The Kansas City Dream Team
Cindy is seven months pregnant, cigarette in hand, blowing smoke from her chipped, decaying teeth. The smoke mixes with the mildewed laundry scent that stubbornly sticks to her grubby orange shirt and shorts, creating a nearly tangible wall of stench. Between thankful draws from her cigarettes, her mouth stays in motion; she licks and smacks her lips compulsively, some residual tick from her time as a meth addict. High, overly sunned cheeks exaggerate the movements of her mouth, making her face seem excessively animated. Once fair, her skin has turned into a cartographer’s dreamscape of depressions and crags and spreading, brown sun damage. When she finishes her cigarette she throws it out the car’s window into dry Kansas grass, challenging nature to show her its power.
The car pulls into a run-down gas station parking lot where Cindy steps onto the potholed pavement. Her once white, bargain-store sneakers waddle eagerly toward the fountain drinks. Feet loosely planted on the unkempt tile, she stands, one hand on the monstrous cup, another firmly holding the small of her back. Where most pregnant women look graceful in their condition, she manages to bring clumsiness to the accident growing inside her womb. Hunch-backed and thin legged, she looks top heavy and awkward. Swollen, grimy fingers greedily put the lid on the cup and she shuffles to the counter. She pays, grunting in response to the bored cashier’s trained friendliness. Eric heralds her return to the decrepit car with a profanity and an impatient rev of the engine.
Eric’s eyes are locked in their perpetual squint when he skids out of the parking lot. Their relationship could be based on a shared unsightliness. The prominent curves of his face look unnatural, as though someone pushed on the sides, crushing bones together like tectonic plates. Freckles are sloppily strewn down his cheeks where they curl around and meet on his protruding chin. His scant lips sneer pugnaciously and his fat fingers, cocky and misshapen, hold the steering wheel with a surprising delicacy. Under the steering wheel rests his gut, approaching the size of Cindy’s. A collared, striped red shirt, reminiscent of a second grade boy’s, is stretched taut over his stomach. Muscular thighs and calves extend to the overworked gas pedal.
The only well groomed part of Cindy’s body is her hair; it is long, blonde and outlandishly beautiful. She was a pretty girl once, and the lingering proof is her meticulously cared for hair. If the years could be cleaned away like dust from photographs, you would see my dad’s baby face with its shining green eyes. Beside him would be Cindy, slender, clear-skinned and smiling. It is impossible to remove the years of experimentation, addiction, rehabilitation and jail where their youth was exchanged for something ugly and real.
Both are bow-legged and damaged, hardly the people to greet a nascent life. They search with a fresh hope for a safe house to keep the boy in. On a lot next to Eric’s mom’s house, their trailer rests amid high weeds, broken cars and an unused wheelbarrow holding a broken T.V. surrounded by dried weeds. Their sordid trailer couldn’t contain the liveliness of a baby. Each crumbling house in almost respectable neighborhoods represents an improvement from what they have, a step toward independence and change. Cindy’s questions of the owners are often hackneyed and unimportant. Her voice is too high pitched and laced with a speech impediment. The plaintive whining to Eric about the house’s woodstove or yard is always initiated with a grating “Ewic.” His responses are brusque and unmindful of her emotions.
The relationship is composed of two painfully fractious characters. Fights, leading to violence are not rare. They are not coarse enough to hit each other, but their possessions experience the brunt of their antagonism. A cracked windshield, broken door handles and dented walls are all monuments to obdurate anger. Sporadic tender gestures- a kiss on the forehead or calming words- are the only evidence that they want to be together at all. Their arms pull each other close, trying to find some comfort in the stout and dented body of the other.
The car pulls into a run-down gas station parking lot where Cindy steps onto the potholed pavement. Her once white, bargain-store sneakers waddle eagerly toward the fountain drinks. Feet loosely planted on the unkempt tile, she stands, one hand on the monstrous cup, another firmly holding the small of her back. Where most pregnant women look graceful in their condition, she manages to bring clumsiness to the accident growing inside her womb. Hunch-backed and thin legged, she looks top heavy and awkward. Swollen, grimy fingers greedily put the lid on the cup and she shuffles to the counter. She pays, grunting in response to the bored cashier’s trained friendliness. Eric heralds her return to the decrepit car with a profanity and an impatient rev of the engine.
Eric’s eyes are locked in their perpetual squint when he skids out of the parking lot. Their relationship could be based on a shared unsightliness. The prominent curves of his face look unnatural, as though someone pushed on the sides, crushing bones together like tectonic plates. Freckles are sloppily strewn down his cheeks where they curl around and meet on his protruding chin. His scant lips sneer pugnaciously and his fat fingers, cocky and misshapen, hold the steering wheel with a surprising delicacy. Under the steering wheel rests his gut, approaching the size of Cindy’s. A collared, striped red shirt, reminiscent of a second grade boy’s, is stretched taut over his stomach. Muscular thighs and calves extend to the overworked gas pedal.
The only well groomed part of Cindy’s body is her hair; it is long, blonde and outlandishly beautiful. She was a pretty girl once, and the lingering proof is her meticulously cared for hair. If the years could be cleaned away like dust from photographs, you would see my dad’s baby face with its shining green eyes. Beside him would be Cindy, slender, clear-skinned and smiling. It is impossible to remove the years of experimentation, addiction, rehabilitation and jail where their youth was exchanged for something ugly and real.
Both are bow-legged and damaged, hardly the people to greet a nascent life. They search with a fresh hope for a safe house to keep the boy in. On a lot next to Eric’s mom’s house, their trailer rests amid high weeds, broken cars and an unused wheelbarrow holding a broken T.V. surrounded by dried weeds. Their sordid trailer couldn’t contain the liveliness of a baby. Each crumbling house in almost respectable neighborhoods represents an improvement from what they have, a step toward independence and change. Cindy’s questions of the owners are often hackneyed and unimportant. Her voice is too high pitched and laced with a speech impediment. The plaintive whining to Eric about the house’s woodstove or yard is always initiated with a grating “Ewic.” His responses are brusque and unmindful of her emotions.
The relationship is composed of two painfully fractious characters. Fights, leading to violence are not rare. They are not coarse enough to hit each other, but their possessions experience the brunt of their antagonism. A cracked windshield, broken door handles and dented walls are all monuments to obdurate anger. Sporadic tender gestures- a kiss on the forehead or calming words- are the only evidence that they want to be together at all. Their arms pull each other close, trying to find some comfort in the stout and dented body of the other.