Kona
By Meg Pokrass.
I take the napkin and wipe my lips, glance at mom pouring Kona–her holiday splurge. Straight from Hawaii, she brags, winking. As if it were illegal.
My step-father puts his weight on our least stable chair leaning it back. He wants to break his ass so we’ll have to feel sorry for him, wait on him. The dots on his shirt are retro sixties style, and he looks like a cartoon salesman. The type in the New Yorker cartoons, the loser who uses his family to build him up, even though they’re so tired of him they could puke.
The cigarettes I like are the kind that kill you the quickest. Filterless and manly.
I pop my knuckles watching him sip the Kona. He takes it in as though weaning, his puffy lips sucking against the rim of the mug. The Wall Street Journal next to him for comfort.
“Goddamn paper’s soggy again.”
I bat my steam green eyes at him so he doesn’t tell mom to fuck the paper boy again.
He puts his foot on mine and smiles. “Leave this old man alone,” he says. I know he wishes he were a cool dude I could think something of. I’m wearing my mistletoe earrings to work. He thinks since I’ve moved back home, he has a right to me. Likes to call me “hobo.”
Mom is extra peppy, she’s been spiking his coffee with her anti-depressants for four whole weeks, in time for Christmas. She says she barely needs them–he does though. He made fun of her for taking them.
She told me one night when I was puking in a bowl having gotten too drunk after work. She pulled back my hair like when I was little. When the vomiting stopped, said she’s started spiking Tom’s coffee.
“Are you going to kill him?” I asked. The room was yellow.
“Not yet,” she said in a flat voice. We didn’t snicker, or maybe we did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Meg Pokrass lives in San Francisco. She was an actress originally, now writes. Her stories and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming here: Keyhole, Pindeldyboz, Smokelong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Elimae, FRiGG, Word Riot, DOGZPLOT, 971 Menu, Thieves Jargon, Eclectica. Meg has recently joined the editorial staff of SmokeLong Quarterly. Links to her work and writing prompts can be found here.
First published in 3:AM Magazine: Monday, March 2nd, 2009.
