HARPER WOODS — ELIJAH SPARKMAN
/A Jolly Rancher flies through the sky and nails Cheesy Chaz in the face. He jump-stumbles off the float trailer and busts his knee on the Beaconsfield cement. It raspberries up: four times the size of a real-life raspberry. Major folds a pom-pom for his true love. Hot ashes simmer in a pot, the ghost of a hot dog. Children throw sand at the heads of their best friends. Maybe if Paul drives over his baseball mitt enough times, smoking weed won’t be so necessary. Marcel, at the Taco Bell, asks G. Hoey if he’s going to order two cheesy gordita crunches. G. Hoey says, How did you know? Marcel says, Y’all better stop cheating on your fucking math homework. I’m going to call your principal. Be kind to your friends. There is a game on the counter. Drop a quarter through a slot. Land it on the highest, transparent, plastic orange ledge. Work it down to another. Work it down to the yellow. White flight. Everyone moves to St. Clair Shores where you can’t even be a band in your own garage. Where the people call the police. Bar chords wrestle with the lawnmowers. Empty bags of hot Cheetos crinkle in the sheets. Order a free glass of water, fill it with Baja Blast. Lean in so you can feel its true color: be touched by carbonation.
Elijah Sparkman holds an MFA in Fiction writing from Northern Michigan University. He enjoys writing about Detroit Techno music, murals, the Great Lakes, grocery stores, sadness, and birthday cakes. He is currently at work on a novel entitled The Earth Ball.
