A Dog and a Cat

All Sophia ever wanted to be was a dog. In her few short years on this earth she figured having a tail and four legs was the bee’s knees. Even her mom jokingly thought it was another milestone when Sophia ate her first bits of kibbles; she tried to turn Sophia’s interest into colors or the alphabet. To say Sophia’s peace she simply barked at her mother.
When it was feeding time for the family’s dog, Sophia would come to. Although she was too young to feed the dog herself, the dog was willing to share. Sophia would be on her hands and knees and lap up the dog’s water and eat up the kibble in their dog’s bowl.
One day there was a play date with a little boy and his mom who had just moved into the neighborhood. Since it had just snowed the children couldn’t play outside. Sophia’s mom and the little boy’s mom, who name was Thomas, simply vegged out and drank margaritas as their kids played.
Thomas had a pet obsession to. He loved his cat Thelonious, and constantly ate his fancy feast with a spoon. However, this fact wasn’t shared by Thomas’ mother because she wanted to make a good first impression with her new neighbor.
Sophia and Thomas watched TV, but then got bored. Sophia started eyeing the doggy door. Thomas noticed this.
“What are you doing?” Thomas asked.
“Have you ever wanted to have four legs and a tail?” Sophia inquired.
Thomas eyes lit up.
“Yes Yes I want to have four legs and a tail.”
Sophia listened in to her mom and Thomas’ mom who gossiping about their good-looking mailman. They both had their feed up and were wearing a sweat suit. Their eyes were glazed over, and they figured as long as the TV was on their kids would be out of their hair.
“Come here,” said Sophia, “let’s have a snack.”
Thomas got up on his feet, but Sophia when straight to her knees and hands.
“Like this.” Sophia said.
Thomas did so and the two slid their way to kitchen where Sophia’s dog’s bowl was. Occasionally Sophia yelped like a puppy. Thomas didn’t like that.
“I want to be a cat.” Thomas said.
He began to meow to pretend he was a cat.
“I don’t think dogs like cats.” Sophia said in-between bits of kibble who was imagining she was a dog.
Thomas went to the water bowl and started lapping up the water. Meanwhile the family dog was observing. He had a very confused look on his face, but he didn’t do anything.
The two children stopped indulging, and came to the conclusion that they were enemies, but they were pretending. Suddenly Sophia barked and Thomas hissed, and they crawled all over the kitchen pretending to fight.
Thomas who was getting the worse end of the deal noticed the doggy door. He crawled to it and since he was small in stature, he crawled right through it into the back yard. Sophia followed.
The back yard was muddy and had some puddles from the melted snow. It was so muddy that Sophia’s mom threatened her that if she took one step in the back yard she would have no more Elmo. The two stood on the back deck which was wet but not muddy.
They stood their barking and hissing as the mud in the back yard which was enticing them to come on like a toy store in the mall. It kept on calling and calling so much so that Sophia started forgetting about that puppets name. Sophia leaned forward and bit Thomas right on the back of the shoulder.
This scared Thomas and it hurt real badly. He ran off the deck into a huge mud puddle. Sophia followed and the two wrestled and scrirmmed and rolled and tumbled. They did this so much that the mud covered their clothes so you couldn’t see the image on their t-shirts.
The two moms that were inside heard this put down their third margarita and went to where they heard the squirmish. They went out the back door and saw what they thought was the end of their Margaretville.
“Sophia!” Sophia’s mom yelled.
“Thomas!” Thomas’ mom yelled.
The two children stopped and felt a wave of trouble coming their way. Sophia and Thomas stood up on their feet as the mud slid down their torsos. They were covered with the thick cold brownish mud.
The children got out and their respectable moms took them to be washed. Thomas’s mom took him home and Sophia’s mom took her upstairs for a bath.
They were life long friends after that.

5/10/11

It was my day to visit my kindergarden class. I didn't want to get out of bed. I had to make myself. The coffee helped.
I walked into the class and Life was already in trouble.
He yelled at the foster grandma. "Get your hands off me you old lady."
I wasn't there to see it but I had to force myself not to laugh.
Another thing that happened was that Ms. Cottan told the kids to tell me thank you. That meant alot.
Also there were my directions for the day on top of a board game.
This was new. I usually huffered around the class and looked for misbehavior (Idon't know how else to put it). Today I was encharge of station 2. Station 2 was suppose to play the board game.
In the note, Ms. Cottan wrote how the instructions were confusing that she made up her own. I familarized myself with her directions, the board, and the pieces of the game.
Then the students were asked to break into there teams. Life was crawling around on the floor. I told him to stop using the word please and he did so. He more often then not does what I tell him to do. He then went to station two where his group was.
There are about 13 students in this class. Gran it I am bad with names anyway but I only know the once that misbehave.The team leader of group two at station two is a beautiful smart girl. I don't know her name. She always wants to hold my hand. I still don't know her name. I feel so bad about this.
Charles was in this group to. He likes football more then he likes school which is fine. I try to tell him that if he wants to play football then he has to be good in school. It hasn't registered yet.
Anyway I did my best at explaining Ms. Cottan's rules to the group. I felt like they understood so they picked their pieces.
The pieces were different color.
The team leader went first then Charles,Victory,a girl who is painfully shy and quiet, and lastly Life.
I thought Life would have a problem with being last. Most of the kids in the class had a problem being last. Life didn't complain or anything.
When it was you turn to play, you were suppose to pick up a disk that had a letter on one side and a bug on the other. You say the letter then you have to think of a word that begins with that letter.
Charles had some trouble with this especially with the letter W so I whispered in his ear.
"Wagon."
Victory did fine. Next was the painfull shy and quiet girl. She picked up an O. She just sat there. Time went by. She just sat there.
The team leader asked her. "What lives in the ocean?"
"That's one right there." I said.
The team leader went over to me and whispered. "I meant octopus."
The quiet girl just shrugged her shoulders.
Why won't she talk.
I told the quiet girl that I was going to count to 5. Nothing happened and I took a long time counting too.
How can I help anyone if they don't talk?
Next was Life. He behaved himself got his letter said a word and rolled the die. It was perfect.
The game went on untill, Ms. Cottan told the class it was time for Mr. Moody's, who was another kindergarden teachers, surprise. Life got excited.
The class lined up and I followed then to Mr. Moody's class.
His class was infront of a rather larger screen.
I decided to leave after that after asking Ms. Cottan if I could go. She said I could.
Thinking out loud: LIfe needs more male role models in his life.
The quiet girl who drives me crazy should be friends with life. I want her to act up.
Victory is a good kid too. The reason I remember her name is because it is so cool

Ms. Elkins

red the color of her hair
added color to my confused
little world back then
i sat in the front of the class
to watch her hips
move from side to side
so gently
when she erased the black board

one day she caught
me staring
and just smiled back

recently
someone told me
she quit teaching
and got married
but even today
she is smiling
her hips
are moving
slowly
gently carefully
from side to side
just for me

This was published in Blindman's Rainbow in the Spring of 2002

THE BOSS
I sat in the most comfortable chair
supporting me like
a low hanging
cloud before
a spring rain

she was straddling me
arching her back slightly
when she took a drag from a cigarette

the ashtray was on my stomach
ashes were scattered
in my chest hair
from her lack of an aim

even after several attempts
to not blow
smoke in each others faces
our lips split
by gray slowly floating
to her ceiling
then disapearing

our filters
grippingly
disturbed
by the next time
we had
to put on an apron

Remembering Columbine- Taken from my book When we Were Young

The governor wrote a letter to all the schools warning them about taking troubled students seriously. Would I be considered a troubled student? I had been shaving my head for years. I liked wearing black, and I was considered a “quiet student.” Would that be enough to make me fit someone’s stereotype? Paranoia seemed all around me. There had been racial slurs spray painted on a brick wall at the school a few days earlier. Rumor had it that one of the black students was so upset when he saw the “writing on the wall,” that he punched the first white kid he saw. Like Columbine, my school was made up of many subcultures, each with its own identity. I didn’t think my school would be shot up, but I was scared of being suspended for no reason. My government teacher said it was a form of McCarthyism. These events were not what I was expecting during my last year of high school.
Part of me enjoyed the tension. We talked about the event in class. The kids who otherwise stayed quiet gave their insights without fear of being ridiculed by the so-called perfect kids, who acted like victims. Several of us felt empathy towards the situation, even though we thought using a gun was stupid. For many, high school was a place where you were put in your place, and most people I knew didn’t like their place or thought there had to be something better.
The kids who wore black trench coats were asked to take them off. They also bummed cigarettes from me. We got into debates about which was cooler, guns or swords. They chose swords.

Night Drive

huffer over the high beams, hiding the stars
go through the greens
look around at the reds
wonder what they're thinking
Brake lights aren't your friend
feel high
why rush when you're so close to the moon's faces
she's accepting and wants to talk
her voice caresses you
like the breeze you feel
with the window down
call phones aren't
ringing on your mind
tranquil desires
racing friendships
only to come home
inspired
by your prime
(whenever that was)
dotted line comes complete
as you sign by the X
to buy cigarettes
tongue feels dry
sweet tea in the fridge
look over the ledge
as you are in tranced by
the glow of street lamps

Jazz Night

JAZZ NIGHT

Friday night and the blues led you to Meadow and Broad Street for the constant lover of live music with the Jazz and blues. Maybe another story in Richmond that encompassed a hard workweek. Maybe an escape that can be heard and tasted through the taps and the muse.
It was a second home for me when I was nineteen. This was back when the cover was three dollars instead of four, and the red white and blue shine by beer cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. I revisited this old hangout after an honorable discharged from the U.S. Army. Another soldier in transition during unemployment through troubled times of war and a depleting economy. The hard stuff set passively on shelves to be sipped or gulped.
The dim lighted corner bar could be seen as a night oasis for fine dining. Although management had changed hands, jazz night always prevailed. A driver or passer by could sit at the bar or find a table or booth which would be a pleasant resting-place for a shelter from the cold of Richmond. Serving the customer despite the packed bar and there was an excellent chef , two bartenders, and a wait staff.
I was sitting at the bar when she came to sit beside me. She was one of the featured jazz vocalist of the evening, but she would have corrected you by saying her style was more blues with a little bit of jazz if asked.
Her name was Miss Lady E., and she had been singing there for about eight years. Her lively hood consisted of working at the hospital with a degree in mental health. Immediately, when she sat down her drinks were served, and she knew the bartenders and owners by name. The whole place started to fill at around 9:30pm while she was talking to me.
“The last time I sang. I was 13, and you don’t say the blue you sing the blues.”
She was there every Friday as she went into her personal view singing the blues.
Her son was in the military in the 236th. His occupation was in transportation, she told me. He was in the first gulf war, and when he was over there she couldn’t sleep at all. Miss. Lady E. said she was always beside a TV. He later died during his time of service, creating a time of depression. Although that was her field of study in college the skills didn’t help to release some of the pain as good as singing.
The band was still setting up, the conga drums were set, and the drummer brought in his cymbals. That night there was at the start of the evening a tenor and alto saxophone, electric bass, piano, drums congas, and chimes.
The tenor saxophone player stood up at the mic next to the alto who I had never seen before. He had long hair and a cowboy hat, and he was going up and down the scales. As the tenor, whose name was Doc, made sure everything was ready for the nights show.
The booths were starting to fill as the keyboardist and drummer quickly found out there was hardly any elbowroom. The beats and melody erupted the cramp space as the first song rose to the ceilings. The altos tone was perfect, but this listener might have misjudged his playing at the beginning of the evening. I was quickly proven wrong as the solo dropped my jaw proving himself as an equal on stage. Silk fingers quickly smoked the keys as a slapping bass took the place under siege. The traffic lights outside occasionally shined green and red as the jazzman at the keys called the shots for the second number.
The tenor player had another solo, and I had been there enough times to know the solos or at least a few. He usually played Old McDonald, the farmer and the dale while ending with shave and a hair cut. Then the alto came on howling with the snare and the toms of the drum set. The electric bass joined with harmony. The randomness began dancing in two groups. As this point of the night it was what ever moves you for January 21 2005. It was cramped anyway used just for the wait staff to serve the paying customers some how there was still enough room to dance. As the new girl from the street ventures in the men at then bar paused at the sent of her perfume. Even the aristocrats the businessmen the high dollar high roller cliental would say it was better then the boos.
The percussion and drums shook that lucky ladies hips, and it kept them clapping for more. Another alto saxophone’s echo throughout the streets beyond 7-11 and the medians. The trumpet player came in late but ventured into the set without losing a beat.
Ladora or “Roe,” was called to the mic for her version of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird.’ Her voice projected delivering more fulfilled spirits then what was served at the bar. Miss Lady E. gave her a standing ’O. Her song ended with the place in a saturated perfume and boos euphoria.
The man at the keys with the same silky smooth fingers caressing the bar already ambushed by the bassist. Another version of Summertime was sung as the cold howled at the windows. The trumpet player triggered the boom for another solo by a new Tenor pushing through like a fret train. The horns were handled like a woman through the “woes and the baggage.”
The pick me up touch the crowd for another Friday night of jazz serenading the city limits of Richmond. I decided to pay my bar tab as Bush preached against bigotry on the TV during a review of the inauguration. Hard times for many I was two dollars shy from paying my bar tab. As Miss lady E. was singing several people folded dollars in her pockets. She didn’t know what to make of that as she came back to sit down beside me. I was still thumbing through my wallet as she recognized the problem.
After applying for about twenty jobs and the honorable discharged I was reduced to this embracement. But Miss Lady E. one of the featured vocalist handed it over as if it was nothing. I said. “Thank you.”
I thoughtfully slid it across to the bartender. The blues was still lingering when I left and it would be there when we got back.