Eating Dirt

I wrote this curi­ous lit­tle story for a short-short con­test. One edi­tor passed on it with a rejec­tion let­ter that was twice as long as the story itself. When I sent him another piece, he passed on it because it just didn’t stay with him the way this one had. Which begs the question…

The boy played in the dirt yard. His mot­tled back was bare. He sifted the loose dirt like flour through his fin­gers until it drifted and faded into the breeze. He chewed his thumb­nail, ground tiny rocks between his teeth.

The boy’s mother rocked the porch swing to fan her­self. Lines creviced her face, eroded by a flac­cid life–a seeped-out bal­loon. Her hair tied back by a faded blue rib­bon, she watched her boy as he rolled the dirt between his fin­gers, crushed it in his palms.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he said then laughed as if he wanted to cry.

“Your Daddy says he’ll get a job.

“Doing what?” He wrote his name in the dirt.

“Down at the chicken house.”

“That’s work for trash.”

“Its get­ting to the point where we is white trash.”

He threw a hand­ful of dirt at the porch.

“You just don’t under­stand, boy.”

“I under­stand plenty.”

“You ain’t act­ing like it. What they been teach­ing you at school?”

“Don’t mat­ter, I ain’t going back.”

“What’s that?” She stopped swinging.

“Ain’t going back. They kicked me out. Said I’m a troublemaker.”

“It don’t rain but it pours.”

“It ain’t rained in for­ever. Ain’t you noticed?”

“Don’t you sass me, boy.” She the tinny rum­ble of their truck. “Daddy’s home.”

The boy spot­ted his father’s truck–a sky-blue, Chevy long-bed. A clouded cocoon encased the truck as it ram­bled toward the shack. The truck sput­tered to a stop beside the house. The father, a dis­jointed man, climbed out. He had big, thick hands, cal­luses strung across the palms, with stubs for fin­gers. He wore thick boots. He car­ried a brown paper bag.

“Did you get the job?” the mother asked.

“Some­thing like that.” He grinned.

“Come here and hug my neck.”

The glass bot­tles inside clat­tered inside the paper bag.

“What’s that you got?”

He pulled out a bot­tle. “I got us all a Co-cola.”

“Let us pray to God for what he has given us.”

“While you’re pray­ing, I’ll see about get­ting a bot­tle opener.” He dis­ap­peared into the house.

The boy stood in the dirt. The wind had grown strong enough to blow his hair. He felt the vibra­tion of far away thun­der as he looked to the heavens.

The father brought out the three drinks in one hand and the opener in the other. “Don’t he want no Co-cola?”

“Reckon he will. He done been kicked out of school again.”

“Again?”

“He don’t have the spirit of the Lord in him.”

“He just don’t lis­ten. They says he’s smart, but he don’t act like it. My daddy,” the father said, “he always said that our chil­dren is our bless­ing and our curse. From the moment they’s born, you know you going to die, and the chil­dren do every­thing in their power to see it happens.”

The boy knew they’d said it all before. A cool­ing rain­drop fell on his shoul­der as he looked to the black clouds. “It’s raining.”

“Rain­ing.” The father danced, beat­ing the wooden planks with his heavy boots. “Sal­va­tion done snuck up on us. Come up her boy. Let’s have us a Co-cola and celebrate.”

The boy kicked the dirt turned to mud by thick drops of rain. A shaft of light­ning streaked yel­low across the sky.“Better get the ark.”

Then he ambled onto the porch. He opened a bot­tle and let the soda flood his mouth, cool­ing his dry, parched thirst. “It don’t rain but it pours,” he said and laughed as if he wanted to cry.