A new story below from Elizabeth Horner Turner, who we met earlier this year at our morning reading in Los Angeles. I think we all would have loved Uncle Brad.
If you’re an early-riser in Chicago or Champaign-Urbana, we’ve got Morning, Fuckers shows next weekend. We’d love to see you there.
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Uncle Brad Would Have Loved This
by ELIZABETH HORNER TURNER
The instructor this morning at KidzGymTime wore her name tag in the center of her chest. The name—Cherrie!!—was written in red with two exclamation points and bobbed up and down with her breasts while she bounced in place, calling for everyone to start the goodbye circle.
As Cherrie!!’s breasts jiggled, Diane hauled her daughter Gretta off the balance beam to make their way toward the center of the room. Like most of the rituals at this place, Diane hated the goodbye circle, and today she was particularly concerned about the level of enthusiasm that Cherrie!! might bring to it. The goodbye circle began when the instructor brought out the giant teddy bear mascot, Mr. Teddy, and sat him next to some starry-eyed kid.
Mr. Teddy was enormous, and Cherrie!! was tiny, so she couldn’t see over him as she hauled him out of the supply closet. Lugging him toward the goodbye circle, she managed to continue chirping, “Let’s come together, friends, and sing with Mr. Teddy!” until she gave up her quest and thudded him down right behind Diane and Gretta.
Mr. Teddy was pretty grim. His fur was matted and stained, and there were tufts missing on his belly. The red, felt tongue listed out of his mouth at an angle, and purple paint splatters decorated one of his legs like bruises. Mr. Teddy would benefit from some time at rehab, but Diane had yet to muster up the courage and write it down on a KidzGymTime comment card.
His stained head fell over onto Diane’s while his giant, raggedy paws slumped against her back. The unwashed smell was overwhelming, and she felt like she was being mauled by a drunk at a bar. She got a few good whacks into his belly with her elbows as Cherrie!!’s voice quavered upward to sing-song “so sorry about that, friend!” Between Diane’s self-defense moves and Cherrie!!’s full body grabs, together they managed to shove the bear off Diane’s back and into an empty spot on their left. As Mr. Teddy drooped in, one plastic eye popped out of its socket, graying fuzz tufting out behind it. Giving a half-hearted laugh and thumbs-up to show Cherrie!! there were no hard feelings, Diane tried to tuck the eyeball back in. Cherrie!! pulled an exaggerated hand across her forehead and mimed phew! Once everyone was crisscross applesauce on the floor, together they launched into a rather tuneless version of “Teddy Bear’s Picnic”.
Gretta and the other children sang with gusto, the little voices cracking as the notes got higher. The mother on her right gave an eye roll. Diane felt a flutter of excitement, as eye-rolling was one of her own moves at kid events. Maybe this mom also thought that “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” was a disturbing song, and they could be friends. Maybe she also thought Mr. Teddy was a germ-riddled, stuffed perv.
“You know?” Diane started quietly. “That’s the first time I’ve been felt up by a giant bear and the most action I’ve gotten in months.”
The woman turned to look at her, eyes opening wide. Diane couldn’t tell whether this was positive or negative eye contact but figured she should keep going. “And this song, right? Is ‘picnic’ code for a teddy bear orgy? Like, what the hell are we singing with our kids?” Diane tipped her head to the side and raised her eyebrows conspiratorially.
The woman next to her also began to raise her eyebrows and they didn’t stop until they got close to her hairline. This was decidedly not a positive response. Then the woman did something Diane hadn’t seen from someone who wasn’t a teacher or librarian; she lifted her index finger up to her mouth and shushed.
“The children are trying to SING!” Bringing her finger back down to rest on her leg, the woman nodded curtly and snapped her head away from Diane.
“Well, all right,” Diane breathed, leaning forward to hide her reddening cheeks behind her daughter’s head. “Cool. That was really cool.”
This lady was definitely not going to be her next playground friend. Why was it so hard to find someone who might appreciate the absurdity of raising kids? Singing songs about teddy bear group sex while sitting in a circle with toddlers was weird. As the song ended, the mother threw Diane another pointed look and moved with her child to the other side of the circle.
“Let’s all remember to be kind and cheerful!” Cherrie!! chirped, looking at Diane with a frozen smile.
Giving Cherrie!! another thumbs-up to keep the happy teddy vibe going, Diane joined her daughter in a rousing rendition of “Wheels on the Bus”. Delighted with her mother’s sudden enthusiasm, Gretta began to bounce and clap in her lap. As they started into the next verse, a beat-up Honda Civic pulled into the parking spot right in front of KidzGymTime, windows down and blasting a song. Diane yelped: “Runnin’ With the Devil!” The people in the circle faltered in their singing and looked at her. More quietly, Diane added, “It’s Van Halen, you guys.”
She peered through the plate-glass windows and even through the greasy hand smears, she could make out the driver: he wore those bright, rectangular sunglasses that baseball players like. She was surprised he was young and not the typical old dude who usually blasted David Lee Roth; the type of guy who looked like her Uncle Brad did before he died. This kid had duct tape keeping his front bumper from falling off, but had clearly dropped serious cash to update his car’s stereo system.
She hadn’t listened to Van Halen since the gathering after Uncle Brad’s funeral at her parent’s house, way back before Gretta was born. She’d invited everyone from the funeral to come by, to her mother’s chagrin, as she wanted to “Keep it simple, Diane, just small and intimate.”
The guys from the construction company where Uncle Brad worked asked Diane to play “Top Jimmy”—apparently, they’d reworked the lyrics. They said they had outfits. When Diane’s brothers hooked a phone up to the speaker system, Uncle Brad’s friends burst into the living room in spandex pants, threw their arms around each other and yell-sang “Top Bradley! He’s the king!” Diane and her brothers cheered them on and took plenty of pictures because Uncle Brad would have been fucking thrilled, but their father walked out of the house.
Uncle Brad was twelve years younger than his brother, their dad, and the two didn’t have a lot in common. Uncle Brad didn’t go to college like their father did, and he loved muscle cars and was big time into arena rock. He used to bring records to play for them every time he came over to babysit. They’d put on an album and jump on the couch and Uncle Brad would slide into the living room on his knees playing air guitar. A two-liter bottle of Sprite would materialize and Uncle Brad would judge a belching contest. Diane accidentally split her younger brother’s chin open when Brad organized a David Lee Roth kick contest. Brad stayed at the emergency room even after their parents arrived and as he slid a pack of M&M’s over to her brother while he waited for his stitches, he whispered to Diane that she’d won, fair and square.
That fall, Diane dressed up as Diamond David for Halloween, and Uncle Brad came to cheer her on at the school parade. As soon as her class was announced and they began to circle the playground, he whipped his boombox out and blasted “Panama,” obliterating the tinny version of “Monster Mash” the school had going. He was asked to leave, but he refused to turn the music off as he walked out. All the kids wanted to meet Uncle Brad after that.
The song from the Honda ended and Cherrie!! took the opportunity to get the group excited for their final circle activity. “Let’s keep singing friends, and I’ll get the magic sparkles!” she sang, her voice extra chirpy. Whenever magic sparkles came out, each KidzGymTime instructor said the same thing: “Don’t worry, grownups! Our magic sparkles are 100% safe! They’re non-toxic and non-scary.” They didn’t even call it bubble solution, “Because,” Diane was told, “calling them sparkles is much more magical.”
As the unmistakable drum intro to “Hot for Teacher” blasted from the Honda outside, red blotches bloomed all over Cherrie!!’s cheeks. Diane whooped with glee, but quickly covered her mouth. Smiling down at her daughter’s head, she bounced her knees faster, jostling Gretta up and down on her lap to the rapid-fire beat.
The cords in Cherrie!!’s neck visibly strained as she tried to speak over the drums without yelling. Lip-reading her mouth, Diane made out the phrase, non-toxic and non-scary. She had to give it to her; Cherrie!! was determined to get through her lines, no matter what. A parent pointed out the front window and Cherrie!! shook her head back in violent bursts, putting a hand up like a horse blinder to the side of her face closest to the window. She began to blow her magic sparkles at the kids. A couple of them had covered their ears. One boy stood up next to his mom, banging his head and bending his knees to the music. Gretta was slapping Diane’s knees to the beat. One kid threw himself onto Mr. Teddy. Outside, the Honda guy reclined his seat back and put his hands up, ready to air guitar the shit out of Eddie’s licks.
Diane turned Gretta around in her lap so they could face each other. “Isn’t this awesome, baby?” she shouted. Gretta slapped her pudgy hands on each of her mother’s cheeks. The boy on Mr. Teddy rolled off and started running around the room. This was much better than magic sparkle time, Diane thought. Several parents stood up and pulled their children toward the front desk. “Don’t leave, folks,” Diane yelled toward their backs. “You can’t leave Van Halen!” But even Cherrie!! abandoned sparkle time, retreating in defeat toward the supply closet.
“All right, baby. Let’s go clap for that guy outside and get a chocolate croissant,” Diane shouted to Gretta. A new coffee shop had opened in the shopping center, and they made strong coffee and good pastries; a reward for singing in a circle with adults. Diane stood up and hoisted the diaper bag onto her shoulder before taking Gretta’s hand. Close to the door, the music was louder and Gretta let go and clapped her hands over her ears, then a whistle blasted from the back of the room, startling all the kids and parents into silence. Outside, David Lee Roth crooned for the teacher to stop the screamin’, while a woman with a lanyard and clipboard emerged from the supply closet and strode purposefully toward the front.
“Please let me through!” the woman ordered. “I’ll deal with this fella outside.”
Diane snorted as she picked Gretta up. They definitely needed to witness this. Diane stood at the front bumper while Honda guy kept on playing, his hands a frenzy in the air, but Gretta whimpered about the noise, so Diane reluctantly peeled away and toward the coffee place. She raised a fist into the air and pumped it in solidarity. Gretta removed a hand from her ear and raised her arm up, too. Diane’s eyes began to fill. Uncle Brad would have loved this.
Diane carried Gretta into the coffeeshop and once inside, saw her daughter pop something into her mouth. What the hell was that? Gretta then reared back and spit whatever it was at her mother’s face. It bounced off Diane’s own mouth and slide down her chest into her bra, leaving a wet trail behind. She wiped her lips and stared hard at Gretta who started to gently pat her mother’s cheeks. “Sorry, Mama. Sorry, Mama,” she said over and over, but when Diane pulled the slimy thing from between her bra, Gretta giggled. Diane held Mr. Teddy’s plastic eye in her hand, covered in her daughter’s saliva and years of KidzGymTime bacteria.
Outside the coffee shop, a pack of parents circled the Honda and Cherrie!! was standing next to the driver’s side door pointing toward the parking lot exit.
“Have I ever told you about Uncle Brad, sweetie?”
Gretta shook her head no.
“Uncle Brad would have loved you, baby. He would have loved you so, so much.”
ELIZABETH HORNER TURNER’s work has been widely published and selected for inclusion in Best Small Fictions and Wigleaf's Top 50. Her fiction chapbook, Horsemouth and Aquariumhead, was published with Black Lawrence Press in 2024. Her previous poetry chapbook, The Tales of Flaxie Char, was published with dancing girl press. She lives in San Francisco.
