If anyone gets this in your feed – please accept my apologies. I’m making sausage here. ..
Monthly Archives: March 2016
Planning
6:45 AM.
I’m awake. Of course I’m awake, I don’t need to be anywhere, the alarm clock next to my head ( and in my head ) has no assignment. I could sleep another hour at least.
But. I don’t.
Grayish blue light frames a square where I know our bedroom window is. Tree branches slant and sway outside.
‘There.’ I tell myself. ‘Look at that and listen to the wind. That will put you back to sleep.’
But. It doesn’t.
Hours later – or seconds, I open my eyes and there is a cat silhouetted in the window. Almost by magic. I can’t see how he got there but I know cats have their ways, plus there is a chair directly under the window. The cat’s name is Alex or Sam or MoJo – they all look alike, a nightmare of it’s own I’ll tell you but I think this one is Alex. Owlishly he swivels his head left and right as he considers the day before him.
Alex sees something in the yard that interests him, his ears twitch slightly and he rises just a little on his haunches. He shifts his position, two stories up looking through a thick piece of glass he’s not really going to be able to do anything about whatever it is he sees. But still he seems intent that he his going to do something, ‘He has a plan.’ I tell myself. ‘Cats always do.’
Rick
Rick McQueen leaned back in his chair, hands atop his head looking across his desk at Harold Bicy waiting for Harold’s answer. Bicy reached out and touched McQueen’s desk his fingers near the mounted baseball that has sat on the edge of McQueen’s desk for years.
“1985 World Series – St. Louis v. the Cardinals.” said McQueen knowing the kid wanted to pick it up. Lots of kids have over the years, bet if I took that to the cops and had it fingerprinted they’d get a dozen hits.
“Caught it in the third inning of the fifth game– good game.”
Rick leaned forward and caught Harold’s eyes, “What are you in here for Harold?”
“Ahh .. I dunno Misser ‘Queen” mumbled Harold. Harold leaned back and crossed his arms across his chest pulling his best gangster face. Bicy wore a purple satin shirt unbuttoned against a white wife-beater tee shirt, his biceps bulging as he peered at Principal Rick McQueen.
“Says here” read McQueen, “Harold had a verbal confrontation with Toyna Williams in the east hallway between 5th and 6th hour on Oct 28th.” “Harold used several obscenities and at one point attempted to hold onto Tonya’s arm as Tonya tried to get away from him. Attempts by myself to get Harold into his 6th hour class failed with his running out of the building. He is not welcome back into my class until this matter has been addressed. Signed Celia Foster.”
McQueen sat back in his chair again and gave Harold some time to speak. Harold sat mute, looking at his feet splayed out across the tiled floor.
“Sound about right Harold?”
“Nah .. I ain’t don nothing to that bit–” Harold caught the widening of McQueen’s eyes and rephrased: “I din’t touch her – we’s jus havin us a lil’ set-to is all.”
Harold’s impossibly long eyelashes blinked at McQueen. “She’s my girl, sometimes she gets hersef all twisted up ‘s all , we aight.”
“So, you don’t know what the problem with Tonya was then?”
“Nah – we was just haven a good time then all-sudden she go psycho on me– it was whack, man.”
“Well” said McQueen, “maybe you called her a bitch. . ”
Harold grinned quickly then pulled his face back “Nooo Noo, I din’t do none o that.”
McQueen folded the incident report in his hands and tapped it’s corner on his desk blotter. He let some time pass and looked at Harold.
“You know I was principal at Boyer when you were coming up.”
“I know, I ‘member.”
“You were a good kid .. say is your Mom still in the Army?” McQueen braced himself for bad news .. asking one of the kids about their family life was risky. Often the answer was incredibly sad and depressing.
“Yeah – she’s stationed in Atlanta” Harold smiled, “be home in November for a few weeks.”
“So you’re living with your Grandmother then?”
“Yeah Grams – she cool.”
McQueen turned his head toward the window, somebody from grounds was out there running a gas leaf blower. He waited till the guy had walked far enough away so he could be heard.
“Guess we need to set up a meeting then with her– get us all in a room and talk this over.” ventured McQueen.
“Nah man, Grams’ll have fit Mr. MacQueen – she get pis– she get mad she have to take time offa work.”
“Well then what are we gonna do here Harold? I can’t have you fighting and disrespecting other students in this high school.”
Harold slouched back into gangster mode, crossed his arms, looked sideways towards the leaf blower noise and sucked his front teeth. “Tssst— man.”
McQueen snapped his fingers, “Hey here’s an idea .. we have an after school program, over at Boyer elementary .. fifth and sixth graders. They shoot hoops and play some soccer, catch up on their homework. You could help out over there.”
“Naa – me hangin wit shorties?” Harold snorted. “Ah don think so.”
“Come on Harold .. work with me .. plus ..” Rick frowned. “Aren’t you on some kinda probation with juvie?”
Harold had gotten jammed up recently for breaking windows.
Harold glared at Rick .. “Shitt, now–”
“Well, seems to me if you’re not in school you gotta go back and finish your time with them – Juvie.” McQueen said. “Grams not gonna like that much.”
Harold steamed a bit over that, his right leg jack hammering up and down. Phones rang out in the outer office, McQueen leaned back, locking his hands behind his head, he swiveled away from Harold as if giving him time to access his predicament. The leaf blower stopped outside.
“‘s blackmail is what it is..” Bicy said.
“No, No, No — Harold its a deal. That’s all. You get back in Mrs. Foster’s class and Pastor Williams gets some help for his after school program over at Boyer.” McQueen smiled.
“Pastor Williams” Harold gasped, eyes narrowing. “Tha’s Tonya’s daddy .. aww man.”
McQueen smiled at Harold. “It is? Really? uh.. you know I think you may be right. Huh. Small world, hey Harold?”
“Pfftpt, not that small”, snorted Harold. “I think I’m a being played is what I think.”
McQueen ignored him, “So be at Boyer this afternoon at 4pm. Find Tonya’s daddy” he chuckled then, “He’ll tell you what to do.”
Harold stood up then, and headed out of Rick’s office.
“Harold?”
Harold turned back, his hand on the door handle.
“No more arguments or obscenities in the building – hear me?”
“Yeah,” Harold sighed “I get it.”
What to do with this site?
I am hoping to use this to accelerate my writing. I like to write .. well sometimes at least and when I do I often end up squirreling my words away on my computer or if I’m feeling confidant enough about it I will put it on Facebook as a note.