Sugar Cone
Johnny and I walk the streets sweaty and mean, jumping through raving sprinklers along the way. I point to a sugar cone covered in melted ice cream on a cracked-up sidewalk in front of Johnny’s house. Ants swarm over the soft pile but I think it’s safe, like chocolate jimmies. Johnny picks it up with skinny fingers and licks what’s left. Ants and white cream stream down his dirty face. “You’re a whore,” he says. “A goddamn whore.” He is covered in dirt and sweat and ants and ice cream right down to his scabby knees. His father comes out of the house and slaps him hard three times across the face. “Who said you could have ice cream?” He picks up Johnny and carries him to the porch and squirts him hard with the waterhose. Johnny’s skin shakes and turns red and his shoe falls off, he screams but gets quiet when his father covers his mouth and carries him into the house. I pick the dirty sneaker out of a puddle and bring it home. I keep it under my bed for months until my mom finds it and wants to know what I am doing with a filthy boy’s sneaker.