A Snoopy Without It's Head

(An older story I've been toying with recently but pretty appropriate for Halloween. Not for the prompt though... Still saving that one.)

I uncovered the photo album last summer in our basement. It was in a box under the vacuum cleaner box that my father bought for Mother’s Day several years ago. My mother never used it, preferring to still get on all-fours to wipe our hardwood floors. But the box served a useful purpose, holding some Howlin’ Wolf records and hiding various odds and ends my parents had collected.

I think I was looking for porno magazines. Years ago, my friend Roger told me his Dad had a stash in the attic. When I went over, the magazines had mysteriously disappeared and I was disappointed that my hymen-covered eyes would have to be broken some other day. I called Roger an ass for getting me all hyped, but he said his mom had made muffins. They weren’t really muffins, just flour, sugar, and eggs baked in a muffin tray, so maybe they were technically muffins. I asked Roger’s mother if I could call them muffins. She said, Do they look like muffins? Don’t they puff out, tops raised to the air? But I said, They don’t taste like muffins. And to this she said, Don’t you have better things to worry about?

But this talk happened years ago, back when I still recited, “Circle-circle-dot-dot-now-I-have-my-cooties-shot-you-snottypants-so-go-away-never-do-I-wanna-play.” I may or may not have been looking for porno magazines, which may or may not have been provoked by a decade-old conversation with Roger’s mother. But I always was a curious little boy, born in the year of the monkey, and I did find the photo album.

In one photo, two young boys stand next to each other. One is smiling. I showed my father the photo. Ahh yes, he said. That is me. I asked him if there was a story attached to the photo. He said, What do you think?

My father is a riddler and a puzzler. He’s not a confusing man; he simply asks many questions to which I always have an answer. It’s because I’m an answerer, but this is not quite the same as a wise person my father said. If you want to know answers, do the crossword puzzle. If you want to be wise, read the funnies.

But you were such a stupid child, you never even laughed at Charlie Brown. I remember reading it to you one night before bed, and you peed in your pants. I asked, Why did you pee? Are you a dog, one that pees wherever he likes? And you said, I am a monkey. And monkeys are wise. That night, I told your Ma to stop spooning you that oxshit.

Me, I always dreamed I was Snoopy. I once bit brother’s eyelashes off, pretending I was The Ace and his eyelashes The Baron. Daniel didn’t tell Baba that I had killed the Nazis. When Baba asked why he had no lashes, brother said, I think I look beautiful without them.

Brother always was a beautiful boy. I still miss his face. I imagine he would have made an even more beautiful girl, that was how pretty his face was. But boys with pretty faces also cry much, for it is only in the eye that beauty water can be made. Daniel cried often, but he did not cry on that day. He thought I was making him more beautiful. But he cried many other days.

The day of that photo was one of the days he cried. It was our first Halloween in this school, and in this school, instead of just giving you the teeth-rot, the teacher told us that we were going to play dress-up for Halloween and we would have to walk in a rectangle (four sides, but not a square we echoed back to her) inside the playground fence for the Babas and Mamas who would wave and smile with their teeth and take our photos. We would get to leave at lunchtime to go home and change into our costumes. We practiced walking a week before. Teacher told us, Straighten your posture. No talking. Hands to yourself. Smile with your eyes.

I found my costume in the Classifieds page after the funnies. It was a Snoopy costume, but without a head, and I told my mother I wanted it. I liked the idea of Snoopy having my eyes and my face and my ferocious Jap-killin’ teeth.

Mother did not smile. She cut out a picture of Snoopy from the comics section and taped it to her sewing machine. She said, I can make it for you. She asked brother what he wanted to be. He said, I want to be a jail person.

My costume was quite simple. It was like bunny-rabbit pajamas, those one-piece outfits that you zipped up in the front. Even my feet were covered, and Mama sewed on white fur and a ribbon around the neck for a collar. But for Daniel’s prisoner costume, my mother spent more time. She found one of my father’s old black suits. She wanted to sew white stripes on it, but Baba said the coat still held many memories for him. So, instead, Mama used glue to stick on the strips to the jacket and slacks. She said it would wash right out, but we still shouldn’t tell Baba we borrowed his suit. She was so proud when it was done. She even stuffed a black sock to make a ball that would be chained to his leg, like the ghost from that movie.

I could tell brother wasn’t happy with it. It wasn’t very pretty, but he never was one to speak out. I almost told Mama that I had saved enough money that we could just buy Daniel a real prisoner’s costume, straight from Woolworth, but I actually stole the money from the Church, so I didn’t tell…

I took the photo from my father’s hands and lightly wiped away the dust, imagining my Uncle Danny.

Halloween day soon came, and at lunch, they went home to change. Daniel stared at the inmate’s outfit, unsure of what it was. That day was quite warm, so it had melted some of the glue that held the white lines together, and the paste drip-smeared all over the jacket, leaving cum-like stains in formation and stripes in disarray. It was a mess, but his mother stood in the next room, setting up the camera to capture their first American Halloween, awaiting his beaming smile.

Daniel grimaced as he shrugged on the too-big jacket and watched as the stripes slid as if lubricated down his pant leg. He walked into the next room and smiled for his mother, teeth splaying sunlight, but it was obvious to all but his mother that he seethed and teethed inside.

My children are beautiful thought the mother and she clicked the image into eternity. I feel ugly thought Daniel as he looked at the sewing machine bench where his mother spent the past two nights after work making his costume. And with those thoughts, the two boys trudged back to school while the one woman went back to work at the factory.

…we came to school just as the parade was going to begin. Brother walked to his class line and I walked to mine. We circled the garden, and I watched brother begin to gasp for air; there was a spot on his throat that if you watched carefully, you could see the storm clouds gather. The spot where an older boy’s Adam apple would be would heave in, then out. Soon, his eyes bled beauty potion, and he became more and more pitiful. He cried more and more. The older children began to point and laugh at the crier. They called him a girl and one of them came by and stole his black sock ball-and-chain. Teacher asked brother to stop crying, but he could not stop. He wanted to cry, he needed to cry. They brought me over to ask him why he was crying. I almost told them the reason, but he told me not to. By the time he finished crying, the parade was over and all the parents had finished their smiling and waving and cooing.

I led brother to his feet and held his hand, guiding him back home. His tears were in the concrete playground now, feeding the pavement. I walked in front, brother and my Snoopy tail hanging behind me.

And then the older kids came.

They held in front of them the fake ball-and-chain and waggled it in front of brother. Brother ran forward to get it, but the boys tore the sock into strips. When he tried to get back the sock, the boys circled him. All of a sudden, I found a foot in the back of my calf and down I went down like an elephant. On my knees, I saw a bigger boy enter the ring. He was a strong boy, tightly muscled, and it was said that he had stayed back for at least two years.

The leader picked my brother up by the ear. The ear is very flexible: it was like make-believe, seeing it stretch almost to the moon before brother screamed. I tried to stand up but two boys easily held me down.

The leader punched brother and down he fell. The leader quickly unzipped his pants and peed all over the strips of black sock on the ground. He peed like a human, his aim direct and true, soaking the cloth. He then picked up the strips and shoved them in brother’s mouth, tying one long strip around his head. Then they proceeded.

Brother could not cry, so I cried for him. I watched as the boys held him down, his delicate frame trampled by them. I tried to shut my eyes, but when I did, the two boys would punch me in the face. Blood dripped from my nose, staining the sidewalk. I yelled for help, but it was as if we were on the moon, no bakeries around.

Brother cried but he did not tear. His eyes were drier than week old buns. He vomited, then threw up, then vomited again into the piss soaked sock covering his mouth.

Stop, please stop, I said.

I turned the photo over and put my hands to my eyes. I stood there, quiet. Then angrily, I asked my father, Why are you telling me this? I don’t need to know all of this. What are you doing? He took off his glasses and adjusted his tufts of white hair. I was just looking for a memory, a token of yesterday I thought of telling him; not this, no not this at all, but the thought traveled down to my Adam’s apple and lodged itself there. I expected the riddle to come, but he surprised me nonetheless. He leaned back in his chair and said, You were born in the year of the monkey, and monkeys should be more than just answerers. He abruptly folded his glasses with a distinct “click” and walked towards the stairs, taking them very slowly, one at a time, rocking back and forth like a wobbling sailboat.