My Cardboard Balcony

Gold Teef, 1984 by Belinda Roddie Something set the hairs on the back of my neck on end today as I huddled between the impending storm of downtown and the ensuing calm of endless fields - a bus stop hanging in the balance, a dilapidated green sign pointing the way. I closed my copy of Orwell's literary warning and remembered that it was 1985, and we hadn't quite gotten to a society like Oceania (yet). To my left, an old man with only a few remaining molars smiled. His teeth almost looked like pyrite, the way they glistened, even between their cracks. When he talked, he couldn't say his letters right, and the something stroked my neck again and gave me an awful chill. When the bus came, I was half-expecting a hearse. The old man got up, waved, and instantly transformed into someone younger.  He wore silks and satins and trotted aboard with a top hat and cane, singing "God Save the Queen" as he disappeared into Big Brother's metrop

You told me that you were scared, and that's why you didn't show up to the restaurant tonight. The same reason you used for why you didn't turn up at my birthday party, or my art show, or my piano recital. The same reason I heard from you year after year when you called me on the phone, or left me a paltry monthly check-in through e-mail. You told me you were scared about trying to be my father again. I told you that if you were scared, then that meant you weren't trying hard enough.