Michael blankly stared between the two figures standing directly in front of him. He looked past the line of dead shrubbery and into the row of windows to observe a scene in the library. He felt his gaze pulled towards a girl studying at a desk barricaded in by bookcases and a fish tank. When he heard the phrase “zero-tolerance policy,” he began to listen again. It was the third time principal Brown had said it, and he still wasn’t sure what it meant. He looked to his grandma, Meemaw, who nodded and apologized in response. Before he could try to piece it together, his mind had drifted away again. He refocused on the library and wondered what the girl was studying, or if she was reading for fun, and if she was reading for fun, what she read for fun.

“Disciplinary action” was the next phrase principal Brown said to bring him back into the conversation.

He looked to Meemaw who began shaking her head and said, “No, no.”

Michael had missed something, that much was apparent, but he wasn’t concerned with this for very long before his attention was pulled back to the library and their words became indistinguishable background noise yet again. His eyes wandered to the dirty fish tank filled with brownish murky water and what appeared to be algae growing on the decorative sunken ship sitting in the bottom. He scanned the fish tank for movement, but found just one lone dead fish with its bloated belly poking out of the water’s surface.

“It gets better.” Michael then realized, perhaps too late, that principal Brown was now talking to him.

Michael awkwardly responded, “Okay?”

Meemaw let out a tense laugh and thanked principal Brown before leading Michael back to their car. The moment she shut her squeaky door behind her, she rested her forehead against the steering wheel and yelled, “Three day suspens’n? God dammit!”

Michael looked to the scene of Virgin Mary cradling an infant Jesus in the air freshener dangling from the rearview mirror and felt compelled to say, “Sorry, baby Jesus.”

Meemaw sighed and sadly laughed, “Mikey, Mikey, Mikey…what am I gunna do with you?”

He murmured, “Lemme train for the MMA.”

“Michael! This ain’t no joke! You skip your classes, you cheat, you got in a fight! Is there somethin’ I’m missin’?” When Michael didn’t answer, she continued, “There must be somethin’ else, or I’d have this all figured out by now. What is it, Mikey? What do you need?”

“Dr. Phil.”

Meemaw rolled her eyes and drove halfway across town to their home. She turned onto the winding gravel road between the trailers. Sitting on the steps into the pink trailer to the left was a boy by the name of Kyle.

“Oh look, Michael. It’s your bestest friend. You wanna get out here?” She slammed on the breaks and the wheels burrowed in the gravel as it skidded to a stop.

“Hell no!”

Meemaw laughed and said to Michael, “C’mon now. Being a friend ain’t never hurt nobody.” She rolled down her window and yelled out, “Hi Kyle!”

The boy trotted up to Meemaw’s side and happily greeted her, “Hi Mrs. Carter!”

“Where you at, Kyle? Can barely see you behind all that hair.”

The boy pushed the loose curls of his afro that were dangling in his eyes aside and smiled brightly up at her. “I right here!”

“Don’t your Mama ever give you no hair cut?”

“Not since the scissors broke.”

“I tell you what. You come over after dinner and I give you a nice trim.” She reached out and made a clipping gesture across his forehead. “How that sound?”

“Sound good, ma’am.”

“Alright.” Meemaw looked over to Michael who was melted into his chair in an attempt to hide. Meemaw slapped the side of his knee and ordered, “Get out and play with the boy!”

“I ain’t no babysitter!”

“You rather tell Papaw about the fight?” Meemaw unlocked the door.

Papaw would have to find out eventually, but Michael wanted to put as much time between he and that confrontation as possible. So he dragged himself back up in his seat and stepped out of the car as Meemaw drove off. When Kyle (a boy who had annoyed him since the day they first found the trailer) hugged him around his legs, Michael awkwardly stood still.

Kyle excitedly screamed, “Playground!” He took off for the little plot of sand with monkey bars and broken swing dangling from one chain, leaving a trail of stirred up gravel dust behind him. Michael slowly, sadly followed him.