Homer

It was getting to be a joke to Homer. He had a bowl of oatmeal, the bowl was clay, the tablecloth was unbleached linen, his daddy was wearing the same overalls as yesterday which were just as faded as the washed out sky, the road outside was dirt, and there was a dust colored tabby sleeping in the window. The summer leached the green out of the plants, and even magazines turned white underneath this sun. Homer had read about art and he was sure he was living through someone’s beige period.

“Bonnie and Clyde came through here, I’ll bet you didn’t know that.” Daddy said a lot of bullshit when he was pontificating, and since Homer had been drawn and sullen even more than usual, even more than was tolerable, Daddy felt it was overdue. “They were right on that road out chere, tear assin’ hell bent for leather, and I was sitting at that table right where you are now and watched ‘em go by just like I was at the picture show. I was fifteen year old, just like you are today.” Daddy found this to be a satisfactory end to the story, nodding sagely and stroking his chin like Confucius, who incidentally was a man he had never heard of.

Homer waited for the pause to become ever pregnant, and when he realized there was no post script he bunched his shoulders and cocked his head “Is that all? What did they do? Did they go rob the Mechanics Bank?”

“No,” Daddy could really make it sound like you had missed the point completely. “They just rode through, weren’t no money in that damn bank, it was the depression. Naw, we didn‘t hear it was them until week or so later, in the papers.”

Homer’s mouth dropped open in utter disbelief, “You’re fucking kidding.” Kansas had even sucked the color out of outlaws who took a break from having sex only to rob banks and shoot people. It was incredulity only a 15 year old understood.

“Mind Boy, your Momma heard you and she’d have me belt you one, neither of us wants that.”

Homer was staring hatefully at a sunflower thinking “Be more yellow.” He had collected the eggs and knew they had the same uncommitted color at the center, then washed out the coop, and had the drab afternoon to himself. He stood and shook out each leg, and started walking towards town.

He came home very pleased with himself. He had gone to meet the sailor with all his pocket money, the sailor who had been on the sea just as long as he had been on land, and who had seen a tiger in China and a Russian Cossack. The sailor put a tattoo on Homer’s whole chest, a beautiful woman with peacock feathers and a bright red rose at every corner, like a picture frame, and yellow stars around her like the sailor had seen all the way in Australia at the bottom of the world.

He strolled into the kitchen, where he had left Daddy and found him again, just as casual as could be, his plaid shirt hooked on a finger slung back over his shoulder. The sailor said not to cover it for a day or so, as if that would be a problem for Homer. The spoon dropped out of Daddies hand and clanked in the tiny china cup of milky coffee. Whispering, as not to alert Mama, but with as much urgency as he could muster Daddy said “Boy, what would you go and do a damn fool thing like that for?”

“Because I guess I’m just a damn fool.”