CHAPTER ONE
MICHAEL GEORGE WICKHAM III, LOS ANGELES
Michael hates what he has to do. He is unhappy, feels his little stomach turn, and he is very sorry for himself. But sleep in his grandma’s bed he must, side by her side, grandma in her granny doll dress and pink ribbons in her hair. And some day, soon, he will be fully five years old.
Seems not right, this. What he has to do, is ordered to do.
But sleeping two in a bed saves another room, another bed. Another dime, another dollar. Anycase, money.
And so he is told, Quit your fussing, young man, and go sleep by your grandma, you hear me, now.
He is not sure how, or when, or why. But he thinks, maybe he imagines—a little something catching somewhere in the winding, spiraling mazes of his mind—that something happens between the two of them: he, a little boy, who has to sleep by grandma, and grandma in her granny doll dress and ribbons in her old hair.
She wears a kind of heavy perfume to bed, and for the rest of his life, whenever he has a whiff of that drift by his nose, he is transported back over time and memory of things long misted over—all the way back to grandma in her granny doll dress and ribbons in her hair.
To get giddy, giddy, giddy sick.
Years later he will have the same feeling on a boat sailing on Long Island Sound, the very same: He will go below deck for a beer, only twenty, forty seconds to getting it done. And when he gets back on top it will be like the perfume. Giddy, giddy sick, spilling guts over gunwales.
So, something...But what?
The mists in his memory never lift. Whatever is there remains stuck in the back alleys of the maze in his mind.
He was too young, and his memory never reaches back that far, all the way through the mists, to where innocence and something intersected.
So what happened?
Did anything happen?
He never knows for sure.
What he carries away with him forever are the sickly smells of old perfume in silver boxes. Smells almost always sure to set his throat on the brink of an abrupt, billowing heave. Stuff rising and rushing out in a major, major gush. And God help anybody or anything in range thereof.
♂♂♂
Is this why he grows up crazy about Edgar Alan Poe?
And reads everything they have in Classic Comics?
Only to read everything over and over—and still over again.
Edgar Alan—master of the macabre and mysterious.
He loves Murders in the Rue Morgue and Pit and Pendulum too. But his best Edgar Alan Poe Classic Comic by far is Fall of the House of Usher.
Sometimes he will ask himself who had the worst: Edgar Alan, whose mom made him sleep by his grandma in his dead and cold grandma’s coffin; or he, Michael Wickham III, whose mom made him sleep two in a bed, side by side with his lonely, live and musky one.
Musky one, she was, with her sickly smells of old perfume in silver boxes.
So what happened?
Did anything?
MICHAEL GEORGE WICKHAM III, LOS ANGELES
Michael hates what he has to do. He is unhappy, feels his little stomach turn, and he is very sorry for himself. But sleep in his grandma’s bed he must, side by her side, grandma in her granny doll dress and pink ribbons in her hair. And some day, soon, he will be fully five years old.
Seems not right, this. What he has to do, is ordered to do.
But sleeping two in a bed saves another room, another bed. Another dime, another dollar. Anycase, money.
And so he is told, Quit your fussing, young man, and go sleep by your grandma, you hear me, now.
He is not sure how, or when, or why. But he thinks, maybe he imagines—a little something catching somewhere in the winding, spiraling mazes of his mind—that something happens between the two of them: he, a little boy, who has to sleep by grandma, and grandma in her granny doll dress and ribbons in her old hair.
She wears a kind of heavy perfume to bed, and for the rest of his life, whenever he has a whiff of that drift by his nose, he is transported back over time and memory of things long misted over—all the way back to grandma in her granny doll dress and ribbons in her hair.
To get giddy, giddy, giddy sick.
Years later he will have the same feeling on a boat sailing on Long Island Sound, the very same: He will go below deck for a beer, only twenty, forty seconds to getting it done. And when he gets back on top it will be like the perfume. Giddy, giddy sick, spilling guts over gunwales.
So, something...But what?
The mists in his memory never lift. Whatever is there remains stuck in the back alleys of the maze in his mind.
He was too young, and his memory never reaches back that far, all the way through the mists, to where innocence and something intersected.
So what happened?
Did anything happen?
He never knows for sure.
What he carries away with him forever are the sickly smells of old perfume in silver boxes. Smells almost always sure to set his throat on the brink of an abrupt, billowing heave. Stuff rising and rushing out in a major, major gush. And God help anybody or anything in range thereof.
♂♂♂
Is this why he grows up crazy about Edgar Alan Poe?
And reads everything they have in Classic Comics?
Only to read everything over and over—and still over again.
Edgar Alan—master of the macabre and mysterious.
He loves Murders in the Rue Morgue and Pit and Pendulum too. But his best Edgar Alan Poe Classic Comic by far is Fall of the House of Usher.
Sometimes he will ask himself who had the worst: Edgar Alan, whose mom made him sleep by his grandma in his dead and cold grandma’s coffin; or he, Michael Wickham III, whose mom made him sleep two in a bed, side by side with his lonely, live and musky one.
Musky one, she was, with her sickly smells of old perfume in silver boxes.
So what happened?
Did anything?
