wanna know
how your Aunt Margot
really died?
The words wander over
from the other side
of Margot’s old room
above Gramma’s detached garage
with its gorgeous bay window,
lemon-yellow walls, and
British Invasion posters.
I look to the corner where
the neighbor boy
Jimmy Baynes Connolly
(never Jim, James or
God forbid, Jimbo, and
always all three,
if you please)
sits vibing to the White Album,
his scrawny arms wrapped around
gravel-scraped knees,
his Powell Peralta skateboard
leaning against the wall,
and his Metallica t-shirt
proclaiming
Kill ‘em All
Jimmy Baynes Connolly
from the
broken-down
broken-glass
Cape Cod next door
suddenly looks up,
meeting my gaze
with a bad-boy grin
and wild eyes gleaming
behind that gorgeous
Tom DeLonge hair.
I tell him I know what happened
and mumble my way through
the story I’d been told
by Momma and Gramma,
whose annual ritual of grief -
sitting around the kitchen table,
stacking cigarette butts and cans
of Hamm’s while reminiscing -
gave way
to my own ritualistic transgression:
sneaking off and climbing up
the rickety wood stairs into
Aunt Margot’s sunlit old room
above Gramma’s detached garage
Poor Margot, my aunt
who never was, who was
about my age
when that awful boy
lured her out for a motorcycle ride
and never brought her home.
While I tell the story,
a thought skitters through my mind:
I don’t remember inviting
Jimmy Baynes Connolly
into mine and Margot’s
sunny secret space.
As if summoned, he
appears on Margot’s old bed,
tells me that's not the whole story:
my poor Aunt Margot sold her soul
to be with her demon lover
and they rode his chopper
down into Hell together.
What a metal way to go,
he adds, scooting closer,
and that's when I smell the brimstone
that's when I see that his Kill 'em All t-shirt
is tattered, faded and loose
that's when I see that his greasy Tom DeLonge hair
hides sunken, cloudy eyes
that's when I feel his scrawny, pale arm,
so much stronger than it looks,
wrap
around
my
waist
and
pull
me
close
Something takes hold
and I shove him away
with the strength of two women
Jimmy Baynes Connolly tumbles,
snarling, onto the floor
as the citrus walls wither,
the posters weather,
and the White Album
scratches and screeches
to a stop
Screaming, I scamper for the door
and burst out onto the narrow staircase
leading down to the house
I look back, expecting to see
Jimmy Baynes Connolly
reaching for me
with bone-thin fingers,
but instead
there’s only a boarded-up,
broken-glass door
leading to Margot's old room
above Gramma's detached garage
and a Powell Peralta deck
leering
from the other side
of a musty windowpane.
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