Tuxedo Man
written by: Judith Speizer Crandell
Smoldering smoke. Blinds my eyes. I feel him move. Away from the paneled walls, the cobweb-covered chairs. Soot encircles me. The naked doll. My eyes clear. I wipe thick tortoiseshell owl glasses. Shove them on quickly, quickly. No time to lose. Time must not be lost. He has young gray hair. He is evil. Evil. Why? Why is he here? Here in a 1950’s tuxedo trimmed with black braid; his belly outlined by a blood red satin cummerbund. I circle three times. Three times I walk the perimeter. But I cannot. I cannot see his face. I am a lost waif who has wandered into a living room that sucks all the life out of me.
Why do I have no one to claim me, love me, embrace me? At birth I was abandoned. Left to live or die. It didn’t matter to her. Her of the extra shots of vodka. Her of the empty face. Arms that folded like a paper doll. Not real. Not capable of holding anything. A child. A drop of water. Nothing. I am nothing. Better to be a drop of water and evaporate.
“Who have we here?” he boomed. “Come here, daughter.”
No. No. No. I was not his daughter. Never ever. I was the leftover excrement from a boozy night in Salinas, Georgia. I was the Balkan balling’s that caught up with her. This man was nothing, no one to me. He was insane and I must close my eyes and evaporate.
- Tuxedo Man - November 12, 2020
