The Pontificators

Remember that time I opened my mouth and screamed? Me too.

She looked at me from under her old lady afro and asked why I was in the street. I yelled at her, and cursed her, and sent her to hell a million times.

All of my memories are in technicolour. It was so beautiful. And he yelled I’m a nurse! I’m a nurse! And the ambulance came and asked if I could walk and I lied. I said yes and fell and she caught me. I wouldn’t let them leave until they called my mom, but memory was somewhere else and I didn’t know the numbers.

I must have remembered, because she was there when the gourney came undone and I was nearly thrown back out in traffic. The ambulance doors swinging wide as I rolled toward the opening. But we were already stopped and they just rebuckled me. Like everything was fine.

Then I peed in a cup and cried and tried to sleep. I think I made a joke, but I don’t remember the punchline. I asked them to call my sister, and they did. She promised to beat that driver up for me. Sock her in the jaw. I laughed and it hurt. They Xrayed my bones.

Nothing broken but my brain. They sent me home and I ate wasabi. I don’t know if my best friend was there or if I only asked for her. I don’t know if she brought be rasberry sorbet, or if I just wished she had. I think she did, but I’ll never know for sure. Even when she tells me, it doesn’t bring my memories back.

I wrote a blog post that day, and someone sent me a care package. It had a pig in it and I named him Feodore. He smelled like licorice. I remember that part. Days after.

I didn’t scream again for a long time. I can’t open my mouth any more.

Sweet Home, Oregon. I have never lived there. It’s sweet to me only in the tenderness I see in my father when my mother drives. No, take a detour. This is this, this is that. This used to be yae big, it was larger in my youth.

One year ago we endeavoured to find a swimming hole. No. Not a swimming hole, but the swimming hole. We drove farther than one small town should have been able to take us, tasting dust through our windows the whole way. Because we are who we are, and because who we are is a series of endearing traditions, we pointed out every horse we saw by expressing childlike glee and babbling in our old baby words. It was a good time.

At the far end of our trip we were turned away disappointed. Because young minds decay faster, my father was unable to pick his out of the plethora of holes. But it was a good time.

This year we didn’t even try. We satisfied our selves with the house he grew up in, and a box of his father’s 45s.

Sometimes the way he talks, I feel that his home was less than sweet. So many people in our family have the disposition he has. Contented bitterness, speaking fondly of hard times. But when my mother drives, I know he loves that town.