stories and poems by Audree Flynn
for my dad, who thinks I have talent and is completely unbiased
A Dusting of Snow
In October of 1975, when Jim Henson’s Muppets hosted “Saturday Night Live”, no one on the SNL team was too pleased; sketch writer Michael O’Donohue was vocal about it.
I don’t work with felt, he said with disgust.
Maybe that’s how Toodles McGower saw it. “The McGower Hour” was like a news show, but a news show for kids. It was on every morning at six a.m., Monday through Friday, on Channel 13. Toodles McGower wore black horn rim glasses. He wore white collared shirts and a look of pain, often. As if he would rather be anywhere else.
You could understand why. It was called “The McGower Hour”, but most of the time, Toodles took a backseat to his felted co-hosts, Smiley the Crocodile and Poseidon the Sea Lion. Poseidon and Smiley could be quite a handful. Especially when six thirty-five rolled around.
Six thirty-five was the weather report. You knew what was coming. You turned up the volume and sat close to the screen. Sunshine in Miami, Toodles would say, but twenty-seven in Oshkosh with eight inches of…
“SNOW!”
Poseidon and Smiley chimed in, and fake snow fell in buckets and buckets. Rain in Wilmington, ice storm in Tulsa. Whatever the inclement weather happened to be, it came down in torrents on Toodles McGower.
There were craft projects too. Stuff you made with popsicle sticks and old orange juice cans. Cartoons, but not good ones. Snuffy Smith, Beetle Bailey. Heckle and Jeckle. No one tuned in for the crafts or cartoons, anyway. You watched it to see what would happen to Toodles.
That day began just like any other. You got up at six, turned the television on. Had breakfast, got dressed, got ready for school. At six thirty-five, you sat close to the screen. Sunny in Tampa, but a dusting of…
You saw Toodles slowly raising his hand. You saw something flash. You heard a sound like the end of a world. The black horn rims clattered, you stood and you stared, and finally you heard yourself say, what was that.
The screen went to static for what seemed like forever. When it came back on, Channel 13 ran an episode of “Land of the Lost.” Later the station issued a statement, an apology “for any distress this regrettable action may have caused our viewers.” But no explanation. Nothing about why Toodles did what he did.
It sounds strange to say, but I sort of miss Poseidon and Smiley. They were funny. I liked them. They had faces and names, and that made them real.
Toodles McGower had a face, and a name, and it made him less real. Some people ask me, would you have watched, if you had known. I smile and I say, if you have to ask…I hate to think I’m really that way. Or always have been and just didn’t know. Pretty, and cold, like a dusting of snow. That I’ve only been working with felt all this time.
Thursday’s Child
No I said you may not be excused
until that plate’s clean you’re not leaving the table
every Thursday
every time
we always go through this and I don’t know why
when I was a kid
if we ate at all we were thankful we did
how sharper than a serpent’s tooth
Shakespeare that’s who
I told you already you may not be excused
you can clean that plate is what you can do
I don’t care if it’s cold
I called you to the table ten minutes ago
stop pushing it around on the plate that way
not good enough for you is that it your Highness
well pardon me
I’m oh so sorry
no you may not
you may sit down and finish is what you may do
every Thursday
every time
you think you’ve had it tough
stop rolling those eyes
your life’s been a cakewalk
your life’s been a picnic
when I was a kid we ate shit every night.
The Dead Layer
Whenever I’m at the store buying apples
and someone I’ve known taps my shoulder and says
didn’t you used to be
I always wonder which one they mean
the one in the sun at the tip of the branch
or the one that fell hard and lay bruised in the grass
and whenever I look at a painting of apples
I see what used to be called the dead layer
the moonlight shades of ochre and umber
that lie just below the bright apple colors
and whenever I look at myself in the mirror
someone I’ve been stares back from the glass
bright red and umber or green as a summer
and I always wonder
which apple I am.
The Reese Street Gang
We stood our ground and we stood strong;
the die was cast, the lines were drawn.
This was our ‘hood, our turf, on Reese.
They lived, poor chumps, on Midland Street.
We came with sticks, we came with stones,
we came with taunts of shabby homes,
we’d sooner live on bogs of peat
than any house on Midland Street,
and they returned the slurs in kind,
live on Reese? We’d rather die.
We fought the fight like warriors brave
and swore we’d stay until they fell,
for honor and for glory’s sake,
we’d leave their street a Midland hell—
unless our mothers called us in
for dinner, chores or chocolate cake—
their vanquish sure but thus delayed,
we sent them on their Midland way
and spirits high, we marched toward home
with sticks and stones we’d yet to throw.
We were seven, maybe eight,
fed and fast asleep by nine;
boredom, mostly, was our foe
and all we killed, in truth, was time.
Waiting in the Weeds
In ’72,
The Staples Singers recorded their hit
“I’ll Take You There”
at Stax Records studio in Memphis, TN.
It went to number one,
and stayed fifteen weeks on the Billboard charts.
Mavis Staples, who sang it,
didn’t like it, at first.
She said that it grew on her,
little by little.
Vice President of Stax,
Al Bell,
wrote the song for his brother
who was murdered that year
in North Little Rock.
In his backyard,
Al had an old yellow school bus
that stood in the weeds.
After the funeral,
Bell went home.
He sat in the bus
and asked how,
and why,
and where do I go now
from here,
and he heard a voice
that said, “I’ll take you there.”
Al Bell called it God.
I don’t think it matters.
Little by little.
Or all at once.
Whatever it is.
Whatever it was.
What matters, I think, is what it becomes.
My Dinner with Ernie
You’ll be sorry for this. I promise ya, Mags.
Maybe so. Maybe so. But you need to meet people. Socialize. Converse.
I thought that’s what suicide hotlines were for.
You’re a hoot, Maggie said. A real yuk-yuk machine. Look, it’s only one dinner. Besides, Ernie’s nice.
Ernie. I shuddered. Most people, I guess, think of “Sesame Street.” Ernie and Bert. But I’m a big Who fan, and I think of “Tommy.” I think of the grinning, lecherous slime Uncle Ernie.
I’ll do it for Maggie, I said to myself. But soon as I can, I’m aborting this mission. Amscraying. Vamoosing. I’m drowning this kitten.
That night, Ernie took me to L’Aubergine. I wore my hair in a long ponytail. I thought about wearing Hello Kitty barrettes. Shoes with an “L” and a “R” on the toes. Seemed a bit heavy-handed; I decided against it.
We sat in a booth. I tore breadsticks apart. Made little animals. Monkeys. Giraffes.
So, Ernie said. Maggie tells me you live with your parents.
Yes, I replied. I take care of my folks. Feed ‘em sometimes. Hose down their cages.
Ernie smiled.
They’re elderly, I assume.
Yes, and that’s how they fool you. They’re old but they’re spry. Out the door in a flash if the knots aren’t just right.
He looked at his watch. He studied the menu. I built a small Stonehenge with wrapped pats of butter. I was carefully lodging each butter-brick in place, humming an old Who song in an absent-minded way. Ready for this farce of a date to be over, when Ernie looked up and said, now I’m a farmer.
I couldn’t believe it. I said, what did you say?
“Now I’m a Farmer”, Ernie replied. Isn’t that what you’re humming? The Who, “Odds and Sods.” First track on that album, if I’m not mistaken.
Easy there, girl, I told myself. Could be a fluke. I decided to test him.
“Pictures of Lily.”
“Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy.”
“Live at Leeds.” Eddie Cochran song.
Without missing a beat he said “Summertime Blues.”
I thought for a moment. Looked him square in the eye.
What was the B-side of “I Can’t Explain”?
Ernie stifled a grin and said “Bald Headed Woman.”
I was totally smitten. He was a nice guy, and a real Who fan.
Alas, though, it’s true, there is no second chance for a first impression. Ernie took me home. Shook my hand at the door. I heard my phone ring about twenty minutes later.
You were right. I am sorry.
I told you so, Mags.
You’re an idiot, she said.
I know, Maggie. I know.
Merry Christmas Dad-
one day
when I was about seven
or eight
you and I were outside
the chain on my bike needed oil I think
we were in the front yard
there were dandelions
everywhere
and you looked around
I need something small
you said
that will bend
and I picked a dandelion
and showed you the stem
you took it
and smiled
you said it was perfect
and you were happy
and I was happy
and a thousand thousand days
have passed
and dandelion numbers
might equal the stars
but one will be always
wherever we are.