socks

1.

an eight-pronged birth merely sighed

out of the greased metal womb, the

umbilicals populous as medusa's squamates

snipped and flurried to the gritty plain,

unchosen and neglected, they cry

frays to one another while their twin threads

slumber in a paper nest, rejoicing that even as

they stretch in life, they will stretch together,

match one another in their warping

2.

In my family, socks were like suits for our feet. On Christmas, we wore jingle bell socks so our feet could tell each other, "Merry Christmas," as they crossed paths. On prom night, they were black and tailored to my exact measurements. My date did not have to look higher than my ankles to know who I was, what I was made of. They were a sign of dignity and of our lives. When I saw my grandfather's feet without socks, naked, in their birthday suits, I knew that he was already dead.

3.

Every Sunday afternoon we all spun in the center of our own galaxy. Such a euphoric end to a banal routine: Martha hauls us into the laundromat in a garbage gab, all of us bloated and deformed by a day on her size 10 feet. She whistles some Stones or Rod Stewart song while tosses us by the handful into the washer and we soak coldly and dejectedly, grumpily clump together in the spin cycle. All seems damp and hopeless until halfway through the dryer's run, we begin to come back to life. Sparks fly between us like in The Creation of Adam. But in this apotheosis, a sadness ambles about my soul. My brother sock, without which I can never be called a sock in my own right, but merely a half of a sundered pair, is forgotten clinging to the washer's inner barrel.

4.

In a moment that escapes the senses

some war is won (one-zero) & lost

in my left boot The unstoppable

force of my big to no longer clashes

with the immovable object that is

the sock thread

& the toe (the sinister

alpha) hatches free of it's binds to stretch

in the open air my boot top, a

luxury so rare it has no conception

how to enjoy it, though it will crave the

experience once more the moment it is over

5.

I have a name tag that will tell you my name is "Callhoun," which it is, and I have told some people that this was my mother's favorite actor's name and other schmoes that it was the Arkansas town I was born in and still others that it was the a family name, and honestly I don't remember which, if any, of those origin stores was the one that was told to me by my Aunt Rheba and Uncle Mike. Sometimes I forget that I don't remember my own name until I see the text reversed and shined back to me on the window pane that overlooks the crumbling parking lot. My kid sister Eliza insisted I apply as a greeter since I "had nothing doing in [my] life ever since [my] retirement." This after she had called me and asked what was new and I recounted the last five weeks of As the World Turns from Maureen's fake pregnancy to Maureen's real pregnancy, all the way up to the revelation that it was actually another fake pregnancy.

Young folks come into the store, herding and yanking their kids around them in perpetual chaotic orbits. "Welcome to Wal-Mart," I say. "Socks? You want socks, eh? The socks are in aisle... seven, just next to aisle six." I have no idea if that is true. "Oh, no no. Thank you, sir, and have a good day."

6.

INT. BEDROOM - DAY

MANNY, 25, in a nice suit, barefoot tears through the top drawer of his dresser, throwing shirts and underwear over his head as he rummages.

MANNY (under breath)

Damn it.

INT. HALLWAY - MOMENTS LATER

Manny knocks on the door and it pushes in. CARL, also in his mid-twenties is on the other side, looking curiously at Manny.

MANNY

I have that big interview in twenty minutes and I can't find any clean socks in my room. Can I borrow some of yours?

CARL

Impossible, Manny. You know how particular I am about my socks. If it were anything else, you know I would help, but I just can't do it. In fact, I was just about to head downstairs to the vending machine. Do you want anything?

MANNY

No, thanks. I'm good.

Manny backs away from the door and watches Carl walk out of his room and exit their apartment through the front door. After biting his nail for a moment, Manny lunges into Carl's room.

INT. CARL'S ROOM - CONT.

Many bee-lines for Carl's dresser and opens the top drawer. He visibly relaxes as he lifts a pair of blacks socks out of the drawer.

JUMPCUT TO:

INT. CARL'S ROOM - MOMENTS LATER

Manny sits on the edge of Carl's bed. He already has a sock on his right foot and he's putting another on his left.

We hear the front door open and Manny jumps up, pulling the sock on in the same motion.

He rushes to the door just as Carl appears in the doorway, holding an unopened can of lemonade.

CARL

What are you doing in -

Carl sees his socks on Manny's feet. He becomes enraged.

CARL

Give them back, Manny!

Manny tries to run around Carl, but Carl shoves him backward, so hard he trips and falls backward onto Carl's bed.

Carl discards the lemonade onto the bed and attacks Manny's feet, trying to pull the socks off of them.

Manny picks up the lemonade can and smashes Carl on the head with it. Carl is struck unconscious and drops to the floor.

The can bounces off his head, lands on the floor, and sprays lemonade fizz out of a ruptured whole in its side.

Manny crouches over Carl. Blood pours from an open head wound. He puts his fingers to his neck to check for a pulse, then withdraws them.

MANNY

My god.

Manny stands up, straightens his collar and backs away from Carl's body. Carl's stiff hand is still clutching one of the socks and it pulls off of Manny's foot.

Manny crouches and tugs it out of Carl's grasp.

Sock in hand, he runs out of the room and then out the front door.

CUT TO:

INT. OFFICE - DAY

Manny sits across the desk from an INTERVIEWER.

INTERVIEWER

You're a very impressive young man, Manny, and I love your socks, but I have to ask... where are your shoes?

REVEAL MANNY'S FEET: shoeless.

On Manny's face. He looks down and realizes he's forgotten his shoes. There's a look on his face like "yikes."



-a poem to mock those in writers' group by Parker Winship