By howard
Published: December 26, 2009
Updated: December 26, 2009 PrintEmail
THE REVOLT
by
Howard Waldman
On Sweet Doll’s birthday the wind changed and the black smoke drifted their way and Momma said, O my God. There was always black smoke from the three big black chimneys a mile away in the place where Poppa worked but most of the time the smoke didn’t bother them. But when the wind blew from the east like now there was a bad smell, like when Momma forgot a roast in the oven, and ashes on everything. Momma closed the windows but the ashes got in anyhow and Momma would scrub and scrub and sometimes weep. She liked things to be clean. In the garden Momma’s roses were dirty too and Momma would try to clean them with the hose but that was bad for the petals, she said. When Sweet Doll asked Momma what they burned all the time Momma would say, “I don’t know” and talk about her roses. She had lots of beautiful white roses. She wore white too and smelled good like the roses. Sweet Doll couldn’t ask Grandmother about the burning because Grandmother sat in the corner in her wheelchair all the time with her hand trembling on the big crucifix around her neck and she couldn’t move or talk except sometimes she would cry out, “No! No! No!” nobody knew why.
Some nights the trains rumbled in and Poppa would put on his black uniform and strap on his gun and leave to “receive the merchandise,” was what he once said when Sweet Doll asked what it was all about. Those nights Sweet Doll had trouble sleeping because of the shouts, the sharp whistles and dogs barking.
On her birthday she got a doll with long blond hair, it looked exactly like real hair. A sweet doll for Sweet Doll, Momma said, kissing her. She also got a beautiful picture book of animals. One of the pictures was scary, a tiger full of stripes and he had long teeth. Momma said the tiger was the cruelest animal of all. This tiger was about to jump on a little nigger child, but there was a blond hunter dressed in white on an elephant and he was pointing a rifle at the tiger. Sweet Doll wondered if the hunter would kill the bad tiger before it ate the little nigger child. The picture she liked best showed a green jungle with big flowers and red and yellow parrots flying in the blue sky. It was Momma’s favorite too and Momma said, wouldn’t it be nice, the two of us there, just the two of us?
Momma baked a birthday cake. She stayed next to the oven because she was afraid the cake might burn. That sometimes happened with her roasts and Poppa would get very angry, meat was so expensive. But the cake came out of the oven perfect and Sweet Doll took a deep breath and blew out the birthday candles. They smoked a little and it smelled bad like the three black chimneys but the smoke didn’t last and the candles were small and pink, five of them. The cake tasted wonderful. Sweet Doll had two big slices and asked for a third slice but Momma said no, she was already a little too plump.
It was time for Sweet Doll’s nap. She imagined eating a third slice of the delicious cake with the layers of chocolate and her mouth watered. Finally she fell asleep and dreamt that the tiger with the burning stripes and long teeth was about to pounce on her. There were also sirens and shots and shouts in the dream and when she woke up, weeping, there was no more tiger but the sirens and the shots and the shouts went on and through the window she could see the three black chimneys had stopped smoking. Momma was on the phone and she sounded frightened.
Sweet Doll sneaked into the kitchen and took a piece of her birthday cake. So Momma couldn’t see her, she sneaked into the garden with it. She hid behind the lilac bush and was about to eat the cake when suddenly there was a horrible man in front of her, all bones and dressed in stripes like the tiger and like the tiger in the dream he sprang at her and snatched Momma’s cake out of her hand and stuffed it into his mouth but he had no teeth, not like the tiger, no teeth at all, just a black hole full of her cake and his face all bones and he smelled bad, even worse than the black smoke.
Sweet Doll started screaming and Momma screamed and snatched her back into the house and locked the doors. Finally Poppa came and Sweet Doll heard a shot in the garden and she thought of the blond hunter on the elephant in the picture book. But the shots and shouts from the place where Poppa worked went on and the siren went on wailing and there was no smoke from the chimneys.
Sweet Doll ran a high fever for days. She had lots of bad dreams but one nice dream: she was with Momma, just the two of them, in the jungle with the big flowers and a beautiful blue sky full of yellow and red parrots.
Then everything was like before.
Momma baked another delicious cake for Sweet Doll and let her have three slices now.
Sweet Doll stopped dreaming about the tiger and the bad tiger man.
The chimneys belched black smoke again but they were lucky because for a long time the wind didn’t blow it their way and Momma’s white roses were nice and clean.
And Grandmother in her wheelchair held her big crucifix in her trembling hand and went on saying, “No! No! No!” over and over, “No! No! No!” nobody knew why.
