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A Rage of Flowers
Dell Newman watched as his youngest son rose, and immediately grabbed a beer from the fridge. He could not imagine the boy that had once lived in his house anymore, from the man that stood there with his long dirty-blonde hair, wild and in places matted to his scalp from sweat. Wearing an old white tee-shirt, and a pair of sweat pants, his chin thick with stubble and his eyes glazed and lost as if he were still dreaming. Dell always looked forward to and dreaded these reunions. He didn't mind the inconveniences so much as he didn't like the way he might, and usually did, feel. Both during and afterward. Dell may have loved his son, but he didn't truly care for the man that he had become. Arnie hadn't broken any laws, or wound up in jail for anything, such as his brother Danny had done on more than one occasion. Dell was loathed to admit that he liked any of his children any better than the other two; though come hell or high-water, he truly loved them all.
"You sleep well Son?" Dell asked, as he continued to fuss at the flowers.
"Oh yeah, it is always good times when we come back here," Arnie plopped down at the kitchen table, his eyes moving toward the kitchen window that looked out into the backyard. Some much of what had once been there was gone. The old swing-set and sandbox replaced by his wife, Mary's, flower beds and little gardens of green. Mary had always kept a small garden, but had went at it full swing just before she had passed away. The kids were all grown and moved away, and it was something to help her pass the time of day. Dell had tried to get her out and away more since he had retired, and there were some days with Mary that seemed to be pretty good again. Dell kept himself busy around town, and with whatever work still needed to be done on the house. There wasn't really that much anymore; keep the yard mowed, rake a few leaves in the spring, and a daily ritual of collecting up Buster's poop from the yard. The only time that Mary seemed kind of happy in those final days here was when she was in her garden, tending to her flowers and plants.
"Good morning Baby-girl," Dell said brightly as he seen his youngest moving down the stairwell.
"Good morning Daddy," she said, her eyes falling toward the flowers that he was arranging into a vase. "You doing alright, Old Man?" she asked as she moved over and hugged him to her from the side.
"Ayeh," he said, not entirely convincingly, though he put his arm around her and drew her closer up next to him. "This look alright to you?" He asked her, and felt her shrug into his shoulder before moving away toward the kitchen.
"Christ Arnie, I'm pretty sure that the well hasn't run dry. You can at least wait until after we go to start your damn drinking."
"We got city water now, Baby-girl." Dell quickly spoke over whatever Arnie might have thought to say to that.
"I know that Daddy," she sighed, folding her arms across herself after re-adjusting and closing her housecoat around herself. "It's just a figure of speech."
"Ayeh," he said, and then turned toward Arnie and peered over the rim of his bi-focals. "Just sayin' that we've got plenty enough water to spare the alcohol for a time is all." Dell said, watching as Arnie rolled his eyes and then took a long deep drink from the bottle before pouring the rest down the sink.
"Why do we do this shit every year Dad?" Arnie said as he reached into the fridge for can of soda.
"It's your mother's birthday," Dell went back to adding more flowers into the pretty little vase he had picked up from the local department store. Holmans wasn't really anything like a Walmart or a Meijer's Thrifty Acres. It tended to keep unique, though sometimes kind of pricey, little things in stock to offset the fact that they could never really compete with the chain-stores. As far as he knew, this little green clay vase, which was Mary's favorite color, with the little dancing ancient Greek figures enameled across the base, was a one of a kind. He probably paid a little more for it than he should, but the figures on the relief kind of minded of him when they had first met back in college. That pretty much seemed like centuries ago as well, but the thing about it was that Mary was majoring in literature and writing, when they first met. She probably might even recall who in the hell these figures were, or what they were supposed to mean. Hell, Dell didn't have any damn clue, aside from the fact that they reminded him of his Mary in better times.
"Holy shit! It's cold out there," Danny said as he came inside. Danny was his oldest, and had ended up doing pretty well for himself as a CPA. Dell could remember both Mary and his concern that they were not going to be able to afford to send him off to school. Danny had spent a little too much time off gallivanting with this friends to earn himself a full scholarship. His football scholarship had paid for a little better than half, to attend such a big time university. Mary and Dell had fought a little about where he wanted to go, which had led to both Danny and Dell getting a part time job. It had been hard, but they had made it through.
Arnie had actually made it a little easier on them by getting a full scholarship to one of the local colleges. Arnie never had to put much work into his grades to do well, and didn't really care about some big fancy university. Some of the troubles that he had was that he never could seem to manage to apply all of those smarts into his life. He kept just enough friend, just close enough, to never actually be alone. Mary claimed that Arnie could actually be kind of funny, and that he made her laugh all the time. Dell could mostly only recall when Arnie pissed him off. Dell had near come to accept that his middle son had never seemed to care for him very much, though to suggest that he had given up was more like he didn't have a clue as to how to go about what with the boy. He always minded Dell alright, provided that Dell let him know he was not playing around anymore. Trouble there being that that seemed to be the only real sort of conversations that they had ever had. He was always glad that Mary and the boy had got on better, which spared him some concern that maybe he wasn't seeing after the boy arightly.
Arnie was divorced and paying child support to a gal that neither Mary nor Dell never really had a chance to get to know. Arnie called more often than he actually showed up, and Dell was a little surprised that he had agreed to keep coming over for his Mama's birthday--especially after she was gone.
"Hey Dad, looks like you are getting pretty good with the flowers," Danny said as he moved in and plopped down into Dell's chair. Buster immediately got up and moved towards him as he did. The old beagle could hardly manage to get his front paws up anymore, and Danny had to help him up the rest of the way into his lap.
"What do you think Arnie?" Dell asked, as he held up the vase.
"Actually? It's a mess," Arnie answered, as if he had no hint of the cruelty in what he said to his father. "You can't just toss a bunch of colorful shit together and think you've arrange it right." Arnie moved in as Dell stepped aside. He pulled out the black eyed susans, tossing them aside as repositioned the lilac and apple blossom like trim or garnish among the more splendent bloom of lilies.
"Why don't you tell him how you really feel," Danny said, half surprised by what his brother had said, and the other half mostly jokingly.
"She hated daisies," was his only response to that, as Arnie stepped outside after finding a pair of pruning sheers.
"He's an ass, but he is right." Shelly reluctantly admitted. "It does look a little better."
"Yeah-well, I'll just feel better about it all if he knows how to do it right," Dell went into the kitchen with his cup, and poured more coffee inside. "I don't know much about all that, and I am content to that he does know something. I want her to be happy is all.
"Mama?" Shelly said after grabbing her own cup of coffee, and then sitting across from him. "Happy? I am not sure if I could ever tell when she had been."
"She was happier when you all were around to tend 'fer."
"Oh, that was happy then." Shelly said, as Dell's brow drew down sharply.
"She was happier when you were around to tend after us Dad, and well... I am not certain as she could really help it all." Danny added, and corrected his father's earlier statement to his own likening.
"What are you two getting at?" The ire in Dell's voice raised.
"Never you mind," Shelly said as she patted at the back of his hand. "I'm sorry Daddy."
"No, I want to know now." Dell said, his temper simmering back more to hear what they had to say as opposed to going away altogether.
"She was a good mother and a good woman Daddy," Shelly said, and then took a sip of her coffee as if she had explained it all.
"Who sometimes had a pretty foul temper," Danny added, as he attempted to focus his attention in on Buster.
"She did at times, but she never actually abused any of you." Dell countered.
"True... mostly." Danny said, his gaze moving towards his sister. "Ma did have her off days Dad."
"Such as?" Dell prompted.
"Such as when she jumped all over Shelly because she was pissed off at you. Or beat my ass when she was actually mad at something that Arnie had done, because I should have been looking after him."
"And why would she expect that? He is your little brother."
"No," Danny said slowly. "That's not why."
"Okay, so why then."
"Because I am crazy like she was," Arnie said as he stood at the door with handful of carefully selected blooms. "Jesus Dad, why in the hell do you think you do not really like me," Arnie went over to the vase and began plucking them in within various places.
"I love you Arnie, and I always have."
"You loved her too," Arnie shrugged as he continued to arrange the flowers around. "Seems even moreso not that she's gone."
"That's not true at all!" Dell near rose up out of his chair, but settled back in as Shelly grabbed his hand.
"When she upset you, you went away." Arnie stopped and leaned his hand against the small raised table that Dell had selected to hold the vase while he put the flowers inside. "We didn't really expect you to get it, and we always knew that you would be back. It was enough, for her leastwise."
"So, what in the hell was I supposed to do then?"
"If either of us knew that, we would probably both have been much better off." Arnie returned his attentions to the flowers, though the tears that threatened were obvious. "Such as now, I have no fucking idea why I am feeling what I feel. I really want to hit something, but here I am-- fucking with flowers that were a part of her fantasy world..." Arnie said and then looked up, as his eyes began to dry without a tear to fall. "I am a little sick and tired today, which is mostly the same as yesterday, except that I get to stand here in front of you all and blubber like a buffoon, or say shit that hurts you. I am really tired of hurting you, but I have the advantage of going home after we go and visit Mama's grave."
"It isn't his fault," Shelly said.
"No... it's not." Arnie admitted, and then shook his head. "Mama always said it was the price of being different, is all. Nobody's perfect, she would say. Ours was just kind of like a weak heart, that you could never really trust for it to keep on doing what it was supposed to do. It gets bad, it gets better-- you love and you hate the same things at different times of the day, and you just keep trying to keep one step ahead of it." Arnie said, his voice trailing off. "These flowers remind me of my connection to her. She told me about times that she just wanted to mow them all down, bury it all over... She couldn't bring herself to do that, so she took a lethal dose of pain killers instead." Arnie said, as the tears came back to his eyes. "Oh, I get that alright," he said as the tears did come this time. "Like the fucking sniffles, it fades a little and then comes back, worse than before. You can just be driving and a thought will cross your head about seeing how far you get if you just let go of the fucking steering wheel and mat the gas pedal to the floor..." Arnie gaze rose up to meet Dell's. "I don't come around here not because I do not love you Dad. I don't come around because I am tired of disappointing you."
"Yeah," Dell said, after not really being sure what to say after that.
"She loved you too," Arnie added and then shrugged. "She went out to the garden, yanked a few weeds or planted something else. Never really knowing why being alone made her feel better, because it don't really make any kind of fucking sense to any ordinary, average human being why you would even want that... to not really be a part of this world anymore."
"I suppose that I am glad that she did have someone that knew what she wanted... or how she felt." Dell moved away from the table, and stepped over towards his son--whom near instinctively stepped back. "It's alright, I figure that we are all just about ready to go and set these where they need to be." Dell said, not moving any closer. "Well, as soon as your sister puts some dang clothes on, we will be ready."
"Yeah," Arnie forced a smile and nodded, as he moved away to sit uncomfortably on the sofa.
"Looks good Arnie," Dell said. "You think you could do this again next year?"
"Yeah," Arnie fingers clenched and released, and then a more realistic sort of smile came over his features before he nodded.
"That'd make her happy I think." Dell nodded.
"That'd make you happy," Arnie said, the smile wearing a little thin. "I like to do that on occasion. Keeps you guessing." Arnie said, and Dell smirked as Shelly went back up stair to get dressed.
"She always said that you had your own sense of humor." Dell said as he grabbed the vase and carried it over to the kitchen table. "It always struck me that you felt the best when you were being contrary."
"Sometimes," Arnie nodded.
"Every day, about every time you opened your damn mouth," Danny said as he grabbed Buster's leash.
"It was always about shit that mattered to me," Arnie looked at his brother as if he had just said something crazy.
"Yes we know, the world officially ended when the Sex Pistols broke up." Danny rolled his eyes and Arnie smirked.
"Have you heard the music that is being played today?"
Uley
"You sleep well Son?" Dell asked, as he continued to fuss at the flowers.
"Oh yeah, it is always good times when we come back here," Arnie plopped down at the kitchen table, his eyes moving toward the kitchen window that looked out into the backyard. Some much of what had once been there was gone. The old swing-set and sandbox replaced by his wife, Mary's, flower beds and little gardens of green. Mary had always kept a small garden, but had went at it full swing just before she had passed away. The kids were all grown and moved away, and it was something to help her pass the time of day. Dell had tried to get her out and away more since he had retired, and there were some days with Mary that seemed to be pretty good again. Dell kept himself busy around town, and with whatever work still needed to be done on the house. There wasn't really that much anymore; keep the yard mowed, rake a few leaves in the spring, and a daily ritual of collecting up Buster's poop from the yard. The only time that Mary seemed kind of happy in those final days here was when she was in her garden, tending to her flowers and plants.
"Good morning Baby-girl," Dell said brightly as he seen his youngest moving down the stairwell.
"Good morning Daddy," she said, her eyes falling toward the flowers that he was arranging into a vase. "You doing alright, Old Man?" she asked as she moved over and hugged him to her from the side.
"Ayeh," he said, not entirely convincingly, though he put his arm around her and drew her closer up next to him. "This look alright to you?" He asked her, and felt her shrug into his shoulder before moving away toward the kitchen.
"Christ Arnie, I'm pretty sure that the well hasn't run dry. You can at least wait until after we go to start your damn drinking."
"We got city water now, Baby-girl." Dell quickly spoke over whatever Arnie might have thought to say to that.
"I know that Daddy," she sighed, folding her arms across herself after re-adjusting and closing her housecoat around herself. "It's just a figure of speech."
"Ayeh," he said, and then turned toward Arnie and peered over the rim of his bi-focals. "Just sayin' that we've got plenty enough water to spare the alcohol for a time is all." Dell said, watching as Arnie rolled his eyes and then took a long deep drink from the bottle before pouring the rest down the sink.
"Why do we do this shit every year Dad?" Arnie said as he reached into the fridge for can of soda.
"It's your mother's birthday," Dell went back to adding more flowers into the pretty little vase he had picked up from the local department store. Holmans wasn't really anything like a Walmart or a Meijer's Thrifty Acres. It tended to keep unique, though sometimes kind of pricey, little things in stock to offset the fact that they could never really compete with the chain-stores. As far as he knew, this little green clay vase, which was Mary's favorite color, with the little dancing ancient Greek figures enameled across the base, was a one of a kind. He probably paid a little more for it than he should, but the figures on the relief kind of minded of him when they had first met back in college. That pretty much seemed like centuries ago as well, but the thing about it was that Mary was majoring in literature and writing, when they first met. She probably might even recall who in the hell these figures were, or what they were supposed to mean. Hell, Dell didn't have any damn clue, aside from the fact that they reminded him of his Mary in better times.
"Holy shit! It's cold out there," Danny said as he came inside. Danny was his oldest, and had ended up doing pretty well for himself as a CPA. Dell could remember both Mary and his concern that they were not going to be able to afford to send him off to school. Danny had spent a little too much time off gallivanting with this friends to earn himself a full scholarship. His football scholarship had paid for a little better than half, to attend such a big time university. Mary and Dell had fought a little about where he wanted to go, which had led to both Danny and Dell getting a part time job. It had been hard, but they had made it through.
Arnie had actually made it a little easier on them by getting a full scholarship to one of the local colleges. Arnie never had to put much work into his grades to do well, and didn't really care about some big fancy university. Some of the troubles that he had was that he never could seem to manage to apply all of those smarts into his life. He kept just enough friend, just close enough, to never actually be alone. Mary claimed that Arnie could actually be kind of funny, and that he made her laugh all the time. Dell could mostly only recall when Arnie pissed him off. Dell had near come to accept that his middle son had never seemed to care for him very much, though to suggest that he had given up was more like he didn't have a clue as to how to go about what with the boy. He always minded Dell alright, provided that Dell let him know he was not playing around anymore. Trouble there being that that seemed to be the only real sort of conversations that they had ever had. He was always glad that Mary and the boy had got on better, which spared him some concern that maybe he wasn't seeing after the boy arightly.
Arnie was divorced and paying child support to a gal that neither Mary nor Dell never really had a chance to get to know. Arnie called more often than he actually showed up, and Dell was a little surprised that he had agreed to keep coming over for his Mama's birthday--especially after she was gone.
"Hey Dad, looks like you are getting pretty good with the flowers," Danny said as he moved in and plopped down into Dell's chair. Buster immediately got up and moved towards him as he did. The old beagle could hardly manage to get his front paws up anymore, and Danny had to help him up the rest of the way into his lap.
"What do you think Arnie?" Dell asked, as he held up the vase.
"Actually? It's a mess," Arnie answered, as if he had no hint of the cruelty in what he said to his father. "You can't just toss a bunch of colorful shit together and think you've arrange it right." Arnie moved in as Dell stepped aside. He pulled out the black eyed susans, tossing them aside as repositioned the lilac and apple blossom like trim or garnish among the more splendent bloom of lilies.
"Why don't you tell him how you really feel," Danny said, half surprised by what his brother had said, and the other half mostly jokingly.
"She hated daisies," was his only response to that, as Arnie stepped outside after finding a pair of pruning sheers.
"He's an ass, but he is right." Shelly reluctantly admitted. "It does look a little better."
"Yeah-well, I'll just feel better about it all if he knows how to do it right," Dell went into the kitchen with his cup, and poured more coffee inside. "I don't know much about all that, and I am content to that he does know something. I want her to be happy is all.
"Mama?" Shelly said after grabbing her own cup of coffee, and then sitting across from him. "Happy? I am not sure if I could ever tell when she had been."
"She was happier when you all were around to tend 'fer."
"Oh, that was happy then." Shelly said, as Dell's brow drew down sharply.
"She was happier when you were around to tend after us Dad, and well... I am not certain as she could really help it all." Danny added, and corrected his father's earlier statement to his own likening.
"What are you two getting at?" The ire in Dell's voice raised.
"Never you mind," Shelly said as she patted at the back of his hand. "I'm sorry Daddy."
"No, I want to know now." Dell said, his temper simmering back more to hear what they had to say as opposed to going away altogether.
"She was a good mother and a good woman Daddy," Shelly said, and then took a sip of her coffee as if she had explained it all.
"Who sometimes had a pretty foul temper," Danny added, as he attempted to focus his attention in on Buster.
"She did at times, but she never actually abused any of you." Dell countered.
"True... mostly." Danny said, his gaze moving towards his sister. "Ma did have her off days Dad."
"Such as?" Dell prompted.
"Such as when she jumped all over Shelly because she was pissed off at you. Or beat my ass when she was actually mad at something that Arnie had done, because I should have been looking after him."
"And why would she expect that? He is your little brother."
"No," Danny said slowly. "That's not why."
"Okay, so why then."
"Because I am crazy like she was," Arnie said as he stood at the door with handful of carefully selected blooms. "Jesus Dad, why in the hell do you think you do not really like me," Arnie went over to the vase and began plucking them in within various places.
"I love you Arnie, and I always have."
"You loved her too," Arnie shrugged as he continued to arrange the flowers around. "Seems even moreso not that she's gone."
"That's not true at all!" Dell near rose up out of his chair, but settled back in as Shelly grabbed his hand.
"When she upset you, you went away." Arnie stopped and leaned his hand against the small raised table that Dell had selected to hold the vase while he put the flowers inside. "We didn't really expect you to get it, and we always knew that you would be back. It was enough, for her leastwise."
"So, what in the hell was I supposed to do then?"
"If either of us knew that, we would probably both have been much better off." Arnie returned his attentions to the flowers, though the tears that threatened were obvious. "Such as now, I have no fucking idea why I am feeling what I feel. I really want to hit something, but here I am-- fucking with flowers that were a part of her fantasy world..." Arnie said and then looked up, as his eyes began to dry without a tear to fall. "I am a little sick and tired today, which is mostly the same as yesterday, except that I get to stand here in front of you all and blubber like a buffoon, or say shit that hurts you. I am really tired of hurting you, but I have the advantage of going home after we go and visit Mama's grave."
"It isn't his fault," Shelly said.
"No... it's not." Arnie admitted, and then shook his head. "Mama always said it was the price of being different, is all. Nobody's perfect, she would say. Ours was just kind of like a weak heart, that you could never really trust for it to keep on doing what it was supposed to do. It gets bad, it gets better-- you love and you hate the same things at different times of the day, and you just keep trying to keep one step ahead of it." Arnie said, his voice trailing off. "These flowers remind me of my connection to her. She told me about times that she just wanted to mow them all down, bury it all over... She couldn't bring herself to do that, so she took a lethal dose of pain killers instead." Arnie said, as the tears came back to his eyes. "Oh, I get that alright," he said as the tears did come this time. "Like the fucking sniffles, it fades a little and then comes back, worse than before. You can just be driving and a thought will cross your head about seeing how far you get if you just let go of the fucking steering wheel and mat the gas pedal to the floor..." Arnie gaze rose up to meet Dell's. "I don't come around here not because I do not love you Dad. I don't come around because I am tired of disappointing you."
"Yeah," Dell said, after not really being sure what to say after that.
"She loved you too," Arnie added and then shrugged. "She went out to the garden, yanked a few weeds or planted something else. Never really knowing why being alone made her feel better, because it don't really make any kind of fucking sense to any ordinary, average human being why you would even want that... to not really be a part of this world anymore."
"I suppose that I am glad that she did have someone that knew what she wanted... or how she felt." Dell moved away from the table, and stepped over towards his son--whom near instinctively stepped back. "It's alright, I figure that we are all just about ready to go and set these where they need to be." Dell said, not moving any closer. "Well, as soon as your sister puts some dang clothes on, we will be ready."
"Yeah," Arnie forced a smile and nodded, as he moved away to sit uncomfortably on the sofa.
"Looks good Arnie," Dell said. "You think you could do this again next year?"
"Yeah," Arnie fingers clenched and released, and then a more realistic sort of smile came over his features before he nodded.
"That'd make her happy I think." Dell nodded.
"That'd make you happy," Arnie said, the smile wearing a little thin. "I like to do that on occasion. Keeps you guessing." Arnie said, and Dell smirked as Shelly went back up stair to get dressed.
"She always said that you had your own sense of humor." Dell said as he grabbed the vase and carried it over to the kitchen table. "It always struck me that you felt the best when you were being contrary."
"Sometimes," Arnie nodded.
"Every day, about every time you opened your damn mouth," Danny said as he grabbed Buster's leash.
"It was always about shit that mattered to me," Arnie looked at his brother as if he had just said something crazy.
"Yes we know, the world officially ended when the Sex Pistols broke up." Danny rolled his eyes and Arnie smirked.
"Have you heard the music that is being played today?"
Uley
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