TRAILER PARK

We heard she had a wedding last night, the female detective drawled bluntly in her fine, dark suit, with her scrawny shoulder sloped against the dingy threshold of the skunky trailer. Her dusky skin glistened with a film of perspiration. The cockeyed trailers’ open-mouthed door couldn’t afford a breath of cool air from the small A/C unit it stowed in a cracked window. It only conferred a single hot breath with decomposing party streamers tied to its teeth, fluttering in a humid gale.

News to me, mother said with sun-baked forearms crossed tight like the beginning of a braid, a tarnished gold bracelet, eyes that haven’t slept in 20 years, withered, bleached blonde hair. She hated cops. Didn’t matter if she did anything wrong or not. Does it matter what she done or who she been with to find my girl? Or all ya’ll care about is gossip, she’d said, baby Mikey was asleep on the soiled plaid couch dreaming of brown rabbits eating carrots, grinning innocently.

Did she have a boyfriend? the detective asked.

Ain’t every girl gotta boyfriend these days, she scoffed, even if she don’t want one? Check the carnival.

For who?

Name’s Gabriel. Come back when you got somethin’, the door shambled shut.

to be continued …