RODAK

CALL ME ICE-MEAL

A FLASH FICTION

Call me Ice-meal. That's what my momma done.

Once it come to me to ask her why, she jus' shrugged. I was drunk, she sez. Drunk in the birthin' room? Naw. For the first year we-all jus' called you It. It don't need no name, your father sez. It don't do nuthin' but eat and shit. An' if It don't quit that hollerin' and bawlin' It gonna git the pillow. Then, thanks be to God, he up and left, sez she. (Momma never was much for sentimental.) Jus' jumped up an' took off with that one-leg redhead mewlatta from the carny. So. 

Then one time, sez momma, yer Sissy goes, I think It's hungry. Ain't got no food, sez I. Let It suck on a ice-cube.

You kin take 'er from there, I'm guessin'.