herself, her bed, her room—and then Ma. There was an ambulance. Stomach pump plus IV drip. A three-day stay at the hospital and then six months of mandatory counseling sessions to see if she was lying about the accident and had maybe done the thing on purpose.
They say He works in mysterious ways. I used to not know what that meant but now I do. Not to say whether I believe it is the true case, but I understand what it means and why people say it. The aftermath of this ugly episode was a cleansing effect upon our household. Holding her own daughter’s head up by the hair, wearing the vomit, slapping the girl to keep her conscious until the ambulance men came—all these things got Ma a little bit more invested in the soul’s particular vessel here on earth and in earthly things in general. Not to say she didn’t take Kyra’s surviving for an obvious miracle, but still. Caring for her recovering daughter woke up her natural instinct to be kind. It shook her condition loose.
Kyra, meanwhile, in the midst of her close call, in her near-death state, saw the Lord, and He told her some thingsthat set her to rights. Belief-wise, each got knocked a few pegs in the other’s direction. If my old man ever came back this is what I would show him: his daughter and the mother of his daughter, how they are like sisters now. I would say, Forget everything else, this here is what you lost out on. This is what was once all yours.
Ma and Kyra, thick as thieves, go together to First Presbyterian, and if you do not engage them on the topic of queers or of Democrats you will see that they are good Southern women, full with love. I swear they mean the world no harm.
TETRIS
J ennie is sleeping when it comes but I’m awake, in my underwear, face slick with sweat. Our air conditioner has stopped working. The brownouts had been ongoing for about a month when one day— zap . Too much starting and stopping, I guess. At least the power’s flowing right now. The TV and the Nintendo, I am thankful, still work. The Nintendo especially is a miracle on account of that it’s so old anyway.
The sunlight is indirect—our house has good tree cover—but the temperature is high. Jennie’s naked. She is tall, solid, pretty, and currently not speaking to me—I mean she wouldn’t be if she were awake. We’ve been arguing lately because she says I don’t do anything but play Tetris anymore and I always ask what the fuck else would she like me to do. Sometimes she picks up the Bible and thumbs through it. She doesn’t know this, but I stole that Bible from a motel, onenight way back before all the trouble started. Weird lights in the sky and nobody sure what was happening, if it was God or the government responsible, i.e., who to blame or praise. The book is inscrutable to her, though she’s become steadily more convinced it is trying to tell her something. She’s mad at me because I took a few religion courses in college but I won’t help. I won’t even look at the damned thing. Earlier today I told her (again) that I studied Islam and modernity, not Christian anything, and that if she wanted to go loot a Koran from the already ransacked Books-A-Million down the street, then I would gladly give her my class notes and term papers when she got back.
It was a cruel comment, I knew even as I said it, but it did what I needed it to do—truncated the discussion so I could play this game, which has muted colors and I can mute the music, thus exercising forms, degrees, of control. I lose at the game when I get caught up staring into the background—that radiating black that can be generated only by a back-lit screen. Or when it gets just too fast. When I lose the game the screen fills with candy-colored snow.
Jennie said that between the two of us I have more experience with religion, even if what I know is basically about something else. At least, she said, it’s something . And when I still wouldn’t take the soft-sided white book from her
They say He works in mysterious ways. I used to not know what that meant but now I do. Not to say whether I believe it is the true case, but I understand what it means and why people say it. The aftermath of this ugly episode was a cleansing effect upon our household. Holding her own daughter’s head up by the hair, wearing the vomit, slapping the girl to keep her conscious until the ambulance men came—all these things got Ma a little bit more invested in the soul’s particular vessel here on earth and in earthly things in general. Not to say she didn’t take Kyra’s surviving for an obvious miracle, but still. Caring for her recovering daughter woke up her natural instinct to be kind. It shook her condition loose.
Kyra, meanwhile, in the midst of her close call, in her near-death state, saw the Lord, and He told her some thingsthat set her to rights. Belief-wise, each got knocked a few pegs in the other’s direction. If my old man ever came back this is what I would show him: his daughter and the mother of his daughter, how they are like sisters now. I would say, Forget everything else, this here is what you lost out on. This is what was once all yours.
Ma and Kyra, thick as thieves, go together to First Presbyterian, and if you do not engage them on the topic of queers or of Democrats you will see that they are good Southern women, full with love. I swear they mean the world no harm.
TETRIS
J ennie is sleeping when it comes but I’m awake, in my underwear, face slick with sweat. Our air conditioner has stopped working. The brownouts had been ongoing for about a month when one day— zap . Too much starting and stopping, I guess. At least the power’s flowing right now. The TV and the Nintendo, I am thankful, still work. The Nintendo especially is a miracle on account of that it’s so old anyway.
The sunlight is indirect—our house has good tree cover—but the temperature is high. Jennie’s naked. She is tall, solid, pretty, and currently not speaking to me—I mean she wouldn’t be if she were awake. We’ve been arguing lately because she says I don’t do anything but play Tetris anymore and I always ask what the fuck else would she like me to do. Sometimes she picks up the Bible and thumbs through it. She doesn’t know this, but I stole that Bible from a motel, onenight way back before all the trouble started. Weird lights in the sky and nobody sure what was happening, if it was God or the government responsible, i.e., who to blame or praise. The book is inscrutable to her, though she’s become steadily more convinced it is trying to tell her something. She’s mad at me because I took a few religion courses in college but I won’t help. I won’t even look at the damned thing. Earlier today I told her (again) that I studied Islam and modernity, not Christian anything, and that if she wanted to go loot a Koran from the already ransacked Books-A-Million down the street, then I would gladly give her my class notes and term papers when she got back.
It was a cruel comment, I knew even as I said it, but it did what I needed it to do—truncated the discussion so I could play this game, which has muted colors and I can mute the music, thus exercising forms, degrees, of control. I lose at the game when I get caught up staring into the background—that radiating black that can be generated only by a back-lit screen. Or when it gets just too fast. When I lose the game the screen fills with candy-colored snow.
Jennie said that between the two of us I have more experience with religion, even if what I know is basically about something else. At least, she said, it’s something . And when I still wouldn’t take the soft-sided white book from her
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