The Music Man
I wake up in the crack of February. The fields are frozen
dust outside the window, sparkling like sugar for the birds that have
stayed through the winter. In the kitchen, the familiar smell of Sunday
morning is absent, a death. No eggs, no sausage, no toast, only the
acrid blackness of coffee, the lingering stab of whiskey. My father
sits at the table in an undershirt and corduroys, a greasy white look
about his face, a cigarette blowing smoke up his arm. There are plates
broken everywhere, silverware gleaming in corners, my mother's favorite
vase scattered in the living room like leftover parade confetti. How
could I not hear this cacophony the night before, in the quiet expanse
of nowhere, where the stars shine like flashlights on our house?
But I remember the dream of noise, of cymbals and snare drums and
xylophones and the big parade, my father the music man, kicking his
legs up in cadence, leading the band down scrubbed streets. Everyone
is happy, such happy noise. We all follow him. And where does he lead
us?
I know Mom is gone. Whether she will come back in a few hours with
milk and make scrambled eggs or perhaps this afternoon or maybe never
I don't know. I pour a cup of coffee, my first, and sit across from
my father. Outside, a purple martin shoots over the cornfield, pixie
dust on top and broken cornstalks underneath like skeletons.
Jen Michalski lives in Baltimore. Her work has appeared in more than twenty publications, including McSweeney's, Failbetter, The Pedestal, The Summerset Review, and Thieves Jargon. Her book of short fiction, Close Encounters, if forthcoming from SoNew Publishing. She is the editor of the quarterly literary e-zine JMWW.