swear jar

Me and my brother were dressed exactly the same in the back seat of my mom’s Valiant parked in front of the Ministry. I poked my brother in the face, and then he called me ‘fatso’ out of nowhere so I punched him, then he punched me in the balls and I screamed out ‘fuck’ just as my mom opened the car door. She said she’d wash my mouth out with soap if I said it again.

Someone cut her off when we pulled onto King George and she said ‘fuckin asshole!’ out the window.

“Swear jar, swear jar!” 

The count was up to about forty-five dollars and we were on track to bankrupt her if we cashed out.

“I’m not putting anymore money in the swear jar today.”

“Then we get to say it,” I said.

“That’s now how th—“

“Fuckin asshole,” I screamed out the window.

“Fucking asshole,” my brother murmured.

We drove to our uncle’s house. My cousins were running around the house screaming and my uncle was on the couch peeling the skin from his fingernails and chain-smoking. Their glass coffee table had white powder on it.

“Go play downstairs.” 

The basement smelled like cat piss and shit because nobody cleaned up the cat shit and piss.

We played tag in the basement until I felt a cold squish beneath my feet and I wanted to puke. Both my brother and I took off our socks while my cousins laughed at us for not being as good at avoiding stepping in the cat shit all over their house.

We threw our socks in the garbage can then sat in front of the TV in the basement. One cousin turned on the SNES and we played Contra for six hours while my mom and uncle talked and smoked and yelled at the tv upstairs.

The entire house reeked of cat shit, piss, cigarette smoke and windex. The smell of windex was everywhere. I saw my youngest cousin spray windex on a pile of catshit like it would make it dissipate into the ether.

I got bored of Contra then went upstairs to use the bathroom. My mom and uncle were sitting on opposite ends of the sectional, with cigarettes in their hands, and the hockey game on at full volume.

“YEAH!”

“Woo hoo.”

My uncle jumped up and yelled something else then went to the kitchen and came back with two cans of beer. He offered my mom one but she shrugged it off. I stood at the edge of the room hoping I wouldn’t be seen.

On the drive home my mom was quiet and we were half asleep the whole way to my grandma’s where we were staying. My grandma was watching It’s A Wonderful Life by herself and she didn’t say hello to us and we went to bed. From upstairs I heard them yelling at each other and both of them crying before I fell asleep.

On Valentines Day a few months later my mom pulled us out of school and told us that my uncle disappeared. She didn’t get out of bed for a few days, and they never found his body.

She still owes us forty-five dollars.