The Outlaw Album: Stories

            When she comes over it is in a rattly old thing. Color yellow it got white-ring tires that rhyme the way round and the exhaust has slipped loose and is dragging sparks from it. There are stickers from the many funny places she been to on the bumper and two or three of her ideas are pasted on the fenders. A band-aid that look just like a band-aid only it is a monster has been momma’d onto the hood like the rattly old thing got some child sore in the motor.

            Now this official had mailed us a note that tell Wilma who is the woman who is my wife and me that this lady wants to visit. It seems she teach Cecil something useful at the prison.

            The door flings out and she squats up out of the car coming my way. I have posted myself in the yard and she come straight at me smiling. Over her shoulder is a strap that holds up a big purse made of the sort of pale weeds they have in native lands I never saw.

            She call me Mister McCoy right off like who I am is that clear-cut. Her name Frieda Buell she go on then flap out a hand for me to shake. I give her palm a little rub and tell her she is welcome.

            When I see that sits with her good I tell her to come into the house.

            That is something she would love to do she tells me.

            This is a remark I don’t believe so I stand back and inventory her. She is young with shaggy blond hair but she knows something about painting her face as she has done it smashing well. Her shirt is red and puffy and her shoes have heels that tell me walking is not a thing she practices over much. Her britches are pale and slicked onto her booty like they started as steam puffs.

            The porch has sunk down so it hunkers a distance in front of the house. I ask her to be careful and she is. Inside I give her the good chair but I keep standing.

            Right away I tell her I want to know what this about.

            What it is about is a lulu. My son Cecil is a gifted man she says. He has a talent that puts a rareness to the world or something along those lines.

            Cecil? Cecil a thief I tell her. And not that sly a one neither.

            Once was she says. No more.

            Always was. My mind is made up on that. But what’s got me puzzled is what is this rareness he puts to the world or whatever?

            Poetry is her answer. She reach her hand that has been overdone with various rings into the big purse and pulls out a booklet. She says Cecil has written it and the critics have claimed him as a natural in ability.

            I take the booklet in my hands. It is of thick dry paper and the cover says “Dark Among the Grays” by Cecil McCoy. That is him all right I say. Tell me do this somehow line him up early for parole?

            It could she says. She trying to face me bold enough but her eyes is playing hooky on her face and going places besides my own. She been teaching him for two years she says and what he has is a gift like she never seen before.

            Gift I say. A gift is not like Cecil.

            May I have the book she asks. I hand it to her. She opens it to a middle page. Like this listen to this. She begin to read to me from what apparently Cecil my son has written out. The name of it is “Soaring” and it is a string of words that say a bird is floating above the junkyard and has spotted a hot glowing old wreck below only the breeze sucks him down and he can’t help but land in it. When she done reading the thing she look up at me like I should maybe be ridiculous with pleasure. I can’t tell but that is my sense.

            Is that the first chapter or what I want to know.

            She lets out one of them whistly breaths that means I might overmatch her patience. These are poems of his life on the street she tells me. But they are brimful of accurate thoughts for all. Yet grounded in the tough streets of this area.

            They have junkyards everywhere is my comeback to her.

            But the bird Mister McCoy. The bird is soaring over death which is an old car wreck. The poet is wanting to be that white bird winging it free above death. What it really signifies is that Cecil want to be let off from having to die. That is the point of it she says.

            Now to me this point is obvious but I feel sad for a second about Cecil. Two things he never going to be is a white bird.

            Read on I suggest.

            She slides out a smile for me that lets me know I’m catching on. Then she turn the book to another page. This was in some big-time poetry magazine she says. Then she read. The words of this one are about a situation I recognize. The poet has ripped off his momma’s paycheck to pay back some bad dudes he ain’t related to.

            Hold it there I tell her. That is a poem that actually happen several times lady. Cecil a goddamn thief.

            No no no. He wants to make amends for it. He wants to overcome the guilt of what he done.

            I tell her it would be in the hundreds of dollars to do that. Is these poems going to get him that kind of money? My question is beneath her. She won’t answer it.

            This poem has meanings for all the people she says. They look into it and see their selves.