West of Eastover
By Kindrid Parker
Just west of Eastover in The Middleton trailer park, dusk is settling.
The picnic area is busied with merrymakers.
Two wives hold each end of a checkered tablecloth, yank it with a snap, and allow it to swell, float, and then settle evenly onto the last naked picinic table.
A committee of various-sized fat men surrounds the grill, a cloud of hickory-smoke rising from their waists.
A toe-headed toddler holds up his sagging diaper with one clenched little fist, mouth agape and eyes stunned then darting, seeking the blinks of fireflies.
A foil pinwheel leans from the weeds, spinning slowly, its petals silver, blue, and red.
From the Styrofoam cooler the ice crunches occasionally, one of its corners eroded from use–white pellets scattered round the dry dirt.
A feminine Goth boy sits on his trailer steps, apart from the rest, hugs his knees and thinks, “There’s nothing happening here,” then rolls his eyes away from what seems an unbearable scene: his father wrapping two strong-fat arms around his mother’s middle from behind, rocking her and poorly impersonating Otis Redding, “These arms of mine, they are lonely…”
The mother closes her eyes, lets her arms go slack at her sides, and feels younger and prettier, and she is.
A wise uncle spies this, gets the disgusted boy a beer, hands it to him, taking note of the chipped black fingernails that receive it, and doesn’t neglect to treat the boy to a too-hard smack on the shoulder.
A bucktoothed twelve-year-old girl absentmindedly strokes a stiff and alert beagle.
The beagle farts, and then relaxes onto his stomach, crossing his paws and resting his chin there.
Everyone chuckles.
The hinges squeak on a trailer door.
An octogenarian matriarch baby steps carefully across the lawn with a piled-high and steaming plate of corn.
“Corn on the cob!” she announces.
No one hears her.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Kindrid Parker is loved.
Kindrid Parker is loved.
Kindrid Parker is loved.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Friday, April 27th, 2007.
