yellow grass, yellow leaves
EVERYONE REMEMBERED ALRIGHT. They took Morrison away from his mom, sent him off to a boys program way away in the city. Said he needed help. But Morrison knew it was his mom who needed help. The little town he grew up in blamed everything on his mom. They never officially said anything to her, but it wasn't secret what everyone thought. No boy raised properly would do a thing like that, they all said. She couldn't even keep her husband happy. Ain't none of us haven't been wronged but you don't see us shootin' folks. After a year at the program, Morrison went back to live with his mom, but she wasn't the same. Worse, even than before. He wondered why they didn't move, didn't get away from all the talking and all the looks. They never moved, but he realized that she was gone most of the time anyway. Not physically, but in another world, he supposed. Morrison knew he should have hated the situation, how everyone talked about his mom and how she couldn't take it anymore, but he liked being left alone. Even the kids at school left him alone, now. Morrison wondered if his dad would have been proud of him. THEY MET OVER A YEAR AGO. Morrison never told Baker that for nineteen years he lived in Georgia also, in Hephzibah. Morrison wondered if Baker knew anything about his father. EvERYTHING STILL BURNING, but the slow motion stops for a minute, long enough for him to see that Baker is on fire in the front seat. He pulls Baker underneath the Humvee and hurries to splash him with yellow sand and rolls him back and forth, but that is all he can do, nothing else. Baker's sun burnt body is yellow like the desert. The wind blowing in a circle and his ears numb and up ahead he can see another Humvee tom in two. He is pinned under his own and he tries to radio Lieutenant Gerold. Does anyone copy! The little boys and little girls huddled across the street watch him. They found a nook in the side of the building and they sit there and watch him like the entire war was just a fire drill. Hard candies and peace, he thought. The radio isn't working and the Humvee is still on fire. The smell of flesh in the air isn't going away. SEVEN-YEARS OLD AND HE WOKE UP ON HIS OWN. Day shining through his window and the house quiet like a Sunday morning, but it wasn't Sunday. It was Tuesday because on Tuesdays he wore his red shirt and his red shirt was sitting on the end of the bed. Seven-years old and it didn't seem odd to him that this was the first school morning she did not come in and wake him. Seven-years old and he walked into the kitchen wearing his red shirt and blue jeans like he was a grown-up and he thought he finally could be Summer • Fall 2006
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