S E V E N T E E N / Child of War
Excerpt PART II: COLUMBIA, the AMERIKA WEST 1953
Deb De La Rosa Is Too Ladylike for This
Lola’s mother bossed the steering wheel, jammed into gear and we’re off in a cloud of arthropods. “Hang on if you want a ride, not a busted head.”
“Whoa! Deb de La Rosa is too ladylike for this,” said Lola.
“What the hell is Deb de La Rosa?”
“You wouldn’t know.” Lola looked down.
“I know this, young lady. I am the one driving and don’t you forget it! Ever. You hear me? You young people think you know everything but you’re shallow. Bourgeois greed is all you understand, rouge and fruu fruu hair. Someday when you’ve been terribly wounded by hideously painful consequences, you’ll finally understand all your father and I have gone through to raise you to be troubled by the rich. You’ll come crawling to say you’re sorry for all the pain you’ve caused your mother. I respected my mother. Maybe she didn’t put food on the table or keep the house up or can crabapples. I may of had to bail her of jail a few too many times, but I respected her. Why? Because she taught me valuable lessons, is why. Rule number one and number two, we are the exploited and private ownership is out to get us. Make sure to blast your way out of a stand off with the National Guard, or this one time, Kodiak bears in a circle ready for the kill if it weren’t for the dogs.”
There are Arctic winds, Polar winds, and Buran Purga, which by the names are self explanatory. Then there are hot winds, which are Fuends and snow eaters. In Poland, it’s the dire downslope Halny Wiatr that rips off roofs and brings on avalanches. Los Angeles hosts its own hot air called the Santa Ana’s that bothers the skin and brings out the urine smells from the secret alleys where hopefuls live after all hope goes and Chinook winds exist because of the Chinook people (not the Popoluca this time) who lived in a vast defile, where the winds herd like spooked buffalo through a funnel. You can tell a Chinook if it grabs you hot through the heart in a jealousy way. It sparks migraines and inspires wives to kill their husbands, and other exciting revolts.
Within the span of ten minutes, on the third day of October 1953 the temperature chilled to a dramatic hush of freezing farenheight before the buffalos brought the tropics in and slushed up the ice. One minute you’re frozen, the next minute you’re crazy. On this beautiful day, Lola ditched school to write motion picture scripts in her father’s tool shed, which was bare of anything but the usual nitrocellulose -based propellants for demolition and remediation needs stacked in a dark corner of messy spider webs left by antennae legged black spiders that don’t nest in your boots like the little brown ones. Miss Rheingold was skewed on a wall by a sixteen penny nail since she was voted in last year by two point three million riders of the New York subway system and regulars of sleazy bars in New Jersey that let in fifteen year olds. She liked to write flat on her back with her legs bent, a thing that she couldn’t do on the living room floor due to Thor’s irritating habit of starting up her legs even with dungarees on.
A matching set of tomeish volumes spilled in disarray across remains of linoleum, it’s edges carried vestiges of large petal nose gays. Kant, Marx, Lenin were embossed, on each steer hide cover, in sensible brown. Lola lounged on Carl’s army cot thumbing through the pages of “Philosophies of Vladimir Lenin.” Lola happened upon a phrase on page 423 underlined with smeared red ink probably with a leaky Everflow fountain pen you better not take on a plane because of the air pressure. She read it out loud just to see if it said what it said. Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood. Oh my!
Thousands? Just how many women drown in their own fluids? Not enough to worry about. Lola bammed the book shut and looked in the direction of Miss Rheingold’s teeth. Not her. What if it’s The Geologist who will die without mercy? Sometimes his brow was scrunched up slightly with angst from a distance, as if being what had already happened, a far away loss where Popoluca butterflies hover like dance-gnats over people and places only he can see. What’s this? A cache box under Carl’s cot. For money? Secret letters from a back affair? No, it won’t open. Isn’t that just like Carl? He locks himself out, more like locks you in. Oh yes and the silky wad hiding the box, ladies undies with the fine grosgrain ribbon woven into the Chantilly lace at the band that goes gently around each leg under the crotch. They looked new.
The nicer girls are always clean cut and wholesome. Their hair is tamed even in winter and they do not attract static electricity. In summer they do not swear ever so there’s no tell tale wetness under the arms. Although unnecessary they bathe maybe three four times a day and change into new unders afterwards, Neiman Marcus ones that never experience the drips and flows of unclean extrusions from the crass innards of girls who must make their own food and sleep in a bed of frozen urine, due to numerous bladder infections as a kid, thanks to holding it in to make her mother happy. Last night was the worst because of the wind chill factor when the Chinooks suddenly turned to severe blizzard warning without warning into the stuck open window. Last night’s urine was already iced over through the mattress ticking. Lola was familiar with the procedure, not to put a knee in the middle when mounting bed. Lay next to the ice and roll into it gradually as it melts. Body heat also serves to dry out the wetness by the time Lana came in the window. Last night Lana didn’t come home.
“This your stupid cat? It’s froze stiff as a pecker ... Oh Son, for the love of Lenin, don’t be crude,” Thor spoke in falsetto to mock his mother before she said it. He swung the solid cat by its tail through the door. The thunk sent simple tears down Lola’s cheeks.
“You kids stop your fighting. Do I have to get the piece out again?” Carl was anticipating a cracked engine block. He shouldn’t of left the pick up on Garnet Street but the ride home sure was worth the price.
She bundled Lana in Steve’s “going steady” letter sweater. Then she rocked the thawing Lana until dark when she could slip uncriticized out the door to pick ax the frozen earth for Lana’s last bed. It was her fault that Lana was dead. She should have kept Lana in bed with her, even though Carl got mad whenever he found a cat on the side of the bed he favored after Lola changed the sheets, which was anywhere near as often as it should have been by a long shot.
Excerpt PART II: COLUMBIA, the AMERIKA WEST 1953
Deb De La Rosa Is Too Ladylike for This
Lola’s mother bossed the steering wheel, jammed into gear and we’re off in a cloud of arthropods. “Hang on if you want a ride, not a busted head.”
“Whoa! Deb de La Rosa is too ladylike for this,” said Lola.
“What the hell is Deb de La Rosa?”
“You wouldn’t know.” Lola looked down.
“I know this, young lady. I am the one driving and don’t you forget it! Ever. You hear me? You young people think you know everything but you’re shallow. Bourgeois greed is all you understand, rouge and fruu fruu hair. Someday when you’ve been terribly wounded by hideously painful consequences, you’ll finally understand all your father and I have gone through to raise you to be troubled by the rich. You’ll come crawling to say you’re sorry for all the pain you’ve caused your mother. I respected my mother. Maybe she didn’t put food on the table or keep the house up or can crabapples. I may of had to bail her of jail a few too many times, but I respected her. Why? Because she taught me valuable lessons, is why. Rule number one and number two, we are the exploited and private ownership is out to get us. Make sure to blast your way out of a stand off with the National Guard, or this one time, Kodiak bears in a circle ready for the kill if it weren’t for the dogs.”
There are Arctic winds, Polar winds, and Buran Purga, which by the names are self explanatory. Then there are hot winds, which are Fuends and snow eaters. In Poland, it’s the dire downslope Halny Wiatr that rips off roofs and brings on avalanches. Los Angeles hosts its own hot air called the Santa Ana’s that bothers the skin and brings out the urine smells from the secret alleys where hopefuls live after all hope goes and Chinook winds exist because of the Chinook people (not the Popoluca this time) who lived in a vast defile, where the winds herd like spooked buffalo through a funnel. You can tell a Chinook if it grabs you hot through the heart in a jealousy way. It sparks migraines and inspires wives to kill their husbands, and other exciting revolts.
Within the span of ten minutes, on the third day of October 1953 the temperature chilled to a dramatic hush of freezing farenheight before the buffalos brought the tropics in and slushed up the ice. One minute you’re frozen, the next minute you’re crazy. On this beautiful day, Lola ditched school to write motion picture scripts in her father’s tool shed, which was bare of anything but the usual nitrocellulose -based propellants for demolition and remediation needs stacked in a dark corner of messy spider webs left by antennae legged black spiders that don’t nest in your boots like the little brown ones. Miss Rheingold was skewed on a wall by a sixteen penny nail since she was voted in last year by two point three million riders of the New York subway system and regulars of sleazy bars in New Jersey that let in fifteen year olds. She liked to write flat on her back with her legs bent, a thing that she couldn’t do on the living room floor due to Thor’s irritating habit of starting up her legs even with dungarees on.
A matching set of tomeish volumes spilled in disarray across remains of linoleum, it’s edges carried vestiges of large petal nose gays. Kant, Marx, Lenin were embossed, on each steer hide cover, in sensible brown. Lola lounged on Carl’s army cot thumbing through the pages of “Philosophies of Vladimir Lenin.” Lola happened upon a phrase on page 423 underlined with smeared red ink probably with a leaky Everflow fountain pen you better not take on a plane because of the air pressure. She read it out loud just to see if it said what it said. Without mercy, without sparing, we will kill our enemies in scores of hundreds. Let them be thousands; let them drown themselves in their own blood. Oh my!
Thousands? Just how many women drown in their own fluids? Not enough to worry about. Lola bammed the book shut and looked in the direction of Miss Rheingold’s teeth. Not her. What if it’s The Geologist who will die without mercy? Sometimes his brow was scrunched up slightly with angst from a distance, as if being what had already happened, a far away loss where Popoluca butterflies hover like dance-gnats over people and places only he can see. What’s this? A cache box under Carl’s cot. For money? Secret letters from a back affair? No, it won’t open. Isn’t that just like Carl? He locks himself out, more like locks you in. Oh yes and the silky wad hiding the box, ladies undies with the fine grosgrain ribbon woven into the Chantilly lace at the band that goes gently around each leg under the crotch. They looked new.
The nicer girls are always clean cut and wholesome. Their hair is tamed even in winter and they do not attract static electricity. In summer they do not swear ever so there’s no tell tale wetness under the arms. Although unnecessary they bathe maybe three four times a day and change into new unders afterwards, Neiman Marcus ones that never experience the drips and flows of unclean extrusions from the crass innards of girls who must make their own food and sleep in a bed of frozen urine, due to numerous bladder infections as a kid, thanks to holding it in to make her mother happy. Last night was the worst because of the wind chill factor when the Chinooks suddenly turned to severe blizzard warning without warning into the stuck open window. Last night’s urine was already iced over through the mattress ticking. Lola was familiar with the procedure, not to put a knee in the middle when mounting bed. Lay next to the ice and roll into it gradually as it melts. Body heat also serves to dry out the wetness by the time Lana came in the window. Last night Lana didn’t come home.
“This your stupid cat? It’s froze stiff as a pecker ... Oh Son, for the love of Lenin, don’t be crude,” Thor spoke in falsetto to mock his mother before she said it. He swung the solid cat by its tail through the door. The thunk sent simple tears down Lola’s cheeks.
“You kids stop your fighting. Do I have to get the piece out again?” Carl was anticipating a cracked engine block. He shouldn’t of left the pick up on Garnet Street but the ride home sure was worth the price.
She bundled Lana in Steve’s “going steady” letter sweater. Then she rocked the thawing Lana until dark when she could slip uncriticized out the door to pick ax the frozen earth for Lana’s last bed. It was her fault that Lana was dead. She should have kept Lana in bed with her, even though Carl got mad whenever he found a cat on the side of the bed he favored after Lola changed the sheets, which was anywhere near as often as it should have been by a long shot.