Cora doesn't come home

Dad was up last night, late. Pacing back and forth from the kitchen to the living room. Talking to himself. Clicking his teeth together. Cora wasn't home and either was the Dodge. She had taken it out after school, before dad got home from work.

"You better not do that, " I said. Beau and Reg were over, playing Playstation. Cora walked right in front of us and took the car keys off the top of the TV. "Dad's gonna tear your throat out."

Cora looked at me and then bent down and unplugged the Playstation.

"He ain't gonna give a shit," she said. "His ass ain't even allowed to drive it until March. The only way he'll knows its gone is if you say something to him, which I know you won't. "

Cora got close to me as she said this and squeezed my left nipple so hard I thought she was going to pop it.

"Okay?"

When dad got home from work, I told him that Cora took the Dodge.

"Where did she go?"

I told him that I didn't know but I guessed that she was going over to Darryl's.

Beau and Reg were still over playing Playstation and they chimed in and agreed.

"Damn right she's going to Darryl's," Beau said.

"Fucking right, she is," Reg added.

Dad asked us what was over at Darryl's other than Darryl and we got real quiet. We knew what was over at Darryl's but we didn't want to say. Sometimes we would go over to Darryl's as long as Cora wasn't there. Everybody liked to hang at Darryl's.

"Well?" dad said.

"I don't know,"I said, "I don't know him that well. He seems like kind of a prick."

This table is a bed

I wake up this morning and Colin is asleep at the kitchen table. His pillow is his notebook. An army of Milwaukee's Best stand huddled around his head. I don't wake him up right away. I don't nudge him and say, "Colin, it's time for work." Instead, I do the morning routine. Feed Rex. Start the coffe. Get the paper from the driveway. The usual.

When I finally sit down at the kitchen table with my bowl of cereal, Colin twitches. His head snaps to left and he sends a couple of his Milwaukee's Best crashing to the kitchen floor.

"Good morning," I say.

Colin doesn't say anything. He picks up the cans off of the floor and sets them back on the table.

"Sleep well," I say. "You looked comfortable."

Colin nods his head yes and runs wipes his face with his hands. He stands up from the kitchen table. He asks if I bought him shaving cream. I tell him that I did and that it's in the medicine cabinet.

Colin walks past me and towards the stairs. His feet are dragging. He still has his work shoes on from yesterday.

"Did you get much work done last night," I ask him, shouting. He is walking up the stairs.

"A little," he says.

I finish my cereal and put the bowl on the floor. Rex likes finishing my milk. I pick up the empty beer cans and put them next to the sink. I sit back down at the kitchen table and look at Colin's notebook. The page that he was using as a pillow has some lines on it. It reads:

This soldier can find no peace on leave

This soldier can find no peace on leave.
The screen door banging and the contractor's hammer
ring throughout this entire neighborhood
and this body.

C. Binton

I close the notebook and put it on the counter. I hear the shower kick on upstairs. I wonder who the man is getting into it.

Miss Beaver Rumors

The kids are walking all over me. I showed an R-rated film to my 7th graders and Dan,the janitor, walked in to check the heater (It's been broken). He came in during a part when the f-word was flying around. Now there are rumors spreading. The janitorial staff hates me. I know it. Before, when I would walk through the halls, they would always approach me and smile.

"Miss Beaver," they would say. "So nice to see you. How are you doing?"

Now it is me, though, that starts the hellos. I hate starting hellos.

I walked by Dan today as he was mopping up a trail of water leaking out of the boy's bathroom. I had to jump over the puddle that Dan was mopping up. I thought for sure that he would clear a path for me with his mop head, but he didn't. He just stopped mopping and made me jump over the puddle. He didn't smile or nod or anything. I know he thinks less of me. Maybe I shouldn't have shown the film. I just don't know.

In other news, Anji, a new history teacher at the school, invited me to his house and made me falafel. I had never had it before. It was so good.

"What is this made out of?" I asked him as I ate it.

"Pig fat," Anji said. "Fried pig fat."

I stopped chewing. Anji smiled. He smiled like Dan the janitor use to smile when he use to ask me how I was doing.

"I joke with you," Anji said. "It is garbonzos."

"Garbonzos?"

"Yes," Anji said. "All mashed up and cooked."