“Well, Rudolph, another year of deliveries and not a single mishap” Santa said, with a smile on his face as he was unhitching his team from the sleigh. “I sure hope Mrs. Clause has dinner ready. I could use some pizza and a good long soak in the Jacuzzi. These old bones just don’t take all the weather change while traveling around the world like they used to.” Santa turned to look at Rudolph. “What’s the matter old friend, your nose is lit up like something is wrong?… I said your nose is lit up like something is wrong?…Rudolph!”

“Cut!” yelled the director. ” You would think with a budget as large as we have that the special effects people could get a fake nose with a light bulb in it to light up on cue!” “Everybody take lunch and be back in an hour and we will re-shoot this scene once again, everyone except the effects person. I want that light issue fixed…pronto!”

Well great! My first real job as a special effects artist on a movie and I can’t even get the simplest task completed. Mashing the button that connected the battery to the bulb was simple enough, but the fact that my mind was on the drone, flying overhead shooting the scene, was about to fly into the sound boom had my mind elsewhere, or so I thought. Actually, it was the drone operator/camera-person that had my concentration all in a whirl. If only she would spend as much time with me as she did getting all the drone shots, I would be one happy man!

I had met Carol when I was hired as one of the special effects artist on this production of a “B” class Christmas movie being made for children. Rudolph’s Merry Christmas was to be a Public Broadcasting presentation for next years Christmas movie season and I was excited to be getting in on the ground floor of what could be a successful career in the movie business. I had always been interested and tinkered with special effects in high school and college but to actually be involved in a production was mid boggling. But not as mind boggling as having the opportunity to meet the effervescent and beautiful Carol Smithers!

Carol and I had hit it off from the very beginning of the first production meeting. We sat across the table from each other and became fast friends. But one of the two of us wanted to be a little bit more than fast friends.

“So Daniel, I hear this is your first break into the great world of movie making.” Carol had broken the ice after the meeting. My tongue and my mind did not want to work together to form a complete sentence so I just said…. “yep.”

“Great Daniel” I told myself. “Now she will think I am some big goof!” Which was correct as far as I was concerned. I had never been one to sweep a lady off her feet with small talk, much less to try and impress this vision that stood before me.

“You don’t talk much, do you?” Carol asked with a slight smile on her face. “That’s OK, I was the new kid once so I understand.” she said softly as if she understood my predicament. “Not that I think you are a kid, by any means, just a term I use…” Her face was turning a little red. Maybe she was the one that was now a little shaken. Dear Santa, let it be, because I wanted her to like me!

But back to the light, the battery, the drone and the boom. Lunch was over and the director was eyeing me to make sure I had made all the corrections. I pressed the button and Rudolph’s nose lit like a bonfire! I smiled as I looked at the director, but I smiled even bigger as I looked at Carol, who dropped her eyes to her drone control.

“Places” yelled the director, and we started the scene once again.

“Well, Rudolph, another year of deliveries and not a single mishap” Santa says, with a smile on his face as he was unhitching his team from the sleigh for the second time. “I sure hope Mrs. Clause has dinner ready. I could use some pizza and a good long soak in the Jacuzzi. These old bones just don’t take all the weather change while traveling around the world like they used to.” Santa turns to look at Rudolph. “What’s the matter old friend, your nose is lit up like something is wrong? Rudolph’s nose lit up on cue, and my confidence started to come back to me.

“Cut and scene! That’s a wrap everyone. Let’s call it a day.”  The crew and actors were thinning out and I was in the process of packing up my effects equipment when I heard a slight whirring sound hover above my head. I looked up and saw a drone lower in front of me and land at my foot. Attached was a note.

“Now that we have the shot on film, how about you and I go and have some coffee. Maybe we both can get our nerves in check and actually have a conversation… about tomorrows shoot, or maybe just talk about ourselves.”

I grinned and looked over at Carol and gave her a wink. “Give me twenty minutes and I will meet you outside.” I turned back around and gave Rudolph a pat on his head. “Wish me luck my friend.” I turned and started to walk out the door but I could have sworn I saw his nose light up… 

I have come to realize that when I tell a person I was born and raised in the South, their minds eye automatically turns to Tara, magnolias, large columns on the family home and sweet tea. Now I suppose that could be the case of some, but for me, it couldn’t be more wrong. No, I was not raised with that silver spoon in my mouth, mine was more of a plastic spoon, one that was used, then washed, then used again because we had to make things last. 

Welcome to 1957, the year that brought us the Soviet Union launching Sputnik, Elvis Presley buying Graceland, and I was born. Not sure as to why “1957” has never been a Jeopardy category but that was the year, in Alabama, Anniston to be exact, that a baby boy was born to a little lower than middle class family that would eventually include one dad, one mom and four little one that I called my family.

Seems that every family in those days, usually had a set or two of grandparents. And, yes, there were some families that had more than two, but we were not allowed to talk about those circumstances because it usually meant the unspoken word, the word that had to be spelled in a whisper, d-i-v-o-r-c-e, was involved. Some families had lost a grandparent or two, but when I was young, I had all four. Grandmother and Papa, and Grannie and Papa, were the names we were taught. Grandmother and Papa were maternal and Grannie and Papa were paternal. 

Grandmother was great and fulfilled all the qualifications of her role, but then everyone has a Grannie. That one special person that loves and hugs and fixes scraped knees, dries the tears in our eyes and just makes life livable as a child.

My Grannie’s house was the exact opposite of the southern plantation. It was a four room box with no basement and no attic…two bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room with a fireplace. At the time I remember, there were five people living in the house with no closets or a bath. They just made do. I guess back then, you just made do the best you could and went on about your business because you had no “Jones” to try and beat or impress. The most I ever saw of anyone back in the day, trying to impress, was at the county fair where someone’s cooking or canning or prized calf won a first place blue ribbon.

*****

But since I started writing this story, a lot of things have changed since the days of my Grannie, and youth, and childhood dreams that are now just that, childhood dreams. Those were the days of wonder and hope. Now, I am lucky to be surviving. 

You see, this story started out as a writing assignment for a class using the following three words in a story – Grandma, attic and disgust. Having started the story a couple of weeks back, I left it simmering on the back burner of my life due to construction in my home and the election. Now going on the second week of construction and the election is over, I felt, for a while, that maybe I should just turn the stove off and let this story get cold. But after a few days of doing some soul searching and mind processing of issues that deeply troubled me, I picked my butt up off the couch and turned the stove back on. 

Why, you may be asking yourself? Because I was disgusted with people. I was questioning myself, my values, my friends, my faith, all because I was letting the little people win over my mental health. And now, I refuse to allow that to happen to me. I am not responsible for the world, I am responsible for me and I had let myself get into such a shape that I wanted no one in my bubble except a chosen few. And still today, I am the same except that my bubble has increased in size.

My councilor says that writing things down can sometimes give a person self help, which I totally agree. I have gone from a recluse to a more, and I hate to say because one day my mother may read this, an adult in my way of thinking. I feel like I have been tested and tried, gone through a little fire, and have been disappointed in many. But on the other side of that fire, I came out stronger and maybe even a little wiser on my outlook of “everything is coming up roses,” especially when the world is full of poison ivy. But at least I know how to tell the difference!

Maybe I am at the place my Grannie was when I was a child. Maybe my grand kiddos will tell a similar story about their Pops one day about how wise he was when they were a kid. Maybe I have cleaned out the attic of my mind, see, I used one of the words there, and tossed out the garbage that cluttered such a small space.

Well, that is all the words used now…Grandma (Grannie), attic and disgust, but you may be wondering about the cat head biscuits. In case you have never had a cat head biscuit made with love from a Grannie, you have never tasted heaven because as Grannie makes those biscuits from scratch and flours and rolls out the dough by hand, all the while thinking about her little Keith, there is no describing just how love tastes!

So, here’s to Grannie, cat head biscuits… and me.

“So tell me kiddo, how’s your sister doing? I bet she is keeping all the boys on their toes at college, right?”

“No, Pops, she is, well, she’s doing fine.” I lied. Like every time he asked the same question, over and over and over…

Growing old is not for the faint of heart I have always been told. I personally would not know, due to my age of thirty three, but watching my father each week for the last two years has taught me this lesson well. And, I can tell you that watching a person grow old, is not a walk in the park. It has crossed my mind a lot lately as why I was always the one kid that acted more mature than the rest of my siblings. Maybe it was because I was the only one that had understood that dad was changing, forgetting the little things, misplacing keys, the remote, the things we joke about as absent mindedness finally makes sense now that the diagnosis had been confirmed. Yet, here I am, visiting all alone with no support from a brother or a sister, just me, the responsible one, here to check in on my dad, mentally tossing a coin hoping it would come up on “good day.”

I paused before I twisted the doorknob to enter his room at The PineWoods, which was “the” place for people having little issues in the latter part of their lives. Trouble was, this was never a place you planned to go, it was always a place that someone else planned for you. No one wakes one morning and says to themselves, let’s go to The PineWoods for a visit. No, it was usually the more responsible child that has that awakening moment thrust upon them.

The room was a light shade of green. Calming, serene, and looked like a scene right out of a commercial where the announcer says in a welcoming, warm voice. “Come and visit us at The PineWoods, the place where you can get the rest and care you need. Call us today for a free tour for you or your loved ones.”

I scanned the room and there was Pops, sitting in his recliner, facing the window as the sun was filtering in on him…I could see the dust particles floating in the air. He must have not heard me come in because as I touched his hand and said “Pops,” he suddenly sat up straight and a small gasp told me he had been in another world. Another world…I wondered where that world was and how far back in the past it lived. Maybe it was a gift that he could accomplish time travel in is mind.

“So tell me kiddo, how’s your sister doing? I bet she is keeping all the boys on their toes at college, right?”

“No Pops.”

“Have you been eating OK? Made any new friends since I was here last? The doctor said you are doing great and all the nurses say you seem to be fitting in well.” The usual list of questions I asked each week. I was told that asking familiar questions and doing things repetitave had a tendency to not get people like Pops upset and keeping him calm kept his mind as clear as possible.

We talked for a few minutes and I could tell, this was going to be a good visit. We sat side by side and looked out the window into the sun filled garden. The butterflies were hovering around the butterfly bush and the singing of the birds lead me to believe that no one could possibly have a difficult time in finding the beauty and peacefulness here at The PineWoods!

“So tell me kiddo, how’s your sister doing? I bet she is keeping all the boys on their toes at college, right?”

“No Pops.”

I could not tell him that he knew she had passed two years ago. I could not tell him how her accident had torn our lives apart and that her passing could be one of the reason that sped up his “forgetfulness…” No, I felt I had to lie to him, no, to spare him of the memory, of living it all over again. No, he was better off thinking she was still young and at college. Hell, most of the time I wish I was still in college, being carefree and no worries. But here I sat, with my Pops, guarding myself as to not cause any disturbance in the galaxy of what I call my family unit.

The nurse came by with the morning’s medications. Pops looked up at her and smiled as he took his meds, a swig of water then opened his mouth so she could see he had swallowed them. She flirted with him a little. “Mr. Taylor, you know I trust you to take your meds. You are nothing like that ornery Mr. Talbot over on the east side wing.” “He’s ornery because he never gets to see the sunshine like I do!” Pops flirted back. She laughed and turned to leave but before she could get out the door, Pops said “She’d make you a good wife you know.” I looked up at her and our eyes both held smiles. Each week, Pops tries to play matchmaker with me and his nurse, who, by the way, is about thirty years older than me. We both chuckle to ourselves, knowing we should just run off and live happily ever after in wedded bliss, just to make my Pops happy.

“So tell me kiddo, how’s your sister doing? I bet she is keeping all the boys on their toes at college, right?”

“No Pops.”

After about an hour, I start to sort my story of why I have to leave and not take him with me. But this week, as I start to tell my planned tale that breaks my heart, he says to me, “Kiddo, I know you need to be leaving soon and I know I cannot go with you like I wish I could, but I want you to know something.”

I was caught off guard. I looked into his eyes and they were clear as a bell and as blue as ever. “What Pops? You need something?”

“I just want you to know that I have always been so proud of you and how you have looked after all of us and especially me when I got to where I could not do my job as a dad and take care of you all. Its not a fun thing when a parent knows they have now become the child. I guess I just want to say…I love you son… before I forget who you are. I never want you to look back and wonder. I want you to know.”

A tear found its way to my cheek. I stood and hugged this man I call Pops. “I love you too…dad…” hoping he would always remember, knowing he would forget.

I took hold of his hand and gave him a smile. He looked at me and said…

“So tell me kiddo, how’s your sister doing? I bet she is keeping all the boys on their toes at college, right?

I slapped the alarm clock as it screamed at me to arise and face the day. I opened my eyes to darkness, or maybe I had not really opened my eyes at all. No, I remembered that I had set the alarm for the predawn excursion to be at the front of the line so when the store opened, I would be the first to lay my hands on that elusive prize that my kids had been wanting all year. And now this store, had become my savior, my place of worship, if I could only be there first to claim it!

I rolled out of bed, feet hitting the cold floor and the thought of returning to sleep took over my mind. No, I would not succumb to the fleshly desires of much needed sleep. The image of that wish from my kids kept creeping through and was just enough of a carrot on a string to get me going. Well, that and a thermos of coffee and maybe a bologna biscuit.

The car seat had become a throne of ice as i sat myself down behind the wheel of my car. Yep, I was definitely crazy to be doing this at my age. It was a good thing I had quilted my sister into joining me on this excursion. I was afraid I would have either been ran over by the mass of people crashing the store’s door, or maybe slid off the road on some black ice, left in a ditch and not found till the spring thaw…all kinds of scenarios had ran rampant through my mind. So now at least I would not be alone and another human would be there to either rescue me or keep me from freezing alone in a ditch.

Pulling into her drive, she was bouncing with excitement… literally bouncing at the end of her sidewalk. She had the door open and was jumping in before I had even stopped the car.

“Excited much!” I asked her with a small smile on my face. It was good to be doing this with her especially since we had always been close growing up, but as the years were passing us by, we had grown a little distant. But not today! She and I were back to our childish camaraderie that our mother had tried so hard to squash because we would deal her havoc when we would all three go shopping when younger. Yes, the dynamic duo was back!

Christmas music played from the radio. We both felt the nostalgic memories that seemed to be hovering in both our minds. We looked at each other and the words “I have missed this” came from both our mouths at the same time. That sibling bond still linked us together, even after all of these years. I drove on, the car becoming warmer from the heater and my heart growing warmer from having her with me.

“So what made you come up with this idea?” she asked as she sipped on her coffee. “I have never known you to be an early riser, much less be the one that did the special things for your kids like this.” She was right, I had never been the one to go outside the box when it came to the holidays, or the kids, or even my wife. I had always played it safe or did just enough to get by, but reaching a certain age, a man’s thinking becomes a little more focused on the things that really matter to him and to his family. I was now well on my way to becoming a holiday nut that went overboard for those I love. And a couple of those young kiddos that I love wanted the very item I was heading to get come hell or high water!
My sister smiled with one of those smiles that made it all the way up to her eyes. She knew I had reached the stage in my life when work took a backseat to family. She had told me for years there would come a day when my priorities would change and that time was now bearing down on me.

Onward we drove towards the city, heading to the place where the lights shown on the horizon in the sky. My quest, in my valiant car, armed with my thermos of coffee and my faithful companion of a sister, I was ready to do battle with whatever the fates would toss at me. I would prevail in my task. I would beat the dragons of crowds that I knew were doing the exact same as me, only I wished they were doing it a little later in the day!

Suddenly, up ahead… there it was… I held my breath. The parking lot was almost empty. The lot sweeper was still there removing the previous day’s trash of Starbucks cups and assorted articles that careless people had just tossed aside. Maybe, just maybe, I had pulled it off and would be at the front of the line of like shoppers that were fighting the odds of getting their hands on my present. Rumor was, there were only ten per store so I knew I just had to be one of the ten to obtain the one present that my kiddos would treasure forever.

I turned the corner of the lot and squealed the tires as I slid into a parking spot, my sister, holding on for dear life as the car came to a stop. I reached for the door handle, slammed it behind me a hit the auto lock button on the key fob. The familiar “beep beep” from the car eased my mind that my car was, indeed, locked. With my sister by my side, we raced toward the store with the red balls and bullseye in front. The place that held my kiddos future happiness. The place that we were number one and two in line!

Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause. Because that year, not only the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes that day, my heart grew and grew with the love of my sister, the love of my kiddos, the love of my life that I had regained all because I had set my alarm early!

To all the angels of the night and the dreamers of the day, I salute your survival instincts.
I wish for you peace, love, a full stomach and a warm place to belong!

Contents
1 As told by Daniel
2 As told by Jessica
3 As told by Paulie
4 As told by Miss Ginger
5 As told by me
6 Epilogue

Foreword
The people in this book are fictionally true or truly fictional, take your pick. Down south, we do things different. We use paper plates and napkins, cheap razors, and lighters and all of this we just toss in the garbage when we have used them up. They are not needed any more or their purpose has been served. Disposable is what we call it, and when a child down south has a certain kind of family, they, too, can find themselves disposable if they don’t fit the family mold, or come across as different.

This book is about some of those disposable children that have grown up to become angels of the night or dreamers of the day. The ones tossed out like a soggy paper plate after a summer barbecue, to fend for themselves the best way they can. To maybe find a grandparent to take them in or some relative down the line that may not have quite the same mold as their family. And then, yes, some are not so lucky and wind up on the streets, roaming the dumpsters, the flop houses, checking all the ashtrays, bumming money for food. And then there are the ones that think they can make it the easy way by lowering their morals to find a kind stranger of their dreams to take them in and love them, but only to find someone that will take them in and use them.

These are our angels of the night and our dreamers of the day. These are the ones we should heap love on their issues and hug their pain away. Get them assistance and off the streets or a place for counseling and guidance to help them find a new journey to take. A journey where they can respect themselves, like themselves, and even one day, love themselves again.

Disposable people are all around us. They try to blend in, to hide so not to bring attention to themselves. You haven’t seen them? Then you haven’t looked. They are the sad eyed roamers walking, the eyes are cast down as to not look at anyone but are constantly panning the field of vision for a person that looks like a possible hand out. A giver of food or money. Some really try and help, while others just turn their heads because they don’t want to be an enabler.

These are our sons, our daughters, our children of the south that didn’t cut the mustard…

Preface
I am a writer. I am a fixer. I am seeing more and more angels and dreamers. I am a talker and a storyteller.

Following are interviews and stories I have learned from my angels and dreamers, the ones that would talk to me. Some trust me to tell their stories with care. Some tell me to be as harsh as life has been harsh to them. Some have unbelievable tales while most just broke my heart. I have cried many times trying to understand life. The unfairness of it and how it dishes out the punishment to the ones that are not molded correctly or just doesn’t fit the family.

As told by Daniel
My name is Daniel and I am thirty years old, be thirty one next month. I’ve been on the streets since I was kicked out of my family’s home five years ago. You see, it all started back in high school when I was outed by some friends cause I like this boy. Now, I liked girls as well as boys, but at this time in my life, there was this boy. I had feelings and urges that felt different from when I was with a girl. He and I became friends in more ways than one. But life had a way of kicking me in the head. Looking back and trying to justify it now, maybe it was a punishment from God because I was sinning and I knew better cause I was church raised.

My family and me, well, we were at the church every time the door was unlocked. My daddy said being at church made us stronger in the eyes of God. See, down south, daddies ruled the house and mine, well he ruled with the “because I said so” rule. All of us kids, and I know my Mamma was not blind to the fact, knew that my daddy was not the perfect man he claimed to be at church. As we would approach church, he became more righteous the closer we got. I never understood why he thought he had to be perfect in the church. Wasn’t that where you went cause you were not perfect? Well, it was to me anyway. So being the perfect family was important to him and when he found out my secret, well, that perfect family image was shattered.

It was during class that my friend and I were caught by a teacher that was patrolling the school property. We were escorted through the halls of school as the bell for class change rang out and students poured from each classroom into the hall and there we were, being escorted to the principal’s office so everyone knew something was up. Later, after a stern talking to by the principal, our parents were called and we were sent home for three days.

Now Jesus stayed dead for three days and he arose triumphantly, but it was a little different when I returned to school. For one, my friend was swept away to a different school, cause I guess I was a bad influence or something. The other thing was, everybody knew my secret. Not sure if that statement was just in my head, but in my mind all eyes were on me and judging. My life both at home and at school changed with one experimental escapade which made me rethink lots of things. Was I being punished because I was attracted to girls and boys? Was I now an outcast to my friends and my family? Was I the reason my daddy could not face going back to church the next Sunday? Was I the reason that voices lowered when I walked by? This was a lot for a teenager to handle with no one to talk to or ask for advise. So I got angry.

My anger started out at just myself because I could not handle the changes bombarding my mind. I was not prepared so I got more angry and aimed it at others since I could not bottle up the anger inside anymore. I started lashing out at school, then my brothers and sisters, then my mother. But never my daddy. I had no reason to lash out at him because I knew he had secrets of his own that he was dealing with. Did this make me love him less? Can’t say directly, but maybe I just never knew if I really loved him at all. I mean he was my daddy and all, but he did not show me love like my mamma did.

Well, things were changing at home and school was about to end. I held it together and finished school which was a smart thing on my part, I guess, but at home things were getting violent. I had started running with some people trying to be cool and fit in wherever I could to feel normal again. But the people I was running with introduced me to things that would help ease my mental pain. Weed and alcohol was an easy start. And that was easy to hide as I would slip into the house late at night. Or so I thought until one night my mamma was waiting up for me. She was crying and asked me where I had been and what had I been doing. I lashed out. Just hanging with friends. Have you been drinking? Maybe a beer or two. Are you on anything? No mamma, I know better than that. Go to bed, we’ll talk tomorrow.

But I couldn’t do that. I knew she didn’t believe me plus I was afraid she would tell my daddy and I knew how that would work out. So I packed as much of my things as I could get in a backpack and a duffel bag, got the grocery money off the top of the fridge and I started walking. I called my friends and they picked me up about a mile from my house.

This was the start of my ending. I bounced from house to house, couch to couch and slowly, my friends were leaving me behind because I was not contributing anymore and I was not the fun guy at the parties where we smoked weed and passed out on alcohol. I had no job and no money and was finally put out of the last house that would take me in. My friends, became my strangers and my family was no more, because my daddy said I left. He said when I left, I cut all ties with them and he forbid any of his kids or my mamma to have contact with me.

After a couple of weeks of being out in the world alone, being hungry and cold and sleeping wherever I felt safe, I called my mamma and asked her could I come home. She started to cry and told me that if she let that happen that my daddy would probably call the police and tell them that I stole money out of the house. He also told my mamma that he would beat her if he found out that she had talked to me.

That was the last time I talked to my mamma.

I started hitching out of town and that’s how I ended up here at the Salvation Army. You know when I was all up in church, I learned that Jesus said, I was hungry and you fed me. I was naked and you clothed me I was homeless and you took me in. Well, I prayed to Jesus to keep the bad people of this world away from me. To not ever get so hungry that I did things or allowed things to happen to me that I would feel less of a person and so far I have held up my part of the bargain.

The Salvation Army came through for me. I am thirty yeas old and have a job with them. I am sober but an alcoholic because I always will be one. I am clean from drugs and heck, I can even pass a drug screen now! They came through for me even when I thought I was just using them to get some food and a place to sleep. They showed me I was worth something, that I mattered even if it was only to me.

I still haven’t seen or heard from my family, but that’s OK cause now I have learned that I get to choose my own family. One that loves me warts and all.

So I bet when you asked what was my story you didn’t think you would get all of that huh? But I got a story to tell and maybe it will help somebody else that may be on the same road as me…or was…cause you see, I ain’t that person anymore.

As told by Jessica
What’s my story? You want to know what is my story? What makes you think I got one? You just roll up in here thinking because I may be looking a little dirty or maybe my makeup might be a little smeared means I got a story? Hell, mister, maybe my water got turned off and I ain’t had time for a shower or maybe I’m just tired of all of the bullshit that I have to put up with, and then you have the nerve to ask me whats my story? Just who the hell are you anyway?

OK, just sit your ass down and I’ll tell you my story. And if I get to be too much for you, just calm your ass down or don’t get all misty eyed cause my story, well, it ain’t no movie out of Hollywood or it ain’t gonna be pretty like a Hallmark movie.

I was twelve year old when my mother’s brother came to live with us. He had no job and I don’t know what all he was messed up in but all I do know is that he could not keep his hands off of me. He would come in my room in the night while the house was asleep and start rubbing on me. I did not know what he was doing but when I told him to stop and he didn’t, I told him I was gonna tell my mother. Well, it stopped for a while until one afternoon I came home from school and nobody was home but him. He had this look on his face like he was up to something. I figured it was not anything good so I went to my room, thinking he would leave me alone since somebody could come home at any time. But no, he comes in my room and tries to kiss me. Me! A twelve year old girl whose tits had not even started to come in, but it didn’t seem to matter to him. He was drunk and the smell of whatever he had been drinking was making me sick. He grabbed my face and shoved his tongue into my mouth and I gagged and vomited all over myself, but he didn’t seem to mind cause he done it anyway as I cried and screamed.

I guess I blacked out cause when I woke, I was hurting down there. I got up and went in the kitchen where my mother and him was. He looked at me and when my mother left the room, he grabbed my arm and said he would kill me if I told anyone.
I had thought that maybe he was done with me now. But that night… he was drunk again…and I cried again.

I told my mother the next morning what had happened and she told me to stop telling lies to get attention. She looked nervous as she told me. I could not believe she didn’t believe me. But later that night, when all was asleep, my bedroom door opened and I was immediately afraid it was my uncle, drunk again. But no, it was my mother. She was crying as she came in and shut the door and sat at the foot of my bed. She started to tell me of a girl that she knew that had stories to tell. She said that girl had a father that would come in her room at night. It started out as just a little rubbing, then he got bolder until he got up the nerve to do what he intended to do all along. I looked in her eyes as she talked. I could tell my mother probably was that girl.

I asked her what did that girl do and my mother, instead of standing up to protect me, she said that girl stayed there and until her father passed, she just took it and clinched her eyes tight and did the best she could.

I asked my mother if she believed me then, and she never answered. All she said was if I was going to make it stop that the best thing I could do was to leave cause if this got out, the family scandal would kill her and her family would be the shame of the town. Then my mother did something that still puzzles me. She hugged me and kissed my forehead. She said I love you. Then as she was leaving my room and closing my door, she looked at me and told me bye….

So I got my suitcase and tossed in what clothes and stuff I thought I could manage and I left in the middle of the night. I went to the bus station and got me a ticket to Birmingham. I had family there I was told and I hoped I could find some to take me in.

And now ten years later, I am here, doing the best I can to stay alive. Yes, I might live on the streets, but I don’t do drugs and I don’t drink. Now I ain’t saying I ain’t done other things to survive cause that would be a lie. Maybe I been lucky to get where I am today cause I ain’t got no education or smarts, but I got the kind of smarts that matter. I know when they be good people talking to me and I know when to leave some people alone. Sometimes I find me a man out here that just needs some companionship and I use him for protection cause a single girl roaming around will get killed. Me and Benny, we been together about two years. We ain’t got nothing but we got each other. Benny, he gets some work when he can. He don’t do drugs but he does drink a little when he can get it but he knows not to come around when he’s been drinking cause I don’t like it. It reminds me of my uncle.

So you ask me about my story…. I sit here, telling you all of this shit that has happened to me and how I got to the place I am today and I think to myself, am I better off having left my home and family or would I have been better off staying and not knowing what might happen one night when I had had enough of my uncle. Hell, I might have had some mixed up babies by now, who the hell knows. But I guess I made the best decision I could at the time. Hell, Mister, I don’t wish my tale on nobody and all of us out here that don’t fit anywhere, well, we get by. And one day…one day, we gonna get what we all were told when we was little… we’re gonna be loved and cared for like our mother’s told us when we was kids.
And mothers don’t lie to their kids….

As told by Paulie
OK, I’ll talk to you if you’ll let me bum a cigarette. And you got anything to drink on you? No, well maybe you can go and get me something? Maybe after I talk to you? I can do lots of things for you if you want, but you gotta get me some smokes and some liqueur.

They call me Paulie, but my real name is Paulson Anthony Wellington III if you must know and yes I am a son of “those” Wellingtons. And with a name like that you can sure bet I was picked on on school and bullied for a lot of reasons. One, because my family was rich and they wanted me to go to a public school because they thought it would toughen me up. Second, I was bullied because I was short and my weight was more than my height would allow on paper and yes, I am saying I was over weight. And third, and this was probably the main reason I was picked on and bullied is because I am queer. Yep, queer as a three dollar bill, my daddy used to say. And he would not say it with pride like people say today. Back in the sixties when I was a teenager, us prissy boys, being light in the loafers, a little swishy , you know all the phrases, hell, you probably have said some yourself, didn’t have it easy.

It was hard being a teenage queer. I had to hide my emotions, and hide anything that might let people know the real me. And beings I was a Wellington, well that did not sit well with my daddy. He was not having a sissy boy so he let me get beat up. My black eyes were a badge of masculinity to him when we were in public.

It was my senior year and my urges were out of control. But that was the year I found out that the new kid that had transferred to my school and was on the baseball team, well, lets say he caught my eye. We became friends real fast. He didn’t seem to mind that people talked about me. After school we would head to my house where my daddy would swell with pride that I had a friend that played sports and maybe some of that sporty stuff would rub off on me. How wrong he was.

Something did rub off on me, but it wasn’t sporty. I learned real fast the reason this new kid was in a new school was because he got kicked out of his last school for “unbecoming behavior” they said. I also learned that the unbecoming behavior was him being queer. I was in heaven! There was two of us! I had a boyfriend, but only in my mind because back then you didn’t say you had a boyfriend. Hell, even I was not that stupid.

My senior year was turning out to be pretty good. That is until he and I got caught in the locker room doing what boyfriends do, well, maybe not in public, but we got caught by the coach, and was marched through the halls to the principal’s office still putting our clothes back on.

The whole school knew, our family knew, hell the whole damn town knew about the two queers that got caught at school… having “unbecoming behavior” I will just say. My daddy had a spell with his heart, I was locked in my room and told I would not be going back to school. I thought my life was over. There was no way I could see my friend, we were not allowed to talk on the phone and I heard he was not allowed to leave his house either. I had done just what my daddy had said I would do. I had shamed our family. Our rich, pious in the community and in church family name was ruined. I was the blemish on their perfect lives. I guess I really did feel bad, but being a teenage in love, I just thought all would blow over and things would get back to normal. But I was wrong….

Two days later, my mamma brought me some food to my bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed where I sat. She had a look on her face that I didn’t know how to decipher.
She told me that she had gotten a phone call from my friends mother. Seems he could not stand the pressure again for his unbecoming behavior. His mother had been to his room and found him with a belt around his neck hanging from the ceiling. Seems he had taken the light fixture down, and from the ceiling beam he made a noose. And well, you can make up the rest however you want to for your story or whatever it is that you are writing.

Needless to say, I was heartbroken. I am guessing the best thing I did was to leave town. I am sure my family thought good riddance since I had dragged the family name through the mud. You know the Wellingtons and their queer son. And now, all these years have gone by, I am sure I have been forgotten.

But Me? I keep up with them. I heard tell that there are at least five queer kids running around with Wellington blood in their veins. So who got the last laugh? I could go back home I guess, but I think it best not to. You see, in the eighties I got into a lot of situations I’ll call it, and got that disease that queers get. Our punishment from God for being sinful I was told. Going back home would not be a good thing, and besides, home is where the heart is and my heart died that day with his belt around his neck.

So my friend, that is my story. Now what do you want me to do for those smokes and that liquor? You name it, I’ll do it. There is not a thing I haven’t done in all of these years, but I am sure an old man like me can at least make you fell good.

Well, OK, maybe next time, but if you’re ever around here again I got some other people you might want to talk to. We all got stories son, we all got stories.

*****************

Wait, you came back. These are for me no strings attached? A carton of smokes and some liquor? And I don’t have to…. thank you son, thank you. If our paths cross again one day, could you do me just one thing? Could you just give me a little wave, like you know me? It would mean the world to me to think I had someone that cared about me……

As told by Miss Ginger
Honey please, I gots a story that will curl your hair better than a Toni Home Perm! All of this you see before you was not all as fabulous as you see it now. Gurl, I was born up in north Alabama in a little town called Florence and my name back then was Gary. See, little Gary was a little different from his brother and sisters and there was nine of us, all fighting and scratching for our mamma’s attention. All of us had nappy hair and ugly as sin cause we all had a different daddy. Mamma was the rolling stone in our neighborhood and wherever she laid her hat we got a new baby in da house.

All my brothers and sisters knew we had to depend on welfare or get out and get a job to survive. But we also knew that if we stayed there, we would have to give all our working money to our mamma cause that’s the kind of house she ran.

I learned when I was about seven that I like the boys. When my brothers would be out playing in the streets, I would be a watching them basketball shorts to see if I could see any wiggle and you know they were shirtless…. just every boys dream, well, those little boys like me anyway. My brothers never seemed to mind that I was always there, watching, cause they knew at least I was staying out of trouble.

My trouble didn’t start until I met Miss Dee that lived on the next block over from my house. Now Miss Dee was what you would call a colorful soul. She had people in and out of her house at all times of the day and night. Seems I was walking down the street one summer afternoon and Miss Dee was sitting on her porch and she hollard at me. I went over to see what she wanted and we started talking. And we talked and talked and talked because I guess nobody have ever taken the time to just sit and talk to me like I was somebody that was important. I talked and Miss Dee, she listened. She got quite for a minute and looked me straight in the eyes and asked me how long had I known I was liking boys. Miss Dee was the first person to ever ask me that. I planned to keep that all bottled up inside me but Miss Dee, she said child, you is like a hot soda pop and someday you gonna bust all over the place if you keep yourself all bottled up. I reckon Miss Dee was right cause lord knows over the next few months, this caterpillar blossomed into the butterfly you see now!

I took off Gary and put on Ginger and I been Miss Ginger ever since. I sashayed down the streets of Florence back then and gurl, I sashay the streets of Birmingham now and I will continue to sashay until I die.

My family don’t care enough about me to even wonder where I am, well, all except my mamma does send me a Christmas card every year to my post office box I keep in case I win the publishers clearing house or something. But me, I just walk the streets and do my best Donna Summer Bad Girls thang and hope I get enough to eat and pay my part of the rent. See, me and some more girls have this tiny apartment we share cause we are our own little family. We be pretty tight and maybe that’s because we picked each other to be family instead of being with them that don’t really want us.

So let me get on out of here. Gurl, I got money to earn and since you ain’t gonna pay me for talking, I gotta fly. But Mister, if you ever get up to Florence Alabama….tell Miss Dee that Miss Ginger is still snappin…

(note-as she snapped her fingers, she caught my eye and with a slight tear in one corner of her eye, she flipped her head around and walked off, like she was thinking about Miss Dee and how someone had listened to her.)

As told by me
I was five, my sister had received a bride doll from my aunt and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen! I wanted to play with it. I wanted to brush it’s hair. But my daddy said boys don’t play with dolls, so I got some scissors and cut the bride dolls hair off along with its fingers. I have no clue as to why I cut the fingers, all I knew is I wanted to make it ugly because when it was beautiful I wanted it. Now I had made it ugly so it was not a temptation. It was now not beautiful.

I was seven and I was watching a Tarzan movie on television. I felt hot and tingly as he ran through the jungle with Jane. I did not know why. But he was beautiful. His hair was beautiful. He was almost naked and he was beautiful.

I was a teenager and I was praying to God daily to make me not have the urges that I knew would send me to hell because I was told that in church. It was not beautiful.

I was in my twenties and discovered theater. I lost my virginity to a girl in a play. It was beautiful! I also lost my virginity to a boy in a play. It was also beautiful! Theater became my life because I could be someone else for two hours and not have to deal with the me that only me knows. For ten years, I chased the dream of being an actor so I could be…beautiful.

I was thirty and decided the theater was not going to fulfill my dreams of normality. I was taught that society wanted me to be a man and get married and have kids and a job and be happy. So I found a girl and got married and made my parents happy. We had two wonderful kids and they are beautiful. I have four wonderful grand kids and they are beautiful.

I am sixty and I traded in a wife for a husband and he is beautiful. My kids and grand kids love him which is beautiful.

I am sixty but I don’t have to walk the streets or hustle to eat or have a warm place to sleep, but there are many that do. They are the outcasts, the unwanted, the overlooked, the different, the shameful, they are our children of the south that no one wants… but me. I want them all to feel love, to have a full stomach, to be able to pull the covers up over themselves at night, but most of all, I want them to feel safe and a part of this thing we call the human race…which is beautiful!

Epilogue
Please remember most all of the people interviewed in the previous chapters are purely mental people from my mind. Bits and pieces are from real people or from watching people walk the streets and living under bridges and thinking that each has a story, a tale, if you will, that lead them to where they are at this moment. But being from the south myself, and seeing how we dispose of real people because they have issues that we or our family do not want to endure, we toss them in institutions, or hospitals or just out in the street. Like tissues, we blow our nose then toss in the trash. But for what all it’s worth, each story seemed to have a central character that was mentioned…the mamma, the mother. And maybe it’s because the mamma is the one that is able to show love the most. Daddies are not to show love in the south…or so we were taught, but that is changing.

The next time you are out riding around in your fancy car, pay attention to the lost souls that keep their eyes downward, that stay back in the shadows, those that check the ashtrays for butts to smoke later, those that hang around the libraries because it’s a safe place. If nothing else, share a smile with them. Assist them by helping shelters and soup kitchens and coat and blanket drives. Get your church involved with a mission program to help with clothing or water or shelter. These are people just like you and me. It may be circumstance, it may be bad choices, it may be absolutely no ones fault as to the why. But we have got to love them…these angels of the night and these dreamers of the day….

Why had I never taken time off from my job before? Because I was a workaholic. No, because I always thought I was needed too much. No, because my co workers would take over my job while I was gone. No, actually none of these were true because I was the boss. I owned my own company and was doing a pretty good job of increasing business each month to the point that I was now about to board a plane for a vacation/business trip to New Orleans to meet with an interested new investor that wanted to possibly merge our companies to become something even better and more advanced than what I was doing now. Taking my business to the next level my accountant had told me. I could be in the big leagues soon if I played my cards right she said.

So here I am pulling my new suitcase from Target, not my luggage for some hoity toity store because I was a small business owner and I did Target, not Neiman Marcus. Me and my pink Barbie suitcase I had so loving named Barbs,were heading to New Orleans to a meeting. I could not believe what a deal I had gotten on the Barbie markdown. I thought the movie had done better than that!

Boarding pass in one hand and the handle to Barbs in the other, we came face to face with the longest escalators I have ever encountered. This monstrosity had to be three story’s long and I wasn’t talking about the “once-upon-a-time” ones either. This thing went on for miles! We stepped on the first step and were whooshed off, ascending upwards at a speed that made my head so woozy that I found myself slumped over to the side of the traveling staircase of doom and poor Barb’s right wheel was grinding against the side, wearing away to a nub. My newest best girlfriend was now getting non-voluntary liposuction of one of her wheels and she did not look exactly please about it and I could only imagine what she would have been saying if she could!

As the escalator came to an end, Barbs and I stepped off and started to proceed to our gate. I looked down to see what the galumph, galumph, galumph, was and realized my new best friend, my Barbs, now limped as she rolled due to her wheel evisceration on the escalator. I felt sorry for her so I gently picked her up and carried her to the gate as if she were a small child tired of walking.

Now I knew, when I booked my flight that there could be some changes in the airlines and planes and ticket processes and such, but what I thought was going to be a middle of the plane seat, turned out to be the last seat on the plane…right next to the busiest area onboard of the illustrious puddle jumper of a plane, the restroom. I am not sure which was worse, the seats location or the lack of leg room as my knees rested firmly against the back of the seat before me. Plus the fact that the person in front of me kept flipping their hair over the back of the seat. And, I am not saying that the hair was not beautiful and wonderfully shaded, but when that person got up to visit the little room behind me! I was amazed that I was totally wrong about the gender of the person that was hidden under the tresses. It was a man! And one of the most gorgeous men I have ever seen outside of one of my romance novels!

I began to panic as he passed by me for several reasons. One was how did I look? Was I looking as frazzled as I thought? Was my makeup smeared from my journey to the gate? Oh my sweet baby Jesus, my hair was still piled up on top of my head like a squirrels nest! I quickly pulled the scrunchy from my hair and let it fall down as I shook it out as much as possible in my small area of a seat they lovingly call 53A. Second, Would I be able to hear him in the that little room directly behind me? I would die of embarrassment if I did. And lastly, why was my heart pounding like a school girl crushing on the quarterback at the senior prom?

I heard the lock being turned and I held my breath. With a smile on my lips, I looked up as he passed and turned to sit back in his seat in front of me. Our eyes met. He gave me a little smile as he said “your hair looks great down.” He then sat and off we flew through the sky.

After a short hour flight, we stood in a line to deplane. One hundred and seven people, he then I slowly stepped off the plane and headed to the luggage carousel. Should I speak to him? Should I make a joke? But it was when Barbs came around the carousel that I remembered my broken wheel and the walk of shame I would have to do if I brought more attention to myself. So, nothing was said as I reached over and pulled Barbs from the circle of luggage.

As I was walking through the terminal, Barbs doing her galumph, galumph, galumph, I kept my eyes lowered to the floor, trying not to think of the ordeal I had encountered on this day. This was my life. Always had been and always will be.

But what was that noise I heard behind me? It sounded like Barbs had met a friend. I heard the sound of a ca-lick, ca-lick, ca-lick and turned around to see Mr. Gorgeous from the seat in front of me pulling a piece of Transformer luggage and it, too, was having wheel issues. He looked at me and smiled the perfect smile and said “looks like Target must have been having a sale on luggage in your area as well! The escalator ate one of my wheels!”

We both started to laugh, and after a quick chat realized we were both headed for the same hotel so we shared a cab, Mr. Gorgeous, myself, Mr. Transformer and Barbs. Like four strangers that had washed up on a deserted island. How little did I know that we would all be great friends before this adventure was over!

For you see, the next day as I walked into my meeting with the new possible investor that my accountant had set me up with, there, sitting in that chair at the end of the conference room table was none other than Mr. Gorgeous himself! And now that a year has come and gone, I was once again boarding a plane, but this time I was holding the hand of my new husband as we headed off for our honeymoon/business trip to Las Vegas, where our new combined company was now being sought after by companies all over the world. Me, Mr. Gorgeous, Mr. Transformer, Barbs and a bunch of little luggage we loving call our Target Babies!

All because I was the girl in seat 53A!

Down south in Alabama, there is a place called Phenix City just on the eastern side of the state, so close to the edge that it mostly falls into the state of Georgia. So close that it is in the eastern time zone since most people that have the pleasure of living there work across the state line, so they elected to be on eastern time. Phenix City, has had its share of scandals and dark secrets throughout the years and the one that happened in 1953 was no exception.

Now this was a little before my time, but my mother has told me numerous times about the year that her sister, Mable, came to stay with us the summer of 1953. Why she was there was really never explained to me as a kid, but as I grew older, I put two and two together. Well actually it had been one and one because there was a rumor of a third coming in eight to nine months. 

The day Mable drove up in a taxi from Tuscaloosa, I remember the Coca-Cola thermometer on the porch said it was a sweltering 101 degrees and the humidity was so heavy that the sheets on the line had no chance to dry for a week. One thing about Mable, which I was told I absolutely could not call “Aunt Mable” because it made her feel old, was her blonde hair was her pride and joy. Mable was beautiful as I could see in all the old photographs that people had taken of her and her friends that seemed to always be around, especially on the weekends when Fort Benning, which was only 11 miles away, let the boys out for some leave. Her blonde hair and her “assets” made her a popular attraction to Phenix City. My mother said as long as Mable was around, we always had a supply of Coca-Colas in the fridge and cigarettes that my father would enjoy bumming off of the boys from the fort. 

It was about the third week in July that things started to change according to my Mamma. Mable woke in the middle of the night and lost her dinner in the bathroom. She was sickly the entire week and no matter how much she was persuaded to eat or drink something, she just could not keep anything down. My Mamma had her suspicions but did not let on, she said, because Mable was her younger sister and had told her plenty of times before, that she had to live her own life and she knew she had to live it to the fullest.

Now that was about the time that the number of Coca-Colas in the fridge began to shrink and my father decided it was time to cut back on the smoking. Seems the amount of friends that came to visit Mable from the fort began to taper off, well, all except one, that my Mamma said she just didn’t care for. But Mable wanted him around as much as possible. His name was William Edward Anderson, which after doing some investigation about him, I thought was a pretty distinguished name for someone to just chop it off to “Bill” 

Bill came around most every weekend, my Mamma said, and he and Mable would sit on the porch in the swing and talk for hours. The heat of summer seemed to take its toll on Mable. She was irritable, and as summer began to cool off in hopes of a cooler fall, Bill came by on Friday and announced that he was being sent to Korea to fight. Mable cried all weekend, and the weekend turned into a week and finally one day she stopped her tears. Just stopped and started living again, but she seemed to have a different “air” about her. 

Mamma told me that Mable started volunteering for the Red Cross and any other war related thing she could find to do to occupy her time until Bill came home. Mamma failed to let me know, but I could tell by the pictures that Mable was getting a lot fuller in figure than she once was and I thought when I was younger that maybe she just ate more cause she was worried about Bill. But I later learned she was getting fuller in figure because of Bill. Mable was “in that way” my Mamma told me. Looking back now, I smile because the word pregnant could not be said out loud. 

Now there were no Coca-Colas in the fridge and my father had all but stopped smoking. We had no visitors from Fort Bening anymore. Well, not until the day my Mamma opened the door when she heard a knock. Two officers from the fort came in the house looking grim. Mable just stood there as they delivered the news about Bill. It seemed William Edward Anderson, chopped down to “just Bill” was not coming to see Mable again. They turned and left after offering condolences and three people just stood there staring. My Mamma, my father and Mable.

Mamma finally decided to tell me everything after I had started to do some investigation into our family tree for a masters project. After I graduated from high school, I decided to go to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa where I stayed with my Aunt Mable. Yes, I called her that as years came and went. We became close the years I lived there. I always felt a special connection to her and after she passed, my Mamma decided to own up to the truth. 

Times were hard in 1953, especially for a single young mother and my Mamma and father, and Mable, decided that she could not raise a child alone especially when she lived where there was no family around. So Mamma took the baby and Mable left. She never came around much, my Mamma said, because it was hard for her to see her baby boy, knowing that she had done the best she could do. 

So here I stand beside her tombstone, my Mamma and me and father. I have tears in my eyes as I realize how lucky I was having two Mamma’s, one standing beside me and one watching over me, probably sipping a Coca-Cola in heaven. This was my summer of 1953…

Marvin~

“Red Rover, Red Rover, send Carley right over!” we cried as Carley turned loose of her classmates and ran like the devil himself was after her as she tried to break through our linked hands that were squished tightly together to try and keep her from breaking through and taking one of our team back to her side. My hands were sweaty and she headed right towards me! Dang! She grabbed my shirt and pulled me over to her side of the playground. I really didn’t mind since I was a little sweet on Carley and I think maybe she was a little sweet on me. But there was no way I would let my buddies find out that I had a girlfriend. They thought that stuff was all icky! So the nearest thing I could do was to hold Carley’s hand in the game of Red Rover…and dream and hope.

Jennifer~

She just thought she was SO smart and pretty with her red hair bobbing and waving as she ran towards Marvin. I hated Carley! I loved Marvin… well, I think I do, anyway. My mamma reads those romance books and leaves them laying around the house and I slip them into my room and ready them, or try to. Some of the words are hard and some of the thing they talk about, I really don’t understand. But all I know is my face gets red when Marvin looks at me and I just want him to kiss me. But Carley will not leave him alone and I am just too bashful to let him know my bosom heaves for him as my Mamma’s book says, whatever that means. So I’ll just let them play Red Rover as I look for someone to see saw with me. Not the fat kid, Willie, he would bump me over the see saw like he does every kid on the playground.

Max~

“What do you mean you are too scared to try and wrap your swing around the top by swinging high?” Paul was such a cry baby. Me? If there was only a way I could get my swing to wrap around and around the bar, it would be so awesome! But until I find a way to do that, I will just have to settle for swinging high and jumping out and hope I don’t get caught by teacher. Me and Paul were twins but you’d never know it. He was a scaredy cat, but me, I was the brave one of the family. I was always the one with scrapes and cuts and bruises. Paul, he was always clean and reading a book. Me and Willie were the kings of the playground, me because I was smart and Willie, because he was big and the other kids were afraid of him. That’s why I keep him as a friend, he was like my guard. Together, we rule the swings, the see saws and the monkey bars! 

Carley~

Marvin was the boy my daddy had been when he was young according to the stories he would tell me about when he was young. The best runner. The smartest in class. Just the best in everything he did, just like my daddy. I got my red hair from my daddy he tells me every day as he brushes it for me before school. Its one of my most favorite times of the day as I sit still in front of the mirror and he brushes my hair ever since my mom died. It’s just me and my daddy, and one day maybe Marvin will be my husband and he can live with us too. Marvin and me, we have a secret handshake so the other kids will not know how we like each other because they would tease us and sing “Carley and Marvin sitting in a tree” and I would just die of embarrassment. So me and Marvin, we’ll just keep on with our secret handshakes until the day we get married and he lives with me and daddy.

Willie~

I am sad. I am lonely. I am fat so no one wants me to play with them or picks me for their team, or be the other end of the see saw. My only friend is Max, but I’m not so sure he is really a friend. I think he just uses me cause I am big and the other kids are scared that I’ll hurt them. But I will take that cause I am all alone. I have been held back in school for two years. My teacher says its because I do not apply myself. Well, I don’t because then I would have to step out of the shadow of my self and I never want to get the attention. The fat kid that everyone watches. No, I’ll just be me and stay behind in school and probably in life as my grandma says almost daily. My ma and pa died when I was little and my grandma and me, well, we get by with the help from the Methodist Church Ladies Guild. Christmas and birthdays, I could always count on a little “something” from the guild. But that’s OK because one day, I’ll run away and join the circus and then my grandma will be better off not having to put up with me…cause I’m fat.

Teacher~

“Lord, where has the time gone?” I asked myself as I looked at my watch. Recess nearly over for another day and here I sit watching all these kids with their innocent dreams and hopes running and playing with not a care in the world. Just wait until they get to be adults and have to deal with a job and a family and bills and just life in general. That thought kills my spirit almost every waking moment of my day. Life, who needs it. You know Willie confided in me once that he planned to run away and join the circus. Maybe he wouldn’t mind if I joined him in the three rings of make believe. “Kids, it’s time to go in!” I bellowed after I blew the whistle I had been given when I became the teacher last year. “Ah, it’s too soon, just a little longer…” I heard as they began to line up to go back inside. We marched single file back towards the class. As I looked back to see if they were all there, I just happened to notice the playground. Swings still swinging in the breeze, see saws coming to a rest and what was once noisy from the kids was now soundless except for a faint sound of an owl…. “whooooo?”….. it seemed to be asking. I looked at my kids and thought to myself…“Us” as we faded away until recess tomorrow…

Alabama’s Maple Hill Cemetery in Huntsville has a children’s playground off in the trees of the final resting place of many a story no longer with us. People say that some of the stories may not be completely finished since it appears that recess may be held daily between the hours of 10 PM AND 3 AM when swings may sway and children’s laughter may be heard. If you listen closely, you may hear “Red Rover” whispered in the wind or the smell of circus peanuts where Willie made it to the circus…