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Big Thunder
As she charged off the patio into the backyard, I wondered
what it was this time. She gripped the flyswatter—the orange one with the long,
thin, metal-looped handle—in her right hand. She popped her chewing gum. I
slowed the engine on the lawn mower. Sweat got in my eyes.
She yelled, “Boy, you’re going to
get it now.”
I wiped the sweat with the front of
my t-shirt. I said, “Why?”
She said, “You left those clothes in
the washer and now they’re sour.”
“I forgot,” I said.
Black thunderheads simmered over the
top of the house. She swung that flyswatter. I heard it hiss.
She said, “You know your dad and
I’ve been working ten or twelve hours a day. You need to help out.”
I shrugged my shoulders.
She liked to bite her lower lip. She said, “Get over here,
boy, and take your medicine.”
I killed the engine on the lawn
mower and started to walk over. I could taste the sweat dripping off my upper
lip.
She looked like she wanted to swear.
Something she rarely does. She said, “Get over here.”
I said, “I am.”
I thought about that sting and about
taking the flyswatter away from her. Like last time. But the old man took his
leather belt to me after that, left some ugly black and blue smears. Embarrassed me at the swimming pool.
I stopped in the middle of the back
yard. She came at me, swinging the flyswatter in a low arc in front of her. I
saw lightning flash, tightened my stomach in case it was real loud—the thunder,
I mean.
She snapped me on the legs and I
moved fast, got the mower between us. I could see a black widow in the end of
the clothesline pole. Normally, I would have teased it some. My legs burned
where she hit me. I looked down to see if I was marred. I planned on going
swimming.
She said, “Get over here, boy. I’m
going to put the fear of God in you.”
She lurched, almost hit me again. I ran behind the picnic
table. She ran around it, came at me. She was wearing shorts and one of those
tops with the midriff missing. We went around the table. I didn’t think she
looked so hot, with her too-white skin and the way it rolled out the bottom of
her top. Her outfit sported large red and yellow flowers of some kind. Nothing
like that grew around here.
We stopped going around and around. She seethed as she
stared at me, her breath short.
I couldn’t see myself taking another
switching. I said, “I reckon you better get on in the house.”
Her eyebrows arched up as she
laughed, “Or what?”
I said, “Or you’ll regret it.”
She snorted, “Isn’t going to be like last time. You taking the swatter away from me. Your father took care
of that.”
I saw it in her eyes, hazel and mean. She wouldn’t back
off. There was lightning and thunder again, and again. It was loud. Made me want to cover my ears and run. Made
me want to hide.
She chased me around the picnic table some more. I thought
about leaving, but didn’t have anywhere to go. All my friends’ mothers would
send me home. They stand together.
I winced at another blast of thunder. She laughed again,
“See, already scaredy-cat, aren’t
you?”
I thought about the girls at the pool. I’d have to stay in
the water all the time if I had any welts. They’d know why.
I looked at the picnic table as she stopped. Probably out
of breath. I circled around so the table made a barrier between us again. As a
flash of lightning severed the sky, I dropped on both knees and crawled under.
The boom was so loud I gasped. I’m sure she did too, though I couldn’t hear it.
I stood up, the bulk of the table’s weight on my neck and upper back. A burning
smell pinched the air and raindrops the size of silver dollars started slapping
the top of the table. I could see her lower legs and feet. I ran at her. I knew
I should be afraid of my old man. She started running, too. I heard her Zory thongs slapping her soles. She screamed, “Your
father’s going to get you.”
That made me laugh.
I don’t know why. Bursts of mirth jacked up my throat. I kept after her. She
was getting away. I lifted my arms like I was doing military presses in the
football room at high school. As my arms extended, I stopped running and
catapulted the table after her. It missed by a mile. I heard the back door
slam.
The booms of big
thunder and the smell of brimstone rocketed everywhere. I sprinted to the
patio. Just before I got there, I noticed the flyswatter lying in the cut
grass. I picked it up and threw it on the concrete beside the back door. I
didn’t want it out there in the yard, a hazard to me if the mower hit it. I had
a vision of it going right through my heart.
I saw her moving around, watching me through the window. Probably locked the door. I grinned.
I picked up the flyswatter and slapped the window three
times, then walked to the edge of the patio. Lightning struck in the alley
again. The blast hit me like a tackler. I flinched, but didn’t cover my ears. I
wanted the storm to stop. I was anxious to get to the swimming pool. She
watched. I’ll bet she was muttering under her breath, maybe even swearing.
Ken Rodgers lives, writes and teaches in Boise, Idaho.
Email: Ken Rodgers
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