Cloverkid

On Thursday, I remember the visage of a yellow phone booth from down Second Plum Street. Decades spoke wonders of the fellow. The paint was chipping, and the handle was worn by countless fingers–an equivalent to a confessional. Nonetheless, my eyes peer upon it. There’s never a line or long lingerer. It’s the most run-down phone booth in town. If only the smudged-up windows could talk—you think they’d spill any secrets? Maybe there’s a secret code to being a phone booth. ‘What’s spoken in the booth, stays in the booth.’ Or something of the like.

Maybe it isn’t best to give so much thought to this, or quite possibly the contrary. Wringing brain juice out of a soaking rag is one way to find the tile floor. Intricate patterns in need of being soaked into, filling every crevice. Leave no crevice unfilled, find something delicious within them, and embrace their secrets. I can’t imagine how many memories are filled into the cracks of the phone booth.

I could see its yellow body from my Aunt’s kitchen, gazing at me as I rearranged the spices on the windowsill. The diversity of the home kitchen reflected how I felt about the phone booth. Cinnamon to give my heart warmth, cayenne to keep me sharp-tongued, sugar for my batting lashes, and coffee grounds to match my eyes. Grouping and rehearsing my traits to shift the focus of limerence. I can’t afford therapy, but reorganizing my mind palace will do.

‘What’s spoken in the booth, stays in the booth.’ I mimic the cowbird’s liquid warble in my Aunt’s faded yellow kitchen. Green clovers line the walls above the trimming—the gap between the trimming and the ceiling, I can never remember what that’s called. My Aunt got up there when she first moved into this house and painted them by hand. She had ginger curls and would wobble as she stood on kitchen chairs to reach the cupboards, maintaining balance and giggling at the silliness of her carelessness.

Wafting dish soap and the faint smell of clean dog makes me feel nostalgic towards her. Everyone always talks about wet dog smell, but no one ever talks about the wonders of clean dog smell. The aroma of a clean, bandana-wearing puppy dog. I wonder who he would call with his little paws if he were in the phone booth—doggie biscuit shop? As if that exists. His bark echoes and fades with the sounds of the birds.

My Aunt would call me her mockingbird; she would treat me as a special child. Humor my mimicry and affinity towards gazing out the window. With crow’s feet and a sigh, she’d tousle my hair and tell me I am a little puppy in a big, fast world.

“Someday, you’ll be a cloverkid.” She’d say with sincerity and a little pain in her eyes. Whatever that meant, I’m grateful. They are words that calm me and let me know I’ll be alright.

On Friday, I stay in the library. Quietly jittering my leg beneath the desk. I stare blankly at the wood, finding stimulation in the faint chitters of sound around me. A turning page, the shuffle of clothes on a readjusting body, a distant laugh, and the occasional thunk of a book falling on the carpet. I find myself gliding around the bookshelves, in search of a book just right for me. Yellow smells guide my old hound nose. I grab a weathered telephone book, a recipe book from four decades ago, and a bookmark with a green dragon on it before I sit back down—this will do.

The air surrounds me in silence, a pocket of safety from my inner turmoil. I melt off my actor’s armor and rummage mindlessly through the phone book. How such a simple act transforms my soul in this moment. As a child, I would devour novels with a predator’s voracity, and now reading a telephone book feels like something worth celebrating. How many fingers have pressed these pages? I’m sure they’re as worn as the phone booth handle. I wonder if anyone has dialed someone in that yellow phone booth from a number they found milling these very yellow pages. It would make sense, it really would—that’s the book’s purpose, after all.

I’ve mitigated my own purpose for so long. I close the telephone book and open the recipe book, my eyes giving a thousand-yard stare. It’s been this way for—ever, this tinkering of my lucidity. Sleep-walking through these years without my bandana-wearing puppy dog. Coffee grounds not only match my eyes but also fill them now.

2 tbsp of sugar, but wait—before that, 2 cups of flour. In my flowering years, I dreamt far and dream-like; the soil never felt dry, and my roots were planted firmly. Oh, the twenties, they are a sore for sight eyes.

On Saturday, it stings. I never see yellow birds. I don’t think they fly around here. It’s okay, I suppose. I love all the other birdies around here—but man, I’d love to see a yellow one. It feels like a special occurrence. There aren’t a lot of animals that are pure yellow like that. Sunshine yellow. I’m having a hard time coming up with any at the top of my head. Maybe other than bright yellow fish. Yellow like the phone booth.

A primary color seldom found in mammals—it’s intriguing. And yellow flowers are easy to name; I’ll tell you that much. As I write this, I’m reading it in an Italian American accent, a man’s voice. Isn’t that strange and funny? Even my subconscious demands identity, shamelessly displaying my lack thereof. It’s even hard to read words in my own voice. I would hear the Italians talking on their flip phones from my Aunt’s kitchen. Their speech patterns would marry the cowbird’s liquid warble as I mimicked them, all of us harmonizing with each other. My Aunt would hit me over the head with empty plastic pop bottles, telling me not to be so loud when people walked by.

Anyways, I thought of one. A Kinkajou is a yellow mammal. Actually—maybe more golden. It’s interesting to think hard about these things. It’s stuff you wouldn’t really think about normally. I stare out the kitchen window, eating toast with cinnamon on it; it tastes dull. The empty bottles on the windowsill become blurry doubles of each other, and the sunbeams bend through them. I stare out the window and let the faces of passersby melt with my own reflection like watercolor. Ever present is the yellow phone booth, begging to be added to the palette. You start thinking harder about things when you let yourself stare off. No goddamn distractions.

On Sunday, I’m dying for a deep breath. Why is it so hard to? Maybe my diet is shit, and I spent too many years smoking—maybe. It’s made my teeth all yellow, like you know what. I’m tired of talking about it. Maybe my heart just hurts. I have a lot of sludge inside my head. My eyes feel heavy. My tongue has rotted from the cayenne. These wavering moods and indescribable hormones.

Suddenly, my mind is enraptured with the imagery of a praying mantis tap dancing. Hello, merry friend. Entomology to come soothe my jittery, skittery heart. They know best, all their many legs and such. His shoes are yellow, and beside him is a bandana-wearing puppy dog. I’m afraid I have to let you go now, friend.

I will never forget the first time I saw a praying mantis. I was under the age of 4, no doubt. He looked gigantic to me—perched upon the gas station pump, whatever it’s called, I can never remember. This memory of a summer morning is so damn bright. Colors, vivid as can be. The mantis was so green, and the gas station logo so red. The sun, so yellow.

Is it okay to cry? Just let it out? It’s a pain, everything becoming so damn dull. We’re divine as children, even when we’re being neglected and corrected. It isn’t fair; are humans meant to have their paint chip this rapidly? I’m not sure, but it feels entirely possible to my numb and hyperactive heart.

Responsibility is a high price for a life I didn’t ask for. Clean up the memories off the tiled kitchen floor, spilling from the bottle against my head. That kitchen where my brain spilled prismatic colors into the blackened cracks. God, how I miss those bright colors. How I miss that yellow phone booth from my puzzling Aunt’s kitchen window. That confessional that could be anything and made me feel like a cloverkid.