Richard Holinger
Copperheads and Cucumbers
Brent lines up his two blue garbage bins next to mine because the sanitation trucks pick up on my side first and there is strength in numbers that helps prevent his bins from being stolen by the assholes up the street who do construction and bring their shit home in dump trailers when he says he just returned from Kentucky where his son has a horse farm and copperheads roost on roads and trails but sometimes you can sniff them out before you ride over them because copperheads smell like cucumbers and it’s good if you can because they wait for a horse’s forelegs to go by before striking a hind leg so the snake won’t get trampled to death by biting the foreleg first, a lesson inculcated over the eons, way before the fifteen hundreds when cucumbers came to America, before his son’s horses crossed paths with copperheads coiled beneath maple, oak, beech, and paper birch tree leaves crisp and dry as overtoasted bread, only the scent of salad giving rider and horse a hint there might be more than what a morning breeze or hoof fall might stir up beneath.
Leaving a Doctor’s Appointment after Getting Bad News
You are in a parking lot with several levels, each open to a view of the city: buildings made of glass, steel, and brick. You hunt for your car, somewhere on Level 3, you know, because you wrote it down on the back of a Target receipt when leaving your car. Walking up and down the dark interior, you realize you won’t be able to pay for the time you spent here because you forgot your wallet. You go to a window where someone looks officious, so you tell her your predicament. She gives you a promissory note to sign. She guides you to an outdoor parking lot you didn’t know existed where you see your decades-old standard shift yellow Volvo. From far away, you think the shiny yellow car next to it with a spoiler and racing wheels might be yours, but when you get there, you find no driver’s side keyhole as there is on your car. You get in and drive carefully because you don’t have your license and if you get stopped it could be a problem. The paved road through the city eventually turns bumpy, but you know you can get where you’re going if you stay on this route. On a steep incline down, you slide along the sandy rock road past impoverished houses and unpainted farm outbuildings. At the bottom, a turnaround has you driving back uphill, but the car cannot make it back up the steep grade, and as the earth closes in around the car, it stalls. You get out and begin to climb, bringing the car with you. At the top you get back in and drive through pleasant green lawns and two-story white houses. You park outside the largest home and ring the doorbell. “I’m lost, and I need directions,” you say to the person who comes to the door. She invites you in and guides you through a maze to a sliding glass back door. As she opens it, you say, “I forgot my car,” and start back for it, wondering if you can navigate the maze on your own but are willing to try. It is, after all, what brought you here and is all you have. How can you leave it for this woman’s spacious backyard, pool, and deck chairs? It may not be perfect, far from it, it’s home, and it’s all you have.
Rick Holinger has taught English and creative writing on the college and secondary school levels. A multiple Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, his writing appears in Chicago Quarterly Review, Chautauqua, Boulevard, Witness and elsewhere. His book of poetry, North of Crivitz, and collection of essays, Kangaroo Rabbits and Galvanized Fences, are available at local bookstores, Amazon, or richardholinger.net. Contact him at editorial@kcchronicle.com.
