MAGIC TEARS
“Corey -- Why can’t you behave?” mom cries and sniffles. One of her tears drops to the floor. Then she closes the door.
I did not yet understand the ways of the world. But I would soon learn.
I am left alone to think about the world, my world, again –
Why did I pour dirt into the washing machine?
Why did I put the cat in the dryer?
Why did I break the six dishes?
Well, I don’t know why, is my reply.
I can’t say:
I want to see what dirt is like when it is cleaned.
I want to see how clever the cat really is.
I want to see flying saucers.
I want to see you cry.
It is always something, a something-to-think-about time-out.
And every time mom’s tear hits the wooden floor and the sun heats it and the wood absorbs it – up sprouts a little teardrop flower. Delicate, dainty, lovely.
It started when we first moved in to dead grandpa's.
I was playing catch with my new friend. We were throwing the football over the fence back and forth. Toma in his yard; me in mine. Toma’s twin sister, Teresa would look down from her bedroom window, and I would make a special effort to throw the ball perfectly back to Toma.
“Toma,” Teresa hollers down, “you guys are making too much noise and I can’t read.”
“So what,” Toma says and tosses a wobbly ball back to me, and I miss it.
“And you guys suck.” Teresa laughs.
“Oh yeah?” I say looking up at Teresa, “Watch this!” I tap my cool red helmet for luck. I grip the ball with my fingers on the seams and wrap my thumb around the narrow end. I reach back and throw a perfect spiral toward pretty Teresa.
I’m so involved in this now beautiful spiraling ball soaring up that I didn’t notice Teresa closing her window after she shouted, “you guys suck!”
Teresa’s window explodes like the Fourth of July.
“Mom!” Teresa screams her death cry.
Her scream signals the need for an emergency dash out of the yard. My lightning speed and red helmet draw a lot of attention from the noisy neighbors as I race down the street with Teresa screaming like a siren through the broken window. I find a strategic hiding bush in the park during what is sure to be a period of misunderstanding. Of course, everyone knows what happened, who is responsible: that new kid, Corey. But they weren’t there and they’d be wrong – I needed to give everyone a chance to calm down before I returned.
“You could have killed her!” Mom yells as soon as I return home.
“It was a perfect spiral, mom.” She doesn’t understand the value of hitting a target precisely.
“What are you saying?”
“Teresa broke the window.”
“Corey!!” mom cries in disbelief.
“The sun was in my eyes,” I say. Well, it was, somewhere.
“Sun, my eye!” mom twists my words, “it was you, sunny!”
If she won’t give me credit for throwing an NFL pass, then I won’t ever apologize for something I didn’t do. Teresa closed the open window. God and Toma know, and that is enough for now. I’m blameless. Of course, I’m saying this because Toma knew the hiding spot and came to tell me that Teresa didn’t die, didn’t even get a scratch. So I came back home. But if I had stuck around the yard their mother might have thrown me through my own window. As it is Toma can’t play with me ever again.
So began the first of many pauses when I was given the opportunity to think about life, the injustice of it all.
Almost murdered Teresa, lost Toma - my new best friend, and got grounded for life. The price of a perfect spiral.
Mom dropped quite a few tears on the floor that afternoon. The sun baked those tears deep in the wood because after she left up sprouted tiny green stems with little tear-shaped yellow petals dangling at the ends.
I picked the flowers off the floor and gave them to Teresa through the crack in the fence when no one was looking. And she forgave me. She wanted more.
I tried plain water and sun on the old floor, but nothing happened, I tried spit and sun, but that didn’t work either. Mom’s tears had a secret ingredient I could not fake. I would need to create tears again. Luckily, I knew how to do that.
So my behavior began to be somewhat strange and upsetting, at least to mom. Every time she misunderstands something I do, she starts off with “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Why, Corey, why?” she asks sadly as she leads me to my room.
“I don’t know…” I can’t tell her any reason ‘cause then she won’t cry. Instead, I act like I don’t care, and that gets her tears flowing.
“Oh, Corey…” drip drip drip…
Then she leaves me to my room to think about life, and if I’ve been really good in a bad way I can watch a new batch of flowers grow on my floor. Then I sneak out of the window into the yard and give them to Teresa on the other side of the warped rickety fence. This makes her very happy, and that makes me happy, except I’m imprisoned because of a perfect spiral.
Teresa is now expecting flowers every day. And so I have to think of more ways to get the tears flowing. Cat in the dryer, flying dishes, dirt in the washer, sneaking out the window on to the roof and down the back porch post. …
After I used the water hose to gas up the car, --- I was playing gas station, I told her ---mom took me to see Dr. Snoogle.
“Hi there,” says Dr. Snoogle, “What’s this about magic flowers?”
“Huh?” I study his rug for clues to how many times he has walked back and forth while questioning the intentions of innocent kids like myself.
“Well, your mom overheard you talking to your friends…” he says and moves around to his desk to get something from the drawer, “…does your mom have magic tears that create flowers?”
“Flowers?”
“Yellow flowers?” he says.
“Huh?” I say.
“Your mom sees you give them to your friend – and they look just like the one’s growing behind your garage.”
Mom is everywhere.
“Well?” He’s waiting.
“It’s a game,” I say.
“Oh? What kind of game?” He’s not going to let it go.
“You know…”
“Know what?” he asks and sits next to me. He smells like coffee, and old.
“You know, know what kids play.” I shrug. He must have skipped third grade.
He smiles, and says, “You mean something like food that talks? Or wool hats that make you turn into a sheep? Those kind of games?”
“What games?” I shouldn’t have told Teresa and Toma, at least not while mom wasn’t too busy to listen. Won’t happen again.
“It’s funny you should be attracted to buttercups, that’s what they’re called, because buttercups grow out of weeds,” he says, “out of trouble grows beauty. Nature can teach us a lot.”
Ok, so maybe they didn’t grow out of my floor. So what. His rug isn’t too clean, has little specks of something, and looks like a bunch of boogers.
“Your mom tells me she bought you new shoes but you wouldn’t wear them, then you complained when she got rid of them – is that true?”
“She didn’t know.”
“Know what?” he says scratching his whiskers.
“They were magic.”
“So what’s up with all the magic lately?”
I shrug. Some people are gifted. Like grandpa and me.
He continues, “What else do you talk about with your friends?”
“Uh, we play catch.”
“Yes, I heard. Through closed windows. A perfect spiral.”
Well, he got that last part correct. I nod.
“Corey,” he says, trying to distract me from his dirty rug, “you know how much your mom loves you?”
“Yeah…”
“And that your late grandfather, though he wasn’t around much, he also loved you in his way, and that meant giving you and your mom a home to live in. It seems like you are punishing your mom.”
“No.”
“No, what?” he says.
“No, sir.”
“No, no, no -- that’s not what I’m driving at – politeness is not the issue of the moment -- it’s the upheaval of your life, you know, moving and leaving friends, especially in the spring when there’s still three months of school left and you have to start all over again meeting and making friends and fitting in at school.”
Tell adults what they want to hear and everything clears, so said grandpa. “It’s not easy.”
“I think not. But give the move time and you will see it was for the best. You’re doing better in school and you made some good friends and you and your mom are spending quality time doing homework and even planting a healthy garden. That’s remarkable.”
He sits back and smiles. He looks like he just won a spelling bee. “When I was a boy…” he leans forward, whispers, “I was a hell raiser.”
“Huh?”
“It means – trouble was my name.” he says, shows me a picture of him when he was my age – Trouble wore glasses and a space suit -- “Enjoy it while you can.”
He takes out his doctoring stuff and pokes everywhere – says I’m a healthy young man. Then Doctor Trouble calls my mom in and tells her to be patient with me, and that grounded for life might be a bit too much for an imaginative boy who enjoys the magical side of life. “It’s a growing thing,” he says.
Now I want to be a doctor.
After that, mom doesn’t cry anymore. Even the fire I start later that day with the magnifying glass, all she says is, “It’s a growing thing. Be careful.” She doesn’t care about the ants I burn to death or the newspaper. “It’s yesterday’s news,” she says, and goes away. Dr. Trouble didn’t help me, but he sure helped mom.
Next thing I know I’m not grounded for life anymore. I’m back playing catch with Toma -- at the park only. Soon Teresa starts coming down to play with us too. I don’t know if it was the flowers or the thought of throwing spirals, but she is determined to learn how to catch and toss the ball with me. And there is beauty in that. It’s a growing thing.
We can play doctor next.
"Magic Tears" excerpt from Corey's Stories ©2013 John Kirkmire. All rights reserved
“Corey -- Why can’t you behave?” mom cries and sniffles. One of her tears drops to the floor. Then she closes the door.
I did not yet understand the ways of the world. But I would soon learn.
I am left alone to think about the world, my world, again –
Why did I pour dirt into the washing machine?
Why did I put the cat in the dryer?
Why did I break the six dishes?
Well, I don’t know why, is my reply.
I can’t say:
I want to see what dirt is like when it is cleaned.
I want to see how clever the cat really is.
I want to see flying saucers.
I want to see you cry.
It is always something, a something-to-think-about time-out.
And every time mom’s tear hits the wooden floor and the sun heats it and the wood absorbs it – up sprouts a little teardrop flower. Delicate, dainty, lovely.
It started when we first moved in to dead grandpa's.
I was playing catch with my new friend. We were throwing the football over the fence back and forth. Toma in his yard; me in mine. Toma’s twin sister, Teresa would look down from her bedroom window, and I would make a special effort to throw the ball perfectly back to Toma.
“Toma,” Teresa hollers down, “you guys are making too much noise and I can’t read.”
“So what,” Toma says and tosses a wobbly ball back to me, and I miss it.
“And you guys suck.” Teresa laughs.
“Oh yeah?” I say looking up at Teresa, “Watch this!” I tap my cool red helmet for luck. I grip the ball with my fingers on the seams and wrap my thumb around the narrow end. I reach back and throw a perfect spiral toward pretty Teresa.
I’m so involved in this now beautiful spiraling ball soaring up that I didn’t notice Teresa closing her window after she shouted, “you guys suck!”
Teresa’s window explodes like the Fourth of July.
“Mom!” Teresa screams her death cry.
Her scream signals the need for an emergency dash out of the yard. My lightning speed and red helmet draw a lot of attention from the noisy neighbors as I race down the street with Teresa screaming like a siren through the broken window. I find a strategic hiding bush in the park during what is sure to be a period of misunderstanding. Of course, everyone knows what happened, who is responsible: that new kid, Corey. But they weren’t there and they’d be wrong – I needed to give everyone a chance to calm down before I returned.
“You could have killed her!” Mom yells as soon as I return home.
“It was a perfect spiral, mom.” She doesn’t understand the value of hitting a target precisely.
“What are you saying?”
“Teresa broke the window.”
“Corey!!” mom cries in disbelief.
“The sun was in my eyes,” I say. Well, it was, somewhere.
“Sun, my eye!” mom twists my words, “it was you, sunny!”
If she won’t give me credit for throwing an NFL pass, then I won’t ever apologize for something I didn’t do. Teresa closed the open window. God and Toma know, and that is enough for now. I’m blameless. Of course, I’m saying this because Toma knew the hiding spot and came to tell me that Teresa didn’t die, didn’t even get a scratch. So I came back home. But if I had stuck around the yard their mother might have thrown me through my own window. As it is Toma can’t play with me ever again.
So began the first of many pauses when I was given the opportunity to think about life, the injustice of it all.
Almost murdered Teresa, lost Toma - my new best friend, and got grounded for life. The price of a perfect spiral.
Mom dropped quite a few tears on the floor that afternoon. The sun baked those tears deep in the wood because after she left up sprouted tiny green stems with little tear-shaped yellow petals dangling at the ends.
I picked the flowers off the floor and gave them to Teresa through the crack in the fence when no one was looking. And she forgave me. She wanted more.
I tried plain water and sun on the old floor, but nothing happened, I tried spit and sun, but that didn’t work either. Mom’s tears had a secret ingredient I could not fake. I would need to create tears again. Luckily, I knew how to do that.
So my behavior began to be somewhat strange and upsetting, at least to mom. Every time she misunderstands something I do, she starts off with “Why?”
“I don’t know,” I say.
“Why, Corey, why?” she asks sadly as she leads me to my room.
“I don’t know…” I can’t tell her any reason ‘cause then she won’t cry. Instead, I act like I don’t care, and that gets her tears flowing.
“Oh, Corey…” drip drip drip…
Then she leaves me to my room to think about life, and if I’ve been really good in a bad way I can watch a new batch of flowers grow on my floor. Then I sneak out of the window into the yard and give them to Teresa on the other side of the warped rickety fence. This makes her very happy, and that makes me happy, except I’m imprisoned because of a perfect spiral.
Teresa is now expecting flowers every day. And so I have to think of more ways to get the tears flowing. Cat in the dryer, flying dishes, dirt in the washer, sneaking out the window on to the roof and down the back porch post. …
After I used the water hose to gas up the car, --- I was playing gas station, I told her ---mom took me to see Dr. Snoogle.
“Hi there,” says Dr. Snoogle, “What’s this about magic flowers?”
“Huh?” I study his rug for clues to how many times he has walked back and forth while questioning the intentions of innocent kids like myself.
“Well, your mom overheard you talking to your friends…” he says and moves around to his desk to get something from the drawer, “…does your mom have magic tears that create flowers?”
“Flowers?”
“Yellow flowers?” he says.
“Huh?” I say.
“Your mom sees you give them to your friend – and they look just like the one’s growing behind your garage.”
Mom is everywhere.
“Well?” He’s waiting.
“It’s a game,” I say.
“Oh? What kind of game?” He’s not going to let it go.
“You know…”
“Know what?” he asks and sits next to me. He smells like coffee, and old.
“You know, know what kids play.” I shrug. He must have skipped third grade.
He smiles, and says, “You mean something like food that talks? Or wool hats that make you turn into a sheep? Those kind of games?”
“What games?” I shouldn’t have told Teresa and Toma, at least not while mom wasn’t too busy to listen. Won’t happen again.
“It’s funny you should be attracted to buttercups, that’s what they’re called, because buttercups grow out of weeds,” he says, “out of trouble grows beauty. Nature can teach us a lot.”
Ok, so maybe they didn’t grow out of my floor. So what. His rug isn’t too clean, has little specks of something, and looks like a bunch of boogers.
“Your mom tells me she bought you new shoes but you wouldn’t wear them, then you complained when she got rid of them – is that true?”
“She didn’t know.”
“Know what?” he says scratching his whiskers.
“They were magic.”
“So what’s up with all the magic lately?”
I shrug. Some people are gifted. Like grandpa and me.
He continues, “What else do you talk about with your friends?”
“Uh, we play catch.”
“Yes, I heard. Through closed windows. A perfect spiral.”
Well, he got that last part correct. I nod.
“Corey,” he says, trying to distract me from his dirty rug, “you know how much your mom loves you?”
“Yeah…”
“And that your late grandfather, though he wasn’t around much, he also loved you in his way, and that meant giving you and your mom a home to live in. It seems like you are punishing your mom.”
“No.”
“No, what?” he says.
“No, sir.”
“No, no, no -- that’s not what I’m driving at – politeness is not the issue of the moment -- it’s the upheaval of your life, you know, moving and leaving friends, especially in the spring when there’s still three months of school left and you have to start all over again meeting and making friends and fitting in at school.”
Tell adults what they want to hear and everything clears, so said grandpa. “It’s not easy.”
“I think not. But give the move time and you will see it was for the best. You’re doing better in school and you made some good friends and you and your mom are spending quality time doing homework and even planting a healthy garden. That’s remarkable.”
He sits back and smiles. He looks like he just won a spelling bee. “When I was a boy…” he leans forward, whispers, “I was a hell raiser.”
“Huh?”
“It means – trouble was my name.” he says, shows me a picture of him when he was my age – Trouble wore glasses and a space suit -- “Enjoy it while you can.”
He takes out his doctoring stuff and pokes everywhere – says I’m a healthy young man. Then Doctor Trouble calls my mom in and tells her to be patient with me, and that grounded for life might be a bit too much for an imaginative boy who enjoys the magical side of life. “It’s a growing thing,” he says.
Now I want to be a doctor.
After that, mom doesn’t cry anymore. Even the fire I start later that day with the magnifying glass, all she says is, “It’s a growing thing. Be careful.” She doesn’t care about the ants I burn to death or the newspaper. “It’s yesterday’s news,” she says, and goes away. Dr. Trouble didn’t help me, but he sure helped mom.
Next thing I know I’m not grounded for life anymore. I’m back playing catch with Toma -- at the park only. Soon Teresa starts coming down to play with us too. I don’t know if it was the flowers or the thought of throwing spirals, but she is determined to learn how to catch and toss the ball with me. And there is beauty in that. It’s a growing thing.
We can play doctor next.
"Magic Tears" excerpt from Corey's Stories ©2013 John Kirkmire. All rights reserved