Tom Hedt
Small Lessons in Thievery
….and you know you’ve rarely been a thief, but like magicians and shamans, you appreciate their skills, the skill to make things appear and disappear, like when you sat in that restaurant and were telling your son-in law that you can’t expect people to be perfect, and he is so caught up on being good, and he wants his daughter to be good, and he’s agitated because you and your daughter are teaching your granddaughter how to pinch silverware from this restaurant and she is slipping the knife into her sleeve and she is a good student and the silverware is beautiful braided patterns of fish and crustaceans that shine dull in pewter and yellow lighting and your son is getting animated and your granddaughter is getting giggly with the excitement of the heist and you quietly tell her she needs to keep her cool as you take the check from the waitress and examine it for accuracy, line by line and calculate the tip at 22 percent and your daughter and son in law are now arguing and your granddaughter has got the knife and the spoon in her sleeve and your son so much wants his daughter to be good and he’s adopted Buddhism and you explain to him that karma, like entropy, is not a law, but a statistical abstraction and how you used to steal toilet paper from the library when you were too poor in college and couldn’t afford to buy any but the universe didn’t starve you of toilet paper, but he’s not paying attention because two pieces are now in his daughters sleeve and you’ve handed your card to the waitress and he wants his daughter so much to be good and he’s arguing with your daughter who is explaining to him how she learned to steal cups from her mother and it’s a tradition and he feels so powerless and you again have to tell your granddaughter to breathe deeply and restrain her giddiness and to remember to always walk slowly and calmly and you eat the last fry as the waitress returns and you sign the receipt as your daughter walks out with your granddaughter and you stand and leave the bill on the table and look out the window and see you granddaughter on the sidewalk jumping for joy and pulling the silverware from her sleeve and you understand that the next lesson will be to never celebrate too soon.
Dancing Queen
It’s a bit of a drive, but it’s early so the roads are empty. Streetlights off black pavement, shiny from the mist, the burn of Smirnoff down my throat. We park in the alley.
“Come on Princess, its time.”
“I don’t want to go. It’s sad.” She’s in her onesie. The sideways frownie face always breaks my heart.
“I know it’s sad, but we agreed.” She pouts, climbs out of the van, pulling her stuffed pony along by the ear. Her face reminds me so much of her mom.
She looks up, startled. “Oh, I almost forgot my book.” I manage a nod and a half-smile, she gathers the stapled sheets of paper, the little play she’s been writing.
I lock up the minivan, and fumble for my key card, trying not to look up at the camera.
There’s a buzz and a click. I hold the door.
“Why do you always carry your bottle in a bag? Are you trying to hide it?”
I straighten up and take a breath. “No, I’m not trying to hide it. It’s the law, if you carry a bottle, it’s got to be in a paper bag.”
We’re waiting for the freight elevator. Silence is heavy, except the clang of metal as it slowly descends to us, the whirring of engine and cable. It’s only been a couple months since my fall. Technically I’m still on staff, but for some reason this place is freaking me out.
She’s dancing on the concrete floor. “Why? Why does the law say that?”
I watch her, trying not to let my nerves get raw. “I don’t know, it just is.”
We get up to the top and follow the dark halls. I nearly trip over some tools. I think about going to my locker, see if I’ve still got my old spot. But the kid is with me, and I want to get outside for dawn. I want to see the wreckage.
A right turn, then a left, and I see the opening, dark sky framed by walls. There’s a rush of cool air. I walk out. Fuck! Twenty stories off the ground. I reach and shimmy my way over to the ledge, push my back against the wall and slide down, take a shot. I’m dizzy. Grayscale shapes in the darkness make the height worse.
She’s dancing. For fucks sake, she’s dancing. She’s next to me on the ledge, I reach for her to pull her to me, but she turns out of my reach, feet floating over blackness.
“Get over here!”
She just smiles. “Did you know I have really good balance? In gymnastics, my teacher says I can balance on anything.” She steps on an open steel beam, and keeps on dancing, skipping, twirling, like she’s suspended in air.
“Get off the beam!”
“Did you look at my book?” My heart is beating so hard, I feel it hitting the wall.
“No. I didn’t. Bring it over, so I can read it.”
“It’s next to you on the floor.”
She’s dancing out further on the metal beam. I try to push myself from the ground, but my strength is gone.
“Read my book, daddy, you said you would.”
I try to steady my breathing. “You come over here. Then we’ll look at it together, OK?”
“No. You should come to see me do the balance beam. I’m really good. I can do a flip without falling off!”
“Don’t you dare do a fucking flip!”
“Read the book daddy.”
I fumble my right hand against the wall, feel the folded papers, crumble them in my hand, lift them to my face.
“Why did we stop living over there?” She points to the apartments. The wreck that’s about to come down. The reason we are here. The place where we began. The only place where the three of us lived together.
I take another breath. “It’s complicated sweetie, let’s just read your little thing here.”
“We get to see them knock it down today, right? Why did you want to watch them knock it down?”
“Let’s read your little play darlin’. Come here, you start, right?”
“No. You start. You’ve got the first part. You get to be mommy.” That makes no sense. We’ve read this before; it has cats, mice, and frogs, not moms and dads.
It’s still dark, I have a hard time focusing my eyes. The vodka and my nerves all seem to be working against me. I take off my glasses so I can read better, put them on the ledge next to me.
I read the script out loud, my daughter’s handwriting. “John, stop! Please! We’re a family! It’s always just you and your bottle….” My voice trails off. That’s exactly what she’d said. I look up, there is a blurry shape dancing on a steel beam over an abyss, the sun is coming up, I am dizzy. Through my tears, she stares at me.
“You did it wrong. You’re supposed to yell. You’re mommy, you’re supposed to try to convince me to come back!”
“This is not funny! Get over here!”
Across the street they’re firing up the crane; it slowly lifts the wrecking ball. My fingers are numb, the papers fall, drifting, floating like white birds through the morning air.
“What did you do!? You have to read your part! You are mom, you have to beg me to come back! Otherwise, I can’t come back!”
All I can do is stare, slack jawed. Sprites are dancing in the water of my vision. The noise of the crane swinging the wrecking ball is drowning out my little girl’s voice. It is swinging in bigger and bigger arcs.
Tom Hedt’s work has been published widely in journals, including: The Sijo International Journal of Poetry and Song, Bright Flash Literary Review, Cirque, Cathexis Northwest, The Tule Review, The Lilly Poetry Review, Flash Boulevard, and elsewhere. His poetry compilation, Artifacts and Assorted Memorabilia, was published in September of 2020 by Cold River Press. He currently serves as the Associate Poetry Editor for Bending Genres. He lives in Eureka, California.
