The Fourteenth Colony: a novel with music Chapter 1

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TheFourteenthColony a novel with music


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HE FOUREENH COLONYby Jason . Lewis


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Tis book is a work o ction.

Special thanks to Michael Reynnells and all those whosupported this publication through kickstarter.com.

Tis edition was created through the hard work and supporto many riends, including Gerry Schramm, David Etler,

and Anna Kreuger.

Copyright 2011 Jason . Lewis/Sad Iron Press

All rights reserved

o download the companion albumvisit www.sadironpress.com


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ALBUM CREDITS:

All songs written by Jason . Lewis

Perormed by:

Jason . Lewis:Vocals, guitars, auxiliary percussion

Randall Davis: Guitars, lap steel

Ryan Bernemann: Bass, vocals, accordion

Adam Bernemann: Drums

Brian Umlah: rumpet on Back in own

Produced by Randall Davis and Jason . Lewis

Recorded at Flat Black Studio, Iowa City and Sad Iron Studio,

Iowa City

Mixed by Pete Becker

Mastered by Carl Sa


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For Teresa and Vaughan

Dedicated to my ather


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Te hum o the amp. Feel it through the oor,hollow plywood stage, boots sticking to beer-tacky

carpet, once green, or grey, now dark sea o stain. Loopthe strap overhead. Te weight o hard wood tetheringyou to the stage but you are ready to y, ngers tingling,heart pounding. Alive. Tis is what it is to be alive. Feelthe strings, tripwires; plectrum, vibration, wood andsteel, magnetic coils, electricity, amplier, speak, soundexplosion. Alchemy. An open mouth on a puckered wound,

sucking the poison out. Te vessel that will carry the voice.Wait, mouth closed, eel the words tickling the throat, thepressure building inside, like a heart attack must eel, butbeautiul, coveted death explosion. Ten rebirth. You arethe shell that protects the voice, cocoon to chrysalis, vesselto ancient incantation. Te voice has always been, the vessel

had to be molded rom eshclay. Tree years old, the voicetook over; powerul, so much power. How could anythingthat harnessed that power ever be struck down? Te moreyou used it, the more powerul the voice became, until therewas nothing o the vessel. You were the voice. It consumedyou. It consumed everything you set in its way.

Tere were lies you invented yoursel and the voicesaid them back to you. Echolalia.

Feel the hum. Te voice bubbling up. Feet on theplywood, gently buoyant under your weight. Te plectrumcold, soon to be warmed by riction. Dont strum too hard.Let the tool do the work. Pluck the chord like the strap o athin chemise slipping rom a shoulder. Te rst assent. Andthe rst loss.


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CHAPTER 1

Te school was or sale. A dingy, tilted realtor sign,pockmarked and aded, stood sentinel in the small patcho grass where we kids used to board the buses. Pricereduced! said the sign.

I let the van coast as I came even with the oldbuilding. How many days had I spent in thererst grade

to eighthhundreds, maybe thousands? God, I hatedthat place, the smell o chalk dust, the eel o it bloatingmy hands as I sweat at the board struggling to diagram asentence, or solve some equation; the overheated rooms,the overcooked ood, the paddling I took in the principalsoce when I called Mrs. Wenzel a bitchfh grade, a year

or so afer Mom and Dad split up, afer it sank in that thesplit was permanent. Te principal had an over-wet mouth;white, oamy spittle collected in the corners. He sat me inhis oce and looked me up and down. It was an elaborateshow, one that Im sure hed worked out over the years andpolished to perection. Tat kind of talk is not acceptablein school and to use a word like that directed at a teacher

is inexcusable. He bent me over his desk and whacked methree times with his raternity paddle. I didnt cry. I didntwhimper. I took it and it hurt, but I wasnt going to let himmake me cry.

God, I hated that place. And now it was or sale, pricereduced.

I couldnt just pass by. I had to stop and look. I pulledinto the ar side o the turnabout. Te vans rame groanedover the rumpled pavement. It was only a matter o timebeore the van collapsed on me, but it had gotten me across


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Te Fourteenth Colony

the country, been a hotel and a reuge on our tours, andnow it had gotten me home.

I idled beore the steps and studied the crumblingbrick aade, the weathered sandstone columns ankingthe doors, the peeled white paint, the broken windows.How long had the place been empty? I ought the urge toget out o the van and throw chunks o asphalt through theremaining panes o glass. A coal truck geared down androlled by slow. I was untethered. Te past and the present

existing on the same plane. Further down the road, the coaltruck grumbled as it started the climb out o town, headingout the way Id come.

Tirteen years. When I last saw these streets Iwas eighteen years old, riding high in the back seat o aGreyhound bus. I was too young to know that you never sit

in the backseat o a Greyhound, to avoid the perverts andthe smell rom the toilet. I still cant stand the smell o thatblue liquid they use in those things. As the bus rolled bythe school on the way out o town I wasnt thinking aboutanything but the world o possibility that awaited me. I gavethe school the nger through the tinted window and eltsatised. I had my cheap second-hand guitar, a suitcase o

all the wrong clothes and three hundred dollars Id gottenor graduating high school. I didnt tell anyone I was leaving.I was araid i I told anyone and they looked at me wrong Idlose my nerve. And I needed to get out. My lie dependedon it. Now I was sneaking back into town, shamed, broken,angry, the same as when I lef.

I couldnt look at the school anymore. I decided itwas the saddest thing I ever saw in my lie. Te urge to turnback and ollow the coal truck out o town was strong, butthe ew dollars in my pocket and the act I had nowhere else


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to go were stronger.I hadnt spoken to my mother in our years, when I

called her on her birthday afer I got drunk enough to dialthe number. I sat by the phone, downing beer afer beer,watching the day die through a motel window, trying to putmy hand on the phone. I was araid shed hang up on me,but when I nally dialed the number and said, Hey Mom,she cried.

Are you coming home? she said through the sobs.

Tere was the crunckle o a beer can against the receiverand I knew she had to be as drunk as me, celebrating in hersame old way. I lied and said Id come home soon, maybethat summer, maybe the next Christmas, but back thenI had no intention o ever coming back. I listened to hertalk, blubbering over how much she missed me. When she

started in with stories about people that I didnt want toremember I hurried o the phone with a happy birthdayand a spine-shivering I love you. I never called again. NowI drove through town girding mysel or the welcome shemight have or me, maybe with open arms, maybe with adoor slamming in my ace, maybe just a ew tears and thenwed pretend like Id never lef.

Te downtown area was just one street, Front Street,three blocks long that ran between the railroad tracks andRoute 7. Angled toward the road at the intersection whereyou turned to get to Front Street, the local Moose Lodgehad posted a sign in the time since I lef. It looked likesomething stolen rom a national park, varnished logs andhand-carved lettering, painted gold and green, the highschool colors. It read: Vandalia, W.Va.Where businessmeets pleasure. It was clear there was neither business norpleasure in Vandalia. Next to the sign was a wrought iron


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marker that identied our town as the last symbol o theaborted ourteenth colony o Vandalia. We learned about

it in school, how the borders were surveyed and the capitalchosen, but then the Revolutionary War broke out and bythe time it was over, Vandalia had been orgotten. It waspart o West Virginia history class in the eighth grade. Everyonce in a while I would mention it in conversation, but noone ever knew what I was talking about. No one had everheard o the ourteenth colony. But then again, usually

when I told someone where I grew up they said somethinglike, Oh yeah? I have a riend who lives in Roanoke.

I didnt remember town this way, hal dead, brokendown. I rode down Front Street and surveyed the wasteland;the supermarket, new not long beore I lef, the windowsnow caked with road grime, the paint peeling rom the

sign I remembered as bright and resh. Te library wasshuttered, a window display o childrens books urry withdust. Te storeront where Dad bought me a baseball gloveI never used was long empty, all leaves blown against thedoor. Next door to that, the historical society in the buildingthat used to be the courthouse, pictures in the windows oblack-aced miners, the old hospital in the years when it

was a B asylum. In another window, a diorama o quilts,railroad spikes, a butter churn, a miners helmet, a musket,and the state ag.

Front Street might have been the ocial downtown,but the real town center was about a hal mile down theroad where several o the older streets in town convergedon Route 7 to make a lopsided triangle. On one corner othe triangle was Howdys service station (the owners lastname was Howdershelt, but everyone called him Howdy),catty-corner to Howdys was the Dipsie Doodle, and the


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point o the triangle was the pharmacy on one side o theroad and the bank on the other. Tis triangle was where all

the business in town got done. When I was small, Dad tookme to Howdys late on Saturday mornings. Howdy alwayslet me go behind the counter and pick out a candy bar,which hed let me work o by emptying the garbage cansinto the dumpster in the back. I Howdys was still standingthere was hope. But it wasnt. Te windows were boardedover, the gas pumps gone, exposed pipes laced with yellow

caution tape.Across the road, the Dipsie Doodle was renamed the

Hog Pen, although nothing had really changed about itexcept there was a Harley Davidson sign in the window. Icouldnt help but scan the parking lot or a truck that couldhave been Dads. Te Doodle was Dads second avorite bar

afer the VFW. He went to the Doodle in the second halo the month, when hed run up too much o a tab at theVFW. I he had a really bad month, hed continue down theroad to Stoneys, but that place was almost to the Marylandborder and you had to drive through town to get there romthe cabin. It wasnt a good idea to end a long day o drinkingwith a drive through town. But Dad did it anyway.

Any one o the trucks in the Hog Pen lot couldhave been his, all beat down, rusted out, not a single onemanuactured afer 1989. Tere were a couple motorcyclesin the lot. I wasnt ready or a place like that. It was still earlyand I couldnt be sure I wanted to nd Dad, i he was hereto nd. I hadnt spoken to him in more than hal my lie,he was no more ather to me than a tree stump, whateverinuence hed once had over me was long gone. I decideda long time ago that I hated him. Maybe I blamed him orthings, but in a more honest moment I couldnt say it was all


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him that made things turn out like they did. Afer a whilehe became like a memory o a movie Id seen a long time

ago. My old neighborhood was no improvement overthe rest o the town. Te old houses in the nicer section Iremembered as majestic were chalky white aluminum-sidedour squares, eaves rotting, curtain-less windows. I oncethought this part o the neighborhood was where the richpeople lived. Seeing these sad, old places, I dont know how

I got that idea.When I was a kid, this was a decent middle class

neighborhood, lots o amilies, some older olks, but a goodplace to grow up. Tere was a school and a playgroundnearby, not too many cars on the roads and what carsthere were drove slow and careul through the streets.

It was the kind o neighborhood where we kids playedtouch ootball in the road until the streetlights came on.I remember those early years, when I was really young,as nice, quiet. As I got older the neighborhood started tochange. Te more upwardly mobile amilies moved outto the new developments near the lake or out o townaltogether. Te amilies who had ound their level, mine

included, stayed longer, but most trickled away. By the timeI was in high school there were no more kids my age lef inthe neighborhood, just old people and rentals. Not that Icared all that much by then. I was never really a part o anygroup. I was the kid who the rest o the kids never calledor basketball games or when they were going to build anice ort on a snow day. I was the kid who sat in the picturewindow, surveying the neighborhood until I saw signs oactivity on a yard a ew houses away, or a group o kidsdribbling a ball toward the playground and then I would


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race to put my sneakers on, eet pounding, heartbroken andrunning afer them.

I turned the corner to the old house, girding myselor a shock, but the street in the dusk looked so dierentthat I thought I made a wrong turn. Te old man whoowned the land at the end o the road had a huge gardenand beyond that a small copse o trees that most o thekids who never spent any time out in the county mistookor woods. It was our ort, our jungle, later the place where

I rst kissed a girl. It was the place I went to hide whenMom and Dad ought. Tere was a huge stand o boxwood,hollow on the inside, that I stayed in or hours while Iwaited or things to cool down, or I saw Dad drive away inhis truck.

But the woods were gone, along with the old mans

garden, and hal o the houses on the side o the streetopposite ours, replaced by cheap-looking tan row houses.Our house was still there though, still the same, i not a littleshabbier. Relie. Moments beore Id been dreading the sighto it, not wanting to knock on that door, see Moms ace,explain mysel, or worsenot having to explain mysel andher with welcoming arms. Now I was just happy that the

place still existed.I parked across the street in ront o the rst row o

condos and looked the place over. Not much had changed;the siding was still tan, the eaves still white, paint peeling,but the house looked smaller, a little cracker box o a ranchsitting at the top o a little slope. Te picture window stilltherelens o Christmas mornings snow, birds on thetelephone wire, college girls stepping rom the shower inthe rental house that was gone now, a brie glimpse o skinin the morning light beore school. Te house was and was


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not the house o my memory, but instead a dingy little twobedroom, porch railings rusted, mailbox dangling by one

screw, berglass garage door dirty, streaked window pane inthe picture window rame. I sat or a ew minutes more. Nolights on. Full dark came. Te sodium street lamps ickeredto lie, casting their piss-yellow pall across the dash, givingmy ngers, still white-knuckled on the wheel, jaundice. Ihad to do it.

Te agstone steps had come loose o their mortar

and I walked along the edges o the stairs to keep romslipping. It was cold. It had been a while since Id been in awinter, how the cold got into your blood, and I realized my

jean jacket was not going to be enough. A wind rolled downthe hill and cut through me.

I came even with the curtain-less picture window and

ventured a peek inside. I couldnt make out anythingnourniture, no shapes whatsoeverthen came a thunderrom inside. A dog. A big dog. I took a step back. Ive hatedbig dogs since I was small. A amily one street down hada Siberian husky that took a chunk out o my thigh oneafernoon when I was playing tag with the other kids. Istill have the image o the dog leaping up and his mouth

clamped onto my thigh. Mom raised a stink and called thecops, who insisted that the dog get checked or rabies. I stillhave the scar on my thigh rom that bite.

A huge German shepherd crashed into the glass. Tepane wanted to give, bowed out rom the orce, but it heldand the dog threw itsel into it over and over again, spittleying rom its jowls. From somewhere deep in the house:Get the uck down, you piece o shit. A mans voice. A

voice I didnt recognize. Te dog kept on coming, clawingat the window. I could see now the wooden sill was nearly


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scraped away rom similar incidents.Footsteps inside the house pounding toward the

window. Te dog backed o at their approach. Somewhereinside the dark room, a smack, a whimper, and the dog wasgone into the house. Back toward the bedrooms, a doorslammed. Te man returned.

Who the uck are you? I couldnt see the personspeaking, somewhere inside the room outside the light thatspilled in rom the street lamps.

Tis is my house, I said.Te uck it is. Tis my house. Ive been in this house

going on two years, ucking crackhead. Get the uck out ohere beore I call the law.

My Mom wasnt the kind o person who lef. She wasthe kind o person who talked about leaving, but never did.

She would never have sold the house. I knew that.Tis was my house, I said. I grew up here. My momlives here. I was regressing to some kind o child-like state,the pitch o my voice higher, pleading.

Oh shit. Te voice sofened a little, lowered involume. Te ghost o a shape moved past the window. Teheavy wooden door opened. Come in here.

I entered my childhood home. Te room was still darkand the dog started up again somewhere in the house, myold bedroom, it sounded like.

I apologize, the man said. His voice was sof now.It was a black mans voice. When I was a kid there were noblacks in Vandalia. He turned on a lamp. Beore me was aman in his middle orties, maybe ve oot eight, stocky, witha pot belly. He was wearing a maintenance uniorm romthe hospital. I knew it was a maintenance uniorm becauseDad wore the same one when he worked there. Te shirt


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was open, white -shirt underneath. Te name over hislef breast: Harold. You want something to drink? Harold

said. I looked at him or a ew seconds, conused. Wheresmy mom?

He looked at the oor.I knew then she was dead.Ill get you a Coke, he said. Sit down. He went to

the kitchen and I stood in the little oyer waiting, shivering.

He came back with two Diet Cokes, opened them both andhanded one to me.

He said, Shit, looked at me, then took a long drink.Come sit down. He waved me to an armchair across theroom. He looked me in the eye, like he was trying to seesomething. Te lady that lived hereyour motherdied

two years ago. Drunk driving accident.I was sick. I swallowed hard to keep the bile down. Itook a drink o the Coke. It was hard to draw a breath. Shewas drunk?

No. No. Some high school kid. Football Friday,drunk as a skunk. Walked away without a scratch. Sadthing. I never go out when theres a ootball game. Tose

kids are like animals these days.We were quiet or a minute. Te dog scraped at a

door down the hall. Te urnace kicked on. I couldntspeak. Harold went back into the kitchen to give me sometime alone. I could hear him in there, moving around, notknowing what to do with himsel. I looked out the picturewindow or a long time, trying to recognize anything at all.I couldnt. Te sun glowed pink beyond the hills, the coloro blood and milk, but the valley was dark. I went out to thekitchen.


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Im sorry I bothered you. I didnt know. I hadnttalked to her in a ew years.

Its OK. Harold was making a sandwich. He workedthe midnight shif at the hospital. I woke him up with myarrival. He spread mayonnaise on white bread and I slippedin time, seeing Mom do the same thing hundreds o timesin the same exact spot. I could almost taste the white bread.He slipped the sandwich into a baggie and dropped it into asof, insulated lunch bag.

He said, I saved some things that were still in thehouse. Funny, I eel like I know you. Tere were all thesepapers in a box in the basement, old school papers and stu.I couldnt help but look. You get curious to want to knowwho lived in your house beore you. You can go look i youwant to. Te closet under the stairs. ake them i you want.

I hesitated.Go on, Ive got a while beore I have to go to work.Harold said. Its OK.

When Mom and Dad bought the house, the basementwas unnished. Beore Dad lef, the basement becamethe amily room. Afer Dad lef, it was my bedroom. He

renovated it himsel with hand-hewn cherry wood paneling.He laid thin low-pile carpet over the concrete oor (greenand brown with a eur-de-lis pattern) and brought in acouple beanbag chairs and a couch, a V, o course. I keptall my toys down there in the same closet where Harold hadshoved the box containing the remains o my childhood.One o my earliest childhood memories was watching Vusing Dads butt as a pillow. We watched a lot o variety andmusical revue shows: Te Captain and ennille, Sonny andCher, Donny and Marie, Lawrence Welk, Hee Haw. Tose


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were good times, beore the late-night ghting, beore Dadstayed out all night drinking.

I descended the stairs in the dark, araid to turn thelights on and see the room entirely. I elt my way to thecloset and ound the pull string or the light, right where itwas the last time I used it. I knew the box right away; a hugeold hat box I ound in my grandmothers attic when I wasseven or eight. It was round and gold, the box I used to storeanything rom the ticket stub I got when Mom took me to

Disney World, newspaper clippings o Pirates box scoresrom the early eighties, to a drawing I made o Spider-Manand love notes that were passed to me rom desk to desk in

junior high, every paper artiact o my young lie. I savedeverything.

I pulled the box out o the closet and picked the rst

relic o the topa program rom a choir concert whenI was in the second grade. I remembered it in a rush osenses, the dusty hot smell o the gym, my sweating palms,the ootlights blinding me to the crowd beyond the stage,the way my heart murmured as I walked to the mic ormy solo. Beneath the program, the lyrics to the rst song Itried to write. I read the rst lines and ushed red. errible.

Embarrassing. I couldnt look urther into the box, not yet.Harold walked across the oor upstairs and or a second Ithought Mom was coming. But she wasnt. She wouldnt.I sat cross-legged on the oor, the light rom the closetspilling into my lap and held my ace in my hands.

A year or so afer the divorce Mom started datingagain. I was nine or ten. I didnt like it. I hoped that maybeshe and Dad would get back together. She never dated anyone guy or too long and or a while I thought that meant


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there was still hope. Te guys were always orty-ish andsingle, mists and nerds, riends o riends. Most o these

guys looked at me like a dead spot in an otherwise ne-looking patch o lawn. And that was OK. I didnt wantanything to do with them either. Tey took Mom to theOwls Club or dinner and then later I listened to themgroping on the couch. I stayed awake to make sure Momdidnt get in trouble. Usually, the guy gave up afer a halhour or so and she showed him the door. I was proud o her.

I thought she was getting stronger. Until Stan.Stan was an all-right guy or the most part. He sold

insurance and had a new car. He used to drive a cab inMorgantown and had all kinds o crazy stories about peoplehed driven rom place to placea guy who called him whenhis wie stabbed him with a steak knie. In the middle o

winter and the guy came out o his trailer shirtless with theknie sticking out o his chest. It had gone deep enough thatthe serrated edge was stuck in his ribs, but not deep enoughto puncture anything important. Te wie ollowed the guyoutside screaming, You come back here again and Ill carveyou up, motherucker. Stan laughed his head o every timehe told the story.

Stan was pretty nice to me. He played ootball in highschool, listened to ZZ op and loved proessional wrestling.Stan started staying overnight afer a ew months, only onweekends. Te rest o the time he lived across the countywith his mother. Tat should have been a warning sign, butat the time I was just glad to have someone to hang out withwho seemed to like me. Wed watch wrestling together onSaturday mornings and even though I knew it was ake andthought it was stupid it was nice to have a guy to do stuwith. Stan treated me like a buddy.


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Mom was happy with him at rst, too, and that mademe glad. In those rst couple years afer Dad lef, she went

rom relieved that he was gone, listening to radio stationshe never liked, planting tomato plants in the side yard, tositting in the living room the day afer a date went bad andsmoking, not talking. When she met Stan it seemed likeeverything might get back to normal, that maybe wed beable to be a amily, but Stan was a drinker and he didnt onlydrink beer, like Dad; he was a whiskey man.

Until Stan, I dont remember Mom ever drinking.Stan was uncomortable around people who wouldnt dothe same things as he did. Tey ought about it late at night,Stan sloppy drunk and Mom trying to steer him into bed.At rst, he was a jovial drunk, he kidded her about it butafer a while he got mean. He called her a rigid bitch. He

said she was judging him. She was lonely and Stan was therst good thing that happened to her in a long time. Soonshe started coming home as drunk as he was, i not worse.

And Stan could conne his drinking to the weekends.Hed drink, puke, get up and do it again the next day, butwhen Monday rolled around, he was reshly scrubbed andchipper, ready to hit the road and sell some insurance.

Mom didnt handle hersel as well. It wasnt longbeore she was buying orties to put hersel to sleep at nightwhen Stan was across the county. Tose nights, Mom saton the couch in ront o the V, sucking on her orty untilshe was tired enough to go to sleep. Tats about when Istarted sleeping in the basement. It was like having my ownapartment. I put my mattress on the oor in the back cornero the room where I could watch V or read until I wentto sleep. I could come and go through the garage door, pissin the basement shower and wash and dry my own clothes.


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Te only time I had to go upstairs was or ood and to take acrap. For a while it worked out OK.

Ten Stan lef Mom or another woman. He justdidnt come to dinner one Friday night and Mom knewwhat was going on. I heard her on the phone, talking tohis mother, yelling afer the woman hung up on her. Shestomped around upstairs. Te ashtray by the couch clankedon the end stand, cigarette afer cigarette stubbed out. Shedowned a couple orties on the couch, enough to really get

her buzzed. I almost went upstairs to try and talk to her, butI heard her talking to hersel, cursing, and that scared me alittle. Ten she lef without saying anything to me. She wasgone a ew hours. I read or a while, watched a movie, triednot to think about her, but it was hard. Around one, I heardthe car pull in the driveway, the ront door open, uneven

ootsteps across the oor. Te radio came on, blasting outthe op 40 station.I pulled the covers up to my ears. I could tell she

was really drunk by how many times she stumbled intourniture and cursed. I curled into a ball. She ran into everyobject in the house on her way to the bedroom. Maybeshe would just pass out. . . . No. She thumped around the

bedroom, still talking to hersel. She made her way intothe kitchen. Te rerigerator opened, closed, and then sheopened and closed it again.Just steer yourself to bed, I saidto mysel.

Te basement door opened and rom where I lay inbed I saw her bare eet and legs begin their descent.

I want a hot dog, she said in a sing-songy voice, likeshe was cheering or the home team at a ootball game. Iplayed possum, eyes hal-closed.

I wanna hot dog, Hi-dee-ho! She said it louder this


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time. When I didnt respond she kept saying it, stumblingdown a step or two each time. At rst, I saw her bare legs

and thought she was in the baggy old -shirt she wore as anightie. But as she chanted her mantra, rst her calves, thenthighs, bare hips, waist, and nally breasts, pendulous anddangling, descended into the basement.

At the bottom she said, I want a hot dog, Hi-dee-ho!I didnt respond.You ucker, I want a hot dog.

Go to bed, Mom.Dont tell me what the hell to do. I want a hot dog.I couldnt look at her.We dont have any hot dogs, I said.Dont tell me that. She was breathing hard, and her

speech was thick, like she was talking through two at lips.

Wheres Stan? I asked.I need a hot dog, she said quietly. She had started tocry. She sat down hard on the steps, put her head betweenher knees, and threw up. Spit trailed rom her lips.

Why doesnt anyone want to love me? she said.She lifed her hair above her head with one hand and

wiped her mouth with the other. She had vomit running

down the inside o her shins. It was all I could do to keeprom puking mysel.

When I was little, maybe ve or six, she had ahysterectomy. I didnt know what that was, but knew itwasnt good. She came home rom the hospital on a Fridayafernoon. Te next Monday she still couldnt get out o bed.I was late or school, Dad was already gone to work. I wasstanding by her bed, wondering what I should do, when shesaid, Go into the living room and bring back your shoes.Her voice was weak, as it had been when she told me I


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would never have a brother or a sister, and I was too scaredto ask why. I sat on the oor beside the bed, and she talked

me through tying my shoesbow, loop, pull throughoverand over she said it. I orgot about school. It took me a longtime to get it, but nally I did. She smiled at me when I wasnished.

Youre such a big boy, she said. Im sorry you had tolearn to do it this way. I am sorry. But Im so proud o you.

It was the tenderest moment I can remember between

us.I love you, Mom, I said, getting out o bed. I said it

again as I made my way around the vomit at the bottom othe stairs. I lifed her by her armpits and guided her up thestairs to the bathtub where I rinsed her and pressed chunksdown the drain with my ngertips. Te smell o vomit

mixed badly with the honeysuckle bath wash. More thanonce, I bent over the toilet, thinking I was going to be sick,but nothing came up.

Im sorry, she said. Im sorry, Im sorry, Im sorry,Im sorry.

Her body was still damp when I tucked her into bed.Beneath her grogginess, she looked miserable and scared,

but I orced mysel to remember the way her ace lookedthat day she taught me to tie my shoes.

She said, I want a hot dog, one more time beoreshe drifed o to sleep. I watched her ace go slack, all thetension released.

I carried the box out o the basement and set it by theront door. Te dog was nally quiet in the bedroom.

You got some place to go? Harold said. He looked atthe clock. It would be time or his shif soon.


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I thought I did. I chuckled, to show him I wasjoking, but he didnt get my meaning. Ill gure something

out. Have you had supper? I made an extra sandwich.No, thanks. I should get going. You have to get to

work soon.How do you know that?My dad used to work the midnight shif at the

hospital.

Oh yeah? Whos that?I told him the name and he shook his head.No, cant say I know him, but that dont mean a lot.It was a long time ago.We stood in the living room and I looked around. It

was much the same as it had been when it was my house.

Harold had hung pictures on the hooks where Momhung pictures o me. A boy, a girl, maybe ten and twelverespectively. A woman. No Harold. He lived in this housealone. I wanted to ask where his amily was, but didnt.What happened to Moms old pictures? Tey werent in thebox.

He said, I wont let you out o here until you sit and

eat. Youve just had a shock. You need to eat.I was hungry. He led me to the table and I sat. He

brought me the sandwich and put a bag o potato chips onthe table, another can o Coke. I hadnt nished the rstone, but I didnt say anything. He sat down beside me andpretended to look at the paper while I ate. Te sandwich wasthick-cut ham with American cheese and yellow mustard,white bread. Mom made me the same sandwich I dontknow how many times. Everything was owing together. Itook the bread o the top and layered chips on top o the


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Jason . Lewis

cheese. Tis was my avorite way to eat a sandwich when Iwas a kid. It had been years since I did that.

You going to be all right? Harold olded the paperand looked at me.I shrugged.You need a place to stay you can stay here.You dont know me at all.He laughed. Feel like I do. Seems like you were quite

the singer.

Yeah.Still do it?I did. aking some time o. Waiting or new

opportunities to develop.I hear that. Where were you living?New York or a long time. Ten LA.

He whistled. Big time. You do anything I would haveheard?No.Well. He looked at the clock again.I better let you get to work, I said.I mean it. Stay here.Tanks, but I cant.

He oered to walk me to the van but I said no andthanked him again. He was trying to do something or me,but there was nothing more he could do. I went outside, boxunder my arm, still not quite accepting Mom was dead. Iexpected to see her at any moment in the picture windowlike Id seen her a thousand times beore, waving goodbye.Harold waved instead like he knew I was expecting it. Iwaved back.

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The Fourteenth Colony: a novel with music Chapter 1

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