Crave (36 page)

Authors: Laurie Jean Cannady

BOOK: Crave

7.5Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub

By then, I was using both of my hands to hold up the phone. It had become as heavy as an anvil with Momma's words in the
cold black plastic. “Laurie, I didn't even know why I was crying like that. I felt like I should've known, but I just didn't.”

I thought I knew, but of so many things in that moment I was unsure.

“Laurie, I was sad to see you go. I know you were mad because I was laughing, but if I would've told you I was sad and I would miss you, you wouldn't have gone. You wanted a reason to stay. I couldn't be that reason.”

“I know, Momma,” my words cracked against the phone.

“I just had to make sure you left. Now I know everything's gonna be okay.”

I cried out loud then, “But Momma, I'm scared and it's hard. I don't think I can make it. Please let me come back home.”

I was all of eighteen. I'd sexed as many men as any grown woman, and I had the mouth of a nasty sixty-year-old, but on that phone, standing on that concrete bay in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, I wanted my momma.

“Laurie, stop crying,” Momma said so quietly, so calmly I feared she was moving from the phone. “Stop crying, baby, and listen to me.”

“Yes, ma'am?”

“Whatever you put your hands on will prosper. God has promised you this and it's in your blood. Now, I want you to wipe your face.” I obeyed as I took the sleeve of my B.D.U.s and wiped it across my eyes.

“Now, take a deep breath.”

I inhaled Momma's voice, what I remembered of her smell, her brown skin, all of her into me.

“It's already written. You just gotta walk.”

I straightened up then, no longer leaning on the booth. I just had to walk because it was already written. I thought about those words as I asked Momma about Mary, Tom-Tom, Dathan, and Champ. I thought about those words as our conversation ended with “I love you and I miss you.” I thought about them as I crawled into my bunk, under the white sheets and Army green wool blanket that always made me colder than I was before I slid into bed.
I thought about walking and how hungry movement had always made me, about how difficult it was to be satisfied when constantly longing for more.

I wasn't sure of whether Momma was telling the truth. I didn't believe in the strength she professed was in me, but I believed in movement. I believed in searching for sustenance, for supply, in preparation for days when pangs of hunger controlled the next step.

With Momma's words still moving through me, I welcomed sleep, lulled by the humming halogen lights over the fireguard station. The next day would begin early, 4:00 a.m. First would be the cleaning of the barracks, followed by physical training, and then breakfast. I imagined savoring eggs, bacon, oatmeal, and Victory Punch, which oddly tasted like an orange pickle when sliding down my throat. As I thought of the feast awaiting me the next morning and the dinner comprised of roast and potatoes I'd polished off earlier that night, I felt the hunger positioned in me before I was born, small ripples in my belly, life growing there, even though I was not with child. Something was moving in me, a new hunger, my own, reminding me I'd have to keep walking for Momma, for my family, for me, no matter how hungry or full I got.

Pretty and her five.

Clockwise: Pretty, 48
;
Dathan, 30
;
Tom-Tom, 26
;
Champ, 32
;
Mary, 28
;
Laurie, 31
.

Books from Etruscan Press
Books from Etruscan Press

Zarathustra Must Die
| Dorian Alexander

The Disappearance of Seth
| Kazim Ali

Drift Ice
| Jennifer Atkinson

Crow Man
| Tom Bailey

Coronology
| Claire Bateman

What We Ask of Flesh
| Remica L. Bingham

The Greatest Jewish-American Lover in Hungarian History
| Michael Blumenthal

No Hurry
| Michael Blumenthal

Choir of the Wells
| Bruce Bond

Cinder
| Bruce Bond

The Other Sky
| Bruce Bond and Aron Wiesenfeld

Peal
| Bruce Bond

Poems and Their Making: A Conversation
| Moderated by Philip Brady

Toucans in the Arctic
| Scott Coffel

Body of a Dancer
| RenÃ©e E. D'Aoust

Scything Grace
| Sean Thomas Dougherty

Surrendering Oz
| Bonnie Friedman

Nahoonkara
| Peter Grandbois

The Confessions of Doc Williams & Other Poems
| William Heyen

The Football Corporations
| William Heyen

A Poetics of Hiroshima
| William Heyen

Shoah Train
| William Heyen

September 11, 2001: American Writers Respond
| Edited by William Heyen

As Easy As Lying
| H. L. Hix

As Much As, If Not More Than
| H. L. Hix

Chromatic
| H. L. Hix

First Fire, Then Birds
| H. L. Hix

God Bless
| H. L. Hix

I'm Here to Learn to Dream in Your Language
| H. L. Hix

Incident Light
| H. L. Hix

Legible Heavens
| H. L. Hix

Lines of Inquiry
| H. L. Hix

Shadows of Houses
| H. L. Hix

Wild and Whirling Words: A Poetic Conversation
| Moderated by H. L. Hix

Art Into Life
| Frederick R. Karl

Free Concert: New and Selected Poems
| Milton Kessler

Parallel Lives
| Michael Lind

The Burning House
| Paul Lisicky

Quick Kills
| Lynn Lurie

Synergos
| Roberto Manzano

The Gambler's Nephew
| Jack Matthews

The Subtle Bodies
| James McCorkle

An Archaeology of Yearning
| Bruce Mills

Arcadia Road
| Thorpe Moeckel

Venison
| Thorpe Moeckel

So Late, So Soon
| Carol Moldaw

The Widening
| Carol Moldaw

Cannot Stay
| Kevin Oderman

White Vespa
| Kevin Oderman

The Shyster's Daughter
| Paula Priamos

Help Wanted: Female
| Sara Pritchard

American Amnesiac
| Diane Raptosh

Saint Joe's Passion
| JD Schraffenberger

Lies Will Take You Somewhere
| Sheila Schwartz

Fast Animal
| Tim Seibles

American Fugue
| Alexis Stamatis

The Casanova Chronicles
| Myrna Stone

The White Horse: A Colombian Journey
| Diane Thiel

The Arsonist's Song Has Nothing to Do With Fire
| Allison Titus

The Fugitive Self
| John Wheatcroft

YOU
. | Joseph P. Wood

Etruscan Press is Proud of Support Received from
Etruscan Press is Proud of Support Received from

Wilkes University

Youngstown State University

The Ohio Arts Council

The Stephen & Jeryl Oristaglio Foundation

The Nathalie & James Andrews Foundation

The National Endowment for the Arts

The Ruth H. Beecher Foundation

The Bates-Manzano Fund

The New Mexico Community Foundation

Drs. Barbara Brothers & Gratia Murphy Fund

The Rayen Foundation

The Pella Corporation

Founded in 2001 with a generous grant from the Oristaglio Foundation, Etruscan Press is a nonprofit cooperative of poets and writers working to produce and promote books that nurture the dialogue among genres, achieve a distinctive voice, and reshape the literary and cultural histories of which we are a part.