mmmdcccvii

The Sublimity of Slimy Ochre

they’re fine with rhymes
down at the five and dime.

were it not for sally’s opus,
charley would not be on

the bus with the rest of the
band looking for an excuse

to glaze his hand over hers.
but both of sally’s hands are

in her purse. that’s my curse,
thinks charley, unafraid as he

is to march in the football grass
pretending like his sorry ass can

toot sweet music from a tuba.
he’d heard that kissing brass in

marching band was his best

ticket to kissing actual lips. 

that’s what first led the poor guy 

to spend half the next several

summers wearing a tuba while
the band choreographer, barely

out of high school himself, had
him high-stepping and marching

for hours on end saying go
this way! and no, that way!

until he swore with the
sweat dripping down his

lids and onto his perfectly
puckered embouchure that

a heatstroke was the next
thing on the agenda. but

the tuba, it turns out, is as
heavy as the dumbbells and

barbells that the quarter
backs attack every after

noon at the school’s stinky
gymnasium, and before

he (or anyone else) knew
it, charley had slimmed

down, buffed out, and
caught about as many

stares and glares from
all the school-gals (and

a fair share of its guys) at
skilly high as, say, ed durk,

the linebacker who was
also the senior class pres

ident, who was all but a
shoe-in for prom king and

valedictorian, or so had 
the word that circulated 

up and down the skilly ru
mor mill. but charley

seemed completely un
aware, even still, so he

had no idea that both
hands in purses, when

it comes to band crushes,
meant nothing but a bit of

teenage nerves. serves
you right! said sally

o’malley to charley
mcfarley as the bus

chugged along route
218 and the driver, as

always, hit every cotton-
picking bump. did what!?

was all charley could dumb
foundedly exclaim, in a way

that sounded like both
a question and a curse.

oh, hush! sally rallied
suddenly sounding a bit

more like sally, with a
timbre for which poor

charley would not have
been able to find an app

ropriate word, but it fell
somewhere between sultry

and silly, a bit inundated
with notes up and down

a rather wide register.  and
with that, sally o’malley

took one hand, in no way
reluctantly, from her purse

(leaving the other hand in
there for good measure)

and reached her arm over
enough so that she could

clasp her warm and wet
palm around charley’s

knuckles, at least as far
as they could go. which

wasn’t far. and charley,
unable to either think or

blink, turned the brightest
body-wide shade of red

that a second generation
dubliner with freckle-cov

ered skin could seemingly
physically get. it glowed,

the truth be told, and
his mind was so full of

a burgeoning glory that,
for him, heaven itself

would never again
sound anywhere near

as good as it should.
it was later that night,

after the game and
once he got home,

before he noticed
the yellow-gold

glittery stuff that was
stuck like goo to the

tops of those teenage
knuckles that sally had

so electrically grasped.
that’s of course when he

noticed the glittery goo
was the very same shade

of make-up that sally’d
religiously slather all

over her face. but
do you think he

was worried a
wink over his

newly jaundiced
knuckles? why,

he didn’t even wash
that hand before hitting

the hay for the night.
to dream all sorts of

sun-colored dreams
while sleeping in

giddy fits and starts.
and when charley

finally awoke the
next morning, even

it being a saturday
and all, he didn’t

sleep one minute longer
thank he would have

had it been a monday.
he sat straight up in his

bed and looked out be
fore him at a world he

could not even recognize.
in fact, what he saw was

not what was physically
there but instead the words

to describe his brand new
perspective might include

such lexemes as purpose
and future and clarity and

more than a glimmer of
confidence which, well,

was never a word one
had previously associated

with our boy charley,
for he was awake, yes,

aware and alert. what
ever the day before

yesterday was would
never be seen again. he

might even have deep
down known this innately

but like much else wouldn’t
begin to know how to say it.

he slipped his feet down
to the floor all aswoon and

got washed up and dressed
with newfound intent. and

when he walked out the door
into the sunlight he felt as if

he could just reach to the sky
and touch the sun or the moon,

and, i tell you, thereafter,
he probably did every

once in a while. that’s
just how profound the

indelible change that took
hold of charley mcfarley,

just from the clutch of a sweaty-
palmed hand so caked in a goopy

gold-colored make-up it stayed
glued atop his buzzing knuckles

for round about forty-five
minutes one way and

just about forty-five minutes
the other. that’s to and from

the football game and
three seats from the back

of the band bus last
night. there was no way

of going back to who he
had been before. and

that satisfied his entire
being, his very existence.

so if, by chance, you knew
him before, you should by all

means see him today. there
are some things we do and

some things that are done to 

us  that might cause us to 

irrevocably change, for sure. 

but i wonder just how many

things i can say that have
happened to you or to me;

things so unexpected in life
that cause us to have such

a jolt, a magnificence, that
in fact there is just no way

that we could ever go back
to being that person—or

that lack of a person—which
only the day before we were.

i’d venture to say that
such moments are rare,

the things that propel us
from what we are presently

out into the glowing and
open receptacle of there,

of the future, if a future
indeed is in the cards, if

there happens to be a to
morrow in which we might

with some luck wind up.
so here’s to that human

you never expected to be,
but somehow hoped that

you’d nonetheless one 
day awaken to find. here’s

to more moments like
charley’s. may they greet

us with frequency. and may
we all be better for meeting

such milestones headlong and
with open hearts and minds.