NACH.COM

I’ve been reading book reviews - actually just the first few paragraphs and sometimes the first few sentences before the review jumps to another page in the newspaper. Sometimes I read the first two sentences and get bored out of my mind with all the book talk. It’s short little snippets of writing about books. Writing about writing. I read it, but not enough to get sucked into all the literary talk, you know, the motives, the meanings and the meandering plots that the book critics love to talk about. No, I read the names, the titles, and the places: southern Alabama, Tennessee, Maine, Czechoslovakia, and I usually catch the money talk about how much this one and that one earned just to sit down and maybe write a good book, maybe write a bad one.

I’ve been listening to the blues. Oh Mississippi, flood right on into me. I can feel it, woa yeah, goodbye baby.

I’ve been watching the lady across the street playing tennis, whacking that ball into the net. I can’t see who she’s playing, but the other person must be winning the game. And nearby a guy in blue shorts and a white tank top is shooting hoops in the playground next to the elementary school.

I’ve been thinking about killing the mayor.

Mayor Loomis? He’s just another old fat ass  lawyer, and you know what they say about the lawyers, right? It’s like Shakespeare said, first we kill all the lawyers. And lots of people would like to shoot Terry Loomis. Like me, and like the lady in the trailer park he shut down last year to build the new mini mall, and like the union guys at the lumber plant. Of course Terry loves to cut the trees, and he loves to see J-T Corp. get the trees and make a bundle and pump some of that sweet green money into Terry’s campaign fund so he can run again for Congress. He just don’t like unions, that’s all, so it’s cool by him if J-T wants to fire the union guys and bring in the scabs at half the price. As far as Terry cares it’s a good thing he’s got more poor folks in his district, because poor people don’t cause rich people like him much trouble. He likes to keep the poor people hungry and tired and working hard. That’s Terry. Hell, but I just want to shoot the bastard because he’s a jerk. I’m just sick of all the jerks in the world, and he’s one of them. I’d like to shoot one. Just one. I’d like to shoot one Terry Loomis.

The newspaper says the common council voted to freeze salaries for a year and not let the mayor fly to Honolulu for the National Mayors Council. First District Counselor Mary Louise Meyer said she sure was sad the mayor would have to skip NMC, but NMC isn’t as important as building a new high school.

Of course they won’t build a new high school. Terry’s against taxes and he’s against building a new high school. He says he’s against government, but of course that’s where he wants to make his money. Of course he won’t complain when the city government flies him to Honolulu next year. No, that’s important state business and Terry is all in favor of important state business. Just don’t talk to him about a new school. Now you want to spend some of that government money so rich kids can go to church school, well that’s fine with Terry. He’s not above a little government spending here and there. Just not on poor people.

Of course I hope they do build the school, because there’s talk they’ll name it after Rosalie. That would be stupid, but fitting, I guess. As if somehow naming the school after her would make up for everything, as if somehow they’ll be forgiven if they put her name up in brass letters on the brick.

It’s funny too because Rosalie hated school, hated the teachers, hated the boys, hated the coaches, and she wouldn’t want her name up on a school. She’d say name it after Terry Loomis, he’s the one that put the curfew on, he’s the one that sent us to Gatorville for beer, and he’s the one who hates the kids. Put his damn name up on the brick, not mine. That’s what my sister would say if she were alive.

She’d say what’s goin’ on in town Tommy? And I’d tell her what I read in the newspaper. I’d say why don’t you read it yourself, and she’d say come on Tommy, I don’t want to read it. You read it and tell me, and then I’d read her the front page and the people column and the international briefs and the national briefs and the local page and the Anne Landers advice column. Rosalie would say she was going to send a question to Anne Landers, about how come boys are such jerks, but she never did. I told her boys were jerks because their dads was jerks, but Rosalie wanted to hear it from Anne Landers, not from me. She didn’t like me telling her what to do. She didn’t like being the younger one.

When I sit here on the porch with this pistol thinking about her I hear the sound of the tires screeching on the asphalt on Highway 12 near Gatorville. I hear that crash, the crumpling steel, the shattering glass. And then I hear silence. They had a moment of silence for Rosalie and the others at school. I can still hear it.

Terry Loomis came over the day after with a bunch of flowers and television cameras, and mom was just right on camera with him, thanking him for the flowers and hugging him as if he were some sort of relative, as if Terry Loomis could make things better. And after, that night when it was just the three of us at home trying to figure out what to do, mom said that Terry Loomis was a nice man and that it was nice of him to stop by.

On the day of the funeral the newspaper had the picture of Terry hugging mom. After that the newspaper didn’t have much to say about the six kids killed in the head-on crash on Highway 12. When Terry proposed that the common council issue a memorial plaque for Rosalie, to be placed in the school lobby, the newspaper took his picture. But they should come over and take a picture of Rosalie’s empty room. The newspaper has all sorts of stuff about books and movies and who’s doing what to whom. But Rosalie’ s just another dead local kid. That’s the way Terry Loomis likes his local kids: poor and dead. That’s how Terry Loomis should be, even if my mom says he is a nice man. I wish this gun were real. Maybe I’d do something with it. Maybe I’d stick it in my mouth. Maybe I’d shoot Terry Loomis.

Oh Mississippi, flood right on into me. I can feel it, woa yeah, goodbye baby.