8/31

it was the night of my 32nd birthday. the jesus year. there was cynthia, the step mom staring at me with her hideous yellow teeth. little sticks of butter lined up tight against one another trying to keep stink of breath and tongue at bay but unable to survive against the heat. god bless them. there was patton, my brother, laying on the couch with his bare feet resting against one of the throw pillows. then there was harley, my father, suit and tied resting in the rocking chair where i had rocked my young son to sleep so many nights during his infancy.
there were no presents, they had only come to consume.
samantha was busy making dinner or putting the finshing touches on the cake or just trying not to have a nervous break down as they slithered about the house. family has to touch everything rub their smell possess it while i sat on the floor a wounded man.
my son is busy discussing the economy with his stuffed pooh bear. my wife busies herself in the kitchen and i alone am left with these animals. smiling, their teeth bared getting comfortable but always ready to attack.
it was my father who moved first.
'you don't like almond rocha?'
i could see my brother stir and step mother twist (from admiring family photos on the wall) towards me.
'i just love it,' hissed patton.
'well i never, does it give you gas?' said the replacement.
'it's true. i just think it tastes like old people's breath.'
'why he doesn't even put sauerkraut on his hot dog, but maybe now that your a man you'll try it.'
'yeah i love a man with hair on his chest, and sauerkraut puts hair on your chest.' said what's her name while licking her ruby lipstick until it smeared.
i tried for the cable but the signal is out. i try for a record but everything is mp3. i make an attempt to clear my voice and get ready to rise when patton places a foot on my shoulder.
'i hear yah think it tastes like feet.' bringing the foot dangerously close to me mouth, 'does it?'
i reflect on the fate of my mother and sister, both lost one by bicycle and the other to embarrassment.
my sister had been applying herself to bike dancing. she was already an acclaimed break dancer when a negro friend of hers had recommended that she get into it. he was a splendid bike dancer, put on duran duran and do pogo one leg leaners the wall stand craby crawl forwards and the double decker.
it was during an attempt to fashion her own move, the star 'sploder that where the rider would leap do a flip and land on the bike as it is still doing a wheelie that she met her fate. i arrived home from school to find the paramedics leading out a half human half bicycle white sheet and only later understood that while trying for the star 'sploder she got caught in the garage door chain. her head lodged and feet dangling she could have made it if not for the baby sitter hitting the garage door opener. the chain moved towards the motor and the gears severed her head. according to legend her body fell atop the still moving wheelie bicycle finishing the 'splosion.
my mother was into water aerobics. she would lead classes challenging the women to leap, bend and move their hips. she got them sweating in the water cheered as their weight would melt away. my mother was not just a drill sergeant, she was also a heart of gold. when a particular fatso came into her pool and could not afford the classes she would let her participate for free.
'i believe that when in position one's true gift is giving.' she would say.
well this fatso not only couldn't pay but was up to no good. cheryl the fatso was also the town lesbian the first woman to come out of the closet and though she had never made any time with any woman, for no other woman had come out, she knew she was 'gayer than manilow'. well it seems that cheryl the fatso dike had taken this act of kindness and retarded it so that it was an act of affection.
she would coo when my mother would try to help her big flabby arms slap the water in rhythm to dancing on the ceiling. her lips would pucker as my mom would stand before her thrusting her knees in the air 'to the sky to the sky!' she would call out. 'ooh ooh' would be the fatso's response.
it was a chilly autumn day, in the pool they were really pushing it hard to get ready for the holidays, when cheryl took her chance. while my mother was underwater helping her enormous thighs together that fatso dike wrapped them about my mother's head.
though she was my stronger than her attacker, it is said that my mother never fought back, that she knew her whole life was over. the whispers would start about how she lead the lesbian on, because in fact she was a lesbian. then the woman would stop coming to her class, they wouldn't let their children play with us. this all flashed before her eyes and she succumbed. her last gasp of breath to disgusting to ever imagine.
cheryl the fatso lesbian added another title, murderer, and now here we are.
my father met cynthia at a arm wrestling tournament. to get over the fact that his wife and daughter had been killed within three days of each other he took up weight lifting. though it seems that when one begins the regiment required to increase one's muscle mass one's muscles beg to be put to use. at first he began lifting things. he would roll a quarter under the fridge and say 'lemme get that' lifting with one hand, or he might run out of gas a few miles from the nearest station (all uphill) so that he could push that machine to the pump. i once found him putting neosporian on a vicious gash across his arm while there at his feet lay a grizzly bear. i inspected the body and found no gun holes, no that bear had been choked to death.
he would have stopped at grizzly wrestling but state park rangers complained that all bears were either missing or to severly beaten to be of any tourists use. so with the law against him, he turned towards arm wrestling.
cynthia was the champs girl, at the time, she was an oiler. it was her job to grease the champs forearm and bicep so that it glistened like a star during the main event. it was also in the oiler description that the oiler must go to the victor. the champ was steel arm stevenson with a record of 201-0.
my father was an inch from being pinned, another career over, when i called out 'give him the 'splosion!' a nick name for a wrist move he had been working on. it use to be called the grizzly paw on account of that is who he would wrestle but we thought this was a nice way to pay homage to my sister.
after the 'splosion the champ was through and cynthia came into our life.
it was during the time of the great mourning that my brother gave up shoes. he use to have such a fine array of them that we would call him emilda but he did not care. each tuesday my mother would take him to volume shoe source and allow him to pick out one pair. what he did not know, though it does not detract from the kindness of the work, was that particular store always had a in store discount called 'bogo' going on. my mother would buy herself a pair and my brother's would be half off. doing good while giving yourself a little attention.
when she died he wore only the shoes she had bought, they either fell to ruin or were out grown and never replaced. he know goes barefoot through town and even though most restaurants have a no shirt no shoes policy they let him slide.
so it is here waiting for the cake with my family in full all around me when there is a buzzing noise that grows and grows until it overwhelms us. the house is covered in a shady darkness. no one is ever prepared for a plane to fall on their head.
i wake up from my coma, get out of the hospital exactly one year later. it is my birthday today, thirty three years old, and i am an orphan. all my family is gone. my stomach rumbles for a little cake, a bird whistles in a tree against a blue sky, my wife is cooking, my son is playing, life is good.