I freakin’ love this quote!
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Author Archives: Carolyn Dennis-Willingham, Author
Calf Slobber
Cono Dennis
My father is a worthless, sorry son of a bitch, no better than calves’ slobber. I’ve tried to find reasons to believe otherwise, I really have.
How can a piece of apple pie be so good and so bad at the same time? Maybe it’s like Ike’s jalapeno, the price for eating one is steep. But at least Ike got a little satisfaction from those hot bites, the taste being worth it.
I think about Hicks Boy, how I never could beat him, and I wonder if it will ever be me who is standing up at the end of a round with my right hand held up by a referee. “And the new boxing Champion is Cono Dennis.” The crowd cheers.
I want to look down at the calves’ slobber lying bloodied on the boxing ring canvas. I want to spit down on my father and say, “There ain’t nothin’ worse than bein’ woken up in the middle’a the night to the feelin’ ’a yer balls bein’ squeezed, and hearin’ the sound of a pocket knife bein’ opened up at the same time.”
I want to walk away from the ring, the crowd still cheering.
Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, my father’s story
On this sad day
Yesterday, April 3rd, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. gave his last sermons in Memphis.
“We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop…And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over, and I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.”
On this day, April 4th, he was assassinated.
God Bless You, Dr. King.
No Pissing in the CUSP-idors
When you can’t throw it away
stick it in acrylic
Wonder
Another fabulous photo taken by my friend, David Stalker.
Is it prudent to protest?
My eyes burn. I can’t see. The concrete is hot beneath my back. They keep chanting, “Babies keep on dying. Nobody seems to care.”
Did I hit my head? Why is nobody helping me?
“Nixon is a murderer,” they yell. “Bring our brothers home now!”
A piece of clarity returns. It took a long time to get to Miami. Nixon is giving his second acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention.
I need Sam’s strong arms, the ones who promised to keep me safe if I agreed to come. Some Vietnam vet he is.
“Hold on, Frank,” a voice says.
“No, man. We gotta go. We’ll be arrested like the others.”
“I said hold on, dammit. I think I know this girl.”
I feel a hand on my forehead. “Chicken Coop? Is that you?”
Images float in my head—a mint green Pontiac. Crows pecking out eyes in an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Body parts in an unplugged freezer that make me want to laugh. I can’t. I’m too dizzy.
“Chicken Coop?”
It’s no longer 1972. It’s 1963 and I’m nine years younger. Now, it’s not the pig’s smoky gas that makes my tears.
(The beginning of my work in progress about race relations in 1963)
Learning with challenges
Scoots’ hand in mine, we walk home from school. His other hand blows a new harmonica, one of many Miss Helen bought at Johnson’s Variety.
He’s getting better at playing “Has Anybody Seen My Gal.” He misses notes sometimes, but now I can almost sing along without hour-long Pauses between the words.
“You like playing, Scoot?”
He takes the harp from his mouth and wipes it on his sleeve like a real musician. “Like DeFord Bailey.”
“Who’s Difford Bailey?”
“DeFord Bailey. Best ever. That’s gonna be you someday, Scooter,” he says in a Frankish-enough voice I have to laugh. “DeFord had polio. Polio. Like me.”
“You never had polio, Scooter.”
“DeFord learned anyway,” he says, straight in my eyes.
And then I know. Scooter understands that, unlike most folks in Holly Gap, Frank believes in his abilities to learn.
Scoot drops my other hand and uses both to play us home.
Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket
Dog food Sandwich
Scooter grabs my hand when we head home from school. “Angry, angry,” he says.
“You’re angry Scooter? How come?”
“Farter’s angry.”
I’m about to ask him how he knows when the Great Stupid Gatsby Franken-Farter rushes up behind us.
He shoves my shoulder and breaks my hold on Scooter.
“You’re a real scam, aren’t you, Enema?”
I brush his germs from my arm. “What’s eating you?”
“You thought it was funny, didn’t you?”
He’d finally done it. He ate the dog food sandwich.
Scooter backs away and starts mumbling. I reach in my satchel and hand him my yo-yo to take his mind off things. I’ll untangle the string Later.
Excerpt from the Moonshine Thicket
The Magic of Nature
How can something so small be so beautiful? (A friend of mine took these amazing photos.)
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 