Happy 2nd Birthday, Emile!

It’s been a week since your second birthday, and I still have yet to write my birthday letter to you. Things are just as hectic as everyone said they would be. Some days I accept it. Some days I rage against it like King Lear and the thunderstorm. But every day I’m grateful for what you and your siblings have taught me about what’s important. I was so set on this idea of “making it” and “getting noticed” that I forgot why I started to write to begin with. I wrote and created art to feel normal and well inside. It became my medication, protecting me from a mediocre world with mediocre ideas and even more shallow emotions.  

Now there is no time to let those demons have their way. I have to make the time to write when I can find the time and when I’m bold enough to take artistic risks. Hollywood, the publishing world, and any industry under the sun wouldn’t have known what to make of me anyway. Not to mention, stardom sounds about as interesting as cyanide these days. 

For the first time, I fear death more than anything. It might not be saying much to the average person, but it’s a revolutionary idea to me. For the first time, I don’t need the Shangri-la promise of celebrity-induced admiration to get me through my days. I only need the admiration of the people under one roof. My roof. And that roof is bigger than the world, and big enough to fill my love for you, and my love for everyone in it. But today I reaffirm my love for you, Emile. Because you are 2-years-old today. And you will be 2-years-old forever in my heart, a heart once filled with the wrong things. False things. With bad feelings and dumb ideas. The struggle is real and the struggle is to be as honest and good as possible in every corner of your life. The struggle is the embodiment of suffering, but it’s the only struggle that counts. 

I don’t claim to have won that battle, but I know that I am winning. And I can give you no birthday gift to compensate for that.

I love you, Emile. How did I ever make it without you and your siblings? God only knows. 

Happy birthday.      

The Olive Tree

I had a roommate in college that couldn’t get used to it. Frank would walk in and say, “How come you’re always just looking at the wall when I come in?” I wanted to tell him that I was actually staring at the corner between the ceiling and the wall, but I knew it wouldn’t matter. I was socially inept back then, but I wasn’t that helpless.  

But I would just lay there and think, feeling an immense sense of sadness about my life. I wanted to get away from who I was without losing my heart, my mind, and my beliefs. Daydreaming provided a drug-free buffer from a world that didn’t get me but still couldn’t get rid of me.   

It really seemed to bother Frank though. It was the way he’d say it. Not with malice, but not jokingly either. Like he’d caught someone smelling their own underwear. In time, whenever I heard him approaching the door, I’d sit up and find something to do in order to look occupied. It was like working a minimum-wage job and hearing the boss’s keys jangling around the corner. 

I still do it today when I hear Yvonne walking upstairs yet she’s one of the few people who’s ever understood me. It’s another little complex of mine that I’ve picked up like a common cold, and I don’t see it leaving my body anytime soon. 

It takes love and it takes guts to undo what’s been done by an idiot. But we only have less than a lifetime to undo it. And there’s no shortage of idiots.

Chauvet-Pont-D’Arc by Marc Alexander Valle

One of my earliest memories of your grandmother is learning how to spell words. She would draw a picture and write the word beneath it. I asked her multiple times to run this lesson for me, and every time she did do it for me, she’d place a cup of juice with Vienna Fingers on the kitchen table by my side. 

There was something about a visual representation of an idea that blew my mind. I’d ask her to draw different words to see what they look like. By then, I’d seen every one of those objects in artistic depictions, but there was something magical about your grandmother doing it before my eyes. She knew the world in a way that I couldn’t yet process, and the drawings solidified her power in my mind.  

Sometimes I swear I can feel abstract ideas as tangibly as I can feel the keys on this computer. I can perceive their texture and their weight. Sometimes I can see the cost of manifesting them into the world, and sometimes I can see their consequences. This phenomenon has fueled my art and maybe my humanity.

I’m sure there’s an earlier memory of your grandmother somewhere in my unconscious. I’ll keep it there until it needs to be replaced, and I’ll keep the memory from you until something more pressing needs to be said. I’ve learned that it’s better to see loved ones at their greatest moment if you can help it. For everything else, there’s Vienna Fingers and juice.

by Marc Alexander Valle

It’s Always in the Corners (Latest Draft)

I let him hit me. Not punch me and not “I let him” as in “Sure! Go ahead and hit me” but I let him hit me. He’d push my head with an open hand. I told him to stop, but he didn’t. He’d hit me more than I’d like to admit, and sometimes I even told myself we were really friends.

Some time ago, I started to believe that it began in Algebra class, and that I was Tourette’s-and-facial-tic-free until I sat in front of Axel Sidezski that sophomore year of high school. I don’t remember having or feeling the tics before then, and for years I felt shame for knowing that I let him do that. It took many more years to begin to understand why I did. 

I googled searched Axel the other day, asking two questions: Is he still the same? And is he doing better than I am? I searched for 10 minutes, and I only found white-page profiles of other Axels. Nowhere could I find that parted, reddish-blondish hair. Nowhere could I find that smirk. 

I made a promise to myself long ago. I told myself that I would write things and create things of immense beauty. I told myself that if the Axels of the world ever came back, I could do one thing better than they could, one thing no person can take away. 

Is he still the same and is he doing better than I am? 

I don’t even think he’d remember my name.

The Dream Ebbs and Flows

I remember asking the Ritter Elementary School librarian for a book on Spielberg in the 1988-1989 school year. I waited two weeks for it. Every other day, I’d bother her about the book, but the date of arrival never changed.

At age 8, I wanted to be Steven Spielberg. He made daydreams come to life. He turned regular people into giants. A rainbow always shined in the end, and evil always lost. My world was my family, my home, and a movie theater, and I could see no other calling.

At age 42, I just want to live well and write well and maybe have a wider audience. I try and sometimes succeed at the first one every day. I feel better about the second. Maybe I’ll have the third eventually, but I think I’ll be okay if it never happens. Until then, I finally own that Spielberg book.

Happy 548 Birthday!

One-and-a-half trips around The Sun today, Emile. There will be no party, but I celebrate all the same.

You are here. You are healthy and strong and absorbing new words faster than I ever could. You were meant to be here and will inherit the world in ways that I could not.

There was a time when my head was a carnival of light, my son. Thoughts, ideas, and emotions all intertwined in a kaleidoscopic feast, and I believed that if I just put it out there, put it on paper or film or on stage, people would understand me. I was convinced I was here to save the world and show them things hidden under the blanket of their fixed views and idealogy.

But no one seemed to care, and I engaged in a protracted and misanthropic self-conversation that robbed me of joy and gratification with even the most delectable of occasions.

It doesn’t matter what they think of me anymore, at least not like it used to. I see the psychedelic-Kodachrome cavalcade in your smile and I am reborn. It makes its way down the abandoned roads of my soul, and some days I think I can see barren fields filled with life again. I ask myself, “How could I ever have allowed others such power over me? How could anyone torture themselves as I did?”

I will be your audience, my son. I will be your witness. I know that if I can do anything it will be to see you in your most noble and extraordinary wardrobe, a tapestry of confidence and sweetness patched together with no visible seams. I will be your champion. The world doesn’t know what they’re in for like I do.

Happy 18 months old, Emile. We’ve come so far in such a short time, and we have miles and miles to go. Sometimes I wonder what I would do for a few miles more.

Stuck

When something doesn’t go Emile’s way, he says that it’s stuck. When he can’t open a door, it’s stuck. When a ball or toy is lodged under something, it’s stuck. When he can’t push his carriage across the sidewalk, it’s stuck. When an object is too heavy to lift and throw outside of his playpen, it’s stuck. Stuck no longer means stuck to him. Anything that serves as a source of frustration and forces him to solve a problem, anything that he can’t control and must learn to overcome, anything that he can’t manipulate and must learn to leave alone, all of it is stuck. With that said, I have a possible name for my future book of stories and essays that I’m writing for Emile. The World Is Stuck. 

A Twilight-Hour Note (from a first-time father to his newborn son) by Marc Alexander Valle

Mavthewriter

Your Daddy writes to be heard. Your Daddy writes to let the world know that he’s here. Your Daddy writes because he feels that he has something to say, a message that needs to be delivered and pulled out of his gut like some-type of science fiction movie. Your Daddy writes to not be interrupted when he speaks. Your Daddy writes to be loved. Your Daddy hopes to be understood, but at this point feels that most people will never understand him. Your Daddy writes because he cannot say what he means on the top of his head without the other person giving him time to think or respond. If Daddy were to try to verbally express what you’re reading now, he would sound like the under-educated, working class kid that he was. Your Daddy writes because he’s an artist. Your Daddy is an artist, someone that sees things so…

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Devin Maguire Can Bite My Dust

Devin Maguire Can Bite My Dust

by Marc Alexander Valle

10-year old Devin Maguire held onto his BMX handlebars and stared at my new bike. “Your dad got that bike from a thrift store.”

“No, he didn’t!” I said.

“Yes, he did. I can tell.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“Yeah, cause there’s marks on it.”

I looked down at the bike. There were scuff marks on the handlebars, but that was it. 

“He got it from K-Mart,” I said.

“Okay, which one?”

“The one down the street.”

“I know all the bikes at K-Mart. I didn’t see that one there.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Well, that’s where he got it from.”

“Did he tell you he got it from there?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

Devin stared right into my eyes. He had a blank expression, but I swore I could see a smirk. It was the same smirk he always had, the same one he had whenever he beat a kid in a race. 

“So?” Devin said. “How do you know?”

Devin kept staring. He looked as though he had all the time in the world and the absolute certainty that he was right. I knew that I had only a beat or two before I looked like a fool. I had to answer. 

“Cuz,” I said, “My parents don’t shop at thrift stores!”

Devin continued to look into my eyes. I felt like he was searching for something, and I needed to keep my composure. Didn’t he see my brother with a new bike last year? Didn’t he know it was my turn?

I tightened my lips and gripped my handlebars. Devin scrunched his eyebrows. I quickly glanced down at his bike.

“Alright,” he said, letting out a snicker. Then he rode off towards his apartment building.

When my dad came back from work, he told me that he bought the bike from a thrift store. The same store we’d been to several times that year. ©2022

Music: The Letters to My Son Series

Nearly a century and a half of music recordings and centuries more of musical compositions are at your disposal. Use it. Find it. Let it talk to you. It can help you at any time. Never expect it to solve the problem, but music can expose the underlying issues of your life that make the problem seem real. 

I was sad in my early 20s. Very sad. Everything was tragic, and everything I tried to do seemed to end in failure. I felt as though I couldn’t even get a hello from people and from the world. I wanted it all to end sometimes. Music was that hello. 

It talked to me directly, and it made me believe that there are and have been others just like me. They think like me, and they feel like me. Music was the code between us, and the message was, “I am an artist.” Music told me that my role was to reevaluate norms. I was never to be satisfied with what we assumed to be true, but I was never to change my core beliefs. There was nothing wrong with me. I was normal. It was the conversation between the individual and the world that was distorted.

There’s a link between youth and music and the way it shapes our views. How will you allow it to shape yours?       

The Homework Theif by Marc Alexander Valle

A mini-story from my mini-book, So You Say You Want An 80s Childhood?

The Homework Thief

Brian Ross was my friend.

“Are you friends with Brian?” Anna said to me, sitting on the floor in gym class. “I think he puts mayonnaise in his hair.”

“No, he doesn’t,” I said.

“Yeah,” Frieda said. “He smells like my lunch bag.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

Brian Ross was my friend, even if he were to put peanut butter on his head. Brian liked what I liked on TV, and we could play the same characters every recess without my having to tell him about them. He was the only other kid that laughed at my cartoon jokes and references. Brian Ross was my friend. Then Brian Ross stole my homework.

It was there in the bin. I told Mrs. Cain that I swore I did my homework and put it there when I arrived at 8am. So she looked through all of last night’s assignments and pulled it out. I could see my name erased and Brian’s name now on top of it.

“That’s it,” I said. “I know because I wrote my name nice and big.”

Mrs. Cain turned to the class. “Alright, let’s go to lunch. Marc and Brian I want you to stay behind.”

At recess, my classmates surrounded me, trying to piece together what happened.

“He tried to make it look like it was his homework?”

“Did he ask to take it?”

“Is he getting in trouble?

I answered the questions as fast as they were given, and I assured them that I didn’t give him the assignment. I liked this feeling, this attention. It felt good. All eyes were on me for the first time in a very long time. The boys even stopped playing kickball to question me, and the hopscotch girls left their beanbags unguarded. This was nice.

Within two minutes, they’d gotten all the information they needed, and I ran out of things to tell them. They began to talk amongst each other about Brian.

“Yeah, he smells like ham sandwich.”

“He took my pencil.”

“Why’s he always dirty?”

They kept going on about different circumstances involving Brian. I laughed at a joke without even hearing the punchline.

“Mrs. Lee looked mad,” I said.

They kept talking.

“He got upset.”

They kept talking.

“I think he’s scared.”

They kept talking.

“He picks his nose too.”

They looked at me.

“I know. I saw it,” Lucy said. “He does it all the time.”

I continued, “He used to be my friend, but he acts stupid sometimes.”

“He thinks he’s funny,” Elvin said.

Their circle opened up, enough for me to fit in. It was as though they made the perfect spot for me with my name on it. I walked forward. The circle closed again. I was in. I was there. I was one with the rest.

Brian walked out of the building and onto the playground pavement. His head was pointed down to the ground as he zipped up his thin red jacket. The kids turned towards him. I backed away just a bit.

He stopped and scanned the playground, then turned and looked at me. I looked away. A kid in the group said something that made the other kids laugh. I chuckled at the joke without even hearing the punchline.

by Marc Alexander Valle

©2022

An Evening Note

AN EVENING NOTE

(from a father to his 11-month-old son)

by Marc Alexander Valle

Much has already been decided. It was out of my hands. Out of your mother’s hands. Out of anyone’s control. I see it as you sleep soundly on this bed right now. Your mother’s dark blonde hair, your nose like mine, your cheeks like mine, your chin like mine, all out of my control. I orchestrated none of it. It was all God. It was all The Universe. It was all Nature. It was all Luck. Fate. Destiny. Chance. The Gods. Truth be told, I delivered some DNA that Odin would be proud of, but it was all in a genetic pool that I had no command over. And you are an extraordinary specimen, my son. Cary Grant. Marlon Brando. Superhero illustrations. Your face, so handsome and symmetric. The doctor said at your last check-up that you have a mug that she could stare at for hours and hours. I’d call her a weirdo if it weren’t so true. But it is true. And it was all decided without my authority and I am in love. 

But what of these tentacles? These unwelcomed circumstances that are out of my dominion. What of the fact that your father is a peasant. And his father was a peasant. And his father was a peasant. I am a peasant. I don’t make too much money. We live with my parents. I have little saved up for retirement. I’ve never really traveled. I’ve never eaten crab in Maryland, and I never had Bar-B-Que chicken in Memphis. I’ve only been on a plane once. I get most of my news from mainstream outlets. I can’t get my weight down. And I buy dumb stuff on the Internet that I don’t even need. I am a peasant. And you will see your father struggle as a peasant. And work like one. And eat like one. And play like one. And maybe even love like one. 

As you sleep soundly on this bed, I know that forces of the natural realm have already decided some things. Wherever you go, one way or the other, you will carry the ZIP code that you were born in. For that I’m sorry. 

But what if I told you that I am a king? What if I told you that I cannot be touched? That I am impervious to the influence of the masses and their mob mentality?  That the walls of mediocrity will never cave in on me? I am a king. With a mind burning as bright as magnesium lit by a 7th-grade science teacher. With the world’s greatest ideas stewing in my subconscious like your grandmother’s Puerto Rican kidney beans. With thoughts and emotions deeper than an atom at the dead center of The Sun. What if I told you that I put people at ease and that many people trust me more than their own lawyers, doctors, and spiritual advisors? Would I even really need to tell you that? Will you see it for yourself one day?

As you sleep soundly on this bed, I don’t remember what a restful night is like anymore. By the time I experience it again you’ll be your own man, and I’ll be closing in on the end of this life. The tendrils of time, space, and causality pull us towards a state of pure energy once again, and the crickets outside have been chirping for a good two hours. I think I’ll lie next to you for now. Just for a little. Just until you wake. Just to watch you wake. Just for now. I will lie next to you.

Happy 10-month birthday, Emile. Daddy loves you.

A Twilight-Hour Note (from a first-time father to his newborn son) by Marc Alexander Valle

Your Daddy writes to be heard. Your Daddy writes to let the world know that he’s here. Your Daddy writes because he feels that he has something to say, a message that needs to be delivered and pulled out of his gut like some-type of science fiction movie. Your Daddy writes to not be interrupted when he speaks. Your Daddy writes to be loved. Your Daddy hopes to be understood, but at this point feels that most people will never understand him. Your Daddy writes because he cannot say what he means on the top of his head without the other person giving him time to think or respond. If Daddy were to try to verbally express what you’re reading now, he would sound like the under-educated, working class kid that he was. Your Daddy writes because he’s an artist. Your Daddy is an artist, someone that sees things so hidden from the world that if he could package it the right way and the right opportunity came along, it could become a product with an assigned value. His name could become a commodity in the world market, a perpetual machine that inflates worth based on perception alone. Your Daddy could be somebody.

Daddy never wanted to see the world in terms of transactions. Daddy was a romantic that just wanted to be loved and heard and seen without making a scene and just being good. This has been the cause of much frustration for Daddy. Sometimes it’s been the cause of great sadness. How can we express ourselves without being rejected or feeling that we have to alter the message? This is and has been Daddy’s life theme. This is and has been Daddy’s monster. From childhood battles with classmates and peers to adulthood interactions that seem so small but carry so much weight, this is The War, the search for validation without having to compromise one’s belief system. 

Your Daddy’s words have protected him from this reality, from becoming a casualty of The War, full of contempt and venom and cynicism, and he’s glad that he found his words at such a young age. Your Daddy has ridden on his words like a cloud in jetstream, like the initial buzz from a hard drink, like a child running down a hill with his arms spread open and the wind in his face. I am grateful for the words as I am grateful for your existence. I am grateful for your existence as I am grateful for the words. This is why your Daddy writes. 

. . .

Emile, you have arrived. Daddy’s been waiting. I love you.

Daybreak on the Banshee: A Flash Memoir by Marc Alexander Valle

Please, I welcome FEEDBACK. Feel free to comment. 

First published in Potato Soup Journal on October 20, 2019

Daybreak on the Banshee

by Marc Alexander Valle

The women cried and wailed and prayed behind us, and my 7-year-old mind thought the dead body would look like something from the movies. I never saw a dead body before, and I was certain that it would look like a skeleton from a cartoon or at least Freddy Kruger. It would definitely be something that comes out only at night.

I stepped forward with my father and older brother towards the casket. All the conversation and noise in the room became silent inside of my head. I could only hear my thoughts, and all I could think was that I had to let dad step forward first and to be careful.

The toy soldier in my pocket poked into my thigh, and I readjusted it.

“What’s wrong?” my father said.

I looked up at him. “Nothing.”

I peered into the casket, and took in a deep breath.

It was my adult cousin, the one who lived down the street. No skeleton or wounds or blood or winkled skin. Just my cousin. It reminded me of a wax figure. My cousin. Then the silence fell to the back, and I could hear the wailing and the prayers of the woman once more.

“That’s it?” I said to my dad.

“Yeah,” he said. “Quiet.”

I felt compelled to go into my pocket and leave my cousin the toy soldier amongst all the flowers. I didn’t dare.

Death had only been a concept to me. Outside of television and movies, I only had urban legends. There was the time they found a dead body down at the end of the street in tall weeds. My older friend, Vic, said that it was done by a serial killer, who broke free from the Allentown State Hospital. He said that the escapee planned on killing all of the adults and torturing the children to exact some form of revenge. Despite my father’s assurance against this claim, I feared a man was roaming the streets with a gun that night. I couldn’t sleep. They ruled it suicide the next day, and I was relieved.

There was the story of the boy, who drowned in the Lehigh River next to Bucky Boyle Park. They said he swam too close to the whirlpool that swirled in the center, and he couldn’t swim back. For that reason, they told us kids to not even so much as step into the water.

Then there was the story of the boy, who fell out of a window in our former Brooklyn apartment complex. They said his ghost haunted the court yard. I had nightmares about him until we moved.

The wailing and the prayers grew even louder, and it began to make me sick to my stomach. I had enough of looking and standing still.

I looked back up to my father.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” I said.

“Quiet,” he said, then took my hand and we walked away.

Back in the car and on our way home, my father reminded me and my brother that although our cousin was dead in the physical form, he was still alive in spirit. And that spirit is everlasting and although we cannot see him, he’s still with us. The moment he described my cousin, I imagined the translucent ghost of Christmas past from a TV version of Christmas Carol.

“Do you think Freddy Kruger could beat a ghost?” I said to my older brother.

“I don’t know,” my brother said.

“Cause Freddy’s got claws,” I said.

“You’re dumb,” he said. “Nothing can beat a ghost.”

I looked back out the window and noticed that it was a beautiful day. When I got home, I would go outside and play with Mitch. Mitch was fun, and he would let me lead. We’d race and play with our toys, and I’d give him the soldier that was scarping my thigh, and I’d tell him that I don’t think I like funerals.

It was a beautiful day. No clouds were in sight, and I could see a faint moon above, immersed in blue sky. A couple of sparrow streaked across it. A gust of air from my father’s window blew into my face. The sun touched everything. And there was plenty of time before dark.

by Marc Alexander Valle ©2019

Mav The Writer: The Lost Years

There’s a time in my life that I cannot write about. There’s no story there that would be of interest to my audience. I even get bored, thinking about it. From my teens to my very early 30s, I neither acted upon nor reacted to the world.

I did my thing. I wrote in various mediums, I went to karaoke twice a week, I read my work at open mics, I had my artwork in a gallery, I went back to school and earned my degree, I experimented in photography, and I worked various low-paying jobs with colorful people. But for the most part it was my lost years. I took no risks and barely ventured out of my comfort zone. I hardly dared to ask out females, fearing what they might have thought of me.

Is time ever really lost? Does the brain collect and process data and turn it into wisdom no matter the circumstance? And do movies, books, and music count as life experience?

I got into a shoving match in second grade, and it’s one of my sweetest moments. Some kid bullied my best friend on the playground. He was high up on himself, because all the girls followed him around during recess. I cursed at him and pushed him to the ground. All the girls came after me and yelled at me. The bully stood back up and cried. It felt good.

The world acted, I reacted, and in turn I existed. Beginning, middle and end.

We grade our lives on curves and our view of ourselves is rich with self-talk rebuttals.

I see no good in those years except that it makes my story different.

To excavate our lives for a happy ending can be a brutal endeavor, but a necessary one if the left foot is to move in front of the right and the right foot is to move in front of the left. I still can’t write a lick about that era.

The 500th Block of Vincent Child: A Flash Fiction

Special thanks to Door is a Jar, who first published the story in the Spring of 2019. 

The 500th Block of Vincent Child

by Marc Alexander Valle (mavthewriter)

     Vincent Child watched as the young man assaulted the old man across the street. He wasn’t sure if it was a robbery and didn’t know what to do if it was. So he stood still, watching the young man grab and shove the old man in front of the tenement on the narrow one-way street.

Vincent looked around. No pedestrians. Only him and the two men on the sunless block. A knot formed in his stomach and he could feel the cold breeze more intensely, cutting through his black jacket and tan pants. The men continued to struggle.

He wished he hadn’t turned this corner. Yesterday, he turned onto another street. That was his usual route for the last ten days as he substitute taught for an eighth grade teacher at Jackson Middle School. But he’d read an article that said that if you change certain routines in your life, you can change your brain waves and create positive thought patterns. So he turned onto the 500th block of Chester St, a slightly downhill block of apartment buildings and tightly parked clunkers, then he crossed the street.

“Give it,” the young man said.

“No!” the old man said.

The young man punched the old man, who fell behind a parked Cadillac. The young man crouched down. Vincent could see neither of them now. He could hear sirens getting closer and wondered who they were for.

He looked around again. A woman pushing a stroller walked his way. He believed that she hadn’t seen the struggle across the street, but he figured she would soon. And when she did the woman would believe that he was a coward. She would tell the police that he did nothing and the news would quote her as saying, “No one did anything. He just stood there.”

Vincent pulled his cell phone from out of his jacket. He turned it on and waited.

     What icon do I press? Do I call 911? Are they already coming?

“Help!” he heard from the old man.

The young man was standing back up. “Stop!” he said, looking down and kicked.

“Give it.” He kicked again.

“Hey,” Vincent said. “Hey!”

The young man looked over. “I called the cops,” Vincent said, raising his phone to the young man.  “The cops.” The siren were blaring and getting closer.

The young man crouched down again behind the Cadillac.

“What’s that?” the woman said.

“I don’t know,” Vincent said, “Two guys fighting.”

The woman shook her head and kept walking with the stroller.

Vincent kept looking at her as she walked away, then turned to the Cadillac.

He could neither hear, nor see either of the two. He turned back to the woman with the stroller. She was nearing the corner. He turned to the Cadillac. Still no commotion. Then back to the woman as she turned the corner. Then back to the Cadillac.

“Hey,” Vincent said.

No response.

He turned and started walking down the block.

“No! Stop!” he heard someone say behind the Cadillac. “No!”

It sounded like the young man. But it could have been the old man. He wasn’t sure.

“Hey,” he said.

No response. No commotion. Vincent backed closer to the corner.

He heard the sirens, blaring and getting closer.

     The cops are on their way. I’m late.

     They were blaring and getting close.

     I’m sure they’re coming here.

He turned the corner.

“A 67-year old man was beaten to death yesterday on the 500th block of Chester St. at 9:00 am. Police were alerted by neighbors–

Vincent Child put down his phone on the desk. The incident he saw took place at 7:00 am. A full two hours before neighbors called. It’s impossible to have been the men I saw. He exhaled and stood up.

The seventh grade students would be arriving in ten minutes. He’d wanted to avoid seventh grade. He heard they were bad this year, but he was sent to cover one period after his break. The teacher’s lesson plan was at the center of the desk:

Students will be wrapping up their projects on How My Community Feels. If finished, tell them to post drawing on the corkboard. Some students are finished. Have them read a book.

Vincent walked over to look at the drawings. Most drawings had children playing. Some had children with family. A few had people arguing. But in one drawing there was a man on the ground with another man standing above him. Vincent read the words below it:

I saw a man get beat out my window and no one did nothing. Makes me scared.

Vincent looked at the image again. At the edge of the paper, a woman in purple held onto a yellow stroller. Behind her, a man dressed in a black jacket and tan pants. The man in the black jacket looked back at the two men with wide eyes and an open mouth. He saw “Period 3, 7th grade” labeled at the top of the paper. Vincent was in period 2 now.

The school bell rang.

Vincent took his black jacket and hung it in the closet. He doubled checked his pants and saw they were blue today. The students could be heard down the hall, yelling and getting closer. Part of his job was to serve as hall monitor in between classes, but he could only stand still, listening to them yelling and getting closer.

Vincent looked over to the drawing again and studied the face of the man with the black jacket. He had the vertical face his mother always said he had and noticed shaky lines to make him look more scared. He put his head down and took a deep breath.

Vincent turned to the door again. He could hear the kids coming down the hall, yelling and getting closer. Yelling and getting closer.

Marc Alexander Valle ©2019

Twitter, Instagram, Youtube Channel: Mavthewriter

The Santa Poem by Marc Alexander Valle

(Feedback is welcome)

The Santa Poem

My brother told me that Santa doesn’t exist. He showed me where all the gifts were stashed. G.I. Joes were everywhere. I felt a thrill throughout my body. Finding that Santa doesn’t exist is a double-edged sword. Your childhood is almost over, but now you have the advantage in gift begging. You can manipulate your parents into getting you what you want, and now you have someone to blame when you don’t get it. I’ll probably lie to my kids about Santa if I ever have any. When they find the gift stash, I’ll still lie to them. One Christmas, our dad made us leave a can of beer for Santa. He said that he wanted to see if Santa would drink it. The can was empty in the morning.

The Bucket: A Flash Nonfiction by Marc Alexander Valle

“Wax on, wax off,” I said. Tanya laughed. I continued with more impersonations.

After the fourth minute, it was indisputable. The second grade blackboard was clean. I would have to impress her another time.

“Alright,” she said. “Mrs. Reed makes us dump the water in the sink when we’re done.”

Tanya approached the sink. I followed.

“I got it,” I said, taking the bucket from her.

“Mrs. Reed told you how to dump it, right?”

“Yeah! Watch.”

I grabbed the handle with my left hand and lifted. It wobbled. I held the bottom with my other hand. All I needed was to get it above the sink, way above, as high as I could get it without getting water on the counter.

Tanya stepped forward, “Mrs. Reed said–

I tilted the bucket.

“Just make sure you pour the water sl—

I dumped all of the water into the sink in one shot. Nearly all of it splashed back.

Tanya backed off a step.

I backed off a few.

But it was too late.

“Oh my God! You got water all over my dress.”

I looked at myself, “Yeah, I got it on me too.”

“Why’d you do that? You were supposed to pour it in.”

“I didn’t know.”

Students got out of their seats, looking over.

“Ooohhh, weeee,” they said.

I turned to Mrs. Reed’s desk.

She was walking towards us. I placed my hands in front of me to cover the water.