Howling children color the park a soft pink. Their heads
roll atop the surface of the wind, their bodies
blur in the frenzied motion. Parents hover nearby,
supervising, mostly watching punch ripple in plastic
cup oceans. It is Harold Bowman’s birthday, and he marches
up the steps of the playground and proclaims himself king.
He stomps and shouts and pumps his little brown fists with
fervor. The other kids watch but no more than a second passes
before chaos resumes and the screaming starts right back up and
the pink blur moves Harold to sulk his way to the refreshments.
All the while, Momma Bowman observes the scene from
a bench at the edge of the park. She has been pouring more and
more burn-your-throat, rot-your-gut whiskey into successive
cups of fruit punch, and before long, she rises and takes
to running about the park. She, too, howls and stomps and
shouts and pumps her brown fists, and she scoops her son
onto her shoulders while the other parents scrutinize her from
the gazebo. She tells Harold to stretch his arms out like wings,
tells him that he is flying, tells him that he is a pilot like Poppa,
tells him that no other kid has ever flown before—not like this.
Soon, the park fades into the background. The sidewalk stretches before them. Into the setting sun. When Harold bends over to ask,
“Where are we going?” Momma Bowman releases hot air from the
pit of her stomach and murmurs, the future, the future, the future
