Iola Clitty

 

 

 

Iola Clitty walks with her heels very close together, a denim skirt slipping almost to the glossed linoleum floor which reflects the refulgence of the trophies lined up and down Central plank. When Iola was in Kindergarten she used to imagine that the floors were the sidewalks in Heaven, and would even follow the linoleum down to the edge of the hallway, where the Newly refurbished gymnasium is now located, hoping she would find a heirloom of her Grandma Hazel, who she barely remembers being dandled on her lap and having the Howdy-Duty chorus sung to like a round.

            Iola Clitty is a foster child and a devout Apostolic Christian, which, for some reason, Coach M keeps on getting confused with the Amish, often asking Iola where did she park ye’ olde horse and carriage before coming to class this morning.

 

            Iola keeps her hair back, tucked and matted into a little auburn plateau that rises like a plateau from the back of her skull. She has six different assortments of the same denim dress which she shows Coach M comes replete with brass buttons and zippers, something the Amish populace would think were manufactured in the seventh level of Hell. Each of her denim skirts sweep across the linoleum floor. Iola has serious qualms about Meredith quoting Poe’s "Hear The Bells" every time she came into the room. Since becoming somewhat close to Iola, Meredith has altered her analogy, claiming that Iola in her skirt slightly resembles the dancing, bewitched broomstick from Fantasia—a movie, which of course, Iola was never permitted to see growing up.

 

            Morning is dawning in the hallways at CLS. The sun streaking in through the stain glass holographic neon in the Refurbished gym emanates and even greater morning aura of gold flecks throughout the hallway. Iola is bussed down to CLS from Guardian Angel on Heading, the home where Javon Worthington has been staying ever since he was got on film trying to hold up an Usher at Bethany Baptist cross town. Coach M, who was also, ironically, driving past in a van shaped like a Bread company no one had ever heard of, was initially accused of providing a botched ‘scape route for Javon, who under oath, said that Coach M had dropped him off and even somehow loaned him the gun.

 

            The case was settled outside of court for an undisclosed sum, Coach M, benching Worthington for the next two games, and shipping him to Guardian Angel, a Goth style reformatory orphanage on the far bluff side of the Nuclear woods, where Iola has also been living ever since her parents inscrutable disappearance three summers ago, when her parents, along with the McReynold’s, VonBeheren’s, McGranahan’s and Hale’s grandparents and Mom decided to hire an investigative journalistic news team to promulgate the real reason why they suspected tuition was so skyrocket high of non varsity athletes at Christ Lutheran. After a bevy of Journalists arrived at CLS tempting  Donald Lyonsinki, i.e. don Lyons with a life-time supply of Twinkies, cozening the hard-hated father of Hollis to divulge how much he pays for his four children to attend the academy and then, with his mouth muffled full of shortcake bread and filling, Dave began confessing in staccato grunts that what Coach M was really trying to accomplish was to milk all of the non-athletic families for all they are worth and that, the newly refurbished gymnasium was just the first step.

 

            The interview aired with little super titles posted beneath the screen, deciphering to the public just what it was Don Lyons was actually chewing on about.

 

            The tape was somehow aired, but when it came time for Don Lyons to take center mic an the scene was replaced with a photograph of Patrick from the yearbook two years ago with grunts being heard in the background.

 

The next Monday in class each of the boys were giving a self-destructing stamp envelopes which, as Warren, suggested, was penned in obviously fake blood, for the boys not to fuck with the Coach if they knew what was good for them.

 

            Iola’s parents decided to take things into their own shepherded hands and, after arriving to CLS one night to pick up Iola in the old shadowed corner beneath the flickering street light where the McReynolds clan used to wait, Paul Edward Clitty and his modest wife Merriam, escorted their youngest to their station wagon and informed her to wait and count the books of the King James Edition backwards bible from Revelations to Genesis.

 

            Iola fell asleep and the next thing she released she was surrounded by Coach M and Doctor Kennedy Marshal and a bourbon hiccupping Reverend Morning Wood and was being lift out of the car like she was a little girl all over again while M. tried to explain to her that their had been a terrible accident and Dr. Kennedy Marshal tried to look up her long-denim dress to verify that she wasn’t wearing anything that even remotely resembled a g-string flossed thong-a secular item that is strictly off limits to non-cheerleading students.

 

            At that moment, her brain seemed to be stuck inside the center of a pinwheel. She remembers Coach M gripping her wrist and telling her to walk faster, he’s supposed to be supervising the Varsity practice, trying to make sure that Marcellus doesn’t smuggle in any more forties than is socially salubrious for a fourteen year old. Reverend Morningwood adjusted his zipper and relieved himself in the one water faucet Coach M almost vehemently insists that Patrick and his friends use to hydrate themselves after p.e. Coach M tossed Iola into the Library which looked like it was something out of Charlotte’s Webb, where she stayed for two weeks, with visits from only Doctor Kennedy marshal who would bring her copious amounts of Tofu and rice and insist on doing a thong inspection everyday, even though Iola knew that there was just no such possible way that she could be wearing a thong because she was locked in hear and hadn’t even taken a bath in two weeks. When she asked Doctor Kennedy Marshal if she could us the ladies Kennedy insisted on expecting her panty line again for thong lines and then said no. Having Bev Pinesol slide a lard-crusted Crisco container with the words Potty crayoned over the CRISCO seal. Iola stayed inside the library for two weeks, clinging to a one-buttoned eyed Raggedy Anne she found in the corner.

 

            Eventually Coach M came and tugged Iola from the library, escorting her into his office, introducing her to Waverly Fortune, the black-willow of the Guardian angel estate, Waverly, expecting a frail cheeked Iola, addressing Coach M by his first name, telling him that she isn’t much but I guess for insurance purchases, she will do just fine.

 

            When Iola finally gulped three times and gathered up the gall to inquire to Coach M about the whereabouts of her parents Coach M just sighed, looked back at the Black Willow and feigned a look of naïve sadness.

 

            “See,” Coach M said. “She’s been crying for so long that she forgot that her parents were ruthlessly killed in that elevator accident two weeks ago.”  Coach M handing Iola Clitty a two week old paper with yellow coffee stains on the sides. The headline showing a picture of coach M giving a eulogy at the church across the street, saying how much the Clitty’s added to the congregation even though their style of raiment’s were a little bit more traditional than the church as a whole was used to. The last part of the article Iola skimmed had to do with memorials being made to the CLS Finance for Eternity fund in order to restore the condemned bleachers and rustic old gymnasium. Apparently, as Iola would later find out, her parents altered their wills and sold their house, giving CLS school sole possession of both their estate and fortune, if anything bad was to ever happen to either of them.

 

            That was three years ago and Iola still has dreams of both of her parents coming to her, telling her not to worry, that they are in a better place, to be a good girl and to say her prayers and to keep her hair high and her dress low, and, if she just so happens to ever ride in an elevator with either Coach M., Doctor Marshall or Reverend Morningwood, to be extremely cautious when they tell you to press the button to the basement, because sometimes, Iola, the very last level is hell.

 

            Iola was equally miserable the remainder of her fourth and all of her fifth grade year. Heavy construction had begun on the Finance for Eternity Fellowship Facility and, although Coach M had earlier told Iola that her parents would receive a statue dedicated to their demure nature and temperance, Iola saw nothing of the sort ever erected. In Math of fifth grade a new kid by the name of Patrick McReynolds invited Iola to form a secret club he was constituting named S.O.L, after the sons of Liberty in Johnny Tremain, claiming that what was going on to CLS today is quite germane to what was occurring at the dawn of this great country in terms of tyranny and rights and all that shit. Patrick claimed that if Iola would dress up like an Indian with him and his two good friends named Dave, pulling a Boston Tea party so to speak in the Gym, he would do everything within his means to find out what really, happened to Iola’s parents, a statement which made Iola cry just thinking about.