Written by Alexis N. Misko
The neighborhood, rancid with the charm of gentrification, featured ivy suffocating brick buildings, dog walkers in designer yoga pants, and locks on the patio furniture at night. Scone scent wafted from the coffee shop as a white woman in a straw hat tediously pruned scarlet geraniums along the wrap-around porch of her corner Victorian.
Two Black teenagers walked by, a girl wearing headphones stopping absentmindedly to scroll on her phone, a boy with a t-shirt slung over one shoulder pausing in the sun beside a parked SUV.
“No one would possibly break into a car with people right outside,” scoffed the woman, to herself, to her husband behind his New York Times drinking iced tea, to no one in particular.
The boy arranged his locs, sweeping them back with a hair tie from his pocket, wiping trickles of sweat and stepping back from the car window he was using as a mirror. A police siren wailed faintly in the distance.
The woman smiled, politely or guiltily. The boy nodded but did not smile in return. His friend grabbed his hand, pulling him farther along down the street, into his future, toward manhood and all that would come with it.
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Alexis N. Misko’s work has appeared in The Last Line, The Long Covid Reader, Into the Void, The First Line, The Ides of March, Broad!, The Lascaux Review, and more. She lives in Ohio with her husband and cat.