













  =-=-=-=-=-=-
  WAKING UP
    by j. poet 
  -=-=-=-=-=-=
    
    I'm not awake. I'm not here. I'm anywhere else but here. 
  Why can't I be on Mercury, in the twilight jungles between the
  sun blasted light side, and the absolute zero of the dark side,
  scraping slime mold offa my space suit, tryna avoid the hungry
  jaws of the bloodworms? I squeezed my eyes shut, so tight I saw
  strange multicolored pin wheeling stars doing a screwy dance
  across the galaxy under my lids. Close your eyes and you shut
  off the world and fall into a huge comforting darkness, your own
  private universe where nothin' can touch you, or at least you can
  pretend nothin' can touch you.
   
    The house is rumbling. It's my father's feet. When he thumps
  around the apartment in the morning the whole building shakes. I
  try to squinch my ears shut, but it's not as easy as squinching
  my eyes. When he coughs and spits into the sink, when he slams
  down the toilet seat and drops his big manly ass onto the throne,
  the building trembles. Even with my hands on my ears and my eyes
  shut tight, I can feel him with my body. I can feel the phlegm hit
  the sink, the turds dropping into the toilet, I can feel his
  growling, and snuffling, and grunting. He's a big man, strong from
  laying bricks, drinking beer, and screaming at his kids.
   
    He turns on the shower and the water pipes begin knocking in
  the wall. Bam, bam, bam. How am I supposta get any sleep around
  here? Ain't it bad enough I hafta share the bed with my fat,
  snoring little brother Lou? Why can't I pull everything inside a 
  me and stop all the noise? Like the way an earthworm contracts 
  when you stick him with a piece of broken glass, or like one a 
  them little armadillo bugs that curls up into a ball when you try 
  an' pick him up. That would be neat. To be able to curl up into a 
  round, perfectly armored ball, and roll myself under the covers, 
  down to that comfortable spot that's always warm, and sleep for 
  about a bazillion years without anybody tryna get me up for school 
  or church.
    
    I hear my father farting in the shower. It sounds like a wet 
  duck quacking.
    
    At least he's goin' ta work today. When he stays home, he comes 
  in ta wake us up instead of mommie. He snaps on the light and yanks 
  the covers offa the bed and starts barking orders. "Common, move 
  yer ass outta the bed, before I move it for ya." He slaps his big 
  hard bricklayer's hand on the headboard and the bed jumps all 
  around the bedroom floor. "Let's go. Ya think I got all day here? 
  Up an at em." If we don't move quick enough he starts pokin' an'
  swattin' at us.
   
    I pull my knees up and put my pillow over my face and put my 
  back against Lou's back. He's fat, but he's warm, a regular 
  furnace. I can feel the heat through my flannel pajamas. Hey, 
  maybe it's not all him. Maybe I'm hot too. Maybe I got a fever. 
  Maybe I'll hafta stay home from school today. I concentrate on my 
  neck. It's dry, really dry isn't it? An' I'm sweaty, burin' up like 
  I'm on fire. An' my stomach aches. I'm gonna puke any minute now, 
  I just know it. If I concentrate hard enough, I know I can make 
  myself sick. I hear the bathroom door slam open and my father 
  yelling. 
  
    "Where's the clean towels? I'm gonna be late for work." I close 
  my eyes and think about being in the hospital with a sexy nurse ta 
  take care a me.
  
    "It's time ta get up." Lou's shakin' me. I lash out and smack 
  him one.
    
    "Lay offa me," I say. I pull the covers up. I musta fell 
  asleep instead a concentrating on being sick. Crap. Why is it I 
  can't fall asleep at night, only in the morning when I gotta get 
  up? Somebody says wake up, and I'm sawing wood like Rip Van Winkle, 
  but no matter how tired I am, the minute they turn out the lights, 
  my eyes open. I can see the streetlight on the wall, a long thin 
  dagger of light that comes in between the shade and the edge of 
  the window sill, all orange and spooky, like the way the inside of 
  a jack o' lantern looks on Halloween. I know monsters and vampires 
  and werewolves are all made up, but the night still feels like it's 
  fulla creepy things. Kidnappers, and perverts who like to climb in 
  bedroom windows and torture little kids. Not that I'm little. I'm 
  gonna be a teenager in two more years.
   
    At night I can hear everything. The wind rattlin' the window 
  panes in the winter, an' in the summer, the sounds of people 
  passing outside, shoes scuffing along the pavement, or laughin' 
  with their wives and girlfriends, or setting off fireworks on the 
  Fourth of July. I hear all kinds of pops, and cracks, and creaking 
  floorboards, little sneaky sounds that make my ears twitch. Like 
  someone sneakin' up on me. My mother says it's the apartment 
  building settling, whatever that means. The plaque in the lobby 
  says this dump was built in 1929. That was 16 years ago. You'da 
  thunk a building would have settled after all that time, wouldn't 
  you? I hear real stuff at night too. Like Ben Gardenia, the guy 
  upstairs, beatin' up his wife.
   
   Sometimes I can even hear her cryin'; their bedroom is directly 
  above the one I share with Lou and Matt, our new baby brother. I 
  can hear the slamming of car doors, and the men in the neighborhood 
  shoutin' to each other as they come home from the bars. "Hey, 
  Vinnie, up yours, ha, ha, ha." And then, when it's real late at 
  night, after my parents are even asleep, I don't hear nothin', 
  just the sound of my brain buzzin' inside my head, a real funny
  sound that makes my temples throb. When I don't hear nothin', I 
  start gettin' all these weird thoughts.
    
    Like one time Sister Joseph Paul told us about what it means 
  when we say "for ever and ever, Amen." She told us it means 
  infinity, time without end, longer than the earth has been here, 
  or is gonna be here. Longer than it would take to crawl across 
  the Milky Way on your hands and knees, if you could do such a 
  thing, which I know you can't. That's how long we're gonna be in 
  heaven, or more likely, burn in hell, because we're such a ragged 
  bunch of snotty little sinners. And in hell you burn and burn, 
  only your body is never consumed. And the more you burn, the more 
  you scream and curse God, and the more you scream and curse God, 
  the worst your torments become, because it isn't God's fault 
  you're burning in hell, it's your own selfish fault for indulging 
  in sinful pleasures. So that night I started thinking about going 
  on for ever and ever, tryna imagine what it would be like.
   
    Infinity must be the biggest thing there is, zillions of 
  light years long, and goin' out in every direction farther than 
  the eye can see, or any space ship could possibly fly. From now 
  to when the sun has burned out, will be millions of years, but 
  only it'll be a second of infinity. Tryna imagine it made my brain 
  ache. And how about the infinity when God was already here, before 
  he created the heavens and earth? Where was I then? I can 
  understand livin' forever in heaven, cause I'm already here, and 
  so is everybody else I know, but what about before? Did God think 
  me up and put me here, and if he did, why did he put me here in 
  1953 instead of 1853 or 2353? Thinkin' about all this stuff made 
  me feel like I was shrinking down and down until I was gone, so 
  small a speck of dust was bigger than Mount Everest, a little 
  piece of nothin' at all in the middle of an empty space that 
  wasn't light or dark, because light and dark are both something. 
  It was so scary I almost wanted to cry.
    
    Lou pulled the pillow offa my face and I went to swat him again, 
  but it was my mother. "How many times do I hafta call you? Get up 
  outta that bed. It's almost 8:30." She sounded tired, like maybe 
  she didn't sleep last night neither.
   
    "I don't feel good," I said.
    
    "You'll feel a lot worse if your fanny isn't out of that bed 
  in two shakes of a lamb's tail." She clapped her hands together. 
  The noise hurt my ears.
   
    "Chop Chop. Get a wiggle on."
    
    "I think I got a fever."
   
    She reached over and put her hand on my head. It smelled of 
  eggs and cinnamon. French toast. She pushed a clump of sleep-sticky 
  hair off of my forehead and smiled. "You're fine. Now jump outta 
  those PJs and get dressed. Breakfast will be ready in about two 
  minutes." Before she went back to the kitchen, she kissed the tip 
  of a finger and stuck the kiss on the end of my nose. I waited till 
  she left the room to wipe it off, then I got up and got dressed.
  
                             (DREAM FORGE)
                             
  Copyright 1996 j.poet, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
  --------------------------------------------------------------------
  j. poet is a freelance writer specializing in world music: pop, 
  folk, and ethnic. He writes regularly for Pulse!, Utne Reader,
  RhythmMusic, and other fine local and national publications. He 
  has been writing fiction since his teens, and has been published 
  in small literary mags nationally and internationally. He loves 
  hot music, tropical climates, spicy food, and his partner Leslie.
  Email:  poebeat@aol.com
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