An Apple a Day...

It would seem this is my approach to that novel I'm "going to write someday." Five minutes a day on my Apple will keep the doctor away... and keep me in writing shape until I "have time to really concentrate."

After nearly 8 years of daily blogging, I should be ready, right?

I do have at least 3 different "stories" in mind for books. I have started all of them. Ha. No really. I'm serious. I guess I just have to pick one and go with it.

Here is a sample of the one I may call Little House Out Back. It's fiction but will be based on some deep, dark experiences of childhood. Of course, I have to determine if I can bring more levity to it to balance it. That is my challenge.

In the meantime, read on and feel free to give me constructive feedback...

PROLOGUE

I’ve hated the smell of shit since I was 9 years old.

I can say that now that Momma’s gone.

“Shit!” It feels so freeing to let it out. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I say, pounding the steering wheel for emphasis. I glance skyward, assuming our generous God found a place for Momma’s wayward soul up there. I half expect her shaky hand to reach down and shove a bar of soap in my mouth.

Did I mention I’ve hated the taste of Dove since I was 9 years old, too?

I pull into the old driveway, feeling the ruts jostle me around like the rickety roller coaster at the county fair. My hand becomes a human seatbelt for the goods in the passenger seat. It just wouldn’t do to have my rare evidence of domesticity all over the floor of the car.

With a grateful step on the brake, I park it in my old spot. I step out of the air-conditioned car and immediately feel two beads of sweat racing down my back as if the elastic band of my control-top panty hose is the finish line. It’s too damn hot to be wearing nylons, black ones to boot. And this black polyester dress – really, why must convention call for such nonsense when the heat index tops 90?

My arms juggle my purse and two pans of bars as I make my way up the front porch steps, carefully avoiding the creaky bottom one, a habit from my sneaky teenage years. I pause at the door, pondering a knock, which is fruitless at this point. I use my free hand to wrangle it open and go in.

Everything from the faded roses on the wallpaper to the worn-out carpet in the entry way is familiar to me. Yet I feel like an intruder. This is not how I wanted to return.

Voices from the kitchen beckon me to the back of the house before I sink into a bout of despair. A quick glance around the kitchen, though, tells me this would be the place to do it. Every available counter space is filled with comfort food – dessert pans, cookies, casseroles. It looks like a Lutheran potluck dropped out of the sky. And frankly, it sort of did.

I nod to the Ferguson sisters and search for an opening to add my pans to the mix. “Ooh, what have ya got there?” Do they really care what I managed not to burn? 

Now I see why they call it “comfort food.” To avoid dealing with the most pressing topic at hand, talk often turns to the neutral and comforting topic of food. I hand over the pans and let them decide if the contents are worth discussing further.

Sensing my chance to escape, I excuse myself and head down the hall to the bathroom.  The mirror tells me my clothes aren’t the only things melting. So much for the industrial-strength hair spray!

I sit on the toilet and glance up at the wall. There it is. That damn poem Momma insisted on hanging on the bathroom wall the day we got the “inside potty.”

The Little House Out Back

Among my childhood memories

One thing I can’t forget

It’s the little house out back

I seem to see it yet.

Out there beyond the lilac bush

It stood so drab and bare.

We never called it a bathroom

For no baths were taken there.

In summer there were hornets

In winter it was cold

But it served a useful purpose

For the ones who had to go.

Though many years have come and gone

I gladly would go back

And enjoy once more the comfort

Of the little house out back.

~ Anonymous

I was 10 years old when we finally got indoor plumbing. No, I wasn’t a child of the Depression, a Baby Boomer or Amish, for that matter. But our country had already turned 200 years old before we finally got flush toilets in 1978.

We weren’t dirt poor – just regular poor – though we did qualify for free lunches. We had always had running water, electricity and a big black-and-white television in a mammoth console that ate up half our living room space. I loved that TV. At the time of the "inside potty" appearance, I remember my heart was torn that year between Ponch and the Fonz, and sometimes Pa Ingalls. I could sure relate to those Ingalls girls and their lack of porcelain facilities.

But all that took second billing to the big arrival.

When we did finally add onto our house with its “full bath” on the main level and stand-alone pot in the basement, my mother hung up that poem on the wall of the bathroom as if to say, “Let’s not forget those wonderful, cozy memories of the outhouse.”

Looking at the poem still hanging there, I can’t help but conjure up nasty and painful memories of that stinkin’ place.

Oh, Momma. Did you think we could just flush away the past? Did you forget or did you just not care? Why is that damn poem still here and you’re not?

I miss you, Momma.

Shit.

 CHAPTER 1

The first time I got stuck in the outhouse was the day I came face to face with the devil.

I had just finished my duty in record time, which one tends to do when surrounded by stench and buzzing flies. When I opened the door to leave, I stared straight into the eyes of a red-haired monster. Just one glimpse of those fangs and I slammed the door in his evil face.

Great. Now what?

So... that's it so far! Thoughts?