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March 9, 2020
Flash Dancers: Ekphrastic Singles - "Nobody’s Sure Where Mr. Knickerbocker’s At" by Scott Garson
The Flash Dancers: Ekphrastic Singles series is curated by Meg Pokrass. Authors pair an original work of flash fiction with a song.
Nobody’s Sure Where Mr. Knickerbocker’s At
He wore a full beard, as some of the young people do. And a hat, though not in the classroom. A fanciful hat. Tyrolean, she wants to say (she’ll have to look on Google).
She’d thought him quite harmless. This was her second thought. At first, she’d had him miscategorized: an old man, perhaps strange, with the beard and the hat. But her son called, “Mr. Knickerbocker!”—lifting and waving his hand—and the bearded man turned, and she saw how young he was, how gentle and vague in his eyes.
She liked him immediately.
Told him to stop by for butter or eggs, if he was in need. Told him this laughing. (His evident helplessness would likely extend to the kitchen.)
He was an artist!
Gabe making strides in his class, Gabe doing art on his own.
Now he is gone, this Mr. Knickerbocker.
She studies the art on Gabe’s wall: ink and wash. The figures dressed in solemn clothes, their faces shovel-like, their faces like faces of yaks.
If yaks were like people. If they got up every day and fussed with their teeth in the mirror.
She hears herself sigh.
Gabe had asked, “Where are they taking it?” the day they saw a property manager overseeing the move of the teacher’s belongings into a van.
She had no answer.
“What if he comes back?” asked Gabe.
“I don’t know.”
“All his things will be gone.”
Sunlight glares on the hardwood floor. She rubs at a pain in her temple.
She hopes that nothing terrible has happened to Gabe’s teacher. But she is annoyed: at the district, for letting him in. A man whose apparent background goes no further than a teaching degree. A man so poorly secured in the world that he could call in sick one day and vanish. Never return.
She studies the drawings. Yaks with spectacles of bent wire and broken glass. Silent yaks, with pantaloons gone filthy-shiny at the knees. Yaks with old hands, dried and blasted hands, winding tiny clocks.
She feels so strange. Proud of her son. There is that. But uneasy. She doesn’t understand the things that have entered Gabe’s mind. Something has happened, without her knowing. Something has turned, without her ever receiving a chance to impart her consent.
Scott Garson is the author of Is That You, John Wayne?, a collection of stories. He lives in central Missouri.
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previous Flash Dancers stories
Book Notes (2015 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
weekly music release lists
