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It seemed like days since the diner that morning, the food had gone sour in her stomach and it rumbled, confused whether it was angry or hungry again. She worried whether anyone would hear the noise and find her, but it was a baseless fear. Her tiny tummy rumbled against a wall of sound and bounced right off, nobody could be listening close enough to hear. They’d have to be her. She worried if her breath was audible over the gunshots.

“Crystal May,” he told her that morning, “We’ll be okay.” There was something lyrical in it, though the worn tone of his voice didn’t match the smiles of the diner songs. Music she had never heard before, that sounded like pancakes and black coffee, black as her dad’s round nose, black as his eyes as they looked out the window staring at nothing she could see. Staring at memories maybe. The pancakes were good, even though she was worried, and she swung her feet to the music. She noticed the songs sounded happy but didn’t always talk about happy things, either.

“She was afraid to come out of the locker…”

The car never worked. It was an old truck with blistering paint, it looked older than her parents. It had always stayed in the driveway like a fixture or decoration, she grew up seeing other houses that had the same thing, but theirs moved. She found their purpose was not to occupy space but to deliver people to other places. Maybe that would have been helpful in this moment, to get away, but she remembered she couldn’t drive. Her feet were too short to touch the pedals, there were times she had climbed in and pretended to crank levers and spin wheels and dials. Times when she picked the door lock to jump inside, playing pretend she was underwater or a pirate. The cannonfire in her imagination didn’t sound this loud. Songs played in her head to combat the combat.

“She was afraid that somebody would see….”

They’d walked home. She didn’t want that to be one of her clearest memories, but there it was. Itchy cut grass. Noon creeping in with a sneer. Locusts buzzing like the broken TV. They didn’t say much, it was hot, but it was clear. She walked alongside him and when she dawdled or tried to get a look at the toys in the yards they passed, he yelled at her, “Keep up.” Then she did. She had enough change in her pocket to take the bus, but dad’s eyes were everywhere else, and she let him look. That means she could look too.
But not all the time.
“Keep up.”
Her plastic sandals slapped at the soles of her feet.

One two three four, keep up with your daddy more.

It didn’t look like nighttime. There were lights everywhere, fake colored ones spinning all over the place. Shouts and lights in the sky. She slunk further back, her heel resting against the tire and feeling a little safer. Feeling something stable other than the ground. Bits of pavement left marks on her elbows and legs, but she only saw it when she she shifted and the lights flashed, and she avoided both. Nothing could hear her, the shoes on the sidewalk didn’t have ears.

She was afraid of the sirens and screaming…

She knew there was a cold going around and people were upset about it, mama was sick and couldn’t get out of bed but she stayed quiet for once and for the past few days there wasn’t yelling or holes in the walls. Daddy told her not to see mama ‘cause she might get sick too. She saw her in there coughing, dad brought her ice cream. She took more vitamins. Daddy said they should get breakfast, it used to happen more often when mama’s face didn’t need so much makeup and they could afford the extra blueberries in the pancakes. But it happened today.
They finally got home and her knees were itchy, dad went in to check on mama and came back out. She knew he had told a lie, that they wouldn’t be okay. He walked like things weren’t okay at all. “Stay where you are,” he told her and checked the other sprawling rooms and closets, all closed off to keep the cool in. It was already so warm that day, she could see it on his forehead when he came back. His mouth was open and she could count his teeth. He stood in the kitchen, but he looked lost.
Something scraped at the door to the backyard, at the same time they heard yelling in the street. Maybe another mean dog got loose. She barely noticed the sirens in the neighborhood anymore.

One two three four, look and see what’s out the door…

It must have been hours, but she knew she didn’t trust anything. Maybe she could sneak away for a pillow and some cereal, but the darkness and the noise settled deeper and louder in tandem. The shiny shoes stepped in her father’s blood and left smudges on the driveway, other shoes ran by faster than she could see who they were. The world smelled different with his blood on it. She tried to listen for a telephone ring in the kitchen but the windows weren’t open, maybe nobody was calling anyway. The wind blew grass under the truck to itch at her ankles and neck. She shouldn’t be up this late, but daddy was dead and there were no rules for going to bed during sirens. It was all like fireworks out there.

It was a ratatatting clatter clacking sound of guns and loud attacking
That she heard for the first time, today….
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In times of civil unrest, sometimes the art gets tinged with the paint of the world.

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