Art by Brian Price |
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by Louis Gallo My mother and father sit at the kitchen table a few years after World War II, the table with aluminum legs and cracked porcelain top. My mother spreads a clean cloth of starched white linen. She frets over a smudge in the fabric. My father talks about the war. He opens a pack of Target tobacco as my mother spreads a starched white linen tablecloth. My father does not notice the grease spot. He talks about the war. A dull light bulb, coated with grime and dust, hangs from the ceiling. My father has not had time to change it, to make it brighter. He talks about the war. My mother worries about the smudge, has tried everything. Lemon juice won’t touch it, nor Oxydol. My father curses the interminable waiting in lines during the war, Indian toilets – he was stationed in Karachi – an explosion that blinded two men. My mother spreads the tablecloth. She listens to “Apple Blossom Time” on a small Bakelite radio and hums along. My father sprinkles Target onto cigarette paper. My mother fears a burning ash might scorch the linen. She cuts her finger on a chopping board. Her blood seeps into the onions. My father blows a blue smoke ring and thumps the table. My mother feels the sting of lemon in her cut. My father says that war saved the economy. My mother wraps a bandage around her finger and slices a pecan pie she has just removed from the oven. She hopes no one will notice the grease spot. My father smokes and talks about the war. The Andrews Sisters swirl in my mother’s head. The murky kitchen light makes smudges hard to see. My mother never asks my father to replace the bulb. My father has doubts about Eisenhower. My mother says we’re out of Ajax. Tomorrow is grocery day, and she compiles a list. My father says we had to bomb Japan. I am somewhere in the house, so is my baby sister. My sister will not remember our father talking about the war or mother fretting over a tablecloth. Or the kitchen table. The war, my father says, made us older. My mother is not old. Nor is my father. Hitler got the economy rolling, my father laughs. My mother and father sit in the kitchen. A small Bakelite radio plays the Andrews Sisters. My mother thinks grease from the bulb dripped onto the tablecloth. She has tried everything. My father rolls a cigarette. He licks the edge and folds the paper into a cylinder. He strikes a Diamond match with his fingernail, a trick he learned in India. My mother tells him that we’re out of Ajax. My father talks about the war. I am somewhere in the house, but where? Where is my sister? My mother’s grocery list is long. My father says don’t forget the Target. He says war ended the Depression, not FDR. My mother coughs when the cigarette smoke gets too thick. My sister and I must be playing in another room. Sometimes we run into the kitchen and see our parents sitting at a kitchen table with aluminum legs. A white cupboard. The orange pack of Target tobacco. A smudge on the starched white linen tablecloth. Our mother rubbing it with lemon juice. The bandage on her finger, the wedding ring. A dull, smoky yellow light. We’re out of Ajax. The room is dim. Stinking holes in India. The war has ended. Our father’s back, Hitler dead. The economy looks good. We’re going out to buy a new car, a Plymouth V-8, my father says. My sister is too young to remember. I sway close enough to that edge of oblivion myself, where whorls of darkness break forth as glowing suds of light and shadows ignite the forms that galvanize our lives. Our mother and father sit at the kitchen table. |
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