Everywhere You Don’t Belong
Euclid Avenue
“If there’s one thing wrong with people,” Paul always said, “it’s that no one remembers the shit that they should, and everyone remembers the shit that doesn’t matter for shit.”
I remember Euclid Avenue. I remember yelling outside our window, coming in from the street. Grandma putting down her coffee. I remember Grandma holding my ankle, swinging my two-year-old self out the front door, flipping me right-side up, plopping me down next to the Hawaiian violets, plopping herself down next to me. I remember awe and disbelief.
Dad was on the curb, wrestling another man. He had the man’s head, the man’s life and soul, between his thighs.
Upstairs, above our heads, Mom screamed for the men to stop, to regain their senses, civilize themselves.
“You’re friends!” Mom yelled. “You go to church!”
“Say it again,” Dad told the man. “I’m sorry,” the man told Dad.
“Sorry for what?” Dad asked the man.
“Sorry for saying you look
