The Eternal Ball Breaker

The idea of what we will be remembered for has varying effects on us. For some people, leaving a memorable legacy is the eternal trophy, the ultimate prize. But why? Is vanity so potent it encourages people to want things even when they won’t be able to enjoy them? Perhaps so. A man looks in the mirror and makes an arrangement: “OK, if I can’t be immortal, my reputation will be.” Fair enough. That said, let’s take a closer look at what legacy means by considering today’s literature news. Die young and write well and your legacy will burn for years. James Agee knows. So does Steve Earle, even though he’s still breathing. Presidents are destined, one way or another, for scrutinized legacies. What will Health Care Reform do for Obama’s? Books made into movies usually bode unwell over time. Coetzee’s Disgrace will avoid such a fate. Calls for Bob Dylan to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature are sounded in Sweden; the spooky, classic stories of H.H. Munro are discussed in The Guardian; Google is not yet the globe’s digital library, and Germany is on a book festival high. Finally, Book Patrol remembers the late great billiards man Minnesota Fats, a hustler whose legacy will break your balls. — Kevin Murphy

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On the morning of the memorial, sixty-two year old Mr. Jenkins was out drinking on his front porch. The memorial was new, but not his drinking. When she was alive, Sissy and me would always see him sitting there on his front porch, sipping from his Mason jar until it got dark, his wooden rocker going back and forth like it had a built-in motor. Mom liked him because he never said anything bad about anybody. After Dad left mom, Mr. Jenkins kept telling her that everything would work out.

Mom said it was okay for him to go with us for the scattering after the memorial service at the church was over. We stopped in front of his clapboard house. He handed me the Mason jar and climbed in Mom’s dented Jeep Cherokee, the one Dad gave her to keep.

We drove past Driscol’s pond. We used to swim there, but now it was too cold. The oak trees didn’t have any leaves. Mom kept sobbing and wiping her nose. Mr. Jenkins kept sipping from his jar. Mom stopped to put the Jeep in four-wheel-drive. In the backseat I held the urn between my legs. We started bouncing towards Logger’s Ridge, climbing higher and higher.

On top the land was still black from summer when a fire burned everything away. There wasn’t anything green because it hadn’t rained since the fire. The whole ridge looked like a different country. We used to run around for hours on Teaberry Flats. Now it was like walking through coal dust and I kept wondering why we still had to go there when it wasn’t the same as before.

But it was what Sissy wanted after she saw some television show in her hospital room. She told me it would be ‘cool’ to know that she would be a part of ‘everything.’ Mom later told me she could never say no to her baby. I blamed Sissy’s decision on the morphine she took for the cancer pain.

We bounced along the top of the ridge until we came to a fallen tree, where we stopped and got out. It was quiet until Mr. Jenkins insisted that he go first. He slurred a few words and Mom nodded like she understood. I gave him the urn and he gave me his jar, which was nearly empty.

It happened so fast it didn’t have time to get ugly. Mr. Jenkins struggled to unscrew the top and then as he poured Sissy out faster than we expected, he fumbled her like she was a football. The urn tumbled down the mountain side. Mom shrieked and covered her mouth. Mr. Jenkins started to cry. Just then a big wind came up and started to blow. It signaled the rain that would come that night and not stop for three days. But I didn’t know that then. All I knew were the cries and ashes that the wind carried across a dry and barren land.

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Michael P. McManus’ short stories and poems have appeared in numerous publications, including The Dublin Quarterly,  Contrary Magazine, ONTHEBUS, Atlanta Review, Prism International, Burnside Review, Pittsburgh Quarterly, West Wind Review, Square Lake, Rattle, Louisiana Literature, Texas Review, among others. He has received a Fellowship from the Louisiana Division of the Arts.