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Penny For Your Thoughts

By Kimy J. M. Knight



Detail of Penny's letter to me, 1990
Detail of Penny's letter to me, 1990

My aunt Penny died. We were  penpals for a few years before we were estranged from one another. I had wondered about her from time to time. I had written a poem about her that I turned into a short story. I work-shopped it during my graduate years as I was studying for my MFA in Creative Writing. And, now, I’ve resurrected it and defined it a bit more for this blog.


Penny was in an automobile accident when she was three years old, she was not buckled in. She suffered trauma to the brain and never had recovered fully. She lost her ability to speak properly. She would have seisures and uncontrollable tantrums on occasion though I never witnessed one. She could write in the form of lists, she could not form complete sentences. 


Around the time when Penny and I were writing to each other, I had been hired by the City of Richmond to teach acting classes to the finacially disadvantaged community centers located in North Richmond and the Iron Triangle. I had to bus out there from El Sobrante. One of the assignments was to teach a group of adults who had learning challenges, learning differences, and physical impairments. I had created a curriculum designed for the diverse group. Being with them was one of the best and hardest teaching jobs I’ve had. They absolutely delighted in my visits as well, as it was truely playtime and fun for us. They were of the generation that society shunned adults like them. It was believed that they should not be outside with others in public and integrated in schools (before the American Disability Rights Act that began it’s roots in the 1960’s but took a decade to become a reality). This is how my aunt lived. She was fortunate to have a family who did not put her in an institution, however she had only her immediate family. She led a sheltered life and I would assume a loney one as well.


Love to my aunt Penny. May you rest in peace sweet woman with a child’s heart and mind.



PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

By Kimy J. M. Knight

Penny wanted to know what she was like before the crash and she found herself obsessed with the search on how to return to that way as she watched, from the hole in the side yard fence, how the other children played.

Penny’s mother shot herself in the room down the hall. Her mother’s door remains bolted. Things loom in the spaces between corroded hinges and splintered wood. Penny was never told that her mother died so Penny kept waiting for her mother to open the door again. She would slip letters under her mother’s door. Penny remembers her mother staying inside her room for days but never as long as this. Penny hopes her mother will slip a letter back, or better yet, just come out of her room.

Penny walked up and down the hallway. More shadows played between the steel bars on the windows and through the yellowed gauzed curtains. Thump, went the Yellow Pages. Swish, the Watch Tower rolled up and shoved in the handle of the screen door. When Penny paced around enough her father would let her outside.

Puffy old, her skin was like rising bread dough as she moved. She focused on her turned-in-toes shuffling as the tip of her flip-flops flicked up gravel. The sun reflected off of everything and sent unwanted beams her direction. They blasted her down.

She heard “rejectin the distance but didn’t dare look up. In the city of Richmond, all is violent, on the streets and in the newspapers. Blood sticks into the grooves of black asphalt, a tough glamorous look. Across the ditch is the city of San Pablo violence is contained in dark houses. Blood is on the sheets, it’s on chipped linoleum, rusty toilets, in broken beds shoved against walls. This is where Penny lived.

The pharmacy door pivoted open, cold air knocked her breath away. Candied colors and vibrating fluorescents, like “It’s a Small World”  ride spinning her head in all directions; Foam sputtered from the trembled corners of her mouth. This is everything. The world has been scooped up and balanced on a sugar cone and served to her in the San Pablo Pharmacy. 


Letter came with a card for my 20th birthday.
Letter came with a card for my 20th birthday.

Jewelry made from China. Scarves were from Sri Lanka. Flip-flops, like the very ones she had on, came from Mexico. She switched them out with a quick chew on the zip-tie. There were lotions and potions from India. She was totally and utterly enchanted. She walked over to the music boxes. Plastic ballerinas turned, scraped, turned, scraped their red velvet floor. Penny went down the row, overwound one, then the other until a racket and scratch and clanging of bad musical notes shuttered down the metal shelf. A Betty Boop alarm clock winked at her. Penny turned on all the sample alarm clocks she could find. Quickly she went down the aisle, unleashing the wall of sound, the shelves of dissonance. The staff could no longer allow this, could no longer bare the painful throbbing of their eardrums. Penny was scolded and directed down another aisle.

Penny continued her travels towards the cosmetics, wondering how that Ruby Red felt on her lips, and she proceeded to unwrap the Ocean Blue eye shadow, and the Paradise Pink blush. She looked up and caught her reflection in the towering mirror. She looked just like the woman in the poster reflected behind her.

Penny was tired. So tired of not remembering what she knew before she became what she was now. She was tired at looking at people’s faces that reminded her of this. It tormented her. She studied the lines etched in her palms as she cupped paperclips. She had stopped at her mothers door to hear anything, a breath, a sigh, a pull on the covers even, but there was nothing. She took refuge on her own bed.

Penny sat on the edge of her comforter. Penny wrote a letter.

Clock 5:14

Only one penny left

Lipstick red like you

15 Paperclips

Socks red

Music box

Dancers

Come visit me.

Miss you. miss you please.

Love Penny.


I was about to move in with my other aunt in which I would attend San Mateo Junior College. She kept up with my doings! Miss you too, Penny G.
I was about to move in with my other aunt in which I would attend San Mateo Junior College. She kept up with my doings! Miss you too, Penny G.

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