Lewiston Writers’ Group member, Mike Miller discusses his new book, What If? An Exploration Into the Mind, at his author talk and book signing at Lockport Public Library on April 1, 2019.Author Talk and Book SigningMonday, April 1, 2019
6:30 – 7:30 pm
Community Meeting Room
23 East Avenue, Lockport, NY 14094
Books will be available to purchase the evening of the program. Free and open to the public. No registration required.
For More About Mike Miller, CLICK HERE
I go to many garage sales, and no, they are not selling garages.
I went to one last summer, 93o in the shade.
Water $1, Pepsi $1.50, the sign read.
The water was tempting. On my way to buy a bottle, I spotted a familiar box; we’ve all seen them, green and yellow stripes, angular forms.
Crayons, Crayola, specifically.
Now this was no eight-color box, this was the top of the line, 64 colors.
I opened the box, expecting to see nubs, torn paper, colorful marks on the lid. But no. What I saw was a pristine set of crayons, nary a nick. A box of 64 for $1. How could I pass up that deal? What would I use them for? I have no idea. Maybe just to accompany my other garage sale bargains. I browsed, nothing else of interest. I bought the crayons and left, the temperature getting the best of me. Home to air conditioning.
Come midnight, I’m usually asleep. Not this time. The box of crayons generated a spectrum of thought. So I emptied the box onto the table one row at a time; the colors were still in order. After I dumped the last row, I put the box down and examined each crayon, its paper sleeve, its nib end, its back end. All perfectly intact. All but one. The purple crayon had been used, a third of the nub rubbed off.
What was that crayon used for? Why that color? Was it just the easiest crayon to remove from the box?
I wanted to try them out, I found some paper, turned on the desk lamp, reached for a crayon. Which shall I pick? Black is customary for lines, white won’t be visible on the paper, red, blue… So, I mixed all the crayons together, covered my eyes and picked one at random.
It was the purple crayon.
I found this coincidence troubling. I decided to stop, put the crayons away, come back the next day.
The first few crayons went into the box easily, but something stopped the purple crayon from going into the box. I looked inside and saw a piece of paper. I pulled the paper out, a column from a newspaper. And a second small piece of paper. A purple drawing on the paper and a scribbled girl’s name. I unfolded the newspaper column. It was an obituary. A four-year-old girl. Same name.
Copyright © Mike Miller
Law school – not his idea, his father’s, a prominent (at least in his own mind) attorney, with the bucks and the clout to get his son admitted to the prestigious law school.
So, six years in, that in itself should be an indicator, he applied for and took the bar exam. Failed.
Couldn’t have been the partying, the carousing. They were part of his research into a lifestyle he planned to prosecute when he passed the bar. Sounds lawyer-ish already. He did well on the multiple choice portion, but the essays, the strategies, the assessments of arguments, not so well.
Then again, many fail the bar exam on first try.
So another year of father’s paying tuition, apartment, car, other expenses, for another try.
Research continues. Serious research. Relationships.
Failed.
A year off to get his head straightened out (travel to Africa and Asia), then another year of school.
This time was different. He took the exam. He secretly took cell-phone photos of the written part, only six pages. It was a large room; his desk was in a back corner. That pesky pen kept falling to the floor; tricky tactic, but it worked. The proctor was bored, easily distracted.
Failed.
The cell-phone pictures? He printed the photographed pages. The questions were similar on each of the three previous tests.
So, study the questions, craft answers, study the answers, prepare for the next time?
No, that was not his plan.
He didn’t bother to read the printed pages.
He ate them.
Thirty hours later, with a little coaxing, he passed the bar exam.
Copyright © Mike Miller
It was just a small scrape. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. This business about going to the hospital, getting stitches, tetanus shot, and on and on, is just a nuisance, Overkill. I’m fine. I know what happened. I stuck a bandage on it. It’s just a scrape on my arm. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again.
Just before my shower, I took off my red sweatshirt and white tee shirt, well white as it could be, considering I wiped my hands on it after changing the oil in the mower.
I threw the tee on the floor, cranked up the hot water, then a little cold, just to make it bearable. Stepped in. Oops, forgot my towel. Stepped out, dripping, reached for my towel, stepped back in. Forgot my shampoo. Stepped out and in again, must be distracted by the scrape.
Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. The instructions don’t tell you when to stop.
But I stopped.
Then the usual shower ritual, soap, rinse, soap somewhere else, rinse…
Finally done – the water started cooling – that’s my signal.
Out of the shower, toweling off, and I see, on my tee on the floor, red. Like blood red. Maybe I was wrong about the scrape, My mind, which I seldom acknowledge, says a wound.
I look closer, the red is in a straight line.
Just a thread from my sweatshirt.
Copyright © Mike Miller
