monters
By Clara Smith
Apology
To express regret.
Chickadees
When I was a kid, I caught flightless chicks in hay fields. I finally caught one while my brother was being kicked out in 2010. My dad punched a hole in the wall when he found my brother had dope and liquor stashed in his room. My brother had turned eighteen a month before, so when my dad told him to get out, he started to pack his beat-up pick-up truck. My mom begged my dad to let him stay, to get him help, to send him to rehab. I finally caught a chickadee when my brother was done packing. My mom held my hand as I said bye to him. He didn’t say anything back, didn’t hug me, didn’t apologize. He got in his truck and sped away and left nothing but a dust
cloud and a broken family. I haven’t seen him in 14 years.
Chronic Wasting Disease
A disease that affects whitetail deer, especially in the summer before the fawn stops nursing. A doe and her fawn stood on the edge of the pond. The disease tricked the doe to think she needed water, so the mother drank until she couldn’t any longer. She didn’t let her baby eat. She didn’t remember that she needed to feed it. Or perhaps, she knew it wouldn't make a difference. She didn’t let it taste another drop of milk. She left her fawn at the edge of the pond and swam. Or attempted to swim. The bugs ate the part of her brain that told her how to swim. She continued out to her neck and then didn’t stop, but she didn’t swim. She
drowned. The baby wailed, and wailed, and wailed. It was the call to find its mother.
Gold Wedding Ring, Walmart
My dad placed it on my mom’s ring finger. They were getting married in a small church. My mother’s face was smooth and my dad’s teeth were white. Both of their families sat in the pews. Their parents’ faces were scrunched up in disapproval. My dad was 18, and my mom was 13 and pregnant.
Hives
A condition my mom had out of nowhere in May of 2010. The doctor first said it was allergies so my mom cut many different foods out of her diet. That didn’t work, so she blamed it on the black mold on the ceiling. My dad cleaned it, but it didn’t stop the hives. At the end of the summer of 2010, her doctor said it was just stress. My brother left in April.
Homeless
My brother slept on different couches until our grandparents bought him a house. When my mom got word of this, she called her mother and told them to get my brother help. She offered to pay for it. They refused. They said he didn’t have a problem with drugs; that he was just being a teenager.
Keep Sweet
In the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints a single man has up to 50 wives. Those wives are told to stay quiet, not to engage in jealousy, and keep smiling. If they ever dip into the territory of unpleasantry, their husbands mumble ‘keep sweet.’
Ladies
Male turkeys mate with up to 10 hens in a row. He drums and puffs his feathers. He dances until the hen lies down and then he mounts her. His spurs dig into her back for up to thirty minutes. He then leaves for the next hen, but she has a job to do. With each twig and blade of grass, she prepares the nest. She will lay on average ten eggs. Less than 4 turkeys survive to the next season.
Meth
My brother was arrested for possession of meth and the intent to sell in 2022. My grandma called my mom when he was arrested. She blamed her for his addiction.
Mother
In Rachel Jeffs’ memoir, Breaking Free, she writes about the abuse of her father Warren Jeffs, the leader of a polygamist cult. She was sent away for six months, away from her husband, away from her kids. She had nothing but sewing equipment and food. After Warren was sent to prison for sexually assaulting young girls, his influence grew tighter on the FLDS. He ordered that married couples could not have sex anymore. She got a letter in the mail stating she had to be removed from her family for breaking the laws of her father. She was sent away for intimacy no one could prove. This letter came after she confronted her father about what he did to her and her body when she was a child.
Monsters
Before I left for college, my dad and I sat on the porch as he smoked. I finished cutting the yard after a long summer day working with my dad in construction. I was tired, but I was fed and clean. My mom always made sure I was fed and clean. My dad was silent. He took a drag from a cigarette. When he released the smoke, his rotten teeth showed. It always took him a few minutes to begin talking. At that point in my life, my dad and I were the closest we had ever been. I was eighteen and had graduated from high school. I had worked for him full-time for a year and a half. He said, “I was surrounded by monsters my whole life.” I remained silent. I didn’t know what to say back. His dad was an alcoholic and ignored my dad and his sisters. His cousin was arrested for hitting his wife. His best friend put a gun up to my dad’s head because he claimed he owed him money.“That’s why I raised y’all the way I did,
so you wouldn’t become monsters.” He didn’t say that with a proud tone like he had done a service by raising us. I knew that he meant it was his way to admit he was wrong. I couldn’t help but to think this was his apology. I could tell he felt guilty that he knew he pushed my brother away.
The Kingdom, Exiled
Rachel Jeffs broke out of the FLDS in 2014. She now dedicates her work to advocacy and in her free time works on breaking out her sisters and brothers, to give strength to others. She does not hesitate to share what Warren Jeffs did to her, but she still calls him Father.
Vultures
surrounded the deer’s bloated, water-logged body. They pecked at her eyes and ripped off
her waterlogged coat. The catfish under the surface of the water ate the meat that sank. In a few days, the scavengers would have eaten all except the bones. They’ll sink into the silt of the mud.
Williamsburg
The first date my parents ever took was to Williamsburg Historical sites before my brother, before me, and my sister. It was
raining that day. My mom had forgotten her umbrella, so my dad gave her his. I imagine that was the only point where my parents felt like they were kids. This is where they thought they would do better than their own parents, that they would be better people. With my mom’s hand on an umbrella and my dad sopping wet, they thought they would be better.
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Bio​​
Clara Smith has earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from Eckerd College. She is an emerging writer that enjoys writing fiction and creative nonfiction about small town people in tough places. She currently lives in St. Petersburg, FL with her two cats.
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Works Cited
Jeffs, Rachel. Breaking Free: How I Escaped Polygamy, the FLDS Cult, and My Father, Warren Jeffs. 2017.