Novela

My Dad driving my alcoholic aunt . 3 grown cousins (one is in hiding from her ex husband who was just released from prison and has vowed to kill her ) to Phoenix to visit an aunt in a coma A woman with a black eye and hickey on her neck walking really fast down the road smoking a cigarette , wearing gym shoes with grey socks and Capri pants . She catches me watching her so I look away .

She begins to cry , looks at her eight year old son and his ten year old brother and say's "Go see if it is your dad" . Later she tells me, "I never should have sent them out that day to identify the body . Their hearts are damaged and it's my fault" .

On his dresser , I am staring at a hologram of Jesus . It has a plastic baroque frame and a light switch in the back . Jesus is in the wilderness kneeling before a tree stump , desperately looking up . I cannot see the sky only the light rays hitting his face . It reminds of holograms I find in cracker jack boxes ..eyes that wink at you , lips that open and close .

He was found walking naked down a dirt road. He said he ran away because he felt as if he were being hunted .

power outage in the middle of summer. I am sitting outside at night with my parents gossiping, watcng my oldest sister set up a tent for her son ,in total darkness .

May , in the desert, my oldest sister is sitting in a metal snow ball that goes around a huge cylinder . The cylinder has this mural of blond ski bunnies with smiles and blank stares. The ride goes around and around. A song about a Rock and Roll Fantasy blares through the speakers .I can tell she is trying to look cool. I think she looks glamorous with her feathered hair and spaghetti strap b

louse . The song changes to Kashmir by Led Zeppelin and it keeps getting louder and her snow ball goes faster and I get goose bumps .

My mom telling me that he was tortured and tied to a tree with wire , in the orange groves on the mesa above her house.

It is 8:00 am and I am walking down the dirt road that leads to my parents home . I hear that song by Anita Bell called Ring My bell blaring from the fountain shop on the corner owned by my dads compadre . I wonder if it is Melissa , my dads goddaughter, who is a meth addict , listening to this song . I get closer to the corner and remember Melissa as a teenager and how she would wear garbage bags and dance to old school disco songs in the living room of my parents halfway built split level home with no air-conditioning. It was the middle of summer in Arizona. She would do these amazing high kicks and twirls .
As I get closer I see Melissa sweeping her fathers shop and say hi. She asks if I am going running then in the same breath she suggested I purchase a speedometer to keep track of miles ran and some “slow burning” tanning oil .
Before she died , she mentioned to my aunt that a meteor fire ball had rolled into the kitchen . Arizona was known to have meteors.