These are the moments in between, the ones yet to be. She had an overbite that cut into the crop of her jaw, a sinewy colossus that made her appear sideways and off-centre. The harridan wore frocks stitched from burlap sacs she’d found in the dustbin behind the haberdasher’s. She hemmed and cross-stitched odd strips of broadcloth with the bone needle she’d stolen from her mother’s sewing box, the same one she kept a hatcheck stub and a quail’s foot in. A taffeta dress; a broach with a cameo-face and a swath of pale blue linen, these are the things, cross-stitched and hemmed in between.
The harridan’s sister, Flora, had Dalmatian skin and a birthmark in the shape of a thumbprint on her forehead just above her eye. She spoke Esperanto and ate over-ripe plums and gypsum, her teeth yellowed and frail from the stones. The alms man hated the harridan’s sister, and made no bones about it. He liked plums and shale, slivered into knife-size shims, and found her fondness for gypsum and soft plums distasteful.
This is tedium, thought the shamble leg man, this not quite being anything or anywhere. A man with a pool ball head scramble passed on high stilts affixed to his trousers with brads and twill. His legs bucked at the knees and crabbed inwards. The pool ball headed man rubbed his leg with the flat of his hand, corseting to one side like a flagstaff. An elderly woman with a spoiled apple face lost her balance and faltered to the sidewalk, her handbag clutched to her chest. The stilted man shinnied over her, his face pawned to the left, clacking his stilts together like castanets as he went.
The elderly woman rebalanced herself and went about her market. The shamble leg man watched her disappear up the sidewalk, handbag clutched to her chest; his thoughts on corrugated skin, castor oil and legs rubbed clean with ointments and soaves. The pool ball headed man skipped down the street, stilts striking the asphalt like diving rods, his legs bucked and crabbed inwards. The shamble leg man recalled eating applesauce stewed in a double-boiler with cinnamon and allspice, his grandmother pinking the skins off the simmer with a fork, the meat falling away from the cores like flayed skin. His mother gave him castor oil for colic, pressing the curved end of the spoon against the roof of his mouth. She claimed it went down easier that way, but it stung the insides of his mouth and made him feel clammy and out of sorts.
A chattel moon clung to the sky like a suckling child. The moon is like salted cheese, a Richford or Blue, perhaps a Camembert or Brie, thought the man in the hat. I prefer Jesus milk in my mourning coffee, ashes to ashes, a creamery of sin and contrition, and poor mama stitching together hems and cuffs and seams that wouldn’t stay shut. I have things to do today, he thought, too many to account for or remember on such short notice. Poor mama would remember, as she always did, reminding me when to brush my teeth and how to double-knot my shoes. She said the colic was coming, and if I weren’t careful I’d get the strep throat, which would have me bedridden and full of aches and thrombosis. Granddad’s rickets put him at odds with God and prayer and reading the Bible that my grandma kept in a Crown Royal bag next to the bed.
There’s no such thing as double-knots and thrombosis, or shoes with colic. These are images of someone else, a person with too-tight shoes and hobnailed feet. I regret to inform you that the strep is upon us and accounts for much nausea and poor stitching. Poor mama aside, these are things that tighten my throat, round the collar and up into the shoehorn of my breastplate, a double-knotted ascot that cinches and nips. Grandma stove the Crown Royal bag in the closet beneath a brigand of shoes and leggings. For safe keeping, she said, but we suspected it was to keep grandpapa from stealing pages of the Bible for roll-your-owns and toothpicks.
Grandpapa rolled shag and tuck that he bought from the K-Mart across from the Waymart. He tamped the shag slaving it between the gummy fold of the paper with his thumbs. The paper stuck to his bottom lip, a clot of blood and skin poled to the shag-end. His dentures clewed the tissue around his lips, giving him a clownish look, his cheeks bellowed with smoke. The man in the hat’s grandfather wore crepe-soled boots with metal catches. He wore chain mail gloves with railheads sewn into the palms to engage a better grip on the felling-hammer, which was swung over the hip and across the front of the chest in one unbroken parry, ensuring a clean and even cut back.
The harridan’s sister, Flora, had Dalmatian skin and a birthmark in the shape of a thumbprint on her forehead just above her eye. She spoke Esperanto and ate over-ripe plums and gypsum, her teeth yellowed and frail from the stones. The alms man hated the harridan’s sister, and made no bones about it. He liked plums and shale, slivered into knife-size shims, and found her fondness for gypsum and soft plums distasteful.
This is tedium, thought the shamble leg man, this not quite being anything or anywhere. A man with a pool ball head scramble passed on high stilts affixed to his trousers with brads and twill. His legs bucked at the knees and crabbed inwards. The pool ball headed man rubbed his leg with the flat of his hand, corseting to one side like a flagstaff. An elderly woman with a spoiled apple face lost her balance and faltered to the sidewalk, her handbag clutched to her chest. The stilted man shinnied over her, his face pawned to the left, clacking his stilts together like castanets as he went.
The elderly woman rebalanced herself and went about her market. The shamble leg man watched her disappear up the sidewalk, handbag clutched to her chest; his thoughts on corrugated skin, castor oil and legs rubbed clean with ointments and soaves. The pool ball headed man skipped down the street, stilts striking the asphalt like diving rods, his legs bucked and crabbed inwards. The shamble leg man recalled eating applesauce stewed in a double-boiler with cinnamon and allspice, his grandmother pinking the skins off the simmer with a fork, the meat falling away from the cores like flayed skin. His mother gave him castor oil for colic, pressing the curved end of the spoon against the roof of his mouth. She claimed it went down easier that way, but it stung the insides of his mouth and made him feel clammy and out of sorts.
A chattel moon clung to the sky like a suckling child. The moon is like salted cheese, a Richford or Blue, perhaps a Camembert or Brie, thought the man in the hat. I prefer Jesus milk in my mourning coffee, ashes to ashes, a creamery of sin and contrition, and poor mama stitching together hems and cuffs and seams that wouldn’t stay shut. I have things to do today, he thought, too many to account for or remember on such short notice. Poor mama would remember, as she always did, reminding me when to brush my teeth and how to double-knot my shoes. She said the colic was coming, and if I weren’t careful I’d get the strep throat, which would have me bedridden and full of aches and thrombosis. Granddad’s rickets put him at odds with God and prayer and reading the Bible that my grandma kept in a Crown Royal bag next to the bed.
There’s no such thing as double-knots and thrombosis, or shoes with colic. These are images of someone else, a person with too-tight shoes and hobnailed feet. I regret to inform you that the strep is upon us and accounts for much nausea and poor stitching. Poor mama aside, these are things that tighten my throat, round the collar and up into the shoehorn of my breastplate, a double-knotted ascot that cinches and nips. Grandma stove the Crown Royal bag in the closet beneath a brigand of shoes and leggings. For safe keeping, she said, but we suspected it was to keep grandpapa from stealing pages of the Bible for roll-your-owns and toothpicks.
Grandpapa rolled shag and tuck that he bought from the K-Mart across from the Waymart. He tamped the shag slaving it between the gummy fold of the paper with his thumbs. The paper stuck to his bottom lip, a clot of blood and skin poled to the shag-end. His dentures clewed the tissue around his lips, giving him a clownish look, his cheeks bellowed with smoke. The man in the hat’s grandfather wore crepe-soled boots with metal catches. He wore chain mail gloves with railheads sewn into the palms to engage a better grip on the felling-hammer, which was swung over the hip and across the front of the chest in one unbroken parry, ensuring a clean and even cut back.
