Following My Father’s Tire Tracks

by Brad Bisio

On a rocky dirt road flanked by a scattered hyena pack, I drove a white 1989 Ford Escort with an AM radio, following my unaware father who sped ahead, a cloud of dust in the wake of his black 911 Turbo Porsche. The engine sputtered before running out of gas, so I unstrapped the bike on the roof like I was bailing water from a sinking ship, then raced onward, yelling through cupped hands, “Wait up!” I looked over my shoulder only to lose control on the rutted road, flying off the banana seat and over the handle bars as two opportunistic hyenas pursued, waiting to attack. Forced to leave the mangled bike and my father’s trail, with bloody road-rash face and knees, I sprinted through a tall, golden grass field toward a broken down, rusted-roof shelter, a WELCOME sign above the door. My slouched, rotund maternal grandmother – her white hair pulled into a bun and in the same slippers and floral-patterned housedress that she seemed to always be wearing – answered my pounding knock. I laughed, with relieved desperation, then turned to face my demon past, but the hyenas chasing had changed into gray, feral cats.

6S

Brad Bisio's work has recently appeared in Paradigm, Pequin, and Boston Literary Magazine, and is forthcoming in Word Riot and Gutter Eloquence. He lives in Nashville, Tennessee.