The following novel from beginning to end is a total work of fiction.
She never got lost in the forest. Every tree had a special marking, and the direction of their shadows were like arrows, and the ground was a sculpture that told the story of her movements in its carving. The flowers still hadn’t blossomed back, still shivering, squirming in the ground, yet Robins and bluejays were singing about their recent vacations. Spring break opened like a forest gate. She took off in her white Mary Janes and hunted for ladybugs until the tight shoes made her feet sore.
She ran beneath, around, side to side. Up wooded hill, down wooded dell. She danced with the curvature of the earth, hopping over the roots and stones. Climbing, leaning over a precipice, letting gravity swing her towards the edge of a baby cliff, about to body slam the floor below, She swept her feet in front of her fall at the last second. In the mountains, in the trees, the wind the air waved under her flapping arms. a light sweat glazed her forehead.
She’d run twisters and circles around the wind, and when she didn’t she languished aside logs and puddles. The wind cozily carried her away to animal kingdom dreams that gave her every idea. Ideas that grew like freckles, and stained like dirt. Her shoes had turned black. She walked back to her house with the trees in her lungs and the sky in her hair and the lungs in her sky and the hair in her trees.
Upon spotting her, mother called her “name”. “Do the Dishes!”
The house was barren on the outside. The paint that said “Carter” on their mailbox had nearly faded off like a sunburnt car but the postman knew everyone’s address. The mailbox stood at the bottom of a hill, next to the metal trashcans. There was a jallape parked askew to the incline so as not to roll off. There was still an old dinner bell that used to not be a dinner bell. The house used to be part of a tobacco plantation. Mother’s parents, Mr and Mrs Carter, lived on the other hill. From this place the view of their house was about two black eyed peas, or a fifty cent coin tall.
Mother stood on the porch smoking. Mother’s cigarettes were her favorite work of art, the smoke, the meditative breathing, the glow that crinkled like a reverse blooming flower, and especially, their vanishing act. No matter how hard she tried to relax, she tried harder to look as elegant as the twisting plume between her fingertips. She stood straight up, leaning forward against the wooden beam railing, elbows tucked at her sides, bony hands poised. Her coiled air was something of awe and… askewdness.
When she reached the door, mother stopped her. “Jenny, you’re filthy” she sniffed. “And you reak! Wash yourself with the hose and do not step on this wood unless your shoes are spotless.” She was all but bending down to take Jenny’s shoes off of her feet before Jenny could rethink approaching the house. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you ruined them. I’m not letting you take the bus anymore if you’re going to keep doing this.” She stripped her socks off to leave on the porch.
Jenny knew how to walk barefoot on old rotting porch wood without getting splinters. She dried off with clean rags and put on a striped, peter-pan-collared, cotton button up and floral skirt. They were stiff with starch.
She dozed over the sink. They had just moved in from town after mom lost her job. Jenny was too much work for one woman. It was nicer and cheaper out here anyway, just more bugs, but more of everything else she liked. There were horses a few miles in between here and town. They both had bigger hopes than the two story whitewashed outhouse though. Rosalyn, Jenny’s mom would say ‘One day, we’ll move to a new house, castles in heaven, we’ll wear jewels and crowns. Keep a string bow on your finger and we’ll be there before the blood swells around the knot, I just have to find somebody to tie the knot with,’
Mother let her handle the glass ever since she was seven. Jenny never broke anything unless it was on purpose. Mother didn’t drink tea so at age eight Jenny Carter got to play with her grandparent’s wedding tea set. Jenny didn’t like to play with anything else that wasn’t hers, the gold leaf tea set was the only ornate thing in the house.
Finally, done.
Jenny was planning an opening ceremony for the first evening of spring break.
Her stuffed animals marched in a parade, her dolls performed gymnastics, flipping and cartwheeling off the mountain of her bed. Many of her things were made by Minnie, or were passed down from her mother. Many of those things were tucked away in a closet and she’d act like she had nothing to play with. She didn’t want to play with decoupaged woodblock farm animal puzzle pieces, with the red barn, the black and white dairy cows, and who would want to play with a piece of wood that looked like corn?
There were more alluring scenes to design. There were fake trees throughout the house in rubber buckets. She took one from next to the couch, dragged it up the stairs and turned her room into a jungle. Her tattered scarlet macaw had a puppet hole so you could stuff your hand up it’s butt, all the way up it’s throat to talk. “Welcome to the 1968 Ooooooooolympics!” He squawked.
“Jenny! it’s going to rain tomorrow and the trash comes Sunday, can you take the trash out? Your shoes aren’t dry yet so you’ll have to wear my boots.” (that wasn’t a question, that was an order)
Rosalyn Carter’s routine flowed until Jenny began to have a personality of her own. She was both quiet and demanding at the same time. That cursed mixture! If she didn’t like something, she would barely cry. She’d more often stick out her tongue or toss her head away from Rosalyn. It spited her even more. As Jenny grew older, she somehow needed more and more attention rather than less and less. She was talking by two and asking strangely thoughtful questions by three through four “Why do things cost money?” “Why can’t we have berries all year?”, then asking damning ones by five. “Why do we need the sun?” “Why can’t we see God?” “Where is he?” “How come he’s nice to some people and not others when they did nothing wrong?” She asked these questions with enormous round eyes. They were black. They had no hue to them, but they conducted light like a bottomless pit beneath a glass dome in such a way that it startled people.
At the age of five, Rosalyn thought it safe to tell her about the devil and heaven and hell. Heaven was where we could have berries and ice cream all year, where we don’t need the sun because God would be our light, and he is always always good but the devil has control over the earth and of hell. Of course Jenny had already been saved from hell from asking Jesus into her heart at age four. She had told her mommy she wanted her help, so Rosalyn took her into her big beige bedroom with her dust colored bed and had her kneel down at it’s side and beg for forgiveness.
“Say ‘I know I’m a sinner’”
“I know I’m a sinner.”
“And you sent your son.”
“and you sent your son.”
“To die for my sins.”
“To die for my sins.”
“So that we can live forever in heaven.”
“So that we can live forever in heaven.”
Her mother beamed with affection that day.
Jenny became much more quiet after that. (around her mother at least)
When her daughter wiped her gravel covered boots on the scratchy welcome mat and burst through the door, Rosalyn theorized getting her a second pair of shoes but what kind? Jenny practically did nothing but attend school and church and roam wild.
After finally finally settling down for the night, Jenny tucked herself in with her stuffed animals. She kissed everyone of them goodnight. “Goodnight Cloud.” she squeezed her black and white horse and while holding her, fell into a dizzying dream about a maze in a snow globe she couldn’t fully remember when she woke up.
Rainy Saturday mornings hosted the first event of the children’s Olympic games: the cartoons. The stunts, the sports, the deadliness, the you know. Rainy Saturday mornings meant the carpet would get warm, the eyes would burn, and the brain would be seared frozen. This was the camp fire where the elders would impart their Loony knowledge onto kids. You know…
“Get in the car, we have to go get groceries,” said Mom.
There was no such thing in the world as cars. Only the metal framed atmosphere controlled air that Jenny sat as passenger waiting to get to nowhere of particular importance. Her eyes ran over the meadows that zoomed by, but her eyes couldn’t run outwards, into the meadows, the sheltering trees blanketed by the clouds, and the flying wind. There were secrets in every patch of grass, the secret cathedrals of ant hills, the secret cloisters of foxes, the secret towers of owls. She wanted to live with them. They pulled into town.
“No, last time you had your own cart I lost sight of you.”
Sleet fell down on them outside of the market. There were several people standing, in the cold and wet. There was a police officer standing in front of the black people. Jenny had never seen so many black people in one place.
“Mom, what’s wrong? What are they upset about?”
“Nothing.”
She could see the people’s faces. They didn’t look angry or hopeless, but intensely displeased as if they were only held back by some meaningless fluke. “Are they trying to get inside?”
“They’re not coming inside, just don’t talk about it.”
“Why not?”
There were several people standing outside, in the cold and wet. There were several police officers standing in front of the black people. Jenny had never seen so many police officers in one place.
“Let’s go.” Holding Jenny’s hand, Rosalyn began to turn Jenny around towards the doors, a cop tipped his hat at them.
Jenny didn’t move even when her mother was pulling on her hand “Mommy, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Jenny.”
She could see the people’s faces. They looked more than angry, they looked upset. Something serious was going on.
“Just ignore it, it’s fine.”
“But,”
Her mother told her again that she didn’t understand things and that her mother knew better, so just listen to what she said. She said that about everything. Even in the grocery store, she kept giving Jenny reason this and that.
Just as they entered, a beetle eyed woman drawled a tart “Rosalyn, thank goodness you’re here.” She tucked a handkerchief she had just sniffed into deep in her blouse collar.
“What’s the matter?”
She snorted contemptuously "It doesn’t matter now, the police handled it. Some low life was caught stealing fruit.”
“Ohhh now all the kids pluck strawberries out of the baskets.”
“Rosalyn you don’t know half as much as you think you do. That kid-
“Please Tabitha, I have shopping to do, I don’t have time for peanut circuses.”
To Jenny’s surprise, Tabitha snickered “Uh-huh, that’s what they are alright.” Usually people like Tabitha fumed when they were interrupted. Mother had a disarming smile and was great at reducing things to zero. The two women nodded at each other and parted. Mom was very good at avoiding situations. In one move, she patted her heat-less curled hair in case it had gathered frizz from the rain and chided Jenny. “You’re too big for the cart seat, you know that.”
“I can still sit in the basket.”
“That’s where the groceries go, you also know that.”
A milestone. Surely this meant more independence.
“I don’t want to go to the grocery store anymore.”
“You’re too young to be left alone. What if you started a fire?”
“Why would I do that?”
“What if you fell? What if you cut yourself with a knife- I’m not gonna list all of the things that could happen to you. I know better than you alright?”
“But… okay”
“Just come on Jenny.” One part of her life of chauffeur-ship had ended.
There were no such things as grocery stores or groceries, just the fuzzy glaring hallways of cardboard boxes of tangerine, vermillion, and navy blue labels in all caps and often exclamation points. Beans, Broths, Rice, Grits, Raisins, Campbell, Heinz, Oscar Meiyer. Even those barely existed, just the flavors that entered her mouth at the dinner table after a patient day of being chauffeured. Passive magic. Her mother didn’t look Hollywood, but equally stellar, when she hunted cleverly for bargains. Her eyes glowed with their reflection of the blaring lights no matter if it was a drug store, filling station, or apparel store. Jenny watched these brief glints, the only things that really existed in her eyesight.
“You know, you could start staying with Minnie and Pops, they’ll be happy to have you play with them.”
Jenny’s eyes ran over the meadows that zoomed by, but her eyes couldn’t run outwards. Outwards and away. Birds fled, the water on the ends of the streets fled, but the trees were trapped, and the rest of the world remained pressure controlled to stay put.
Beautifully descriptive as always. Since I read this this morning I've not been able to shift the image from my mind of sunburnt cars and ants worshipping at their cathedrals.
Really good flow, and the character essence is really captured in the snippets of interactions. Even just the way the mother smokes her cigarette. Very good.
One tiny little thing to possibly think about is the way the name Rosalyn was first introduced to the reader. But that's entirely for you to think about or not think about.
Great story, thanks for sharing!