The Tangled Weave of Wanda

We were very small and i thought it strange that, being brother and sister, they had made up games involving nudity. Sandwich. He lay on the bottom, belly up, she lay in the middle, belly up, and i layed on top, belly down. We all smelled like dry saliva.

Every little creak in the unfinished wooden floor made us scatter, me under a pillow, him under the bed and her, eyes closed tight, feet planted against the bed and back against the door.

The sound would pass and then we'd resume the game like electrified whores.

There were other games. There was a game called "Elephant" were one of us would get into a large plastic elephant shaped toy chest and the other two would put the lid on and roll the one inside until screams began to roar. (In anger, i admit, after a brawl that i lost, i smiled and submitted to his obvious strength, complimented him into the elephant and rolled him across the living room, out into the hallway and down the second floor staircase)

I could kill you all.

There was a night when after a concert, hector lavoe, i kissed her, my first kiss, and we were home, she was left in charge of here mother's ten kids by ten different convicts (boxers, prostitutes, murderers, etc.) then we, the children were all asleep, we talked and talked on the dark brown fuzzy couch head to foot head to foot. That's the night i knew i was right and my world was all wrong. I asked her "Doesn't it fucking bother you that your mom is out getting drunk and having a good time and you are here wiping her ass? Like...............my mom is there too but she doesn't leave me with duties. Fuck that shit." I was, by the way, terrified of my mom.

Girls are fodder. Boys are men. Girls make rice. Boys make angry.

Our mothers came home while we stood silent, hugging staring at each other. Her mother, drunk drunk and fat but fuckable, hate fuck and ass fuck and pee in her mouth fuck and a million deaths in her throats fuck, screaming at her about who the fuck knows what. Grabbing her her and shoving her to wake up her gradient snots. My mother, her best friend, didn't say a fucking word. My mom, who in my heart i think would kill for me, just stood in the kitchen looking at her watch, did nothing. (My sister, my miserable sister, used her brains to lift off to weekends and weekdays of private school haunts) My terribly bright sister.

So into the night they went like a baboon possum and her pogo lemmings.

I don't understand it. I don't ...................... you want better people around you don't you? you want a pantheon of friend right? you don't want a room full of clutching clucking savage pigeons.

Well wanda, lovely pig nose wanda, sailed into the night. Her mother drove a station wagon for days across the desert to Santa Ana, where no one was waiting for her. In her drunk and drug she drove until something seemed right. They had to flee because, in the chaos of her mother coming home that night, wanda had called social services, the police (narcotics division) and her mighty might island hurricane chested father to cry. Her mother quickly found a man to lay on top of.

In California, wanda got pregnant. her brother, shot in the back of the head. another brother first heart attack at 12. another brother hit by a car. another brother raped in a home. another brother razors down his arm. another brother sleeping with his mom. another brother brains all gone. Wanda and her luscious hair weave and her brown little arms...................

and God damn if that girl wasn't my first love.
H