In Mrs. Kaye’s fifth grade social studies class, every first Thursday of the month was Guest Speaker Day. From 2:10 until 2:40, some unfortunate adult would be roped into talking about what they did for a living in front of a gang of disinterested ten-and eleven-year olds. So far this year we’d heard from Zach Calhoun’s father about installing invisible dog fencing, and Nicole Blavarsky’s mom had filled us in on the advantages of becoming future Amway representatives. When it was announced that Sheridan Wohlheim’s father would talk to us about poetry, we openly groaned.
Sheridan was my closest friend, but her dad was one weird guy. And no one was more embarrassed by him than Sheridan. He’d show up at our field hockey games wearing mismatched shoes and yelling, “COME ON, SWEET SHERRY!” every time the ball came close to his daughter. He rode an old, rusting bicycle everywhere, and one summer at Wampano Park I personally watched him dive into the lake without removing his glasses. His wife had, little surprise, left him when Sheridan was a baby. The only other thing anybody seemed to know was that he worked nights at the Chester Chain & Wire factory while Sheridan slept at a neighbor’s house.
“This is going to be excruciating,” Sheridan said at lunch the day before her father’s scheduled appearance.
“What’s ‘excruciating’ mean?” Lily Leiber-Wells asked.
“Tune in tomorrow and find out,” Sheridan told her.
Mr. Wohlheim came into the classroom ten minutes late, his hands covered with grease, the right leg of his pant leg shredded. “Got it caught in my bike chain,” he explained as he tried to clean up with a moist towelette.
“O.M.G.,” I heard Sheridan say from somewhere near the back of the room.
Her dad took a thin book from his canvas tote bag, flipped it open, and started to read. It was his poetry, I suppose, although none of us were particularly interested. When it came time for questions, only one hand — Patrick Neal’s — went up.
“What do you do at the wire place?” he asked.
“Mark time,” Mr. Wohlheim told him.
Just before he left, Mr. Wohlheim announced he had something to give us.
“Gum?” a hopeful voice off to my left asked.
“Better,” Mr. Wohlheim said. “Pencils.” He took a bundle of them from his pack, removed the rubber band, and handed them around. They were painted purple with Chester Chain & Wire printed on them. “But not just pencils,” Mr. W said. “Magic pencils.”
“Yeah. Right,” ‘Fat Jack’ Sarrantonio said.
“They’re magic,” Mr. Wohlheim said, “because they’re filled with words. But you’re the magicians. You’re the only ones who can make the magic happen.”
After being thanked by Mrs. Kaye, Mr. Wohlheim left. We were given our homework assignments before being released to board our busses. I couldn’t help but notice that as the classroom emptied, more than one purple pencil was left behind.
“Well that sucked the big hairy bone,” Sheridan said as we boarded Bus #18. “He could have at least brought in a bag of Hershey Kisses.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. But my mind was already home, already in my room where I would close the door, open my backpack, hold my Chester Chain and Wire pencil up over my head, stare into it, and see if the words were ready to come out.
Tai Dong Huai was born in Taizhou, China. Pencils is from I Come From Where I've Never Been, a collection in progress. Other sections have appeared, or are scheduled, in Smokelong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Word Riot, Rumble, and other terrific places.