The Ambassador's Brother (2008)

“I got it! I got it! I got it!” Scotty was waving the brown envelope over his head, sprinting up the stairs. He sat down on the top step and ripped the envelope open, panting.

“Oh my Gosh! She did it, I can’t believe she did it. Creatures of the Night! She sent it!”

Kiss’ latest album was released earlier that month in the states but we could not find it in Italy yet. Not that there was much of a demand for it there. By 1982, KISS was already starting to become a joke to most of the kids that we hung out with. The face paint that had seemed so cool and so scary a couple of years before seemed childish now.
My older brother, however, still adored them. During our monthly phone call to our grandparents from the Naval Base my brother had begged our grandmother to mail him the new KISS album. She had feigned ignorance, much to my brother’s frustration.

“You know Mimaw, KISS!” Scotty whined. “Remember, Papaw said that only sissies wore make up and you thought that they looked like they worshipped the devil. You have to remember. Please, Please Mimaw.” He finally handed the phone back to my father, tears of frustration welling up in his eyes.

Of course, she knew KISS. Anyone that spent anytime at all talking to Scotty knew all about them- their real names, their alter goes, where they were born. She sent him the album as an early birthday present. He ran into his room and threw the cover to his record player open, put the record on and grabbed his headphones. I rolled my eyes and leaned against the doorframe.

“You know they’re totally gay right?” I said, too softly to be heard above the noise in the headphones. He was standing with his back to me, headphones on, playing air guitar. I rolled my eyes and left the room shouting “Gaywad!” loud enough to be heard over KISS as I left.

It was Halloween and I was still trying to decide if trick-or-treating was for babies or not. I was going to be outside all night, but was not sure if I would get the chance to trick-or-treat. The lure of the candy was strong enough that I decided to go out with the babies, if only for one more year. I would be eight the next year and there is no way that I would be caught dead out with the babies then. My mother was in her closet looking for something that I could wear as a costume.

“You know Christy this is such a pain in the ass. I would have gotten you a costume but you said that you weren’t going this year,” she pulled out a bright yellow gown that she had worn to a wedding in the summer. Holding the dress under my chin she smiled and said, “You could be a princess.”

I wrinkled my nose and pushed the dress away. I was the Ambassador. The Ambassador could not walk around on Halloween dressed as a princess.

“Gross” I stuck my tongue out. “I need to be something scary. Can I be a dead princess?”

“You are not getting ketchup all over my dress. Your father almost lost it when you ruined his uniform last year. A dead sailor! Honestly, why can’t you just be a princess? A live princess?” She threw the dress on her bed, exasperated.

“Forget it, I don’t need to go out.” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.

“Yes you do, your brother is going and I have to stay here for the trick-or-treaters. I need you guys to go out as a team” She turned back to her closet.

I blamed Adam Walsh. My brother and I had always been allowed to go in and out as we pleased. We were out after dark, taking candy from strangers, running around with older kids. In the summer my mother would send us out after breakfast and we would not see her again until late that night when, exhausted, we climbed the stairs to our apartment. Then this Adam Walsh kid was kidnapped and they found his head in a canal. Everything was different after that. My mother made us check in every hour and we had to be in before dark. None of that was as bad as the team concept. We were supposed to stay together, we were “Team Morris.” I had a very difficult time getting people to take me, the Ambassador, seriously with my older brother tagging along all the time crying about everything. I told my mother that it was probably smarter for us to split up, at least then they would only lose one kid. What if we were both kidnapped and both of our heads ended up in a canal? Then she would have to start all over having kids. She did not see my logic. We were going trick-or-treating as “Team Morris.”

I compromised by wearing the yellow dress with the Frankenstein mask that my father had worn the year before. My brother, after much deliberation, was Ace Frehley, or “Spaceman” as Scotty liked to call him. He spent all afternoon staring at the new album cover trying to decide which member of KISS to be. He went with Ace because he liked his make-up the most. The silver stars around the eyes and black puckered mouth looked horrifyingly feminine to me. They were probably tougher on Frehley, but with my brother’s small nose, full lips and dark eyelashes they made him look even girlier than normal. He took my mother’s black wig from her Cher costume and cut it to shoulder length for the outfit. My father was home on leave the year before for Halloween and they were supposed to go out dressed as Sonny and Cher, but my father had decided against dressing like a “damn hippy” and went as Frankenstein. My mother was irate. They went to their friends costume party as Cher and Frankenstein.

“What do you think?” Scotty was posing in front of my mom’s mirror.

“I think you are completely weird, Spaceman, Ouch!” I jumped. My mother stuck me in the leg with the pin that she was using to pin up her dress.

“Sorry Princess,” she murmured with several straight pins between her teeth.

I rolled my eyes. I was going to have to get away from Scotty once we got out of the house. There was going to be a lot of action between the Dirty Italians and us that night. The war that began between the Italian kids and us that summer had been escalating and the tension before school that day was crazy. They were definitely planning something big. My mother said that if I got into any more fights then we were going to have to live on the base. I couldn’t let that happen. There were too many rules on the base, too many people watching all the time. My father had found this awesome apartment in Naples with several American military families and pools and a playground and, most importantly, no one watching. It was painful to stay out of the fights and just send my gang out to do the work. Tonight it was obvious that we were going to be on the defensive. They were planning something big.

Most of the time the local kids would know to leave the American kids alone. There was a birthday party for one of them outside on the playground earlier that summer. We sat in the bushes watching as the birthday girl opened her presents. She was beautiful with her long dark hair and olive skin. She wore a dress that had bells sewn into the hem so it made a pretty tinkling sound whenever she moved. I hated her. We waited until the party was distracted by the birthday girl’s squeals when she opened a present- a gold necklace. We moved in and grabbed as many plates of food as we could and ran back to the garage under our apartment building. We heard screaming in Italian, some of which I understood. My mom always made a big show of trying to learn the language wherever we were stationed; my brother and I learned the cuss words. That was enough to get our point across in most situations with the locals.

We were sitting in the garage eating and laughing when my father found us. Some of the Italians must have recognized us because they had gone to my apartment looking for me. My father was home then.
“Christy,” he called. We froze.
“Christina Pamela Morris!” My heart jumped. Stupid! I knew better than to pull anything like this when my father was home.
“Over here sir” I stood up, facing the firing squad.

Surprisingly, he didn’t lay a hand on me. He made my friends and I sit through a 15-minute lecture about how we all were American Ambassadors.

“You are an Ambassador Christy, do you understand that? You may be the only Americans that these kids ever meet. Do you want them thinking that all Americans are sneaky thieves?”

I had no idea what an Ambassador was and I certainly did not care what the dirty Italians thought of the Americans. But I loved the word Ambassador. It sounded very important. I was “the Ambassador” from then on out, refusing to answer to Christy with my friends. He made us go and apologize to the Dirty Italians. That was horrible. He stood back talking and laughing with some of the parents while I went to talk to the birthday girl.

“Sorry” I said.
She blinked. Silent.
“I said sorry.”
Nothing.
I smiled “You don’t speak English do you?”
The girl shifted her weight slightly and the bells in her hem made a noise. I looked over my shoulder at my father to make sure he wasn’t listening and leaned forward.
“What I meant was I hate you,” I whispered. “You are a Dirty Stinking Italian and I am glad I busted up your stupid party.” The light hit her necklace and caught my attention. I leaned in even closer. “I am going to steal this. You are going to be out here alone one day and I am gonna take it.”
“You’re gonna what?” a voice behind me. I spun around and saw a teenage boy. His coffee colored eyes and thick wavy hair were just like his younger sister, the birthday girl.
“Oh, you speak English? Must be smarter than your dumb little sister,” I said motioning to the smiling birthday girl.
“You look like someone threw up all over your face,” he smiled.

The damn freckles. They were grotesque everywhere we went. None of the kids in Japan had freckles. Or in Italy. One kid in Germany did, but he wore coke-bottle glasses and suspenders. I was positive that the freckles were the only thing standing between me and being a real ambassador, whatever that was.

“At least I don’t smell like a Dirty Italian.” I said pinching my nose.
I was relieved that my father called me before he could return the insult.

This boy, I later learned that his name was Joey, and I would battle for the rest of the summer. We did little things mostly, throwing rocks or stealing clothes at the swimming pool. The fights reached a new height on the first day back at the American school. We were standing outside our apartment complex, waiting for the bus when I heard them. Joey and a bunch of his friends were laughing and pointing at Scotty and me as they walked past. Scotty seemed oblivious when they yelled “Faggot!” and turned around the corner. I chased after them and was ambushed. One boy put his hand over my mouth and dragged me into the hedges where the others were waiting. A boy sat on my legs, another held down my hands and Joey kept his hand over my mouth. I heard the bus pull up and waited for Scotty to notice that I had gone missing. He didn’t. “Team Morris” had abandoned me. When the bus pulled away, I started thrashing and bit Joey’s hand. He laughed and pulled his hand away. I used every Italian bad word that I knew, cussing him in Italian and then in Japanese, in German, in English. The boys just laughed as Joey pulled out a permanent marker and started to draw on my face.
“You have played Connect-the-Dots before, haven’t you?” he asked.
I spit and thrashed and screamed while the boys drew on my face, taking turns and laughing. Joey finally stood up and threw the marker on the ground next to me.
“Give my sister her necklace back you little bitch,” he said and then walked away with his friends.

Of course, I had taken the necklace. I told her I would. The week after the party she was out on the swings by herself, singing some stupid Italian song to herself. She smiled when I walked up to her. I just reached out like I was admiring it and then yanked it off her neck and ran away. The necklace was in a shoebox in my closet along with all the other junk that I had taken from the stupid Italian kids. There was no way I was giving that necklace back. I was certain of that even as I stood up on shaky legs and walked back to my apartment building. I left my lunchbox where it had fallen in front of the hedges and tried to stop the tears. How long had I been crying? Did those stupid Italian boys see me cry? I became enraged, my hands balling up in fists and teeth clenched. I was the Ambassador! And they were going to be sorry.

“What in the hell happened to you? Where is Scotty?” My mother looked behind me frantically.
“On his way to school I guess,” I shrugged.
She cupped my face in her hands and bent down. “Who did this to you Christy? Did they hurt you?” her voice was shaking.
“No, I’m fine, it was just a stupid joke.” I lied. The smell of the permanent marker burned my nostrils.
“Who?”
”Nobody.”
“Who would draw penises all over a little girl’s face?” she demanded.
“I am not a little girl- what? They drew what?” I ran to the bathroom and slammed the door before she could answer.
My cheeks were red, which made the freckles stand out even more. They had drawn blue penises all over face. My tears had smeared some of the ink under my eyes, but even there, you could still see the outline of Joey’s drawing. I turned the hot water on and grabbed the Dial soap.
“Honey, open the door, I need to talk to you.” My mother’s voice seemed calmer now.
I ignored her as I scrubbed my face. She was waiting in the hallway when I emerged. There was still a faint outline of the drawings on my face, but from a distance it looked like bruises. We drove out to the base to see my father and he had to stand so close that I could feel his breath on my face to make out what the pictures were supposed to be. He exhaled, his breath smelled like coffee.
“Who did this Christy?”
“I don’t know, just some stupid Italian kids.”
“Have you ever seen them before?”
“No,” I lied.
He put a hand on my mom’s shoulder as he walked us to the door of his office.
”Don’t worry Rose, she seems fine.”
“Really? Look at her face, I wouldn’t say that.”
He punched me lightly on the shoulder.
“She is a tough kid, she’s fine.”
And they never brought it up again.

My friends paid the price when they got off the bus that afternoon. I waited at the bus stop and kicked or pinched or spit on them as they walked past.
“What the hell is wrong Ambassador?” Robert asked, wiping my spit off of his cheek.
“You left me you assholes! You left me and they got me!” I screamed. The group was silent. Staring at the faint blue lines on my face.
We decided to wait until my father was gone again to do anything. Going after Joey and his friends would be too risky. Some of those boys were huge and had mustaches already. His sister was the obvious target. She was always alone and he adored her. I could not be involved in the action this time. If I got even a mark on me, then my mom would freak and we would be moving to the base. The plan was simple. Robert and his sister Angela jumped her early one morning while Joey was at the swimming pool. I told them not to use any rocks or sticks or anything, just hit her a couple of times. They were supposed to scare her so she would go running to her brother. He would know that I had done it and it was his fault. I had to yell for them to stop, they were getting a little out of hand. The girl was curled up in a ball crying. Her dress was torn and she was covered in dirt. Her nose was bleeding a little but not too bad.

“Go run to Joey. Go on Princess!” I kicked some dirt in her hair.

She seemed to wake up at the sound of her brother’s name. She jumped up and ran- not towards the pool as we had expected, but towards her apartment building.

Several weeks passed and nothing happened. “Team Morris” extended to include all of my friends. No one went out alone. We started to relax a little. Joey did not seem to behave any differently. His sister did not come outside anymore. By Halloween, we had all but forgotten the incident.
The morning of Halloween, we were waiting for the bus when Joey called out from behind the apartment gate.
“You going out tonight Am-bass-a-dor?” he mocked

I did not turn around.

“We will be waiting for you.” He and his friends stood there until the bus pulled up to the curb. I could still feel his eyes on me as I climbed the stairs to the bus and took my seat in the back. They knew what we had done after all. I shivered. This was going to move from petty battles to an all out war. And I would be ready.


“Where did you get that?” my mom asked, admiring Joey’s sister’s necklace.

“I found it on the playground,” I lied, my voice muffled by the Frankenstein mask.

“It looks very pretty with the dress, but you should probably put it back. Someone might be looking for that,” she let go of the necklace and turned to Scotty.

“WOW! You look awesome. Let me guess-Paul Stanley? Star Child?”

“No Mom, I am Ace Frehley, the Space Man,” Scotty rolled his eyes.

“Okay, well you two stay together tonight,” she patted Scotty’s head.

I held my skirt up so I could run down the stairs ahead of Scotty. Robert and Angela were waiting downstairs. They were dressed as Ghosts.

“Scotty…. is…. with me,” I said, catching my breath.

“What? Does he know?” Angela asked. My brother was in the dark about most of our operations. He would not approve.

“No, we are going to have to lose him,” I said just as Scotty came bursting through the doors.

“Why are you in such a hurry Christy?” he asked. He was starting to sweat and the white and black face paint was beginning to smudge.

Robert started laughing. “Oh my God, which KissAss are you supposed to be? Ace Gay-ly?”
I kicked Robert in the shin and he winced. Ignoring Robert’s insult, Scotty pointed to the pillowcases that Robert and Angela were carrying. They were weighed down with the rocks that I had told them to bring for the war.

“Hey, have you guys already started? Where did you get all that candy?”

“Um, Scotty, I…” I was struggling to come up with a lie. Lying usually came easy to me, but I had to lose Scotty without hurting his feelings. I didn’t want him to start crying and run home to mom and it was way too dangerous for him to be with us when we had no idea what was going to happen.

“There is no way that a KISS loser is hanging out with us all night,” Angela said looking at the group of friends walking towards us with their own arsenals hidden in pillowcases.
Scotty looked at me suspiciously.
“What are you guys up to tonight? Can I come, I won’t get in the way. I promise,” he begged.
I shook my head.
“No way!”
“Please?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell mom.”
”I’ll kick your ass.”
Scotty scratched his head under the wig. “Why do you always have to be such a bitch Christy?”
“Get lost fag” I spat out.
Scotty stood there stunned until his eyes started to tear up. He turned to run before we could see him cry. I felt a pang of regret at hurting him like that but it really was for his own good.

I turned to face my gang. There were eleven of us. Well ten and a half really, Danny was only six and he usually froze up in a fight. We walked in a close group, with the biggest kids standing one at the front, one in the back, and one on either side. We went door-to-door, dropping the candy on top of the rocks in the bottom of the pillowcases. My Frankenstein Princess costume got a lot of attention. We had been out for about an hour, still anticipating an attack when we went to Joey’s apartment. Knocking on his door, wearing his sister’s necklace- I wanted him to know that I was not afraid of him.

His mother answered the door. She smiled and held out a bowl of tootsie rolls. We never included our parents in these battles. She had no idea who I was. Joey’s sister was standing behind her mother, peeking out from behind her skirt. She stared at the necklace. I glared at her from behind my Frankenstein mask. The gang thanked the mother and I waved at the little girl as she was shutting the door. We were very careful as we left Joey’s apartment building. Robert slowly opened the door and checked it out. No one was waiting for us. I felt like we had won another battle.

We had hit every building in our apartment complex by ten o’clock that night. We assumed that Joey and his friends had been scared off by the size of our gang, but were walking in formation just in case they surprised us. We walked everyone back to their buildings and said our good-byes as they dumped out their rocks and went inside with their loot. Angela and Robert and I lived in the same building. They stood as lookouts while I went around the corner to dump out our rocks. In the darkness, one of the rocks made a strange thud noise as it hit the ground. I leaned forward and saw that the rock had hit a Nike shoe sticking out from under the bush. The shoe twitched and I jumped back. I grabbed the shoe and pulled Scotty out from under the bushes. His lifeless head rolled to the side. I gasped.

“What’s taking so long?” Robert came around the corner looking for me.
“Oh shit, is he dead?”
I stood there, unable to move.
Angela came up behind us and started screaming when she saw him. His eyelids fluttered a little and I realized he wasn’t dead.
“Go get my mom! Hurry!” I shouted.
Angela ran inside. I leaned over Scotty and turned his head towards me. A flap of skin behind his ear was torn off and his ear hung awkwardly. He moaned and I moved his head back on its side. He was covered in bruises and his face was smeared in blood and what little black and white face paint was still there. Of course, they had decided to attack at our weakest point- the Ambassador’s brother.

He had a broken arm, three broken ribs, and a concussion. They were able to reattach his ear, but it left a jagged scar that, even as an adult, turned bright red when he was embarrassed or met a man that he thought was attractive. He did not remember much from the attack, he was jumped coming out of the building next to ours alone after trick-or-treating. Joey and his friends punched and kicked him until he was unconscious and dragged him down the sidewalk where they dumped him in the bushes. No one in the family realized that I had anything to do with the attack, not even Scotty. We moved back to the states the next month. The good thing about moving so often was that I got to reinvent myself with every new school. In San Diego I was just Christy, I wore a dress on the first day of school that had bells sewn into the hem. I was glad to leave “the Ambassador” behind.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Yard of the Month (2007)

The group was silent, staring down at the new foot. Mr. Lee, Junior, Sue, and Little Junior, standing in a circle, eyes cast downward, would have appeared to be praying from anyone looking in the big window of Mr. Lee’s Prosthetic shop.
“It looks colored,” Junior’s voice was barely audible.
“What?” Mr. Lee asked.
“The foot, it doesn’t look… you know, white.”
“The foot was matched to your skin tone exactly. I held the color samples up to you.”
“I am telling you that is not a white man’s foot and there’s no way in hell I am walking out of here on a colored foot,” Junior’s voice wavered.
“Honey, it looks fine. You will have shoes on most of the time, don’t worry about it,” Sue said, putting her hand on Junior’s back.
“I can have it painted, it will just take some time.” Mr. Lee pulled a key ring out of his pocket with several flesh-colored paint samples attached to it.
“No, a new one, a white one.” Junior said reaching for his second crutch.
The group, less reverent now, argued. Only Little Junior remained silent, his eyes unwilling to move from his daddy’s new foot. His hands were sweaty in his pockets and he wondered if any of the grown-ups would notice if he grabbed the foot. Sue took his hand before he had the chance and they followed his daddy as he hopped out on his one white foot.

At home, Junior leaned against the car, staring at his lawn after Sue and Little Junior went inside. Fescue. That was his secret. He had won the “Yard of the Month” award from the Neighborhood Association three months in a row now. Jimmy from two houses down was the previous title holder. Jimmy swore by Bermuda grass, but Junior knew that Fescue was what caught the judge’s eye. He stretched his leg out and let the grass tickle his stump. The grass was over 6 inches high now, but it still looked better than Jimmy’s, freshly mowed.
“Hey neighbor!” Jimmy called from his front yard. His grin exposed his missing tooth. Junior thought if he could, he would run away. But Jimmy was already crossing the Angelo’s lawn and Junior could not have made it in time.
“You get the fake foot?”
“No, don’t need it,” Junior said holding up his exposed stump.
Jimmy knelt down, his nose a few inches from Junior’s leg.
“Did they keep the real foot? Can’t they just sew that one back on?”
“It got chewed up in the mower blades. It took Sue twenty minutes to pry the rest of my shoe out.”
Jimmy winced. “Can I see it? “
“What do you think we kept it in the freezer? Sue threw it out when we come back from the hospital.”
“You need help with your lawn? I saw Sue out here trying to mow last week. Darlene liked to throw a fit, Sue being pregnant and all.”
Junior looked past Jimmy to his lawn. The edging was crooked. The yard was mowed horizontally on the left side and vertically on the right. He cut it too short and some sections were starting to turn brown. Everyone knew that his “Yard of the Month” was from Darlene’s azalea bushes coming in so pretty this year.
“No man thanks though.” Junior said.
“Sue gonna do it?”
“No, Dr. Abdul said that he is going to put her on bed rest if she tries to mow again. She worked in the yard right up until the day Little Junior was born, but I guess this being twins and all-”
“Hey Jimmy, How’s Darlene?” Sue was holding the front door open leaning forward. At 5 feet tall, Junior said that he did not know whether it would be easier to walk around her or over her. Her round arms and tree trunk legs took attention away from her swelling belly.
“She’s fine, at her mother’s this weekend,” Jimmy said, still looking at Junior’s stump.
“You want to stay for dinner? It’s chicken potpie.”
Sue did not seem to notice the angry look that Junior shot over his shoulder and walked out letting the door slam behind her.
“Junior and I were just trying to figure out what was going to happen to the lawn. What about Little Junior?” Jimmy said, ignoring the invitation.
“He won’t go near a mower now—has nightmares about them. He saw the whole accident you know. Just stood there, didn’t scream or nothing. Junior was cussing and rolling around. Blood was everywhere. I didn’t think that I would ever get the mower cleaned up,” Sue leaned against the car and reached out for Junior’s hand.
“I got it!” Jimmy slapped Junior’s back. “You should go to Home Depot and pick up some Mexicans. That’s what Darlene’s sister did when her husband run off.”
“Yeah sure, and while I’m there I can pick up one to teach Little Junior how to throw a football and one to take care of Sue in the bedroom. I can take care of my own home Jimmy,” Junior stood up, putting his crutches under his arms.
“Well, you are going to have to do something soon. If that grass gets much higher someone may report you to the Neighborhood Association. I’m gonna catch you later on that potpie Sue. Darlene left a casserole in the freezer.” He glanced down at the stump again. “Dang I sure wish you had kept that foot. You probably could have charged people to come see it.” Jimmy turned and jogged back to his own inferior lawn.

Junior was the first one up the next morning. He hopped outside to feel the grass underneath his barefoot. With his crutches, he made his way across the lawn and into the backyard. The grass in the back was much higher than the front, coming almost to his knees. He hopped over to the storage shed to make sure it was locked. About four feet in front of the shed, he froze. The grass under his foot was soft-unusually soft. The morning sun was reflecting off the grass and it was an emerald green like Junior had never seen on grass. And it was as thick as a shag carpet. This 4X6 foot patch of grass had “Yard of the Year” written all over it. This was the grass Junior had dreamed of having. He leaned his crutches against the shed and lowered himself to the ground. The damp grass soaked through Junior’s pajama pants as he sat there gently running his hands back and forth feeling each individual blade. This was where it happened. The events leading up to the bloody affair were still a little fuzzy. Sue thought that he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. He had not told her about the 10 Bud Lights that he had before he had gone out to mow that day. Slowly, Junior felt an idea pushing its way through---
“The blood,” He said aloud before he fully realized what it meant.
The blood had been everywhere. So much blood that Little Junior and Sue thought he was dying. Blood must be nature’s best fertilizer. Junior sat there marveling at the grass that the sacrifice of his foot had given him. He knew that he was going to have to “fertilize” his entire lawn somehow. Jimmy had probably already called the Neighborhood Association to anonymously report his unregulation grass height. This lawn situation would have to be taken care of quickly and quietly.
Junior sat in front of the shed, feeling the grass and struggling to come up with a feasible plan. He had never killed anyone before. In fact, Thou Shall Not Kill was the only one of Ten Commandments left that he had not broken. But it was the only way. He was not an animal, there would have to be rules. No women. No children. No men that had wives or children that needed them. Unfortunately, his town did not have any homeless people and he would have to go all the way into Memphis to find some. Travelers through town were very rare. Junior was about to give up on his discovery when fate stepped in—on her tree trunk legs.
“Honey, you okay? Are you having flashbacks? I read about that with your ‘disorder’,” Sue had been watching him from behind the screen door. She told Little Junior to stay in the kitchen and joined her husband outside.
“I’m just thinking Babe, no flashbacks,” Junior said.
Sue sat down next to Junior and laid her head on his shoulder.
“You know we really need to do something about our lawn Junior.”
“I guess we do,” Junior had been thinking about nothing else.
“I wish you would think about what Jimmy said yesterday. Darlene says that those Mexicans have been a lifesaver for her sister. They fixed her porch steps, mowed, and patched the leak in her roof. She says they’re real nice and don’t charge much. Poor souls get up before sunrise and wait outside the Home Depot for work seven days a week. No women to take care of them—a pitiful life if you ask me.”
Junior never asked Sue her opinion on anything, she just gave it. But this time, her opinion was crucial in cultivating his brilliant discovery. To release someone from a pitiful life was not evil. It was heroic. Junior tried to jump up, forgetting his lacking foot and fell forward.
“What are you doing Junior? It was a flashback wasn’t it? I knew it! Just stay here. I’ll got get you something to bite down on.” Sue struggled to lift her round body from the ground and quickly waddled toward the house.
“That’s a seizure, not a flashback. And I’m not having either one,” Junior said pulling himself up on his crutches.
“Sue, I’m going to head into town and I need to take the truck.”
“But Hon, the truck is a stick. How are you going to use the clutch with your…you know,” Sue gestured toward the stump.
“I can manage,” Junior said and hopped past Sue into the house.



Twenty minutes later, Junior was buckling himself into their Toyota truck. He was wearing two Nike tennis shoes. The right one laced up, and the left one duct taped tightly onto his stump. It was not as easy as he had hoped, but Junior figured out how to apply enough pressure to push in the clutch. Sue had a doctor’s appointment, so Little Junior had to ride along.
At The Home Depot, there were almost as many people shopping outside as shopping inside. Junior hopped out and grabbed his crutches from the bed of the truck. Fifteen men were climbing into the back of two City Beautiful Landscaping trucks and he was worried that there would not be anyone left for his project. The trucks pulled away and he saw that two men remained. As he approached, the men were looking at his shoe with the duct tape and speaking to each other in Spanish. Junior decided to speak before he lost his nerve.
“I need one man to mow, edge, and fertilize my grass.”
The men spoke in Spanish again before the older of the two stepped forward.
“How much?”
“Forty dollars.”
“You bring me back here after?
“Sure, you’ll be done before lunch but we better get moving.”

Junior was going to make Little Junior move over, but the Mexican jumped into the back of his truck before he could say anything. The ride was quiet. Little Junior was turned around in his seat staring at the Mexican who was sitting with his back to the window. Junior was lost in thought, thinking about his plan, and did not notice the deer that ran out in front of the truck until it was too late. He slammed on his brakes, but the front left end of the truck knocked the animal’s legs out from under it and sent him flying over the cab. When the car finally came to a stop, Little Junior was lying in Junior’s lap.
“You okay buddy?” Junior was surprised to hear how shaky his voice sounded.
His son whimpered.
“Hey, Hey, You awake?” He gently slapped his cheek.
“Junior Roy Hickory the second! Wake up son, you hear me?”
With this the boy stirred and sat up, rubbing his head.
“We okay?”
The boy nodded. Other than a bloody lip, he seemed to be fine. Junior remembered the blood. Would deer blood work as fertilizer? Maybe he would not have to kill the Mexican after all.
“Oh no, the Mexican!” Junior threw his door open and jumped to the pavement. Pain shot up his leg and he fell to the ground. The shoe taped on had not offered much support. He grabbed the car door handle and pulled himself up. Leaning over the truck bed he saw the Mexican, lying face down, underneath the deer. Little Junior was turned around in his seat again staring at the Mexican, at the deer, at the pool of blood that was forming around them in the truck.
“Turn around Buddy, you don’t need to see this.”
Little Junior seemed frozen, eyes fixed. His father knocked loudly on the window, startling him.
“Turn around now son.” His son obeyed.
Junior pulled a green tarp out of his toolbox and tucked it around the bodies and hopped back into the truck.
“We don’t need to tell your Momma none of this alright? It would just upset her and she don’t need no more upsetting in her condition. Understand?”
Little Junior nodded. He reached out and patted his son’s head.
“You’re a good boy.”
Junior looked at the clock on the dashboard. 8:34. At least four more hours until Sue would get home. This was unbelievable luck. Junior had a hard time not laughing out loud. At home, he had Little Junior open the gate and pulled the truck into the backyard.
“Okay son, I am gonna need your help,” Junior, leaning on one crutch, dropped the tailgate. It looked like a young buck, about 150 pounds. The Mexican looked to weigh about the same. If he pulled them out without being able to hold his balance, then they would knock him over and land on top of him. Little Junior would probably freeze up again and he would be stuck until Sue found him like that. He hated to do it, but he needed the boy’s help.
Junior and his son each grabbed hold of a hoof and pulled the deer out first. He landed in Sue’s gardening wagon and Little Junior was able to pull it behind the shed and dump it out by himself. They did the same with the Mexican. Junior sent the boy inside and went to work. He propped the unfortunate pairs’ heads over buckets and cut their throats. He went inside and waited for gravity to do the rest.
Twenty minutes later he came out to check on his fertilizer and was horrified to see the buckets were dry.
“Dead things don’t bleed,” Little Junior had snuck out behind his daddy.
“What you doing out here. Get inside before I beat your butt boy!”
“There is no blood pressure. The heart stops, the blood stops flowing, dead things don’t bleed. Just thought you should know.” Little Junior turned to go back into the house.
“Where in the hell you learn that? You’re in the fourth grade.”
“The fifth grade. We have internet access during free time. I finish my work faster than anybody. I get a lot of free time.” Little Junior said without turning to look at his father.
“I should call the police, just tell the truth about what happened.” Junior said to himself.
Little Junior was at the back door. He turned back to his father.
“Yeah Dad, you can say that the Deer and the Mexican cut each other’s throats in like a suicide pact- just like Romeo and Juliet.” He walked into the house and Junior thought he might have heard him laughing in the kitchen.
Junior did not have time to think about why his son seemed to know about all of these things that he should not. It did not take long for him to realize that pushing a shovel into the earth with a stump was not possible. After much negotiation, Little Junior agreed to dig the hole for the bodies in exchange for $50.
Junior called Sue.
“Hey Babe, How are the babies doing?”
“Geez, I don’t know. The doctor is running late and I am still waiting. I am thinking about just rescheduling and coming back home,” Sue said.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this but your sister called. She sounded real upset. I think it was something about her boyfriend. She made me promise not to tell you that she was crying when she called—not wanting to upset you in your condition,” Junior lied.
“Oh no! I told you Roscoe was trouble didn’t I? Well I guess I am going to have to head all the way to Jo’s house. It may take a while to pry it out of her. Would you boys be okay without me for tonight?” Sue sounded as if she were already running.
Junior assured Sue that they would be fine and hung up. He looked out the window to the backyard. Little Junior was hidden behind the shed digging as fast as he could. For a ten year old boy though, that was not very fast. This was going to take all day. Junior spent the day in a lawn chair watching the boy, bringing him water but he refused to eat.
By bedtime, they had the deer and the Mexican buried in the same hole. Little Junior said a prayer. He insisted on calling them Romeo and Juliet.


Apparently, Jo and Roscoe actually were having problems. Sue and Jo sat up half the night talking it out and Sue fell asleep on the couch. The next morning Sue came in waving a yellow slip of paper.
“Look at this Junior, it was taped to our front door. It is our first warning from the Neighborhood Association. We have 3 days to cut our grass or they are going to fine us $50. I thought you were off to pick up a Mexican yesterday. This is so embarrassing, you have to do something.”
“All the Mexicans were used up yesterday Momma. We were gonna try and get there earlier today,” Little Junior said.
“Oh well, okay. You want to stay here with me or you running off with your daddy?” Sue reached down and tussled her son’s hair. “My goodness your hair is dirty. You and daddy sure must have played hard yesterday.”
A few minutes later, Father and Son were riding in the truck again. Junior stopped behind the service station to hose down the trunk bed. He was going to have to figure out something to tell Sue about the dent in the front end where he had hit the deer, Juliet.
“We are going to be bringing this one back when we are done right Daddy?” Little Junior asked.
“Yeah, I suppose so. Nature’s fertilizer is a little more trouble than its worth.”

They pulled up in front of the Home Depot again just in time to see several Mexicans getting on to the back of the City Beautiful trucks. This time there was only one man left. Little Junior got out of the truck to talk to him. Junior could see his son talking very animatedly with the man, gesturing wildly. He was mimicking walking behind a push mower when the man finally nodded and followed the boy back to the truck. Little Junior held the door open for the man, but he walked past him and jumped in the back of the truck.
“Hey come on! Ride up here with us.” Junior called through the glass.
The man just smiled and stayed in the back.
“He doesn’t speak English dad.”
“Oh,” Junior adjusted the mirror so he could keep an eye in the passenger.
It took almost half an hour to get back to their house. Junior drove between 25 and 30 miles per hour the entire way, checking his mirror constantly. At one point the man bent down and dropped out of view of the mirror and Junior panicked. Before he could pull over, the man sat back up into view.
Junior pulled his truck into the backyard, this time with a very much alive Mexican in the back of his truck. Junior sat on the tailgate and took off the tape that held his Nike to his stump. He had learned yesterday that it is much easier to tape the shoe to his pant leg than to his bare skin. He stretched his leg while Little Junior opened the shed and showed the Mexican the yard equipment.
“Hey Little Junior, stay out here and make sure that he does not go behind the shed and see the you-know-what,” Junior hopped to the back door, leaving his crutches in the truck.
Inside he and Sue were sitting at the kitchen table.
“You know Babe, I think I may call Mr. Lee and see if he still has that foot for me.”
“That’s great honey,” Sue yawned.
“Yeah, I’ll call him tonight.”
“Will you keep an eye on Little Junior? I think I am going to take a nap before I head out to Wal-Mart.”
“Sure Sue. You and those babies go get some rest.”

The mower had stopped a while ago. Junior figured the Mexican must be about done cleaning up by now. He looked out the window. No Little Junior. No Mexican. Junior leaned over the sink and saw shadows moving behind the shed.
“Shit!” He hopped to the back door and into the backyard.
“Hey! What’s going on back there?” Junior was starting to feel the strain in his right leg from bearing his weight. He hopped across the backyard to the shed. Behind the shed he saw his son, duct tape over his mouth sitting with his back to the fence. The Mexican was kneeling over the unearthed bodies of ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ Which one he was crying over was unclear to Junior.
“Why? Why? What is wrong with you—crazy red-neck son of a bitch!” the Mexican said in perfect English.
“It’s not what you think it is, just calm down amigo.”
“My brother knew that there was something wrong with you. He went to protect me. I found his wallet in the back of your truck. Your son said that you killed him to fertilize your lawn. What kind of freak are you? You turning your son into a killer too? He’s as weird as you man. Was proud to show me where he buried them. I’m calling the cops. You’re going to jail man. Your son will be lucky if he just goes to the nuthouse.”

Junior was trying to size up the situation. He could not run. He could not fight the Mexican, he would fall over. He did not want to go to jail and he did not want Little Junior to go to the nuthouse. He just wanted to win “Yard of the Month.” The Mexican had done a surprisingly good job on the yard. The Mexican did not seem to have any weapons, just a pair of scissors in his back pocket with the duct tape. Maybe he could lunge at him. The Mexican was just a normal guy and he thought Junior was a murderer. Fear was the only thing that Junior had going for him, he could scare him away. Junior, one arm holding onto the side of the shed, leapt towards the Mexican and growled as loudly as he could. The Mexican grabbed the scissors from his pocket and thrust them into Junior’s stomach. Junior’s growl was cut short.
Little Junior was starting to buck on the ground trying to free himself from the duct tape. The Mexican ran across the backyard, through the gate and down the street. Junior was still worried that he would call the police and tried to hop after him. By the time he got to the gate, the Mexican was out of sight. Junior fell to the ground and crawled into the front yard. He crawled to where the yard met the concrete driveway and turned around. He crawled the length of the yard, slowly fertilizing his grass until he lost all strength. His arms buckled underneath him and he was vaguely aware of the scissors being pushed further into his body as he collapsed.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tonsurphobia (2007)

I was eight years old when I got my last haircut, almost twenty years ago now. It has been so long since I have had to worry about it that I have started to wonder if I imagined the whole thing. Could I walk into a barbershop now? Sit in the swivel chair? Lean back and make small talk without noticing the steel scissors, the hair falling down the back of my shirt, or even the black cape that seems to be slowly choking me to death? It doesn’t really matter, hasn’t mattered for quite some time now.
Phobias are like kryptonite. They take away your powers—powers of judgment, rational behavior, perception, bladder control…. Carlos at the Barbershop had refused to cut my hair by the time I was eight. The screaming was getting worse as I got older, not better as they had hoped. My mother was trying to cut my hair in the kitchen of our tiny apartment.
“See Hector, they don’t hurt at all. Just tickle. See baby?” She would say, gently touching my arm with the clippers.
“Yeah Momma, it tickles.” I forced a smile.
No matter how promising the haircut seemed initially, it always ended in a wrestling match- my mother and me on the linoleum floor. The sweat and tears and snot formed a paste for all of the loose hairs that were flying through the air. My face was covered with the damn things-- little hairs that felt like they were burrowing into my skin. Once, in the struggle, I gave my mother a bloody lip. That was the last haircut that she would give me. She decided at that point that it would be the responsibility of my three teenage brothers to cut my hair. Angel was 15, Robert 16, and Juan 18.
Robert shoplifted a bottle of Benadryl after school on a Friday. After my mother left for work that night, he poured a double-dose into my Kool-aid at dinner. I fell asleep on the couch immediately after getting up from the table and did not wake up until noon on Saturday. I noticed the breeze from the ceiling fan before I opened my eyes. My brothers had shaved my head. This went on for several months. Every fourth Friday, I would have macaroni and Kool-Aid with my brothers and wake up the next day, bald.
This unspoken arrangement worked well for my brothers and me. As long as I did not have to get a haircut, I did not question their methods. One Friday afternoon, Robert was chased out of the Rite-Aid by the clerk before he managed to steal the Benadryl. The bottle at home did not have enough to give me the usual double-dose but Robert gave me what he had left. I fell asleep right after dinner and my brothers assumed it had been enough.
Angel had shaved the first patch out of my thick black hair when I woke up. I heard myself screaming before I was fully aware of what was happening. Hearing the screaming, Robert and Juan ran in to help Angel. I opened my eyes to see Angel wielding the clippers while Robert and Juan held me down. Somehow I managed to free myself from them and scrambled to the corner behind the television set. I felt the bald spot next to my left ear and refused to come out until my mother came back from work.
She was horrified when she learned how my brothers had been able to cut my hair. Her anger was obvious even if most of her raving was in Spanish. She managed to get the point across.
“This is crazy. No more, do you understand me son?”
I stared straight ahead fingering the spot where my hair should have been.
“Hector! I mean it. Tomorrow morning we are going to see Carlos and you are going to get your haircut. No fighting. No crying. Are we clear?” She turned and left the room without waiting for an answer.
My mother had never heard of tonsurphobia, but I don’t think it would have mattered if she had. That fact that people actually have a phobia of haircuts would not have carried much weight with her. She intended for me to get a haircut in the morning whether my fear was legitimate or not.
I am not sure how long I lay awake that night. Every time I closed my eyes I felt sure that Robert, Angel, and Juan were all standing over me with scissors, razors, and clippers—instruments of torture. I heard my mother got to bed and then each one of my brothers crept out of our room at ten-minute intervals. How long had they been leaving like that? Where were they going? And, of course, could I go to? I jumped out of bed and got dressed. I dug the 4 silver dollars out of my sock drawer that my father had sent me for my Birthday and shoved them into my pocket. I did not pack a bag. I did not plan to stay gone. I did not plan to return and get my haircut. I had no plans at all, just the urge to run—to flee from the safest place that I would ever know.
I was surprised by how easy it was. I ran down the four flights of stairs, expecting someone to stop me. No one did. As I pushed through the doors to the outside, I felt the cold night air hit my bald spot. I self-consciously held my left hand over my head. Pondering which direction to take, I realized that there was no one to tell me where to go. It was exhilarating. I chose left, for no particular reason.
I had walked four blocks, with my hand over my bald spot, when I saw her.
“Hector, baby is that you?”
I stopped and let my hand fall to my side, it was beginning to ache. The voice was both familiar and strange. I should have recognized it, that much was clear, but I just could not place it.
“Hello Hector,” she snapped in front of my face. Her shoes were hot pink and too small. They made her stance awkward. The cream-colored lacy tights revealed muscular calves. The dress was very tight and looked like it was made out of a shiny pink plastic. The long black hair seemed to be a little off-center. She knelt in front of me and I could smell my mother’s perfume.
“Juan?” Even as I said it, I could not believe it. I reached out and touched his wig.
He leaned in close. “At night its ‘Juanita’ baby. ‘Juanita,’” he repeated.
I stood there staring at the dress, the shoes, the wig, the false eyelashes and dark red lipstick. This was my oldest brother. But it was a woman. It did not make any sense. ‘Juanita’ took a red scarf from her neck and tied it around my head, covering the bald spot.
“There you go baby. We need to get you home,” Juan reached out for my arm, but I pulled back.
“What are you? Why do you look like a lady? Why are you calling me ‘baby’? You sound like Momma” I could have asked countless more questions but something told me that I did not want to know the answers. I turned and ran, ran from Juan, ran from Juanita.
I ran for two more blocks, reciting the multiplication tables. I was trying to keep my mind busy so that the image of Juan dressed like a woman did not creep back. I heard the silver dollars jingling in my pocket and realized that I was very hungry. There was a store on the corner that I had been to with my mother. I stopped running and waited for my breathing to return to normal, not wanting to attract too much attention with my panting.
The bell above the door rang as I entered and the girl behind the counter frowned when she saw me. Her mouth opened but I ducked down an aisle before she could ask me anything. I picked up a box of cherry Pop-tarts and a yellow Gatorade. I was enjoying my new freedom. The girl was still behind the counter and I was thinking of lies to answer any questions she might ask. My mother was sick and needed something for breakfast tomorrow seemed to be the most believable. As I walked to the counter, rehearsing what I would say, I heard a very familiar laugh from one of the stock boys in the back. Angel. I froze, unsure of what to do.
“Hector?” Angel called.
I turned to face him slowly, thinking please don’t be dressed like a woman, please don’t be dressed like a woman.
“What in the Hell are you doing out? It is almost midnight. Is Momma okay?”
Afraid to speak, I stared at his shoes.
“Answer me Hector. What’s going on?”
I lifted my eyes and was grateful to see that, while he was wearing a long green apron like the rest of the stock boys, he was definitely dressed like a boy. I burst into tears and threw my arms around his legs.
“Oh Angel…I….Juanita…I don’t…” I could not get many coherent words through the sobs.
Angel looked at the girl behind the counter. “I am going to take a break Maria. Will you cover for me?”
Maria nodded, still frowning. Angel and I went outside and sat on a bench in front of the store. The bench swayed with our weight and Angel and I were silent for a moment wondering if it would be able to hold us. I stopped crying and wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“So you, uh, met Juanita?” Angel put his hand on my back.
“You mean Juan in lady clothes? Yeah, I met it,” I answered.
“Juan is not an ‘it’ he is still your brother.”
“Why does he do it?”
“We never really talk about it. I don’t think he would be able to explain it anyway. He did not want you to find out and he is terrified that Momma will know, so you have to shut up about it okay? It would kill her, or she would kill Juan, or both. I just know it can’t be good if she knows, alright?” Angel glanced down at his watch.
“I have to go back in soon. Can you make it back home by yourself?” He asked.
“I made it here didn’t I?” I feigned courage, but really wanted him to walk me home.
“Yeah, I guess so. How did you know that I worked here anyway?” Angel stood up.
“You guys don’t think that I know anything.” Unwilling to give up my new tough guy act, I stood up and spit like I had seen my brothers do to express their disgust.
“Okay, don’t tell Momma though. She would worry,” Angel patted my head and turned to go back into work. “Go home Hector, be careful” he called over his shoulder. I heard the bell ring as the door closed behind him.
Alone again, I considered my options. I had forgotten to buy the Pop-tarts and Gatorade. Hunger, fear, and exhaustion were all competing for my attention. The possibility of a haircut was not a concern at this point. Defeated, shoulders slumped, I started the walk home. I stared at the sidewalk and avoided eye contact with anyone on the street. The walk was peaceful and I felt very grown-up. As I crossed the street to my own block, I wondered what had happened to Juan, deciding he must have gone back home.
“Hector! What’s up little man?” It was Robert, my other brother, of course.
Robert appeared in the alley between our apartment building and Carlos’ Barber Shop. He was leaning against the brick wall, holding a cigarette. His friend George was with him, also smoking. Behind them, further in the alley, was another group of boys. I did not know their names, but they were the “bad boys” that my mother was always worried about. If I was playing outside when they came around the building, my mother would lean out the window of our apartment and call me inside. They smoked and cursed. They would say stuff to my mother in Spanish that made her jaw set and her cheeks redden, but they would howl with laughter. And Robert and George were with these “bad boys.” They were wearing the blue bandanas on their heads just like the others.
A bottle broke in the alley behind Robert, he jumped, but did not turn to look. His eyes were fixed on me, on my head.
“What the hell is that?” Robert asked, pointing to the red scarf on my head.
Some of the other boys were starting to gather behind Robert and George.
“What?” I touched my head. “Oh, Juan gave it to me,” I said.
“You mean Juanita? You hanging around with that freak show? Take that shit off,” Robert spit on the sidewalk.
“I can’t,” I put my hand over my head. Robert’s friends did not seem like they would be too understanding about my bald spot.
One of the other boys turned and yelled something in Spanish to some other boys in the alley. This was one of the many times that I wished my mother had taught me to speak Spanish. My brother dropped his cigarette and stepped towards me.
“Take it off Hector, no kidding,” his voice had lost all of its previous bravado. Robert was afraid of these boys too.
“No way, you want them all to make fun of me,” I dodged him.
Behind Robert, we heard someone in the alley yelling. More shouts “Get the kid” “Robert’s brother” and other stuff in Spanish. That was all that I needed to hear. I turned to run, but someone grabbed my shirt.
“Wait a minute, we just want to talk,” this man was older than the others, maybe in his twenties. He knelt down and talked to me nose to nose. His breath smelled like cigarettes.
“What you doing here?” he asked.
“Talking to my brother,” I answered.
“Robert?”
I nodded.
“Who gave you that red bandana?”
“My brother,” I did not say Juan or Juanita, because I did not know which one to say. It was all so confusing, I just wanted to go home.
He stood up and turned around, saying something in Spanish to the other boys.
George screamed “Huye Robert! Huye ahora!” My brother looked at me, confused.
The man took three steps towards Robert and embraced him. Robert moaned. It was not until the man stepped back and Robert fell to his knees that I noticed the blood quickly spreading across his gray t-shirt. The man stuck the knife into his back pocket and ran back into the alley, followed by the other boys. Only George remained.
“I am so sorry, I tried to warn you Robert” George was on his knees next to Robert. He stood and looked at me.
“Get out of here Hector,” he said, his voice cracking. “Go back to bed. I’ll take care of this.”
Robert’s eyes had closed and his breathing was becoming shallower.
“Call an ambulance. Call the police. Do you have a phone?” I fell to my knees and pulled up Robert’s shirt. The wound, no more than 3 inches long, was pouring out blood. I crawled away and vomited. Robert made a rattling noise and the breathing stopped all together. George ran back into the alley to join the others. I lay down next to my brother and began to cry.
I am not sure how much time passed, but Angel found us on his way home from work that night. I had fallen asleep, or maybe passed out. He ran up and got our mother, but Robert was long gone by then. I spent the next three days in bed. At some point, Angel finished shaving my head, but I don’t know when. That was the last haircut I would ever need. My hair never grew back. My mother took me to several different doctors, but no one could explain it.
Juan never came home after I saw him on the street. Angel and I decided that he was probably afraid that I told our mother about “Juanita.” Angel kept his job as a stock boy until he graduated early and went off to college. He is a lawyer now. I had joined up with some “bad boys” of my own before I made it to Middle School. I was approached by the group that wore red and they convinced me that it was my duty to avenge Robert’s death. I killed four of the others in one week, one of them was George. I was only 15 at the time, but they tried me as an adult. I will probably be in here for the rest of my life, but Angel is fighting for me. He always will, I guess. We don’t talk about what happened that night anymore. He must want to know why I couldn’t just get the damn haircut, but he never asks.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.