She was a junkyard angel. She had hands like a steel mill runner. She talked with a graveled voice, like decades of mucus had built up in the branches of her lungs.
She was a junkyard angel, it's what everyone called her. The angel of the junkyard.
Eunice Wayland had a loud voice. So loud in fact she would scare herself quite often. It was said that the cause of her strong, large, and masculine voice was a response to her weak hearing. Her father used to beat her to stop crying as a child by slapping her with both hands on the sides of her head. Some have speculated quite scandalously that she is a result of a hermaphroditic condition and that perhaps is why her father hated her so much. Regardless of origin Eunice Wayland had a stand out voice. A voice made up of many sounds and pitches. A voice that centuries ago many villages around the globe would’ve used to cal out to God. This the story of Eunice and her voice. The spirit of sound and the voice that changed the world.
She had a touch so soft and tender it was like a bruise that would never heal. When she walked it was if she wasn’t even touching the ground. Her frame was big and heavy but she somehow always seemed to catch the right shadow and light, the sun was kind to her. She held her hand close to her hip when she walked and always paid mindful attention to everything surrounding her. Her eyes were almond shaped and captivating. Eunice had all the makings of an angel. All the makings of an angel in the sky her uncles would say, but you you go the body of a tire on the yard. Her uncles worked at a local junkyard in the white part of town. Every weekend she helped them on the yard and she loved it, minus the teasing.
Her mom died when she was two of liver cirrhosis and her dad worked as a seaman, visting home about twice a month. Eunice was never happy to see him. He was mean. He was loud. He was arrogant. He did not seem like her father. She did not seem like her daughter. To her he was at best like a distant second cousin that you had to be cordial with but you dreaded his visit every month.
A voice is a thing that the spirits give you. You don’t own it. When you leave this world you don’t take it with you. This was something Eunice learned at an early age. So when she began to learn that her own voice was not like that of a normal persons voice, her voice was unique, one of a kind, she started to think about the old adages that her grand-pappy would relay to her. It began to take relevance when she wass 11 years old. The age she sang for her grade school and saved it from destruction.
All the kids were ready for their lunch when a loud wailing baritone voice echoed through the corridors of the hollowed hallways. Just before the lunch bell rang there was a cry that sounded very much like an animal, but even more like something outside of this world. It sounded celestial, as if a calling of something or someone was being beckoned by God. But the kids in this school in this part of town had not seen the presence of God in a long time. This was the first time Eunice ever sang to the world.
As the voiced echoed through the school grounds the gaping mouths stood still in awe at
The immaculate sound they were hearing. Something that they had never experienced all of a sudden tingled their tiny spines. Their hair stood as if the moist had subsided into a miracle of great love. The school grounds was a field of love and ambition. A yearning to do good in this small community.
She grew older and the town grew weary…
