My Sister Gets a Hankering for Fast Food on Halloween

She flicks the foil to the ground and grips the rickety swing chains, two teenage fists wiping grease up and down in a motion she won’t admit she knows. I take the bait, make the bawdy comment and wait for the comeback kick to the thigh, but inside I’m smiling and deciding she’s telegraphing songs to the men we’ll marry one day, cause it’s fun to want things even when they’re far away. My sister’s homeless, and I’m a flight attendant in drag. We only lied a little when we told them the other one was sick (cause there are all kinds of sick), holding out the extra pillowcase and batting loyal eyes, shifting side to side on unshaven legs, describing our sister back home like she was already gone. Now this one lifts her arms to the streetlight and tells me we’re a constellation (cause there are all kinds of gone), and I can tell I’m going to be carrying her drunk ass home. Then the demands start: gimme a Snickers. I’m digging through the loot when she stands up to puke, her scapular peeking out of our father’s old flannel, and I feel the matching felt square scratch at my back, marking The Before with family dinners, in bed by 9, and a name to pass along. Then—Fix your bra, man, your boobs are crooked. She’s fumbling with the candy wrapper and falling off the swing when I decide I’ll save the dirt between my shoe and sock, put in a plastic bag and call it Happiness. Between us, we share 16 Snickers, and when I hold the last fun-sized moment in my hands to melt the chocolate, I don’t know whether to smear an S.O.S. across the hopscotch or the basketball court. I’m not sure who needs it more.