---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “Pipe Dreams” Down in the Dirt, v177 (the November 2020 Issue) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Late Frost the Down in the Dirt Sept.-Dec. 2020 issues collection book		get the 420 page Sept.-Dec. 2020 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Sylvan Lane

Thomas Elson

    Two inches by two inches. An honest to goodness snapshot taken with a brand-new Brownie camera.
    The background cluttered with white two-bedroom houses thrown up during the final year of the war - each street carrying names like Sylvan Lane or Beverly Street or Marcillane Court. On the left side of the photo one tall pole with wires extending in four directions, and a few trees not bulldozed during construction with patches of grass from front door to sidewalk. There were no driveways yet.
    The boys were home and the new world anticipated an economic boom to counteract the depression years, and a baby boom to propel the country into the forefront for the next few decades until voting against one’s basic interests came into vogue.
    In the foreground of the photo was a tall, tanned man, his shirt off, his broad shoulders a product of Army training and European Theater deployment. His dark hair fully Brylcreemed. Something virile, masculine about the man echoed the country that had inducted him. Cigarettes had not yet attacked his lungs; his chest unmarked by the long scar so prominent in later years; arms unmarred and veins unpunctured; free from illnesses that were to take their toll; his eyes without cover or need for prescriptions stared directly at the camera despite the harsh sun.
    Father and son now together after the war. His hands pressed down and pulled back against the shoulders of his three-year-old son whose right hand attempted to shield his blue eyes. He had been lifted by his father so that his bare beet were atop his father’s shoes. The boy would retain a vague recollection of being grabbed by his father then yanked over. Unable to do anything other than squirm, not strong enough to extricate himself, the boy cast his eyes and head down, and the snapshot showed more of his blond hair than his face. The man’s teeth and mouth a frozen combination of smirk and grimace. The boy’s face hidden. Look closely and sense a need to escape, not even be near.
    #
    Fifty years and half a continent away, in the kitchen of a house with a view of the ocean, the boy, three degrees and four professions later, twice-married with a daughter and grandsons of his own, looked at the man from the photo - once so strong and closed - now slumped, his waist telescoped into his hips, shrunken and gray, forearms on the kitchen table with fists clinched, his canula hanging loose and attached to an oxygen machine attached to a wall and humming a few feet away. He hadn’t been outside in two years except when his son drives him to the doctor. His torso shriveled from cigarettes and alcohol, anger and shame, regrets and justifications based on grievances of minimal consequence except for his reactions. His wife, the boy’s mother, languid in a peach colored chair, unattached from the events of the world after a series of strokes left her adrift.
    The man muttered something neither the boy nor his mother were attuned after years of hearing his endless loop of gripes and threats.
    “You didn’t-”
    “You should have-”
    “If only you- then I-”
    “If you hadn’t, I-”
    His left forearm dropped from the table, hit the arm of his chair, and fell.
    The boy watched his father gradually slide from the chair, and knew if he didn’t break the slide, the old man’s final destination would be the floor. The mother remained oblivious.
    He’s not going to be found dead on the floor. He pulled his father into the chair, and rolled it into the old man’s bedroom – his parents had not slept together since the ‘60’s. His father suddenly heavier, much heavier, but his son lifted him onto the bed, positioned his legs, then cushioned his head.
    He found the file his parents prepared after they met with the funeral home director and made their final arrangements. He opened the file, looked at the checklist, and called the funeral home. “We’ll make the rest of the calls and be at your house shortly.”
    The boy made up an explanation to tell his mother still in her peach chair and called his wife.
    Within twenty minutes, the house was cluttered with multiple shades of blue uniforms. “The body’s been moved,” said an officer with a practiced stern gaze.
    “Yes, I did.”
    “It’s illegal.”
    “It may well be, but my father was not going to end up on the kitchen floor.”
    The officer moved closed, until another blue uniform with two bars on the collar nodded. The men from the funeral home rolled the body from the house and the family sat in silence.
    #
    Later that week, relatives notified, house back in order, the mother and son sat on the side of the father’s bed. “Mikie,” she said harkening his nickname as a child, “I haven’t cried. Is is wrong I haven’t cried over his death?”
    “Mom, no one cried.”

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...