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One day when I was a boy of
ten years I put some paper route money into a toy dispenser and got
a priceless treasure. For my nickel plugs I happily popped out a silver plastic skull ring with
a ruby eye that lased a powerful death ray. It could liquify the bones of bullies as they
knuckled each other in a house of dirty curtains and screened flies.
I rubbed magic from the skull and sparked out the small come-uppances that
improved my life in the crucible of the schoolyard.
The skull ring gods smiled on my supplications.
About a month later, skull ring was sitting on a sunny window sill when its eyes flashed and it beamed me the message that my grandparents were coming to visit that day. This was extraordinary for two reasons, they did not phone so their visit would be a surprise. And secondly, they lived in Oswego New York and did not love each other enough to spend eight hours together in the cabin of a car. Nonetheless, I gave my mother the skull ring's message and left to deliver papers. The prediction came true later that day and my mother must have been pretty spooked because I never saw skull ring again. Grandma Louise suffered from arthritis. The joints of her hands and feet swelled up into balloon animal proportions and she got comfort by immersing them into boiling dish water . The ring gods who crabbed her fingers must have crabbed her heart as well because she kicked grandfather out of the marriage bed after my mother was born. Grandfather pantomimed this event with a horizontal V for victory sign and then snapping the two fingers shut as though they were the legs of a woman. If he were particularly pained he would cross the two fingers vigorously so no love on earth could crack them open. There are probably heart secrets buried with them, I know grandfather was betrothed to another. As a young journeyman he immigrated from Germany and hoped to work up the money that would reunite him with his fiancee. Sadly, the war broke out and never again did he see the image of his first love except for what he could paint over grandmother's form. The power of their wedding ring gods was diluted by a plastic of substituted love. Finally, grandmother's arthritis got so bad, the ring was cutting off circulation to her finger. She wept silently when the jeweler removed the band because in those days the ring gods played for keeps. |
| 6/24/98 | oil on linen | 50"w X 46"h |
