Devonne Brown

The pile of vinyl records dropped one Frank Sinatra album onto the turntable. He crooned about Strangers in the Night, and I smiled in my sleep. The needle skipped and Snoopy and the Red Barron were fighting it out in the sky. The needle jumped to Bolero, it pranced around in my head, and a vision of a handsome man in the distance walked toward me.

I woke up in a cold sweat. The memories began to run like an old reel to reel movie, with that zip sound in the background. Every embarrassing conversation and moment I’d ever had with anyone bubbled to the top of my head with an audible pop. Each word, plain as the day it was spoken. “Please don’t do this,” I said to my head.

I thought of all the Easter Sundays with the Clay county contingent of the family. Bluegrass music in the background from so many talented musicians the kin had way back then. My sister and I, so precious in our Easter frocks, didn’t hear the words of condemnation about being uppity and too good to get dirty until years later when nothing could be done about it.

“It doesn’t seem to bother you when people call you fat, does it?” said my aunt at the dinner table on one happy Easter dinner. Though tears were behind my eyes, I shook my head no and shrugged my shoulders. She cooked her white sweet potatoes in butter. Damn they were good. 

They all laughed when I wrecked a bike in the creek and ruined the Easter pantsuit I’d made myself.

Mrs. Cratchett was having kittens in the closet in my apartment. I called the vet immediately, thinking she was going to die. I’d never seen anything hang out of a live body and live before. 

I shook my head and the thought changed. Mom told me she wanted a Cadillac, her dream car. She got it too. She used the powers of manifestation. That’s all I could think of. Make it happen. You can make anything happen. Manifestation.

I joined a metaphysical church and learned all about it. Sat circle, which is what they used to call a seance. I miss those people, something fierce. 

“She can’t take care of herself,” Mom cried one day. I had to shake my head again. I wished daylight would come.

I take medication for these disjointed thoughts. Sometimes they bring me to my knees, especially in the morning. The meds work, not as quickly as I’d like, but they get me upright and moving and I can start and finish a day. 

I don’t want to hear Frank Sinatra again.