The Yard Pool

It was April, and the copious amounts of spring rain had transformed our bowl shaped side yard into a muddy swimming pool. The pool came every year like clockwork; it started as a stretch of waterlogged grass in early March and slowly gained inches when the ground couldn’t hold anymore. My brother and I trudged knee-deep through the water, the brown prickly moss tickling our bare toes.

My father watched us from the porch, a dampened cigarette held effortlessly between his lips. He walked slowly down the porch steps and across our gravel driveway; the gray rocks crunched beneath his brown suede loafers. “Do you kids want to go play in that big mud puddle on the corner?” he asked. My brother and I looked up at him, confused. We weren’t supposed to play in mud. Even in our play clothes we weren’t supposed to play in mud. My father didn’t wait for a response. “Come on, let’s go.”

We trailed behind him along the outskirts of our yard pool and across the street to the mud puddle. We stood hesitantly on the edge, certain that this was some sort of joke. “What are you waiting for?” my father said. I hiked my gray cotton shorts up a bit higher and waded hesitantly through the brown sludge. My brother followed in after me. Before long we were having the time of our lives splashing and rolling in the forbidden mud. Cars drove by and honked at us because they thought we looked funny. Then my mother drove by and honked over and over again because she didn’t think we looked funny. My father had us follow him back to the house where the yelling started up again. I licked my thumb and hastily rubbed a dirt smudge off my brother’s chin before going inside.