Crueler Than Fiction
By Christopher Shipman
[...]and surrounding her lives that were crueler than fiction, [...] with consequences fiction can never have.
—Zadie Smith, White Teeth
Maybe the boy is an only child. Close with his father, every third Sunday
they skip church, pack the car for a trip to Pinnacle Mountain.
At the last precipice they enjoy a light lunch with the view. If it rains, God is
in the rain. Maybe the boy’s mother crosses Rock Island Bridge
walking home. Broken road slick with rain, a cement truck loses control.
Flung over the edge, her body falls like a brick into the river.
Maybe the boy loves walking with his sister to the farmers market a mile
into town. To school in the whisper of snow Arkansas winters.
The pond by the apiary on their grandparents’ land. This is where they break
into a run. Sweat through the fuss the bees make. Like his pulse
purpose lives in every step. Like a swarm, at home horrible voices alive
in the brick. Again, he’s greeted. Again, his mother’s disease.
Maybe the boy is the oldest of three. His mother a widow. A wiz at math
like her, the boy teaches his brothers to be practical. To count
on fingers—on hands. To multiply columns of time. Their world will always
work itself out to work against them. Be ready, the boy teaches.
When his mother dives into a well the boy gathers his brothers beside it.
To count until committed to memory the number of its bricks.
Maybe the boy’s twin sister dies at birth. A brother born the next summer
lives two years before his heart outgrows the chest that holds it.
Something grows inside the boy. The life that death builds. Nightly he waits
by the window. He makes a wish—watches as it goes feathering
through the branches. Every tree his favorite tree. Any sapling a sibling.
His mother’s stomach grows again. A tumor as big as a brick.
Maybe the boy is adopted. Maybe he grows up on a modest farm growing
corn for his adoptive parents, tending cattle. A small-town star
on the high school football team, he gets a full ride at University of Arkansas.
Going pro not in the cards, he decides to coach. Like the sun, God
follows him home. Like the moon, he never marries. Chooses to adopt.
His father calls with bad news. The phone a brick in his hand.
Maybe the boy isn’t one of seven. Maybe his father, not an absentee father,
is not an alcoholic. Doesn’t abuse the boy’s mother. Isn’t often
in jail. The boy’s mother—her brother-in-law doesn’t covet her affection, his
car never parked down the street on quiet nights. The boy doesn’t
have to save her because his uncle never decides to break in. The boy’s
mother will not be murdered with a brick. Bricks do not exist.
—
About Author
Christopher Shipman is a poet, teacher, & drummer. Recent work appears or is forthcoming in Fence, New Orleans Review, POETRY, & elsewhere. His experimental play Metaphysique D’Ephemera has been staged at four universities. Getting Away with Everything (2021), in collaboration with Vincent Cellucci, is his most recent collection.
Author’s Socials:
Instagram: @ship_on_the_line
X: @hisdarkcorner