3rd Day of Halloween
Reply
2nd Day of Halloween
1st Day of Halloween-meet Yorik
Image
Shoeshine Gal
SHOE SHINE GAL
He was a retired Air Force Captain, my dad,
But he still wore his military high top boots.
He liked a spit shine every day, and
said he’d pay me ten cents to do it.
At first it was a novelty.
Boy, did I make those boots shine.
But I was a girly girl of sixteen,
with a pink Princess phone, and
Capezio flats.
My thoughts were of satin, organza,
and the sheen of womanly perfection.
The antithesis of this was polishing
High top boots for ten cents.
And then, one day,
the doorbell,
The arrival of my fluttery, sparkly friends,
Preening as they waited for one of their own.
I flew, hoping to escape
the forgotten unshined boots.
As my hand reached for the screen door,
Another tapped my shoulder,
“Shine your father’s shoes first!”
Oh, cruel life,
Shattered facade,
You odious boots.
Now I could no longer claim sisterhood
with the shimmering nymphs on my doorstep.
Instead, I was Cinderella on the ash heap
of a tin of Kiwi shoe polish,
a blackened rag,
and a horsehair brush.
I like to repeat this shoe shine story,
as a paean and amusing pass
through my cotton candy labyrinth
of teen desire and despair.
My mom is never amused.
She remains in that long ago moment,
and drums her fingers indignantly,
“You should have shined the shoes first!”
That Was Bitchin’
One day at Sabino Canyon,
after slugging down Sloe Gin,
my boyfriend and his buddies
had a frog swallowing contest.
After that, they hid behind some rocks
and snatched the tops off our bikinis
as we slid down the waterfalls.
The boys thought that was really bitchin’,
but they puked afterwards.
When Sally Stein’s folks went to Chicago,
(we all knew they were Jewish and in the mafia)
she had a kegger at her house.
It was so bitchin’.
Kids reeling drunk dove off the roof into the pool.
Someone careened into the plate glass window
which exploded into bloody shards.
Candy Roberts also had a kegger at her house.
Her folks had gone to the Bahamas.
(They weren’t Jews or in the mafia)
Her dad was a dentist.
That shindig was a blast!
Everyone got sloshed, made out, and passed out
Candy went “all the way” that night.
Most of the rest of us kept our cherries.
However, Candy got PG.
Her boyfriend was the only Chinese kid in our school.
He didn’t have an accent or anything.
His folks owned a Chinese restaurant.
They didn’t approve of Caucasian girls dating their son.
Much less…
Candy had an abortion
I’d never known anybody who did that
It wasn’t so bitchin’.
One night the gang drove down to Nogales and got wasted.
Those beaner bartenders didn’t care how old we were.
TEQUILA!
The drive back was harrowing,
only I don’t think anyone felt scared.
There were no seatbelts back then,
and designated drivers, who heard of that?
There was this one guy in our gang we called Frog
because he was so homely, ugly really.
He had a great personality though, really cool,
And girls liked him.
Everyone liked him.
But he died in a car crash.
He and his best buddy had just had a blast at a kegger.
After the funeral,
things weren’t so bitchin’ for a while.
A short while.
Well I guess that’s that
What was the name of the nun who taught my sixth grade class? Oh, that’s right, I can’t retrieve that information from you anymore.
You hated your sister, really hated her. Would go on forever about how selfish and greedy she was. Was I?
Oh, and didn’t I used to have a big, yellow, inflatable whale when I was three. That’s right, you can’t tell me.
You also hated people who wasted money. They were fools who merited scorn. Gee, I suppose I was one of them.
I saw you…mommy. All your many wrinkles were gone. Someone said the muscles contract. I thought your eyes would flutter open any minute. Your skin looked alive. I didn’t want to touch you. Instead I pulled the blanket aside, and saw a bruise from the morphine drip on your thin, papery arm. The nurse took off your watch and handed it to me.
I knew you didn’t like me much, and I felt the same toward you. But then when I took the watch, there were the unexpected great gulping sounds overtaking my body. And I realized that my heart was broken.
There are no more sand rubies in the back alley
Sifting, sifting, The sand slipping through my slender fingers. I am eight, and I sit on the ground in the alley just behind our backyard chain link fence. Dirt gets underneath my nails, and my sun-browned legs are dust coated. I am looking for treasure.. shimmering mica flakes, and especially the raw, red, multi-edged sand rubies, so tiny amidst the grit. I swirl the dirt in my hand and pluck them out into a glass jar. I squint my eyes and hold them up to the Arizona sun. So red, so precious. Mine.
Forty-odd years later, there is only dirt in the alley.
Rocky Rockhead 