Paddle to Paddle
Lois Chapin
Nightingale Rose Publications
Yorba Linda 2019
Acknowledgements
I wish to thank all those who were instrumental in making this book of poetry happen, including The Los Angeles Poets & Writers Collective and Jack Grapes, as well as Chiwan Choi, Baz Here, Bambi Here, Dave Barton, Laura Border, my Imua ohana, my sweetheart, Mike, and our four kids.
Disclaimer:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances the author has changed the names of individuals and places, the author may also have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residence.
Nightingale Rose Publications
16960 E. Bastanchury Rd.
Yorba Linda, CA 92886
© 2019 Nightingale Rose Publications
All rights reserved
ISBN 13: 978-1-889755-10-6
ISBN 10: 1-88975-01-9
Library of Congress Catalogue: TX 8-696-1521
If you want to change the world, find someone to help you paddle.
–William H. McRaven
Dedicated to those who found a way out.
Proverbs 29:15
Seems like Jesus’ mom
was cool.
Encouraged him to argue,
and disagree,
let him hang out
with older friends,
and disappear for days
at a time,
allowed him to live at home
through his twenties
and make mind-altering substances.
She even believed
everything he said,
and didn’t believe
an unpaddled child
disgraces his mother.
If only Mary
had written
Child Guidance,
and not Ellen,
the cult leader.
Home
“You’re so heavy!”
It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you.
I’m trying not to move in my wooden rocking chair
with the cut-out heart
and two red bird stencils.
I guess they’re supposed to be nightingales.
That’s your name now too.
Daddy put you in my arms.
You’re lying on my lap,
your head on my arm.
He told me to be careful
not to drop you.
You’re a lot bigger than I thought.
Your blanket is so soft.
Oops,
that’s your pacifier on the floor
by my foot.
Mommy left for a long time
to get you out of her stomach.
She was sick.
She almost died.
She had toxemia.
It’s from not eating good
when growing a baby.
Sorry you got sick too.
Daddy said you were born blue
with a rope or something wrapped
around your neck,
twice.
You had to stay in the hospital
after Mommy came home
to make you well. I’m glad
you’re okay. I hope
you don’t have to go back
too much more. Maybe Mommy
will be nicer since
you’re here.
In the mornings before Daddy
goes to work at the lab he eats
boiled potatoes with salt.
I ask for a bite,
but he says I need a better breakfast
and makes me eat Ruskets.
I hope he doesn’t get sick
from eating cold potatoes.
Great grandma Mimi played
with me
while I’ve been waiting
for you. She takes me
for walks in my stroller with Baby Doll
by the canal.
Baby Doll is a lot lighter than you.
Her eyes open
and close
and are blue
like yours.
I’ve never seen real blue eyes before.
“Your eyes are so blue!”
When you talk,
I’ll teach you stuff.
Mommy’ll want you
to call her “Mummy.”
That’s what Moses’ pharaoh was called,
so I call
her, “Mamma.”
When you’re bigger you can go outside
with me
when she gets mad and makes me
leave the house.
We’ll catch snails. I’m good
at catching them
in the front yard so Mommy
I’ll show you how
to put them in empty peanut butter jars.
Boys are supposed
to like that stuff.
Your hands are so tiny. You grip my finger
so strong!
There’s no one to play with
when Daddy’s at work.
I can’t wait ‘til you’re bigger
and can play.
Click! Poof!
That’s Daddy,
he takes
pictures of everything.
Those flash bulbs
won’t hurt you, you just see white dots
for a while.
He goes to school at night and works
at the hospital in the daytime.
He drives
the car.
We live up on a big hill.
Mommy doesn’t
drive so we stay up here
and take naps. Looks like you like sleeping,
so,
that’s good.
Sometimes they fight
real loud.
I don’t know
about what.
But when they ask you which one
is right, it’s best
not to answer.
She’ll get mad at you
no matter which side
you take.
She has some stickers
of little children
of the world,
she sings
a song about them too.
Anyway,
you lick the back and stick them
on paper.
But don’t touch them unless
she gives them to you.
She hits just like she’s cleaning
a carpet.
“Can I show him the pollywogs
in the canal?”
I guess everything is
after you get bigger.
“Can I feed him
so he gets bigger
faster?”
Safe
Only one relative from either side
ever left us anything
in a will.
A conman and a drug dealer,
well, he ran bootleg
as a kid after his family lived in a box car,
he graduated up to selling the ha
rd stuff.
Anyway, when colon cancer killed
my grandfather at the VA
he left my mom enough
ill-earned green
to add on to the most important
room of the house,
the study.
Books from carpet to ceiling
and two desks pressed into our den.
A secret portal waited
under my father’s desk.
I pulled the chair back in
after I hid there.
The wood smell ticked my nose;
I had to be careful not to bump
my head
on the drawer glides.
But the best was
the safe.
The smaller safe of course, the one
we were supposed to show robbers
my mother said
if we were held at gun point
in a home invasion.
The closet hid the big safe.
Heaven was where
we were supposed to store up treasure,
I guess ours waited in the big safe
for Brinks to get
it up there.
I spun the notched knob of the safe
with my fingers.
Clunk, clunk the tumblers clunk
unseen
as I turned the cylinder over
the white painted lines
between 5 and 10
and back over 30 and 40.
A bandana robber
from the wild west took
control of my hand.
My horse, tethered outside the bank, stomped
waiting for saddle bags
filled with gold nuggets.
Great gold nuggets
like sheep brains
with knotty cortexes
gold nuggets that gleamed in the sun. Prospectors believed
this bank was safe, Ha!
on the freeway. The sheriff shoots
my lookout in the front of the bank
blocking my escape. I need to drag
these overfilled saddlebags.
The wood plank floor boards smell
of varnish.
An Indian penny winks
up at me through the dust.
My hearts beats tom toms
in my ears.
The 91 freeway always has traffic.
I hear Slippered Feet, the deputy
shuffle
down the hall, it’s now
or never.
I dart for cover under
my mother’s desk. The sound of papers
crumpling
threatens to give me away.
Pogo, Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry
comic books sprawl
over buck-tooth Mad magazine covers, and shiny
Playgirl Centerfolds
tumble from the piles stacked
to the pine drawer gliders.
There’s no room to squeeze
against the pillars of newsprint
with my saddle bags.
The silver tip of a fountain pen impales
the shag carpet.
I’ll never make it to my loyal appaloosa.
She’s pawing the ground. Her whinnies urge
me on. She’ll gallop
me away from this corrupt
sheriff town out to the freedom
of the desert.
It’s not a mirage.
These gold nuggets will buy me
all I need.
Cacti hold survival water.
“Move over,” my brother says.
“This is my spot!”
I give him
a shoulder shove.
It’s too tight for both of us
and wrinkled magazines tear in our scuffle.
Maybe
he’s after my gold
or wants to escape
on my horse.
Another gun shot.
I’m hit.
“Take the bags,” I say
and I clutch my chest.
Blood spurts.
I look to see
if it is separated. Separated blood means
you’re dead.
“What bags?” he asks.
“The ones with the gold nuggets,
like sheep brains.”
I leave him to read the forbidden cache of comics
and crawl wounded
back under my father’s desk.
The knob clicks
as I turn it.
The door still won’t open. I spin
it faster, it’s my only chance
for escape.
Safety, and my outlaw grandfather
who I don’t know,
lie on the other side.
I just need to guess
the right
combination.
Fishhook
I poke the fishhook through the pink fish egg.
Pop.
It’s like giant caviar.
Not that I’d eat caviar.
My brother and I are being raised
vegetarians. like Daddy.
She’s a carnivore.
We are fishing for her.
The planks of the pier are rough
under my bare feet.
The water ripples a clear blue.
I pull up my rod
and thump the red and white float
with my finger.
It’s tied above the round grey weight.
Another vacation.
We left the house at two in the morning,
rolled onto the freeway after hours
of her smacking us and threatening
we wouldn’t go at all, while we packed
the camper and thirteen-foot trailer.
This,
of course,
as all vacations,
was going to be
our
very
last
one.
I hang my pink fish egg over the water.
Daddy’s shown me how to press
the button on my rod and release it after
I cast out.
“Poor Mummy” is resting in the trailer
drawing cartoons.
I push the button and swing
the rod
and all its decorations
over my shoulder.
I like how it bends
when I swing it. I fling it back
over the water and lift my finger
from the button.
Screams.
I’m confused.
The line doesn’t hit
the water.
There’s tension on the line. Tug, tug.
Where’s my fish egg? Tug, tug, tug.
I spin around.
My little brother’s hands
hide his face. I want to drop
my fishing pole.
I’ll be in trouble for not putting my rod
away.
I try to wind the crank to bring the line in.
He screams
more. I drop
the pole and line
on to the planks
of the pier.
The sky is Utah blue and trees glisten
in the summer breeze.
The lake is empty,
all ours.
This is paradise. She’s in
the trailer laughing
about her secret messages
and we’re somewhere
other than, “in your own back yard.”
There’s only the two of us
to play
together.
There only ever is.
But we dig holes
to China
and set up Matchbox car
cities in the dirt.
We even have our own mulberry tree
to climb.
But fishing is so much more important
than digging to meet
Chinese children.
Our Uncle is a real fisherman
has his own boat, “The Lady.”
He brought me a swordfish once
and cut off the sword
for me to play with.
When we visit great grandma Mimi,
his bedroom has big tanks with loud bubblers
for the fish he catches.
My mother says
he’s not saved, so fishing must be
a dangerous job.
I kneel beside my crying brother,
my red and white float bounces
on his jacket
as he sobs.
I follow the line up to the pink fish egg
at the edge of his eye.
My hook is threaded
through his eye lid.
A trickle of blood runs
from the exit point.
Red skin is torn
at the entry point.
He rocks on the wooden dock.
Our dad flips open
a blade from his Swiss Army knife.
In one swipe he frees
my brother’s eye from the line
to my rod.
But the hook is still imbedded
in his eyelid.
My heart pounds.
His cries cut through the crisp
morning air. His fishing pole with hook
pushed into the cork handle,
lies beside him.
My father picks him up
and carries him
to the camper.
I know what our mother is going
to say.
He can’t be “accident prone,”
I
did
this.
My pole.
My hook.
My pink fish egg.
My
fault.
They take him to another hospital.
This stay is short.
No Gamma Goblin shots,
no ICU,
no Staph infection,
no Thrush.
In a clip of metal
and a couple stitches
he’s released.
I show him how to poke his hook
through a bright pink egg.
Bebe
The beige paint bubbled and chipped on the bar
holding the forest green naugahyde in place.
The kids on the short route got the new bus.
I didn’t care, my best friend was on this bus.