Cream of the Crop 11/Cream of the Crop 11-1.iso/faq/df9601r.zip/DFB

Text File | 1996-01-01 | 9KB | 180 lines

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WAKING UP
  by j. poet
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  I'm not awake. I'm not here. I'm anywhere else but here.
Why can't I be on Mercury, in the twilight jungles between the
sun blasted light side, and the absolute zero of the dark side,
scraping slime mold offa my space suit, tryna avoid the hungry
jaws of the bloodworms? I squeezed my eyes shut, so tight I saw
strange multicolored pin wheeling stars doing a screwy dance
across the galaxy under my lids. Close your eyes and you shut
off the world and fall into a huge comforting darkness, your own
private universe where nothin' can touch you, or at least you can
pretend nothin' can touch you.

  The house is rumbling. It's my father's feet. When he thumps
around the apartment in the morning the whole building shakes. I
try to squinch my ears shut, but it's not as easy as squinching
my eyes. When he coughs and spits into the sink, when he slams
down the toilet seat and drops his big manly ass onto the throne,
the building trembles. Even with my hands on my ears and my eyes
shut tight, I can feel him with my body. I can feel the phlegm hit
the sink, the turds dropping into the toilet, I can feel his
growling, and snuffling, and grunting. He's a big man, strong from
laying bricks, drinking beer, and screaming at his kids.

  He turns on the shower and the water pipes begin knocking in
the wall. Bam, bam, bam. How am I supposta get any sleep around
here? Ain't it bad enough I hafta share the bed with my fat,
snoring little brother Lou? Why can't I pull everything inside a
me and stop all the noise? Like the way an earthworm contracts
when you stick him with a piece of broken glass, or like one a
them little armadillo bugs that curls up into a ball when you try
an' pick him up. That would be neat. To be able to curl up into a
round, perfectly armored ball, and roll myself under the covers,
down to that comfortable spot that's always warm, and sleep for
about a bazillion years without anybody tryna get me up for school
or church.

  I hear my father farting in the shower. It sounds like a wet
duck quacking.

  At least he's goin' ta work today. When he stays home, he comes
in ta wake us up instead of mommie. He snaps on the light and yanks
the covers offa the bed and starts barking orders. "Common, move
yer ass outta the bed, before I move it for ya." He slaps his big
hard bricklayer's hand on the headboard and the bed jumps all
around the bedroom floor. "Let's go. Ya think I got all day here?
Up an at em." If we don't move quick enough he starts pokin' an'
swattin' at us.

  I pull my knees up and put my pillow over my face and put my
back against Lou's back. He's fat, but he's warm, a regular
furnace. I can feel the heat through my flannel pajamas. Hey,
maybe it's not all him. Maybe I'm hot too. Maybe I got a fever.
Maybe I'll hafta stay home from school today. I concentrate on my
neck. It's dry, really dry isn't it? An' I'm sweaty, burin' up like
I'm on fire. An' my stomach aches. I'm gonna puke any minute now,
I just know it. If I concentrate hard enough, I know I can make
myself sick. I hear the bathroom door slam open and my father
yelling.

  "Where's the clean towels? I'm gonna be late for work." I close
my eyes and think about being in the hospital with a sexy nurse ta
take care a me.

  "It's time ta get up." Lou's shakin' me. I lash out and smack
him one.

  "Lay offa me," I say. I pull the covers up. I musta fell
asleep instead a concentrating on being sick. Crap. Why is it I
can't fall asleep at night, only in the morning when I gotta get
up? Somebody says wake up, and I'm sawing wood like Rip Van Winkle,
but no matter how tired I am, the minute they turn out the lights,
my eyes open. I can see the streetlight on the wall, a long thin
dagger of light that comes in between the shade and the edge of
the window sill, all orange and spooky, like the way the inside of
a jack o' lantern looks on Halloween. I know monsters and vampires
and werewolves are all made up, but the night still feels like it's
fulla creepy things. Kidnappers, and perverts who like to climb in
bedroom windows and torture little kids. Not that I'm little. I'm
gonna be a teenager in two more years.

  At night I can hear everything. The wind rattlin' the window
panes in the winter, an' in the summer, the sounds of people
passing outside, shoes scuffing along the pavement, or laughin'
with their wives and girlfriends, or setting off fireworks on the
Fourth of July. I hear all kinds of pops, and cracks, and creaking
floorboards, little sneaky sounds that make my ears twitch. Like
someone sneakin' up on me. My mother says it's the apartment
building settling, whatever that means. The plaque in the lobby
says this dump was built in 1929. That was 16 years ago. You'da
thunk a building would have settled after all that time, wouldn't
you? I hear real stuff at night too. Like Ben Gardenia, the guy
upstairs, beatin' up his wife.

 Sometimes I can even hear her cryin'; their bedroom is directly
above the one I share with Lou and Matt, our new baby brother. I
can hear the slamming of car doors, and the men in the neighborhood
shoutin' to each other as they come home from the bars. "Hey,
Vinnie, up yours, ha, ha, ha." And then, when it's real late at
night, after my parents are even asleep, I don't hear nothin',
just the sound of my brain buzzin' inside my head, a real funny
sound that makes my temples throb. When I don't hear nothin', I
start gettin' all these weird thoughts.

  Like one time Sister Joseph Paul told us about what it means
when we say "for ever and ever, Amen." She told us it means
infinity, time without end, longer than the earth has been here,
or is gonna be here. Longer than it would take to crawl across
the Milky Way on your hands and knees, if you could do such a
thing, which I know you can't. That's how long we're gonna be in
heaven, or more likely, burn in hell, because we're such a ragged
bunch of snotty little sinners. And in hell you burn and burn,
only your body is never consumed. And the more you burn, the more
you scream and curse God, and the more you scream and curse God,
the worst your torments become, because it isn't God's fault
you're burning in hell, it's your own selfish fault for indulging
in sinful pleasures. So that night I started thinking about going
on for ever and ever, tryna imagine what it would be like.

  Infinity must be the biggest thing there is, zillions of
light years long, and goin' out in every direction farther than
the eye can see, or any space ship could possibly fly. From now
to when the sun has burned out, will be millions of years, but
only it'll be a second of infinity. Tryna imagine it made my brain
ache. And how about the infinity when God was already here, before
he created the heavens and earth? Where was I then? I can
understand livin' forever in heaven, cause I'm already here, and
so is everybody else I know, but what about before? Did God think
me up and put me here, and if he did, why did he put me here in
1953 instead of 1853 or 2353? Thinkin' about all this stuff made
me feel like I was shrinking down and down until I was gone, so
small a speck of dust was bigger than Mount Everest, a little
piece of nothin' at all in the middle of an empty space that
wasn't light or dark, because light and dark are both something.
It was so scary I almost wanted to cry.

  Lou pulled the pillow offa my face and I went to swat him again,
but it was my mother. "How many times do I hafta call you? Get up
outta that bed. It's almost 8:30." She sounded tired, like maybe
she didn't sleep last night neither.

  "I don't feel good," I said.

  "You'll feel a lot worse if your fanny isn't out of that bed
in two shakes of a lamb's tail." She clapped her hands together.
The noise hurt my ears.

  "Chop Chop. Get a wiggle on."

  "I think I got a fever."

  She reached over and put her hand on my head. It smelled of
eggs and cinnamon. French toast. She pushed a clump of sleep-sticky
hair off of my forehead and smiled. "You're fine. Now jump outta
those PJs and get dressed. Breakfast will be ready in about two
minutes." Before she went back to the kitchen, she kissed the tip
of a finger and stuck the kiss on the end of my nose. I waited till
she left the room to wipe it off, then I got up and got dressed.

                           (DREAM FORGE)

Copyright 1996 j.poet, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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j. poet is a freelance writer specializing in world music: pop,
folk, and ethnic. He writes regularly for Pulse!, Utne Reader,
RhythmMusic, and other fine local and national publications. He
has been writing fiction since his teens, and has been published
in small literary mags nationally and internationally. He loves
hot music, tropical climates, spicy food, and his partner Leslie.
Email:  [e-mail]
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