It Don't Mean a Thing
By Tom Andrews
“I do believe I am just gonna’ sit here and swing in this porch swing all day long,” Charlotte said to no one in particular, but hoping that her son Paul would hear it. She was tired – tired like those damned lead weights were around her ankles again, pulling her down, down, down into something like a lake of glue. If she had less presence of mind, she would holler and holler but good, she thought. That damned Paul, that curly hair of his and his misshapen moustache that she wanted to shave off. Slip some ether or some chloroform or whatever it is that makes you fall asleep…slip some of that into a handkerchief and hold it over his puffy lips while he sat at the dinner table making noises with his soup. Put him hard and fast asleep and shave that damned ugly moustache right off his face.
“Mom, can you move your car? I gotta’ get my clubs into the trunk.”
Paul was always bothering me, Charlotte thought. Since his father died he was always so callous, so rude. Right after she shaved the moustache off she would have to take some sandpaper to his back. Rub it so damned hard, thought Charlotte…I carried you for nine sweaty months, I nursed you and cleaned crap out of your diapers. Now I have to move my car so you can load those golf clubs into the car your father’s insurance settlement bought for you, you damned ingrate.
“Dear, I am so tired, and I would like to rest a bit in the porch swing here…” Charlotte called back. Yeah, the first hot shower after a healthy back-sanding will teach you a lesson, you little insect.
Paul just huffed and puffed and made grumbling noises out in the garage. That big, greasy school teacher with more hair than he knew what to do with (and half of it growing in vast, vast tufts all over the fatty, pimply back that his mother so longed to sand)…that big greasy school teacher rubbed his moustache, pressing it to his face and feeling sweat trickle out of it, kind of like pressing a damp sponge against a piece of raw pork. The moustache yielded up its salty juice and Paul licked it greedily from his upper lip. He swallowed, and swallowed hard. Steadily and with determination he approached the grand front porch of their grand old home, on that grand old street in that grand old Midwestern town.
“Mom,” Paul blurted, his lips trembling and his voice shaking under a heady cocktail of fear, excitement and the adrenalin that would later loosen his bowels on the 8th fairway, “you know what we’re like? We’ve always been like the Addams Family, only not as happy.”
“My darling Paul,” said Charlotte, looking tenderly into her son’s watery eyes, “you are just like your father. Now do go get me that package of sandpaper from the shelf in the garage, would you, dear?”
- - -
Tom Andrews (not his real name, for the love of God) brews his coffee in a 1938 percolator and drinks it black. He writes, he reads, he gets bit in the calf - living as he does with two deaf, blind Australian Shepherds in the urban wilds of Illinois.
By Tom Andrews
“I do believe I am just gonna’ sit here and swing in this porch swing all day long,” Charlotte said to no one in particular, but hoping that her son Paul would hear it. She was tired – tired like those damned lead weights were around her ankles again, pulling her down, down, down into something like a lake of glue. If she had less presence of mind, she would holler and holler but good, she thought. That damned Paul, that curly hair of his and his misshapen moustache that she wanted to shave off. Slip some ether or some chloroform or whatever it is that makes you fall asleep…slip some of that into a handkerchief and hold it over his puffy lips while he sat at the dinner table making noises with his soup. Put him hard and fast asleep and shave that damned ugly moustache right off his face.
“Mom, can you move your car? I gotta’ get my clubs into the trunk.”
Paul was always bothering me, Charlotte thought. Since his father died he was always so callous, so rude. Right after she shaved the moustache off she would have to take some sandpaper to his back. Rub it so damned hard, thought Charlotte…I carried you for nine sweaty months, I nursed you and cleaned crap out of your diapers. Now I have to move my car so you can load those golf clubs into the car your father’s insurance settlement bought for you, you damned ingrate.
“Dear, I am so tired, and I would like to rest a bit in the porch swing here…” Charlotte called back. Yeah, the first hot shower after a healthy back-sanding will teach you a lesson, you little insect.
Paul just huffed and puffed and made grumbling noises out in the garage. That big, greasy school teacher with more hair than he knew what to do with (and half of it growing in vast, vast tufts all over the fatty, pimply back that his mother so longed to sand)…that big greasy school teacher rubbed his moustache, pressing it to his face and feeling sweat trickle out of it, kind of like pressing a damp sponge against a piece of raw pork. The moustache yielded up its salty juice and Paul licked it greedily from his upper lip. He swallowed, and swallowed hard. Steadily and with determination he approached the grand front porch of their grand old home, on that grand old street in that grand old Midwestern town.
“Mom,” Paul blurted, his lips trembling and his voice shaking under a heady cocktail of fear, excitement and the adrenalin that would later loosen his bowels on the 8th fairway, “you know what we’re like? We’ve always been like the Addams Family, only not as happy.”
“My darling Paul,” said Charlotte, looking tenderly into her son’s watery eyes, “you are just like your father. Now do go get me that package of sandpaper from the shelf in the garage, would you, dear?”
- - -
Tom Andrews (not his real name, for the love of God) brews his coffee in a 1938 percolator and drinks it black. He writes, he reads, he gets bit in the calf - living as he does with two deaf, blind Australian Shepherds in the urban wilds of Illinois.
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Interesting story and i was happy to read this article.