Page 62 - WTPO Vol. VII #5

The Blue House (continued from page 32)
you a bath,” she said, “but that won’t stop your breath from stinking, will it?” The old dog cocked an ear and his tail wagged lazily across the thin carpet. Helen
sat with her chin on her forearm and looked out of the window. She would clean the kitchen for sure,
she was quite responsible that way. And she would probably take Albert for another walk, maybe even down to Spring Leaf Park, where he could run wild for a while, crapping all over the place like he does. She might read for a while, she thought, perhaps do some homework even, though she wasn’t overly convinced on that point. She could try something new with her hair, finally get it into those “Princess Leia” buns she had attempted several times before but failed. Hell, she thought, I can do any damn thing I want. She had friends, a few, but they quickly bored her, and she didn’t want to put herself in that socially awkward spot of desiring the person she was with gone from the face of the earth the second she was done with them (Helen was certainly odd, perhaps even a little bit weird, but she was never intentionally rude). She could already play out all the dull choices her few friends would make, how the conversation would go (if it went anywhere at all, it would only take five min- utes tops to get there, before quickly tapering down to sighs and throat clearings), and the rising anger she would then have to suppress; anger chiefly at herself for being so dumb as to call these friends in the first place. No, whatever she chose to do today, she would be happy to do alone.
It was when she was in the kitchen, washing dishes and smoking one of her father’s Lucky Strikes, that she heard the commotion outside. She dried her hands, set the cigarette on the edge of the sink, and went back
to the living room window. A work crew was arriving at the church next door. Two large, rusty old trucks with enclosed wooden sides and open ends, geared down and stopped beside the curb. A green pickup truck pulled in behind them and from out of this came four, rough-looking men of various colors and size, all clad in scuffed and torn baggy jeans, tan colored work boots, stained t-shirts, and grungy-looking baseball caps. Two of the men were smoking, one was drinking something from a huge travel mug, and the last had stepped away from the group and was waving down the road at someone. This will do, thought Helen. This will do just fine.
She went back to the kitchen and finished her chores. She took another quick puff on the cigarette and let it dangle from the corner of her mouth, her eyes squint- ing to watery slits like the eyes of an iconoclastic hipster in an old black-and-white film. Never one to inhale, Helen only allowed the drawn smoke to sit in
her mouth for a few seconds before blowing it out in
a long, tapered plume. She liked all the mechanical as- pects of smoking cigarettes: the weight and feel of the pack in her hand, drawing out and rolling the chosen cigarette between her fingers, the snap of the lighter and the sudden warming flame close to her face, that first inhalation, hearing the thin paper and tobacco crinkle and crack as they burned, the acrid smoke laying trapped in her mouth like a small, imprisoned wraith, before its unavoidable release, the distinctive smell and grey blue cloud then rising up to blossom around her face. She liked to look at the bright orange and red glow of the burning tip, how the brightness there intensified as she inhaled. But she did not want cancer, like her mother (not that her mother had ever been a smoker), nor did she want to become addicted, like her father. But boy, she dearly did love the panto- mime of it all.
When she finished the last plate she ran the water again and held the cigarette under the flow, where it died with a tiny hiss. She then stamped it flat against the
side of the sink, until she was certain not so much as
a microscopic ember still glowed, and dropped the tattered butt into the trash. She could hear the workers next door, getting themselves set, and a simple idea for the day began to form in her mind. She dressed quickly in jeans and one of her mother’s sweatshirts (Francis had saved many of Violet’s casual clothes, thinking they would in time be both practical and meaningful for Helen, and he was right), took a red wool knit hat from the closet under the stairs, gathered up the eager Albert and his leash, and went outside.
The morning air was clear and crisp, and the bright sun electrified the fall leaves all around her. She stood at end of their raggedy yard and watched the workers moving about the church. They were slowly lumber- ing in and out of the old building, carrying a variety of tools and boxes and bunched up yellow and orange cables. Albert began to pull in the opposite direction. She told him to wait and he plopped down dejectedly, letting his tongue unfurl like a rude gesture from the side of his mouth. One of the men noticed her and waved. She waved back. Others looked her way, but didn’t wave. One man walked inside the church with
a large radio under his arm and seconds later, rock music began to play. Helen smiled at that. She and Francis never went to church. They talked about god from time to time, but only in the way they talked about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, only as fable. Francis, a non-believer, never pressured her on the subject, preferring to hear his daughter’s opinions as they formed over time, enjoying the way her young mind struggled between sense and the sensational. If
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