by Ann Kammerer
THE LITTLE BOY from down the hall showed up more and more, delivering bags of Mexican weed for his dad Ricky. Sometimes Dom was barefoot or wearing Mickey Mouse pajamas. His face was dirty and his hair snarled. Sometimes he smelled like a Greyhound bathroom.
‘Dad wants to know if you want this, too.’ Dom rattled a vial of round white pills.
‘Not now,’ Mike said. ‘Tell him maybe.’
Dom ran back to his apartment in the basement of the Detroit brownstone. Mike closed the door. I asked where Ricky was, and why Dom wasn’t in kindergarten.
‘I dunno. None of my business.’ Mike tossed the bag on the coffee table. He lit a cigarette with an engraved lighter he stole from his dad.
‘Just stay out of it,’ he said. ‘He’s not your kid.’
Mike took off most days, leaving at noon and coming back by dinner. I spent the day alone, trying not to think of where he was or why he wouldn’t tell me where he went. I never asked what his plans were since he dropped out of law school, and thought I should get a job since his parents said they wouldn’t send us money unless he went back.
Sometimes I heard Dom running in the hall. Once in a while, he’d knock on the door and ask to come in.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘But just for a minute. You gotta ask your dad.’
He asked why, his eyes dark and wet like a UNICEF kid. I said because parents are like that.
‘He’d say okay,’ Dom said. ‘He says to go away when he’s barfing or sleeping.’
Some days, we’d sit at the table, Dom slurping Cheerios and milk. Other days, we’d eat Ritz Crackers and watch TV. Once, he told me he liked spaghetti and asked if I had any.
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Should we make some?’
Dom scrunched his face.
‘How? My daddy. He just gives it to me in the box.’
Dom didn’t come back the next day. I waited until the day after next but he didn’t come either. Mike had left cash in the Ball Jar under the sink so I took it, walking to a grocer on Second Street, the sidewalk scattered with busted glass.
I picked up Mueller’s spaghetti and a jar of Ragu, thinking Dom would like it. I got ice cream, too, and some Hershey’s syrup. Walking out, a man in a smudged grey coat asked me for change. I gave him the 63 cents in my pocket.
When I got back, the entrance to the brownstone was propped open with a rock. A black-and-white patrol car flashed lights on the street. Harry the caretaker was down the hall, leaning into the open door of Ricky and Dom’s apartment.
‘Go away.’ Harry shooed me and shook his head.
I set my bags down and stepped toward him. I heard blunt voices, then beeps and static.
‘Go back,’ he whispered. ‘That scumbag Ricky. He’s dead.’ Harry shook and hacked. He braced himself against the wall. I asked where Dom was.
‘He’s okay. A lady officer come took him.’ Harry spit into a handkerchief and wiped the corners of his mouth. I picked up my groceries and fumbled with my keys, the ice cream dripping through the bag.
oOo
Ann Kammerer lives in Oak Park, Illinois, having relocated from her home state of Michigan with her husband and daughter. Her work has appeared in Fictive Dream, One Art: A Journal of Poetry, Open Arts Forum, Bright Flash Literary Review, Thoughtful Dog, The Ekphrastic Review, and elsewhere, and in anthologies by Crow Woods Publishing and Querencia Press. She has received top honors and made the short list in several writing contests. Her chapbook collections of narrative poetry include “Yesterday’s Playlist” (Bottlecap Press 2023), “Beaut” (Kelsay Books 2024), and “Friends Once There” (Impspired, coming Summer 2024). You can find her here: www.annkammerer.com.
