The missing girl

This is a book of memory. It has taken me a long time to remember it right---my childhood. To not blot and blank out the crudeness of it all. To remember it with exactness. The drunken car rides---the backseat of my father's Lincoln, the blue igloo cooler filled with ice and Budweiser behind the driver's seat. To show you my childhood I would have you climb into the back of the Lincoln with me. Our legs would stick to the hot leather seats in the summertime. Smell the stale cigarette smoke, the empty packs of Winstons, see all those gold crushed boxes. Look out the rear window over the dirty baseball caps and that expired bent up Virginia atlas. My father reaches for the sun visor, unwraps a fresh new pack of pink trident. That's the smell of my childhood. It's bubblegum flavor.