Driving Home From Keyworth’s
By Tennessee Hill
Sharing the lap belt, we slide imperfectly into each other
as Dad speeds through an overpass. His daddy raised
Porsches—he raced Porsches—but he is not his father. He doesn’t have
the money to have bad ideas and this is a new truck so we
better not touch something we’re not supposed to. My brother
and I share a Zippo and Swiss Army Knife. All we are allowed
to light are our own birthday candles. Mom says we can cut
the beige-dead slack off of grass. Wanna see the seat belt catch
fire? one of us whispers. The other one replies, No, let’s watch
Dad drive. So we do. Our love is not yet fooled away from worship.
Everything our father does has wings. And because we behaved
while he left us in the car with the engine running as he ducked
into Keyworth’s Hardware store, Dad lets us pretend to steer.
Each of us on a knee, our inherited hands, pulling. We tussle
up the driveway. They are saving us an ashtray fortune, dimes
collide with quarters. My brother, his blond hair, calls out about
a squirrel five yards away that might run into the road. Dad shouts
with joy-of-the-moment, Kids! We raise our keen eyes and yodel
and howl—I’m being ridiculous now. But have you ever sat next
to a person and known the home of your own name?