new raspberry; �HATES technological I am sick to death of erectile dysfunction, pass the tampons please |
Short Stories One Short Stories One I was emailed and asked for the link to the story my mom spoke of in my last entry. I prefer no cross over of readership between what I do here and what I do there. It�s not that I would be bothered by anyone from dland reading my other website, but I would hate for someone from the other website to end up back here in what is an intensely personal place, more easily shared with strangers than friends. I can count on one finger the people I know personally that are aware of konzadiary. However, I will post the story here. Bobby My parents are magnets. My task is to figure out what their polarity is on any given day. There is a constant succession of pullings together and pushings apart that mark my youngest rememberings. Their volatile relationship was heavily seasoned with alcohol and immaturity. When father is gone, there is a parade of men who wend their way through mother's life. Some seek a permanence they can never find; others are gone before they barely register in my consciousness. I remember mother's boyfriend Bobby. He swept in on the storm of my father's leaving to sooth and calm. The harsh baritone of my father replaced by a quiet voice that rarely rose above a whisper. It's a rare man who can walk into the chaos that was my mother's life and treat another man's child with the same gentleness and care he might his own. I remember laughing blue eyes, wavy blonde hair and a softness that had been missing from my life. The summer of Bobby brought my mother joy. I think now, that Bobby was the love of her life. Mother did not get drunk and her smile was radiant. The apartment in Washington Heights was filled with the laughter of women on warm Saturday nights such as it had never been when my father was present. The friends shared by my father and mother were darker, more inclined to drink themselves deeper into their almost sinister moods. I would huddle under the covers, waiting for the breakage that signaled the drunken loss of control in my father's house. During the summer of Bobby, I peered beyond a beaded curtain to watch them play charades when I should have been long asleep. We spent lazy days at the beach, the amusement park on the pier. Maybe this is why I still love Santa Monica; even as the places I remember decay with the years. When Bobby left, it was as quietly as she came, with none of the drama that accompanied the other leavings in my mother's life. I've never had the courage to ask why. Shortly after, my father reappeared like never before. Quietly, with soft words and regretful apologies. Somehow, they managed to exist more peacefully than before. Maybe they just mastered the art of hiding ugliness from me. We were all different after Bobby. My father seemed more in control, my mother quieter, maybe sadder. I walked many of the same paths my mother did in spite of the signposts she placed for me along the way. It has taken many years to reach this place where I love a woman and call her my own. Our house is filled with laughter on warm Saturday nights and I take pleasure in thoughts of a small boy who peers through the stair railing watching the women as they play charades.
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secrets pondering: Why the right wingers who want to keep the government out of their business insist on putting the government in my bedroom laughing about: It gets lost in translation crying about: bad habits: smoking totally ballistic about: amen sister: someone else�s take on childlessness regular reads: cactustree must see tv: |