Artist: Georges Rochegrosse - The Knight of the Flowers, 1894
Hiding in the Zinnia Forest
By Mushroom Montoya
A photo of a boy hiding in the flowers
Sent me back to 1954,
To our newly built Albuquerque house
On Boatright Avenue,
One block east of Wyoming.
A
four-year-old boy,
a whole year younger than I,
Wearing clip-on suspenders
To hold up his pants
Walked
across our lawn,
His eyes transfixed on the shiny,
green aluminum glass of water
He was holding.
I
was playing with a brown rubber band
That had bound the morning paper.
I pulled it and stretched it
In every direction.
Until
an idea jumped into my head
That lead
Me to shoot my brown rubber band
Into his shiny, green aluminum glass.
I
did not know
That my brown rubber band
Would bounce off the rim
And sting his nose,
Making
him cry,
With a torrent of tears,
That weakened his grip,
Making him drop his green aluminum glass
Onto the sidewalk.
Fear
of my father's belt,
Fear of my mother's admonishment,
Fear of the angry faces
Of our guests
Made
me run and hide
In the far corner of our front yard,
Behind the side yard forest
Of tall blooming Zinnias.
I
did not answer
When my father called.
I heard my name yelled
Over and over
By every one of the guests.
I
crouched down lower
When my mother walked by
Hunting for her missing son.
I
dared not move
Or reveal my whereabouts
Because I didn’t want to feel
The sting of the belt.
So,
there I knelt,
Hidden by the tall Zinnia forest,
In the corner of the cinder block walls
Until
My
uncle searched
in our neighbor’s yard
And then peered over the cinder block fence
And into the forest of Zinnias.
He
spied me crouching
In the furthest corner,
Making myself smaller than the flowers
That towered over me.
My
mother was crying,
“We were so worried about you.”
I started to cry
When my father removed his belt.
“I’m
not spanking you
For shooting the rubber band,”
My father said
Making me realize
The boy was a snitch.
“I’m
spanking you
Because you did not answer
When we called.”
He
pulled down my pants,
While flinging his belt,
Burning a welt
Into my butt.
But
I must admit
That I am fond of Zinnia forests,
Although they are so much smaller
Than they were
When I was a kid in 1954.
