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| In the ways of Steve, bad is in the key of cowards... |
I like the slastratten when it's fresh and playing from flat speakers. There in that moment, it sounds like fuzz rolling over some fat Mayor's sleeve. My record player is old as my sister and as orange as plastic. It sits on my desk with a bowl of shells and odd bits I found in the field behind my school. I like to sit here and listen to the record player go or to read something from one of my shelves. Really, no one could be happier. No one could like being inside as much as I do. But if someone did, then it must have been in '66 when they first read, The Way Home from Mars.
They two of them were lost. They needed help before they could make a difference and Buzz, The Ultimate Johnson was going to set them straight. "This is a democracy for leaders Mary Mac," he said, his eyes glinting. "There'll be no lip gloss where we're going."My ball glove is on the bed beside me. The leather smells warm and fragrant. It rained earlier, so dad called our usual game.
A Gainsborough hangs over my desk, it's all tobacco and cool silk. In the late afternoon light, my hatred for horses and spindly ankles is its gloss. Mom likes that kind of stuff, it's how she met dad.
"I know it won't be easy Mary." There's was a knock, it's followed by my Mom saying, "Dinner in ten."
"Now where's that button?"
"Oh, that button has to be here Buzz. It just has to be."
Clifford Humson was 42 when he wrote The Way Home from Mars. Living in Saratoga Springs, in a cottage at the edge end of a short gravel road. Humson shared most its talking parts with his dog, Walter. They rode around in a Ford truck that he named Mary. Together they improvised dialogue and shared the secrets of a broken economy. Last spring, I bought that truck from his nephew, Walter the dog died years earlier.
"Your bed's too yellow Mary. We can't have that, can we."
"But it's only just yellow, Buzz."
"Casserole with cream cheese again Mom..." Monday's are macaroni and something nights, I've always hated something. On the table, there's wine in a jug and the cold beer is in the fridge. Dad buys ice cream but then leaves it in the car. No one ever goes hungry, but no one really gets what they want, either. Dad's a chronic plumber and master of lawns. He makes things after they've fallen apart. He has soft pockets and slow eyes that find the sadness in things too easily.
I dogear my page and then tuck the book under my pillow. The old cotton sheets are cool and worn. Each of us has our own room in the big house at the end of the street. Each of sleeps softly under sweep of the moon in the vastness of the treasonous west.
My Mom makes curtains and sometimes watches us kids during the day. But if she get's overcome, Mom will have some laudanum and take a sweaty nap in the attic. "I like wet babies," she'll say. "All the babies are welcome. All the babies can stay over when it rains." Then she'll laugh until she starts to cry.
"One day, one day I'll know how everything ends."
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