[Gabe Hudson is currently on tour in support of his new book Dear Mr. President.]
The boy’s dad told the boy that clouds tasted like bread. The boy’s dad told the boy that a cloud was as heavy as an elephant. The boy’s dad said, “And a cloud can fall on your head at any minute,” and so the boy’s dad made the boy wear a helmet whenever he left the house.
The first time a cloud fell on the boy’s head it turned out to be a football. The boy figured an elephant had thrown the football, but when the boy looked around the only thing the boy saw was a girl, so the boy handed the girl a peanut and said, “Friends.” But when the boy said, “Friends,” the girl thought the boy said, “Love.”
Then the boy and the girl went to the park to play football inside a make-believe stadium. The girl tackled the boy, and the girl faked out the boy, and the girl beat the boy, and the boy was in pain, and the boy thought, “This feels good.” The boy thought, “Like the way licorice tastes.” And then the boy asked for seconds, and the girl gave it to him, because the girl had super powers because she had heard the word love.
That afternoon, the boy came home and found his dad asleep on the couch, and so the boy tried to stuff his helmet in his dad’s mouth. The boy wanted his dad to swallow the helmet.
When the boy’s dad woke up, he took a look around and smiled when he saw the boy straining over him with the helmet. The boy’s dad said, “Let me show you something.”
That’s when the boy’s dad showed the boy the big box of licorice in his briefcase. The boy’s dad said, “Someday you’ll be a boy’s dad.”
Then the boy’s dad and the boy went out in the driveway and started throwing licorice up in the air. They tried to hit the clouds with it, and laughed when it poured back down on them, making their tongues rattle in their heads.