Five Painful MemoriesTo M. Zoshchenko. ![]() 1. Two men in splattered white coats are slaughtering a Velveeta. It screams and screams and screams. Its voice unravels like a red stocking thread. I am choking. One man holds a giant gleaming hook with a wooden handle. They are smoking cigars. I run home and refuse to eat my dinner. ![]() 2. They gather on the hill above the Tupperware Emporium. In the air is the chattering of chainsaw teeth. We all run out into a radish field. In the field are radishes, a purple tent with a red cross on its roof, and further off a Velveeta. ![]() 3. I kiss her fingers. The skin is shiny from the yarn factory. The moon looks like a nest of spiders. "I'm sorry," she says. "I do love you. But I've given him my Velveeta." ![]() 4. It is hot. I sit in the back row. The sermon is about either lions or leaves. I doodle in the bible. I lean forward to whisper to L and my Velveeta tumbles out my shirt pocket. Under everyone's feet, it rolls to the front of the church! They all turn to me, glaring. ![]() 5. Afterwards the trees resemble question marks. I am in the front yard, in a pile of fresh dirt, playing with my Velveeta. Mother hangs socks from a strand of barbed wire. None of the socks match. A vagabond bangles by. Mother snatches my Velveeta. "Hey vagabond!" she calls. "Why not come here and take this fat Velveeta?" In the manner of a feline the vagabond nears the fence. He has a pointy tongue and a nose ring made of a bicycle lock. I feel a panic in my throat, then a chilling dread—so this is how it will be. I close my eyes. My mother laughs. "Ha, I am only joking! Joking! There is nothing else for it, vagabond. Run away." She hands me back my Velveeta. |
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