March 17, 2007 – Memphis
WMC-79 … AM radio “country gold”
shag carpeting
old folks coming to call on Sunday after church
TV as background noise
DVDs of sweaty earnest white people with lots of hairspray singing hillbilly-derived songs about God
o, come, angel band – come and around me stand – o bear me away on your snow white wings to my immortal home
pulled pork sandwiches with cole slaw, baked beans, fried okra, sweet tea
white bread — is there any other kind? … oh yeah, banana nut bread
humidity
landscaping … everything square and trimmed
miles and miles of nothing but cotton fields, and half-dead-looking trees crammed together like candles on a birthday cake
plastic plants, fake flowers
absolute denial about global warming (“they can’t prove humans are the cause” blah blah SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP)
“so Summer … when are YOU going to get married?” (see also: SHUT UP)
no escape — they cut down the tree that leads to the garage roof, where we’d disappear to for hours at a time
slipping back into the accent of birth, all the way into it, like pajamas after a corset
the sweet/shitty smell of the mighty Mississippi River
pictures of us as a child, the only child, everywhere in the house
with no TV, all quiet but the sound of clocks ticking
*
Follow Summer Burkes on Twitter.