Grip (Start of the story)

The Grip

Big Bro’s eye stung as he blinks and shields magnified light shooting through the eighty eight Durango’s front windshield. Blood from his eyelids projected harshly bright red lit floaties, That’s what big bro called strands of protein making up his soft pupils. The sun radiates his vascular fore arms causing them to excrete tiny beads that grow and fall following veins to a plastic armrest. It was noon and the hoods of every car on the block had to be hot enough to fry an egg and cook a steak. He felt like a cupcake coming to rise in an easy bake and everything inside the dark blue sedan was on low broil Big Bro thought he could take another hour and they would have to leave the Durango and find some form of shade.

Lil Bro breathes deeply and takes in the sweet syrup smell of evaporated diet soda spilt in the cup holder and collected pennies lining it. A drop of perspiration rolls down his adam’s apple and into the soft dip between his clavicle bones. He sinks deeper into the reclined grey leather chair with each shallow breathe. His older sibling, Big Bro, cracks an eyelid and watches the mechanical sprinklers pop out of grass and shower perfidiously edged lush St. Augustine matted front yards. He was sure that they had made it to Arizona although this looked nothing like the desert he expected. It was a long drive across the Texas panhandle had taken longer than expected and each day spent in El Paso was one that took away from the ultimate destination.

It was a ticker tape rural Phoenix suburban neighborhood each house had two or more levels with a large green lawn. There was only one tree on the block and It was a palm. The tree reminds Big Bro of the beach and what he’d seen in the movies of California and the sunset strip. Babied flower beds stripe an inviting bright mess of colors geometrically patterned to lead up every house surrounding the cul-de-sac. Big Bro forgot the street’s name and curiosity of the baring didn’t cross his mind. All he could think of was the heat. A closer than normal Sun was now hung completely overhead without a cloud in the sky. Even with the windows halfway down it was not cool enough to keep him in deep rim rather leaving him sweltering lucid thoughts.