By Spencer K. M. Brown

The mayor’s tongue spills words like boiling water and only vowels can be heard from this distance and my father reminds me that people are idiots and that’s the only reason idiots get into office and why they have parades and close down the streets because idiots need to be distracted like children and imagination needs to be fed to them like cold tomato soup but I can’t help staring at the older woman in front of us and how she lives across the street where I see her most nights sitting on her porch drinking wine alone and reading books that she won’t discuss with anyone and I stare at the grandchildren that run around her legs playing hide-and-seek amid the bodies of the crowd who stare at the day-glo cars and confetti floats that roll down the street tossing out candy and my father opens another beer from the six-pack he smuggled into the parade and takes long sips between scowls of disgust and he shifts on his feet taking the weight off his bad leg, the one that was pinned down between twisted metal and the vinyl seat of the car, the same leg he couldn’t move far enough to get up and pull mom out of the car in time to stop the bleeding but as he opens another beer with that tell-tale crisp, snapping sound, the old woman turns around and stares at us and my father pulls his coat over his hand and forces a smile and the woman smiles and I see her teeth are stained a purple-red from wine and the mayor goes on and on about all the things he’ll do and my father laughs a little harder and says how if mom was still alive she’d probably think this asshole was some sort of genius and the old woman laughs a little as her grandkids run around, their cheeks look like puffy clouds, stuffed with the hard candies they’d tossed from the floats and I stare up at the old woman and wonder why she drinks wine alone on her porch and why she doesn’t have anyone to talk about her books and my dad rubs his bad leg and I know the cold is getting to him and I wonder why I was the only one who came back home, why wasn’t I off making my own life like my two brothers and just let the old man deal with this by himself and I see he’s getting restless and suggest we go and I look around at all the people in the crowd and wonder how many of them have bad legs and how many are hiding beers in their jackets and how many drink their wine alone and go to sleep with an empty space next to them and my father mumbles a little more about the idiots and something about how many asshole politicians it takes to screw in a lightbulb but he’s only speaking in vowels now and his pockets are filled with empty cans and I look over at him and wonder if I’ll drink my wine alone one day because no one came back home and my father rubs his hands together in the cold as the empty cans clink together in his pockets and I think about how one day he’ll be nothing more than a khaki cloud on the hills, a ribbon of smoke, and that old woman nothing but a faint smell of fermented blackberries and grapes and I know I can’t stay here much longer and should be sleeping with a space next to me someplace far away and my father whispers something about how much longer will it all hurt and that the Cubs play later today and I smile as I shift into gear and watch as they toss out candy that looks like money and I know I can’t keep going like this but I’ll stay with him again tonight, but I have a lonely bed waiting for me in New York or Miami—anywhere—and we drive past the crowds and past the fields towards home and my father’s fear moves in rings from his tongue like a parade and my fears slide away in slow clouds and he turns on the Cubs game and I wonder what the weather is like in Chicago.