A Christmas card from Dad\u2019s boss arrived with a picture of his family, reminding me of a portrait hanging in the school library of the president and his family. All of them gleaming, with the dad and three sons with matching blue-velvet bow ties. The mother wearing a black dress with a Christmas tree broach, like from the Sears Catalogue.<\/p>\n
The boys had straight teeth with no gaps. If my teeth were like theirs, I\u2019d smile for pictures too. Their haircuts reminded me of David Cassidy\u2019s, so different than the uneven buzzcuts Dad gave us after a couple shots of Jim Beam. At the bottom of the card, it was stamped Wentworth Country Club, a place where I washed dishes last summer during a wedding of the most popular girl in town. They allowed me to bring home a piece of her wedding cake, red velvet, her new husband\u2019s favorite. Said I couldn\u2019t eat it there, said it wouldn\u2019t look right. I unwrapped it at home and gave half of it to my mom. It tasted like the cake served in the school cafeteria.<\/p>\n
After Christmas, I took the card and placed it in my storage box along with my life savings of sixteen dollars and twelve cents, my diary, a picture of James Dean, two baby teeth, and Bobby Canfield\u2019s number. I held Bobby\u2019s number and thought about his curly blonde hair, his hunky frame, his laugh, so different than my frizzy hair, acne-infested skin, and high-pitched giggle. If I had a haircut and pearly teeth like the boss\u2019s boys, I\u2019d call Bobby to ask him to hang out Saturday, to see that new movie, True Grit<\/em> with John Wayne, to have a burger afterwards. He didn\u2019t really give me his number, I cut it out of last year\u2019s phone book, and I\u2019ve never spoken to him. He sits three rows over from me in World History and only talks with cheerleaders.<\/p>\n Bobby was a running back for the Baldwin Tigers and lived on the good side of town near Dad\u2019s boss. During Friday night\u2019s game, I climbed a tree in Bobby\u2019s yard and could see his bedroom. A light was on, and his room was filled with moving boxes. I waited until he got home from the game and watched as he was getting ready for bed. I liked his pajamas, dark blue. I slept in my underwear. Always extra money around my house for another dog or shotgun, but nothing as useless as pajamas.<\/p>\n His dad came in the room and argued with him. I couldn\u2019t hear but he pushed Bobby against the wall and then punched him in the gut. I couldn\u2019t watch anymore and climbed down and ran home. My brother told me the Tigers lost, and Bobby had fumbled, and the other team scored, and the Tigers wouldn\u2019t be going to the state finals and Alabama wouldn\u2019t offer him a football scholarship.<\/p>\n A few weeks later, the Canfield\u2019s car lot was shut down for setting back the odometer on over three hundred vehicles. The state police arrested Bobby\u2019s dad, and Bobby wouldn\u2019t be able to afford college. He was moving with his mom to her parents’ home three hours away.<\/p>\n I opened my storage box and took out Bobby\u2019s number and threw it away, along with the picture of the boss\u2019s family. Monday I\u2019d finish my application for our local junior college. Last month, the counselor said I\u2019d qualify for financial aid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A Christmas card from Dad\u2019s boss arrived with a picture of his family, all of them gleaming, with the dad and three sons with matching blue-velvet bow ties and straight teeth with no gaps. If my teeth were like theirs, I\u2019d smile for pictures too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":20834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[1234],"class_list":["post-20344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","tag-coming-of-age","writer-jeff-harvey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20344"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20833,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20344\/revisions\/20833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}