Roller Derby Queens

Dog and Luggage

ScottT. Hutchison

Pack mates emerge from the bowels of their home carrying the big foreign-smell containers; they brush past her as if she is invisible, caught up in their flurries of stuffing small spaces and nooks with inconsequential pieces of their lives before abandoning the den. She no longer attempts to share the pack’ s excitement at such moments, knows what this laughter and bark mean for her, the least member: the quick leash, the careening car ride to the land of chain link fence and concrete ground, where she will find herself surrounded by the disconsolate howls and whines of the deserted, dejected. Touches will be offered there— by unfamiliar hands, a few kind-sounding words during attempts to play catch with a foreign-slobbered ball, garbled voices containing no menace, but no respect, no love. Everything feels far away. The pack will leave her in a place where there is no rug, where the food does not taste the same. A chemical scent she cannot lick or shed away grinds into her coat when she lies down in the hard corners. She knows that when the containers roll she can no fully longer trust playful opportunities to heel beneath the same sun.

The pack always returns from their roam, welcomes her to take her place. But something unfamiliar lingers each time. The ominous dreams never leave—the ones that make her kick and cry herself awake in the night, visions they believe are nothing more than chasing a family of rabbits across the distant fields.

The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism

Roller Derby Queens

ScottT. Hutchison

When the Killer Q-Bees make their entrance, skate onto the banked oval against our Cheery Bombs, everyone pivots in their folding chairs—tonight we ’ re all jammers bumping up against the ropes until there ’ s glory and a winner.

My wife ’ s a Bomb, explodes the arena and the Bees ’ hive in the name of MOAB, the Mother of all Busters. I love her exaggerated character and the woman I made vows to. She once played field hockey, hooped at center, threw discus. No

She ’ s a big I-ain ’t-playing-with-you kind of girl. Our daughters have never known fear when she ’ s rolling. They know the script, how Mama-MOAB’ s gonna clear the way. They love sitting in on Two-Team post-game pot-luck suppers.

The CB’ s use their share of the door-take for uniforms, skates, elbow and knee pads, helmets. Hard-earned cash dollars go back into local shelters and rehab centers. It’ s all heart-earned. Lots of the folks in attendance have been attended to.

The Cheery Bombs come with the lit fuse of the young, old, mid, round, short, lean, fast, squares, t-angles and everything Woman. The teen skaters and young fans all want to be in my wife ’ s history class at school. She teaches what she calls

broadlessons on how one size doesn ’t fit all-- how to be in the game, long as you want, just the same. There ’ s a cost—she ’ s honest, leaves the makeup behind and slingshots truth. When the Bombs show up for practice, they put down their briefcases, their aprons, their babies. They must carry

The Wayne Literary Review: Escapism