At three for a
nickel, Atomic Fireballs are a badge of honor. Tom and I face off, inching
toward the place where pain numbs the senses. I toss the molten rock around my mouth, the
peppery heat branding the side of my tongue. And, while our mother’s Why do you do it? bounces off our steely
resolve, our father levels a direct hit. “I should kick them right in the ass.”
I kneel at Tom’s
bedroom window and squash my face against the screen. My father inspects the
torn canvas of his lime-green hammock bought at Agway three days before. The irony that he’ll never actually use the
hammock is not lost on me. The closest he comes to relaxing is reading the Daily News, a Labatt’s sweating beside
him, cigar puffs punctuating each “Jesus” and “listen to this.” Muhammed Ali pulverizes
Joe Frasier in the Thrilla in Manila. A
serial killer is shooting young lovers and taunting police with cryptic notes. I
hung on every word, the events connected in a way I can’t yet grasp.
Tom’s sniffling
grabs my attention. His brown eyes are huge—panicked—a map of purple veins
furiously pumping blood beneath his milky skin.
“Dad’s going to think I did it. I’m going to
get in trouble,” he says.
“Why’s he going to
think that?”
“You’re better at
talking. He’ll believe you.”
Six belt cracks,
the sting like a match strike. Tom stumbles upstairs, his face bloated from
crying. I run my fingers over the raised red ropes across his back.
We roll survival in
our mouth, hurting those we love and learning to live with the after taste as
we inch toward the atomic heat of hell.
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