Kids at a Funeral
It's hot, boiling, a standard day in a Texas summer. My Bugle Boy slacks and OshKosh button down feel damp the moment I step out of my grandma's Cadillac, the newest one out: every five years for the rest of her life, my grandma will always buy the newest Cadillac. The tombstones sticking out of the freshest dirt, surrounded by green-yellow grass, look to me like unfamiliar things you might find at a playground, next to the jungle gym, near the curly slide. Just as strange to me, every bit as foreign as the idea of dumping macaroni shells into a bowl of milk and calling it cereal, are all these people. They all know me, or my name at least, 'cause they keep saying it, patting my head as my grandma leads me from one patch of people to another, holding my hand, even though I've been able to walk on my own for quite some time. She says she'll stop holding my hand in public when I'm ten. I always say, Isn't eight old enough? Other boys and girls here, t