i used to put a hurting on the daylight, daring the sun to go down. dad did the same to the night. kerosene breath and aluminum cans. tying washers onto the end of my fishing line and casting past the gopher holes. mom got maudlin and sang her favorite country tunes. a bottle of absolut vodka and fingerprint frost. folding up a cardboard box and lancing it with practice arrows. dad kept getting pissed. a pot of stew in the yard. broken dishes. i thought i’d be the most fearsome cat, clawing at birds and chipmunks with my red ryder. mom packed her bags and threatened to leave. i pleaded for her to stay. i never shot anything with a face. my folks would have made me eat my quarry. my dog always barked when the shouting started. purple hands. tiny seeds wedged between my teeth. bloody forearms. the ripest blackberries just out of reach. much of my youth is remembered as fondly as a soapy mouth. i’d ride my orange mongoose down a steep road into a hayfield to get away. no brakes. they hit and yelled. they kept other kids away. no sleepovers, no friends at birthday parties. the bike came to a stop. i didn’t die. and i can hear a piano from the great beyond, scoring my life like in the movies. now, when my parents say i love you and hold me in a hug for too long, they might finally mean it. yeah, i can hear my song playing from some alcove, some hideaway. so far, it starts as a happy adagio, then there’s trouble. there’s tension. it gets real sad. then happy again. like sunshine sawing into a storm that raged for years upon years.