Yellow Mama E zine

WHO KNEW?

 

by Elizabeth Dearborn

 

 

         Reynaldo was my bud from day one. He wasn't Indian like the rest of us in Special Ed. He was Mexican, and his folks followed the apple harvest. He got to ninth grade and never learned to read. So they put him in with us.
         He went to the woods out back of the truck stop after his grandmother kicked him out.
         "Dude. You gonna be okay?"
         "Oh, yeah. They got food 24/7. Phones. Washing machines."
          I was sick of all the crap at home, so I moved in with him. We huddled at night to keep warm. Ate nachos at the truck stop. We went to school once in a while, just to sell the stuff we ripped off.
         One day I saw Reynaldo picking burrs off his bare legs. A minute later I saw fat Cheryl from the rez pulling her jeans on. I waited till she was gone.
         "I hear Cheryl's got a disease."
         "Yeah, whatever, man." He knew I was jealous. He just didn't know who I was jealous of.
         "You going home in the fall?"
         "Might stay here. Gonna need a coat and blankets and stuff."
         I heard a crunching sound, like breaking twigs. "Shut up. Play dead."
         Reynaldo started running, but the black bear was faster. Grabbed him from behind and threw him down. Later, I showed the tribal cop where the bear was, guarding Reynaldo's dead body. Blood and guts everywhere. Who knew he had so much brains?

 

 

         “Who Knew?” originally appeared in The Clarity of Night on July 10, 2007.

 

 

 

 

        Elizabeth Dearborn lives near the Canadian border with her disabled veteran husband. Her fiction has been published in Flashshot, Burst literary ezine, the Drabbledark anthology, the final B.O.U.L.D. anthology, Punk Noir, and elsewhere.

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       KJ Hannah Greenberg is eclectic. She’s played oboe, participated in martial arts, learned basket weaving, and studied Middle Eastern dancing. What’s more, she’s a certified herbalist, and an AP College Board-authorized teacher of calculus. 

       Her creative efforts have been nominated once for The Best of the Net in poetry, once for The Best of the Net in art, three times for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for poetry, once for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for fiction, once for the Million Writers Award for fiction, and once for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. To boot, Hannah’s had more than forty-five books published and has served as an editor for several literary journals.

     Check out her latest short fiction collection, An Orbit of Chairs:

https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-Chairs-KJ-Hannah-Greenberg/dp/B0CWMMM73T

 Within its pages are two tales originally published at Yellow Mama: "Alive Another Day" and "Light Notes."

      Channie's new art book, Life's Colors, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FGCTHJ6Z, just launched (hit "read sample" button). It contains images originally published by Yellow Mama.