Quicklinks:
|
Great Writing - Home > Short S. > Bernice
| READING ROOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
| COMMUNITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|
|
| ABOUT GREAT WRITING | ||
|---|---|---|
|
| WORK AWAITING REVIEW |
|---|
|
| GW IS... |
|---|
|
Great Writing creative writing community is designed to prompt ideas
and provide inspiration and motivation within aspiring and amateur
authors. Whatever your topic; from love poetry to Doctor Who or Harry
Potter fan fiction, Great Writing's online writing group is where you
can make new friends and improve your creative writing. |
| WHO'S ONLINE |
|---|
| We have 1536 guests online and 6 members online |
Shorts
| print friendly version | |
| Bernice | |
| By bwoz | ||||
| 14 February 2007 | ||||
|
don't know what it is, maybe for children? Still needs work and probably a little too long. P.S. At Phil's suggestiong I've moved this to short stories, thought it would be better fit in children's category. Let me know what you think. Oh yes, the reference to "The Girl with Automatic Hair" is another piece of fluff I wrote years ago. I haven't posted it yet. By now you’ve heard about the girl with automatic hair. It’s a story I know well, for it was I who was there. But the story I tell now is not of fortune or fame, but the condemnation of the most imperfect name. A name, I discovered, can be described such as this; one that disturbs the gentile like drool from the lips. A name I first heard in much younger days, of a neighbor girl who lived right next to our place. The first time I saw her I was bewildered at the sight. A fat, dumpy child with coke bottle eyes. “As ugly as mud” my big brother would say, the ugliest neighbor I’ve had to this day. Her name was a potato sack, not a form-fit glove. Bernice; a chump’s name no one could ever love. Have you ever seen a movie star named Bernice? I bet not. It’s a name like anonymous, so easily forgot. Not a name to speak of with pride or with joy; not meant for a girl, even worse for a boy. Bernice! She giggled at everything, just like a child. She had no beginning or end, just infinitely beguiled. Now, dumb isn’t a nice word, but she acted that way, and that turned out to be the nicest thing we could say. Everything seemed funny to that fat, ugly girl. She laughed at nothing at all, and at everything in the world. One day Mom invited her for cookies and tea. “Oh no,” I screamed, “why her, Why this house, why me?” She stuffed cookies in her mouth, and chomped and smacked, and her teeth had such gaps the crumbs fell to her lap. Then she started again, giggling for no reason. “The idiots are in full bloom”, I thought, “Its blooming idiot season.” We never made jokes to her face; we had more manners than that. The jokes we cracked were done behind her back. Had we disgraced her in public, like in the old days they did, she would have cackled and snorted like a mud happy pig. Frank was her dad, as old as dirt, she his only child. He doted on her while she picked her nose and smiled. Her mother dressed real old, old apron, old hat. But I can’t remember her name so never mind about that. She put pretty bows in Bernice’s hair, and pleats in her dress, that only made her look like a well-ironed mess. Frank played the guitar and he knew all five chords. He showed me how to tune, and strum without words, while Bernice giggled and danced to Wabash Cannonball. That sight and sound made me want to climb the wall. I thought for sure the whole family was mad. How much fun should one idiot have? Yes, at times we were cruel, my brothers and me, but only because we were better than fat old Bernice. She was, without a doubt, the ugliest neighbor I’d ever had, but we hung out on her front porch to learn guitar from her old dad. In exchange for the lessons I heard Mom tell Frank, “After homework the boys can help out around your place.” Frank planned a trip to pick up a load. Mom said, “Yup.” So off to town we rode. In the back of Frank’s pick-up truck, yelling “oh wow! whoopee!” – The first ever pick-up truck ride for my brothers and me. We sat in the back, looking at where we’d just been, hawked goobers toward the sky and watched them splay in the wind. A good gob of spit would take off like a rocket then grow a foot long tail and disappear like a comet. So we helped Frank load some fertilizer – horse manure to be exact. And yep, you guessed it; we rode home in the back. Only this time on a pile of fresh hoed manure, you can bet it was stink city, that’s for sure. We sat atop the heap so it wouldn’t fly all over the road. We’d have never volunteered had we known about that load. We’d been had, hoodwinked, bamboozled by Frank, old as dirt. But back then we didn’t own enough pride to feel hurt. I suppose it just as easily could have been a load of hay, but guitar lessons don’t come cheap, not then, not that day. On the ride home I faced forward to watch Frank shift gears. He recited Bible verses for Bernice alone to hear. And Frank sang a song about animals, a rolling sideshow zoo, complete with the amazing manure boys – just guess who. But the look on Bernice’s face was pure joy; and Frank’s too I guess; the joy of each other’s company; of pure love and happiness. It was a simple kind of joy that you only find in an old pick-up truck. The kind of thing you wished you had, if you wished for good luck. Then it happened. Bernice looked back at me, as I was looking in, and she laughed and waved and said, “Watch my dad.” And she grinned. I don’t know why but I smiled and laughed and put my hand on the glass. And Bernice traced my hand, sitting up front looking back. For the first time I think I saw life from behind those coke bottle eyes. For the first time I saw the shoes she wore were my size. For once she didn’t seem dumb, or ugly, or fat to me. There was pure joy in her life, free for us all to see. Hers was a happiness I doubt that I’ll ever find. She squeezed happiness until it splashed all over others of our kind. All the cruel things I had said, I took them back right then. Poor ugly, Bernice with the buck-toothed grin; an only child who never knew a cruel word, she knew only laughter in a world so harsh and absurd. Frank, he was to blame, the anguish etched on his wrinkled face. He was the one with the scars, Purple Heart and old grace. He swallowed the acrimonious ire of indignant social endorsement to be sure his child would know a much better assortment. Bernice was gone before Halloween the next year. “It didn’t take long” someone said, “A tumor I hear.” The goofy, giggling girl with a name like a sneeze; she didn’t attend school, or even join the Brownies. She never learned to read, or write, she gave no such declaration. Her only purpose was to be the target of our childish castigation. She laughed about it all, and never let it matter. She let the jokes fly and fall, until they lay torn and tattered – like dried leaves in a pile at my front door. She wasn’t a normal child, of that we were sure. We were certain not to give her even half of a chance. We only saw the goofy, buck-toothed, slobbering glance. Our only concern was to put her in her place, make nasty jokes about her awkward face. Frank saw it all but never said the words that were due. He knew we weren’t really evil, just acting like kids do. He forgave us instantly, because Bernice forgave us too. She dressed herself in respect; she always wore the proper shoes. She was a laugh and a wave hello in a village of meaningless nods. The born looser who managed to brake even with the odds. I’ve tried to live a better life, like the one perhaps she knew. But movie star or not, I have never since heard the name Bernice. Have you?
Only registered users can rate and write comments. Powered by AkoComment 2.0! |
||||
 Previous item
|
Next item
|
|---|