1986
My sister and her husband called Wednesday and told me Dad had
molested their daughter. Over the weekend. At his house. He was
babysitting her. Another sister told them the previous week that they
should be concerned because Dad had fondled her from seven until she
left home at seventeen.
The four-year-old. . . pain, pediatrician, abrasion, evidence. By law, the
doctor filed a report. My sister . . . he put his pinkie in her, he had her
hold his penis, something thick, like toothpaste, came out. It’s what play
therapy revealed. Pedophiliac. I never knew the word before.
1987
Our father pleaded no contest on two counts of child molestation against
his granddaughter. There will not be a jury trial. We are relieved.…
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“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
― Oscar Wilde
Fear.
You start at the carousel on the first day of your working summer. She’s a big old girl—more than twenty pounds of metal perpetually rusting since the sixties, a mass of carefully crafted boards screwed to her sides. You’ve lived in the same town since you were five years old, rode the carousel since six and still you find her beautiful. And now the conductor is you, a girl in a headband and ponytail combo with a t-shirt that hugs all your unflattering curves. The conductor is you and the button you press, bright green with potential.
It’s the first day of your working summer and the crowds are non-existent.…
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“And that is this, and this with thee remains” – Shakespeare, Sonnet 74.
“Harold Michaelis.” Dad answers. I can see him standing there. Probably no clothes, gaunt, perfectly groomed.
“Pop, it’s me.” I say.
“Stanley!” He calls to Mom. “Honey, it’s Stanley!”
“I have that financial rundown. We can talk about it.”
“Sure, anytime.” He says. “Are Sandra and the kids coming?”
“Not this time. We would never get around to business. Thought we could come over Sunday after church.”
“Perfect. You are on your way now?”
“Yes, I’m almost there.”
“Perfect.” He says again.
“And Pop,” I add. “Pants for everyone. Tell Freddie and Moonglow.” They being my older brother and his live-in.
“If you insist.” He says.
I hang up. I can see him going to tell Mom.…
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The Eastern Equine Encephalitis Virus:
4 people in Massachusetts have died this summer,
and the area of high alert inches closer.
Each day we read, cuddle, ingest
and expel fluids, read poems, and cry.
I teach him about our indoor plants:
irisine, philodendron, echeveria, anthurium.
He likes to look out the window.
We stay inside the house.
Outside, cherry tomatoes split
their skins, slip to the ground,
and succumb to birds and earth.
All the bruschetta we did not eat this year.
I can’t wait until hard frost,
when mosquitos die in droves
and we lord over the streets like animals.
…
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Something like a song or a siren interferes with your journey, and you lift your head to squint at the red numbers on the other side of the room. While you are absolutely certain that the first is a seven, you can’t tell if the second is a three or a five. You’re inclined to take your chances on the three, to grant yourself permission to fall back down into your pillow, so you can find out where in the world you were headed with the Chinese broadsword, the potato masher, and the little blue wagon, but you haul your ass out of bed, nonetheless.
After you’ve showered and dressed for walking-around-in-feels-like-winter weather, you descend the stairs into an invisible fog that smells like bacon. Your husband greets you with an extra-large, decaf coffee that he’s poured into a thermal travel cup.…
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Within the first ten seconds of You Won’t Be Alone, an intriguing-enough sounding movie with Noomi Rapace concerning a witch in Macedonia, a cat is eaten alive by some creature off-screen. I didn’t find out what the creature was because I turned off the movie after listening to its little bones get pulverized in the monster’s maw.
And ya know? I’m fucking tired of watching cats die in movies.
It feels like this piece has been a long time comin’.
On-screen cat deaths are usually a punchline, a mistake, or the product of a sadist’s gruesome machination. They are the animal equivalent of the dead prostitute who is merely a stepping-stone to catching “the killer”.
In Dogtooth, a criminally sheltered teenager stabs a cat to death with a pair of garden shears because his father told him they are evil.…
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The bus stop was barren minus this old white guy with a patchy beard and an orange beanie. He had a big bag of pretzels between his feet, and a jar of peanut butter nestled into the crook of his elbow. He was scooping hulking chunks of peanut butter onto the pretzels and inhaling them in one bite. They weren’t small pretzels. Which is to say he was taking some big bites.
“Mind if I sit?” I gestured to the opposite end of the bench. He nodded. I left enough room for a moderately obese man-spreader. As I sat I felt something squishy press against my butt cheek. I thought I might’ve shat myself, but it was just the bag of mushrooms in my back pocket.…
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