Jeff Friedman
BURP WATER
A sour look on his face,
his trousers loosened, my father
takes a bill out of his pockets
and hands it to me. "Make yourself
useful, Junior. You just got
time to make it to the store."
I run out of the apartment and take
the steps in a single leap.
I run through a cloud of gnats
humming over the pavement, through
the cedar hedges—green
needles embed themselves in my arms—
through the spray of the sprinkler, drops
streaking my glasses so everything
looks watery, past the streetlamps just
blinking on, past the baggers collecting
grocery carts and pushing them up
the freshly tarred blacktop,
painted with yellow lines,
into a blast of cold air
as the automatic door swings open.
The counter, where some days I swivel
the stools and sip cherry cokes
or dip a shiny spoon into a seventeen cent
hot fudge sundae, is closed.
Cashiers thumb
the bills in the black trays
of their cash registers as they add up
the money and stuff it in pouches.
"Burp Water," I say
and a plump lady in a blue
Bettendorf's outfit laughs
and repeats the words, "Burp
Water," as if they might work some
magic and reaches up high
to get a fat bottle of D.C. Club Soda.
At home I give my father
the change, which he drops
in his deep, loose pockets.
He screws off the bottle cap
and watches the Club Soda
fizz, before taking a big
swig—the sourness already
disappearing from his fleshy face.
"Burp water, " I say
and he lets out a belch that shakes the
chandelier over the dinner table.
He is young and handsome again,
ready to take on the world
with his wide fleshy smile,
a few good wisecracks,
and a helluva sales pitch.
Upstairs, Mrs. Handshear stops
running the vacuum cleaner
over her wood floors and sings
Madame Butterfly in falsetto.
Strings of shells, picked from
the sands of Miami Beach, clink
against each other in the doorway
of Mr. Lamar's apartment
and rip from their nails. My father
tells me how much he will make
on his next sales trip,
how he will buy a navy blue Buick
Riviera with all the gadgets.
"Burp water," I say—
fizzing bubbles pop and burst.
A newspaper over his face, he falls into
a loud slumber on the couch,
dreaming of hidden headlights
and automatic door locks,
while my mother looks in the mirror,
rubs white cream
into the faint lines on her forehead,
and my sister touches her delicate
straight nose as she waits by
the black telephone on her nightstand—
which only she can use—
hoping a boy will call for a date.
"Burp water—" I play
poker against myself
on the living room floor
and turn over the winning hand,
kings over threes, a full house.
