Losing Your Tongue

Losing Your Tongue

Ici je raconte la soif des livres cracquelés, je pronounce les silences riches d’émotions contenues dans chaque cellule désséchée. C’est ainsi que je retrace les voyages internisés sous ciel torride.

This is how we lose our mother tongue; that first language to tease our seat of knowledge. I lost my own bearings in the sand, one word at a time, and with it, the cultural difference it carried. The mental map folded and creased by cold letters from ‘home’. The names of objects which I found in new surroundings replaced accurate adjectives which I no longer used. This is how devolution of elocution came upon me, rapidly dropping onto the arid soil of the new places. So I spoke faster to mask the sense of loss. I learned every word in the context of found books and discarded papers. I avidly read every word of advertisement, front to back and again. The winds blew all perception as I grieved a part of self whom I had ill known.

If language is the vehicle of cultural identity, I became a split personality the day I decided to leave my birthplace. Romantic notions aside, I divested myself of a heavy mantle of propriety and gradually took on an assumed personae who spoke the words of miners and vagrants that inhabited the western desert. With every name of a rock and each tool of the trade, I discarded years of experience in both rural and urban way of French life, like sand dropped from my pockets, and disseminated in dunes forevermore.

In retrospect, a youth spent between a rigid city education during school, and hard labor at vacation time in my ancestral village, had previously prepared me for dual adaptation; as if I had been plugged into different circuits all along. I had already suffered the innate clan mentality which ostracizes others and excludes them from pleasant conversation. Family stared and sneered at me each time I used correct language in daily speech. Little ‘City girl me’ spoke Latin and whatever other “things” she learned there. On the other side of the cultural divide; upon my return to the renaissance hilltop of ancient knowledge ‘Country me’ was severely chastised for using spontaneous expressions in the Patois dialect of my ancestors. Every holiday was an exercise in Cartesian discipline, as much as I favored the satisfaction of learning, I felt a strange attachment for the simpler expression of my country folk. No time to use fancy phrases between chores. Three little words and turn around. I thrived there, for awhile.

The thirst for expanded knowledge would always stir, anywhere, and with it, the hunt for communication. Books were my primary source of American English; they were left as gifts, offered by temporary anonymous residents in the abandoned shacks which pepper the far landscape of the Great Basin. All I had to do was to find material before the pack-

rats did. From partially chewed newsprint to pristine Vonnegut, I ended up talking like an old Reader’s Digest magazine, and had the sense of humor of a third grader. It was easy to make me laugh, everything seemed somewhat funny to me.

“You’ll never be one of us” said the miner to me. Neither budging nor twitching, I felt a tear welling at the tip of my lashes, so I turned silently and felt the man’s hand hovering close to my shoulder. He hesitated and bent his head whispering “I don’t mean it like that”. I knew what he meant, but that was the last act of separation for the isolated woman I had become. The desert had become its own dimension between past and present. That unassuming man had given some food to our little family, he had provided water and blankets; probably because somewhere, he had children and a wife who would not live on the desert floor. His gestures, as those of other miners spoke of the division. “That is not bad – really - you don’t want to become like us out here” he added twisting his rough hands, I consoled him with a dismissive “I understand”. (No, I did not!) I was bent on chameleonizing my adoptive environment. Not to fit in, but to live in.

When the children were of school age, I was summoned to the office and severely admonished for speaking our language to them. I was told that I was confusing the children, and they were confusing the class therefore I should immediately stop. That was another snip of the cultural scissor, a surgical strike precisely delivered to my insecure seat of emotions. The fear of deportation looming as I feared they (whoever they were) would find out that we had no utilities, a public sin far worse than difference of language. I had been told that my children and I would be cleaved asunder if the authorities found that cold water and candles were inadequate situations to raise little Americans.

I reluctantly taught mostly flat English and kept the French for bonding chores only; ‘va te laver les mains - fait la vaisselle - et tes chaussures’ the daily commands of a quasi normal life. So we carried our water in jugs for miles and cooked on makeshift grills over deadwood embers. Life tasted good in any language. And the kids could generally read, write and count before teachers got ‘a’hold of their brains too. Sand is the ideal write –erase board, and twigs abound in nature. What is love for?

It was in Tecopa California that I realized that I had gained some track on the runaway train of language. I met a lady at the local Post Office who invited me to her local home extension of the Inyo-Kern library. For the next few months I read much of the little shelf full of donated serious literature and even perused saccharine romance before dutifully returning each and moving on. I no longer groped for new words whenever I encountered rare prospectors or geology students along our daily food foraging in Death Valley, but when I arrived at whatever hovel or cave I called home, the walls closed in on the fact that I was alone (with three small children) and my mind spoke no French. Even my dreams resisted the old language; they were now silent movies, gesticulating on an ethereal theater within. No color, no odor, I was dead to the old world for several years.

Societal scissors had severed the cords. I had chosen not to mend the wounds; perhaps to protect the family unit, or was it to forget the pains carried by my first language, my first life.

From the Ground Up

From the Ground Up

Sometimes they fill the air with noise, as if they were lonely. They fret with little black things, peering above toward the loud boxes, transfixed as if a mouse was about to dart from them. They must really need practice as I always find one or the other sitting by those gadgets.

They pollute the whole house with odious odors from cans that spit clouds of offensive junk. I do wonder what they believe they will kill with those. They miss the worst and target the best. The carpets are littered with crunchy tidbits and parts of rolly pollies or crickets, but that one wasp is still trying to escape through the blinds, and the fleas are multiplying for the end of this crazy world.

Well, the roaches will eventually inherit the leftovers from the looks of the compost or whatever that mound is in the corner of the yard. I regularly patrol all sides for rodents that have laughed at those silly traps (no matter the effort) for the clever plastic boxes, the little poison pellets, or the clang of metal jaws. There seems to be a clever species to resist any of mankind's inventions.

My nostrils are desiccated by the puffing thing in the corner. It permeates all breathing space with noxious gas on a regular basis like a stinking wind in my hair. The machine that spits cold down upon us can roar and whir in such obnoxious sessions. I'd rather be hot and slovenly in a dark corner than suffer the frigid drafts that tease me bones and cramp me muscles.

In winter they heat this place beyond comfort. Only the closets offer relief, but all those smelly shoes and perfumy things clutter the same space, so forget that zone. Lay low and don't exert yourself, that's about all one can do, day or night, of course.

Well at least what the moths and weevils have left will end up as compost or mouse poop, somewhere. Nature has a way of compensating for everything, and I can find plenty to eat, after all. It's all a game, isn't it?

I can't complain too much, they let me stay here for free, so I simply sigh, glare or walk away. But most of the time I take advantage of the soft furniture in my own relaxed style. I luxuriously stretch on the couch and blend in with the décor, not to bother anyone, my coat matches the microplush of the divan, how convenient!

It's our special symbiosis that works best; it’s because my needs are so simple. They forget about me until dinner time. Some of the stuff she cooks really smells great, but her taste for veggies irritates me. She insists in offering me tasteless morsels of things not known in nature. Well, not my nature anyway.

After supper they relax in the front room. That's what they think they are doing. Relaxing. They yell, bark, burst and bellow at each other over some box games and lights. It tires me just to avoid curses and objects flying across rooms. I'm glad I'm not involved. I know all the nearest hiding places where I can ignore all of them.

That's my way. I'll try to eat when they finally sleep. I'll sniff their winds, listen to their stomach rumblings to detect fragrant eggs, ‘pootin’ popcorn, or silent-but-greasy goose fat farts.

Rumbling throats and flapping nostrils sing a nightly serenade. When tractor trailers and rural equipment stop their daily traffic, I can finally enjoy nature’s nightlife here.

The kids aren't too bad. Well, except for the one who likes to dunk my head under water. He'll leave me alone today. He's nursing a bad case of black eye. His younger brother must have been adopted. He's the only sweet one in the family. He wants to share his pickles or prunes with me, and he doesn't get mad when I turn up my nose at that. I occasionally sit on his bed as he reads me a story. I'm patient, he's dedicated; we'll survive.

He brought home a new cat box from the yard sale next door. I hope that he learns to empty it more often, before mold grows long grey hairs on those clumps. The box of cat litter that came with it shows multiple cats. One resembles me like a twin, all these silly ads are quaint, but personally, I prefer the sand below the rosebushes ‘cause their dog hates thorns. Meow!

A review of the new edition of The Fires of Waterland by R.A.Kukkee

The Fires of Waterland. By Raymond Alexander Kukkee.

If a book is to be judged by its cover, then the Fires of Waterland by R.A. kukkee presents the reader with an ominous presence. Fire remains ever present in the belly of the story, in the lives of the characters. Water, its opposite cools the spirits with self doubt and secrecy.

Polar views of the poor, and of those in control arise along raw conflict. They drive suspense with a certain knowledge of the ruts on these roads. Truth and adversity make strange bedfellows in this movie of the mind. “Some things are better left under the bed, like dust balls” said Floyd, a smart man in this saga.

Small town, orphanage, youth and old age, no subject is spared along the pages. The simplicity of the language reveals the  visceral complexity of these lives as they weave in and out of hardship.

Dialog is well served with unwavering accuracy; Fletch and Livvy take us on a tour of youthful yearnings and covert feelings. They lead us into explosive consequences and let us explore the innermost flesh of being. The stuff of living permeates the very innards of this book from page one. Hard and ultimately hopeful; like life. Like fire.

A review by Nadine Sellers. The new edition of: The Fires of Waterland by author Raymond Alexander Kukkee

In the Face of Time:

A tiny fissure suddenly appeared above my lip, safely tucked in a shy smile. The toothbrush hid it, then revealed it between alternate gestures. Like a sin come to roost upon my ego, it highlighted vanity in one surreptitious glance.

Zero weather by day and minus by night had carved this latest assault on my good side. A pitiless blow to fair complexion or natural consequence to reckless behavior?. Time passed over me with neither pause nor respect. The mirror was to deliver blotchy news of seasonal excess in the beloved outdoors.

My loss of grip upon eternity had loosened a string which held features to ossature; as if the puppet master had abdicated his role upon such a rebellious visage. I saw the tendons hinging jaws with mannequin precision. I chewed and spewed and swirled the foam of shame in furious toothbrushing routine.

The crimp of skin now visible under light, a vertical line, a tiny scar of a harsh life risible in sun and snow. I examined patterns of ancestry. Mother had suffered the rigors of expectation in a skin obsessed culture, she had lived with a chain smoker and used her fair share of beauty products on a lifelong basis--to no avail.
Grand-Mother had never considered skincare an essential part of womanhood and yet had fared quite well in the hereditary past. I have also lived with chain smokers, first father then husband. I have left the temperate verdant South of France to run wild with my children in the American deserts..

Wherever I was to park my small mirror, a slow tan was to obfuscate any flaws in my freckled face. I did not attempt to manage sun damage. Neither mine nor tailing mounds of alkaline insult could ruin my determination to survive the elements between water wells or rare salt ponds.

Nor did I slather creams and lotions, much to mother's frustration after reminders and strict orders in letters. I remembered a youth of avoidance and terror. No way to escape the lotion wielding matriarch, bent on cornering me with her dreaded tubes of the newest gunk. Her intent being of producing a thoroughly marriageable damsel to some future suitor of largest means ( and I mean rich)

The deep trenches in her face reminded me of the futility of her expense. I often ran off to school balancing my leather satchel on one hand and a wash-mitten in the other sloughing off the odious goo from cheeks, hair and eyes till I could see the road ahead to flee from the scent and the assault..

Hello wrinkle mine, earned in time through gravel and dirt, through sand storm and wind chill.

It Is Not Contagious, You Know!

Father pulls his skin taught across his lips with left hand, takes the metal shaver in right and aims flawlessly for the moustache scrub. I watch in silence, admiring each gesture. The foam floats above the bowl of warm water, the sound of precise scraping focuses the act in daily sequence. I sit, grateful to be able to watch him today in this usual routine. I slip on my good socks and fine faux alligator loafers. I am twelve. The uptown apartment is clean. The stew is ready for supper.

He turns around and hardens his gaze upon my clothing, pleated 

plaid skirt, wrinkle-free, white cotton blouse, impeccable, navy cardigan, all buttons properly aligned. I smooth my hair, I feel him struggling to find any detail to chastise me about. “you know your mother will notice anything when you get there” his voice trembles over the last words, he averts my gaze.

As we turn toward the cathedral, I watch women pull their mantillas over their chignons and curls, each tapping their heels on the limestone walkways as a genteel army of the faithful. My throat so parched that I believe I would not be able to speak if asked, I step lightly behind his brown shoes, conscious not to waver. I have never been in a hospital.At the large iron door to St Josèphe Clinique, he stops and passes his hand over his pale cheeks, takes a deliberate deep breath, “she almost died you know! Don't bother her or ask anyth..” his voice falters.

A nun approaches us, father straightens his shoulders and asks for my mother's room number. We are taken to a ground floor waiting room, bronze statuettes of saints line the long space in discreet niches. I scrutinize each in order to keep my pulse from running away from me. I have never bothered to learn which is supposed to help whatever ails people, so I scatter a few begging thoughts across the hall. I touch one sleek be-robbed monkish figure and quickly withdraw my hand for fear of being spied upon by a rigid Supérieure or so. I don't want my father to find me weak.

When I finally am allowed in my mother's room, he loosens his jaw, “ I' ll be going to the café, don't wait up for me” he starts toward me, I open my arms slightly, he stares past me then turns abruptly, the heavy door creaks behind him. My breath is shallow, my eyes painful, I hear faint echoes of graceful nurses on duty. A doctor exits mother's single room, “ your mother will be fine, she will stay with us for another week, don't touch the bed, it may hurt her” he smiles directly at me.

Mother's face seems like a bloated ivory figurine floating above pristine sheets, I have never known her to be so filled and friendly. Who is this person so relaxed and amenable? She reaches for my hand, I hesitate. “ it' s not catching you know, I had appendicitis and it busted and caused peritonitis, very dangerous, very painful” I sit on the padded chair beside her iron bed, looking at all the medical implements around. A book on her table, next to a short glass of water with a straw in it. I wonder how she can sit there all day, she neither reads nor drinks water. She tells me of friends visiting her, I am surprised to hear she has friends, I am not allowed any..

Well, her seamstress and the jeweler she works for have been here, then she tells of a family acquaintance, but warns me against sharing this information, I forget immediately as usual. The doctor comes by and motions me to rise and depart, I lightly touch mother's hand and suppress an awkward grimace which is surging from my chest and threatens to turn me into a wailing child, “come back next week-end” she says, softly. The tears refuse to be contained, I pour out of the huge front door along with an unstoppable stream of tears and moans. Blind and deaf to traffic, I rush to the park across the street and hide by the reindeer enclosure, they know me well, I know them, they snort at me in consolation.

I wonder if the spotted deer are orphans, I don't have dry bread to give to them today. I don't have anything to give to anyone today.

Family Order

Family order

Like clay mud on boots, traditions have clung to the feet of my ancestors, and I scrape the worst of it to compost the past into fertile soil of our future. Unconscious habits grown out of necessity become the burden of abundance in the mass markets of the present. Faced with the consequences of our acquisitions, we shed futile morals and fertile powers; can we set aside the competitive values in anxious times?

A vague reference to one of my ancestors having come to the new continent three centuries ago, sent me to moon time, I suffered many a stab from the nuns’ bamboo stick during class as I was far away from subject at hand, “are you on the moon again?” I would bow my head in contrition and keep planning my escape to my own continents, Africa, Australia, or America? The constricting of family life was as powerful an urge as the moves of my vagabond forebears.

From the people of the Auroch to the invading hordes from the wild central plains of Europe, riding on horseback around mountains, nomads ran in search of food and wealth. My own tribes traveled westward through dense forests and settled before the Ocean where they found sustenance for all. This was the uncluttered family model; male, female, progeny and a few elders, when the term may have meant anyone exceeding 27 years old in a cave, a hut, with pond or creek as haven and conceptual heaven.

The ambitious Roman armies roared across the crude settlements and toughened the natives who then were forced to build ramparts and fortifications to secure their new holdings; this was the beginning of the social cluster. The nascent village became the extension of the local nucleus as protective measure. I occasionally long for the earnest goal of singular security, of familiarity.

Together they built regiments of their own, rebelled and scratched their way to ownership of land and cattle. Then they fought the Moorish invaders, they lost their sons to the territories, bones of rebellion, terroir of today. Once the crusades were over and they had become the invaders of others, they came home to fallow lands and forgotten women; a frenzy of growth began to climb out of medieval oblivion and was named renaissance.

Family took a turn to heredity, of goods, of lands, of ease and disease. Traditions which were imported from exhausting travels through the Middle-East found their way to the hearth and reasoning of simple folk. Ceremonies meant as release from arduous work, grew to important cementing purposes to keep the family together, the people tight and the animals close by. Togetherness secured the clans like ligatures and hobbles on the chattel.

Family order was maintained at the cost of individuality, the good of the whole or the drudge of the one. Long past feudal loyalties and ensured serfdom, the old order remains in the manners, the habits of immigrants who have morphed their psyche to adapt to previous invaders’ codes. Sons born to protect the estates, sons to maintain the status, daughters to propagate the ideals, gathered between wars to conjure better weapons and cures for restlessness.

In the hinterlands, sons kept the perimeters safe from other intruders, they rang the bells to warn of danger to castle or fortified farm, women and children ran to enclosures. They awoke to ravaged crops and raven girls left afield. How little man has changed since; bells and whistles now ring across airwaves and women are savaged in the ruins of what fields produce for the increasing multitudes. Whose family is protecting whom when there is nowhere left to run, no land to conquer? except for family order.

A book Review: The Fires of Waterland by Raymond Alexander Kukkee.

Review of Raymond Alexander Kukkee's book, The Fires of Waterland.

By nadine Sellers.

Raymond Alexander Kukkee has broken into print at Redmund Productions, a mark of his talent and passion for fiction. In his novel, The Fires of Waterland, he has brought an entire range of universal concerns into full view. Honesty is served in doses of violent conditions in the boiling secrecy of buried poverty.

Set in mid century Canada, the suspenseful tale of family strife and cascading abuses reads as a serial film of great scope. Somewhere between memorable epics of the great depression and Dickensian classics, the story begins as charming details of the lush countryside “small plants domesticate undisciplined cracks in the delicate lacework of broken curbstones—mosses and meticulous ivies advance”, innocuous introductions of slow memories pouring from an old man's recollections of a seemingly simpler era.

Then, the reader begins to suspect there is a complete life bubbling from this authentic boyish voice; the all too common symptoms of a repressed society keeping its secrets much too close to home. Pages keep turning, pace keeps pulling the eye to the next event, the next reason, the last reaction. The theme rolls along the interstices of adjustment to painful condition, and unfairness of system. Trauma is experienced from within, “ he would shake his red jowls like a hound shaking off swamp water'”seen from a child's perspective.

R.A. Kukkee maintains moral principles amid sensual upheaval, vivid detail depicts crucial scenes that rock the steps to teenage revelations. No gratuitous hyperbole covers the sexual awakening of those involved “her skin was the color of almonds—skinned almonds are slippery when they are wet” No unnecessary profanity mars the text to remain accurate in the weight of each scene. The delicate balance of act and impact evokes the struggles of growing up, or growing old even in indelicate circumstances.

The Fires of Waterland encompasses timeless values in the scope of personal trauma. The fine mesh of relativity woven through each story, chapter by chapter, ties the complexity of being. In the person of Fletcher, it is easy to empathize with the protagonist, his surges of anger, his hunger for acceptance; and most of all his recollections of a loaded past.

Floyd is portrayed as a cranky old veteran, he surfaces with modest attitudes and wise sayings “if you have a soggy handshake, it shows you might be in possession of a puffball brain too”. His wife, well apronned in her mothering role, dispenses generous love in the strictures of the times.

Gender defined and place sensitive, the tale proceeds along the expectations of the fifties without undue romanticism. It scratches the thin surface of small town living and encroaching aspirations. The ever familiar want versus need, rich versus poor, all aspects are splayed by human dualities, human frailties.

Age is not just a specific number, R.A. Kukkee takes the reader through the process with increasing speed and intensity, toward the inevitable progress of unspent emotion and confusion. The language serves the wide range of subjects well. Pride and ' dare I say ' prejudice, mitigate post-war ethics, with adoption and stagnation in the fictional lives which feel all too real to this reader.

Raymond Alexander Kukkee is a prolific writer living in Canada's lush regions above the Great lakes.

He has been widely published in knowledge based venues. His passion for fiction is evident in the book The Fires of Waterland.
 Available in e-book or print.

JUST A GIRL'S BIRTHDAY..

A desert short story ...

    Katie sits on her rock, west of town, watching a long gray dust trail winding its way to the bottom of the valley. She picks at a hangnail on her dirty little finger, I'm gonna be ten years old today, she tells the sand beneath her feet. Her chest swells under the tight yellow dress. A dusty trail rises out of the desert floor: it's payday and miners are racing to cash their checks and wet their tongues at the Water Hole.

    At the two-room school, today, the teacher brought pink punch and cookies and the kids wished Katie a "happy birthday", she liked that, just as she liked the other kids' special days. Now she is looking for her daddy. She has waited for two whole weeks. She taps her almost new shoes against the rock, wrings a lock of clean blond hair, confused. Happy thoughts collide with waves of fear.

    "It's payday and Mama said that she'd make a special dinner as soon as she had some money for groceries," Katie tells the wind. " I'll bet she'll make me a cake too, it's supposed to be a surprise!" she frowns "But what if Daddy doesn't come down from the mine, and what if he disappears again?" She tilts her head to shake away her anxiety, as if to convince herself. "No. I guess not: I heard Mama tell him it would be my birthday! I just can't wait!" her jaw set hard against the sun, she nods.

    The little girl suddenly realizes that she is squealing with anticipated delight, she looks around furtively and blushes. There is no one on the paved road yet: during the heat of the afternoon the miner's wives nap groggily or play cards in the trailers and old shacks of the small town. Cheap wine and dry whiskey make life more bearable for most of them.

    Katie had watched her mom struggle with headaches, time after time. On school-day mornings, the familiar throaty voice would groan from the backroom, with a few curses added and a clang for good effect. Katie would know it was time to get dressed and look for food in the cluttered cupboards (cold leftovers or dry cereal, if anything) her mother's snores would become loud again. That's about the only time she could feel safe.

    At three o'clock Katie would return from school. The trailer' d usually be empty and reek of a mix of stale beer and sour wine, beds not made, cigarette butts, bottles and cans strewn about carelessly as in a purposeful movie set.

    Katie had never liked that. Before she could sit at the foldout table to finish her homework, she'd clean the mess quickly and ever so efficiently. Soon, laughter would rise out of one or another of the trailers. Sometimes, cursing and yelling would resonate in the crowded park and she'd resign herself to another party and another lonely evening.

    But today was different! Today was her day. Ten years old, she was a big girl now. The trailer would be tidied up, Mama was supposed to have had her hair curled by a neighbor; she'd be all pretty and clean - yep! Today was pretty special!

    The voices of men could be heard over engine roars, and a few jeeps and old pickup trucks appeared at the Death Valley junction in a cloud of alkali dust. A couple of old diggers saw the little girl in her yellow dress and waved as they passed by the entrance to the trailer park. When she spotted her father among the can-holding bunch in the second jeep, she began to run after it.

    By the time she breathlessly arrived at the general store, she saw him, arm-in-arm with his buddies, heading for the bar across the street; so she slowed down and hid behind a mesquite bush to catch her breath. "It's no use..." she thought, "...no use, he forgot!" (big tears slowly streaked the dust on her cheeks. She angrily wiped them with her arm, smudging a muddy mess around her red eyes. She kicked a rock with her good shoes, half hoping to ruin them. Chin set hard and jaw clenched she muttered to herself "Everything's rotten anyway . . . so?"

    Darkness had come and it was a little cooler by then. Katie sneaked across the road and to the back window of the bar; she'd spent many a night there, watching the men get drunk and play pool. Too wise for her years, she had quietly observed life in the small towns and mining camps of the southwestern desert. Here in Death Valley the aggression was more concentrated than in many mining areas.

    Every other Friday the shopkeeper and the bartender got ready for the five o'clock invasion: the miners were coming down from the talc mines in the arid mountains. After two weeks underground the rowdy, thirsty horde was ripe for diversion, but what they called relaxation was strictly a matter of opinion.

    Tension was ever high in the subterranean tunnels and chambers. There was danger from explosions caused by careless powdermen, cave-ins from weak timbers, hard rocks loosened by the vibrations of the huge Wagners that carry the ore out of the mines. There were no women or children to absorb or release tense days and nights of work underground: they were considered distractions. Some said that women bring bad luck and weaken men; kids are a nuisance, fall in shafts and rile a good man.

    Katie knew the code of the mines; she lived by the miner's ethics and stayed out of the way. She didn't judge or question her father's way of life (those who were too curious or unhappy always ended up in a bad way.) She'd seen the wives leave their men, the children being sent to a grandmother or, worse yet, to foster homes in bigger towns.

    Katie just could not bear being away from Mama, and who would watch after Daddy when he was sick? Who would make the coffee to sober up her Mama? Her half-brothers were grown and long gone to the city. One was in jail. Someone had said the other had gone to Alaska to make big money and would never come back. They didn't write - they didn't care!

    The slender girl climbed on crates behind the bar and took up her secret position: from there she could observe all without being seen. Hands cupped like blinders she peeked in through the partially obscured glass and saw her father downing his usual shot of cheap rum at the rail. A pain cinched her stomach as she remembered his last promise: she had unwittingly witnessed the scene in the tiny hall; he had knelt before Mama and had tenderly vowed that, after that last ulcer attack, he wouldn't drink ever again.

    "Baby, honey bunch, I promise you I'll never touch a drop of hard liquor in this life"

    He had cooked a whole meal that weekend, Katie had found them giggling behind the open refrigerator door, she'd seen his hand slide under mama's dress too. For awhile Daddy had followed the doctor's orders. Mama's face had been sweet, almost pretty and the whole trailer had been filled with lightness for a time.

    Now Katie could hear men brag about the events of the week. There were stories to startle the meek and curses to shock the pure, but she'd heard them all; her favorites were the rattlesnake myths. She'd miss a few words while the jukebox blared its cry-in-your-beer country tunes, but she already knew them all by heart through constant repetition, the songs and the tall tales.

    One of the diggers famous for his snake stories was named after the reptile; old Rattlesnake Pete. He always told the scariest tales, which even the youngest of children didn't always believe when they heard them. Pete lurched clumsily out of the back door of the bar, hand to his fly. Katie ducked beneath some cardboard. Suddenly the wiry little miner stumbled against the corner of a wooden beer-case, and before Katie had time to climb down from her perch he had toppled the whole stack, cursing heaven and hell for it and kicking bits of splintered wood right and left.

    Katie flapped her thin arms to scramble out of the boxes but could not regain her balance. Pete fussed with his pants where a long wet stain worked its way to his cowboy boots. Big Swede and Katie's father had come out to see what all the racket was about. The girl sat there amid the debris, eyes wide and mouth open, fearful and perplexed.

    "What in th' hell'r you doin' in there? That ol' bitch sent you to spy on me, din't she? You no good for nothing brat!" Her father was yelling as he awkwardly lunged after her, flinging trash out of his way. Katie's head swung from side to side as he hit her, hard.

    "No Daddy! No!" her elbow up above her forehead, she cowered.

    "You're no good, just like your mother - never been any damn good! Always wants money - is that what you here for, my money?"

    Katie sobbed miserably, "Nooo . . ." blond curls clung to tears.

    Her Daddy reached out to shake her, but Swede had regained his composure, and he and Pete yanked him up, Pete held him against the back door of the bar and danced around to avoid his pointy boots.

    "Go on, go on home." Swede turned his big head and softly urged the girl. "We'll bring him back soon as he's sobered up a bit - go on! Quick!" He, at least, was never mean. She suspected he was the father of some little girl, somewhere and that he missed that child very much. She'd heard many a gyppo tramp talk about an ex wife and a batch of kids who didn't take to the desolate life on the desert floor. By the third drink the photos came out of shredded wallets and bad wives became worse in the memories of the lonely.

    Katie climbed out of the wreckage and backed away into the darkness. She hesitated awhile and then dashed for the trailer park, fearing to look back.

    When she reached the gravel driveway Katie immediately sensed that something was wrong; there was more light than usual in the seedy rows of trailers. The tamarisks cast long shadows and the breeze brought clear bursts of loud voices speaking in urgent tones. The sheriff's car was parked in her family's row. All the women from the park were there and a couple of old miners stood around under the light from the pole lamp at the end of the dirt road. As she approached the crowd she realized they were all in front of her trailer. Yea, the green one, that's my home... "what are they doing?" she murmured to herself

    Katie slowed down. An ambulance drove by slowly and she closed her eyes when its headlights unkindly hit her face. Suddenly, she froze. Knees locked in rigid stance, she couldn't go on.

    There were kids out there, running in and out of the crowd; some hiding behind their mother's legs, there were women talking fast and the sheriff looked like a giant as he tried to quiet the curious. His big arms raised above heads, he silenced the odd group. People looked around as if searching for someone.

    Katie couldn't face all these people: they had always been strangers! They misunderstood her; to them she'd just been a weird kid. How could she look at them, now? How could she listen to them? They didn't like her looks or her ways. She peered down at her soiled yellow dress, she slapped dust from the pinafore and wiped the blood that congealed in angry stripes on her legs.

    She whispered "what a mess."

    It is early morning when she arises from the sheltering tamarisk. No one is around. The sky shines silent pink; a thrush makes a gargling sound nearby, nature is awakening as usual.

    Katie stumbles onto the dirt road toward the faded, decrepit trailer she calls home. In an involuntary gesture, she smooths her matted hair and removes the crinkled bow she had so proudly tied for the occasion. She takes the key out of an ore sample crucible by the steps, slowly turns it to open the battered door. Her face betrays no emotion as she gazes over the rumpled pillows on the saggy couch. She slowly passes her little hand over the still wet stains on the blue shag rug.

    Sadness a pale mask on her face, the girl strokes the wrinkles on her yellow dress. She automatically grabs a sponge and begins to clean the floor, the walls, the bits of dried matter in the fake fur throw; it isn't the first time she's had to do it, but now it is different somehow. She isn't angry or tired this time.

    She speaks softly, "Mama . . .oh, Mama . . ." and slumps on the one kitchen chair, elbows propped on the counter, she stares out of the window for a long time until the sun is aglow and scorching the lone olive tree out back.

    A strange car pulls in quietly, and Katie's father steps out of it, solemn. His eyes are puffy and moist.

    "Katie ..." he blurts out abruptly, "mama died last night." He swallows hard and smiles weakly. "Look, you know how it is, baby - she couldn't drink like that no more and besides she smoked way too much. She just went and choked herself to death, that's just what she done!"

    "I know, Daddy" says the ten year old. "I know."
They hold each other tightly for awhile, then pulling away she asks, her voice flat,

    "Daddy? You're not going to do that too, are you?"

    Her father kneels in front of her and announces tearfully, "Baby, honey bunch, I promise I'll never touch a drop of hard liquor as long as I live."

    Katie strokes her father's dusty hair and flattens her cheek against it to hide the stubborn wetness invading her eyes.

Sous Ton Visage-- Under Your Face.

Under Your Face (Eng)

your visage

sculpted of peanut butter in full sun
your traits melting under weight of years
your wrinkles sliding under a frown
stranded under gravity

waiting for me on the quay
no you never cry
your creator lacked talent
mine romance

I write the scene anew
in order to replay your ego
your pride lost under dust

the train arrives
my stomach slides
I retain the essential
under other skies
to my own rhythm



everywhere I replay you
I meet you mother finally relieved
under funerary ashes

-----------------------------------
Sous Ton Visage (Fr)

ton visage

sculpté de pâte d' arachide en plein soleil
tes traits fondant sous le poids des années
tes rides glissant sous sourcils froncés
tu gits là sous force de gravité

m' attendant sur le quai.
non tu ne pleures jamais
ton crèateur a manqué de talent
le mien de roman

et j'écris la scène de nouveau
afin de rejouer ton moi
ta fierté perdue sous poussière

le train qui arrive
mon estomac qui dérive
je retiens l'essentiel
sous d'autres ciels
à mes propres rythmes

et partout je te rejoue
je te rencontre mère enfin soulagée
sous cendres funèraires.