summer programme
in the city.’
‘No, sir. I can’t.’
He bit the insides of his cheeks.
‘I had to apply for funding for the programme.
You didn’t get the place by accident.’
His kid stood up in the cart,
tried to climb over the side
and make an escape.
Mr Porter pulled him out, let the boy
waddle up the cereal aisle.
‘Something came up, sir. I’m sorry.’
‘And you’ve missed a week of training.
I’m kind of disappointed.
You know my thoughts on your performances.
But I can’t force anyone to want something
and talent isn’t enough.
You have to work hard.’
I’d come into the store for toothpaste.
I hadn’t planned on getting grilled
by a schoolteacher.
He meant well, but it was summer vacation –
he’d no right to nag me.
‘I gotta go, sir,’ I said.
‘Is something going on?’ he asked.
‘Nah. Everything’s cool,’ I said.
I don’t want anyone’s pity.
HOME SWEET HOME
The landlord kicks a pile of junk mail
from the doormat,
leads the way into the kitchen and
rips opens the envelope I’ve handed him.
He counts out the cash and
holds a fifty dollar bill to the light.
Flies hum around us.
‘No late check-outs. You got that?’
He dangles the keys in front of me.
I snatch them and he sucks on his teeth.
‘What are you in Wakeling for anyway?
You know someone at the farm?’
I turn on the cold faucet.
Yellow water dribbles on to the mouldy dishes
piled up
then abandoned
by the previous tenant.
He shuts off the water.
‘It’ll run clear in a couple minutes.’
He glances around like he might have forgotten
something,
then takes off,
slamming the door behind him.
I flick a switch.
Nothing happens.
I try another.
No light.
I dart to the door,
holler into the hallway.
‘The electricity is out! Hey, there’s no light!’
But I’m alone
and the hallway
is in darkness too.
LITTLE MURDERS
I murder close to twenty cockroaches
with the base of a rusty pan.
Their backs crack and crunch.
‘Dirty bastards.’
The apartment smells worse than I remember,
like whoever lived here
let their cat
or kid
piss all over the carpets.
In the living room
I try opening a window
but it’s painted shut.
Grime and grease cake the pane.
I check my phone.
No one’s messaged or called since yesterday.
Not Reed, Karen, not even Angela,
which is sort of surprising and a bit shitty.
Do they think I’m here
soaking up sun and scratching my ass?
I’m here for Ed. That’s it.
I’m here cos he’s my blood.
He needs me.
It’s what I have to do.
But if I had a choice?
I’d be on a plane home –
I’d be gone.
A single roach scuttles out from
underneath the spongy sofa.
I stamp on it,
then look up
and realise
the damn things are crawling
the walls.
NO REPLY
I message Reed:
Hot as hell here, man!
SHIIIIIT! Wots happenin????
After a moment
I see he’s read the message.
I watch my screen, wait for his smartass reply.
But nothing comes through, and then
he’s offline.
So I put my phone into my
back pocket and
head out.
STAR WARS
We used to play on the sidewalk,
brandishing long sticks as lightsabers,
caning one another and
really feeling the force of it.
Then Ed got a real lightsaber,
gave it to me grinning.
‘Join me,’ he said,
Darth Vader croaky.
But the dark side
never really appealed to me,
so I lit up my green sword
and used it to
slice him
to pieces.
He groaned, rolled on the ground,
while the kids in the neighbourhood watched,
jealous for a brother like mine.
We watched Stars Wars obsessively,
and during a bad storm,
when school closed,
saw every movie back to back,
only stopping
to grab bags of chips for nourishment.
‘Can’t we watch anything else?’ Angela groaned.
Ed turned to her, horrified.
‘I feel like we shouldn’t be family any more.’
He threw a pillow at her
and she laughed,
slumped on the couch next to us.
‘Seriously, Ange, you’re missing out.’
‘Angela doesn’t like fighting,’ I said
to defend my sister,
and Ed nodded sympathetically,
then sucked on the back of his hand.
‘Yeah. She prefers kissing.’
Angela covered her eyes with her forearm.
‘You’re grossing me out.
That must be how you kiss your girlfriends.’
We were creased up but hushed as
Mom slithered into the sitting room.
‘I’m ordering takeout,’ she said.
Her eyes were black-rimmed,
sweatpants and hoodie creased.
She coughed and coughed
until she had to leave the room,
then called in from the kitchen.
‘Angela, can you phone for pizza?
My voice is cut to crap.’
‘Sure, Mom!’ Angela said,
her tone like sunshine,
as though Mom wasn’t a complete screw-up.
‘Can we get plain cheese?’ I asked.
‘Course we can, little man,’ Ed said, pulling me close,
turning up the TV.
R2-D2 slid across a spaceship.
Angela dialled for dinner
and we watched Star Wars
into the night
while Mom threw up in the bathroom.
She said she had a bug,
told us not to come close
in case we caught what she had.
And even though none of us bought the bug story,
we all kept out of Mom’s way.
WHEN THE COP GOT SHOT
After the first call came through from Ed,
Angela tried to explain
what he had been accused of
and what might happen next.
But I never really got my head around it.
When kids in my class asked
for the details
I couldn’t think what to say.
Ed had taken off months before,
right after his big bust-up with Mom.
I had no idea where he was
the day Frank Pheelan got shot.
The day it happened
I was on a field trip to
the Liberty Sci
ence Center,
eating a bologna sandwich,
thinking about space,
Mars mostly,
a planet so close, so completely inhospitable.
I wasn’t thinking about cops or death.
And until Angela explained it,
I didn’t know that to be accused of murder
in the wrong state was
fatal.
ICE AND FLAME
Aunt Karen took me into New York City
the Christmas after Ed was convicted
so we could skate in Central Park,
something I hadn’t done before.
She held my mittened hand,
stopped me slipping on the ice.
All I was thinking was
how much
funnier the trip would have been with Ed.
He’d have made Karen lighten up, laugh,
instead of worrying about
the other skaters’ blades
chopping off our fingers if we fell.
Afterwards we walked down Fifth Avenue
to St Patrick’s Cathedral
where Karen lit red candles,
and in front of the tiny flickering flames,
prayed for our family on her knees.
I lit a candle for Ed,
thought about him alone during the holidays
in a cell with no tinsel or twinkling lights,
no chance of seeing a full moon
or any moon
for that matter.
‘Did you pray?’ Aunt Karen asked on our
way out,
dipping her fingers into the stone font
and crossing herself with holy water.
In the street I admitted,
‘I prayed for the cops to send Ed home.’
Karen knelt again, in the middle of the sidewalk,
this time to look me straight in the eye.
‘I’ve read the reports and spoken to the lawyers, Joe.
Forget about Ed.
He isn’t ever coming home, OK?
Ever.’
People nudged me with the corners of their
fancy shopping bags.
‘He told me he didn’t do it,’ I said.
‘He’s lying,’ she said.
‘You’re lying,’ I never said.
Instead I decided right then
never to defend Ed again,
and
let my aunt
believe I didn’t love him any more.
MIRACLES
Sue is outside Bob’s Diner,
smoking and
blinking at the sun.
‘You’re here,’ she says.
‘I thought you was full of bullcrap.’
‘Where’s the car?’ I ask.
She uses her hand as a visor,
looks me up and down.
‘You gonna fix it with superpowers, hun?’
I lift my baseball cap,
scratch the hair beneath it –
I hadn’t thought about tools.
Sue snickers.
‘Bob don’t got a needle and thread,
but lucky for you
I borrowed my Lenny’s toolbox.
He sees something missing, I’m for it,
so you give it back how you found it, right?’
She wags a bejewelled finger at me.
‘You’ll also need a miracle,
but Lenny didn’t have none of those.
You looking for a miracle, hun?’
I shrug.
Try to look tough.
‘Who’s at the farm?’ she asks.
‘Huh?’
First the landlord, now her?
Is it written on my face?
She sucks deeply on the cigarette.
‘Look, no one shows up round here
unless they got business at the farm.’
I hesitate. Do I trust her?
Even if I don’t,
I can’t keep Ed a secret for long –
not in a town this size.
‘My brother’s down to die next month.’
Sue raises her eyebrows.
‘And you’re in Texas alone?’
‘I don’t mind,’ I lie.
I kick the dirt.
‘Is he guilty?’ she asks.
What am I supposed to say?
Well, Ed says he isn’t
and he’s never lied to me before
but who knows?
Guys on the row must lie all the time.
She drops the glowing butt of her cigarette,
grinds it into the ground
with the heel of her rubber-soled shoe.
‘You want a hot breakfast, hun?’
I nod.
Why the hell is she being so nice?
She doesn’t know me and
what she does know is the bad stuff –
the stuff I usually keep to myself.
‘Junker’s open out back. Good luck.’
THE FARM
When dogs get put down
parents tell their kids
the mutts got sent to a farm
to live out their last days
with peppy ducks and rabbits.
And it’s as though the state of Texas thinks
we’re all just as stupid as kids,
calling the state penitentiary
‘Wakeling Farm’ –
like inmates lie around on hay bales
and spend their afternoons milking cows.
But just like the dogs,
most guys who go to this farm
don’t ever come home.
THE JUNKER
It really is a junker:
dried out grass growing around the wheels;
hubcaps gone or stolen;
the hood infected with rusty scabs;
not a dribble of oil in the clapped-out engine;
no gas in the tank.
I’ve no idea where to start.
But if I want to eat,
I’ve got to get this crap heap running.
Soon.
INSIDE OUT
When Ed got his driver’s licence
Aunt Karen acted like he’d made honour roll.
‘Look at you! Driving!
Soon you’ll be married
and how old will that make me?’
She smacked him playfully.
Ed grinned.
‘Ah, Karen, you got good genes.
You’re gonna outlive us all.
Anyway, it’s about time …
I should’ve got my licence last year.’
Angela looked up from her book.
‘He’s being cute cos he wants your wheels, Aunt Karen.’
‘What? That’s real suspicious of you, Angela,’ Ed said.
‘But … if our very cool aunt wants to lend me her car,
I won’t say no.’
He jabbed at Karen’s coat pocket.
Keys clinked.
She backed away.
‘Oh no. Borrow someone else’s car.’
Karen was tough, but that day
Ed was persistent;
he spent twenty minutes
wearing her down
until she handed over the keys
to her twelve-year-old Mitsubishi.
‘Be careful,’ she pleaded.
Ed said,
‘I won’t go over a hundred, I promise,’
and wrapped his arm around my shoulder.
He smelled of spicy deodorant and spearmint gum.
‘You coming, co-pilot?’
Aunt Karen slumped on the sofa next to Angela,
who put down her book and
pushed her feet into a pair of purple Converse.
‘I’ll go with them, Aunt Karen.’
She turned on the TV.
‘You enjoy Ellen. We’ll be back soon.’
‘Where’s your mom?’ Karen asked.
‘Work,’ Angela said,
when we all knew sh
e was probably at a bar
or with some guy she’d just met.
Ed was in charge of the driving,
Angela of the music,
and I was in the back seat feeding them snacks
after we’d stopped at a bodega and
bought a whole bag of candy.
‘No way,’ Ed groaned, as Angela turned the radio
to a station playing pop.
‘Oh, what would you prefer, DJ Badass?’
‘Anything, dude. Anything.’
Angela fiddled with the dials, then stopped.
‘Elvis!’ Ed cheered.
‘Jesus,’ Angela said.
‘The King,’ Ed replied. ‘Turn it up!’
‘Oh, come on, Ed.
Want a blanket for your knees too?’
He smacked the steering wheel.
‘Turn it up!’
And she did.
And the windows were down.
And Ed was singing.
And then Angela was singing.
And the song wasn’t too difficult to learn.
And I started singing.
After Elvis
it was Johnny Cash,
then The Supremes
and more singers and songs that I didn’t know
but I sang along anyway,
screeching out the windows
as we boomed along Third Avenue.
Aunt Karen was waiting on the stoop,
wringing her hands on a dishcloth.
Angela turned off the music.
‘Cool drive. Thanks, Ed,’ she said
and jumped out of the car,
practically skipping into the house.