"The past is never dead. It's not even past." -William Faulkner

I've listened to him sing those songs under his breath. He chuckles every once and awhile at those songs that live under the breath and under the bed. He keeps them in the box under his bed along with the pickled finger. The ice cream truck plays one of those songs, which reminds him and he sings it in the "good old way". He says "hey they don't make 'em like they used to" and "that old time music, that traditional music." He sighs and talks about Christy Minstrels and Stephen Foster with Freddy. I walk away. Sometimes I'll see someone hear the tune on the street or in the store and they'll smile not with an ice cream smile but with a pickled finger smile and I wonder how many people in this town have a pickled finger that they keep under their bed. Of course I can never know. Of course he would never tell me. Once I walked in when he hadn't thought to close the door and saw him smiling and put it under the bed quickly. Once when he wasn't home I took it out. It has a newspaper clipping next to it that says that they chopped the fingers and toes and ears and nose off that man before they burned him. It says that they sold those at the general, and that after they burned him that "all hands grabbed for a piece". Thinking of all those pieces that stay under the bed and under the town and under the breath, I went to the Mike the ice cream truck driver and I asked if he could change the song that his truck played. Mike asked why he should change it and anyway his ice cream truck plays it because it's traditional. I said that I didn't like the song and I said that sometimes that song frightened me. He chuckled and shook his head and said "don't you worry about it. Truck music's got no words, it don't mean nothing. Anyway, it's happy music." When the music passes by it touches me but I cannot touch it. I grab for it and it flies away to under the breath. I can't walk away from that music and it can always find me. For a long time I didn't know what to do, but now I've decided I will make a net that would catch those songs and when I catch those songs, I will stretch them into screams that connect everything that he didn't think should be connected and shatter everything that he thinks should be together. Instead of the music saying "ole Zip Coon he is a larned skolar", it would say "old what what it what some what what" or maybe even "what what what what what what what what what what what what". He will snarl "what is that" or "what's that racket"? What he really doesn't like is what and he doesn't like racket. He likes Christy Minstrels because they are "am" and "is that". I would catch those songs and paint mustaches and lipstick on their faces. I paint. He looks at those and is angry and says "what is that" and then he says "boys don't wear lipstick" and he says "girls don't have mustaches" because he hates what but I love what and I love when he says "what is that" even though he's furious and when he says "what is that" I say what as if I don't know what he's talking about and he says "you know what I mean". Because really even though I do I don't. I don't know why he hates racket and hates lipstick and hates mustaches and hates what because I love racket and I love lipstick and I love mustaches and I love what.