Bowl, Brother

I was one of two girls who didn’t make the basketball team. The other girl sobbed, but when I kept quiet the coach said I had a good attitude and put me in charge of the boom box. Mom still brought her pompoms to all the games and made a scene when I played We Are The Champions. She was the kind whose enthusiasm burned through her and blasted in all directions.

So when she heard the bowling alley was burning, we high tailed it down there. Mom squatted and I helped her heft the Camcorder onto her shoulder. She panned back and forth, getting the smoke and the efforts of the firemen, telling the other assembled witnesses that she just couldn’t believe it.

“Wait till your brother sees!” mom said. But I knew that when we gathered later to watch the tape my brother would stay locked in his bedroom looking at the half-burned magazine he found behind the liquor store, sticking his head out just long enough to pity our mother with a “No way! The lanes?”

Eventually the sun got low and the police asked everyone to clear out. That night with our TV trays, mom hollered “here’s the crazy part!” in the direction of my brother’s room, rewinding again to the moment when the front corner collapsed and a cartoonish ball of flame rolled out, right where the Street Fighter machine used to be.