W E B S I T E S
H O M E S L I D E S
S O C I A L M E D I A
E B L A S T S
P R I N T C O L L A T E R A L
C L I E N T P R E S E N T A T I O N S
T - S H I R T D E S I G N S
P R O D U C T P H O T O G R A P H Y
W E B A D S
C R E A T I V E W R I T I N G
From Skipping Stones [An Excerpt]
I lay there, inside the house, belly first on the wood floor, scribbling in a coloring book. The book was called, if I remember right, “Color My World,” and each page was a different geological landscape. That night, I chose to color in an ocean, one that had choleric waters, or maybe they weren’t choleric at all, but were just troubled with something. The ocean always seems to have this sense of iffiness about it to me. There was a moon above it and along the horizon, which looked very far away, was a sail boat. There was text, too, but I was still very young and hadn’t learned to read yet.
blue is for the ocean
it’s vast and its depth is great
volcanoes and earthquakes shake its floor
and storms churn up its ancient shipwrecks
And now that I think about it, I was probably plopped down underneath the already then-antique coffee table, its lacquered top all craquelured and its legs spindly and wobbly like an old weary dog. How that coffee table was so many things to me: a fort, an army tank, a pirate ship; my hiding place. Father was there too, in his dusty, russet-colored armchair, listening to Woody Herman and His Orchestra Band—blaring their big brass instruments on his phonograph—just sitting there, staring out the window and glowering at the evanescent sun.
It was an old phonograph—pre World War II (probably handed down to him by his father)—so the sound quality was quite poor. The music it played was pitted with distortion. It popped and crackled. And because the needle had never been replaced, it was severely worn; its sound was stifled, like how voices are at the beach. The tracking was even worse as Woody Herman’s clarinet scratched and whined in varying frequencies and his band’s trumpets and saxophones sounded more raspy than usual as if they were forced to perform in spite of their colds.
Father had a cup of tea clasped between his hands which was tepid, but would have probably turned cold if it wasn’t for his steamy palms. I don’t think Father ever liked tea, really, he’d rather be guzzling down a beer, I mean, he was a practical and an efficient man. Mouths weren’t for sipping; they had a more funnel-like purpose. But he drank it, for Mom’s sake anyways. She would tell him it was good for him and that it had a way of calming the nerves. But that night, I don’t think he took a single sip. It was as though he had forgotten that it was even in his hands. Mom was on the couch sewing something. Perhaps it was a scarf or a blanket.
She was wearing a white nightgown, Mom—white like fresh milk. It did have a liquidlike semblance about it, the way it cascaded down from her shoulders and pooled around her feet. I remember her hair being tied up. Tied up, as if hair is some incorrigible pet, or rather, a boat needing to be moored before the owner falls asleep. I mean, who knows what mysterious storm or piratical zephyr could creep in during the night and surreptitiously sweep it away? A lamp behind her illuminated her small hands with a pale yellow light as she stitched, appearing as though it was shining through her. Father was wearing a blue flannel shirt, a deep blue, leagues deep, and jeans too that were also blue, but much shallower. His hair was not tied up. It had already been walloped by a storm and was now a wreck—discordant strands of hair resembled broken scraps of wood, or millions of fine splinters, darkened from being wet.
I’ve always wondered what my parents were like before the war. I had only seen photographs, and even then I found myself often disgruntled and disconnected. One particular picture comes to mind: A black and white one taken at the beach, Mother in a one-piece bathing suit, Father in swimming trunks, both of them in the water about knee high. A white wave was crashing into them and as if they were both rocks jutting out, a big splash was produced, cloaking their lower halves. Father’s arms were roped around Mother’s waist, trying to pick her up, or perhaps he was trying to throw her in. But, what stood out the most in this picture was that they both had these huge, beaming smiles on their faces—Mother seeming to be laughing uncontrollably and Father, well, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him happier. On the back, I remember, was an inscription that read, “Bridgeport, CT. Summer 1949.”
I love that picture. It gives me this odd sense of nostalgia. I say odd because I long for a past I was never a part of. I wish I had known these versions of my parents and in a way I wish they were actually rocks, immutable promontories of better days. This picture makes me want to climb on top of them; it makes me want to attach to them like a clam.
Then the war came and changed everything. That two and a half year separation when Father was slogging through Korea and Mom, like Penelope, patiently waiting at home was just something they were unable to suture close. They grew distant and when Father finally did return home he was a totally different man.
I imagine it being a frozen February day at Union Station. I imagine Father stepping off that steaming train, dressed in his fine fitted military uniform. Mom waiting there for him, wearing her best dress, her white gloved hand above her eyes, surveying the crowded platform and Jeremy just learning to walk about a year ago, standing there next to her in his little black suit. It must have been awkward for them to recognize each other and—not really recognize each other. Almost like when you say to someone: you look familiar, but I just can’t recall where I know you from. And before things get too awkward you both settle on the fact that maybe you knew each other from some previous life. And that’s what my parents did, that’s what they had to realize—they had drifted apart and their previous life would be nothing but a faint, fugitive memory, from that day on. I can imagine how strange it was for them to kiss. To kiss because it was expected, to kiss just as a simple act of formality with lips that had taken on the likes of jigsaw pieces now, that you jam and bend and press into each other, making it fit whether it’s suppose to or not. I mean, that’s what you do, right, when you finally come back to it and realize you’ve forgotten what the picture of the puzzle was suppose to be, after all those years of being away from it? And how they held each other: Father being careful and extra gentle. He had grown accustomed to grappling rattling raffles, clenching metallic shovels, carrying dead bodies over his shoulders. And Mom being careful too, careful not to squeeze too hard as if Father had returned as some dud mortar shell. I can see her, as they hugged, cautiously tapping on his back only to hear a hollow clank clank. And how sad it must have been when they finally looked into each others’ eyes. Father’s must have looked like rifle scopes and Mother’s could have resembled war ravaged towns.
I imagine all the people of Albany showing their great gratitude, telling Mother what a national hero her husband was and how proud she must be and even lucky that he was among the few to return home unwounded. But, that wasn’t true. Father was wounded. There was a lot of internal bleeding. Father had gotten shot right in the heart. I guess it wasn’t really a matter of if, but of when and the field medic just couldn’t stop the bleeding. He told father it was either his heart or his life and told him to choose. Father chose his life and the medic was forced to amputate his heart. I know this because— Father loved with a limp.
But what I have the hardest time imagining is what Father did when he saw Jeremy. Perhaps he picked him up, or maybe he knelt down next to him and Jeremy reached for his shiny gold medals. Perhaps Father snapped one off for him to hold and Jeremy put it straight to his teething mouth. Or maybe—Father didn’t even notice him at all and Jeremy, as if some kind of landmine, cried after Father stumbled over him.
And that night as I colored in that ocean, I showed off my new acquired knowledge of colors.
“Look Daddy,” I said as I held up a crayon. “Tis is blue. Watta is blue. Daddy look.” He wasn’t ignoring me on purpose; he just couldn’t hear me. I mean, who knows where he was as he stared out that window. “Daddy look,” I persisted.
“For Christ’s sake Jack,” Mother interrupted, “Hunter is trying to tell you something.”
Father’s stare was unbreakable. “Huh uh. Blue.”
I grabbed another crayon. “Mom, tis is yellow.”
“Very good Hunter. That is yellow. Now what are you going to color yellow?”
“Da moon. Da moon is yellow, Mom.”
“It is. That’s very good.”
yellow is for the moon
it pulls and pulls at the earth
the surface is dry and desolate
and there are no signs of water
I colored in the moon with wide, circular motions, unable of course, to stay inside those stubborn black lines. Then I rummaged through my box and tried to find a brown for the boat. Or actually, you know what, I don’t think I ever colored in that boat. Perhaps I left it there—just clear—like some derelict ghost ship, without a single man to be found on board, adrift in that choleric or whatever you want to call it sea, under that now shapeless yellow moon.
“Ouch,” Mom suddenly uttered. I looked up and saw that she had pricked her finger with her needle. It immediately began to bleed; a few small drops of blood had already fallen and stained her white nightgown. “Damn it,” she whispered and got up and walked to the bathroom.
I didn’t know what to do. “Daddy, Daddy,” I said. Of course he wouldn’t budge. “Daddy! Daddy!”
“What Hunter!” Father erupted.
“Mom hurt herself.”
He was back in reality, or maybe for him it was a dream world, I don’t know. But a concerned look swept over his face. He shot up from his chair, spilling his tea, and rushed toward the bathroom. I could hear him yelling “Honey, you ok? Honey?” down the hall.
And as I lay there, in the living room, under that coffee table, just me and that garbling phonograph, I watched the wind as it rioted through the trees. It was one of those strange times of the year; an interim between seasons. This time it was Autumn who was handing its more benevolent reign over to Winter. The world was filled with a sense of tumult and unrest. The birds relocated their nests to much sturdier brush. The spiders withdrew into the awnings of the house. A bear lumbered into the forest and vanished as squirrels, just outside, as if in some frantic rush, looted acorns off the patchy turf.
Copyright 2014 // Michael Gentry
I lay there, inside the house, belly first on the wood floor, scribbling in a coloring book. The book was called, if I remember right, “Color My World,” and each page was a different geological landscape. That night, I chose to color in an ocean, one that had choleric waters, or maybe they weren’t choleric at all, but were just troubled with something. The ocean always seems to have this sense of iffiness about it to me. There was a moon above it and along the horizon, which looked very far away, was a sail boat. There was text, too, but I was still very young and hadn’t learned to read yet.
blue is for the ocean
it’s vast and its depth is great
volcanoes and earthquakes shake its floor
and storms churn up its ancient shipwrecks
And now that I think about it, I was probably plopped down underneath the already then-antique coffee table, its lacquered top all craquelured and its legs spindly and wobbly like an old weary dog. How that coffee table was so many things to me: a fort, an army tank, a pirate ship; my hiding place. Father was there too, in his dusty, russet-colored armchair, listening to Woody Herman and His Orchestra Band—blaring their big brass instruments on his phonograph—just sitting there, staring out the window and glowering at the evanescent sun.
It was an old phonograph—pre World War II (probably handed down to him by his father)—so the sound quality was quite poor. The music it played was pitted with distortion. It popped and crackled. And because the needle had never been replaced, it was severely worn; its sound was stifled, like how voices are at the beach. The tracking was even worse as Woody Herman’s clarinet scratched and whined in varying frequencies and his band’s trumpets and saxophones sounded more raspy than usual as if they were forced to perform in spite of their colds.
Father had a cup of tea clasped between his hands which was tepid, but would have probably turned cold if it wasn’t for his steamy palms. I don’t think Father ever liked tea, really, he’d rather be guzzling down a beer, I mean, he was a practical and an efficient man. Mouths weren’t for sipping; they had a more funnel-like purpose. But he drank it, for Mom’s sake anyways. She would tell him it was good for him and that it had a way of calming the nerves. But that night, I don’t think he took a single sip. It was as though he had forgotten that it was even in his hands. Mom was on the couch sewing something. Perhaps it was a scarf or a blanket.
She was wearing a white nightgown, Mom—white like fresh milk. It did have a liquidlike semblance about it, the way it cascaded down from her shoulders and pooled around her feet. I remember her hair being tied up. Tied up, as if hair is some incorrigible pet, or rather, a boat needing to be moored before the owner falls asleep. I mean, who knows what mysterious storm or piratical zephyr could creep in during the night and surreptitiously sweep it away? A lamp behind her illuminated her small hands with a pale yellow light as she stitched, appearing as though it was shining through her. Father was wearing a blue flannel shirt, a deep blue, leagues deep, and jeans too that were also blue, but much shallower. His hair was not tied up. It had already been walloped by a storm and was now a wreck—discordant strands of hair resembled broken scraps of wood, or millions of fine splinters, darkened from being wet.
I’ve always wondered what my parents were like before the war. I had only seen photographs, and even then I found myself often disgruntled and disconnected. One particular picture comes to mind: A black and white one taken at the beach, Mother in a one-piece bathing suit, Father in swimming trunks, both of them in the water about knee high. A white wave was crashing into them and as if they were both rocks jutting out, a big splash was produced, cloaking their lower halves. Father’s arms were roped around Mother’s waist, trying to pick her up, or perhaps he was trying to throw her in. But, what stood out the most in this picture was that they both had these huge, beaming smiles on their faces—Mother seeming to be laughing uncontrollably and Father, well, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him happier. On the back, I remember, was an inscription that read, “Bridgeport, CT. Summer 1949.”
I love that picture. It gives me this odd sense of nostalgia. I say odd because I long for a past I was never a part of. I wish I had known these versions of my parents and in a way I wish they were actually rocks, immutable promontories of better days. This picture makes me want to climb on top of them; it makes me want to attach to them like a clam.
Then the war came and changed everything. That two and a half year separation when Father was slogging through Korea and Mom, like Penelope, patiently waiting at home was just something they were unable to suture close. They grew distant and when Father finally did return home he was a totally different man.
I imagine it being a frozen February day at Union Station. I imagine Father stepping off that steaming train, dressed in his fine fitted military uniform. Mom waiting there for him, wearing her best dress, her white gloved hand above her eyes, surveying the crowded platform and Jeremy just learning to walk about a year ago, standing there next to her in his little black suit. It must have been awkward for them to recognize each other and—not really recognize each other. Almost like when you say to someone: you look familiar, but I just can’t recall where I know you from. And before things get too awkward you both settle on the fact that maybe you knew each other from some previous life. And that’s what my parents did, that’s what they had to realize—they had drifted apart and their previous life would be nothing but a faint, fugitive memory, from that day on. I can imagine how strange it was for them to kiss. To kiss because it was expected, to kiss just as a simple act of formality with lips that had taken on the likes of jigsaw pieces now, that you jam and bend and press into each other, making it fit whether it’s suppose to or not. I mean, that’s what you do, right, when you finally come back to it and realize you’ve forgotten what the picture of the puzzle was suppose to be, after all those years of being away from it? And how they held each other: Father being careful and extra gentle. He had grown accustomed to grappling rattling raffles, clenching metallic shovels, carrying dead bodies over his shoulders. And Mom being careful too, careful not to squeeze too hard as if Father had returned as some dud mortar shell. I can see her, as they hugged, cautiously tapping on his back only to hear a hollow clank clank. And how sad it must have been when they finally looked into each others’ eyes. Father’s must have looked like rifle scopes and Mother’s could have resembled war ravaged towns.
I imagine all the people of Albany showing their great gratitude, telling Mother what a national hero her husband was and how proud she must be and even lucky that he was among the few to return home unwounded. But, that wasn’t true. Father was wounded. There was a lot of internal bleeding. Father had gotten shot right in the heart. I guess it wasn’t really a matter of if, but of when and the field medic just couldn’t stop the bleeding. He told father it was either his heart or his life and told him to choose. Father chose his life and the medic was forced to amputate his heart. I know this because— Father loved with a limp.
But what I have the hardest time imagining is what Father did when he saw Jeremy. Perhaps he picked him up, or maybe he knelt down next to him and Jeremy reached for his shiny gold medals. Perhaps Father snapped one off for him to hold and Jeremy put it straight to his teething mouth. Or maybe—Father didn’t even notice him at all and Jeremy, as if some kind of landmine, cried after Father stumbled over him.
And that night as I colored in that ocean, I showed off my new acquired knowledge of colors.
“Look Daddy,” I said as I held up a crayon. “Tis is blue. Watta is blue. Daddy look.” He wasn’t ignoring me on purpose; he just couldn’t hear me. I mean, who knows where he was as he stared out that window. “Daddy look,” I persisted.
“For Christ’s sake Jack,” Mother interrupted, “Hunter is trying to tell you something.”
Father’s stare was unbreakable. “Huh uh. Blue.”
I grabbed another crayon. “Mom, tis is yellow.”
“Very good Hunter. That is yellow. Now what are you going to color yellow?”
“Da moon. Da moon is yellow, Mom.”
“It is. That’s very good.”
yellow is for the moon
it pulls and pulls at the earth
the surface is dry and desolate
and there are no signs of water
I colored in the moon with wide, circular motions, unable of course, to stay inside those stubborn black lines. Then I rummaged through my box and tried to find a brown for the boat. Or actually, you know what, I don’t think I ever colored in that boat. Perhaps I left it there—just clear—like some derelict ghost ship, without a single man to be found on board, adrift in that choleric or whatever you want to call it sea, under that now shapeless yellow moon.
“Ouch,” Mom suddenly uttered. I looked up and saw that she had pricked her finger with her needle. It immediately began to bleed; a few small drops of blood had already fallen and stained her white nightgown. “Damn it,” she whispered and got up and walked to the bathroom.
I didn’t know what to do. “Daddy, Daddy,” I said. Of course he wouldn’t budge. “Daddy! Daddy!”
“What Hunter!” Father erupted.
“Mom hurt herself.”
He was back in reality, or maybe for him it was a dream world, I don’t know. But a concerned look swept over his face. He shot up from his chair, spilling his tea, and rushed toward the bathroom. I could hear him yelling “Honey, you ok? Honey?” down the hall.
And as I lay there, in the living room, under that coffee table, just me and that garbling phonograph, I watched the wind as it rioted through the trees. It was one of those strange times of the year; an interim between seasons. This time it was Autumn who was handing its more benevolent reign over to Winter. The world was filled with a sense of tumult and unrest. The birds relocated their nests to much sturdier brush. The spiders withdrew into the awnings of the house. A bear lumbered into the forest and vanished as squirrels, just outside, as if in some frantic rush, looted acorns off the patchy turf.
Copyright 2014 // Michael Gentry
