.
I sit here on the porch listening to shrills of happiness from my girls and son, coming in all sweaty to cold tea and fried everything. The smell was glorious, something I held with me in the dark hours while we waited for the next bad thing to happen. Even the humid air and the smell of the river, riotous noise of bullfrogs, tree frogs and cicadas, the occasional splash of a snapping turtle rolling off a dead log, wobbling back and forth in the current, all this and more. Life hung too, in olfactory memory easily called upon. And, so, I sit here with this shotgun, waiting, for the next bad thing to happen.

I try to forget things now. It’s hard to separate what’s gone on, good, bad. "Hold on to the Blessings", they say. You forget what blessings look like. But you always know a bad thing when comes your way and never forget its’ face. I swanny, I don’t know how God does it. Just as I try to forget I remember and see images of Daddy and Mamma laughing together, sneakin’ a kiss or a wink, but us kids watched ‘em and felt home. Daddy’s gone now, it’s been sometime, cancer, lung cancer. Died right there in his bed. It was an awful time not being able to help him. Mamma and Daddy came to live with us, when it got too much for her alone, it was the right thing to do when bad things happen, so I sit here and wait, I sit here, with this shotgun.


Brothers and sisters, up and gone when Daddy died and there weren’t no money. Never heard from them again.

“Jimmy, you should come and eat, somethin’. It ain’t right you sittin’ out here. Them skitters will carry you away, now.” “ In a minute Mamma, in a minute.” Well, here Son, take somethin’ cold.” We were close I thought,family wise, but I was the young one. I never paid attention to them, how they were. Hell, I didn’t know better. Wasn’t nothin’ I could do anyway but tried to help Mamma. It was an awful mess, after Daddy gave up; I burned all his things. He told me he wanted a Viking burial and winked at me. I didn’t know what that meant. He said, as best he could, get some paper to scratch on, so I did. I’d never seen Daddy put pencil to paper but that man could create an image! I knew what he meant then. Mamma was there too. I looked at her and she had this half smile on and she winked at me. I set to work. We had a flat bottom boat ‘bout ate up with mold and bugs. Late, the third night out, me and Mamma picked Daddy up in the bedroom in a wheelbarrow and run him out to his Long Boat. I had already fitted it with timber to burn and dressed the bow with what I thought a dragon would look like. We dressed him in the suit he never wore to the church he never went to, shoved him out in the current and all the noise suddenly stopped. It was dead quiet as the river paid homage to the man it knew. I shot a fire arrow into it and it burst into flames.

I was in a hole with my buddy when the flares started, the outline perimeter was breached. The enemy stormed us from everywhere it seemed. We got away, I don’t know how, just did.

So I wait, here with this shotgun, wait for the next bad thing.
Mamma hollered , “I’m gonna lay down now, you eat somethin’, hear? Jimmy? I love you.” So I sit here and wait, with this shotgun, and the owls start in. The kids in bed, I walk to the river. Yellow eyes follow me every step. The boys are out in full choir tonight.

I stop by my tree I talk to from time to time. I say, "Tree, we’ve been together a long time you and me. You saw it comin’ didn’t ya? You knew! I kick myself for not listen to you. It’s only me to blame.

You know, we can live way out here and not see a ‘ live’ soul for months. Never even thought people knew we was out here. Go into town when we need and pick up mail, ha! that’s the laugh. Who comes down on ya, the government, draft card. Only lottery ever called my name. And there I go, on a Greyhound, came special for me and Tommy Dixon, scared to death. Me and Suzy just got married, she at sixteen, already one child with her and our son and another on the way. I was twenty-one when the draft came. Suzy and Mamma were in the house the day I left. Suzy, she didn’t come to see me off.

I was gone to boot camp when the baby came. They wouldn’t let me go see. Tiny little girl, Mamma wrote, pretty as a button. I shipped out three weeks later; Vietnam.

It didn’t take long after Suzy recovered, maybe four months, Mamma wrote, "She, went into town for letters from you and never come back", left Mamma with those babies . So Mamma did what needed doin' and I sat, in the mud, with a shotgun, waiting for the next bad thing. I had to write this down.I didn’t know if I’d make it out. Never felt so driven to write, so I did.

Somebody’s talkin’.

About how it all got started.
Somebody’s talkin’.
About being brokenhearted.

But that’s not what happened,

that’s not what happened at all.

Somebody’s cryin’,

their heart is bleeding.
The things they’ll tell you,
but the words are misleading.

Cause that’s not what happened,

that’s not what happened at all.

I am a soldier.

Left to recover.
I wouldn’t be here,
except for my brothers in arms.
They grabbed and carried me
from all that could do us harm.


The bullets came quickly.

I didn’t know they hit me,
slow motion, I fell to the ground.
My sight, it went blurry,
sickening pain in the fury,
and all of a sudden, no sound.

Somebody’s cryin’

they are so lonely.
Deserted and left all alone.
It wasn’t too long,
it didn’t take too long,
before she picked up the phone.

There’s people sayin’

I’m getting better.
not long for home now.
Then I got your letter,
been denied, deserted.
Never been so mistreated
so you’re not staying around.

But that’s not what happened;

that’s not what happened at all.

I am a soldier

beaten and broken.
Reading these words now.
Words that should never be spoken.
But that’s what happened
that’s how it happened and all

And so I sit, with this shotgun, on the porch, old tree. Making sure my kids are safe and Mamma is well and here with us. And I can always come to you to talk of Two Wars.”


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