Don’t Look Down

We'd been sunbathing in the back yard, lolling on towels in the grass, Sue turning her usual blushed bronze, me, my usual scorched milk.  Sue rolled over onto her back, shielded her eyes with her hand and looked up at the tree in the back corner of the yard, its summer leaves still lush and lively despite the heat.  She said, "God, I used to love to climb trees..." and the next thing I knew, we were as high up as we could get in it, surveying the yard in shady secrecy, whispering about all the things we never talked about: my mom, her man, the pounds of PCP hidden in the garage, layering its ugly pall of menthol jet fuel all over everything.  We heard the growl of him coming up the street and knew how it was from the needless revving of his Dirty Mary Charger as it roared up into the front yard.  The hollering started up as soon as he slammed the front door, "SUE!" stomped through the house, "SUE!" threw open the back door, "SUE!" barreled out into the yard to kick furiously at our abandoned towels and cast his seeking glare in every direction.  We sat lightly on our branches, still-breath bathing beauties, staring into each others eyes to keep from looking down at the man below, who would surely sense the gaze of prey and look up.

Uncle Sammy’s Barber

His hair was all wrong.  It was stuck down flat on his head without a single rumple, and it didn't poof a bit.  She shook her head sadly and tsk, tsked as she pulled her comb out of her purse and commenced to do him right.  She knew just how to make him look real nice, 'cause she'd been his barber for, oh... a long, long time.  Gramma's scream liked to scare the pants off of her and she dropped her comb in the casket when Grampa grabbed her, hauled her off the chair and carried her out of the funeral parlor.  She regretted the spanking she knew was coming, but looking over her grampa's shoulder at Uncle Sammy lying in his casket, she was pleased to see his white, fluffy hair sticking up nice and high, just the way he'd always told her he liked it.