Gale Acuff

Pea Soup

At school I throw up in the lunchroom--green
peas--and have to go home. I walk to school
and Mother doesn’t drive so I walk home
and in the front door and into her room
where she’s ironing and smoking her Trues.
Hello, she says. Why are you so early?
I’m sick, I say. I threw up during lunch.
Well, she says, go upstairs and jump in bed
and I’ll check on you when I’m done here. She’s
not worried. I go upstairs and take off
my clothes and get into bed. Here she comes.
She puts her hand on my forehead. You’re hot,
she says. Your hand is cold, I say. It’s God

that’s the difference between the two but
I don’t say that, it’s corny and I’m 9
and almost in the fourth grade--that’s two-thirds
to the sixth, then it’s junior high for me
and my voice will change and I’ll get hair in
private places and maybe have to start
shaving. Or maybe I get that in eighth
grade or ninth. Then it’s on to high school and
I want to go to college so I’ll have
to start studying for real. And then I’ll
graduate and get a job and a wife
--I’ll already have a car by then, or
at least a driver’s license--and children,
eight of them, four boys and four girls, coming
boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl-boy-girl. All that

is probably God, too. I’m going
to throw up, I say. Well, hold it in until
you get to the bathroom, Mother says. It’s
downstairs. We have one for six people but
only she and I are home now. I just
make it and there go some more of the peas.
It’s like pea soup in the toilet. I still
feel bad so I pretend I’m drinking it
and throw up the rest. Then I rinse my mouth.
I almost forget to flush the toilet.
I go back upstairs. Feeling better now,
Mother asks. Yes, I say. I hate green peas.
I hate them good. I’m sorry I said that

because she asks, Is that why you ate them
--so you’d get sick? I climb back into bed
and answer the ceiling--God’s up there, too
--Maybe that’s right, but I didn’t think it.
Are you having trouble at school, she asks.
Oh no, I say. I’m just feeling older.