| disturbed psyche |
Posted
on 08-Dec-03 01:34 PM
Sunday waits.
Underneath the early bright sun, a small quiet town wakes up smiling. Tiffany’s and Kimberley’s school hustle and bustle wakes Ashley up. She watches how they hurry until they leave. She is in possession of wonderful worries about her toys and Barbie. She has no homework either. So, she goes back to bed. A call from one of the city dwellers wakes uncle Bucky up. He is out on the road equipped, with a beer in one hand and the wheel on the other. Another high expectation for chains of applauding performance on basketball court drives Kandes Walker to school. She does not know how many hours is she going to drive today. Yet, Mrs. Fya Walker puts on her responsible uniform. Both of them wake up somewhere else far from home but the first feeling of the day is, “Mom is making breakfast for us.” This warm feeling keeps April and C.J. Walker fresh all day as mom’s fragrance does not wear off ever. Soon to be born son counts every cigarette Tammy smokes. He will for sure at some point get mad at her once he has earned all his words. For this time, all he is capable of doing is to wish that he no more has to do the cigarette counting job. It is suffocating for him. His delicacy and tenderness can not combat the smoke Tammy’s cigarettes furnish.
Many things go in this small town. A sad looking eighth grade girl does not have a boy friend. She panics. A woman wanders on dark streets at a freezing night. She is drunk and has done drugs. She cries on her husband’s harsh remark on her. He does not love her any more. She does not care no matter what happens to her. She is ready to die.
Tammy’s aunt is a retired school teacher and a reverend. Still fully active hands and broad brain do not want an immediate halt. They seek opposite to what an idle admires. Of late, she is busy decorating her house with Christmas lights. The little kids enjoy the scene and surround her. She amuses them. The kids love her company. A woman is about to give birth. Her family and friends are active in baby shower ceremony. The town offers her a sense of belonging. She looks like a flying butterfly among the flowers among those people. She flies over to each flower and gathers nectar. Each flower has something to offer as a gift. She looks happy. He, who soon deserves a warm welcome is enjoying too.
A few miles away from the actual SPUR, a drunken revelry about each others culture continues the whole night in a pool-room. The radio is on. A black cat seeks warmth from the corner heater.. Valerie adds a minute detail where ever Anthony seems feeble. They seem a perfect fulfilling couple. C.J walker walks around the room with bits and pieces of facts and falls on the floor. When ever another fact strikes him and feels like sharing, he wakes up to present in a commanding voice. His voice is echoed in the room. I answer all of their queries, so do they mine. It takes a lot of patience especially when drunk. The cat that has its all ears to the noise mews either to agree or to disagree. We don’t know. It has no clear expression, both vocally and facially. So we leave the freedom up to the cat.
I pull my first ever trigger to miss the target while C.J and Chris blow off the glass bottles. Hesitation and fear repel fun. So, I pull the loud and recoiling twelve G to hit the target this time. As we tread lightly along the cactus-land with guns, rabbits and birds sense us as killers. Birds fly away and rabbits hide.
Dutch-courage is not a brave’s ornament. They are drunk and are getting more intoxicated with roughly handled liquor bottles. They are pimping in this small town but they come from a bigger one. They seem annoyed as they have not been able to find a single whore since they started few hours ago. One of them says, “I feel like picking up a fight and killing one.” The same guy urinates in somebody’s truck and they all leave. They present themselves as “coward lice.”
After another night’s stay in Walker mansion, its time for three of us (me, C.J. and Chris) to return back to our academic schedule from hunting, eating, sleeping, wandering and so many sporadic schedules we did not plan but ended doing it. One of them was getting my hair braided. April Walker’s fingers seem to be tuned to playing with hair to give it a style I wanted.
An anytime welcome ends the warm stay in Mrs. Fya’s mansion. That very welcome becomes a final and a departing scene preceded by a hug.
Little Ashley and Tiffany shall be missing their foreign friend. Mrs. Fya shall be remembering her foreign son. Kandes Walker shall be trying to recall the Nepalese tunes that I sang. Mrs. Tammy shall be waiting for my call as she says, “Do try to call us once you get rich and famous.” What a close and beautiful relation was that! We built it in five short days.
The Sun shall help me locate that small town when I will be out in its search and all these people shall hopefully be there. By then little Ashley and Tiffany would be grown ups. Would they agree to play with their foreign friend? Would they ask me to hold them again then? Would Tammy be as delighted to see a stranger in her town again and welcome me with pizzas?
Thanks Walker Family, Chris, Tammy and her kids. Thanks SPUR. Those five thanks giving days gained me completely different sets of experience. My few words are a pay off yet they never equalize the level of friendliness SPUR offered me.
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