2011 - Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science

4
wheezy chuckling transformed into another coughing
fit, which I caught with the inside of my sleeve’s
elbow. I turned back to see the boy holding out my
rag to me.
“Thanks, kid,” I rasped, taking it and wiping the
slime out from my elbow.
“Are you gonna die in a hospital bed?” he asked.
“In a what?”
“In a hospital bed? My grandpa died in a hospital
bed, is that where you’ll die
too?”
“Yep.”
“Are you gonna have
to wear those hospital
gowns?”
“Most likely.”
The boy leaned back and sighed. “Man, I’m glad
I’m not you.”
“Why?”
“I wouldn’t wanna wear those hospital gowns. If
you get up, the whole wide world can see your butt.”
Then he laughed a giggly child’s laugh that
showed off the gaps in his smile. His baby teeth
looked like tiny white pebbles all spaced apart in his
mouth. The sides of his chapped lips curled up, pushing
the tops of his cheeks around his eyes. He smiled
and I smiled and for a moment life was oh-so very
ordinary.
A brunette woman stuck her head out of the sliding
window at the front desk, scanning the room for
a second before spotting her son in the chair next to
mine. “You ready to go, sweetie?” she called.
“Yes’m,” he answered, and began climbing down
from the chair. He bent down to re-velcro his sneakers
before straightening back
up to examine me one last
time. “See if you can’t
get some hospital pants
or something,” he added
before running to his
mother at the front door,
the little red lights on his feet blinking all the way.
And for that while, death was alright. It was so
incredibly usual and mundane, nothing more than a
pest throwing temper tantrums inside my lungs. It
was something so trivial it couldn’t even impress some
red-headed kid with dirty fingernails. I will probably
die in a hospital bed, but there are more remarkable
things. Death will always come second to bare butts in
hospital gowns. n
[ ]
His baby teeth looked like
tiny white pebbles all
spaced apart in his mouth.
The Chris Read Award For Fiction
The Chris Read Award for Fiction, instituted with the 1994 issue of Southern Voices, honors a
member of the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science’s Class of 1991. Christopher David
Read was an active leader at MSMS as a member of Emissaries, the Debate Club, and the Southern
Voices staff. Chris’s first love, however, was writing. Southern style.
Chris often wove his Southern tales late at night. Chris would compose either on the computer or
on (his favorite) the old, brown Royal typewriter he had bought from the pawn shop down 13th Street
South. Faking sleep, I would watch the grin on Chris’s face as he worked out the next great story.
When he finished, Chris would always “wake me” and excitedly read his new story to me. He never
knew that I had been hiding, watching his creative process with admiration. I was not the only one to
admire Chris’s work. This award stands as testimony to the admiration that we all held for Chris and
his work and as a memorial to the Southern writing tradition which Chris loved.
Chris had the potential to become a great writer. Unfortunately, Chris never reached this potential:
he was killed in a car wreck on January 17, 1993. Though Chris will never attain his dream of writing
a great novel, all of those who loved and respected Chris hope that the recipient of this Award, as well
as all the other aspiring writers at MSMS, will achieve their dreams.
Michael D. Goggans
Class of 1991