{"id":598,"date":"2013-02-21T10:00:49","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T18:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=598"},"modified":"2013-02-19T06:31:36","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T14:31:36","slug":"keep-calm-and-bang-that-drum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2013\/02\/21\/keep-calm-and-bang-that-drum\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Calm and Bang That Drum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fiction by Jason Edwards.<\/em>
\nThis story was a gift for a friends’ birthday.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mabel Francis, 52, eyes of blue, five foot four, sun dress, inappropriate for the weather, appropriate for the season, inappropriate for what she\u2019s doing: chasing a dog. Appropriate for 197 pounds? Maybe. Mabel\u2019s been seeing a therapist for a few years now who\u2019s been trying to convince her how sad she is for having a BMI in the 30s when really she\u2019s been not only fine with it but actually quite happy since she was 47 and her husband left her for someone who was skinny and who then got cancer and Mabel would never wish misery on anyone and she wasn\u2019t glad the skinny bitch got cancer, just glad it made her husband sad when the skinny bitch kicked him out for thinking the cancer was his punishment for leaving Mabel. She\u2019s seeing the therapist because she feels guilty for being glad her ex-husband\u2019s sad. Good Christians don\u2019t feel glad when people are sad. But the therapist won\u2019t stop asking her if her weight affects her mood (it doesn\u2019t) so she\u2019s thinking maybe she should just give up Christianity altogether because then she can feel good about smiling and say, in all sincerity, Fuck you, Carl.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s chasing the dog because he stole her purse, the little shit.<\/p>\n

She\u2019d woken up and looked outside and saw the sun and thought, screw it, screw work, screw therapy, why not put on a sun dress and walk down to the bakery where they have fudge cake and cute Mexican boys who don\u2019t speak English very well but always smile at her? So she\u2019d done that, put on the dress, and stepped outside, and the sun had been warm and she\u2019d been in a cocoon of happiness and potential and then she\u2019d stepped off the porch and the clouds and raindrops and the voice of Carl saying where you going dressed liked that people can see your legs, Mabel. Good Christians don\u2019t use the middle finger, certainly don\u2019t lift up one high and point at the sky where Jesus himself might be sitting. No offense, Jesus, so instead of flipping the bird she\u2019d decided to weather the weather; it was a short walk to the bakery anyway.<\/p>\n

Maybe she\u2019d get soaked to the skin and it would look sort of sexy.<\/p>\n

She hadn\u2019t it; it didn\u2019t; the rain had stopped before it had even started although the clouds had been persistent and there was a little wind. But then she\u2019d gotten to the corner where she was supposed to turn and she was just thinking about the skinny bitch, who wasn\u2019t really all that much of a bitch, not really, not her fault she\u2019s attracted a man like Carl, not like she\u2019d gone out of her way to find Mabel, find her husband, seduce him with her jeans and her sports bras and her nose piercing, seriously, who the hell has a nose piercing in their 40s? No, Carl had chased her, and left Mabel for her, and gotten cancer and finally wised up and kicked his fat belly and his sunken chest to the curb, and one day out of audacious curiosity Mabel had gone to where the woman worked and looked at her and she actually seemed nice enough and if there was any Jesus, I mean justice, it would have been Mabel who made friends with the skinny bitch and Carl who\u2019d gotten the cancer.<\/p>\n

Thinking about all of this when a cloud opened up and a ray of light stabbed Mabel right in the eye. She blinked, and there was a rainbow. And out of nowhere that loud rushing noise she\u2019d been ignoring was all of sudden a truck racing down the road, within inches of her, and in the window an old Mexican guy with a lecherous smile, who made a kissing face at her. The shock of the truck made her drop her purse, the kissing face made her blush, the wind whipping at her dress made her feel like a little girl, and the dog that was running past her snatched up her purse and kept running.<\/p>\n

And Mabel was running too before she even knew it. Running after the little dog, white with orange spots, orange blotches, blotches like the one\u2019s on Mabel\u2019s cheeks, like the one on her knees, like the one\u2019s on the skinny bitches cancer-bebalded head. Show some decency, girl, show some self-respect, wear a scarf, that\u2019s what cancer patients are supposed to do. Honestly, what kind of person would attract a man like Carl in the first place? Plenty of skinny bitches out there, plenty of nose piercings, why this one?<\/p>\n

The dog darts around a corner and Mabel\u2019s right behind him. He\u2019s not running that fast, burdened by her purse, but he\u2019s not even going as fast as he can, and Mabel\u2019s doing that sort of bent-over run, the one with both hands in front and palms up like she\u2019s going to catch him. As if. 197 pounds, divorced, sun dress, windy, clouds, occasional drop of rain, skipped work, wants fudge cake, doesn\u2019t get much alimony from Carl but spends half of it on therapy and the other half on the collection plate.<\/p>\n

Mabel gets close, swipes at the little shits tail, but he does a thing with his ass where he\u2019s going two directions at the same time and then he\u2019s out of her reach again and running across the road. Mabel\u2019s half-way across the road before she realizes it and she comes to a stop just in case there\u2019s more fast-moving trucks with smiling Mexicans. Alas, no. The road\u2019s empty. The dog stops too. Looks at her from the other side of the road, purse in his mouth, panting. She leaps towards him and he\u2019s off again. Damn it! She half giggles.<\/p>\n

Around another corner, across a yard, Mabel would never think to trespass but it\u2019s her purse and she\u2019s chasing a skinny little white dog with orange spots, there has to be an allowance for that. Her shoes are gone. The grass is wet, cold, stings her feet. Now he\u2019s trotting down a sidewalk and her feet are filthy. She\u2019s never been in this neighborhood before, lived here ever since she got married and she\u2019s never been here, less than even a mile away. Because they can\u2019t have run miles yet, there\u2019s no way, there\u2019s no way Mabel could run even a mile, could she?<\/p>\n

Mabel\u2019s out of breath, slowing down. The dog\u2019s nowhere to be seen. She leans up against a wall, panting. Her purse. Her white one, the small one, just her checkbook and her driver\u2019s license and some tissues and a lipstick. Call the bank, get a new license, tissues are cheap, the lipstick is tawdry anyway. Stupid dog. Stupid sunshine, stupid clouds. Maybe her therapist was right, two years of therapy, maybe he was onto something. She\u2019d been 197 pounds in high school, captain of the debate team, took them to State, almost won, maybe she\u2019s been sublimating all that fat self-hate, just like he said. College, economics major, 4.0 thank you very much, 197 pounds, who\u2019s going to ask her to Frat parties, of course she got good grades. And then Carl, called her his pudgy princess, married her, 197 pounds on her wedding day. Stupid sunshine, stupid fudge cake.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s hadn\u2019t changed in thirty-six years. Not one bit. Oh she\u2019d gotten her diploma and her degree and her marriage certificate and her divorce papers, but she hadn\u2019t really changed. Carl went from nice guy to asshole, the skinny bitch had gone from healthy to cancer, even the day had gone from sunny to cloudy. But she was still the same old Mabel. She went to church every Sunday, and asked Jesus to forgive her for being glad Carl was getting his just desserts, and all the old women in the pews looking at her sitting there alone, like she had done something wrong. Maybe she had. Maybe she should have gotten skinny for Carl. But she hadn\u2019t, hadn\u2019t changed a bit, stayed the same old Mabel she\u2019d been since she was sixteen and lost her virginity to Rodrigo. And now here she is, she\u2019s lost and tired and wet and cold. And hungry. She\u2019d just chased a dog for 15 minutes. How many calories was that? How much fudge cake is she going to have to eat to get back to her usual 197 pounds?<\/p>\n

Mabel looks down the sidewalk. At the end, the dog sitting there, big smile on his face, purse in his mouth. She walks towards him. He\u2019s just sitting there. She can see his tail, wagging. He drops her purse. Lies down on the sidewalk. She walks up to him, reaches for her purse. The dog shoves his head into her hand. She has to scratch him behind his ears. He wags his tail even harder.<\/p>\n

Mabel decides: fuck her therapist. She\u2019s glad she weighs 197 pounds. She\u2019s glad Carl and their marriage and his betrayal and their divorce didn\u2019t change her. She\u2019s glad the skinny bitch got cancer. Fuck church too. She\u2019d been happy before she met Carl, happy after they got married, sad for a bit when he\u2019d left her, but she was happy again and there was nothing fucking wrong with that.<\/p>\n

A smell, a wonderful smell, a deep rich lemony smell. A man is standing behind the dog. He\u2019s holding a paper sack. The amazing smells is coming from that bag. Mabel looks up at the man. He smiles at her. \u201cI see you\u2019ve met my dog.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, is he yours?\u201d Mable stands up. \u201cThe little shit stole my purse!\u201d She giggles.<\/p>\n

The man blushes. \u201cAh Jesus, I\u2019m sorry. He does that. Here, let me give you a lemon square. I just bought them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before she can say no, he\u2019s handed her the square. Despite herself, she takes a bite.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the most amazing thing she\u2019s ever eaten.<\/p>\n

Mouth full, dress clinging to her in spots, Mabel says \u201cWhat did you say his name is?\u201d<\/p>\n

The man takes a bite of a lemon square too. His eyes fairly twinkle, and she can tell, he\u2019s loving the lemon square too. \u201cCymbal\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Mabel laughs. \u201cYou gotta be shittin\u2019 me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fiction by Jason Edwards. This story was a gift for a friends’ birthday. Mabel Francis, 52, eyes of blue, five foot four, sun dress, inappropriate for the weather, appropriate for the season, inappropriate for what she\u2019s doing: chasing a dog. Appropriate for 197 pounds? Maybe. Mabel\u2019s been seeing a therapist for a few years now … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Keep Calm and Bang That Drum”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-9E","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":600,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598\/revisions\/600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}