The first day of school

She had traded shifts with the new girl for the school year so that she could be up early in the mornings and then home in the afternoon for the bus.  She would work 9-3 and be home all afternoon to have an after school snack and hear all the days stories. It would cost her, the morning shift was notoriously slow so she'd make less in tips and since her mom would be at work too she would need a pay a sitter for the little one. But it was going to be worth it.

She showered in the small windowless bathroom thick with humidity. Coming out wrapped in a towel she looked across the small apartment.  The kitchen countertop was badly chipped and sitting on it was a brand new, empty, Hello Kitty lunch box.  She didn't need to pack a lunch or snack because they had qualified for the school meal voucher program at the elementary school.  Hello Kitty would never carry food back and forth, but would instead each morning have a note inside it that read, "I love you from the top, to the bottom, and all the way through."  She had bought the lunch box along with the matching backpack even though it cost an extra $5 to help make sure her daughter fit in the with the other kids. The pink backpack lay limp on the floor against the wall. It was empty too. The local church would give her daughter her school supplies in the cafeteria when she got to school. They would provide a folder, a 24 count box of crayons, two pencils, a sharpener, an eraser and a glue stick. This would have to last all year.

She picked up the bedtime story books from the floor and put them on the coffee table and then pushed the table against the wall and folded out the couch. She was tired but anxious. Before laying down to sleep she peeked into the bedroom and watched her two girls sleep. They were lying head-to-foot in a twin bed. The baby, only 18 months slept only in a diaper and was tucked close to the wall and her big girl, 5, was lying on her stomach in princess underwear with an arm hanging over the edge. The room was hot. The windows were open but there was no breeze. Each girls' dark hair was sweaty and damp and stuck to their face and backs. They had no pillows or blankets.

She didn't close the door in hopes that some breeze may come, but she tiptoed back to the damp thin fold out couch and lay down to sleep. All the windows were open. The sheets over the windows were still.

In the morning there was a fabulous rush of school nerves and preparation. A special breakfast of pancakes was made, teeth were brushed, hair was braided, and she surprised her older daughter with a  brand new pink dress from the thrift store that was special just for the first day of kindergarten. It had a heart of made of pink sequins on it, only a few were already missing.

She counted the minutes for the chain-smoking neighbor to arrive to watch her younger daughter. It would be close enough to get the big one on the bus and be at work on time, but if the sitter was late and they missed the bus, well then quite frankly they were screwed.  But she showed up a minute early much to her relief and so she and her daughter were able to walk to the corner bus stop and enjoy the hot late summer morning together.

The bus stop was crowded. Most of the moms seemed to know each other. One introduced herself as the kindergarten room mom. She told her she would send pictures of the first day activities and they traded cell phone numbers. The school bus was loud as it rounded the corner. Her daughter's hand tightened and she kneeled down in front of her, fixing her braid and straightening her name tag. And then with a simple kiss her little hand let go and disappeared into the dark cavernous bus, up the steep stairs and she was too short to be seen from the sidewalk. She was gone. On her way. The bus pulled off and while she felt like she could've stood there waiting till 3:30 to see the bus come back, she had to be at work.

By 10:30 she had checked her phone countless times hoping to see a glimpse of her girl on the first day of school. Work was slow and uneventful. Finally a text. There she was, a smile from ear to ear, sitting on the carpet surrounded by 17 other smiling small faces. Circle Time. She stood staring at the picture and said out loud to no one in particular, "I'm going outside for a smoke."

And there she stood, in the doorway, staring at this picture, the heat unbearably thick and the smell of urine and garbage overwhelming. Late summer heat and Bourbon Street don't mix well.  She could hear the sound of her daughters voice, hear the laughter of the kids and feel the excitement of being 5. She couldn't wait to get home. Her boss called her inside. He had a guy who wanted a lap dance. She walked back in to the  dark loud room and climbed on to the lap of the old white man who was already hard just at the thought of her riding him. One hand on her breast, the other on her ass while she stared at the clock over his shoulder, thinking about meeting the bus at 3:30.

 

This story was inspired by this picture I took a few weeks ago in New Orleans around 9:30am and by the many pictures in my Facebook feed this morning of affluent first days of school. We really are very lucky.

He smelled like a man named Ogre would smell

He had just lost his job as a clown. It wasn't his dream job, just another in a string of jobs that had filled his days over the past few years. He hadn't been very good at it actually, but overall the experience had been positive, meeting new people, going to different places, usually free cake. It was good for the few months it lasted. But as the summer wore on the complaints began to increase. The kids said he smelled. And he did. A sour, putrid, thick smell and it was hard to figure exactly if it was he himself or something he'd gotten into. He actually smelled how you would think a man called Ogre would smell.

Ogre was his nickname for as long as he could remember. Thick curly black hair covered his head, his chest and his back but it was his hands that were most ogre-like. Enormous hands, fingers round as quarters. Dry cracked cuticles that came to sharp points around his thick nails. The skin was thick, like each finger was its own callous. Even before his years as a mechanic the thickness of the skin was remarkable. Now, after years of working on cars the cracks and creases on Ogres hands were stained black. A constant reminder of a past life that he could never go back to.

When he was a kid, long before he was known as Ogre (that name was given to him freshman year of high school, when his size and hair and the lumbering way he carried himself around the high school hallways earned him that name) he went by Billy. He would work on the neighbor's cars after school and all summer learning about transmissions, catalytic converters, and how to rebuild an engine block. He had a real knack for understanding how things worked and although his big hands made working in tight spaces tricky, he had found his passion. And even through the blurry teenage years, when he was given the moniker Ogre, he knew he would own his own garage one day.

And he did. For 18 years.

Holding the curly, coarse red clown wig in his hand down by his side, he stood with the sun in his face and looked across the parking lot from the backdoor of the office where he was no longer employed. It was warm and a little windy and his baggy shiny blue pants made a noise like a flag in the breeze. He hadn't changed into his work shoes yet, so beneath the shiny pants were a pair of old black velcro shoes, not quite sneakers, not quite a dress shoe. They were comfortable and easy to get on and off.  With his furry belly in the way tying shoes had lost its ease and appeal many years before.

His face, under heavy white paint  and facing the sun grew warm quickly. He blankly stared across the parking lot. A few rows of cars on gravel with the railroad line behind them and acres of woods beyond that. He had lost track of how many odd jobs he'd had over the years. He was so tired.

The breeze felt nice. Cooled him everywhere except his face. He walked down 4 steps and the crunch of the gravel under his feet seemed unusually loud. It brought him back to a time years before when that same sound would be the first clue on a dark night that something was horribly wrong.

Married with a family and owning his own shop since he was 19 often meant working late nights, which also often meant drinking some bourbon or on occasion alot of bourbon. His son was 4 at the time and the kid loved his dad. He would hang out at the shop and hand his dad tools. Of course he was 4 and his attention span wasn't great so often he'd leave the garage and its diesel fumes an play in the gravel parking lot. Rarely did he throw rocks. He knew better, but he loved to hear the loud crunch of the gravel when he slid across it. In the warmer months his legs were covered in scabs and his toe nails were encased in a pale grey dust.

The garage had been robbed a few times over the years and so Ogre kept a pistol in the office for nights when he worked late. Even though the it was on the same lot as the house, the garage sat closer to the main road and the house was set way back, the occasional late night good-for-nothing would break the windows, steal tools, or perhaps drunk decide it would be fun to knock over the airpumps. Vandalism mostly, a costly irritating nuisance.

That night when he heard the gravel he had been drinking but it was no bender. A few shots of bourbon and couple of beers.

The gravel crunched in the darkness among the noise of the crickets and frogs and at a distance that at first Ogre did not notice it. It was 10:37 and he was going over the books. It was ok, not great but overall things were good. The gravel crunching moved closer and this time it caught his ear and he lowered the radio and put his hand on the gun. The gravel sound increased as it grew closer and he held the gun in his hand and looked out the window in the dark night. Fireflies.

Sobbing mixed with the sound of gravel now. He left the small office and went outside. It was pitch black except for the small light coming outside of his office window and the front porch light of his house in the distance. Out of the darkness came the small, wet face of his son. Tears did not describe it. His face was wet. As if tears that were too big for such a small boy had fallen from his brown eyes. Feet bare, grey and dusty, train pajamas -- his favorite with the red bottoms. And he couldn't get the words out. Ogre scooped him up in his arms and ran towards the house. The child never spoke, just sobbed the whole way.

The front door was open. The light over the kitchen sink was on. He yelled for his wife Danielle. The boy cried harder and then wet himself down the front of his pajamas and all on Ogre's side.  There was no answer. He put the boy down and ran upstairs and it was there in the hallway he could see in the gentle glow of the train night light into the bathroom at the end of the hall. He could only see her hair. Just the long auburn hair that she had chosen to wear down on the last minute on their wedding day. As he entered the bathroom the scene it its entirety became clear. The ceramic tub was full of red water. Her arms and body submerged. Her nightgown floated about her knees. Her face white and her soft lips blue.

The boy had quieted but was still crying downstairs. And Ogre, heartbroken, angry and confused sat in silence indian-style next to the tub holding his wifes cold, wet hand till the sun came up.

His big, thick, black hand pruny from being submerged in the water all night finally released Danielle's fingers just as the first of the morning birds began to sing their song. Her hand fell beneath the surface with a gentle splash.

At some point his son had fallen asleep on the hardwood floor at the base of the stairs in his urine soaked pjs and he slept soundly still as Ogre stepped over him, walked outside, got in his car and drove away. He never went back. It was all too much for him.

Now he was lying down, sun so bright and hot that he had to close his eyes. He was so tired. The metal was hot and his shiny pants felt hot too even to his thick skinned finger tips. It really was very fast. The train blew its whistle in desperation but Ogre, lying there face painted, eyes closed, velcro-shoed feet up on the opposite rail was tired. He could hear his own heart beat in his ears and it drowned out everything, much in the same way Danielle could likely hear her own beat as her ears sunk below the surface of the bloody water and the life drained out of her.

The train barreled over him. For an instant a searing heat ran through him. And then it was done.