In the Boy's Room: Draft Uno!

In the Boy’s Room

            One wall of the boy’s room is just shelves full of boy things. There’s a warped batman lunchbox with the top gone that is full of marbles. An old popcorn drum is full of dusty baseball cards. There’s a stuffed bear that won’t sit up and a snoopy doll without a nose. A cyclone must have hit and swirled together a mess of video games and CDs with most of their jewel cases cracked and broken. Horror DVDs and comics. His cross country trophy is turned on its side so the little golden man at the top just looks like he’s tripping and thinks he’s Jacob wrestling with the angel. The boy has emptied his picture frames and they sit facing each other in a lopsided circle. His G.I. Joes are tangled together inside a cookie tin. She takes two out and places them on the shelf face down on top of each other.

            If she could just flush the boy away. If she could empty the mental picture frame that contains his pimply big-eyed face. But he’s still friction in her mind: belly, tongue, fingers, teeth. Rubbing on the fly of his jeans. Rubbing his foot with hers. Doesn’t he remember steaming up the windows after stealing the cow’s car? Doesn’t he remember the playhouse his dad built for his sisters before leaving? When the bee crawled into the sleeping bag they shared? She can make him remember. She has prepared a speech full of profanity that he will not soon forget.