Now that the provin’ time was over and the slide was asleep again, I get on over to the swings and Jacob does indeed push me a little, enough to get me up so that I can pump on my own and I say “underdog! Gimme me the ol’ underdog!” And he does and gives a big heave and runs underneath me and I push my head out so the chains of the swing disappear and I look straight up and there’s the sky and the sun and everything is different up here and for a second, I’m flying for real.

Jacob stops pushing then and I see him run on back to the slide and I stay on the swings for a while since I think I’m pumping good now and I ain’t losing height like usual and for this I’m proud. I stop after a while for it ain’t as fun doing this all alone and Jacob ain’t like the swings as much as me so I stop pumping and get off when the swing gets low enough and Jacob and I play on the teeter totter like I wanted and we go on the merry go round and take turns pushing each other in a circle.

Momma is calling us over and I guess we’ve been here  longer than I thought even though it seems like we just got here. We all sit on the bench in the sun and Momma passes us our lunch and there’s the celery with peanut butter on it like I like but Momma snuck some raisins on it and she calls them ants on a log, but that was sneaky indeed for I ain’t like raisins too well since they taste to me like an alien’s idea of what sugar is supposed to taste like, but there ain’t too many of them and I choke them down and I ain’t want to complain too much since sometimes Momma will take us for ice cream after the park and she’ll change her mind fast if we get to complainin’ about things too much.

We is all done now and the sun is already half up the sky and the time do slip away sometimes and Momma says “OK, let’s get a move on”. We is walking back but in a different longer direction and this is the way that goes past the ice cream shop and I get excited and look at Jacob and he knows the same thing I know and we wink at each other, but don’t mention ice cream out loud since we ain’t want to jinx it. We is getting close to the turning spot on to the main street when Jacob looks over and down a block and says “hey, ain’t that Daddy’s truck over there?” and Momma says sharp “where?” and Jacob points “there, right next to that tree” and Momma is looking and sure enough, that’s Daddy’s truck.

She ups her pace now and is walking right for it and we have to jog to keep up and I hope this ain’t mean we don’t get ice cream because Jacob interrupted the whole thing with his stupid eyes and now we’re at the truck and Momma says “just you two stay put here” and keeps walking right up to the house the truck is parked in front of. We see her knock on the door and after a while, it opens and she’s talking to someone out of view and now she’s walking inside and the door closes. “What all you think is going on in there?” I whisper and Jacob says “Maybe Daddy parked his truck here and done got a ride somewhere else for his job?” and that makes a good lot of sense now that Jacob says it out loud.

We is still waiting and getting bored when we hear a squeak come from the side of the house and the side gate is opening slow, then we see Daddy crouch running by the side of the house and then is hightailin’ to his truck and he’s halfway in before he even notices us standing there, right beside it. “Oh! Hey! My boys! There you are! That’s good! Wait here though, I’ll be right back!” and he starts the truck and heads on out and turns a corner out of sight. Just then Momma comes storming out of the house and says “OK. Let’s go.” and I’m looking at the house and there’s a man standing in the window holding a can and he ducks down quick once he sees that someone is looking at him, which I think is strange. We is hoofing it fast now and Momma says under her breath “I knew he ain’t have no job” and Jacob says “what was Daddy’s truck doin’ at that house? Why he leave us there and not give us a ride or nothin’?’” and Momma says “that there is Mitch’s house. He’s called Mitch the Bitch and a more befittin’ name I cannot contrive of and they was both in there drinking beers since this morning”

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Momma ain’t never says bad words around us so she must be powerful angry and now I know we ain’t getting' no ice cream. We keep walking the long way though and I guess I was wrong because Momma heads right inside the shop when we get to it and the bell tinkles as we follow her in and it smells like warm sugar and everything is white and clean and this here is about my favorite place to be in the world. Right away, me and Jacob go up to the cold case so we can look at all the colors and different types of ice cream even though we always get the same kind every time. Maybe one of these times we’ll try something different, but if we choose wrong, we’ll end up with crummy ice cream and this is too precious of a chance to try new things.

I ain’t know how to read so I’m just looking at the colors and guessing what all they might taste like and there’s a bright blue one and I expect that’ll taste blue and there’s one that’s chocolate color only with many chunks of what all I don’t know inside and I expect that one will taste like eating gravel and I ain’t never want to try that one. Momma is at the counter now and I plan on savoring mine and it’s good they give such little spoons otherwise I would eat it so fast that a dog would be proud of my abilities. Momma knows what all flavors we usually get and she ain’t need to ask but she does anyway “Gabe, Jacob, what y’all want” and I pretend to think it over real hard then come to choose “bubblegum” like I always do since it’s ice cream and also is bubblegum which everyone knows can last forever and I ain’t know of anyone who shouldn’t get bubblegum ice cream since it’s pretty much two treats in one.

Jacob says “chocolate” and to me that’s disgusting and I ain’t want to eat nothing to do with chocolate but Jacob sure do like it. Alls I know is that I ain’t giving him a taste of my bubblegum since I ain’t want to eat none of his. Momma tells the smiling woman behind the counter “three Scoops of bubblegum and three scoops of chocolate. And we’ll get them in them brown cones” and Jacob and me is looking at each other since we ain’t never get no cones except for on extra special occasions, and we ain’t never got more than the one scoop that they put in a little cup. I ain’t even know what to say.

We is dumbstruck as the woman behind the counter hands us each our cones and mine feels heavy as anything and Jacob gets right to eating his while I look at mine in wonder and I wish ice cream didn’t melt so I could take it home and just gaze at it from time to time, but it ain’t so, so I get to licking around the edges so it don’t run onto my hand and I do hate having sticky hands. Jacob has his chocolate ice cream all around his mouth and he eats it that way on purpose, as messy as he can for he knows it makes me uneasy and maybe one day I’ll try it for it do look curious and maybe it does make it taste better.  

Momma pays the woman and she ain’t get a cone, just me and Jacob and when I ask her why, she says she ain’t hungry no more and had some things on her mind which was keeping her stomach from complaining. We all walk home and eating this ice cream is like climbing a mountain and I don’t think I can eat no three scoop cone again for my stomach is feeling sick.  

We get home and Daddy’s truck ain’t there still so we all go inside and Momma tells us to play quiet in our bedrooms since she needs to go over to neighbor Charlene to use her phone and she won’t be gone too long. “And don’t play with no matches while I’m gone. I know how many matches we got left and I’ll know if you boys are playing with them” and she side eyes Jacob in particular for he’s the one that likes the matches the most and done started a small fire on the rug in the kitchen once and even now he has to “earn back trust” from Momma and Daddy. Momma heads on out and Jacob and me go in our room and there ain’t much to do and we is both feeling sickly from all that ice cream and we just lay on our beds instead of playing since I’m feeling pukey and I ain’t like to puke and puking is the worst smell in the world and I ain’t never sure when it’s going to happen so I’m playing it safe.

Momma is only gone for a few minutes and she comes back riled up again and is pacing in the house and cleaning things and moving things around and we know now is the best time for us to keep staying in our room.

So we do.