Whispering Nickel Idols

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This one is for my mom, who was a rock in aturbulent stream.

With thanks to Jim K. and Ellen W.

There I was, galumphing downstairs, six feet three of the handsomest, ever-loving blue-eyed ex-Marine you’d ever want to meet. Whistling. But it takes me a big, big bucket to carry a tune. And my bucket had a hole in it.

Something was wrong. I needed my head examined. I’d gone to bed early, all by my own self. And hadn’t had a dram to drink before I did. Yet this morning I was ready to break into a song and dance routine.

I felt so good that I forgot to be suspicious.

I can’t forget, ever, that the gods have chosen me, sweet baby Garrett, to be their special holy fool and point man in their lunatic entertainments.

I froze on the brink of my traditional morning right turn to the kitchen.

There was a boy in the hallway that runs from my front door back to my kitchen. He was raggedy with reddish ginger hair all tangled, a kid who was his own barber. And his barber was half blind and used a dull butcher knife. There were smudges on the boy’s cheeks. He stood just over five feet tall. I made him about twelve, or maybe a puny thirteen. His tailor was a walleyed ragpicker. I assumed he had a pungent personal aura, but wasn’t close enough to experience it.

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