met with US presidents, a representative of the Cherokee Nation. Once he sat in the field talking to my brother who was not even five years old. False books on his bookshelf hiding an eagle feather headdress.
I’m participating in x365 and so should you
When we were seven, you proved your love for me by biting into a live catfish you caught bare handed. You used to knock me down, pull out my chair, chase me. What ever happened to you?
I’m posting daily for x365
Okay. I have to break ranks and go over the 37 words. Steven went to the same after school care I did in Richardson, Texas. It was the late 1970s and he had to wear these big old clunky hearing aids. They frustrated the hell out of him and more than once he flushed them down the toilet. I hope they were incredibly expensive, because I remember his mom beating the shit out of him one time at pick up when he’d done it, yet again. He ran away from her across the big field out front where the wild onions grew. We used to dig them up to protect us from vampires, and when I can smell onions on the wind coming from Salinas or Gilroy or wherever the smell floats here from, I am transported back to my childhood, complete with the swirly effects and do-da-lee-do-da-lee-do music. I’m kinda not kidding. We didn’t ever include Steven in anything, because he scared us. He used to chase me and try to kiss me with his slobbery mouth. He shoved me backwards off a picnic bench one time. Hard. Really hard. The day with the fish — we went roller skating around Bachman lake in Dallas and there were fish right at the shore. He looked me in the eye and grabbed one and then bit into it. I think. My memory is not so good for things long ago. I do remember that he had red hair. I can see his face. I know he bit the fish, but maybe it was already dead in the water.
It’s really amazing how much things have changed. If Steven were a kid now, at least in our school district, he’d have pretty great services and his mom wouldn’t get away with wacking him — at least not publicly like that. He’d have a hearing aide that wasn’t so awful and embarrassing. I can’t think of a good reason for not just hating his guts, because he really did hurt me and scare me, but I never did. I remember when he left the after school care that I was sorry to see him go in some ways.
I hope he ended up an okay adult. It’s hard to imagine that he could have, but then people are funny that way. You think someone has everything they need to be okay and they just aren’t, while the ones who should have no reason to be kind sometimes just are.
sat next to me in biology class until he killed himself, supposedly leaving a note blaming everything on Matt, who sat next to me in art. I took Tim’s chair down from our desk the next morning.
I’m participating in x365
is probably sixteen. I saw him talking to his dad outside the martial arts studio as I left yoga class. He was looking down, shuffling his feet on the sidewalk, Dad, it’s not that kind of party.
I’m participating in x365
said goodbye to his wife, left for work every morning, his unemployment a secret. One gorgeous blue San Francisco day he jumped from the Golden Gate bridge. My mom and I there hours earlier, just by chance.
This is part of x365
was from Argentina. She worked with me at a coffee shop, while she and her boyfriend saved to go to Oregon. A customer once asked her how she liked America. I AM AMERICAN she spat at him.
I’m participating in x365
was Missy’s dad. I was twelve, in junior high, when he showed me how to mix White Russians (only for him, not us) and how to shoot empty coke cans from the end of a leaf blower.
Brought to you by x365
was a smooth operator Eight years old, putting the moves on all the girls in after school care. We played Happy Days; he was Fonz and talked us into lining up to kiss him. Cool, he’d say.
I am participating in x365
We met on the sidelines, watching our brothers play soccer. Not long after, you were walking on the beach with your family and a wave took you out to sea. I wanted to go to your funeral.
I remember the stripe of grey in your long black hair, though you were only ten. You were the most talented dancer in a class of girls all hoping to become ballerinas. Your poor older sister, green.
I’m participating in x365