When I get home from school the police are already parked in front of my house, amber lights screaming. My brother has pulled a knife on the housekeeper. This time she has found girlie magazines hidden under his mattress and outed him to our mother. It’s a revolving joust of humiliation and retribution. Orthodox Christian revulsion vs nonchalant pubescent privacy. She thinks she’s winning. He’s going to kill her. When the police interview me thirty years later I flash back to that day those times and Zora; my mother in her quilted housecoat and bunny-ear slippers running interference, flirting with the officers insisting it was a silly misunderstanding. Her giggles zippering up my spine. I go silent with an imperceptible moan, knowing then what was going to happen at some point down the line. I didn’t think it would take this long for them to nail him. I reply with a sober blank stare mono-syllabic words and fidget with my aching hand rubbing the space where he took my two digits. *** "Mono-syllabic Words" was published in Sage Cigarettes Magazine January 2023
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