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Family Page 10

by Micol Ostow


  i am not alone, of course.

  my folds and fissures are not the only hollows, the only fault lines that Henry knows.

  i am never alone with Henry, not since He first found me, first came upon me, crumpled, crouched, pulling back. first saw me cringing, collapsing inward. since He first recognized that i was

 

  little more than antimatter, a supernova amidst disintegration, imploding, unfurling, giving way to an ever-deepening black hole.

  giving way to despair.

  there is no alone on the ranch.

  on the ranch, life is full to bursting. life on the ranch overflows.

  life on the ranch is everyone, always, now.

  we may all have been ignored, abandoned, rejected by the

 

  blank, important visitor,

  but we still have our

 

  truth.

  our love.

  our center.

  our rudder.

  our

 

  Henry.

  we are

  conjoined,

  ephemeral,

  infinite.

  gathered.

  waiting, awaiting:

  more message,

  more truth.

  more love.

  His love.

  we are

 

  family.

  patient

  we are patient.

  gathered.

  we awaken,

  we await.

  we are quiet, clustered.

  bathed in shadow and smoke.

  swathed in starlight.

  biding our time.

  expectant.

  Henry has a message,

  a truth.

  a measure of love to dole out,

  to deliver.

  and we

  are

  open.

  ego

  the visitor has not arrived.

  the

 

  important music man

  that Henry hopes will spread

 

  our message—

  the family’s message—

  he has not been by to tour our tattered, winding wonderland. to take in, to drink down our collective, fractured fantasy

  in our ersatz-everything ranch.

  no one has come

  to see us.

  to hear us.

  to hear Him.

  to listen

  to Henry’s

  word.

  to revel in His

  love.

  on the first day, Henry awaits, ever hopeful, ever aware. perches on the stoop of the general store, drums graceful fingers against worn-in jeans.

  smiles.

  knows.

  everything.

  every secret tucked within every hollow space.

  on the first day, the ranch is still immaculate.

  pristine.

  gleaming with promise and anticipation.

  Henry says:

  there is no i, no ego.

  Henry teaches that all we need is us:

  our family.

  but by the third day of waiting, His grin falters at the corners.

  by the third day without our visitor,

  without a promise of a higher calling,

  a platform, Henry’s forehead

  is a road map of worry.

  Henry’s lips purse together with an expression so foreign to Him that at first, i hardly recognize the emotion:

  concern.

  and by the third day, high desert winds have kicked a fine coating of dust over the surface of our surroundings

  so that we are no longer

  clean.

  whispers

  cocooned within a threadbare sheet

  flanked by family

  i inhale

  breathe in starlight,

  charged particles,

  antimatter

  and choke back

  doubt.

  through the thin layer of fabric that

  swaddles me,

  shelly’s ribs expand

  and contract,

  press against my own.

  she sleeps soundly,

  her rhythms,

  her pulse, smooth,

  safe.

  all of our sisters—

  tucked tightly into warm, worn nests—

  sleep soundly.

  smooth.

  safe.

  while i:

  inhale.

  breathe in dusk,

  studs of starlight

  antimatter

  and choke back

  doubt.

  alone

  amidst my family,

  breathing my own ragged staccato,

  i listen for sounds.

  whispers.

  they come to me,

  unbidden.

  once the campfire has been snuffed,

  once Henry has chosen

  and our family—

  all of our fractured, shrieking bodies—

  have been tucked tightly,

  nestled into

  worn, warm linens—

  that is the hour

  when the sounds come to me,

  unbidden.

  when the truth

  seeps.

  slithers.

  wraps itself around my ankles

  like seaweed,

  rotted,

  washed up at the water’s edge

  by the force of the roiling tide.

  as i skate the knife-edge

  between conscious and sleep,

  between wake and trance,

  between

  worry and

  safety,

  a truth floats to the surface.

  it dances like a whisper.

  like a secret.

  like a code.

  at night,

  when our barn is shadowed

  in lace patterns of moonlight,

  junior and leila

  speak in code.

  they perch on the covered porch

  just outside our sleeping quarters.

  they think

  we are—

  all of us—

  asleep.

  but

  i can hear

  the

  whispers.

  streaked,

  split open

  by the empty creak

  of a shaky, spindly rocker—

  i can hear the whispers,

  their whispers,

  all too well.

  the secret goes:

  leila and junior:

  they worry.

  about Henry’s message,

  His word.

  they fear the music man

  has forsaken us,

  leaving us precious few ways

  to peddle, to spread

  to deliver

  our word,

  our prayer,

  our gospel,

  into the world.

  leila sighs.

  the squeak of her chair is a protest.

  she says,

  “Henry’s getting restless.”

  restless.

  the word sizzles on her tongue.

  “wouldn’t you be?” junior asks. “that man was supposed to come. supposed to listen. to make a recording of Henry’s music.”

  a beat, a pause, in which i imagine tented fingers, a reflective gaze into the inky, empty darkness.

  (so familiar are the outlines of junior’s body, his boundaries, to me by now.)

  “money from the music would’ve gone a long way.”

  the tapping of a work boot against a buckled, softened wooden slat. the sound of force and friction, of solid things, set to spoil.

  “money would’ve meant we could stop dealing. or maybe, that we could stay here at the ranch forever.”

  i can’t see leila’s face, of course,

>   beyond the image unspooling

  in my mind’s eye

  ,

  but the hitch,

  the moment, is

  deadly.

  potent.

  “it’s not about the money,” she says, and her voice is tight.

  “it’s about Henry’s message.”

  junior chuckles, a rattling sound.

  “yeah, and you think that’s gonna pay our way around here? you think emmett’s just gonna give us a free ride forever?”

  his laugh is the cranking of a windup toy.

 

 

  “fine,” leila says. her voice is clipped. “fair enough.

  but:

  Henry is as close to god

  as anything i’ve ever known.

  He is.

  so:

  it’s not about money;

  it’s about the message.

  the word.

  the truth.”

  “it’s about making all those people take notice,” junior says, his windup-toy laugh turning over in the midnight air.

  it sounds like maybe he is agreeing with leila.

  but maybe he is saying something else entirely.

  something more.

  something different.

  something dangerous.

  maybe it is—

  money.

  maybe it is,

  truly,

  music.

  or maybe it is,

  even—

  still,

  yet,

  love.

  pure

  and

  bright:

  love.

  maybe.

  but whatever

  the cause

  the catalyst

 

  Henry cannot be

  cast

  aside.

  whispers leak and trickle,

  creeping toward me.

  there is a tidal shift

  slowly gathering force.

  swift, almost imperceptible.

  it rides,

  it weaves,

  it stings and burrows,

  salt water, seaweed,

  and other sunken things.

  i hear the rush, the shower

  within the parentheses—

  the negative spaces—

  of junior’s and leila’s

  whispers.

  there is no such thing as

  free love.

  there is no denying Henry.

  and when we gather force,

  knit together—

  fuse—

  there will be no

  ignoring

  our

  family.

  helter-skelter

  a week passes.

  another dust storm, another campfire.

  whispers, creeping.

  engines kicking on,

  turning over.

  arrivals, exchanges

  secrets and dealings and fury and tides.

  but still

  no

 

  important

  visitor.

  another night with my sisters,

  my father,

  my family:

  more smoke,

  more medicine.

  more chemical summoning

  of the high tide.

  Henry exhales slowly, leans forward.

  presses His palms firmly to His knees.

  it is time for more truth,

  fireside wisdom.

  time for us all—

  for our family—

  to

 

  arise.

  Henry has something to say.

  a message to deliver.

  some truth,

  love,

  wisdom

 

  to impart.

  He starts:

  “the man has tried

  to keep me

  down.”

  flame leaps,

  laps at his ankles;

  smoke drapes,

  snakes,

  swoons.

  swaddles him in murky gray

  haze.

  a veil has dropped;

  i see the outside world in fragments,

  through spools of cotton batting

  that muffle,

  that cloak.

  the man?

  no, it’s more than that.

  more than the one visitor.

  it is all of the

  blank,

  nameless,

  faceless

  men.

  all of the uncles

  creeping,

  lurking

  late at night.

  filling up any open spaces

  they can

  find.

  i hear Henry’s message.

  His word.

  His truth.

  i can relate.

  men are:

  sharp teeth,

  slick canines.

  bloodlust,

  anger,

  hunger.

  empty spaces.

  hollowed-out husks.

 

  i can relate. i have been there.

  i have been

  .

  but.

  Henry was meant to erase all of that.

  the premise of Henry—

  His promise, His power—

  was to wave a wand,

  to wiggle a finger, to grant a wish

  and make the before vanish,

  dissolve,

  desist.

  to make me whole again.

  instead,

  there is the creep,

  the seeping sting

  of salt water

  droplets, like tears,

  clinging to the whispered words

  passed between my family

  in secret.

  and the smoke

  can only do

  so much.

  i breathe in what i can.

  swallow it down

  like a

  whisper.

  Henry catches my eye.

  notes the heavy rise of my chest.

  sees me.

  sees through me.

  knows.

  everything.

  He can taste the doubt i carry,

  i think.

  can cut through the cotton wool

  to where

  the worry

  lives.

  can sense my fear

  of the building

  undertow.

  i breathe quickly, my heartbeat catching in my throat,

  to think that Henry so easily reads every secret space of mine.

  breathing brings the cloud-shifts back,

  the lazy haze,

  erases all traces of

  .

  drowns me.

  again.

  i think:

  Henry, too—

  Henry, Himself—

  has been suppressed.

  has been swallowed,

  consumed,

  devoured.

  considered and rejected

  by this so-called

  .

  this blank, important person

  who is somehow more,

  somehow infinite.

  somehow never.

  to think that Henry has bled.

 

  guilt and anger wash over me, a sheen of indignation,

  as the medicine takes hold.

  Henry.

  has been left. out.

  by this person, this

 

  visitor, who did not visit.

  who is little more than an unfulfilled premise.

  a broken promise. an execution of a plot.
>
  sinister. chaotic.

  potent

  and poised to strike.

  “the man didn’t want me—didn’t want any of you.”

  the man. Henry means

  something larger than merely the stranger,

  the connections He thought were finally, fully fusing.

  He means everyone,

  everything,

  infinity.

  we nod,

  collectively,

  contemplatively.

  we are rapt,

  captive pupils.

  we are devout disciples.

  we are deadly intent.

  no one can hurt

 

  Henry.

  a mumble, a moan, a barely contained squeal of agreement escapes from leila’s lips.

  she senses what must be done.

  the rest of us remain in silent agreement. we know, too:

  Henry must not be kept down, suppressed, silenced.

  Henry’s love must not be restrained.

  Henry’s word is truth.

 

  we will deliver the message. His message.

  His word. His never.

  His now.

  He says:

  “the man has tried. to keep me down.

  “but after armageddon—

  after helter-skelter?

  we’re gonna show the man—

  we’re gonna show him how it’s done.

  “we are going to

 

  “rise.”

  arise

  i do not know what helter-skelter is, what it is that Henry means when He exhorts us to

  .

  but.

  i do know:

  that Henry—

  my father, my lover, my shadow-self—

  has been made to bleed.

  and i know:

  that my family protects one another.

  i know:

  another promise,

  however unspoken, has been forged.

  among us.

  in His name.

  among my family:

  we will

  .

  clean

  i have discovered:

  i like things clean.

  like the tidy/tidal order of the either/or.

  i like things neat,

  contained,

  filled in.

  so.

  i like to do the washing.

  of all the chores, the tasks—

  the banal, mundane,

  day-to-day delirium

  of my newfound, eternal now,

  of all the ways i’m given

  to pass the endless, always-time

  here in ersatz-everything—

  washing is the simplest.

  the most satisfying.

  soothing.

  we don’t have a machine on the ranch,

  but i don’t mind.

  i have discovered:

  i like things clean.

  we don’t have a machine,

  so instead, i wash by hand.

  i use a low, wide aluminum tub that is kept out behind the barn;

  once a week, i fill it from a thick, waxy tangle

  of green garden hose

  and chalky, lumpy soap

 

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