Joan Wilking
Show and Tell
Scene:A Kindergarten
The narrator is a little girl. She is sitting cross legged on the
floor in half light at center stage facing straight out into the
audience. One elbow rests on her knee. Her face is cupped in that
hand. She is listening attentively. As the light comes up and
spotlights her she straightens up, acknowledges that it’s her turn,
and begins to speak.
This morning Daddy found a dead body on the front lawn.
"Not the pleasantest way to start the day," he said.
He told Mommy he wasn’t sure what it was.
"I’ve got a pretrial hearing at one," he told her.
That’s why he closed the curtains, showered, dressed, kissed me,
kissed her –she was still in bed–and drove halfway to the train
station before he turned around and went to Uncle Sylvan’s.
Uncle Sylvan isn’t my uncle. He’s Daddy’s law partner. He lives
next door. I’d never seen him in his nightclothes before. I was
standing with Mommy when she opened the curtains. He ran by in his
bathrobe and slippers.
"What the...." I’m not allowed to say the word Mommy said.
Mommy banged on the window. He waved and kept on going. Then the
phone rang and there was yelling and Mommy hollering, "You get up
here right now."
The Policeman was really nice.
Daddy said, "Don’t tell him anything."
Mommy said, "Stay out of the way. Behave."
I know how to behave.
When the lady sat out front in her car for three days I behaved.
When another lady called and said she was locked in the bedroom I
behaved.
She said, "I need to speak to a lawyer right away."
"Don’t call me again," Daddy told her, "You think he’s going to
kill you? Call 911."
I told the Policeman, "Someone should take a blanket. Cover him
up. It’s so cold."
"Don’t worry sweetheart," he said, "The coroner will be here
soon. We’re all going to stay right here until then."
Daddy told Mommy, "Sit down."
Mommy shouted, "I know what you were going to do. You were going
to leave it for me."
"I wasn’t thinking," Daddy said. "I’ve got a pretrial hearing at
one."
"Calm down," the Policeman said.
"My husband found a stiff on the front lawn and tried to pretend
it wasn’t there and you want me to calm down," Mommy said.
Uncle Sylvan came in.
"Yup," he said, "There’s a dead body up there on the lawn."
"No sh...!" I can’t say the word Mommy said
Then the yelling started again and the Policeman tried to calm
them down. That’s when I went into my room and took the extra
blanket out of closet. I put my jacket on over my nightgown, pulled
on my boots, and walked really slow. The snow made a squeaky crunchy
sound.
He was lying up there all right, one hand up, the other down,
fast asleep. I’d almost finished tucking him in, nice and tight,
when I heard Mommy scream, and Daddy, and that nice Policeman
running. That’s when things really started getting crazy, when I
heard the sound of their shoes and boots, chick, chak, chick, chak,
chick, chak, running toward me in all that squeaky crunchy snow.
Joan Wilking's short fiction has appeared in The Mississippi
Review, The Harvard Summer Review, Atlantic Unbound
and The Barcelona Review. She lives in Ipswich,
Massachusetts. |