I already submitted something for Phillip Slater’s prompt, based on David Bowie’s Heroes, for this week’s Stories from the Jukebox.
So I asked MJ Polk, “…what if we’re just minding our own business and working on our checkbook and also that project in the bathroom and we figure out that we might actually almost have a hero but that would be another story because we already posted this one?”
And the boy said no limits. So. I mean.
And look it’s a bold move to add anything to the pot after primalbeet’s submission. And I’m not saying it’s the right move. It’s most assuredly not.
But I already had it queued up for 9:28AM, so here we go:
My brother is up there visiting the fam who all live on the same street. When he walked over to Aunt Eleanor’s this morning, I asked him to see if Uncle Doobie had a very specific size of scrap wood—25” x 16.5”.
As it was told to me, the convo went something like this:
“It’s for Grace?”
“Yessir.”
He got out his measuring tape and ambled toward his workshop. He came out with a piece that’s 24” x 16.5”.
My brother texted.
“Close enough?”
Close enough.
“Your uncle loves you, Grace.”
And he’s right. He always has. For the first six weeks of my life? I lay on his stomach, and we napped. Every day. That’s some kind of bonding, right?
Around the time his daughter was born, we moved to England. So that’s how things happen.
When I was 16, he taught me how to drive. Last Spring, he came down and painted the trim on my house. Now, he makes me extra-thick coffee when I’m there for Thanksgiving. And every year when he goes hunting, he scopes out a super sappy pine tree and brings me back the stickiest, piney fresh fatwood starter for my fire pit.
He never swooped in and saved me like a hero does. And there were things I needed saving from. They say if they’d known, they would have. But I don’t know how they didn’t.
So, no swooping. No saving. And not really anything that’s standout-special. But he did have a piece of scrap wood for my project today. And that’s love on a 24” x 16.5” platter, right there.
Still.
Y’all.
“Hero” is a strong word. I don’t know if I can bestow it. But if I ever did?
It’d prolly be on him.
No mixtape for this one. It’d probably be the same as the one on my other Heroes piece.
Check out the Stories from the Jukebox Heroes prompt, and all the rest of them, too.
Check out this story next.
Vienna?
Here is my submission to for this week’s Stories from the Jukebox prompt, Vienna by Billy Joel, selected by Michelle Buck Books.
yeah, that's a hero. the right kind.
Sounds like a hero to me.