Family Picnic

It was hot, sweltering; hell itself had its equal that summer. Papa, after having another of his “moments of clarity,” decided that the thing that would save our family would be a picnic. We all agreed to chip in. Papa would make the egg salad. Mama would make the sandwiches. I would pick the best watermelon out of the garden and slice it up in easy to hold portions. Little Brother was dead, yet still he wanted to go. Have you ever read the story of Pinocchio? Well, just imagine that you take a boy and instead of making him out of wood, you take the skin of a real boy that died in a tragedy and pull it over some stuffing with a wire frame. Papa was an amateur taxidermist, so he did it himself.

At first, Little Brother’s body being around freaked Mama and I out. We would turn a corner and there he would be, frozen in place, with a smile from ear to ear, and his hands at their side as he stood at attention. But, soon we got used to having him around. It was a comfort. Especially to Mama, who would stroke his hair at night and sing him songs as she rocked him, well really herself, to sleep.

Soon thereafter, we began to hear him talk. I don’t mean that he really did, but I swear we could hear him. I guess you would call it a shared delusion in today’s parlance. But there was nothing more certain back then that Little Brother was alive and well and that he wanted to go on the picnic.

We went to General McMacker’s State Park in Papa’s beat up station wagon. It had suffered some dents from time to time thanks to his whiskey binges. One of the biggest dents being in the rear bumper where Little Brother had been hit when Papa was backing out of the driveway while trying to yell at Mama at the same time. That’s how Little Brother came to be dead.

Our picnic basket was full and we had our red gingham blanket all rolled up and tucked under Papa’s arm as Mama carried Little Brother while I walked towards a nice shady spot under a big Southern Oak. In my eyes, it was the perfect spot for us to sit down and eat together. Little Brother agreed. So, Mama propped him up against the tree while Papa rolled out the blanket and I began setting up the spread.

We had the grandest of times that day. Little Brother was laughing from against the tree, Papa was sober, Mama was smiling as wide as the crescent moon, and I felt like we were a real family for once, a normal family, one that was going to make it through trouble.

The trouble started when we were on the highway back home. Mama was the first one bit. She yipped and hollered, making Papa swerve and almost hit an oncoming car. Papa then slapped at his neck and cursed. Little Brother said that he felt itchy and that he didn’t feel good at all. I looked over and pouring out of him were thousands, and I mean thousands of ants. The car was infested in no time. Mama had leaned him up against an ant bed without even knowing. We all screamed as they began crawling all over us and biting us. It felt like thousands of tiny hot needles on my exposed arms and legs. Little Brother kept apologizing, but we could barely hear him over our screaming.

We had to call a tow truck to take the station wagon home. Since Papa said that Little Brother being alive while dead was our family secret, he had to throw Little Brother in the creek for a swim. He promised me that we would come back for Little Brother. As he floated downstream, I knew in my heart that Papa was lying. I was right. That was the last time I saw my Little Brother, both dead and alive.