The crickets chirped from inside the bushes. I stood there, five-years old, hiding with the car keys. My mother's boyfriend at the time was banging her head up against the wall. They had both been drinking and somewhere in the frenzy, my mother grabbed the keys and told me to hide outside until she came out.
It was dark and the needles on the shrubs scraped my skin. I could see the streetlights glowing on the building where I went to kindergarten. I listened to the sound of my breath and I knew that I was still breathing...I was okay.
I wasn't new to this. Mommy gets drunk. Mommy fights. Junie hides in the bushes with the keys. I knew this game well.
When she finally ran out of the house, she was clutching a white garbage bag full of clothing, I presume. We got in to the car and drove two and a half hours to my grandfather's trailer in Detroit.
The next day I started a new school. New classmates. New lunch ladies that didn't know my name. I didn't mind these escapades much. They usually only lasted a few days and I got to swim in the pool at my grandfather's trailer park. There was Vernor's to drink which you can't get in Indiana where we were living.
I was oblivious and full of wonder, like any child. I had no idea of the weight being thrust upon my bony little shoulders. Hiding in bushes, starting new schools, making new friends only to leave them behind. Watching my mother be beaten. Driving down dark roads and back alleys in the middle of the night. It was all a part of the games that my mother played.
On those days, mom was fairly peaceful and semi-present, which was better than usual. She wasn't drinking as much. She sat on the couch and talked to my grandfather a lot. I was just happy to be there...in a place where there were no blackouts and no glass breaking.
Within a few days, we were back in Indiana--and we continued to play the game again and again, like Candyland on a rainy day.
