My Friend's Father
My friend’s father worked difficult nights in a dilapidated Donut factory. The factory was in the Bottoms. My friend and his father lived in a house with no windows down by the Bottoms. Every wall in their house was wood paneling; long lengths of wood-like paneling covered every wall. My friend’s father played the classic rock station at all hours. My friend and I took our Tonka trucks into the empty closets and played with them in there. We wanted to get away from the classic rock and so we went into the closets where it was muffled by the wood paneling and the peach colored carpet. My friend’s father had a mustache and drank beer from a tall can. Their house was always so dark and so empty. They had no furniture in their house, no windows and no furniture, only carpeting and paneling and closets and beer. One night I was staying over at my friend’s house and his father had to work so he took us along. Only one seatbelt worked in the backseat of my friend’s father’s car so he buckled us together. We drove through the Bottoms listening to the classic rock station and looking out the window. The streets in the Bottoms were brick, so we drove slowly over them, past the old brick buildings. It was so dark and so cold in the Bottoms at night but the sky for some reason was mud orange and low slung over us. My friend’s father was made to deliver Donuts in a bearclaw truck to convenience stores around town. My friend and I sat on boxes in the back of the bearclaw truck eating pastries and pies. Our faces and fingers were sticky with them. We ate fritters and crullers and jellies and glazed, frosted and crumb and crème filled, powdered and even plain. We were sick with them. It was early morning by the time we got back to the factory. The sky had mulled into a pale gray and the birds had taken to it. My friend’s father went to collect his pay and my friend and I weighed ourselves on a giant scale meant for the bearclaw truck. The numbers came up big and red on a screen above the garage door. First I weighed myself and then my friend weighed himself, and then we stood on it together. Even together we weighed almost nothing at all.
The Turning of Events
The Observable Characteristics of Organisms