Month: June 2019

The Boy

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The Boy
–15 year old local boy (from the Rosebud area near Little Bighorn, 1876), lied about his age to be part of the Custer campaign. Probably not registered to the 7th Cavalry.
May 6, 2019
Though it was Custer I’d thought and read about, it was not him I had the direct connection with. It was the boy, all of fifteen-going-on-sixteen. I used my own words when I couldn’t catch his or his were more feeling than words. I could tell he was re-living it, and I hope it helped.
“Out of my skin with the excitement of being here. I wouldn’t-couldn’t be anywhere else once I knew of it. What a tale to tell, afterwards, of the hero I’d be just by being there. I saw it as a great beginning, to do as Custer did, to make my fame on the battlefield. He spoke of our connections to battles long gone in history, but the men who fought them still remembered for their courage and bravery.
He sat his horse better than any man I’d seen, riding at times with his boots outside of his stirrups, as the injuns did, who were really the best riders I’d ever seen. We were so afraid of them! They never looked anything but angered and mean about it, painting theirselves to look more so.
And there was Custer, standing in his stirrups, clean-faced–this being clean was important to him–his clothes fitting him better than any woman’s. We hardly knew what to think of him, both this and that, soft and hard, afraid, too, and yet not. A man knows fear in another man no matter how he (sallies? slays?) to hide it. It can’t be hid. It can’t be hid in total. It can’t. We knew he had it and we were (troubled?), but we rode. What else for it?
And we fell and fell and fell. How could it be happening? We were the best. They weren’t to kill us. We were to be their executioners. It’s as if I sat and watched, doing nothing. Doing nothing. Nothing to be done. It was their day. I saw them advance on him and knew I was lost to this life. I thought of how my ma would miss me, and how I was already missing her. I watched my death blow fall and felt myself float free, more melancholy than sad, seeing the vista of what might have been–knowing my ma as an old woman, seeing my children, knowing my girl. I felt it all come out of me and go elsewhere, taking part of me with it. And I went up.”
I feel like he’s my own child, or I’m his, that we shared this experience that he led. I have such gratitude for being of him.

Flash Fiction

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Prompt:
something such as laundry, dishes, a mundane task.

They sit in silent rebuke, telling anyone who will listen of my secret shame.
I didn’t do my dishes last night. Or the morning since. Or the lunch. They don’t blame me, but still, they silently scream neglect, if not abuse.
Just saying it aloud in my head unleashes a fast-running, familiar river of invective.
“A clean house says all that can be said of you,” my mother floats by, face averted.
“It’s just slovenly,” says Tia, boldly staring me down as she dogpaddles up to me and then lets the stream carry her away.
“Germs!” shouts Stevie, my old co-worker from the Department of Health. “Hepatitis C!” he calls back over his shoulder, but he always said that.
“First impressions…” says my least favorite sister, sitting serenly, almost royally, aboard her pristine canoe, picking lint off the front of her sweater, not making eye contact.
“Me, too!” calls out my most favorite sister from her kayak. “Hope you had fun!” She circles before she hurries off downstream.
I wend my way to the headgate to shut off their water.
I did have fun. I started off making a batch of cherry jam from a secret recipe known only to me and my best friend Mary Rose, MR for short. What with my ex stopping by, I didn’t get any further than pitting a mound of cherries with my hands–messy work. What with one thing leading to another, he left with my cherry prints on his backside, for all the world to see, unbeknownst to him.
Then I had to think about what I’d done.
What is an ex, anyway?
Maybe he’s an unwashed dish. Apparently I’m still finding some kind of nourishment on him. Maybe it’s me those river floaters are talking about.
I stand up from my kitchen table and walk over to the sink. I pull the dishes out of the sink, one by one, piling plates and bowls and mugs into one coherent stack. I pick up the stack in both hands and take it out the screen door, down the steps, to the concrete slab that serves as patio. I stand a moment, between picnic table and barbecue grill, breath calming. Then I let my hands drop.