by Isaiah Paul

Created on: December 31, 2008

"Sweet Home Alabama"

We must have been filthy, because our grandmother was screaming, "You filthy bastards! I didn't agree to be your ass washer after your mother died! Ya'll will sleep outside afore ya step your filthy hides in my house!"

Grandma was standing on the metal porch of our 1960s era trailer. She wore a white ankle-length dress. Her dark hair was fixed into a tightly packed bun that perched atop her head. Black rimmed, cat-eye glasses framed her angry eyes. She looked like a raging Samurai.

My brother, Scotty, and I were standing in the yard, about twenty feet from the porch. I was wearing two different shoes. One was a brown leather dress shoe with a tarnished buckle and the other was a ratty-looking, white canvas tennis shoe.

My brother was wearing matching shoes, although his rusty looking toes protruded from the holes he made in the ends of the shoes with a hacksaw to make room for his growing feet. He hoped to get a new pair for his first year of school, which was scheduled to start soon.

We both wore old, cutoff dress-pants and no shirts. Dark clouds were gathering in the direction the sun went down, and drum-sounding thunder was growing louder. A summer, southern strom was about to shed natural violence.

My brother and I looked each other over. To us, we looked the same as we always did.

"Here!" grandmother continued, as she tossed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in our direction. My brother ran to catch our supper but missed. "Eat outside, with the rest of the animals!"

Scotty picked the sandwich up and scrapped off the dirt, as my grandmother added, "Git some water out of the river!"

He tore the sandwich in half, gave me my share, and we began to eat. We were both thirsty and dreaded the long walk to the river. It would be dark before we got there, and finding our way home through the woods would be fraugth with all the unseen terrors of youth. Ghouls, gobblins, ghosts, and gangsters played in the woods at night, you know.

Suddenly, a silvery tongue of fire reached out of the clouds and licked the porch where our grandmother stood. At the same time, an explosion of sorts occurred. Next thing we knew, our grandmother was flying through the air. She landed in a smoldering, crumbled heap, a good thirty feet away from where she previously standing.

Scotty and I laughed wildly, something we hadn't done in a long while. We asked her to do it again.

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