I wonder what Nathan is doing right now. Nathan Wallows is my favorite singer. His voice is like a tormented angel pulled down to suffer in a tar pit. Haunted. He was fated to be trapped forever in my sticky black heart. Each song he sang resonated chords within me. It would be hard to convince me that each song he wrote and sang wasn’t written just so I could understand him better. That’s how much his body of work spoke to me.
I don’t like children which is unfortunate to my line of work…I call it work, but it’s torture really. If you are working a job that you hate, you always have the option of resigning…of opting out: of just deciding not to show up… This isn’t like that. I’m not actually an ice cream man…and I have to show up. I don’t have options. It’s not a choice. It’s more like a compulsion. Nobody would choose to be like this.
I just want to make one thing clear: I’m not sick. I think a sick person wouldn’t be able to recognize the difference between right and wrong. I knew what I did was wrong before I did it. I also knew there wouldn’t be any consequences, I suppose. Nobody was ever going to know.
Last night, in dreams, I dreamt I was the slaughterhouse man. Sheep were bleating passively; no clue what was in store–one by one, into the chute, following friends to the killing floor. I was covered in gore. Lifting the pneumatic piston to their foreheads; I’d be covered more.
I’m suspended in the void, floating. Senses fail here, except hearing, which is fine because this is the nothingness; nothing to feel or see. It’s a quiet place–peaceful, like finding yourself adrift in space. Then a familiar voice reminds me to be afraid. I can’t see, but he speaks to me in harsh whispers near my ear, saying: “Whatever you do, don’t open your eyes. Don’t even peek. The Peepers say they’re coming for you next. You’re not supposed to see.”
When I was just a boy of ten, My father took me on a trek From our house upon the hill To the valley down below. He showed me where I need to duck And army crawl down through the muck With briar patch above you Through the muddy soil go: This path leads to the garden where my father’s corpses grow.
My cousin Ronnie and I used to chase the ghost train on Granddad’s farm. The whole family lived on the 174 acres; a railway goes through the center. Grandad said those tracks hadn’t been used in decades. That’s why nobody believed when we started going on about the ghost train.
Later on Tuesday when we’d reopened the shop, Sheriff Matthews came by. The bell up front jingled as he sauntered through the doorway. “Alice Tucker, I got a kinda disturbing call about you from your neighbor Jeanie a little bit ago.” Mama was stocking the chips. She didn’t look up as she replied: “Daren Matthews, Jeanie Kravitz is crazier than a loon. What’d she tell ya?”
When I was a little boy, I used to ask Mama when my magic would come, but Mama says it don’t work like that. Mama’s mama had it like she does but she says the swamp magic don’t come to all our kin. I reckon it must have skipped me.
Mama isn’t a bad person. It’s actually quite the opposite. She feeds every stray she comes across, gives to charity and she cares a lot about the environment. The environment is probably the thing she carries the biggest torch for. We have a delicate ecosystem down here in the Florida Everglades and it has to be maintained. I feel like that’s probably the best way to start this story; to remind you that she is good. Mostly.