Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Memoirs Of A Cobwebbed Corner

It doesn't look anything like him. They never make them look like they did when they were alive. He never had rosy cheeks. Not ever. As a matter of fact, I don't know anyone besides the Salvation Army Santa Claus, that does. Don't they think we'll notice? Don't they realize we lived with him -- that we just might notice if his face changed colors all of a sudden? The curious thing is, he actually looks happier now than he ever did. No, that's not quite true; there was only one other time I can remember seeing him smile like that.

It was early Spring, but the day was much too hot for an April afternoon. Even the beads of sweat could only manage a slow crawl down his aging forehead. He answered the phone in his usual gruff, I'm-much-too-busy-for-this-phone-call voice, Pearl Light in hand, eyes glued to Family Feud.

"YEAH!" bellowed my father into the receiver.

I was nine then, and Momma was still living at home, in the kitchen. Always in the kitchen.

"Yeah. Speakin'."

There was an unusual silence about my father for the next ten minutes. About then, a sweet childish grin began to creep across the canyon of his dimples, and before that conversation was over, he was beaming and flailing his arms about, frantically signaling Momma.

"Mirna! Mirna, come ere, baby, hurry..." he whispered.

"I got dinner on the burner, Charles! What is it?"

But he wasn't paying any attention anymore. He wasn't doing much, actually, but spreading that wide-eyed grin and staring off into a cobwebbed corner like he'd found the answers to all life's questions.

As it turned out, it was a professor from Barnes Junior college. My father's G.E.D. essay had been selected for a class presentation and could we just give them a mailing address where the release forms could be sent.

No one was to touch the mailbox for the entire week. No one. Not even Momma.

The presentation, Pop found out, was scheduled for the following Monday, and he made sure I took a note in to Mrs. Whitaker saying I would be out -- "...gon to Grany's final serveses," it said. Mrs. Whitaker sent her condolences.

That Sunday evening, just after the seven o'clock mass, Momma pressed his finest shirt and pants, the one's he'd used for Uncle Leon's funeral. We were all put to bed earlier than usual, but I could hear them at the kitchen table talking into the night. Sleep crept upon me before I could even make out a word.

But bright and early Monday morning, my father, all prim and proper, brill-creamed and shaven, hopped us onto the city metro for the college.

We were too unfamiliar with the campus to be on time, so we snuck into the second-to-the-last row ten minutes into the lecture. I wasn't exactly sure what all the fuss was about. I only knew Pop's essay had won some kind of award. At the tail-end of that thought, he nudged my elbow and, with that same now-familiar glow, nodded toward the overhead that projected his writing onto a huge white screen before 130-some-odd students.

For some five or six minutes I think he was so mesmerized by the sight that he was deaf to the professor's words. But I heard. I heard every word.

"...So this person, in all probability, did not become the great artist and writer you see here..." he snickered.

The room roared in communal laughter. The lecture went back and forth like that for an hour and twenty-two minutes. I counted.

"...So to wrap up...I hope I can safely assume we all see the dire necessity for a good education in this ironic example of ignorance and illiteracy, albeit a terribly admirable and industrious effort. Thank you."

At this, the room again rang out in an approving flush of laughter and applause. I wasn't sure exactly at what point he had begun to pay attention, but my father's eyes welled up too quickly for his strong dark hand to avert. And I sat there, until the very last student had sauntered away. I sat there and watched the strongest man I had ever known, cry.

Looking back now, I think I would've given anything then...anything...even to see him smile this frozen plastered Santa Claus grin.

If you have enjoyed Jo Anna Guerra's "Memoirs Of A Cobwebbed Corner", then please be certain to e-mail her at  Jo_Anna_Guerra[at]excite.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Jo Anna Guerra's  Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.