Archive for the ‘Luc Reid’ Category
A Is for Authority
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
The letter SH paused in the anteroom of A’s antebellum mansion. She felt cold in the antiseptic air among alabaster statues of aardvarks and A. A. Milne as the butler’s shoes went trap, trap, fading into the interior. SH fingered the reassuringly comfortable handle of her shiv, tucked into a sheath under her shawl. It had been a hard life so far, with no place in the alphabet to live, seldom even recognized as a unit, a shadow of a letter. No more.
The letter A finally appeared, alone, her almond-shaped eyes surveying SH airily. “And what do you want?” she asked. “I thought you were off shirking your responsibilities with Æ and schwa and your other little friends. Surely the homes of respectable letters are not your proper place?” She smiled, a smile absent of any affection. She knew how much SH hated the word “surely.”
“I’m here for my share of the alphabet!” SH shouted. She always shouted: she couldn’t help herself. “I’m a phoneme, I begin words. I want what’s mine!”
“Talk to your parents,” A said absently, brushing an ant off her arm. “I’m sure Lady S will be happy to give up some of her words.”
SH shoved A into an alcove and pressed the point of the shiv against A’s abdomen. “Everyone knows you’re the head of the alphabet,” she said shakily. “All I need is a chance. Give me my shot.”
“You ass,” said A. “There’s no room for you in my alphabet.”
“Shithead,” said SH, pressing the shiv harder. “I’ll make room.”
“At your leisure, Alfred,” A said, arching an eyebrow, and SH froze at the sound of a throat clearing behind her. She turned her head. A’s butler stood in the archway, an antique arquebus angled at SH’s appendix.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to absent the area,” Alfred said crisply.
SH thought about using the shiv anyway, taking A with her, but A suddenly grabbed and twisted SH’s arm, aborting any possibility of attack and forcing the shiv to fall to the floor.
“Au revoir,” A announced.
SH shuffled out the door and toward the front gate, defeated. In the distance she could hear A’s attack dogs. She shivered.
This Is the Tie
Tuesday, April 3rd, 2007
This is the tie that makes me invisible. Other people have shoes that fly or t-shirts that let you see the future, but I have this tie. I found it in my father’s closet after he died. He was 57. I don’t know if he bought it before or after my mom passed.
When I’m not wearing the tie, you can see it has yellow and burgundy stripes. It’s from a time when most cars didn’t have air conditioning, when there were four TV channels. Maybe he bought it new. Maybe he bought it new and never told her. Maybe he bought it before they were married and spied on her.
I’ve spent happy afternoons in women’s locker rooms. I’ve stolen more than six thousand dollars worth of household electronics. I went to a Willie Nelson concert for free once and went backstage and sat two feet from Willie after the show. He was tired and had to wait a long time while somebody brought him a burrito. We just sat there for fifteen or twenty minutes, me and Willie, not saying anything, like old friends. I got up and left when the guy came with Willie’s burrito.
Tomorrow I’m going to meet Benny’s sister Rachel. Benny works with me at the bakery. I saw his sister Rachel once when Benny’s car was in the shop and she had to pick him up. She has brown hair down to her shoulder blades that tumbles like sweet cereal falling out of a box. I could go to her house right now, wearing this tie, and she’d never see me. I could watch her take her clothes off for bed or stand a foot away, barely breathing, as she brushed her hair. Tomorrow I’m supposed to meet her the regular way, the way where she can see me.
This is the tie that makes me invisible.
I’m thinking of selling it.