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Edited on Fri Mar-14-08 03:37 PM by BlueIris
"The Chute"
When I was a kid my father built a
hole down through the center of the house.
It started in the upstairs closet, a
black, square mouth like a well
with a lid on it, it plummeted down
behind the kitchen wall, and the raw
pine cloaca tip of it was
down in the basement where the twisted wicker
basket lay on the cement floor,
so when someone dropped in laundry on top of it, it would
drop with the speed of sheer falling—in the
kitchen you'd hear that whisk of pure
descent behind the wall. And halfway
down there was an electric fixture for the
doorbell—that bell my father would ring and
ring years later when he stood at the door with that
blood on him, like a newborn's caul,
ringing ringing to enter. But back
then he was only halfway down, a
wad of sheets stuck in the chute,
he could still fix the doorbell when it busted.
He'd stand his kids in front of him,
three skinny scared braggart kids,
and run his gaze over them, a
surgeon running his eyes over the tray,
and he'd select a kid, and take that kid by the
ankles and slowly feed that kid
down the chute. First you'd do a handstand on the
lip of it and then he’d lower you in,
the smell of pine and dirty laundry,
his grip on your ankles like the steel he sold,
he'd lower you until your whole body was in it
and you'd find the little wires, red and
blue, like a vein and a nerve, and you'd tape them together.
We thought it was such an honor to be chosen,
and like all honors it was mostly terror, not
only the blood in your head like a sac of
worms in wet soil, but how could you believe he would
not let go? He would joke about it,
standing there, holding his kid like a
bottle brush inside a bottle, or the
way they drown people, he'd lower us down as if
dipping us into the darkness before birth
and he'd pretend to let go—he loved to hear
passionate screaming in the narrow space—
how could you trust him? And then if you were
his, half him, your left hand maybe and your
left foot dipped in the gleaming
murky liquor of his nature, how could you
trust yourself? What would it feel like
to be on the side of life? How did the
good know they were good, could they look at their
hand and see, under the skin, the
greenish light? We hung there in the dark
and yet, you know, he never dropped us
or meant to, he only liked to say he would,
so although it's a story with some cruelty in it,
finally it's a story of love
and release, the way the father pulls you out of nothing
and stands there foolishly grinning.
—Sharon Olds
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