Sheila and Sara

Please excuse Sheila from all obligations regarding her writing projects for the entire month of June.  Thank you.

Laney was quiet for a long time.  “What do you mean by that?  Crossing over into magic?” “We often liken it to the banks of a river.  On one bank lives the human race in its usual state.  On the other bank are those who have become magical.  Right now, you might be considered between the banks in the middle of the river.  When you have been made a magician, you will arrive at the far bank.” “Is there a way back to the . . . regular bank?” “The near bank, it’s usually called.  And no, there isn’t.  Not once you’ve crossed.”

“What’s the closest you come to dying, boy?” There was a trickle of something warm running down Gary’s neck from where the point of the knife was pressing into his skin.  He hoped it was only sweat. “Right about now, I think,” Gary said with a shaky laugh. The scary grin widened.  “You look it.  Pretty boy, ain’t ya?  You got a woman?” “Not for much longer.” “‘Cause she’s leaving, or ‘cause you’re fixing to die?” “She’s fixing to die.  It’s why I’m here.” “What for?  You want me to kill you so you don’t have to see her go?”

“I ain’t working with him until I can get a good look in his eyes.” Gary shrugged.  “Put me in a staring contest, if you want to.” Bobby--Gary wouldn’t call him ‘Moondog’--walked over and leaned down until the smell of alcohol from his breath overwhelmed the cigarette haze around them.  His watery blue eyes fixed Gary with an unblinking glare.  Gary didn’t see Bobby’s hands move until a moment before the back of his head was gripped with one hand and a knife held against his throat with the other. “You blinked,” he said with a yellowed grin.

I interrupted a pillow fight with my niece to point at the picture of my sister on the mantel, the high school portrait in the false velvet top they made us wear. “There’s your mom,” I said, and then I pointed at the picture of my mother in her nursing uniform. “There’s your mom’s mom,” I continued and then I pointed at the wedding photograph of my grandmother, a black and white photograph that had been tinted by hand. “And there’s your mom’s mom’s mom.” “That’s too many moms!” my niece shouted, laughing as she hit me with a pillow.

He took another swig of bourbon and banged the glass on the table.  The wooden chair creaked as he leaned back and took a drag on his cigarette.  He breathed the smoke out in a long exhale that resembled a sigh.  He scratched the stubble on his gaunt face for a moment and ran a hand through his greying hair. “Thing of it is,” he said, “sooner or later I wind up doing something stupid just to keep things interesting.  Might as well do it deliberately for once.  Things are getting dull around here and I’m getting twitchy.  I’m in.”

From age nine through age thirteen, I went to a Catholic school.  I recall Sister Margaret Thomasine (she was known as such to differentiate her from Sister Margaret Mary, the principal) asking the class for examples of words that used the prefix homo- to mean “the same.”  (Homonym being the obvious one, and the point she was trying to illustrate.)  One boy suggested, half-hesitantly, “Homosexual?”  The class laughed but Sister Margaret Thomasine merely nodded and said “That’s right.  Same sex, homosexual, what else?”  Thus I learned that homosexual was not an aberration, not a punchline but merely a descriptive.