Jeremiah's School of Levitation

Poetry Friday, whereupon someone shouts out a word in their blog and we all write, sing, or draw, or photograph or whatever on it. This week's word to create about was "yellow." I noticed that once I became focused on this word yesterday, I began to notice that just about everything in the world is yellow! Well, I exagerrate, but, man, I never realized how surrounded by yellow I am. I need to get another color in my head now. But first, I need to do two things: play "Yellow Submarine" right now, and, also post my creative twist on the word "yellow." Enjoy.



It's All Yellow Inside the Grain
by Jeremiah


We were there at the yellow tractor crossing sign and we had just finished having our first argument of the day. She got out and stormed into the tall grains of wheat and I stayed in the car, pulled out a cigarette and just let it smoke up the car for a while because that's what she always said she hated. I watched her as she walked to the grain, then walked into it and I thought random things about Farmer Joe coming out with his crooked shotgun and shooting at her, telling her to git off'n his propitty or else he'd feed her to his dawg, who was probably named Yeller like in the old movie. And, I remembered the line from the movie, where the dog, Old Yeller, was called Buscuit Eater and that offended the little boy, but I remembered thinking that "Biscuit Eater" was a cool name and that, someday, I'd use that name to great effect. That someday never came, though. The only somedays that came for me were the days like this, where I sat on the edge of my future, peering into foggy mornings, smelling like smoke and alcohol, and watching some girl of mine weave away from me, drift into indecision, speak quickly and curtly, and even throw something. All this I'd see even if the girl was asleep next to me. I had the power, I should say, of seeing into the dark future, even when the present was bright.

We lived in a place that could only be described as being old and decaying away. Our walls were yellow like the inside of the grains she was walking in. Someone once said that my place looked like the inside of a mustard jar. I hated that. The inside of a mustard jar. Some girl said that. She was writing a poem and she said that my place inspired her to say that. It wasn't my line. I'd say inside of a shell of grain, but she'd say inside of a mustard jar. I disagreed because, see, you can wipe the side of the mustard jar and see out of it. Inside a shell, though, you're trapped.

I watched my girl go to some part of the grains and then, she sat down. It was as if she disappeared. The strange yellow sun blared in the sky. It was just 6 am, the cool night peeling off the ground rapidly, in strips, rising to become steam. The day was going to be warm again. The stretch of gray highway in front of me curved up and down, slightly, on its journey to the lemon skin horizon.

I looked back to where she had sat down. Sat down in amber waves of grain. I grinned at myself. I felt like reciting the whole song, "America the Beautiful", as some sort of poignant reminder that I was lost in the whole illusion of America, dwarfed like a dwarf by purple mountains majesty, stinking of the rot of the neglected fruited plain, and, of course, my latest girl now submerged in amber waves of grain.

I threw the cigarette out in the road, cut off the car, tossed the keys on the floor, and got out. I looked to the spot where she'd sat down and there was no sign of her. It was like she disappeared alright. The grain seemed to dance, acting like it had nothing to do with any of this. "I don't see no girl," the waves said. "I'm only dancing. Dancing in the sun-rain."

"Nora!" I yelled. "Nora! Stand up! I can't see you!"

Nothing came back. Nothing but the crackle of dancing grain.

"Goddamn," I said.

I laced up my hiking boots and trudged into the grain. I bet Farmer Joe was loving this. He could git two a' us tres'pass'rs at once, put us both on God's doorstep and let the Almighty decide which way we went. Walkin' around in my grain.

The sun was settling on my neck and I smelled my skin. I didn't take a shower that morning at the motel. Nora did, but I didn't. I had the feeling that she wanted to wash off our lovemaking from the night before. I didn't want to wash it off myself though. I wanted to remember that we had something we could cling to. I wanted to remember that we could be a couple. If, nothing else, we could be a couple of comingled sweat beads. She didn't want that, though. She wanted to wash me off, scrub and soap, douse herself with burning water, strip a layer off her skin, her old layer of skin, all the old nights, the old boyfriend, the old feelings, into just the yellow grime you can wash down the drain.

"Nora!" I said as I kept walking toward the spot where she disappeared. "There's about a million different kinds of spiders that live in grain! You better get out of there!"

Nothing.

I stopped and looked toward the back of the field. I could see a large, gray house. Farmer Joe's place, I figured. I bet he's already let the dogs go. Three big yellow dogs would be here any time now, baring stained fangs, ready to chomp us to the bone, strands of our flesh left to fertilize the grain. Someone somewhere, months later, would eat a piece of bread and that one bite would have been the bite nourished by the flesh from my neck.

"Nora!"

"Right here," she said. Her voice sounded like it was coming from the inside of a stomach ache.

I was just ten feet from her. I still couldn't see her. I followed her voice and, suddenly, there she was. Her straw hair was blowing out of tune with the grain. She kept her thin, browning face straight ahead. She was beautiful in the morning sun, fresh like nothing had yet happened to her.

"Come on," I said. "Let's go."

"Sit here for a second," she said.

"Come on, girl. Farmer Joe is going to shoot us and feed us to his dogs."

"Nothing would eat you," she said.

I wanted to yell at her, but, see that was my problem.

"Just sit down," she said. "Sit down and cool off."

"Jesus," I said.

I turned and walked back toward the car. I kept my head down and my fists clenched. That also was my problem, something in my head told me. Because my head was down, I didn't quite see where I was going, and when I lifted my head up again, I saw that I'd walked nearly parallel to the car and now I was somewhere in the middle of the grain, and nowhere nearer the car. I looked back to where Nora was. The whole expanse looked exactly the same. I couldn't tell where she was at all. I just couldn't tell.

"Sometimes you gotta understand. Sometimes you gotta meet me halfway," she had said last night, I remember, right before we made love. It was the saddest love we'd ever made in our eight months of making love.

"Goddammit," I said.

And, I sat down, disappearing into the grain. There was no sound of dogs, no sound of gunshots, only the sound of yellow grain, hissing and snappling, whisking against my skin. All around me yellow and yellow, yellow sun, yellow grain, yellow-eyed sloth weighting down my face. Inside the grain, it's just yellow. Aged wallpaper and sepia photographs of dead people. Stalled thoughts and cigarette stains on teeth. Empty mustard jars and spoiled food in the fridge. Skies before rain and, somewhere, somewhere in the corner, a golden glitter of something trying to shine.

I didn't know what it was about her I was supposed to understand. But, I thought that maybe I understand what it's like to need to sit inside the grain. It was like home. Just like home.

Something about this story reminds me of Hemingway. "Hills Like White Elephants" or whatever it was called. The relationship, the sun, the words unspoken. You have a knack with 'relationships' in stories that I wish I had. I loved the 'stomach ache' line, I totally got that!

Bravo!

Mona: I'm a little speechless at that. I can't imagine that I can come anywhere near even REMINDING anyone of Hemingway. I figured that the only thing I have in common with Hemingway would be the fact that we've both been to Key West. I still believe that, but, wow, thanks.

As for relationships, I'm completely intrigued by them. What attracts two people, what keeps two people together, or what keeps them from not going it alone, will forever fascinate me.