The Invisible Man

by Brett Rutherford

On every Wednesday night,
as my father played jazz somewhere
and mother puttered about
on dishes and ironing, I sat
transfixed before Shock Theater,

as on the tiny black-and-white
flicker-and-flash TV, monsters
paraded one after another.
First it was Frankenstein,
Bride of, Son of, Ghost of,
Dracula and his son and daughter,
werewolves of London, wolfman
in the shadowy peaks of Wales,
all mixed and regenerated
by a succession of mad scientists.

I watched. All my friends watched.
We talked of nothing else
in the sunblasted schoolyard
where we hid from the play-ball bullies.

Next up was The Invisible Man,
but something was odd
in the kitchen behind me.
No dishes clanged; no steam
rilled out from the electric iron.
She paced, she paced, she looked
at the clock as though it perched
to fall from its nail to the floor.

For days I had heard
from the cinder-block corner
my mother’s voice, and a man’s.
Son or nephew of the Carusos,
he hung around the garage beneath
our dingy apartment, watched as
my father packed up his clarinet
and drove off to the night clubs
for his dance-band gigs. “Not man
enough for a woman like you,”
the suave Italian told my mother.
“I hate him,” she said — “He don’t
weigh but a hundred pounds I’d guess.”
“You need to find out
     what a real man is like.”

A long pause. No slap, not even
a “no thank you.” “A real shame.
A woman like you needs to know
what it’s like to really live.”
Another silence.
Something touches something,
breath held in. “Tonight,” he said,
“While he’s out playing his stupid clarinet.”

“No Shock Theater tonight!”
Her hand turns off the TV.
“What? But it’s The Invisible Man!”
“It will only upset you. You’re going to bed
early.” So fast my head could spin,
I am whisked to my room and tucked in.

“I am closing this door.
One peep out of you,
     then no more Shock Theater ever.”

Stunned and angry I lay in the dark.
The front door opened and closed.
Just as if The Invisible Man had entered.
Naked, he could be anywhere at all.
My parents’ bedroom door went shut.
Soom something invisible began to shake
the wall and rattle the window glass.

Then, silence. Then slumber.
At school, I sat in silence
as my friends related the marvel
of the Invisible Man’s unraveling
from bandages to naked transparency.

I could have told them
he had been at our house,
and how my mother found out at last
what a real man was like,
even if no one could see him.