CANDY
When I was little, my Pops would make me go to bed at eight—we’re talkin’ when I was six, maybe seven—and as soon as I’d turn out the lights, he’d start mowin’ the lawn.
Crank up the floodlights and cart out the oldest working lawnmower in the history of the world. Needed a paint job, needed an oiling, needed a muffler in the worst way.
Three times a week, eight o’clock: mow the lawn. Neighbors didn’t mind too much in the summer—half of them were at the shore—but every other time of the year it was World War III. I’d stay up half the night, couldn’t get the damn lawnmower sound outta’ my head.
Or I’d stay up listening to the people: them complaining at him, him screaming at them, them calling the cops, him screaming at the cops, the cops haulin’ him off to cool down. Even on the nights he didn’t mow, I’d still stay up, waiting for the sound—
(There’s the POP SOUND of GUNFIRE, not so far away.)
And then I start to sleep through it. I sleep through the mowing and the screaming and the sirens. Regular little log. Wake up from yet another good night’s sleep at the age of nine to find my Mom crying louder than a tribe of monkeys and my Pops a former person. I use both hands to pull the knife out of his chest, then go back upstairs to squeeze in another hour.
By the time I wake up, my Mom is gone and the cops are there, and I’m sleepin’ like the dead for the next thirty years.
(Beat.)
This pop pop pop’s starting to fuck up my sleep again.