Read Online Maud's House by Sherry Roberts - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sherry Roberts
Tags: Contemporary, Novels
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I still have those cute little greeting cards. The tourists love them just as you said they would. Now, go away. Please? What do you mean what is that red glob in the middle? George… George? George come back here and explain. Damn, you always do this to me. If you weren’t already dead, I’d probably kill you.
T-Bone once told me his dancing was like a thing clawing inside him to get out. If he didn’t listen to it, he said, it would destroy him. There was something inside me lately, tearing, mad, slashing through arteries, muscle, and organ. I studied the softly forming cow and gave in to all the despair and heartache and frustration. I hurt inside and cried from the pain. Little sniffles at first. Then mighty sobs. I couldn’t watch another cow birth. I raised my hand to my eyes. It was dripping with blood.
Great.
On the floor was a shattered jar and on the table where I had slammed my hand through the glass was the red imprint of my palm.
Downstairs someone was pounding on the front door. I wrapped paper towels around my hand until it looked like a huge paper paw and answered the door. “I don’t want any.”
The man standing on the porch smiled.
“Look, I’ve got my hands full right now and…”
He glanced at the paw, which was reddening, soaking up blood faster than spilt coffee in a television commercial. The smile slipped. The man promptly turned green, folded into a pretzel, and threw up.
5. A Picture of Thomas Looking for Pictures
H is name was Thomas. And he came here looking for the pictures.
“What happened to the house?” he asked, driving back from the doctor’s office.
“The house?” I said.
He thrust a photograph under my nose. Unthinkingly, I took it with my bandaged hand and winced. The local anesthesia was wearing off. I needed a Rolling Rock; make that six.
The photograph was a picture of my house taken years ago when it had been swimming in scenes and portraits. A man stood in front of the house, smiling. He had blonde hair, down to his shoulders, scraped back from his face with a leather headband. He wore scruffy jeans, a work shirt, and love beads. I knew by the composition that the photo had been taken by my father; it was shot from a slightly skewed angle, making the man in the picture seem to tilt like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
I didn’t remember that particular photo session. It was one of hundreds in my childhood, especially in my teen years when the house really began to rock. By then, I was running out of space. Scenes crowded the surface of the house, impressionism rubbing elbows with realism, realism back-to-back with abstract expressionism. The house reflected me, my moods, the mile-a-minute changes going on inside my teen-age mind. It seemed I changed styles weekly. And so, the house changed, too.
I smiled at the photo and thought of cameras and Papa. My father loved cameras but was a photography klutz. When people asked him to take their picture, he fumbled with the cameras, searching for the right buttons. He would frown and scratch his head and someone would offer to help. But he would say, no, he’d figure it out. He loved to tinker. Then came the day he worked his first Polaroid. When the film rolled out of the camera like a tongue, he almost jumped out of his overalls. He watched the picture materialize with incredulity. He asked if he could do it again. That one looked a bit off center, he said. He thought he could do better. Thereafter, he always was a bit disappointed when folks shoved an instamatic or 35mm camera in his hand. They could have given him the world’s most expensive Leica and he would have looked at it with chagrin. Papa was hooked on Polaroid.
George hated living in a point of interest. He was lousy at PR. At first he was proud of the house: “I never thought I’d live inside a Niagara Falls or a Lincoln Memorial.” For awhile he even enjoyed talking to “our tourists.” But soon he grew bored with the Clydes and Sallys from
T-Bone once told me his dancing was like a thing clawing inside him to get out. If he didn’t listen to it, he said, it would destroy him. There was something inside me lately, tearing, mad, slashing through arteries, muscle, and organ. I studied the softly forming cow and gave in to all the despair and heartache and frustration. I hurt inside and cried from the pain. Little sniffles at first. Then mighty sobs. I couldn’t watch another cow birth. I raised my hand to my eyes. It was dripping with blood.
Great.
On the floor was a shattered jar and on the table where I had slammed my hand through the glass was the red imprint of my palm.
Downstairs someone was pounding on the front door. I wrapped paper towels around my hand until it looked like a huge paper paw and answered the door. “I don’t want any.”
The man standing on the porch smiled.
“Look, I’ve got my hands full right now and…”
He glanced at the paw, which was reddening, soaking up blood faster than spilt coffee in a television commercial. The smile slipped. The man promptly turned green, folded into a pretzel, and threw up.
5. A Picture of Thomas Looking for Pictures
H is name was Thomas. And he came here looking for the pictures.
“What happened to the house?” he asked, driving back from the doctor’s office.
“The house?” I said.
He thrust a photograph under my nose. Unthinkingly, I took it with my bandaged hand and winced. The local anesthesia was wearing off. I needed a Rolling Rock; make that six.
The photograph was a picture of my house taken years ago when it had been swimming in scenes and portraits. A man stood in front of the house, smiling. He had blonde hair, down to his shoulders, scraped back from his face with a leather headband. He wore scruffy jeans, a work shirt, and love beads. I knew by the composition that the photo had been taken by my father; it was shot from a slightly skewed angle, making the man in the picture seem to tilt like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
I didn’t remember that particular photo session. It was one of hundreds in my childhood, especially in my teen years when the house really began to rock. By then, I was running out of space. Scenes crowded the surface of the house, impressionism rubbing elbows with realism, realism back-to-back with abstract expressionism. The house reflected me, my moods, the mile-a-minute changes going on inside my teen-age mind. It seemed I changed styles weekly. And so, the house changed, too.
I smiled at the photo and thought of cameras and Papa. My father loved cameras but was a photography klutz. When people asked him to take their picture, he fumbled with the cameras, searching for the right buttons. He would frown and scratch his head and someone would offer to help. But he would say, no, he’d figure it out. He loved to tinker. Then came the day he worked his first Polaroid. When the film rolled out of the camera like a tongue, he almost jumped out of his overalls. He watched the picture materialize with incredulity. He asked if he could do it again. That one looked a bit off center, he said. He thought he could do better. Thereafter, he always was a bit disappointed when folks shoved an instamatic or 35mm camera in his hand. They could have given him the world’s most expensive Leica and he would have looked at it with chagrin. Papa was hooked on Polaroid.
George hated living in a point of interest. He was lousy at PR. At first he was proud of the house: “I never thought I’d live inside a Niagara Falls or a Lincoln Memorial.” For awhile he even enjoyed talking to “our tourists.” But soon he grew bored with the Clydes and Sallys from
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