Ribs and Elbows

Quiet Boy, boney boy
all ribs and elbows
and pnderance over simple things.
Did you run your fingers over the grooves,
believe the world you felt
more than the often lying light of it?
Did you think there must be some
secret trick, some magical more-to-it-ness
to the mundane machinery,
the way you do even now?

You faintly glowing ember boy,
grandfather's tobacco boy,
water held tight in hands boy, there's no keeping you here.
Though i'm told your mother sees you often
I am left with only memories and mimicry.
At times, in homage, I seal my lips shut
with hours of silence.
Time spent staring at my hands
wondering which wrinkle in the lines
was you.

You under-kitchen-table-surfer,
you excavator of old valises,
you who knows as much about why
old people hid away old things
as I know why I keep them now.
That relic in your lap
will be yours one day, or one like it.
Treasure hunter turned memory maker.

I sometimes wonder, as some men often do,
would i truly become my father
and make another you. Or at least
become my own man
with my own wife and son.
Will he explore the ruins of our closets?
Brave the perilous journey of the high attic?
Plumb the depths of the under-bed?  Will he be
a quiet boy, a boney boy,
all ribs and elbows?

Twelve and Nine: Part 3

Wally's mother gave him twelve dollars. She had him count it three times. A five; a two, two dollar coins, and four shillin. 'I could have di shillin?' he asked each time he finished counting, each time interrupting her grocery list. He knew it by heart by now though. It was the same thing every Saturday: Beans, flour, rice. She didn't tell him but he knew when he came back there'd already be a dead chicken on the table. It would be one of the chickens they let roam in the alleys. It would also probably be one of the ones he'd named, which was why he was going to the shop now, while she wring its neck. Eating his pets didn't bother him so much when he couldn't recognize them anymore. Once, though, his mother had made the mistake of scooping up a peel-neck fowl and dispatching it right in front of Wally. The boy cried for days.

“Yuh musn't tink ih soffy-soffy.” Explained Miss Pearl. She baked bread on Sundays and Wally's mother would always bring back a few loaves in exchange for some eggs, and some motherly advice. “The things dat po lee bwai done sih at such a young age? All the violence around here, and his father...Chile just feel good he still have some kinda consideration for gods creatures, yerr?” It was with this in mind that Wally's mother always included the four quarters. She didn't say it, but Wally set off for the shop every Saturday, knowing they were for him.

Jun-Jun knew where it was hidden. He'd seen it taken from its hiding spot and put back there countless times. It wasn't his. He didn't bother asking for it, he just took it. It was the same thing, every time. The boys would find him in front of the shop when they'd come to buy their papers. He'd have just managed to scrape up enough coins for something to eat when they'd hold him by the back of the neck and rifle through his pockets. And the only reason they got away with it was because they were older than him. Bigger. Closer to being called men. But Jun-Jun was already a man. They couldn't just disrespect him like that, just because they said they were from 'Back-a-alley' didn't mean they owned the damn place. They'd slap his face and cuff his head, but he wouldn't cry. He was a man. They had to respect him. He tucked it in his waist, under his shirt, and the weight of it made the back of his pants droop. They'd have to respect him.

Wally had the flour in its own bag hanging off the left side of the handlebars. He had the rice and the beans together in a bag hanging off the right side of the handlebars. He had seventy five cents worth of sweets overflowing his pockets and a long pink ideal hanging from his mouth. He was preparing himself in his head, getting ready to right himself on the two wheels and slowly start pedaling. The boys came up from behind him, walking in wide legged gates despite their baggy, sagging pants. As they walked past him, one on either side, one of them laughed. The other called out to him. “Peely-Batty-Pauly-Wally!” Wally smiled. The ideal dropped out of his mouth. He bent to pick it up.

Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! That's what it sounded like. That and the sound of scuffling feet. Of sudden, frantic screaming from the shop just behind them. There was the popping and then there was the sound of an entire neighborhood in panic. In uproar. There was the sound of running, then stumbling, then falling. The boys from Back-a-alley didn't even know what hit them. They didn't even see the shooter. They heard the pops and their brains instinctively told their feet 'Flee!' They only got a few yards before their lungs gurgled and spurted blood. Their hearts said 'No more. No more. No.' There were the pops, and then there was the sound of plastic bags hitting the ground, weighed down by so many pounds of flour, beans, and rice. There was the sound of a bicycle falling, spokes and pedals clattering. Chain rattling. Then there were the same sounds in reverse as Jun Jun snatched up the bike. He walked with it a few yards before getting on, and even then he pedaled slowly. Perhaps he was waiting for the sound of respect. The respect he deserved. It sounded like people screaming. It sounded like a little girl running through back alleys. Running to give a mother even more bad news. Wally was 12. Jun-Jun was 9.

Twelve and Nine: Part 1

Wally was twelve years old.  His real name was Christian.  His mother, brothers, sisters, teachers, and school friends knew this.  Unfortunately, years before he was ever a tall, gangly twelve year old he was a small child who failed to see the importance of being fully clothed.  He considered the scratchy shorts and faded cotton shirts to be a nuisance and his family members would often find him stark naked in the street in front of the wooden bungalow house, swinging sticks with the other boys or spinning marbles, his bare bottom hovering mere inches over the dusty street.

“Bwai, get yuh backside indoors, yerr?” His mother would shout, swinging a kitchen towel at him as he skittered through the wooden gate on the zinc fence.  She’d gather the fabric of her wide, twice-stitched, thrice-patched skirt in the fist of her free hand, lifting the hem above her knees so that she could chase after him and herd him in through the screen door.  The little naked rascal was more likely to just run through the back yard and into the alley, where the fast-girls and the weed-smokers would only encourage him by laughing and pointing, and shouting “Peely-Batty-Paully-Wally!” 

His father wasn’t much help as far as his mother was concerned.  He’d meet his son outside wearing nothing but what he was born in and grab him up in his black-gloved hands and swing him over his head, exposing the boy’s nakedness to god and everyone.  “If ih da wa bad bwai, yuh fi beat ah.”  His father would say.  The argument, to his mind, was that simple.  “If not, then leff di lee bwai lone.  So what if ih want mek di work know weh ih got.  Da wa lee-lee bwai, mek ih have ih fun while ih young yet.”  And, later, when they were both alone on in their rooms and their clothes had all been folded and put away, including the pair of black gloves his father kept next to his shoes and socks, and just before they both fell asleep on the mattress on the floor, sweaty and tired, Wally’s father would say to his wife: “If you neva want wa lee bwai weh woulda give yuh trouble, weh yuh gone name ah afta me fa?”

 And so it stayed, until Wally was at the proper age for school and school uniforms, which, conversely, he never wanted to take off, not even in the light of physical threats.  By then, however, the name had stuck.  The fast girls, the weed smokers, and the men who played dominoes with his father outside the kitchen window all knew his as Peely-Batty-Pauly-Wally.  The name was later broken down to either Peely Batty, or Pauly Wally.  Over months, the latter won out, and was further shortened to just ‘Wally’.  In fact, it was so popular a name that on a particular hot night one June a neighborhood girl was heard shouting at the screen door, “Wally-Mommy!  Wally-Mommy!  Wally-Daddy just get shot!”