Family of Five

In August 1990, minutes after the last lightning bolt shook the window panes and tickled the mini blinds, Mom and Dad runaways for the night, off to god knew where though he didn't seem to care, and the kids huddled in the middle of the living room far away from the windows, scared to death of the thunder but silent not to betray their fear, a miniseries rendition of a book they'd never read running on the blinking TV, heat and smell of wet concrete, one dog sneezed and little Arthur, pre-pubescent and sentimental, misunderstood, hoping to help, peeked over the dash of the car in the driveway and slammed the family's hatchback into and through the garage wall and into the dining room, tipping over the kitchen picnic table and felling antique saws from the walls, frightening to sober shouts two sisters in the living room and striking his forehead on the stiff rubber steering wheel, tapping the horn to a measly beep and the rain, which had been falling steadily all day, gifted from the monsoon sky above which came down to surround them, first in wind then in dust then in distant thunder, stopped.

In May 1990, already weeks deep into summer, the power knocked out in a flash the night before when an elderly driver smashed into the power station 5 miles down the road, filling the black sky with neon green, and the humming they didn't know was there died away, leaving them in quiet heat, so they slept those nights on the ceramic tiles of the basement floor, next to the doggy door and mosquitos getting in, and the hot charge floated on them like concession stand smoke in still air over a friday night football field, the sweetchild sister curled up in pain on the basement couch and bounced her foot on the floor, struggling to send it all away, her left ovary excitedly flipped over its fallopian tube and choked itself off to the point of near bursting, while we sat upstairs listening and wondering if this might be the end of a girl who, frightened of the interstate, frightened of the car wash, bouncing her back against the bench seat, tapping out her anxieties in the same nameless letter over and over again, was at once hardening yet too soft to be, and her insides, like a horse that won't stand up, a soldier too dry to drink, was finally coaxed, she coaxing, and rearranged and days later, the couch wet with sweat, she stood and she drank and the power came back on.

In September 1990, at the crowded community pool, Jordache watched the swimmers, chewing gum grown rigid with time and chlorine, kids’ marcos and polos, sharks and guppies, dogs running in the grass, juice boxes at home waiting in the fridge, at the same time a teenage girl in the nearby public pool bathroom explained to her adopted little sister what a bj is, making the little sister cry, and a man floating on foam rubber, tanned and oiled sunglasses god’s gift catching light and screaming it, quasars, back out at everyone, while a son jogged along the deck, mercury on the heat, and someone said “Yeah, well, you don't have a grandpa," and as he stopped, wet, tears emerging in his water stuck eye lashes, a child pushed him in, unready, Jordache jumped and slipped along the deck and dove in, clothed, after the boy, pulling him out and screaming at him to please, please, please, be more careful, don't tell Mom and Dad, who were two different places away.

In 1890, she could tell, a black painted buggy broke a spoke and tilted to the side of the road while a train passed by in the distance, filled, she believed, with a circus of animals on their way to their stakes, while two puffed birds in an autumn tree sidled up to each other and watched the man in a flat brimmed hat and suspenders touch the wheel and quietly curse and pump the buggy up with the still brown wooden jack and check his family watching on the other side of the road, afraid the cart might flip in any direction, with the horse, and the metal rim shocked him when he touched it, knocking him back on his ass into a ditch where he flopped and cursed while mother watched from the roadside thinking how she might do it herself for only a moment before setting her attention on the children, puffed up and sidling into each other for warmth, and she said thank you as she paid the man behind the counter and drove slowly home where she set the buggy jack up in a kitchen corner next to the microwave.

In December 1990, the doctor, his daughter, and a bag of canned laughter took us into their static while he braved a mountain to talk to god and discuss with him his alternate plan A which was meant to keep them alive and the various bills to be paid, and after dinner that night, after the scaffolding and Christmas lights, he put his head to his pillow to wake at three and dreamt of a flower rigid in the freezing air and frost responding to his breath, melting into water and the dark soil absorbing his new creating as the temperature continues to drop, though the moment had passed to the incessant beeps, seconds gone before he rose again to drive the streets and throw the journalists into all your flower bushes.