Kim Chinquee

Thirty hours in and kids are praying. The bleachers tucked and lights out, save the candles, flames contagious like the voice of Jesus the pastor is talking about. They sit on the gym floor, most of them cross-legged. The floor is cold. The pastor keeps talking about fire, God’s love, how they all should have it.

In a corner, a girl named Joyce is thinking about Scotty, a boy she likes on the other side of the gym, how he’s good at shuffleboard, which he plays with his father on the weekend. It’s the town sport, something Joyce’s father had been a part of before he drowned in the manure pit. The boy’s father is a breeder, still coming to their farm to breed their heifers, sometimes bringing Scotty, him sitting in the car doing whatever one does in a car while waiting for a breeder. Joyce tries to stay awake, her eyelids heavy, her head bobbing, her hand dangling and almost dropping her candle. Her stomach growls. She has to pee.

Across the room sits her cousin Missy, a girl also in 4-H, where they each take up Dairy, not by choice, but because their parents make them, where, each year at the fair, they put halters on their heifers, cows, and walk them, getting judged on appearance and behavior.

As the pastor goes on in his white robe, Joyce keeps herself awake by remembering the shirt she has to stitch yet, a sailor’s shirt she might wear for next month’s lock-in, where they do not eat nor sleep. It’s a forty-hour lock-in. She takes sewing in 4-H. She kind of likes sewing. She can do without the lock-in.

When the pastor says Amen, people blow out candles. On come the lights, and they get up for a game where they get in groups and fall back onto one another like the Dominoes game Joyce remembers from TV once. She remembers the week before, making daisy print sheets with her grandmother, who always said games were devilish, but still, we’re ok with Scrabble. Her grandmother had put her finger to her lips, took a deep breath and let out a big whistle. 

Joyce rises, following orders, getting in a group the pastor says will help her in the long run. She looks for Scotty, Missy, her other cousin Sara, their own group in the corner. Joyce feels dizzy and goes to the bathroom, where she sits on the toilet then looks in the mirror and thinks at least she might lose weight here. She tells herself only ten more hours, ten more hours, ten more. Her gut hurts. She stands. She closes her eyes, and drifts.

About Kim Chinquee

Kim Chinquee’s eighth book Pipette was published with Ravenna Press. She has three books forthcoming in 2025 with MadHat Press and Baobab Press. She’s Senior Editor of New World Writing Quarterly, Associate Editor of Midwest Review, Chief Editor of ELJ (Elm Leaves Journal), and co-coordinator of SUNY-Buffalo State University’s writing major. She’s the recipient of three Pushcart Prizes, a competitive triathlete, and lives with her two dogs in Tonawanda, NY.