“Hunnybun”

 

We would wake up on unseasonably brisk Spring mornings,

with not much winter left, but enough to inconvenience.

Sleepily, looking for direction in routine.

Gray slacks and plaid jumpers, topped off with green ties.

Yellowed white shirts and blouses, ironed through gritted teeth.

Brown bagged lunches, evolving into plastic lunch boxes with pictures of Popeye, The Dukes of Hazzard, and Rainbow Brite, and then back into brown bagged lunches.

Thermoses full of chocolate milk have a certain scent, don’t they?

No matter how clean you make them.

 

Da had either gone to work, or spent time occupying the bathroom for a steamy shave.

Ma made instant hot cereal, in glossy white bowls.

Pour the milk, kettle whistling, deluge of scald.

She called it hunnybun.

It was either that or toast, dripping in butter and choked with cinnamon and sugar.

I got real uncomfortable eating toast while looking at that picture of Jesus and his crown of thorns.

It was a fucking picture.

How did they do that?

There were no cameras before Christ.

Even we knew that.

But, there he was.

Resting in agony on the wall.

The real treats were the green and orange cups with O-handles that would be set out and filled with Hawaiian Punch.

If we had any punch left, we’d pour it in the bowl.

The sounds of Scooby Doo and Batman, playing on the ol’ black and white.

It wasn’t all bad.

We had two televisions.

 

Construction.

Deconstruction.

Such pretty hues.

Pink sand-colored hunnybun.

 

The house would empty.

Not much left in the day for Ma.

She slept a lot, and spent time cleaning bowls full of unpleasantness.

Waiting for the phone to ring, watching Soaps.

Washing with soap, the clothes that exponentially rose in piles.

I don’t remember exactly when the wave broke on Bunker Hill,

but one day it most certainly did.