{fiction, instead of lies}

Holding hands, giggly, off-balance, they’re

Swept miles along the route with the crowd

Past Fullerton and 4th, toward Locust, and the bandstand.

Below, all furry boots, long johns, flannel-lined jeans,

Above, hep cats. ‘St. Louis Floozy’ from their waists up;

Spangled gold lamé tanks and Mardi Gras beads,

Paint, rouge, feathers under fur-trimmed parkas, sparklers.

Warmed by spirit, they imagine New Orleans.

Kristál, Hennessey, and Frangelica, they name themselves,

Behind their sequined masks, giddy with the freedom of late night

Flouting rules, they dance to the rhythms of the Wyld Stallyns.

Being together is all that matters, poised on this first stair of life.

A winning trifecta: brains, boldness, beauty,

They hold up their arms, and scream: confetti, beads, trinkets.

Showering down. They catch whatever is being thrown.

No curfew tonight, Fat Tuesday; the city is awash in desperate

Celebration. The girls, happy to join the revels in the week before midterms

Are young, and free spirits. Their families would not care

To see them here. Knowing well the risks, of parental displeasure, they

Took it upon themselves to raise precautions against the voices of disapproval.

Though the precautions themselves might change few minds and still

No chiding tongue, they are buoyed by each other, back to back,

Safe in their mutual defense:

All for one, one for all – Athos, Porthos, Aramis.

“Buy you girls a drink?” Trailing a feather boa, Hennessey has lured

The first catch of the night. Nowhere near twenty-one, he, pockmarked, thirty-ish, judges

They need his I.D., and smirks. Three downy chicks, such easy prey.

An offer they won’t refuse, a little GHB, and – score. But his assumption sours,

Though Frangelica flutters glitter-dusted lashes. “No, thanks.”

The voice still sweet, but firm. “You’re a pretty one,” he pants, leaking

Rancid charm, vice-slick hands grabbing for what is not his.

“We said no. We don’t want a drink,” Hennessey’s voice is scared.

“Back off,” Frangelica warns. Kristál’s small mouth turns tight.

“Go away, buttwipe. I’ll scream.” “Lighten up, little girls,” he sneers,

“This is a party.” And what is left unspoken, is, Scream. Go ahead.

No one will hear.

It does not seem now like such a good idea to be in

Downtown St. Louis, at 11:45 at night, dancing in the ashes

Of the Fat Tuesday parade. They sound, they know, like a

Headline: Three girls, age fifteen, Honor Roll students,

Found near the old Courthouse, when their parents

Believed them to be at home. They pull together, duck into

The crowd, and hope to lose their new “friend.” “Residential

Area,” one says. “It’s okay. We’re safe.” But her teeth are chattering.

No one even tries to keep on dancing.

The shine has worn off, and the glitter, beads, feathers, paint

Just seem like so much ground-up litter, strewn sloppily on the road.

“Let’s go home,” Hennessey sighs, her soft brown eyes red-rimmed from glitter

Eyeliner. “The best part’s over. Now it’s just the freaks who are out.”

Kristál nods. “No doubt,” she concurs. And the dispirited trio link

Arms, and kick through the piles of slush, quiet at first, then,

Youthful ebullience ascending like cream they reminisce about

That weird chick in the zebra-stripped dress, and That cute guy with the

Leather jacket and the chipped front tooth. “He probably took a bead

To the head,” Frangelica snickers, and they lean, like

Mirthful drunks, against each other as they sway across the road.

He’s brought friends, one for each, and it takes them a moment to realize

They are surrounded, and with the dark, outnumbered.

Hennessey washes off the rest of her cheap eyeliner with

Tears, as panic bubbles. “My father,” she quavers, but Frangelica,

Wiser, hushes her, quickly. “No,” she warns. “Shush.”

Kristál is silent, smallest, eyes behind her mask feral. “Stop. Go away.”

Skinny as she is, her voice is titanium hard. “Geez, Bobby, they’re just

Little girls,” one voice protests, not quite wasted enough to be up for

Whatever his friend has planned. “They’re old enough to be bitches,”

Bobby counters, his voice skewed. “Wouldn’t even let me

Buy them an effing drink.”

“I want a drink.” Frangelica steps out. Hennessey’s shriek is smothered.

“F– wait, no!” Frangelica ignores her, and Kristál grips Hennessey, hard.

“Emergency,” she argues. Hennessey wipes her eyes and scrabbles

In her purse, staying just in reach of Frangelica’s back.. “I think I’ve got

a little something for you, then,” Bobby leers, and comes in close. Behind

The mask Frangelica’s eyes flirt. Behind her back, hands meet. And then,

Below the waist, current arcs. Convulsions. Choking. Collapse. A bewildered

Shout. “Bobby, what the hell?” “What did you do, you little bitch?” Running

Feet and another falls, and the third, wisely, backs away, wanting no part

Of the boneless plunge, the crumpled twitching before him.

“Is he dead? Don’t do it more than once, okay?” Low voiced

Sultriness races up the scale, cracks. “Dad is going to kill me.”

“A taser doesn’t hurt them or cops wouldn’t use them.” “That’s not true!”

“This one is so tanked.” Look – I didn’t even make him –

Pee his pants.” “Hurry.” “You have the tape.”

“Do we leave them here?” “No! Wait! I have Kool-Aid.”

“A scarlet letter! What’s the A for?”

“What do you think?”

Later, an undercover officer will stop them.

Sweaty, leaning weakly against one another, giggling, they

Will have attracted the attention of one of St. Louis’ finest

When they no longer need him. “No underage drinking,

Zero tolerance,” he states tonelessly, wondering if the chief will thank

Him or not for recognizing his daughter who, if she could

Stop giggling, might take her Breathalyzer test. Is she too

Young for gin? He makes a rookie’s choice and says, “Go

Home, girls.” And shakes his head. The chief will have to

Take on his own troubles at home. And anyway, he has

Too much on his plate just now, what with wondering how

Two burly, red-faced toughs, are propped, taped and tied

To a Port-A-Potty, red A’s slashed across their foreheads while

The snow around them is dyed a bright vermilion. At times,

he thinks, Police work completely boggles the mind.

So. The very surreal picture that inspired this week’s Flickr surreality was taken by Flickr photographer ★keaggy.com, and should be Flicktionated by the usual suspects: The Gurrier, Ms. Teaandcakes, Elimare, Chris, Aquafortis, Valshamerlyn, and Miss Mari.

There is something unbearably melancholic about his umbrella.

He is holding it, clutching it, really, his hand worrying the cheap synthetic fabric as he anxiously scans the gallery for signs of familiar faces. It is the umbrella that Aunt Carol always told him to take, the umbrella he complained of so bitterly, and snarled that she thought he was a child.

He holds the umbrella like a club.

We told him we would meet him here, but now we are not sure. My cousin Prentiss pinches the skin above my elbow with sharp nails.

“He looks too sad.”

“No. He doesn’t look sad enough.”

We are twelve and thirteen, and bitter as gall; cold as black ice.

We have seen sin, and we are impatient with it. We are young and bold, and the world moves in swirls of black and white, there is right, and wrong, and nothing else. Have we not been told? Do and do, rule on rule, obey. Behave. Today we sit in judgment. But the lives of our elders are unknowable. They are nothing more than piles of aging flesh, sliding off into wrinkles, sloughing cells, somehow still animated. How, then, could our Grandpa Lanny – once we thought of his as ‘ours,’ before we repudiated him – still be thought of as attractive to someone? How could he have an affair on our Grandma Carol, take up with a widow with red-stained hair and yellowing teeth when both of them are almost seventy?

What conceit does seventy have left?

His leaving has taken its toll. There have been days of silence, of whispered conversations behind the kitchen door, Grandma Carol’s flattened, white threaded black hair, frowzy and dry against her pale powdered face, my mother’s haunted eyes, Uncle Loren’s insistence on investigators, lawyers, wills, and over it all, Grandma Carol’s soft voice pleading, leave it alone, children. Leave it. He won’t come back like this.

His mouth turns downward, matching the pleat in his forehead. Grandpa Lanny looks nothing like his usually debonair self. He has lost weight, his pants puddle sadly around his rubber rain shoes. He has no hat, no scarf, no gloves. He looks like a man who has, ill-prepared, run away from home.

“Crap. Crap. He sees us.”

Prentiss lets out a little moan.

I was not finished looking at him, tallying the differences in him. My legs twitch, muscles poised between love and rejection, the lightening expression of his hangdog face, and resentment. My feet are rooted. I want to run.

“There you are, my little gillyflowers! Come, come see the show. Helaine’s work is here – you will love it. She is a brilliant, brilliant photographer. You girls – maybe your Grandpa will buy you a camera for your birthday, hein? What do you think of that?” Grandpa Lanny tucks the umbrella beneath his arm, and waves us forward. “Come on, come on. We don’t want to miss anything, do we?”

Prentiss’ nails bite my arm again.

I am already shaking my head. No.

No. This has been a mistake.

We wanted to draw him, to bring him in. A glimpse of his precious granddaughters (it would have been grandchildren, but Heath was playing with the dog and Gavin would not come), wearing lacy collars and t-strap patent shoes, looking innocent and pure as he loved to see us. We wanted him to long for us, for family, and then for the comforts he had left behind; Grandma Carol’s pillowy bosom, his leather recliner and Havana humidor, the Tiffany lampshade we bought him last Christmas, the pearly Art Deco wallpaper in the front room. We wanted him to long for home, but it seems he had not been gone long enough.

Instead of us drawing him, he thinks to entice us.

A camera. A camera! Hah! Gavin’s mobile phone has a camera.

Our little world has been splintered and out of focus for too long.

It may never come into focus again.

“Girls! Wait! The show… come and have a little tea, then? Grandpa will treat you to chocolate malts… At least tell me how your Grandmother is…

I risk a glance behind me, hearing the magic word. His expression is woebegone, his rheumy old eyes wet, the umbrella once again wrapped in his gnarled fingers. My eyes sting, as I resist the urge to fling myself at him, wailing.

“Come home,” I whisper, as Prentiss yanks my arm and pulls me away. She does not yet forgive.

The watery sun spills through the smoked glass windows like a spotlight as he recedes from my sight.

The picture (entitled O) that inspired this week’s Flickr snippet was taken by Flickr photographer Eyeblink, and will likely be Flicktionated by the usual suspects: The Gurrier, Ms. Teaandcakes, Elimare, Chris, Aquafortis, Valshamerlyn, and Miss Mari.