Didn’t stay up to say Happy New Year.

Didn’t try to wait to see if the world was gonna end.

My daddy had never yelled at us kids.

So in some kind of way,

the world as we’d always known it

had already ended.

January 1, 2000

Was your dad drunk last night? Darry whispered.

We were all sitting in the kitchen mixing cereal:

Kix and Cap’n Crunch and Froot Loops and

some bad organic one

my mom tried to sneak in with the others.

My dad doesn’t drink.

Maybe it was drugs, Daniel said.

People get caught up sometimes.

Ollie looked at me, and I stared down at my bowl.

My dad doesn’t do drugs either. Y’all know that.

He doesn’t even like those shots

they give him to help when he gets hurt.

Nobody likes a shot, Ollie said. Not even football players.

And they don’t even really care about pain. Anyway, he was just messing with us. He got y’all good!

Ollie looked at me. And smiled.

C’mon, man! I knew he was just playing, Darry said.

He took a mouthful of cereal.

No you didn’t. Your eyes got all big! Ollie said.

He wasn’t playing, Daniel said. Something’s going on.

Nah, he was playing, Darry said. He almost had me too.

I swear, he almost had me.

Like We Used to Do on Fridays

Right after school on Friday I ask

Ollie and Darry and Daniel

if they wanna come to my house

and throw the ball around and stuff,

maybe play some video games, watch a movie, whatnot.

Your dad gonna be there? Daniel asks.

And is he feeling any better?

They all kinda look at me

kinda look at each other

kinda look at the ground.

I shrug.

Well, he’s not yelling anymore, I say.

I’m kinda joking but

nobody laughs.

I don’t tell them that the quiet in our house

is like a bruise. Silent.

Painful.

We’re standing in the schoolyard, and most of the cars

picking up kids are gone. Ollie—well, he walks home most days.

Daniel rides his bike.

Darry gets picked up by his dad but

his dad’s usually running late.

Used to be I said my dad was home and people would come running to my house.

Now it feels like they’re trying to run away.

Seems like he’s going through some things, Daniel says.

He unlocks his bike from the rack near the playground.

I gotta get home now, but I got you

if you ever want to talk.

My mama’s on me to clean my room, Ollie says.

I’ll come by with her tomorrow maybe.

Darry, he just shrugs. Says Wish I could.

It starts to drizzle. Starts to get colder too. Daniel shivers.