Today his mother told him to never go into the basement.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because I said so,” she replied.
“But I’m 13 now, I understand things. Is it toxic? Haunted? You can’t say ‘never’ without a back story.”
Long silence.
“Ask your father.”
“For fuck’s sake.”
“Jackson! Never utter that raunch again.”
“Everything’s never now.”
His mom quietly folded the last pair of undies. “I will invariably love you.”
“Is it because of the still?” he quipped before obliterating his chocolate chip cookie in one satisfying bite.
“Like I said.”
~
At 6 a.m. the next morning Jackson walked into his parents’ bedroom and poked his dad’s fleshy deltoid with a broom handle.
“For FUCK’S sake!” his father roared.
“Pops. I want to learn how to make corn liquor. I need a job that pays, man, so I can buy me a Mac and wax Promethean. I’m focused, resolute. I can clock before school, nights, weekends. I want to be your deputy. POPS! You awake?”
“Now I am. Meet me in the kitchen. Five minutes.”
Jackson ran out of the room, brushed his teeth, snapped on a pair of green rubber gloves and a surgical mask, donned the yellow hard hat and safety glasses his Uncle gifted him for his birthday, and skipped down the hallway with bona fide momentum.
⌘