She has the upper, I have the lower. Or perhaps he was buried with them still. I never thought to ask. I'd like to see him again — I never saw him with his real teeth. But he couldn’t frighten me again, now, could he? Death should be that place
where you can do anything you want to
do. He might scare me when I see him, as a sign that he remembers. I love you, Boy, he would be saying, without words. Then h e’d bare them so I could know that they’re the real thing as well as artificial but both because they’re neither. We’ll talk about
how far I’ve come. Look, Father, I’ll say— no cavities. That’s my boy, he’ll say. Ice cream.
Samuel Cronin
T he Story of Forbes’ Low Green Tent
Forbes buried his hand into the Kansas earth where it hadn’t rained at all and searched for the
seeds waiting to sprout into the sky. It had been thirty years since his son’s death. The morning
that it had happened was the only thing that had grown from the soil. He remembered his
cowlick and his freckles and how he had limped out to the field, one leg longer than the other,
his enthusiasm for the harvesting, his uneven smile, his love for the promised thundershower. It
was hard to think about anything else but the drought. Today would have been his 41 st
birthday.
These days Forbes was so hungry that a belt tasted good. A plastic sack tasted good if
you sucked the sugar out of it. The dirt was something to mix in your teeth to pass the time.
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