Flying Shoes by Lisa Howorth Read Free Book Online

the seeds in salt and butter at Halloween. Stevie loved them. Mary Byrd noticed that the truck was worn nearly silver with use. The last shot was Stevie in a gigantic cartoonish bonnet she’d made for Baby Pete. He was making a goofy monster face and raising his fist at the camera. His big, blocky head looked ridiculous on top of his scrawny little neck and shoulders. Oh god, she thought, his pitiful, pitiful little birdy shoulders, where his killer had cut the letter N. Mary Byrd put the photos back in the envelope, wondering how long it would be before she’d look at them again.
    She startled, hearing the school buses grinding their gears on the steep hill at the intersection of their street and Jefferson. She’d be late to get William and Eliza. What else was new. She could think this trip crap through later.
    Where was Evagreen, she wondered. She didn’t hear the vacuum, so she was probably still upstairs doing the bathrooms. Feeling too sapped to climb the stairs, and not wanting to catch Evagreen possibly smoking out the window, Mary Byrd cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled up at the air vent, “Evagreen! Going to get the children!” Pausing a second for a response that she knew wouldn’t come, she put on her coat and pulled on her gloves and left the house by the back door. Some slugs had left a big map of shiny rainbow mucus on the steps, she noticed. What were slugs doing around in the winter? Why did slugs even exist at all? So gross, she said to herself. Were slugs just escargot without shells? And why did so many disgusting things feature rainbows? Slug tracks, spoiled ham, fly wings, greasy starlings, oil on a fish pond? Aloud, she said, “Assholes,” knowing how the slugs spent luxurious nights devouring her hostas. William would be happy to salt them, or make them a little beer hot tub. Poor slugs, just trying to get by like everybody else, and, like everybody else, they couldn’t help it if they did some asshole things.
     
    From the window on the landing upstairs, Evagreen watched the driveway until she saw the Ford Explorer backing out through the bare crape myrtle trunks. Pushing the window up, she muttered, “Hmph. Never gone put this screen back in. Wonder so many bugs always be around in here, matter how I clean.” From the pack of Salems in the pocket of her warm-up jacket she took a cigarette and lit up, exhaling the first delicious, minty draw into the cold air. She sat down on the windowsill with her feet on the roof.
    “Hollerin’ up through the vents!” She was indignant. “Like trash.” From blocks away, she could hear the squeals and shouts of children being let out at the elementary school. Three squirrels ran up and down, chasing each other high up in a leafless chinaberry tree she could barely see off in the woods. Look like they on wheels, or a rollercoaster, they move so smooth and quick, up and down. Chinaberries in winter, with their round gold seed pods, always reminded her of a crayon drawing one of her twins had made for her a long time ago, with clusters of polka-dot fruit grouped in the branches. She still had that drawing, probably Tommy Smith’s; John Carlos never too big on coloring, even though the boys identical. She had all the twins’ and Ken’s and Angie’s old school things in the deep bottom drawer of her bedroom chest. Beyond the woods the school bus engines rumbled and groaned as they climbed the hill, and somewhere in the neighborhood college boys were carrying on. “Not studyin’, that for sure,” she tsked. She wished her own boys had stayed close, gone to Delta State, even Valley, instead of going to college in Atlanta. Had to go where the most money was, though, and at least they got to go together; keep each other out of trouble and focused on playing ball. They’d been a little wild, not solid like Angie or Ken, but they seemed to be straightened out now, and she thanked the Lord for that. Evagreen suddenly felt as chilly and gray as