A Low End Revival

meganfalley:

GOLDEN BOY

My brother’s hair looked like someone cooked a porridge comprised entirely of sunshine and poured the bowl over his head. It was a yellow traffic light that everyone slowed down for, then stopped. Complimented my mother, told her she was lucky. It was as if angels weaved all their halos together and crowned him. He was a dandelion of a boy—but when we picked him up after his first day of high school, he instructed my mother to the barbershop. This memory comes before recovery. Before relapse. Before the longest winter. Before heroin came to the suburbs, became a household name. He slammed the door as he walked into the $7 barber—alone—he demanded. I am six years old and don’t yet know what this means, but I am watching my mother’s eyes in the rearview mirror like twin lakes that flood and dry up and flood again. She knows what happens when dandelion boys are thrust into lawnmowers. He returns to the car years older than he was when he left it. I almost think he’s a hijacker but I don’t have the word for that yet. He changes the channel on the radio to something faster, harder, slides the volume knob up loud over the words no one is saying. Back in the barbershop, someone is sweeping that gold-spun hair and trashing it. My mother knows a war is going to come, the way animals know before the rain. The way they know, but can’t do anything to stop it.