Day of the Port o Potties

            The heat hung over Wednesday like the open mouth of a furnace. The wind picked up dust and stung our eyes until they were red and teary. I looked over at her.  She sat next to me with her hands folded in her lap. One fist was coiled around pink flowered baby booties. She was quiet and stared out at a line of thick trees, keeping her eyes away from the sun’s rays glowering off the hood of the convertible. From the back of the car, the pink baby carrier knocked gently against her seat as I drove down St. John’s Boulevard away from the hospital.   From my rearview mirror, the hospital rose like a brick wall going higher and higher toward baby shaped clouds.

            I put on a jazz station, the one that was most commercial free.  I didn’t want anything to remind us, especially Maureen.  The soft thump of trumpets kept time to my heart.  My mouth opened for a moment, but nothing came out.  Then there was Stevie Wonder singing, “Isn’t she lovely isn’t she beautiful,” as a giggling baby splashed in the water in the song’s background.  I reached over and hit the off button on the radio.  Maureen looked at me.

            “I don’t need your sympathy.” She turned and continued to stare out the window.

            I swallowed as quietly as I could.  “It was not my idea,” I thought to myself.  I always get the blame when Maureen’s ideas go bad.  When she wanted to sell the old house and we lost money; when she thought to take in an elderly arthritic woman and coax her into making quilts; and now the baby.

            I drove in a daze, in silence, suppressing sighs.  I didn’t see the truck until it was almost too late.  A long truck with green and white port o potties bouncing on its back was backing rapidly toward our car.  I slammed on the brakes and everything lurched forward.  Maureen and I bowed toward the windshield.  The carrier in the back seat came up as if the wind had lifted it.  It struck Maureen in the back of the head.  She grabbed her head and screamed.  In motions that ran together she reached around, grabbed the carrier, and unsnapped her seat belt.  Out of the car she marched flat footed toward the port of potties.  She held her hand behind her and with all the strength she could force through her thin arm, Maureen hurled the carrier over her head and into the back of the truck.  It wedged between the port o potties.  The truck driver eased forward unaware of anything and drove off.  Maureen stared after the truck.  Her body heaved and jerked.

            I got out of the car.  I walked toward Maureen with my arms opened and outstretched.

“It’s not ok. It will never be ok,” Maureen screamed.

Cars around us honked like geese as I led Maureen back to our blue blue car.

Omar’s Dream

            Shadows morph to silhouettes, silhouettes transition to sepia images of she-men in glittery evening dresses.  Omar’s eye moves to the hem of their dresses as they raise them.  Thighs sinewy and massive gyrate and shimmy.  Omar’s mouth waters at the sight of their succulent lips thick and red as if they’ve been eating flesh and blood.  The she-men began to float above Omar’s head.  Their dresses rise up above their thighs and expose their dicks swaying to and fro like pendulums. Though their mouths are twisted into fraudulent smiles, tears flow from their eyes ringed with blue and black eye shadow. Omar looks away disgusted, until he hears one of them call his name.  He looks slowly from she-male to she-male.  He jerks startled as he stares into the face of his mother.  A wind starts and the transvestite’s dresses billow and blend together to form a huge tent.   Omar peeks through the flapping door.  Bloody skull roll from side to side like dice.  Omar wakes with a cry.  He sits straight up in his bed.  He hears a muffled sound of moaning.  There are two voices in the room—female voices.  One hums a song.  Omar realizes it’s coming from the radio.  But there is a another voice, bluesy, sweet, but kind of painful.  Omar looks over at this roommate’s bed.  The covers are spread tent-like over the undulating figure going up and down like a piston.  Eric the roommate grunts softly as the girl moans in response to his thrusts.  Omar lies back down and turns his face to the wall.   His tears blur the shadow his roommate’s fucking throws against the wall.  Omar drifts off to a fitful sleep.