Friday, July 12, 2002

 

Aw heck, here ya go. A taste of fiction without any meaning behind it.



Last Chance for Punchy

Wade, the white trash kid from around the corner brought his pet gerbil, that had a tumour growing out of its eye. Wade loved that little vermin like he loved to skateboard. He would bring Punchy, that was its name you see, in to the cafeteria at lunch time. He told us he'd kept it in his locker during the day. I saw Wade and the gerbil sometimes in the hallway. Punchy crawling around, and Wade making an obstacle course with his paper sacked text books. It wasn't long before we all got to like this gerbil. That is, until an extry piece of flesh began to form off of its eye, ("eww, gross.") Dr. Isley said it was a tumour and that we'd best expect to flush Punchy down the toilet in a couple of weeks... Wade flipped out. We'd heard about this kid who could sing people healthy. I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

His singing voice sounded as if he had never grown out of that youthful frailty just before his voice changed. Just like Jimmy Scott. It still housed that slight affectation towards diminuity. Like he had just found out that world was big enough to hurt sometimes. Its a stronger voice than you'd expect once he got to singing, and it turned a pretty girl's head in his younger days. Mostly, folks'd come by to see the little boy, Whitman,who had an angel's voice. As he got older that golden trill of his was like the gospel on sunday. Him and his voice was like a healer in that he'd sing people right out of their troubles. Folks drove from all over to hear the kid sing 'em outta woes. He'd sing 'em into a glorious, heavenly bliss. He would save them from troubles and cure what ails them.
Shirley, down the block and I tell you what... She had her a farmer's wart at the base of her big toe. She would lay in the sunshine and soak that foot in icy cold salt water. That didn't work. She rubbed a special pomous tincture into it, but that didn't work. It wasn't until she heard that heavenly song that the wart had mysteriously disappeared.

And Eddie's Chevy had some muffler problems that went away when he happened upon that boy on his way to school, and obligingly gave him a lift. The boy hardly spoke a word, but allegedly said enough for the engine to purr again. It was an all-out good year as far as the crops were concerned and farmers from ten counties said that it was because of that boy's singing "Peach Pickin' Time" at the county fair.

"We got ourselves a little gold mine!" said his poppa.

"You should consider becoming an entertainer," said his mamma.

"Give him the key to the city," said his neighbors


I figured this kid would be the only chance we had for our poor little buddy, so we brought the gerbil in a cotton ball lined shoe box and layed it at the feet of the kid and asked him to sing a bit for us. Anything, we told him. Sing anything.

"Please give me the box," said the kid, "and I'll do whatever I can."

He took the box and placed it at the base of the dogwood tree in the front yard of Scott Polley's house. The tree was second base during kick ball season. That tree was also one-half of a goal during soccer season. It was also a good turn around for races around the block. But on that day, the tree seemed to be Punchy's last hour. We stood back a bit, Me, Wade and Scott Polley, while Whitman peered closely into the box, singing a light melody that hummed and shined and kind of whisked across the street and into Ole Man Peacock's front yard as he watered his roses catching his attention. Peacock stopped and smiled. He remembered the day his daughter was born, the moment he fell in love with his wife, the night he won at poker while visitingthe cottage his grandfather owned on Lake Michigan.
The song floated through the trees and into Mrs. Hollibek's back yard where she lazily rocked back and forth every day, watching over the neighborhood kids. She was always hollering at us to stay out of her back yard when we only were looking to take a short cut to Pinky's. Mr's Hollibek stopped rocking when her ears caught Whitman singing at our box. She smiled and was brought back to the times she would hike in the Tennesee hills with her dog, Comet. She could smell the fresh mountain air and hear the family from across the way a-laughin like they were right there. The whole street seemed to be paying attention as Whitman kneeled at the base of the tree. The sun shone through the clouds for a minute, and we were transfixed. Everything on Cherry Street stopped. Even the alley cats, stood still, waiting for the miracle.

It was brief. It lasted probably less then a minute. Afterward, we brought the box back to Wade's house, making sure to keep the lid on the box after Whitman closed it up fearing that we might jinx the magic if we looked inside. In the Worrick family kitchen we opened it up and saw a new Punchy. A Punchy without a tumour. It had vanished! We were so excited that we didn't notice how quickly Whitman had left the scene. We were also too excited to notice that punchy had a few new spots on his back. I guess we never looked real close at it.

posted by Hog 12:22 PM