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"The Weather Vane" (the fifty-sixth ACWclub monthly writing contest) |
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Assignment: Write a story or poem using the following title: "The Weather Vane" 2500 words or less. Deadline: Midnight (EDT), April 15, 2006 All entries are the property of the authors and cannot be copied or reprinted without their consent. |
| The Weather Vane By Sal Amico M. Buttaci sambpoet@yahoo.com (Entry 12) |
| ~Winning Entry~ |
| the me you saw yesterday the me you heard singing off key in the shower rock ‘n roll songs from the fabled old fifties this me who once carried a lucky Ace comb for the dark pompadour I sported like Frankie Avalon you never heard of the me you insist talks poems in my sleep who once wore black leather who still looks for my father down dark lonely streets the me shuffling years into fat and lean dreams the me leaning over the bridge of the Arno me in a sun ray in the crack of a door me clumsily groping for time making faces in unkind funhouse mirrors in dark morning puddles in the windows of strangers in gold magic lamps rubbed the wrong way the me chasing shadows high as the moonlight the me of the now and before of the never again the me and the me and the me you saw touching the smooth granite of graves the me peeling dead seconds like dry layers of skin the me who I am, have been, might one day become the me you say totters like a weather-vane rooster flapping my arms as if I had wings the me on the roof slant reaching for heaven daring the windfall humming old rock songs predicting the direction two hearts will take the me on the roof slant loved by an angel |
| The Weather Vane By WALTER J. WILKINS wilkinswj@comcast.net (Entry 13) |
| ~Runner Up~ |
| Squeak, squeak, squeak! For twenty years I listened to the squeaking of the weather vane my husband, Ezra, had affixed atop the cupola on our barn the day Junior was born. “It’ll bring him luck, just like it did my paw,” he had said. Terrific, I thought. He drowned in a pig sty sleeping off a belly full of moon-shine the locals called Panther Piss. I nagged Ezra about what it was doing to his liver, but my concern fell on deaf ears. “Tend to you own affairs,” he told me. “My liver’s fine.” Well it couldn’t have been that fine cuz we buried him yesterday. God bless his soul, which I doubt He will do. It’s more like the devil beware, but one can never be sure whose got the upper hand. If I had my way he’d spend the rest of eternity in purgatory, sober as a judge. It would serve him right. When we returned from the funeral the weather vane was making some God-awful noises. On seeing us it started swinging back and forth, checking us out with that eye hole in its head, like it wanted to attack but couldn’t decide which of us to assault first. The grinding of metal-on-metal sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. It made you squeeze your eyes shut and cover your ears. It carried on so you’d a thought it was mourning a loved one. “I’ll get the ladder,” Junior said, reading my mind. I guess he felt as I did; that it was time the weather vane joined his Paw and grandma. It doesn’t know east from west or north from south anyhow. Damn thing just points where it wants to. Sometimes it just goes round and round like it’s sniffing out a lost breeze. I’d complained to Ezra for years about the noise. It was impossible to sleep. The sound bore right through the layers of your mind and made you grit your teeth so hard your fillings stuck together. You couldn’t even think clearly when it really got going cuz it sucked the thoughts right out of your head before they was finished growing up into ideas. But to Ezra it was music. “Sounds like my dear old mother,” he said. Well he was right there. That cantankerous old woman’s creaky voice had sounded like the soulless noise the weather vane made during its senseless meandering. God I hated that old witch, and her grandson wasn’t too fond of her either. When Junior was small he would cringe every time she opened her toothless mouth. If she was mad her screeching actually hurt your ears. One day she got so carried away over something I’d done that her pipe fell out from between her gums and burned a hole in my rug. When I chastised her for it she went into a terrible tirade; said the rug weren’t no more than an old horse blanket and should’ve been thrown out years ago. Why a person would put a stick in their mouth and suck smoke into their lungs through it is beyond me—especially a woman. Not that it messed up her looks any cuz it didn’t. She was as ugly as a bare-assed possum and smelled worse than the out house. It was a real blessing when she departed this life. Now Ezra has gone to join her. Hallelujah! Junior scampered up the roof. When he got to the cupola he looked down at me with a proud expression on his face. He was my only child and though not too bright-- like his Paw, he always gave me pleasure. My show of appreciation for his efforts was very important to him, whether it had been for his childhood artwork or the more grown up things he did now, like fixing the tractor or castrating the bull. I knew he would be expecting my praise for this daring feat, so I smiled and lightly clapped my hands together. The big cock rooster weather vane had a great flowing tail and a real grandiose stance-- like a soldier at attention. As Junior approached it turned and glared at him. Undaunted, Junior reached over the cupola and grabbed the bottom shaft. He couldn’t get enough leverage to pull it out of the rusted pipe, so he hoisted himself up onto the cupola’s roof and grabbed the cock’s iron perch with both hands and gave a yank. Nothing happened. He spread his feet wide apart, spat on his hands, and gave another yank. Nothing! Then the wind picked up. Slowly the weather vane started to turn. The rooster was made out of a thin piece of metal and didn’t weigh more than twenty pounds but it bowled Junior right over. Luckily he was able to grab the shaft and hold on. The weather vane kept turning, carrying Junior along with it. I watched in horror as he was dragged around the tiny roof on his back. Each time they came to the short side, where the cupola straddled the roof, Junior’s feet would smack into the peak causing him to be flipped over; first onto his belly then back onto his back. The pocket of his dungarees caught on a nail and was torn off. The next time around the nail snagged his belt. Junior’s trousers were bunching up into his crotch and squishing his testicles. I don’t know who was howling the loudest, him or the rooster. I was unable to help, or even think of anything to say that might assure him that everything would be all right. All I could do was watch. But Junior was always resourceful. With his free hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. He opened the blade with his teeth and cut himself loose then turned over onto his belly and with great effort, climbed back up onto the cupola’s roof. The wind died down and the weather vane stopped turning. Junior let go of the shaft and looked at his hand. All the skin was gone. It must have hurt like the fires of hell. “I can’t get it out, Maw,” he said, looking down at me and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but it’s all rusted together.” “Then forget about it. I’ll hire someone to do it,” I told him. “Come on down.” We didn’t have any money to hire someone, and he knew how badly I wanted that damn weather vane gone, so he said, “I’ll try once more. Maybe I can break it off below the arrow.” Junior approached the weather vane in a crouch and bellied up to it. He wrapped his long arms around the thin metal rooster and leaned forward then backward, trying to snap the upper shaft. The rooster screamed! Junior’s eyes went so wide I thought they’d pop right out of his head. Then the wind started to blow. It couldn’t get to the rooster because Junior was literally holding it in his arms, but it was able to get a small bite on the tail feathers of the arrow. The weather vane began to turn again, dragging junior along with it. But he didn’t let go. He kept up his rhythmic forward and backward leaning as he side-stepped around the little roof, first on his toes then on his knees. Around and around they went. Junior’s dungarees wore through. His knees were now scuffed and bleeding, but he held on. Through it all the rooster never shut up. It squealed and squeaked and shrieked, calling to the wind to blow harder. I knew Junior couldn’t let go now even if he wanted to. If he did he would probably fall to his death. Besides, I was watching his every move, rooting him on. The thought of how proud I would be of him after this was over must have given him renewed strength, because he picked up the pace. Forward and back, forward and back, faster and faster he went. The bend in the shaft started to glow a fiery red. The rooster turned its head and began to peck at Junior’s face with its metal beak, but he was so engrossed in his task he didn’t even notice. Each time they came around I prayed it would be the last. My poor boy was now bleeding profusely from his face and knees. The blood dripped from the cupola’s edge and onto the barn roof then slowly made its way down the weathered shingles to the gutter. I could hear Junior grunt each time he lunged forward. I’m ashamed to admit it, cuz this certainly weren’t the time or place, but the grunting reminded me of the sound his Paw used to make each time he drove into me while we were making love. It caused me to think about Ezra and me and the twenty odd years we lived together and how we used to make love all the time. Looking back at it now, I don’t remember him ever taking me when he was sober, not even on our wedding night. I don’t know why he needed to be drunk. Was I that ugly, I wondered? Other men hadn’t thought so and I didn’t really think so either. Maybe I’ll get me another husband. I bet there are plenty of men out there willing to take on a widow. The next one will be a tea-toteler though; you can bet on that. The rooster kept pecking but Junior never let up. He was going faster now. The staccato grump, grump, grump, grump, like a car trying to turn over with a bad battery, was just how Ezra sounded just before he climaxed. It wouldn’t be long now. The shaft broke on Junior’s backward lean. For a second he was balanced on his toes with the weather vane all tangled in his shirt. Then he toppled backward. He fell to the roof on his back and started to slide down the upper part of the gambrel. I could see the fear in his eyes as he fought for purchase with his heels. If it hadn’t been for the weather vane he might have had a chance, but when he slid to the lower section of the gambrel it caused him to roll over onto the metal rooster, which now became a speeding sled. His toes caught the gutter. It flipped him into the air. “MAW! HELP ME! HELP ME!” he screamed as he sailed through the air and came crashing to the ground on his stomach. I ran to him and rolled him over. The point of the arrow was buried deep in his chest. “I did it Maw, I did it,” he said, coughing up blood. “That damn thing won’t keep us awake any more.” I couldn’t hold back the tears. “I am so proud of you,” I said, sobbing. “No other boy in the whole wide world could have done any better.” I buried Junior a grave’s space from his Paw, saving me the middle. I don’t believe a dead man can have a bad influence on a young lad, even if he is also dead, but why take chances. I didn’t think a metal rooster could cry and peck either, but it did. I don’t care what any one says or how many of them think I’m crazy; I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. * * * * * With Ezra and his mother gone, to God only knows where, and now Junior too--hopefully to some place they’re not, its become awfully quite around here; so quiet that I can actually hear myself think. But that’s not the blessing I was expecting, because they are far from happy thoughts. I hold myself responsible for Junior’s death, and also, somewhat, for my unhappy marriage; though I don’t know what I could have done differently. There are two sides to every story, they say, so maybe it wasn’t all Ezra’s fault. Those reflections, and others I don’t care to divulge, are now keeping me awake at night. A lot of these thoughts have been with me all my life, but the constant interference of the noisy weather vane had drowned them out. Now they were foremost in my mind; a mind that has always been somewhat at odds with itself. Oh I hid it well, except for that short stay in the nut hospital my parent’s sent me to, nobody was the wiser--except maybe Ezra’s mother, and possibly him too. I always wondered why she insisted on moving in with us. Now I think I know. She wanted to keep an eye on me, afraid I’d do something to her precious son, like slit his throat. Actually that thought had occurred to me. But it was justified! He was always pissing me off. Once he made me take my clothes off and roll around in the mud while he took pictures. I never got to see them, but Ezra’s drinking buddies did; I know that for a fact. When they’d come over I’d look at them boys look at me and wonder which one ogled me naked. Actually I think they all did cuz they were always looking me up and down and grinning like they had this big secret. I lie in bed at night thinking about Junior while the incident with the weather vane replays itself over and over in my head, and I wonder, did it really come to life and scream and peck at my boy, or was it all in my mind; and how did the wind know exactly when and how hard to blow; and could I have done anything to prevent it; and what was God’s part in all of this, or did He even care? And does Junior blame me? Oh I hope not. But he must. How could he not? His soulful cry echoes in my head and will haunt me to my grave. “MAW! HELP ME! MAW! HELP ME! MAW! HELP ME!” I tried taking the pills the doctor prescribed but they don’t help, they make it worse and upset my stomach. There is only one thing left to do that I know for sure will give me peace. “Hello. Are you the blacksmith?” “Yes mam.” “Do you know how to make a weather vane?” “Yes mam.” “In the shape of a big cock rooster?” “Yes mam.” “Can you make it squeak in the wind?” |
| The
WCA's The Writers' Choice Awards |
| Here's how the members of the
ACWclub voted for their favorite entries: First place: #13 Second place (tie): #12, #14 Fourth place (tie): #2, #6 Others receiving votes: #10, #15, #16 |
Here are all the entries, posted in the order they were received.
| The Weather Vane SweetStormy sweetstormy_forever@yahoo.com |
#1 of 16 |
| 49 | |
| Snowflakes Caressing velvety skin Melting from the heat Shivers of cold Filling the soul Eyes wide with wonder Emotions pondered Sensations of desire Igniting inner flames Butterfly kisses Soft nipples harden Velvet touching Soft lips moisten Flower opens Accepting hardness Ascend to the heavens Sighs of bliss Snowflakes falling |
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| The Weather Vane Robert P. Herbst herbst@gtcom.net |
#2 of 16 |
| 999 | |
| By this time, everyone knows the weather here in, Mount
Perry, Florida, is letter perfect, every day of the year. Our beloved snow
capped Mount Perry, protects our beautiful town from the ravages of bad weather
24/7 except during the hours between 2:00 and 4:00 in the AM when rain is
allowed, in sufficient quantity, to clear the streets of accumulated dust and
pollen. This weather pattern has accounted for the vast popularity of the town of Mount Perry, Florida, as a tourist resort and World renowned vacation spot. There are even "T" shirts on sale sporting the "SKI MOUNT PERRY, FLORIDA" logo at www.mountperry.com for all who wish to have one. Why then, does every building, in our fair town, sport a rusty inoperable, weather vane? Actually, the story goes back many thousands of years, to the time of Zog the Terrible, first life form to set foot on the planet called Earth and the land mass known as Pangea. The only land mass on Earth at the time. There has been endless speculation on who named the land mass Pangea and first called out beloved snow capped mountain, Mount Perry? Then there begs the question, "Who was the person who named out planet "EARTH"? Zog had wanted to name these features of his new world himself, but found someone had beaten him to the punch. He then spent many years searching for the person who had arrived ahead of him and bestowed the names on the land mass, planet and mountain. The land mass was barren and devoid of life and Zog could find no evidence of any other living soul on the planet except himself and a few strange looking, lizard like critters. In the end, Zog settled back and created a civilization to go along with his new land mass and mountain. Naturally, there had to be a first person, this person Zog named Yodar Hoopelhoffer the first, and because Yodar wasn’t the brightest of lights on the planet, bestowed upon him the title of, Mount Perry town idiot. However, Zog was moved by the conundrum: If there is a town idiot, there has to be a town for him to be the idiot of. Late one night Zog, swiped one of Yodar’s ribs and created Yvette. The rest is history. During the next five or six hundred years, Yodar and Yvette were thought to have sired an entire civilization. Although, this must have been very tiring work, it must have held their interest because look at how many of us there are now. Zog placed Yodar and Yvette in his private garden and instructed them NOT to eat of the fruit growing on the tree of carnal knowledge. Although Yvette swears there was a talking snake telling her both she and Yodar should go ahead and eat the fruit anyhow, No one has ever heard a snake utter a word. Although the damage had already been done, Yvette’s credibility was damaged forever more. To this very day, women the world over spend hours each day trying to paint themselves to look like someone they aren’t. Obviously, the population of an entire planet could never have been done unless the weather was perfect every day of the year, creating conditions conducive to love making and the propagation of lots of little Hoopelhoffers. This Zog accomplished, by moving Mount Perry, just slightly, until the mountain intercepted any and all bad weather until 2:00 in the morning. During the time when Zog repositioned Mount Perry to act as a weather mitigating factor, Zog needed first hand input as to exactly how to position Mount Perry in order to make best use of his mountain in the control of the local weather. Living on top of the mountain as he did, Zog had no first hand information on exactly what was going on in the town spread out before him at the base of Mount Perry. To overcome this problem, Zog dictated all homes in the town of Mount Perry, Florida, must have a weather vane fixed to the roof which Zog could see from the top of Mount Perry. Unfortunately, in an area where the weather is perfect every day, there was no wind to turn the weather vane except between the hours between 2:00 and 4:00 AM when it was too dark for Zog to see which way the weather vanes were pointing. Zog was faced with what must have seemed like endless dilemmas. First, someone had already named the place he was supposed to be the first to visit, Pangea. Second, Zog found a sign at the very top of out beloved snow capped Mount Perry saying, "Welcome To Mount Perry, Florida’s Only Snow Capped Mountain", but things didn’t get any better with time. Although Zog had dictated every home was to sport a weather vane, there was no wind to turn them and they all rusted solid pointing in as many different directions as the points on a compass. Although, there are no written records of this time, Zog must have been one very discouraged alien. In time, as Pangea broke up into all those annoying little islands, Zog boarded his space ship and returned to outer space. He did this, only after promising the Hoopelhoffer family he would one day return to see how they were doing. To this very day, members of the Hoopelhoffer family stand about outside their homes, like a flock of turkeys, searching the sky for some sign of Zog’s return. In the evening, our dedicated police force rounds them up and herds them back into their homes to prevent their downing in any rain storm which might dump sufficient quantities of rain onto their upturned faces to fill their lungs. The story of this promise to return seems to have roots in every civilization in the world, giving mute testimony of the reproductive abilities of Yodar and Yvette Hoopelhoffer. However, just why there are still rusty weather vanes fixed to the roof of every home in Mount Perry is a very good question. |
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| The Weather Vane Vickie Hester dclocalmedia@gmail.com |
#3 of 16 |
| 966 | |
| Dawn was evolving over the east Texas countryside,
though most of its beauty was lost on Lacey. A blanket of mists covered the
sleeping ground and softened the outlines of twisted mesquite trees, the
family's collection of antique, dead cars, and the jagged hillside dotted with
thoroughbreds and speckled cows. Despite her inner conflict, Lacey was captured
by the moment. A magical hush hung over the farm as if the whole world was
waiting, anticipating change. Lacey shivered in the chilly morning air. Her red Dairy Queen smock was little armor against the unseasonable cold March morning. She trudged up the hill to the old cedar post that held her family's dented mailbox. Precariously perched atop the leaning pole, the black box was the perfect symbol of everything that was wrong with Lacey's life. Everything was good enough; nothing was fresh and new. Lacey was trapped in mediocrity and she knew it, but she saw no escape. As she shoved in the stack of letters -- bills -- she knew these were only a drop in the bucket. Lacey slammed the mailbox door, annoyed by the effort necessary to make the rusty hinges fasten. Catching her breath, she looked back toward the weathered prairie farmhouse that was the center of her banal existence. Who am I kidding? Lacey thought. All that changes around here is my gray hair. From the top of the house, the preening rooster on the antique weather vane agreed with Lacey's dismal thoughts. In a blink, the morning magic vanished, leaving Lacey staring at her faded house with a million chores ahead of her to accomplish. She sighed, her mind already buried in little tasks, organizing bills, children's schedules, and how to meet the demands of hungry customers. Lacey was annoyed. After rushing Chelsea and Troy to daycare, she should have had just enough time to get to work before opening time. It wasn't like her to leave her purse and store keys at home. As she turned off Farm Road 12 and headed west on 1492 toward home to pick up the items, cars suddenly began stopping in front of her. A maroon Toyota Camry had collided with a milk truck. Lacey decided to cut through the parking lot of Wimberley United Methodist, intent on getting to work on time. As she pulled into the newly-paved lot, she got a strong feeling that she needed to stop and help. What can I do? she thought, but pulled in and parked anyway, trusting her intuition. The driver's door of the Camry was crumpled and the front quarter panel was caved in. The car looked like a discarded piece of aluminum foil covered with glittering gems of broken safety glass. Lacey peered in through the broken glass and saw a woman lying across the front seats with her feet trapped beneath the twisted dash. It was eerily quiet, and Lacey just stared for a few moments, unsure of how to help. She walked to the passenger door, which was bent open, knelt beside the woman, and touched her hand. "What's your name?" Lacey asked. "Where were you going?" "What happened?" the woman asked. "You've been in a terrible accident," Lacey replied. "Then this is for real?" "Yes, it's real." The woman said her name was Faith, and she was hurrying to get to school. As the school secretary, she explained, it was important to be early, especially today. It was Teacher Appreciation Day, and Faith wanted everything to be perfect for the teachers' breakfast. "I guess my broccoli quiche won't be the star of this year's breakfast," Faith joked, and the two women giggled at the splattered eggs on the dashboard. Faith's giggles ended in coughing. "I'm having trouble breathing," she said. Emergency officials had arrived and were cutting through the crushed metal, trying to find a way to remove Faith from the wreckage. Lacey wiped Faith's face with a baby blanket someone in the crowd had provided. "Hang in there," she said. "You're going to be okay." Faith knew she was going to die. Lying inside her mangled car, she calmly prayed for her husband and children. "Please tell Luke that I love him. I'm sorry to be leaving so much for him to do," Faith said to Lacey. "Don't talk like that," Lacey scolded. "You are going to be just fine." Faith was coughing up blood and struggling to breathe. In between coughing fits, she shared memories about her husband and children, and the children she served at work. When the conversation lapsed, Lacey filled in the gaps, telling anecdotes about Troy's latest discoveries and Chelsea's accomplishments as a junior cheerleader. Faith kept asking for Luke. Despite the oxygen mask which the paramedics had provided, Faith's breathing remained ragged. Lacey was with Faith for about an hour, talking to her, holding an oxygen mask over her face and shielding her from the broken glass that sprayed down as workers removed the windshield. Faith was calm throughout the ordeal, but she insisted that she was going to die. Drifting in and out of consciousness, Faith made Lacey promise to tell her husband and daughter that she loved them. "You never know when you are saying your last goodbye," Faith said. "When I kissed Luke this morning, I never thought I wouldn't be coming back." Faith closed her eyes and a look of peace crept over her face. "Hurry!" Lacey shouted to the firemen, knowing it was too late. A short while later, the workers removed Faith from the wreckage and rushed her by CareFlite to Central Medical Center in nearby San Marcos. Lacey got in her car and drove home. As she pulled into the driveway, the iron rooster greeted her from atop the farmhouse's peaked roof. Tears pooled in Lacey's eyes and slid slowly down her cheeks. She thought of Faith's last words, and silently said thanks for another opportunity to appreciate her mundane world. |
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| The Weather Vane Angel Logan LOGAN52397@aol.com |
#4 of 16 |
| 142 | |
|
beyond the corners of my castle, I feel the trepidation of the unknown. Behind the shadows of darkness I see an invisible image of evil that lives beneath the contours of my walls. My voice silently screams as no one hears me. My eyes cascade dry tears as no one sees me. My feet run no where as there is no where to go. But then in a fleeting glimmer of a dream, a cool breeze grabs my soul and lifts my vision through the ceiling of my life's dwelling. The wind holds my heart captive as it releases me from the perils of my mind. As I float above myself my eyes awaken. I see my spirit spiraling through the whirlpool of fear. It dances through motionless mystery. It whispers through gusts of the past. It twists through the storm of my demons. And when the scepter of wind reaches the calm of my panic and stops spinning, it will lead me away from my mirage of malevolence and will always point me back to me ... for sanctuary and solace. |
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| The Weather Vane Tia katiz7@yahoo.com |
#5 of 16 |
| 1594 | |
| Revisiting our childhood home, one of the many
afternoon trains rumbled by up on the tracks. We were taken back to a summer
day we couldn’t forget. It was late June in southwestern New York State.
The weather was typical for that time of year, sunny, warm, and humid, with a
chance of afternoon thunderstorms, great for long walks in the woods and
frolicking in the Shawangunk Kill, a small river between the house and tracks.
Our walks lasted most of the day and many times right on into evening. Supplies were needed and they would include fishing poles, a net, an aluminum fish carrier outfitted with several clips, or a five-gallon bucket, or sometimes both, and sandwiches tied in a loaf bag, two each. Cousin Kenny, or KC for short, always carried a lighter and pocketknife. He was our “baby sitter.” We looked up to him; he was our hero along with our mentor. The many adventures we shared had to be some of the best memories of our childhood. We set out one morning shortly after Mom and Dad left for work. There were five of us, KC, Doobie, KW, AJ, and lastly myself. Before setting off KC did his traditional test by sticking his finger in his mouth, pulling it out and placing it into the air. “Why do you do that KC?” We would ask. He would always respond the same way. “That’s for me to know and you to figure out!” He was always saying things like that to us. “Awe, come on! Can’t you just tell us?” We’d whine. “Nope!” He would say. We all knew if we bugged him, he’d never tell us, so we’d pretend not to care. Ultimately it was to aggravate us, which he was great at doing! Although looking back now, maybe it was his way of getting us to be more observant and to figure things out on our own. Either that or he disliked our constant questions. We set out in the direction determined by his finger. On this particular day we walked up the Shawangunk Kill. Wearing our old shoes to navigate the kill, we slipped and slid on algae covered stones. We had walked further than ever before and stumbled onto some great swimming holes and muscle beds. While walking we would tell jokes, laugh, and splash at each other. Doobie and I would sing to help pass the time. Stopping once in a while to take a break our eyes and ears would take in all that was around us. The beauty and serenity were truly unmatched. Deep, lush forests with large rocks for climbing and tall pines to rest under, along with wild animals to watch and discover. The sounds of the kill flowing over rocks, making trickling sounds as the water passed through the space between them, was like our own private heaven. One of those discoveries was while we were walking the train tracks. People had often told us they could never live where we did because the trains would drive them crazy, but for us it was a comfort and something we really didn’t notice. On that particular day we had discovered thousands of orange salamanders. They were awe inspiring, bright orange with black dots along their backs. We must have collected hundreds of them in our bucket to keep them from getting run over by the train or dieing in the hot sun. We released them into the woods once we got home. As we ventured up stream the water became deeper. A set of boulders that sat underwater defined the shoreline. KC was ahead of us. His hand raised into the air motioning for us to stop. One finger crossed his lips as he stared into the tea stained water. We all paused, watching his every move, waiting for his next instruction. Curiosity and excitement grew as he stood ever so still. Then inching forward slowly. We knew this had to be something big, something amazing! He whispered for the net and signaled for us to creep up to him. Methodically each one of us moved toward him. KC then gestured for us to split up around him. KW had the net and went to his right. AJ went to the right as well to fill the gap. Doobie and I flanked his left at equal distances. We were all anxious to see what he had found. As we approached he began to reach into the water. “Holy Crap!” Blurted out of some ones lips. “Look at the size of that!” Was also said. KC eyes grew and sharpened as he quietly raised his arm as if to scold us. Feeling his disapproval we all straightened up like we were military cadets. The air felt tense as he again reached under the water. With the net positioned close by KC began to guide his discovery gently into it. We could hardly contain ourselves! Little sounds would escape without us realizing, like squeals from a balloon that had been pulled tight at the opening while small amounts of air slipped out. We were mesmerized watching him guide this huge fish! It didn’t even try to get away! What magic did cousin Kenny have that this creature would abide by his will? It was as if we were watching a Dr. Doolittle! This, of course, only increased his enchantment over us, which he used to his advantage. The net was lifted around the fish and not until it reached the surface did the fight begin! The fish went ballistic! Whipping its body all over the place, water flying in all directions and all of us struggling to contain it! The true weight of the beast was realized in this memorable moment. It had almost escaped! We took turns carrying the five-gallon bucket back to the house. The fish was stunning with its shiny, silver skin and small squares of bright colors along its sides. We had caught a rainbow trout; at least that is what I remember it to be. It must have measured at least nineteen inches in length as its body overlapped itself rounding the bottom of the bucket. Never had we seen such a fish, and never since. The journey was difficult. The bucket was heavy and hard to hold with its thick-gauged wire handle. Our hands would turn red and white, cramping as we grasped it. Water would swish and splash out the sides as it swung back and forth, even hitting up against our legs from time to time. We took the tracks home, they were much easier to navigate and gave us a straighter path in which to travel. By the time we reached the house the poor creature had passed. The sadness was felt by us all, especially seeing how it was frozen into the shape of the bucket. I didn’t understand it then, I just thought it was odd because there was no ice. The water was cold and that was enough for me to think it had been the cause. That moment soon passed as we all were given our job to get the fish ready to eat. It was my job to cut and gut. Doobie was in charge of de-scaling. KW and AJ were in charge of getting the supplies from the kitchen. They got lemon, butter, salt, pepper, and tin foil to wrap it in. KC started the coals, seasoned the fish in his own special way, sealed it in the tin foil and placed it on the gray, powdery coals. Some of them had a red glow to them. Funny how the girls ended up with the most work and KC did the least. He was always doing things like that, but we never noticed at that time. The scattered scales caught the last of the mid afternoon sun, glistening like iridescent mother of pearl. It looked as though there were shiny beads strung through out the grass. We only hoped dad wouldn’t be angry due to the mess, so we cleaned up the steps and hand cut slate sidewalk that wrapped around to the front of the house. It didn’t take long for the fish to be done. It was perfectly cooked, the meat just slipped away from the bones and there was a lot of it. It had a sweet, buttery flavor, which by far, was the best we had ever tasted! KC was our hero once again and we think he liked it that way. Later that evening, over dinner, we spoke about our grand adventure with mom and dad. We weren’t sure if they believed us until they saw the scale covered lawn the next morning, but it didn’t matter. Our conversation turned to KC’s finger secret, which he decided to tell us about, probably because mom and dad were there. He laughed as he spoke, knowing we had thought it was some big mystery. “It’s how I tell which direction the wind’s blowing, like a weather vane of sorts.” The look upon our faces just made him laugh even more. He was always doing stuff like that to us and we always let him, because he was cousin Kenny and we didn’t need any other reason. |
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| The Weather Vane Michael Pelc michaelpelc@yahoo.com |
#6 of 16 |
| 2098 | |
| Monday, the 15th It's been three days since I last heard the mockingbird that's been living in the big oak behind our house ... Mama says that's 'cause there's a storm forming off the Yucatan ... she learned it off the tv ... but I wonder how do birds find out these kinds of things? ... how do they know about a storm that's a thousand miles away? ... and how do they know where it's going when the weatherman don't even know yet? My old man used to say he could tell a storm was coming from the way our weather vane squeaked ... but he was just making fun of me ... teasing me ... treating me like I was some sort of ignoramus ... I'm glad he's not around ... they can keep him in that jail forever for all I care ... and I think our weather vane looks stupid ... where everyone else that's got a weather vane has got a rooster, we've got a flamingo ... damn if it ain't the kind of thing a snow bird might up and buy for his house back in Wisconsin or Michigan or wherever the hell he's from for most of the year ... just so's it could remind him to hurry up and run to Florida at the first sign of a little chilly weather in the fall, like he wouldn't know to do that on his own. And I hope that storm makes it all the way up to hurricane strength ... that it gets real big and real bad. Tuesday, the 16th The storm moved into the gulf last night and they gave it a name ... Alan ... just like me ... just like my name ... they don't know yet just where it's going ... hurricanes can go anywhere when they get into the gulf ... and I think again, yeah, just like me ... not knowing where it's going. At school today Jimmy said how it's gonna be a bad one and it's gonna come right at us ... I tell him he's a bird brain ... how else would he know where it's headed except if he had the brain of a bird? ... so he tells me how he was helping his old man clean swimming pools over the weekend ... they were pulling out these little dead froggies from the filters ... lots of them ... and his old man tells him that's a sign there's a hurricane coming ... like his old man knows more about hurricanes than mine ... so I tell Jimmy he's a frog brain, but he just laughs and says he don't care ... he and his family are scaredy-catting it ... going inland ... going to Orlando ... I tell him not to get sick on the rides at Disney World. Wednesday, the 17th I listened to our weather vane last night ... it didn't sound no different to me ... I hate that stupid-looking flamingo. Alan the hurricane's still out in the gulf ... not going nowhere ... just sitting and spinning and growing stronger ... making people fidgety and nervous and all on edge, wondering where it's gonna go ... Mama says if it comes this way, they'll close up the jail and send my old man on home on account of he ain't doing time for nothing violent ... I think she says this to make me happy, but it don't ... so I tell her I bet they'll close up the schools, too. Already half the kids in school aren't there no more ... but me and Mama, we ain't scared of no hurricane ... we ain't running ... besides, it ain't like we could if we wanted to ... we ain't got no car to take us no place. Mama says how maybe my old man'll get out of jail and steal us a car somewhere and then he'll come home and take us to Disney World like my friend Jimmy that I told her about ... and I think maybe he'll just come home and find some reason for beating me ... and if he can't do that, more'n likely he'll just go ahead and beat me for no reason ... it's not like there's much of a difference anyways. Thursday, the 18th Alan the hurricane did this thing they call a wobble ... moved from going nowhere to going somewhere ... or coming somewhere, depending on where you happen to be at the moment ... and just like that, on account of that wobble, they up and closed the schools ... just the way I told Mama they would ... we ain't heard yet if they're gonna close up the jail. It's less than a hundred miles away now, and it's coming ... the clouds are racing around the sky in great big circles like I never seen them move so fast before and the trees are bending from the winds ... looking like they're gonna snap right in two ... Mama's getting more and more scared and more and more nervous by the minute ... just like a wet cow ... and so she says we're going over to Aunt Claire's on account of how her house is built better'n ours ... I tell her to go ahead and that I'll be along right directly, as soon as I take care of some things ... what, she wants to know, but I just tell her things, that's all ... just some things. I go next door and take a ladder from the Babcocks ... it ain't like they're gonna miss it anyway seeing as how they up and evacuated with most everybody else ... and I take that ladder of theirs and climb up on top of our barn, carrying a hammer and a wrench and a saw and anything else I can stuff in my pockets ... don't need no weather vane no more, I tell myself ... don't need no dumbass-looking flamingo to tell me there's a storm a coming ... don't need nothing that'll make my old man want to come back to this place. I can't stand up on the roof on account of the winds beating up on me the way they do, shoving me first one way and then the other ... so I have to crawl like a baby, hanging on to the joints where the strips of tin overlap and give me something to grip on to, but I don't mind so much on account of it ain't like there's anyone around to see me anyway ... I inch my way up to the peak, and when I get there I see that the bolts that hold the contraption in place is all rusted over ... I can't make them budge no how ... stupid-ass wrench, what the hell'd I bring that thing up here for? ... it ain't like it's gonna do me any good ... so I throw it away over the side and almost lose my balance in a gust of wind, but I'm quick and grab onto the weather vane ... it spins around and hits me up side the head just like the old man would do if he were here right now ... so I yank the hammer out of my pocket and hit it right back ... just like I'm gonna do the next time the old man gets to beating on me ... I ain't taking that shit no more ... not from him and not from no weather vane. One of the rain bands is on me now, coming up from out of nowhere all of a sudden like the way it does ... the rain drops are cold and hard and come at me more sideways than anything else ... and they sting ... damn, those suckers sting! ... but, I don't back down ... I straddle the peak, pinching the two halves of the rain-slick roof between my knees as best I can ... looking like some rodeo cowboy, I'm hanging on to the flamingo's neck with one hand and beating on it with the other ... I fantasize that the stands are filled with tight-jeaned cowgirls screaming with delight and squirming in anticipation ... "YEE-HAH!" ... I give a shout right into the face of the wind on account of I ain't scared of it none ... and then the damn wind goes and blows my ladder down. Without no ladder, I got no way to get down ... so I guess this is it, I tell myself ... it's me against the hurricane now ... Alan the me versus Alan the hurricane in a steel-cage tin-roof death match ... only it ain't gonna be nothing like that fake wrestling shit my old man watches on tv ... no sir, this is gonna be for real. I take out the saw and start cutting away at the base of the weather vane, which is the flamingo's stand-on leg ... and the whole time I'm cutting, there's stuff flying through our yard ... shingles from the Babcock place, some lawn chairs, a garbage can lid, somebody's potted plant ... branches are snapping off -- palms mostly -- and all this stuff comes sailing across our yard and everything's all piling up against the fence like it was some kind of designated garbage dump ... until even the fence gives way with a groan and a crack that sounds more like maybe the earth itself just done split itself in half or something ... and all the while I'm sawing away on account of there's one piece of garbage I sure as hell don't want to show up with its ugly jailbird face here in my yard looking for its stupid weather vane so's it can tell whether or not there's a storm coming. But I ain't using my head too good 'cause all the time I'm sawing away at the weather vane with one hand, I'm holding on to it with the other. I hate that word, ignoramus. Friday, the 19th I wake up on the ground, plastered against the trunk of the big oak where the mockingbird used to live, and the first thing I'm thinking is hey, maybe I ain't so much awake as I am dead and gone to heaven, excepting that the place I'm at don't look nothing like no heaven pictures I ever seen ... what it looks like is our yard ... kind of that is, if you can imagine what our yard would look like if the whole thing was all tore up and crammed on down into hell, which is maybe where I'm really at ... except then Mama comes along, stumbling through the rubble and stuff, picking at this and picking at that ... and then I know I ain't dead and gone to hell yet on account of there ain't no way that woman's getting sent to hell when her life's done. I call out to her, and Mama comes hobble-running over ... tears is streaming down her face, but she's all smiling-like and happy-looking, the way women are sometimes ... mixing up happy and sad and joy and pain all in the same face so's you don't know what they're feeling on the inside. She kneels down and cradles my head in her arms and gets to rocking me back and forth and stroking my hair like I was some kind of baby or something ... I start to struggle against her on account of I ain't no baby no more, but then I figure what the hell, it ain't like anybody's gonna see us ... and besides, it feels kind of good in a way, and so I let her have her fun, if that's what it is. Thinking that I miss him, Mama tells me how, just like she suspected, they let my old man out of jail yesterday morning ... I figure she's saying these things to make me feel better on account of she don't know quite what else to say while she's holding me 'cause it's been so long since she's done something like that ... and then she lowers her chin onto the top of my head and says real soft like, so's it's almost a whisper as if she didn't want to be saying it at all, that he ain't made it home yet ... but she don't understand, and this ain't neither the time nor the place to be trying to explain all about the weather vane to her, so I just point over to where the barn used to be ... except that there ain't nothing left of the barn no more ... nothing ... excepting its cement floor ... and that ain't so much a part of the barn really as it is more of a marker of where it used to be ... the kind of thing you'd go and put an X on and write "this marks the spot where our barn used to be" or something like that ... just so's people'd know you once had a barn ... which you'd like them to know so's they don't think how maybe you were too poor and pitiful to not even have had so much as a barn ... but you don't tell them about the weather vane ... just in case they happen to run into your old man somewhere and get to hearing how he's looking for this barn with a flamingo weather vane on it and all like that and so they end up sending him back here, which is exactly where you don't ever want him to be ... and so you don't even do the "X-marks-the-spot" thing ... you just let it go ... kind of like the weather vane, you just let it go. |
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| The Weather Vane Lorna Elliott lorna_k@mac.com |
#7 of 16 |
| 438 | |
| The night had refused to allow her any sleep so she
dressed and left the house, the sea air biting at her face and hands. Drawing
the lapels of her jacket closer Martha raised her head to look up at the
chimney, from where the two dimensional cockerel spun his merry dance with
nature’s breath; a Siberian wind from the north, unusually bitter for the
time of year. Slipping off her shoes at the edge of the beach she walked purposefully, curling her toes into the cold, wet sand as if to remind herself she was still alive. The sun hovered just above the horizon, not yet warm, capping white horses with a rosy hue. It had been seven years since her life –as it was- had ended, but an involuntary slide-show of that last day still haunted her: dark images of screaming brakes, blindness, the thud of the impact. Martha had been running ever since, but she’d never shaken the guilt. Far down the beach, she caught sight of what looked like a large rock. Seagulls laughed overhead as she approached, the object looming ever closer. Still slick from the sea, the whale lay awaiting the serenity of death. She bent down to touch its skin, but in her mind it became the girl’s anorak that night, limp and wet with rain in the ditch. She tried to focus on the whale’s eye, glistening in the amber glow of sunrise, but could only see the girl’s final glance in the headlights, pale and terrified. The after-school club had been cancelled, apparently, and she’d decided to walk home in the dark. She shouldn’t have been there, her parents had said. Seaweed tugged gently at Martha’s heels, the ebb tempting her in like the drag of an impatient child. “Come forward,” it whispered. She brushed sand from the mammal’s huge charcoal body, fighting back the grainy images in the newspaper: Schoolgirl Hit and Run - Search on for Driver. The whale’s blowhole sprayed shards of water into the air, catching the light, and she gasped. “You’re alive,” she cried to the creature, remembering the girl’s hair embedded in the smashed windscreen, and how she’d had to pluck it out with her bare fingers. Overcome with guilt she ran to find help, desperate to liberate them both: the coastguard could save the whale - and a confession to the police might free her tortured conscience. *** The cockerel stood proud in the force of the wind, which dropped as suddenly as it had appeared. Spinning slowly on its axis, the weathervane seemed to wait in the lull, ready to embrace the more temperate breeze from the south. |
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| The Weather Vane Darby Diana Addbm@aol.com |
#8 of 16 |
| 2442 | |
| There is an old Cajun saying, "Half of Louisiana is
under water and the other half is under indictment." The city infrastructure
hasn't been improved since the 1940's. The levees were only 7 feet tall, and
weren't built for a storm surge of the magnitude of Katrina. The federal money
sent in the 1990's for the levees was used to repair highways. The corruption
of Louisiana politics is ages old. The poverty element breeds crime and the
rich politicians live off the poor Americans--there is no middle class. New
Orleans has always been corrupt. 85% of poor blacks live on welfare and the old
Southern families in the cotton and sugar businesses had the money. When the storm was coming, my husband and I were debating what to do. We decided to ride it out. Evacuation was impossible. The mentality of the people of Louisiana is to wait until the last minute, so the roads were jammed with cars. The only route out of Orleans Parish is Interstate 10, and it was blocked with traffic from New Orleans to the Mississippi state line. Greyhound stopped business as soon as the evacuation notice was on the media. The New Orleans airport shut down and all flights were cancelled. It was total chaos. We only knew when to expect landfall--the TV media wasn't too sure where the landfall would hit. We watched TV until the electricity went out. The whole city got quiet and anxiety filled the air. The sky was real white and then the rains began, around 7:00 p.m. It poured like a torrent on a river. The winds were intermittent until the rain bands began to pound fiercely on the roof. The wind came from the East between the apartment buildings and whipped branches from the oak and magnolia trees--they sounded like cracking waves of lightening. The walls in my kitchen separated, and the sounds were like a train that didn't want to stop. The studs from the roof broke in half and the shingles from the roof blew inside the kitchen. Dirt and wood chips fell from the plaster. The back wall dropped on the lower apartment roof. The old homes have pieces of metal for roof siding and slate tile that cracked into a million pieces. I prayed all night, listening to nature rip my home apart. It was total darkness. The only protection I had was a box spring from my bed. I barricaded all my belongings against the wall away from the windows. I told myself, "I don't want to die, not like this!" It was like the end of life was closing in on me. The electric poles cracked in pieces and the wires landed on my balcony. All the utilities were out by midnight. The storm continued until 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. the next day. The morning after the storm was a quiet, desperate day. I couldn't see out the balcony because it was blocked by limbs from the magnolia trees next to the building. We didn't sleep any during the night and the sound of silence was weird. The wrought iron gate to the apartment was blocked by a huge mass of oak branches that were too heavy to move. We climbed over the fence and looked up and down the street. It was dead silence, nothing was moving. The debris of torn roofs and walls and uprooted beautiful 200-year old magnolia and oak trees lay all over the streets. Utility lines were strung all over the branches so you had to be careful of stepping on them, some of them were sparking electric current. I thought to myself, this is real damage. I thought of the end of the world. It looked like a bombed out war zone. No people were moving, just a few stray dogs running. We hollered to the next apartment and there was no-one around. Everyone had left. We were the only tenants left in the building. My husband walked down the street about two blocks but there was no-one in sight. All of my kitchen appliances were torn up. The cabinet doors were ripped off and the items inside were broken and dropped on what was left of the floor. The water went off sometime during the night after the winds became stronger, but the gas lines were not destroyed and I had gas in the stove. All of my personal items in my closet--clothes, pictures, shoes--were all soaked. Our first task was a search for water. We walked about 4 or 5 blocks to see if anyone needed help. I found a swimming pool where the water looked fairly clear. The fences were torn loose so we climbed over the debris. I had collected empty plastic bottles along the sidewalks to put water in, to boil for drinking use. Other people came with pails and trash cans for water for the bathroom. I salvaged what I could from my refrigerator. Our diet for five days after the storm was peanut butter, tunafish and crackers. One neighbor with a battery operated radio heard an alert that the National Guard was being sent from San Diego and would be in the city with water and military rations. But we didn't expect any help. The rumors from the radio were that the roads in Mississippi and Louisiana were totally destroyed--no bridges. So the Red Cross was being held up for 2 or 3 days--they had supplies but couldn't get through the damage. There was no television because of power failure. I really didn't expect any help because I know how poorly managed the city is. The Mayor is a nut, he has no organizational skills and was screaming to the federal government for help. I really think no-one knew how to help. We heard on the neighbor's radio that there was suicide and rebellion at the Superdome. The criminal element was firing weapons at the Federal troops. They were trapped and no transportation was given to them until six days after the storm, while babies and seniors were dying from the heat and dehydration. They found bodies in wheelchairs and victims of rape in the Superdome. All the bodies disappeared and there was no evidence in the morgue. The politicians covered this up to keep the media away from the Superdome. All this information was rumored in the city. My husband and I decided not to go to the shelters because of the crime. The people in the neighborhoods stayed in their homes even though there was extensive damage--they were concerned for their safety. I boiled water and used it for bathing and cleaned the floors to kill any bacteria. I did a lot of writing during the eight days, poetry kept me sane. I learned a lot of survival skills in the Navy, and my intuition as a nurse taught me to keep things clean and how to conserve water. The thing that seals the whole story is that the local cops ran and looted the stores with their patrol cars. My husband tried to get water the first day and the cops told him to go away, they were keeping the water for themselves. They broke into abandoned homes and looted valuables. They even used their weapons on people who got in their way. We learned before we left that they released all the felons from Orleans Parish Prison the day after Katrina made landfall. So the city streets were full of young criminals, who broke into the Walmart and took guns and ammo and went on a Wild West shooting spree. The whole city was like a free-for-all, business places were stripped to the walls. The radio said most of the cops left New Orleans in their patrol cars and took Red Cross supplies with them. Three days after the storm we tried to walk out but the streets were too blocked. The irony of it was that there was no gas for the cars. The local people were stealing cars and gas from parked vehicles. They took the gas out of our car and we had no other means of transportation. I felt like a trapped animal with no way out of harm's way. I had no contact with relatives until I was able to call my 83-year old mother on the third day, when I found a pay phone intact about 5 blocks from my apartment. We lived in uptown on Napoleon Avenue, about three blocks from the17th Street levee. The geographic elevation is higher in uptown, but the water kept coming from the broken levee, and the sewer lines broke. The water reached my street at a slow rate, but on the fourth day, the water flooded uptown, where all the hospitals and nursing homes are. The flood waters reached 5-8 feet where my apartment was. We tried once to walk through the water, but the smell made me gag--the human sewage was unbearable. During this time the water had carried human bodies and dead bloated animals from the poverty-stricken areas where the housing projects were destroyed. The people in the flood waters drowned because there was no place to go after the housing areas flooded. On the 5th day, the National Guard arrived. They had to shoot looters to keep them from firing at Federal vehicles. Gunshots were heard night and day from passing troops. The patrolled the streets and passed out water and MRE's (Meals Ready to Eat) from the back of their trucks. Those brown government-issued boxes looked like gourmet meals to us. I was so hungry, I felt like a refugee in a third world country. This unit from San Diego was a special tactical force trained in urban warfare. They told us it was better to wait until the Coast Guard evacuated the dead and wounded. They were nice and generous with the water and rations. A military chaplain was taking photos of the city and he took our pictures with him in front of our apartment building. We decided to walk to the shelters but the streets were blocked by debris and we had to come back to the apartment. It was 3 miles to downtown where they were starting to transport people out of the city. The days went by slowly. The heat and humidity was unbearable, and the smell of broken sewer lines was getting bad. Garbage piled up on the street. I walked in the evening to see if I could help anybody. There were people pushing their children and the elderly in grocery carts and wagons. Trash cans were being used to find water. We told people about the swimming pool. The humidity didn't let up. August and September are the hottest months of the year. The trucks carried dead citizens every day. You would see the trucks coming from the West Bank and the Lower 9th Ward with more body bags. That was real depressing. No-one knows how many died in the storm. The National Guard was being housed in schools and churches that weren't destroyed. The National Guard carried automatic weapons and were dressed in full field uniforms. I knew they were hot. They patrolled when the sun went down. There were three units, from San Diego, Puerto Rico and Canada. The officers said there were no plans for a disaster of this magnitude, so the government failed to respond. They said they would stay until every citizen was evacuated from the city. The soldiers were well-trained and had exceptional military skills--if it wasn't for them, more people would have died. They are the heroes of the storm. My husband and I began to gain a sense of confidence and waited for the right time. The 8th day was the last day we were able to stay in our apartment. We were transported by truck to the airport and then 88 people were put on a plane. When we left the airport, I was so happy just to be alive. After we were in the air about 15 minutes, the pilot said, "The U.S. government is sending you to sunny Tucson, Arizona." I thought to myself, "Good, at least there's no water around Tucson." The flight out of Louisiana was heart-breaking. Looking over my shoulder, all I could see was flood waters covering the entire city. The trip to Tucson was a happy one--the airline fed us and gave us fruit. People were crying and still scared of the unknown future. The low life on the plane had dope and alcohol and most of them were drunk or high. They were even drinking cough syrup. The community cheered us when we stepped off the plane, which gave me new hope in humanity. We were taken to the Tucson Convention Center. We had enough cash on us to stay in a motel, so we stayed at the Days Inn across from the Convention Center. I told the Red Cross volunteers about the criminal element on the plane. I didn't like the way the Red Cross asked too many personal questions about finances. I refused to answer their questions and told them, "It's charity, not a bank." They are supposed to help people without questions. We never got any money from them, just a gift card. My husband is a master plumber, so he began calling employers. The next day he was hired by Baker Brothers Plumbing. They loaned us one of their trucks for transportation. I found an apartment for three weeks and then found this home we have now. FEMA called us sixteen times and finally sent a letter saying that our loss was not enough for them to give us anything. Seven weeks later we drove back to New Orleans to get the personal items I packed during the storm. The trip back was depressing. Garbage lay six feet high on every street. Torn up cars and debris were in the same place as seven weeks before. All the politicians did was make excuses that President Bush and Congress didn't send them any money to clean up the city. I just loaded my things and left. It was like a landfill from Hell, the smell of sewage and mold was overwhelming in the apartment building. There were signs all over telling people they had to pay if they wanted to rebuild. I was ready to leave and didn't look back. My husband is a native and will not return. Tucson is our home now. We love it here and the peace of having our own home again. My husband has a good job and we have enjoyed the hospitality of the Southwest of our country. I am writing every day and enjoying my new life. I will spend the rest of my days here knowing I am a survivor. |
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| The Weather Vane Lisa Young kelita18@alltel.net |
#9 of 16 |
| 398 | |
| “The Weather Vane”. How appropriately titled.
I needed direction to begin writing again and there it was, all spelled out for
me. I could even cut and paste the title straight from the site if I wanted to.
“The Weather Vane”. How intriguing (or not so intriguing, in my case - I feel that “baffled“ is a much more suitable word). I feel as if I could write about anything: a potted plant, clumping kitty litter, store brand country style gravy or even split ends…but I can’t seem to think of one thing for the body of “The Weather Vane.” Several different options occurred to me. Weather vanes obviously stir up images of the country side. I pictured a weather vane spinning wildly a top a run down barn in a midnight summer storm, conjuring up thoughts of fright and mystery. Or how about a small town country girl making a decision to see the world for herself, following the direction set by the wind on the church’s weather vane… Yet nothing much more than that comes to mind. Is it lack of interest on my part? Perhaps lack of imagination? Or is it simply a bad title? I look to my surroundings for a spark of inspiration on the subject. Nothing happens. A quick web search shows that antique weather vanes are becoming quite popular. Not even mildly interesting to me. Of course, my brain shouts that WEATHER VANES = DIRECTION. Yes, that they do. I could make an attempt to show how ironic it is that the subject at hand was supposed to give me some direction on becoming a better writer. Well, in a sense, I suppose I’ve already done that. All I’ve really managed to do is to ramble on about my thoughts. They are obviously without much direction at all! Unlike a weather vane, clearly showing where the thing that inspired it to move came from… Well, I have been inspired to “move”. Maybe in due time “The Weather Vane” will send me in the right direction for what I’m searching for, but until then, I will wait patiently for that bulb hanging over my head to at least flicker in an attempt to light up those dark and seemingly empty corners of my mind! |
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| The Weather Vane Veronica Gillotti vgillotti1@aol.com |
#10 of 16 |
| 566 | |
| Eyes covered to protect myself from the sudden dust
storm, the wind pushed me toward the apartment. I peeked through my fingers to
make sure the rusted crow was secured to the roof. I always feared that hunk of
metal would crash down on me one day. This could be the day. As the wind pushed
the contraption, the rotation began with a irritating grind. In three giant
steps I was at the door. Greeted by the tattered sign, BEWARE OF THE DOG, made
me snicker. My struggle with the keys made me doubt non-emotional state.
Certainly, I am not affected by this old coot. Momentarily, forgot the trick,
pull the door knob toward you, then twist the key quick. I kicked the door
open, shouted "Honey I'm home!" This routine was to alert the neighbors that
someone was, in fact, at home always and he had arrived. "What's for dinner?" I
moved into the room and shut the door. A breezed from the opened window
loosened family pictures taped to the wall, as I stood in the middle of his
room his scent brought on the tears. Fumbled for his only chair at the table,
picked up a napkin from his supply of drive threw take outs. Sobbed. Within
arms reach was the giant bottle of red wine and the glass placed within the
strained wine circle. A few healthy sips were motivational, with a buzzed eye,
picked up his signature cigarettes LUCKY STRIKES, put them in my bag. Surveyed
the room, Woolworth glasses a must. The closet door opened an inch then stuck. My orders were to get the suitcase in the closet. Tugged, kicked, swore at the closet door. Another gust of wind swung through the window, jolted the closet door. Again I tugged the closet door opened. There were a few slacks hanging, one white shirt, cleaned and pressed and an old leather suit case. My attempts to pick it up were in vain. From the cot, I yanked the blanket, placed it on the floor in the closet. Squished behind the suitcase and knocked it on the blanket. Pulled the blanket to the center of the room. Of course, the case would not open without a fight. More wine poured into the glass. As I placed the jug back to its position, a shiny object was taped to the side of the table. Quickly took a gulp of wine, then ripped the key from taped table. Tightly packed objects leaped out of the suit case. Letters from my varied addresses slid to the floor. Pictures of myself ticked to the top of the case. Paintings, sketches, plays and poems created by me were all in tact. In a moment, I pushed my head out the window gasping for air. The wind was howling, "You think I don't keep track of you, but I do." Dabbed my eyes with my sleeve, shut the door quickly. Unhooked the BEWARE OF THE DOG sign, placed it in my bag. In three giant steps I was at my car. Fumbled with the keys, several times they hit the ground. At the third try the wind pushed the keys into the road. Forward lunged to get them. That irritating grind, a crack, then thud. I heard my voice shout into the wind, "Watch it Dad!" "Just because you got a few tears!" That hunk of metal was mine. |
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| The Weather Vane Neva F. Darbe nfdarbe@intermind.net |
#11 of 16 |
| 1089 | |
| Silence was the only thing that Abby wanted, when she
went out to the old barn. She had spent the entire day dealing with crying
babies and screaming toddlers. When Mrs. O’Hara picked up the twins, Abby
had taken the woman’s check, then helped buckle the children into their
car seats, and waved good-bye as Mrs. O’Hara backed out of the driveway.
Instead of going back into the house and cleaning up the day care center, Abby walked around to the back and went into the old red barn that stood behind the house. She always wondered why Uncle Philip had not demolished the barn, when he sold the rest of the farm to condo developers. Today she was glad the barn was still there. Inside the barn, Abby sit down on an old bail of hay and leaned aback against other bails stacked along the wall. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and let random thoughts flow through her mind. The tranquility around her seemed to weave a warm cocoon, blanketing her spirit and smothering her worries. Abby drifted into a deep sleep, her last coherent memory of seeing a spider crawling on the rafter above her head. “Abby,” a squeaky voice called to her name. “Abby,” her named echoed through her dreams, bringing her back to consciousness. “Abby,” the word descended out of the air above her head, sending chills up her spine, “Abby … ” “Yes,” she said trying to remember where she was and why she was sitting on a bail of musty smelling hay. “Abby,” the squeaky voice reverberated through the darkness around her. “Abby, remember …” “Remember,” she pushed herself up and attempted to stand, as pen pricks penetrated her legs. “What am I supposed to remember?” “Abby,” the voice screamed as she fell forward onto the barn floor. “I’m awake,” she said crawling back to the hay bails. Pulling herself up onto the bails, she waited for the feeling to return to her legs. Now she recognized the squeaking voice for what it was the metal roaster on top of the barn. Walking out of the barn, Abby looked up at what was left of the roof. The rusted metal roaster turned round and round in the wind. Its screeching metal calling her name as it turn. “Abby,” the voice of her uncle ricocheted through her mind. “Abby, remember what I told you the day your mother died.” “Yes, Uncle Philip,” Abby said looking up at the weather vane turning in the wind, “I remember. The wind has no voice of its own it speaks in variegated tones taken from the throats of those it kisses. And if I don’t want to end up like my mother, I will become the voice of the wind.” Inside the house, Abby went up the back stairs and to the room that belonged to her uncle. The room she had kept locked since his funeral three years ago. Taking the keys out of her jeans pocket, she opened the door and switched on the light. The aroma of stale cigars, cheap after-shave and dust premeditated the room, while spider webs covered the furniture. “I don’t want to be the voice of the wind anymore,” Abby said walking to the chest of drawers and picking up the photo that set on top. “I don’t want to be afraid someone will find out about what happened in this room. And, Uncle Philip,” she threw the photo against the wall breaking the frame and ripping the picture. “I don’t want to be afraid of you any more.” *** “Mr. and Mrs. O’Hara,” said Abby, as the proprietors of Dream Antiques came into the daycare center, each carrying a twin. “A few days ago you said someone had asked about the barn in back of my home. Is that person still interested?” “Yes, Abby,” said Mrs. O’Hara putting her son in one of the playpens and handing him a floppy eared stuffed rabbit. “But the weather vane has to be included.” “Everything in and on the barn is included, my only condition is that the barn needs to be gone by the end of the month.” “Alright, Abby, what changed your mind?” “That damned … sorry … weather vane. The neighbors have been complaining about the nose it makes when the wind blows. And after a sleepless night of listening to it squeak, I don’t want it around anymore myself.” “I’ll contact Mr. Jones, when I get to the shop,” Mr. O’Hara said as his wife kissed the children on their foreheads. “He’s willing to pay cash and he’ll have a demolition crew here tomorrow morning.” “Good,” Abby said as Mr. and Mrs. O’Hara left. “That’s one problem taken care off, now for the next.” Picking up her cell phone, Abby dialed the house cleaning service she had come in once a month. “Mrs. Farris, this is Abby Coleman. You know that room that I keep lock?” “Yes, that’s the one. I want it completely cleaned and all the furniture moved out.” “Yes, have your husband send a crew, as well. He can do what he wants with the furniture. In addition, there is still some clothing in the closet, the dresser and the chest of drawers. The clothing and anything else in that room has to go, either in the trash, to charity or who ever wants it, I don’t want anything in that room.” “This afternoon will be fine, Mrs. Farris, thank you.” Squeak, squeak, the wind had came up and the weather vane was turning again. Going to the window Abby looked out across the front yard, leaves were falling from the neighbors oak tree and blowing across her yard. I suppose I could complain to the condo manager about that, she thought, but what good would it do. The company that owned the condos had signed an agreement when they bought the property, not to cut the tree down for a hundred years. “I wonder why Uncle Philip was so adamant about that,” she said turning away from the window and going to the playpens to check on O’Hara twins. *** The next day Abby, watch as a police car, its siren blaring stopped in front of the house. The officer got out, went to talk to the foreman of the demolition crew, and then followed the workman into the barn. Thirty minutes later, the officer came out and knocked on the back door. “Yes, Officer Drake,” said Abby letting the man into the kitchen. “What can I do for you?” “Miss Coleman,” Calvin Drake said as he sat down at the table. “They found several adult human bodies under the floor boards in the barn.” |
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| The Weather Vane Sal Amico M. Buttaci sambpoet@yahoo.com |
#12 of
16 Winner |
| 182 | |
| the me you saw yesterday the me you heard singing off key in the shower rock ‘n roll songs from the fabled old fifties this me who once carried a lucky Ace comb for the dark pompadour I sported like Frankie Avalon you never heard of the me you insist talks poems in my sleep who once wore black leather who still looks for my father down dark lonely streets the me shuffling years into fat and lean dreams the me leaning over the bridge of the Arno me in a sun ray in the crack of a door me clumsily groping for time making faces in unkind funhouse mirrors in dark morning puddles in the windows of strangers in gold magic lamps rubbed the wrong way the me chasing shadows high as the moonlight the me of the now and before of the never again the me and the me and the me you saw touching the smooth granite of graves the me peeling dead seconds like dry layers of skin the me who I am, have been, might one day become the me you say totters like a weather-vane rooster flapping my arms as if I had wings the me on the roof slant reaching for heaven daring the windfall humming old rock songs predicting the direction two hearts will take the me on the roof slant loved by an angel |
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| The Weather Vane WALTER J. WILKINS wilkinswj@comcast.net |
#13 of
16 Runner-up |
| 2386 | |
| Squeak, squeak, squeak! For twenty years I listened to the squeaking of the weather vane my husband, Ezra, had affixed atop the cupola on our barn the day Junior was born. “It’ll bring him luck, just like it did my paw,” he had said. Terrific, I thought. He drowned in a pig sty sleeping off a belly full of moon-shine the locals called Panther Piss. I nagged Ezra about what it was doing to his liver, but my concern fell on deaf ears. “Tend to you own affairs,” he told me. “My liver’s fine.” Well it couldn’t have been that fine cuz we buried him yesterday. God bless his soul, which I doubt He will do. It’s more like the devil beware, but one can never be sure whose got the upper hand. If I had my way he’d spend the rest of eternity in purgatory, sober as a judge. It would serve him right. When we returned from the funeral the weather vane was making some God-awful noises. On seeing us it started swinging back and forth, checking us out with that eye hole in its head, like it wanted to attack but couldn’t decide which of us to assault first. The grinding of metal-on-metal sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. It made you squeeze your eyes shut and cover your ears. It carried on so you’d a thought it was mourning a loved one. “I’ll get the ladder,” Junior said, reading my mind. I guess he felt as I did; that it was time the weather vane joined his Paw and grandma. It doesn’t know east from west or north from south anyhow. Damn thing just points where it wants to. Sometimes it just goes round and round like it’s sniffing out a lost breeze. I’d complained to Ezra for years about the noise. It was impossible to sleep. The sound bore right through the layers of your mind and made you grit your teeth so hard your fillings stuck together. You couldn’t even think clearly when it really got going cuz it sucked the thoughts right out of your head before they was finished growing up into ideas. But to Ezra it was music. “Sounds like my dear old mother,” he said. Well he was right there. That cantankerous old woman’s creaky voice had sounded like the soulless noise the weather vane made during its senseless meandering. God I hated that old witch, and her grandson wasn’t too fond of her either. When Junior was small he would cringe every time she opened her toothless mouth. If she was mad her screeching actually hurt your ears. One day she got so carried away over something I’d done that her pipe fell out from between her gums and burned a hole in my rug. When I chastised her for it she went into a terrible tirade; said the rug weren’t no more than an old horse blanket and should’ve been thrown out years ago. Why a person would put a stick in their mouth and suck smoke into their lungs through it is beyond me—especially a woman. Not that it messed up her looks any cuz it didn’t. She was as ugly as a bare-assed possum and smelled worse than the out house. It was a real blessing when she departed this life. Now Ezra has gone to join her. Hallelujah! Junior scampered up the roof. When he got to the cupola he looked down at me with a proud expression on his face. He was my only child and though not too bright-- like his Paw, he always gave me pleasure. My show of appreciation for his efforts was very important to him, whether it had been for his childhood artwork or the more grown up things he did now, like fixing the tractor or castrating the bull. I knew he would be expecting my praise for this daring feat, so I smiled and lightly clapped my hands together. The big cock rooster weather vane had a great flowing tail and a real grandiose stance-- like a soldier at attention. As Junior approached it turned and glared at him. Undaunted, Junior reached over the cupola and grabbed the bottom shaft. He couldn’t get enough leverage to pull it out of the rusted pipe, so he hoisted himself up onto the cupola’s roof and grabbed the cock’s iron perch with both hands and gave a yank. Nothing happened. He spread his feet wide apart, spat on his hands, and gave another yank. Nothing! Then the wind picked up. Slowly the weather vane started to turn. The rooster was made out of a thin piece of metal and didn’t weigh more than twenty pounds but it bowled Junior right over. Luckily he was able to grab the shaft and hold on. The weather vane kept turning, carrying Junior along with it. I watched in horror as he was dragged around the tiny roof on his back. Each time they came to the short side, where the cupola straddled the roof, Junior’s feet would smack into the peak causing him to be flipped over; first onto his belly then back onto his back. The pocket of his dungarees caught on a nail and was torn off. The next time around the nail snagged his belt. Junior’s trousers were bunching up into his crotch and squishing his testicles. I don’t know who was howling the loudest, him or the rooster. I was unable to help, or even think of anything to say that might assure him that everything would be all right. All I could do was watch. But Junior was always resourceful. With his free hand he reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. He opened the blade with his teeth and cut himself loose then turned over onto his belly and with great effort, climbed back up onto the cupola’s roof. The wind died down and the weather vane stopped turning. Junior let go of the shaft and looked at his hand. All the skin was gone. It must have hurt like the fires of hell. “I can’t get it out, Maw,” he said, looking down at me and shaking his head. “I’m sorry, but it’s all rusted together.” “Then forget about it. I’ll hire someone to do it,” I told him. “Come on down.” We didn’t have any money to hire someone, and he knew how badly I wanted that damn weather vane gone, so he said, “I’ll try once more. Maybe I can break it off below the arrow.” Junior approached the weather vane in a crouch and bellied up to it. He wrapped his long arms around the thin metal rooster and leaned forward then backward, trying to snap the upper shaft. The rooster screamed! Junior’s eyes went so wide I thought they’d pop right out of his head. Then the wind started to blow. It couldn’t get to the rooster because Junior was literally holding it in his arms, but it was able to get a small bite on the tail feathers of the arrow. The weather vane began to turn again, dragging junior along with it. But he didn’t let go. He kept up his rhythmic forward and backward leaning as he side-stepped around the little roof, first on his toes then on his knees. Around and around they went. Junior’s dungarees wore through. His knees were now scuffed and bleeding, but he held on. Through it all the rooster never shut up. It squealed and squeaked and shrieked, calling to the wind to blow harder. I knew Junior couldn’t let go now even if he wanted to. If he did he would probably fall to his death. Besides, I was watching his every move, rooting him on. The thought of how proud I would be of him after this was over must have given him renewed strength, because he picked up the pace. Forward and back, forward and back, faster and faster he went. The bend in the shaft started to glow a fiery red. The rooster turned its head and began to peck at Junior’s face with its metal beak, but he was so engrossed in his task he didn’t even notice. Each time they came around I prayed it would be the last. My poor boy was now bleeding profusely from his face and knees. The blood dripped from the cupola’s edge and onto the barn roof then slowly made its way down the weathered shingles to the gutter. I could hear Junior grunt each time he lunged forward. I’m ashamed to admit it, cuz this certainly weren’t the time or place, but the grunting reminded me of the sound his Paw used to make each time he drove into me while we were making love. It caused me to think about Ezra and me and the twenty odd years we lived together and how we used to make love all the time. Looking back at it now, I don’t remember him ever taking me when he was sober, not even on our wedding night. I don’t know why he needed to be drunk. Was I that ugly, I wondered? Other men hadn’t thought so and I didn’t really think so either. Maybe I’ll get me another husband. I bet there are plenty of men out there willing to take on a widow. The next one will be a tea-toteler though; you can bet on that. The rooster kept pecking but Junior never let up. He was going faster now. The staccato grump, grump, grump, grump, like a car trying to turn over with a bad battery, was just how Ezra sounded just before he climaxed. It wouldn’t be long now. The shaft broke on Junior’s backward lean. For a second he was balanced on his toes with the weather vane all tangled in his shirt. Then he toppled backward. He fell to the roof on his back and started to slide down the upper part of the gambrel. I could see the fear in his eyes as he fought for purchase with his heels. If it hadn’t been for the weather vane he might have had a chance, but when he slid to the lower section of the gambrel it caused him to roll over onto the metal rooster, which now became a speeding sled. His toes caught the gutter. It flipped him into the air. “MAW! HELP ME! HELP ME!” he screamed as he sailed through the air and came crashing to the ground on his stomach. I ran to him and rolled him over. The point of the arrow was buried deep in his chest. “I did it Maw, I did it,” he said, coughing up blood. “That damn thing won’t keep us awake any more.” I couldn’t hold back the tears. “I am so proud of you,” I said, sobbing. “No other boy in the whole wide world could have done any better.” I buried Junior a grave’s space from his Paw, saving me the middle. I don’t believe a dead man can have a bad influence on a young lad, even if he is also dead, but why take chances. I didn’t think a metal rooster could cry and peck either, but it did. I don’t care what any one says or how many of them think I’m crazy; I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears. * * * * * With Ezra and his mother gone, to God only knows where, and now Junior too--hopefully to some place they’re not, its become awfully quite around here; so quiet that I can actually hear myself think. But that’s not the blessing I was expecting, because they are far from happy thoughts. I hold myself responsible for Junior’s death, and also, somewhat, for my unhappy marriage; though I don’t know what I could have done differently. There are two sides to every story, they say, so maybe it wasn’t all Ezra’s fault. Those reflections, and others I don’t care to divulge, are now keeping me awake at night. A lot of these thoughts have been with me all my life, but the constant interference of the noisy weather vane had drowned them out. Now they were foremost in my mind; a mind that has always been somewhat at odds with itself. Oh I hid it well, except for that short stay in the nut hospital my parent’s sent me to, nobody was the wiser--except maybe Ezra’s mother, and possibly him too. I always wondered why she insisted on moving in with us. Now I think I know. She wanted to keep an eye on me, afraid I’d do something to her precious son, like slit his throat. Actually that thought had occurred to me. But it was justified! He was always pissing me off. Once he made me take my clothes off and roll around in the mud while he took pictures. I never got to see them, but Ezra’s drinking buddies did; I know that for a fact. When they’d come over I’d look at them boys look at me and wonder which one ogled me naked. Actually I think they all did cuz they were always looking me up and down and grinning like they had this big secret. I lie in bed at night thinking about Junior while the incident with the weather vane replays itself over and over in my head, and I wonder, did it really come to life and scream and peck at my boy, or was it all in my mind; and how did the wind know exactly when and how hard to blow; and could I have done anything to prevent it; and what was God’s part in all of this, or did He even care? And does Junior blame me? Oh I hope not. But he must. How could he not? His soulful cry echoes in my head and will haunt me to my grave. “MAW! HELP ME! MAW! HELP ME! MAW! HELP ME!” I tried taking the pills the doctor prescribed but they don’t help, they make it worse and upset my stomach. There is only one thing left to do that I know for sure will give me peace. “Hello. Are you the blacksmith?” “Yes mam.” “Do you know how to make a weather vane?” “Yes mam.” “In the shape of a big cock rooster?” “Yes mam.” “Can you make it squeak in the wind?” |
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| The Weather Vane lee10@host365.com |
#14 of 16 |
| 2293 | |
| My family had lived in South Africa for several years
and when we returned to England, we stayed on Granddad’s farm in the Vale
of Belvoir while Dad looked for a job. The land was green, an exciting place
for children brought up on the dry, brown bundu and my little sister’s
eyes were as big as saucers with all the wonders we saw. We’d seen
ostriches and elephants in their natural environment, but we’d never seen
woolly, spring lambs before and we were enchanted. We spent ages watching them
leaping about and chasing each other before they collapsed exhausted in an
untidy snoring bundle of legs. Granddad kept a dairy herd too and we adored the
cows’ gentle lowing, their soft, brown eyes and long eyelashes, even
though the animals smelt and their backsides were covered with greeny-brown
gunge. My bedroom was a tiny, dusty space under the farmhouse roof. I had to stand on tiptoes to see out the window and then all I could see was a corner of the cobbled yard and the end of the barn where the tractor was kept. The barn was old and the roof was made of tin. On the fifth day, I was woken at dawn by the thrumming of rain. Clutching the windowsill, I steadied myself to watch the heavy drops bouncing on the tin before they ran down and spilled over the edge of the moss-filled guttering, becoming a waterfall that splashed down into the yard. The downpour reminded me of Africa and I felt the pain of homesickness but my attention was quickly diverted by something attached to a pole to the end of the roof. Whatever it was, it was a blur of motion, caught and twirled by the winds of the storm. The days so far had been still and I’d not noticed it before. I thought it was metal and squinted to try to make out any detail through the curtains of rain. Then briefly the storm held its breath. The wind dropped and the rain slowed to a mist. The object had been spinning fast but stilled for a moment. It looked like a paper cutout picture of a dog, running fast, outpacing the storm. I was puzzled and at breakfast time I asked Granddad what it was. Granddad gave my parents a, ‘Don’t you tell this child anything look,’ and explained that it was a weather vane and showed which direction the wind was blowing. He told me it was very old and had been made by his great-uncle, the village blacksmith, when Queen Victoria was on the throne. “Mind,” he winked at Dad, “it’s like my best yard brush. It’s the same one I’ve had for fifty years, and it’s only had five new staves and four new heads in that time.” I wanted to ask about this Queen Victoria but the weather vane was even more interesting so I demanded to know why the dog was racing across the sky. “Come and help me see to the hens,” Granddad smiled and I’ll tell you all about it while we work.” It was still drizzling so I put on my pink raincoat and my new green wellies and we went to the barn, let some of the hens out and fed the ones with fluffy babies, which weren’t being allowed outside just yet. Granddad showed me how to find and handle the warm, newly laid eggs and as we worked he told me all about the weather vane and the hunt which it represented. "What you call a dog is actually a fox,” Granddad said, “and it would be chased by a man on a horse. The hunter would be wearing a red coat, tight britches and shiny, leather boots.” He threw some corn towards a scraggy old hen. “That’s Doris,” he nodded in the bird’s direction. “She’s five years old and a bit of a bully, so I feed her first. It gives the other birds a bit of a chance.” He picked a broody hen off a nest and removed two of the three eggs. “I’ll leave her with the other one. It’s only fair,” he said. “He put the hen back and smoothed her feathers. She clucked at him. It reminded me of Mum grumbling at Dad. Granddad told me about the hunt, about the men and women who rode the big, snorting horses. He told me about the meeting of the hunt on the village green, where the pack of dogs, “except they’re not dogs, they’re hounds,” would run around excitedly, snuffling the ground, desperate to be off. He told me about the hunting horn, how its eerie notes rang over the fields when a fox was spotted and how the yipping, baying hounds led the hunters towards the kill. He told me how a child, hunting for the first time, would be bloodied when its face was wiped with the tail cut from the dead fox. I shuddered and prayed that from now on all the foxes would out run all the hunters. “And that’s the story the old weather vane tells,” he finished. “ At teatime, of course, I happily told my little sister all about the hunt. Mum told Granddad off. “The girls are too young to hear about such gruesome nonsense,” she told him. “The sooner the government bans fox hunting, the better.” “Don’t talk daft,” Granddad replied. “That’ll never happen. And the child should learn all about her heritage. Leicestershire is the best foxhunting county in England and the Belvoir Hunt is the best in the county. Why, even Prince Charles has hunted with it on many occasions.” My heritage! That sounded interesting. I’d never had one before. We’d gone to live in Africa when I was two year’s old and although I’d learned to speak Afrikaans and my English had a South African accent, I’d never really belonged. Dad moved around a lot with his job and we knew his firm could recall him to England at any time so we didn’t settle. As it was, after seven years his firm went bust, we lost the house that went with the job and Mum decided that Johannesburg was too dangerous a place to live any longer. When I learned about the fox on the weather vane, I identified with it. It looked like a dog but it wasn’t a dog. It ran alone. Just as I had in Africa. I was like the other children but I hadn’t belonged with them. I hadn’t been part of the pack. We didn’t leave the farm as we’d planned to do after a few weeks, as Granddad broke his hip when the old bull kicked him and Dad stayed on to run the farm. I grew taller and in no time I could see the weather vane without having to stand on tiptoe. Every day I gloried in my freedom on the farm and running across the fields, I imagined that I was a fox, faster than the hounds and quicker witted. Like the weather vane, I flew through clear skies or storms. I’d finally found a home but still I didn’t fit in. I wanted to run like the fox but this made it difficult for me to hunt with the hounds. The other kids in the village school refused to accept me, although my family had lived on the farm for generations. They mocked my accent and called me ‘kaffir’. I tried hard to belong. I joined the Brownies, then the Girl Guides and learnt about cooking and camping. Dad bought a pony and I had riding lessons but at eleven I was too old to start entering the local gymkhanas. The girls in the village, who’d ridden ponies before they could walk, laughed at my clumsy efforts. I often fell off as my pony bumbled over a ridiculously low fence. “Knees, child. Grip with your knees,” the instructor shouted, to no avail. Looking back, I realised it was partly attitude that made me unpopular. I was an outsider and it didn’t occur to me that my championing of the fox was out of place in this rural part of the county, where so many of the men’s jobs were dependant on fox-hunting and allied industries. Like any townie, I claimed, loudly at times, that hunting was barbaric and should be banned. Granddad tried to persuade me from my antagonistic stance but by now I was a teenager and of course, I knew better. To me, the fox was a symbol of freedom and the weather vane was the icon which I venerated. And even when a fox broke into the hen barn in the winter and beheaded Doris, I refused to change my opinions. I made the excuse that the fox had been justified. It needed food and the Boxing Day hunt must have chased it in our direction. Anyway, Doris had pecked a chick to death only the day before and deserved her fate. I was sixteen when the pieces of my life fell into place. It was Sunday morning. I could hear the hunt in the distance and, under the pretext of looking for a botanical specimen for my biology homework, I’d gone into the fields. I was dragging an obnoxious bundle in a canvas bag behind me. I didn’t hold out much hope that the hunt would come this way but if it did, the conflicting scents would drive the hounds out of their pathetic, little, doggy minds, It had worked a couple of times in the past and in the confusion the fox had escaped. I’d escaped too but it was inevitable that I’d be caught one day. And so I was. I ‘d found a plant, which I could take home and show my parents and I was looking for a rabbit warren or some such place where I could stash the bag when I fell over Ben. Quite literally. One second I was pushing through some overhanging foliage in a small copse, the next, I was flat on my face. The bag whizzed from my hands. I think I swore. I must have sworn because I heard someone say, “Tut. Tut. Young ladies shouldn’t use such language!” I struggled to my feet, the plant squashed in my fist, to see a young man of about my age picking up the bag that had fallen at his feet. I heard a sound behind me. A dark-haired man with a beard was grinning down at me and shaking his head. “You really should be more careful where you put your feet,” he said. “You tripped over me and didn’t even see me, did you?” The youth opened the bag and a rank smell flushed over the clearing. “’S’truth,” he dropped the bag. “That’s ripe!” I jumped to my feet, frightened but didn’t dare show it. The man’s lips were pearl-pink against the black depths of his bushy beard. They twitched. I think he was trying not to laugh at me. “Who are you?” I demanded. “What are you doing on our property?” The man looked me up and down and nodded. “The same as you, I think.” The hunting horn sounded in the distance. The hunt was moving away from the wood. “Shame,” the man sighed. “Your lure smells like a good one but it’s going to waste on this occasion.” He held out his hand. “I’m Ben and this is my son, Jason.” Jason blushed and looked at his shoes. “You’re hunt saboteurs!” I gasped and shook Ben’s hand. “That’s great. So am I.” I told them I was Kathy and we were firm friend by the time I’d picked bits of leaf from my hair and dusted dirt from the knees of my trousers. Ben looked like a huge, dark, grizzly bear but I soon learned that he was just a big, soft, pussycat and I could easily twist him round my little finger. And finally, I discovered that I could hunt with the hounds and run with the fox. Ben and Jason introduced me to their group and we had great times confusing the hunters and the hounds. The group did not approve of violence, mainly because hounds and horses might be hurt, so we kept a low profile but caused mayhem where and when we could. That suited me as I still had to live in the community but I never lost the belief that we were right. Foxhunting was a barbaric sport, which didn’t belong in a civilised country, and it was our duty to do what we could to disrupt it, even as the political tide began to turn in our favour. That all happened a long time ago and the government finally banned foxhunting. Some of the hunts tried to continue to beat the ban by using hawks but it wasn’t particularly successful. Other hunts accepted the situation and one of the hunters would lay down a scent for the hounds to follow, much in the way I had done with my false trails, but most hunts were disbanded. The Belvoir Hunt still exists but it has become a sedate canter across the fields by a few old hacks instead of the raucous and riotous gallop it used to be. I was reminded of the long struggle to stop the hunts when the weathervane collapsed this morning. It had been rickety for several months and it only took a small gust of wind to bring it down. The last smithy in the Vale years ago, so I’ll have to take my weather vane into the city where I’ve heard of a man who has revived some of the old, rural crafts. I can get him to use my battered old fox as a template to make a new one. Then I’ll put it up on the roof of the barn, where it belongs. |
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| The Weather Vane walshnyc@yahoo.com |
#15 of 16 |
| 1932 | |
| The twins burst into the den with the shrill enthusiasm
that could only be generated by two ten year old girls. “Grandpa!” They cried as they rushed toward him. The Grandpa, sitting at his desk, turned in the swivel chair to greet them. “My girls!” The three collided an exuberant hug. Kisses were planted on cheeks, and then he pulled away as if to better take in the vision of them. “How did you know I was in here?” he teased. “Grandma told us,” Ashley replied. She was the more assertive and always quickest to answer. “She’s in the kitchen with mom and dad.” “Are you surprised to see us?” Leigh cut in, claiming her slice of attention. “I knew you were coming, but I didn’t expect you to come find me,” he said, guiding them over to the small sofa where he sat down between them. “Grandma usually calls me out whenever you arrive…” He was indeed surprised that the girls had come into the den unaccompanied by their grandmother or a parent. The girls had always been wary of crossing the threshold of this room, even in the presence of an adult. “This time we were brave,” Ashley said, as if she had rehearsed and been waiting to tell him. “We wanted to come into your special room because we’re not afraid of the animals anymore because we’re getting bigger.” Her relaxed energy seemed to confirm her claim, but Leigh was tense and remained pressed close to his side. Her eyes scanned nervously around the room, avoiding the glassy stares of the hunting trophies that decorated the walls. “You don’t have anything to be afraid of,” he said. “These fellows are quite harmless.” The ‘fellows’ consisted of the heads of two deer, a wild boar, and a bull-moose. “Did you really kill all of these animals, Grandpa?” Ashley asked. “I sure did.” “Why?” “Because that’s what hunters do.” “Why?” “Sometimes you do it for food. Sometimes you do it just to show how good you are at doing it. And in the case of that ugly old pig over there, well, he had it coming.” “What do you mean?” “I grew up on a farm, and one day, that there pig decided that our crops and garden were his own private cafeteria. He would come in from the woods and just help himself,” he explained. “We tried a few different tricks to keep him out, but he always found a way to get to our vegetables. My father didn’t want to have to build a big, expensive fence on account of one greedy animal, so he put it to my brother Randall and I to kill the trespassing pig. We got our rifles and waited at the edge of the forest and waited for him to come out, and before too long, he comes trotting along like someone rang the dinner bell. We both aimed, we both shot, and I was the one who brought him down. It was the first time I’d ever beaten Randall at shooting, so I decided that I would make a trophy of Mr. Pig, and we’ve been together ever since.” “What did that chicken do wrong?” Leigh was looking and pointing away from the walls where the animals were, to the end of the room with the gun cabinet and trophy case. Mounted there was flat, metal rooster. “That’s a rooster,” Grandpa said. “He was never alive, so I never killed him.” “Why is he up there if he’s not a ‘killed’ animal?” Ashley had gotten up and walked closer to inspect the rusty old iron bird. When she was close enough to see it, she read the inscription on the plaque that was mounted just beneath the rooster: “To Dead-Eye Dick’; may you’re aim always be true.” “Who’s ‘Dead-Eye Dick’?” Leigh wondered. “I am,” grandpa said. “But mom says your name is Richard.” “It’s a nickname. There’s a story about it, and it happens to be a story about that rooster, so why don’t you two have a seat on the floor here, and I’ll tell you all about it…” Ashley rushed back across the room and sat cross-legged on the rug at the foot of the sofa. Leigh climbed down beside her, tentative. She sat in exactly the same pose as her sister as they both looked up at their grandfather with eager eyes. “You girls never knew my brother Randall, but I think you would have liked him,” he began. “Like you girls, Randall and I were identical twins. When we were younger, people say you couldn’t tell us apart if we didn’t want you to. The only people we couldn’t fool were our parents, and sometimes we could even put one over on them if we were worked at it. At first, it was fun, but as we grew older and started to develop different personalities, it was frustrating trying to get people to treat us like individuals. Randall was better at sports than I was, and people always expected me to be as good at baseball and basketball, but I just wasn’t. I was better at school work, and the teachers and our parents used to think Randall should be as smart as me, but it just wasn’t the way he was. Do your teachers ever mix up things about the two of you?” “We don’t like the same foods,” Ashley replied, missing the point. “Ah. Well, as much as Randall and I started to have different interests, there were some things that we were always very competitive about. We would race to see who could do their chores the fastest, or who could finish their whole dinner, or run the fastest or who was a better shot. Randall was better with a gun, but ever since I shot that pig, he was always coming up with new shooting contests so he could prove that I just got lucky. And that’s where the rooster comes in.” Both girls turned their heads to look at the rooster, as if they expected it to somehow join in to the telling of the tale. They turned back to Grandpa as he continued: “Do you girls know what a weather vane is?” he asked. | |