It rhymes with truth, p.1
It Rhymes With Truth, page 1
It Rhymes With Truth
By Rich Miller
Published by Lost Pictograph Publishing
Copyright 2023 by Rich Miller
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
Print Edition ISBN 979-8-9907709-04
E-book Edition ISBN 979-8-9907709-1-1
Cover by Caroline Teagle Johnson. Other artwork by Rich Miller.
For more information, visit www.richmillerbooks.com.
Special thanks to Heather Walsh Miller, Sela Miller, Owen Miller, Avery Burton, Kate Angelella, Jenn Bailey, Caroline Teagle Johnson, John Shors, Haley Stufflebean-Ortega, Bailey Goodell, Burlyn Birkemeier, Alexandra Gaunt, Aaron Sewall, Dan Lamberger, Jerry Chrisman, Jon Ellingson, Hank Sigmon, Noah Kolman. Elliot Geller, Michael Running, Urania Miller, Jennifer Miller, Valerie Miller and many others.
With gratitude to the following copyright holders:
PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME BE GOOD (from "Fifty Million Frenchmen")
Words and Music by COLE PORTER
© 1929 (Renewed) WC MUSIC CORP. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC.
THERE'S NO CURE LIKE TRAVEL (from "Anything Goes")
Words and Music by COLE PORTER
© 1934 (Renewed) WC MUSIC CORP. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC.
I'VE GOT MY EYES ON YOU (from “Broadway Melody of 1940”)
Words and Music by COLE PORTER
© 1939 (Renewed) CHAPPELL & CO., INC. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC.
SO NEAR AND YET SO FAR (from "You'll Never Get Rich")
Words and Music by COLE PORTER
© 1941 (Renewed) CHAPPELL & CO., INC. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC.
I'VE STILL GOT MY HEALTH (from “Panama Hattie”)
Words and Music by COLE PORTER
© 1940 (Renewed) CHAPPELL & CO., INC. All Rights Reserved. Used by Permission of ALFRED MUSIC.
Do you remember the day we met? I didn’t know anyone had noticed me out there, but you were watching me from behind the curtain of your sliding door. Just like you do when a black-throated blue warbler has been lured in by your treats and you don’t want to scare it off. It was the sound of the rock that did it, smacking down against the concrete to crack the sunflower seeds, but mostly scattering them and making a mess. That made you look outside, and there I was squatting down in my filthy green shirt with the stegosaurus on the front.
The dinosaur was saying “MEOW!” in letters carved out of enormous stones. The person who made the shirt thought that was funny. The stone letters. The talking dinosaur. The meow. The whole thing. They thought it was hilarious. I didn’t think it was funny. I thought it was the opposite of funny. Back then, I was 137% certain the shirt would have been funnier if the stegosaurus was frowning and saying something like, “Cats smell like pee and people are dumb.” That would have been a lot funnier to me. Way funnier. But you know how I was. Lemons would have said I was giving sour a bad name.
I’m not alone, though. A grumpy stegosaurus saying grumpy things1 would be as funny as heck to you, too. Maybe that image is making you laugh hard and spray your tea right now. Right this very moment. Maybe.
I picked out the edible bits from the few seeds I had managed to break, and you told me later that I made a face when I chewed them. They tasted terrible without the mountain of salt that companies put on the seeds in bags at the store.
Ingredients: Salt, sodium chloride, sunflower seeds, more salt.
Salt makes everything better. These non-store seeds tasted like chewed newspaper. But I ate them. They were free.
I leaned over the metal railing along the edge of your mini patio and got another handful of seeds from your birdfeeder, but I didn’t see you. I went over to the bushes and picked a different rock for breaking the new batch of seeds. It had a flat bottom and did a better job. I smashed seeds and picked out the bits until voices jolted me to attention. Some people were heading to the parking area down toward the end of the building where the dining hall is. They had been inside visiting their grandmother or great aunt or great-great aunt or great-great-great grandmother or somebody else super old, and now they were heading back to their car. I dropped the rock, pulled a not-very-yellow-any-more tennis ball out of my backpack, and bounced it like I was just a regular 8-year-old boy playing with a ball. Nothing to see here.
Nothing at all.
I continued to pretend to be normal. The stegosaurus on my shirt continued to lie about being a cat. Bounce, bounce, wait.
After those people drove away, I came back to the metal railing, got down on all 4s, put my arm through as far as I could, and barely reached the only piece of bread that wasn’t pecked to death by the birds. I brushed off both sides, blew on a couple of spots that were still dirty, smelled it, broke off the crust, threw that away, and took a bite of the white part. Your curtain moved. I froze the way animals do when they want to be invisible and not get eaten. I tried not to breathe. But I did. I tried not to chew the bread. But I did. Then I saw the tall cup of milk on the carpet inside, leaning a little to 1 side like this \\\ and threatening to tip over. Beside it was a plate with a cookie.
I saw your fingers 1st. They crept around the edge of the curtain and pulled it toward you so you could see whether I had noticed the treat. Then your hair. It came out slower than a glacier at a 90-degree angle to the curtain like you were being slid out horizontally on the world’s slowest conveyor belt. Then your face, inch by wrinkly inch, trying to go slow enough for me not to notice. What you saw was me looking right back at you. Right into your eyeballs.
Your face and hair and fingers rushed back behind the curtain, but I could feel you wondering if I had seen you. I could feel it like heat. Your thoughts were like laser beams shooting through the curtain to my teeny, tiny speck of a hint of a long division remainder of a brain. My eyes went back and forth from the cookie to the curtain, back to the cookie, back to the curtain. Calculating. Calculating.
After hiding for a not-long-enough amount of time, you peeked around a different part of the curtain, hoping I wouldn’t notice because you had used the amazing strategy of switching sides and waiting a bit. I was looking right at you again, still on all 4s, still chewing the terrible bread, digging in my shoes for traction just in case. You ducked back behind. It was a game of peek-a-boo neither of us wanted to play, but there we were playing it.
I watched to see what you would do next. Your hand came out from behind the curtain toward the handle of the sliding door. My muscles tensed like a cheetah2 getting ready to run. The handle was too far, though. You flailed at it but were nowhere near close enough to grab it. To reach it you would have to step out into the open, but you didn’t. Your hand went back behind the curtain and the curtain started to move. You pulled it along with you, blocking your body as you went. When you were close enough, your hand came back out and pulled on the door handle. It didn’t budge, so your other hand came out of hiding and tried to help. They pulled. They pulled harder. Nothing.
A finger reached out and pressed the button to unlock it, then both hands pulled again, and the door zoomed open faster than you were expecting. You almost pulled the curtain down trying not to fall. Well, I assume that is what happened. All I could see was the curtain going crazy as the door slid open at 97 miles an hour. After the curtain commotion stopped, your hand came back out and opened the screen door, too, then went back into hiding. The curtain slid back to where it had started, and the cookie started shooting laser beams at me. Directly into my stomach. Zappety zap.3
You peeked out the back side of the curtain again and saw that I was still on all 4s and hadn’t moved any closer to getting the milk and cookie. You waited and looked again. I still hadn’t moved. You decided to stop the hiding game. You stepped out from behind the curtain, and I saw all of you.
You were wearing the blue pants and yellow shirt with flowers that you used to wear every day until the holes in the armpits were too big to hide. Your wig was not on right, but I didn’t know it was a wig. I thought your hair just grew that way. You looked at me, tilted your head a little to the side—the same way the glass of milk was leaning \\—and smiled. I couldn’t tell if your teeth were real or the fake kind old people get when all their non-fake teeth fall out. I stared at your “teeth.” I couldn’t stop staring at them until you leaned down.
You picked up the cookie and milk and brought them outside. I scurried back a body length for each step you took onto the mini patio. When you saw me do that, you stopped. I stopped, too. You took another step forward, and I crawled another body length backward. You took a step backward to see if I would move toward you, keeping the distance the same. I did. You took another step forward, and I moved back again. You took a step sideways and I did, too, in the same direction you took. Then I corrected myself and crawled sideways 2 body widths the other way so I was the opposite of you. My instinct was always to do the opposite of you, even on that very 1st day.4
You scratched your ear like you were thinking, then slowly spun yourself around until you were facing me again. You pointed at me to do the same and I shook my head. I was not going to spin. No way. You winked, set the dish and glass down on the concrete near the railing, making old person noises when you bent over, slid it underneath the bottom bar, stood back up, making more old person noises, went back inside onto the carpet, and tu rned around to watch me from the doorway.
I stayed where I was. You crinkled up your lips and looked confused. You went back out to the dish, made more noises bending down, and pushed it further out toward me, almost off the concrete and onto the grass. You went back into the doorway and waited.
I didn’t do anything.
You crinkled your lips again, then went behind the curtain to see if that would help. That's when the cookie started zappety zapping me again.
I stared at the cookie and tried to decide if I could get the food before you could get me. You didn’t seem very fast. I was pretty sure I could run faster than you if you jumped out and tried to grab me. Even if you managed to get a hand on my leg, you didn’t look very strong. I could probably kick your hands off me, grab my backpack and get away. I was an excellent kicker. Kickety, kickety, kick.
My stomach decided to risk it. Stupid stomach, always making me make bad decisions. I crawled toward the cookie and milk, but my eyes watched you for a sneak attack. I reached for the milk, keeping my eyes on you, feeling for the glass with my fingers, grabbed it and guzzled half of it, most of it pouring down by chin and throat and chest. The grumposaurus was getting soaked, and so was the dinosaur on my shirt.5 I felt for the cookie, eyes still on you, until my fingers found it. I took a bite, swallowed without chewing, braced for you to rush out and try to grab me, took another bite, and then ran like heck when a car horn went off to my left. The cookie broke. I dropped most of it on the grass, but I didn’t stop to pick it up. I was goner than gone.
You picked up the cookie, though. After I fled, you wrapped it in plastic, put it on the plate, put the plate on top of the glass of milk to keep bugs out, and left it there for me when I came back.
You knew I would.
You checked every few minutes to see if the cookie and milk were still there. I saw you do that, but you didn’t see me. I was doing a good job of hiding. If being invisible was a job that paid $1,000,000, I’d be so rich.
Then you checked only every hour or so. I didn’t have a watch to keep track. I’m just good at time, and good at waiting. Very good at waiting. I can beat anyone at a waiting game. Even you.
Late that afternoon, you sat on the couch with your cup of cranberry juice, and you did your puzzle book for a while. You fell asleep with your head tilted back and your mouth wide open like the number 0. When you woke up, you saw the cookie was gone and the glass was empty except for the plastic wrap I had crumpled up and put inside so the wind wouldn’t blow it away and make litter. Yes, I was a complete jerk, but I wasn’t a litter monster.
On top of the plate, held down by the rock with the flat bottom, was a picture, drawn on the back of a bank envelope from the 1 down the street that used to have free donuts in the lobby every Friday. They don’t have those anymore. That’s dumb. Instead, they have lollipops in baskets every day. I’d rather have donuts once a week than lollipops every day because lollipops are 1 of the worst candies. But you already know I hate them. I told you that 3737 times, didn’t I? There wasn’t anything I liked more than talking about things I didn’t like.
Here’s another reason I didn’t like lollipops: because they used to be called “suckers” and I knew that was what old people called stupid people. When you were my age 1,234,567,890 years ago, did all candies have nicknames that were insults? Was candy corn called “gibfaced imbeciles”? And did butterscotches used to be called “hedge-born good-for-nothings”? Were candy canes called “fusty flapdoodles”? And yes, I am definitely trying to make you spray your tea.
Here is the picture I left for you that day, held down by the seed-smashing rock. It’s the 1st art I ever made for you.
It’s been on the refrigerator for all these years, and now I am putting it into this memory book for you.
You put out another cookie the next day. A sugar cookie with sprinkles, wrapped in plastic on a plate, balanced on top of a glass of milk with a couple of ice cubes to keep it cold-ish. You watched me from the far side of the curtain while I ate. I don’t like sugar cookies with sprinkles. I hate them, actually. But I was too hungry to be picky.
I left you a droopy dandelion flower. It was non-droopy for only about 10 seconds after I picked it, then it shriveled and looked sad. Things in the world don’t stay nice for very long before they go bad, do they? I know you disagree, but your objection is overruled. That’s a true thing about this shriveling, deflating, depressing, dehydrating world, and the droopy flower proves it. Court is adjourned! La la…I can’t hear you.
On the 3rd day, there was a chocolate chip cookie on the plate, and the glass underneath it was filled to the very top with choco-milk. I watched to see if you were behind the curtain, but I didn’t see you. I left you my Tony Armas card on the plate. Armas Sr., not Junior. He hit 43 home runs in 1984, but he struck out 156 times.
On the 4th day, there was a cookie but no milk. I didn’t see you inside that day either.
On the 5th day, there wasn’t anything there. I went up to the railing, squinted to look inside and could see the outline of you sitting on the couch watching TV. I waved—the kind of wave to get someone’s attention. You waved back—the kind of wave to say hello—and went back to watching TV. I waved again to get your attention, but you didn’t look over. You were focused on the TV. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me. There wasn’t. I climbed over the top of the railing and went up to the screen door. It was darker inside than outside, so I had to press my nose against the screen door mesh to see. I cleared my throat to make some noise.
You looked over again and said, “Good afternoon, Dear. Nice weather we’re having, aren’t we?”
I nodded and the screen pushed my nose up and down, making it look like a pig snout, then a boxer’s nose, then a pig snout.6
You looked back at the TV just long enough to make me antsy, then you looked back at me and said, “Silly me. You probably want a snack, don’t you?”
I nodded again. Hog. Boxer. Hog boxer. Hoxer.
“Well, help yourself. The milk is in the fridge and there are cups on the shelf over the toaster. The box on the counter has some cookies.” You went back to watching TV. I could see it was a baseball game. The Mariners were playing an early game against the Blue Jays. You had the whole thing planned out, didn’t you?
The 1st Blue Jays card I ever got was Pat Borders. His rookie stats were:
BA—G—AB—R—H—2B—3B—HR—RBI—SB
.273—56—154—15—42—6—3—5—21—0
I reached for the box of cookies but stopped. I turned my hand over and looked at the palm. I lifted my other hand and looked at that palm, then curled my fingers and looked under the nails. You were still watching TV, or at least pretending to. It was the commercials in between innings. I wiped my hands on my pants and looked at them again. That may have made them dirtier. 7 I looked back over at you, but you were facing the TV, as if that was the real show.
I went to the sink, but couldn’t reach the soap container, so I opened the cupboard underneath the sink and stepped on to the shelf to lift myself up. I tried to squirt some of the dish soap onto my hands, but the cap was closed. I tried pulling it open, but it was too slippery, so I gripped it with my teeth and opened it that way. Some got in my mouth. I spat it into the sink as quietly as I could. I looked over at you and your lips were tied up in a knot hiding a laugh. I spat again, then lathered up my hands and washed the best I could.
I dried my hands on the towel draped through the refrigerator handle, but that made the towel dirty. I looked at my hands again and noticed the filth near my wrists and around the outside of my thumbs. I washed again. This time the towel came away clean, except for the dirt I had wiped on it before. I hid the dirty towel under the sink, climbed up onto the counter to look in the upper cabinets for a plate. I found 1 that didn’t look too fancy and breakable, and I put a cookie from the box on it. The cookie had M&Ms baked into it. M&Ms are 1 of the top 10 candies. The lower half of the top ten, but that’s still pretty good.
