1945. Eileen, Richard's mother, arrives home in a cab on a
Sunday morning, gets out drunk, can't get her key in the door, or maybe
Richard's grandma won't let her in again, so she goes back to the rock driveway
between our houses, squats with her dress hiked up and pees as my parents watch
from the window. Me too in between the two of them as they try to push me back.
A gush of urine like I've never seen before. She has trouble getting her pants
up. My mother, gasping at the sight of it, cries out my dad's name with a
question mark and closes the curtains. I try to peek through the opening but my
mother drags me away and tells me to go to my room until I'm told I can come
out. In the excitement she has forgotten that my room is on the driveway side
of the house, so with the door closed I sit on the edge of my bed and watch
through the blinds as Eileen struggles to get her pants up. She finally leans
against the house and steps out of them, then weaves her way back to the front
door holding the key out in front of her, aimed and ready. That night at the
dinner table my mother tells me again how sorry we are about Richard's dad and
how lucky I am, then she says I can't play with Richard anymore but I can have a
second helping of bread pudding.
Roger Pfingston’s poems have appeared recently in Dos
Passos Review, Main Street Rag, Chiron Review, Sylvan Echo, Poetry
Midwest, DMQ Review, and Mannequin Envy. As a photographer, he has photographs in recent
issues of The Sun and Tattoo
Highway.
