The Slush-Yo-Mouth truck pulls up
in the magic half-hour between
softball and baseball tournaments
with cobalt blue paint chipping off
as the truck bounces off the potholes
and split-in-half bats left on the dirt
road leading into the park from the
county highway. A Snow Cone in
purple parachute pants, no shirt,
and oversized aviator sunglasses
riding a neon green and burnt
orange skateboard is painted
to the right of the serving window,
using a mini version of itself as
a microphone while Wu Tang Clan
screams they’re nothing to fuck with
from the open back doors, singing
along but quit when the youth pastor
walks by, terrified he’d tell our coach
and we’d have to run laps around
the field. The younger kids pull chunks
of paint off and throw them at each
other when the games start back up
and their parents turn back to watch as
the pitcher panics about the left-handed
batter who just moved to town. We
watch and throw hunks that missed
the intended kid back into the impromptu
fighting pit to see how much more
chaos we could cause. We wait in line
behind the kids who run up with a couple
of dollar bills in one hand and boiled
peanuts in the other even though
they’re still sticky from their morning
moon pies and R.C. colas, covered
in stains from the black sand we called
dirt and clay from the unfished ball field.
We change behind the Port-a-Jons that
smell like weed, Ax body spray, and puked
up corndogs from our cleats into flip flops
and softball pants into cheer-shorts, ignoring
what our mothers said about how girls
who roll their shorts more than once
end up like Glenda the hooker.
Betsy Rupp’s previous work appears in Emrys Journal and has been accepted for presentation at the Southern Writers Graduate Conference. She is currently working toward completing her MFA in Poetry at Florida State University. Previously, she earned her MA in English Literature, with a concentration in Poetry, from Mississippi State University. She focuses her work on exploring the beautiful strangeness of her small Florida hometown.
