wow

The Grip

Slight twists of his vascular forearms excrete minute beads that glisten, as they slowly grow and fall, following veins to a plastic armrest. With high noon approaching, every glowing car on the block with dark paint could cook a steak. Inside his midnight blue sedan items were coming to rise like cup cakes in an Easy Bake Oven. Just one more hour parked without shade, thought Big Bro, causing him to turn in his seat and shield his face from invisible bon fire winds.

The white part of an eye burns from perspiration magnifying a radiant sun bursting through the windshield of his ’88 Durango. A squinting brow could not block out the harsh light projecting odd shapes against thoughts of Jim Bean and vomit. Closing his eyes again Big Bro focuses on the thin layer of skin pumping networks of cascading blood cells. He also recognized the familiar “floaters,” a word he made up for the hardly visible clear strands of protein making up pupil tissue. A truck stop television mentioned something about the sun being closer than normal. That was the last he had seen or heard the news in a little over forty eight hours.

The upper middle class suburban neighborhood resembled something out of a magazine relating to futuristic utopias. Big Bro thought everything about this current moment contrasts the bottom bucket town he and his brother grew up in. Mansions on the street had three or more levels with high walls tucked two feet from the sidewalk. There are only a few dwellings on the freshly paved cul-de-sac without these walls and Big Bro was nestled next to one. It had a babied flower bed striping with inviting mix of vibrant colors leading.

Determined to remember what street they were parked on he uses his thumb and middle finger to rigorously message a hangover hammering in his temples. It was a long haul across the panhandle fueled with Yellow Jackets and Fourloko. These legal doses of speed came in the form of pills and cans purchased in a Gun Barrel Texas gas station. Yawning, Big Bro casually fills his lungs with the syrupy odor of evaporated Fourloko dried to collected pennies lining the cup holders. This sweet aroma slid up his nose along with a bad whiff of a dried elixir of chili cheese bean burritos, onion dip, mac salad and cheap booze plastered to the outside of the passenger door. The orgy of smells brings the memories of the night before to fruition as he suddenly remembers the street’s name: Edgefield.

Glancing at Lil Bro, he avoids any sudden sounds that would disturb the little guy’s tranquil slumber. His Big Brother also referred to as Big Bro, sits back in the driver’s seat and listens to a peculiar sound coming from the street. He was not certain but they were low distant back and forth tweet with a long whistle. The pattern continued in occasional steady repetitions of for about two to three minutes.. This perplexed him because there were no birds anywhere in sight. Forty eight hours behind the wheel, Big bro was convinced he was either hallucinating or mistaking insects for birds. Any noise was better than the loud siren of a cop car. Being poor and on the run always sounded better than leaving his little brother in a foster home. That was exactly what the state wanted after their mother passed the bills piled up until the house was auctioned off to the highest bidder. They took what they could from the childhood home and watched as recollections disintegrated to a highest bidder.