for 1979
When I was six, I spotted a rat behind the radiator in my classroom, but didn’t say anything. George Washington loomed over the class, unfinished, and glaring like a holy ghost or some smoky saint. Raoul threw up every day because of the thermos of milk his mom packed in his lunchbox. I looked away. I escaped into chapter books with Billy Jo Jive and Strawberry Girl.
On the walk home one day, were piles of whole rooms, unfinished, on the sidewalk near the high rises. Was it free? No, chapter 8, eviction, my mom explained. The bed belongs to another girl, pink canopy, ruffles, and all? Where will she sleep? Jesus, Mary, and Saint Joseph, just remember it is not up for grabs. Men roll an electric radiator, and a port-a-crib full of toys down the alley. Landlord must have milked them dry.
Back home, a cartoon man jams on a junkyard radiator. Our television set is enormous, but black and white. My unfinished comic books are more colorful. I pour myself a glass of milk and sit on the sofa that smells the least like cigarettes. There aren't girls in most of these superhero stories. I like Catwoman; she's no saint, but learns a lesson.
And on the news, a man from our local chapter says my dad will strike soon because of some unfinished business. Teachers aren't just a bunch of sweet old ladies and milque-toast men! My dad teaches high school U.S. History, but he went to St. Anthony's. He had nuns who would hold his fingers on the radiator to make him be right-handed.
What am I going to do with a little girl? my dad told me he said when I was born. Not repeat that chapter, I guess. They sent me to school in a public demountable where girls don’t have to go to church, can wear pants, run for office, study radiation, fix carburetors, sing we could be engineers. We are free to be unfinished gems, win at soccer, not cross our Toughskins.
We have new saints: Harriet Tubman, disco, and peanut farmers. There are chapters in our textbook the teachers said aren’t true at all. The milk of human reality, we’re soaking in it. Parents with the Saint-Exupéry philosophy want us to see rightly. Blizzards (like milk) are always good for us. Make us stronger. Moms of other girls' became subs called scabs. School goes on without me.
The unfinished problems didn't disappear like our snowgirls in the spring. Radiator rats remain. We get a new president, go back-to-basics. My own chapters will melt and pond and spiral. A sweet territory of marvelous spilt milk dribbles over the sharp edges. Decades open and close, unfinished. Stateless songs strike broken accordion metal, still radiating—
Originally from Washington, DC, Maura Way lives in North Carolina, by way of Boise, Idaho. Her debut collection ANOTHER BUNGALOW (Press 53) was released in 2017. Her work has recently appeared in 100 Word Story, The Red Ogre Review, Crack the Spine, Unlikely Stories Mark V, and Poet Lore. Maura has been a schoolteacher since 1995. She currently works with the Classes of 2022 and 2025 at New Garden Friends in Greensboro @anotherbungalow & mauraway.com