The next morning started the same as the last. Andy
still grumpy, Kindra still unable to keep her patience. Again, Andy refused to
wake up or put on his clothes. Again, when they went to Casa de Waffles, Andy refused
to talk to her.
Today was
Sunday, so it was Kindra’s day to stay with Andy. She always struggled
especially with Sundays, because there were 3 meals she had to deal with feeding
Andy. The problem wasn’t that she couldn’t afford it – it was just Andy’s
pickiness. There’s only so many times a day you can have fries and coke.
Especially with a three year old. But Kindra didn’t know how to get him to
listen to her otherwise. Whenever she needed him to do something, even if it
was as simple as putting on his shirt or going to the bathroom, he would sit
stone still until she agreed to buy him fries and a coke.
Andy was
surprisingly thin for eating so much junk, but his unhealthiness showed in
other areas. Whenever he played, he only seemed to care about what he was doing
for a couple of minutes. Then he would lay on his side, face solemn, and play
with his toy silently and without really moving it. It was hard to tell if he
was even thinking about what he was doing – some kids will create an entire
world and it becomes obvious that most of the game is taking place in their
head – but with Andy, everything seemed blank.
Kindra often
watched him when he played. She usually didn’t know what to do, didn’t know if
she should go over and try to figure out what he was doing and participate or
anything, because usually that didn’t work. At one point, she just made up
reasons for why it was okay that she didn’t play with him. From then on, she
thought of those reasons whenever she started to feel guilty and she stopped
herself from feeling bad.
This Sunday,
Kindra was out of things to do with Andy, again, so she picked him up off the
floor and dragged him outside for a walk. Maybe they would go to a Alfonso’s,
if that amused him. Or maybe to the sawmill theatre.... except the new play
wasn’t actually playing on a sunday afternoon. They could try to leave the city
and find a store with toy cars, but Andy only wanted to do that with his dad.
Kindra decided they would just walk. She took a cigarette out of her pocket and
lit it. The drag she took lifted a huge weight from her shoulders. She realized
that must have been why she wanted to go for a walk in the first place.
Andy got pissed and wouldn’t hold Kindra’s hand, which Kindra
understood. She just wished he gave her credit for not smoking in the
apartment. She did it for him, after all. But he was kind of young to have
thoughts like that, she supposed.
They passed
the park and Kindra noticed that tents were set up. There didn’t seem to be
more than 15 or so, which wasn’t very many, but the town was small and so was
the park so it seemed like plenty. Kindra didn’t pay much attention to current
events, she didn’t want to rile herself up over things she couldn’t control,
but she did catch drift of an occupy movement – and the “we are the 99%” signs
signified that this congregation was part of that.
Kindra
looked distinctly like a single mom, sporting a too-small babydoll t-shirt and
no bra, smoking a cigarette, her hair in a half-assed ponytail just to keep it
out of her face, and toddler in tow – so the occupiers immediately thought that
she was one of them, and greeted her with their strange little finger-wiggling
signals.
Andy’s brow
furrowed because, like Kindra, he thought all these people must have been
pretty stupid, and now they were treating them like they knew them. Kindra let
out an obviously disgusted sigh. A girl with pigtails, wearing what looked like
oversized little-girl clothing, approached them with a big smile and even
bigger eyes. If she wasn’t reek hippy so much, Kindra would probably label her
as one of those girls who still thought it was sexy to dress like a kid and
ended up looking like a cheap porn star. So, basically, an idiot.
“Hey, are
you guys here for the general assembly? We love new faces and we were about to
start,” she said, smiley and eager.
“No, we were
sort of just trying to stretch our legs,” Kindra said. She didn’t smile back.
She wasn’t a fan of people who tried to speak for everyone else, which she felt
was pretty much all that Occupy did. Just a bunch of dirty fucking weirdos who
kept trying to represent her class. She probably wouldn’t have a problem with
them if they weren’t representing “the 99%” in such a negative light.
Kindra
dressed the way she did because she had to. There wasn’t much opportunity to
dress any better in a town where the main clothing store is a forever 21. But
these people, they looked the way they did because they liked it. That’s what
was so embarrassing.
Kindra went
to grab Andy’s hand so they could go somewhere else, but he shook her off again
and started to walk away. “Andy honey, where are you going,” She asked. Her
nice tone wasn’t working so well today, so it came off as incredibly
aggressive. This was sort of a normal occurrence with her.
Andy had
wandered over to a woman sitting on a bench. She seemed really upset. Kindra
didn’t know what Andy was planning on doing, exactly, but as soon as he walked
up, the woman on the bench smiled at him. Kindra could see she had been crying.
Andy gestured to her shoes and the woman bent down and wiped something off of
them. Kindra decided to just watch them and not interfere. Andy hardly ever
openly interacted like he was with her.
