Pink Nib
Charles recovering – Chapter 4 Excerpt
It was hard not to think of 9 / 11.
The coverage, the networks' slick graphics and Storm official logos. Death toll.
The pain.
Maybe I watched so much TV during the days after Katrina, because I could not turn off my inner photographer lens. It looked over the water and dirt, saw the survivors' eyes to cry. Many cried with their mouths also swearing at camera crews and call for their salvation.
Some have also cried with cardboard signs:
WHERE IS FEMA?
PAGING Bush & Cheney!
Looters will be shot
KATRINA killed my BABY
Nagin SONG
During a commercial I was back on the futon and relax my neck and shoulders. I had not realized how painful it had become my leans forward and stretched to the TV hour after hour. This realization made my eyes hurt. And again I was back to the memories of September 11 and felt the toll that the constant coverage had taken on my mind and soul.
I decided some fresh air and a lunch in Little India would serve me well. As is my habit, I carried my camera with me. The walk was energetic.
I was in Pio Pio in Jackson Heights when my cell phone rang and displayed in an unknown number of area code 504.
"Hello?" Answered I.
The man smoking low voice was unknown. "This Luke Millward?
"It is."
"Jerome Harris callin 'out New Awlins. "
I switched my mobile phone from one ear to another. "What can I do for you?"
"Your father is Charles?"
"Yes." I wondered whether this call might come. I never thought I would be sitting in a Peruvian restaurant.
"Have you heard of 'Im? "
"Not recently, no."
"How long before?"
"Two years, maybe more. "
Just when I remembered a greater-than-usual package a few months ago I got from Dad. I had not bothered to open it. It was the most recent in a series of packages that came to six months or so of a new postcode. They usually contain an odd trinket father had bought occasionally or one of its random personal belongings he wanted me to have.
I had always wondered whether sending old car keys or a key ring from Vegas Lucky Dice was his way of make peace. When I asked him, he said he just wanted me those things in case something ever happened to him.
Like all other packages were stacked In a corner of my apartment building storage cabinet.
"What is this about?" I asked the man.
"Your father is missin ', Luke. Perna Livin 'here in New Awlins for' bout a year. "
Here it comes, I thought, closing my eyes.
"Nobody has seen 'im Since a couple of Sundays ago. Night before-"
"Katrina."
"Tha's right. He's teachin 'and playin' with me and my boys a place on Chartres Street at about seven months. Livin 'in a place in the five to four. "
"Five-four?"
"Lower Ninth, son."
I imagined his body was one of those rotting in a public toilet or floating facedown and inflated under a bridge somewhere.
So this is what it feels like an orphan child. "I'm sorry to hear that, sir. "The words carried unexpected inconvenience. My father is dead.
"Do not be sorry, Luke. Get down here and 'im find."
"Excuse me?"
"It's why I'm callin '. "
"Will not someone call me when he found?"
"You kiddin '? Do not have a TV."
Point taken.
"Even the good-meanin 'boys down here do not have time for much of that." He paused. "Come on your father, Luke Millward. For Alls we know that he is alive somewhere. Most of our mobile phones are not workin'-he might be hurtin 'somewhere, or San Antonio or in the north. We hopin 'He is.
We're prayin 'it. "
"Even if I wanted, I just can not stop my life and go on a wild goose chase. I just can not. "
"Then do it for his fiancee."
"What?" I switched my mobile phone back to the other ear. "My father was doing?"
"To a wonderful." Married somewhere "Gettin before Christmas."
Who is she? I thought.
"Luke, she's my sister." He let the words have impact. "Her name is Jez."
Jez. I did not know what shocked my system up: my father probably died of a woman married to a practicing alcoholic who had a premonition problem.
"I'll call you back," I said. "This number on my caller ID, it's yours?"
"It is one of the cell phones of the club. Call it at any time. But the service is hit and miss, know. "
"I'll call back."
"Soon?"
"Yes, sir. Goodbye. And thank you." I hung up and stepped out of the restaurant and the noise of the city. I moved through the crowded streets towards afternoon the subway.
I do not remember driving home.
That evening I sat in my apartment with Jordan and listened as she repeated back to me the details of the call Jerome's. She seemed to hear things In the story I had not said.
"This man, Jerome, he was your dad's best friend."
"Who knows?"
"And your father's sister will marry this guy or was it …"
She scratched my back. "Sorry."
"No need."
"I wonder, how did he get your number? You should ask him. What if this is some kind of scam? I see this a lot."
"Jordan, it is not a scam. "
"Probably true, but still, how did he find you? Are you sure he does not want money or something? Perhaps he thinks you're loaded because you helped your father when he needed it. "
I had forgotten that I ever told her that. "I have not sent money daddy in a long time. Not since the last time we talked. "
"But Luke, I would ask. How did you find him?"
I agreed it was a smart question and promised to forming Jerome when I called back.
"Huh. Your father lived in New Orleans." She looked down at her Diet Dr. Pepper. "You've hardly told me one thing about him."
Not much to tell. I have not talked much about my mother.
We picked our sesame chicken and brown rice.
"So you go," she asked. "Right?"
"I do not know yet."
"You have to go, Luke. Just to know for sure, you have to."
"I know."
She took both my hands. "I'm with you."
"You can not leave now, Jordan. Not At the end of the quarter. You have to push through closures. "
"Yes I do, but I would go with you if you ask."
We turned back to our Chinese food while the Killers' Hot Fuss played on the living room stereo.
An hour later, Jordan I hugged goodbye at the elevator in my building and I'm ready for bed. The bathroom mirror reminded me of the dark circles under my eyes that I inherited from my father. When I was very tired or stressed I looked like I had popped in both eyes. The rest of the time I looked like a raccoon. When I was young, Mom said she was so dark, because I was an only child. Or they had more children would have the effect over the other children.
I cued a playlist on my iPod classic. Tracks of the Boston Pops, some Mozart, a newly added songs from Jenny Oaks Baker CD that Jordan had me for my birthday. I killed the lights, put on my headphones, and a majestic violin when Jenny's transformed my room into a concert hall, drowning out the steady flow of horns and sirens below.
My thoughts did pass on the images of Katrina's wrath.
***
Mother was not always unhappy.
Father was not always a drunk.
Just before my second year of high school-year pre-deceased grandmother's the three of us took a road trip to Yankee Spring Training at Legends Field in Tampa Bay. Mom let me ride in advance for most of the journey, while they read or slept in the backseat of our white Saab. Dad drove us eastwards through Shreveport, Jackson, Mobile, and the Florida Panhandle. Each stop brought a bit of history of AAA dad's guide, a key to my collection mother, and snacks.
I bet Mom eat fifteen pounds of licorice on that trip. It's funny, I used to mum about her addiction to tease those bags Nibs.
Dad's official travel treat was Tab cola and planters salted peanuts. I remember him dropping a few peanuts at a time to the bottom of each can Mom and playfully teased, "You're gross. Ugh. Who puts peanuts in their soft drinks?" Even Dad could not explain the action, but I can not remember a single miles of that journey, or any other for that matter, when Dad was not a can in his hand or at-the-ready in his cup holder. I've always threatened to tell when sips from Mom when father pumped gas and checked the tires.
But all they had to do was slip me a handful of licorice and I would promise to keep her secret for another leg of the journey. I did not even drop.
My staples were Twinkies, Ho-Ho, and Big League Chew, the only worthy of a small founder bubblegum. That is, unless you were mad Mrs. Armstrong child. She made a big show one day in practice that Big League Chew was a "gateway candy" that fake cigarettes, than genuine cigarettes, snuff than real. So Ms. Armstrong banned from the dugout and told her son, Mikey Magic, our only left-handed pitcher, that she would chew him one hundred packets at once if she ever caught him again with the stuff. Papa said some things were not worth fighting.
Sometimes when he and the other coach was working with the infielders, I'd a couple of guys behind the dugout and give them a wad of gum out of her shredded pink foil bag. Few things are more exciting for a thirteen-year-old than providing banned bubblegum to a teammate. Not long After Mrs. Armstrong ban was, Dad stopped at a Circle K on the way to practice and came out with three packs of Big League Chew. "Just in case." He winked. "You never know when you'd almost."
My father told me that Mrs. Armstrong was a sweet woman who just a few issues. "I think he thought I should know what that meant. I did not. I was just a right fielder.
On that spring training vacation, Mom was reading in the stands for hours, while dad and I pushed and fought for signatures professional sports memorabilia dogs and small children, both signatures and foul balls. She smiled kindly when I arrived at our spot above the third base line, I caught a ball from a rookie's bat splintered. I can not even remember his name.
"That's spectacular!" Mamma took the ball from me and pretended to examine it. "I bet this a special place in your room to find it will not, darling?"
"Definitely!"
Dad bought us matching, old-school Yankee baseball caps cotton. I misplaced mine a few months later and never found again.
(Excerpt from Recovering Charles and reprinted with the permission of the author, Jason F. Wright)
(Originally published on GoArticles and reprinted with permission of the author, Jason F. Wright).
About the Author
Jason F. Wright is a regular contributor on Fox News and is founder and managing director of the political destination, PoliticalDerby.com. Jason is the New York Times Bestselling Author of Christmas Jars and The Wednesday Letters. To Learn more about Jason and his most recent novel, Recovering Charles, visit:
Recovering Charles
.
Peace leaf 'vans ……..
Does anyone know if the "peace leaf" design is believed to be marijuana? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VANS-Peace-Leaf-Prism-Pink-Slip-on-Size-8-NIB_W0QQitemZ270263722829QQcmdZViewItem?hash = Item270263722829 & _trkparms = 72:984 | 39:1 | 66:2 | 65:12 & _trksid = p3286.c0.m14.l1318 cuz I got this and it reminded me not to come after I bought them
Yes those are pot leafs lol <3
The Waterman’s “Pink” nib
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