newspaper, rambling on about what the Japanese wanted to do to La Belle.
Once Cowboy and I found all the love letters my mother and father had written to each other. My father signed all of his “Always and all ways, Larry,” and she enclosed poems she wrote in hers. One was called “Larry, Our Love Is Sputnik.” (Launched the same night / Reaching for outer space and finding itself a baby moon / A satellite of earth / Where other lovers wait and / Play it safe and never / Dance with stars.)
Cowboy and I had gotten out the World Almanac to look up the date the Russians launched Sputnik, which was before my mother and father got married.
I often looked at my mother and tried to imagine her swept off her feet by any emotion. But I couldn’t, any more than I could imagine her when she was my age and planning to be a famous poet.
In one letter my father wrote, You’ll be the brilliant lawyer’s wife and I’ll be the brilliant poetess’s husband. Oh, Ava, my life — what a life we’ll have!
I’d think again of the Sadistic Oracle sweeping down on him as he was bent over the sheet of blue stationery that letter was written on.
“You want to know what it’s really going to be like, Larry? You’ll flunk your bar exam and go into the boot business. She’ll write doggerel for the local paper.”
I said to Cowboy, “The perfect couple about to live the perfect life. Then I came along.”
“It hasn’t got anything to do with you,” Cowboy said. “It’s growing up. If you could grow up and become something besides an adult, it wouldn’t be so bad. Nothing good begins with ‘adult.’ There’s adult, adulterate, adultery—”
And we’d laugh, but I was never totally convinced I hadn’t ruined their life.
“Well, look at it this way, then,” Cowboy would argue. “They ruined yours. It was the combination of the two of them that made you what you are, wasn’t it? If you’d had other parents you might not be what you are.” Then she’d always rush to add, “Not that what you are is bad.”
My mother finally found her poem in The Examiner, across from an editorial urging that the city dump be cleared and made into an airport.
“Honey!” she said. “Turn the sound down a little on the TV so I can read you my poem. They printed the one about autumn!”
I went across and stood on the stool to turn the sound down.
Then I sat on the stool and waited for her to read me her poem.
“Here goes, Little Little,” she said, and her face was flushed with pleasure.
She said, “Are you ready?”
AUTUMN
God takes his paintbrush to the leaves,
Splashing them like an artist painting
Rich reds and browns and oranges across the green,
I catch them falling in my hands another year,
My senses suffused with beauty.
—Ava Hancock La Belle
“It’s good, Mommy,” I told her. I liked it all right, but it didn’t make me jealous the way anything Calpurnia Dove wrote did.
“Now, don’t exaggerate. Just tell me if it’s good, as one would-be writer to another.”
“It is good. I like it.”
“Is it really good?”
“Very good.”
She jumped up and ran across to me. “Oh, honey, they printed it!”
It didn’t do any good, it never did, to say please put me down.
She held me, dancing around the solarium with me, planting wet kisses across my cheeks, both of us laughing, finally, me squirming, though. I smelled the mint on her breath and knew she’d had a few from the crème de menthe bottle she kept at the bottom of her white wicker yarn basket.
“We’ll have a good time at the game!” she said. Then she began to sing: “We’re the Boots! Toodle toot! We’re the Boots of La Belle fame! We’re the Boots who win the game! Toodle toot! Feel our boot!”
She danced faster, with me in her arms, jiggling me up and down the way I sometimes danced with our cat. “Toodle toot! Feel our boot!”
She put me down and knelt to be face to face with me.
“Did you like my poem, honey? Oh, I
Once Cowboy and I found all the love letters my mother and father had written to each other. My father signed all of his “Always and all ways, Larry,” and she enclosed poems she wrote in hers. One was called “Larry, Our Love Is Sputnik.” (Launched the same night / Reaching for outer space and finding itself a baby moon / A satellite of earth / Where other lovers wait and / Play it safe and never / Dance with stars.)
Cowboy and I had gotten out the World Almanac to look up the date the Russians launched Sputnik, which was before my mother and father got married.
I often looked at my mother and tried to imagine her swept off her feet by any emotion. But I couldn’t, any more than I could imagine her when she was my age and planning to be a famous poet.
In one letter my father wrote, You’ll be the brilliant lawyer’s wife and I’ll be the brilliant poetess’s husband. Oh, Ava, my life — what a life we’ll have!
I’d think again of the Sadistic Oracle sweeping down on him as he was bent over the sheet of blue stationery that letter was written on.
“You want to know what it’s really going to be like, Larry? You’ll flunk your bar exam and go into the boot business. She’ll write doggerel for the local paper.”
I said to Cowboy, “The perfect couple about to live the perfect life. Then I came along.”
“It hasn’t got anything to do with you,” Cowboy said. “It’s growing up. If you could grow up and become something besides an adult, it wouldn’t be so bad. Nothing good begins with ‘adult.’ There’s adult, adulterate, adultery—”
And we’d laugh, but I was never totally convinced I hadn’t ruined their life.
“Well, look at it this way, then,” Cowboy would argue. “They ruined yours. It was the combination of the two of them that made you what you are, wasn’t it? If you’d had other parents you might not be what you are.” Then she’d always rush to add, “Not that what you are is bad.”
My mother finally found her poem in The Examiner, across from an editorial urging that the city dump be cleared and made into an airport.
“Honey!” she said. “Turn the sound down a little on the TV so I can read you my poem. They printed the one about autumn!”
I went across and stood on the stool to turn the sound down.
Then I sat on the stool and waited for her to read me her poem.
“Here goes, Little Little,” she said, and her face was flushed with pleasure.
She said, “Are you ready?”
AUTUMN
God takes his paintbrush to the leaves,
Splashing them like an artist painting
Rich reds and browns and oranges across the green,
I catch them falling in my hands another year,
My senses suffused with beauty.
—Ava Hancock La Belle
“It’s good, Mommy,” I told her. I liked it all right, but it didn’t make me jealous the way anything Calpurnia Dove wrote did.
“Now, don’t exaggerate. Just tell me if it’s good, as one would-be writer to another.”
“It is good. I like it.”
“Is it really good?”
“Very good.”
She jumped up and ran across to me. “Oh, honey, they printed it!”
It didn’t do any good, it never did, to say please put me down.
She held me, dancing around the solarium with me, planting wet kisses across my cheeks, both of us laughing, finally, me squirming, though. I smelled the mint on her breath and knew she’d had a few from the crème de menthe bottle she kept at the bottom of her white wicker yarn basket.
“We’ll have a good time at the game!” she said. Then she began to sing: “We’re the Boots! Toodle toot! We’re the Boots of La Belle fame! We’re the Boots who win the game! Toodle toot! Feel our boot!”
She danced faster, with me in her arms, jiggling me up and down the way I sometimes danced with our cat. “Toodle toot! Feel our boot!”
She put me down and knelt to be face to face with me.
“Did you like my poem, honey? Oh, I
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