Hooked to His Combine

My father’s shed was filled with plywood, diesel tractors, tools. I sacrificed my play time just to go there, sitting on his tractors, feeling his wrenches in my hands. I put on his welding mask and held his welder, feeling his old sweat. My play time was his sleep time, so I knew he wouldn’t find me.

After I no longer needed play time, I snuck out after curfew. Instead of my old pigtails, I had a pixie style so I could fit his hat. I began to start up all his tractors, leaving the doors open. Every person slept so soundly. Once, the day my mother left and my father went to chase her, I started his John Deere that was hooked up to his combine. Then his truck. It was big and green and from the fifties. I started up the mower, the red antique that used to be my grandpa’s, the clunky Ford my sister drove when we were baling. I revved up all the engines and I started welding, picking up old scraps and melting them together. I shut up all the doors and locked them. I turned up my father’s boom box, finding Chopin. I put on my father’s shield. I sat there and I heard the music with the humming of the tractors. I removed my shoes and socks, and every minute of my clothing. Shocked with the cement, I fell around doing the mazurka.

~ Kim Chinquee ~