The House on Agate Street
Cyn Bermudez, Writers of Kern
When I was eleven years old, I packed a small plastic bag with a week’s worth of clothes and my favorite book and stayed in an old abandoned house down the street, something I had seen my older sister do when she was angry with my mother. Two teens were already sheltered there, a boy and girl. They took a spot near the ashen fireplace.
Charred wood scorched the firebrick. They held hands and kissed and asked me questions. What my name was and why was I there. We all slept under a thin cotton throw on cold concrete. The wooden floorboards ripped from the ground. The smell of dust and mold filled every corner, every break in the wall, the crumbling popcorn ceiling.
A teenaged boy named Mason, who rode around the neighborhood on his bicycle, brought us scraps of half-eaten corn ears and burnt tortillas and day-old cold chicken. We feasted on the floor, a turned over crate the finest table, our food on plastic bag plates. Mason called the lovebirds Elvis and Marilyn and every time they’d chuckle. Elvis played music on a guitar he had bought with six whole dollars, money he saved
cleaning yards and cashing in plastic bottles at a Five and Dime. He strummed the chords and Marilyn watched him dreamily. Elvis was going to be a big star someday, Marilyn his wife. He’d build her a house in the woods; she’d be safe there. He said I could come, too. Marilyn put her arm around me and said of course. Mason said he’d bring the food.
“The House on Agate Street” previously appeared in
The Best of the Vine Leaves Anthology, 2014.