Jay C. Mims's Blog, page 2

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My mama used to say that home is where you could escape from the world, where you could shut reality out, where only what you allowed in could stay in. Home is where you could feel safe.

It’s a beautiful sentiment, but much too antiquated for my tastes, though I never told mama that. She wouldn’t have appreciated anymore of my cynicism, rest her soul.

You see, safety is an illusion, the kind of cheap trick a street magician would pull. It ain’t anyone on the street trying to convince us, though, but every bastard at the top of the social food chain selling us this particular bad bill of goods. I refuse to buy it. I understand on a near molecular level that life is short, brutal, warlike, that it always has been and always will be. Humans are dumb, stupid animals that panic at the slightest inconvenience and lash out with nuclear fire when they don’t get their way.

Nah, safety is impossible to achieve so long as our species exists the way that it does. I would apologize for being so bleak or so blunt, but an apology would imply that I won’t be this way again. Another lesson from mama, that, saying “I’m sorry” means you’ll turn away from that behavior. I’m not apologizing for who I am, not anymore. They cynical, the bleak, the blunt—that’s all me.

Through all of that, though, through the dark lenses with which I view the world, though all of mama’s lessons—whether or not I agree with them—I’ve seen some beautiful things, witnessed events and actions that brought me to my knees in joy. Despite what I think of the universe, I met you in it, so there has to be some amount of good floating through the cosmos.

There is some truth to mama’s definition of home, though she was wrong in calling it a place. No, home for me is where you are, wherever that happens to be. With you, I am safe.

Speaking Well: a teaser

This is something you can consider a teaser trailer for my forthcoming novel, Speaking Well about Things that Matter Together. All of this material will most likely stay in the final, published text, but I wanted to get everyone thinking about what is to come, what is still hiding in my head. Hope you enjoy!

 

The explosion of thoughts, like a bat to the head, woke her from her daydream, something about her mom and an old girlfriend—she couldn’t remember; she wasn’t really paying attention—and she began to examine the ceiling. It was popcorned—the ceiling (the way ceilings often are these days)—so she began wondering, not for the first time, why it was called popcorned; she could find no resemblance anywhere between the tiny white stalactites hanging above her and the buttery goodness that is popcorn. Still, it wasn’t the strangest name ever encountered by this observer of the English language (that’s actually what she called herself: an observer of the English language; see the above statement about popcorned ceilings).

That was as far as she could trace the origin of the name; yes, she had access to the internet, but using only knowledge individually available to her, not relying at all on the collective intelligence of her species (except for all of the knowledge she had already gleaned from her species’ interconnected web of ideas), this was the end of that journey. It was slightly depressing watching the credits roll on that idea, but that is the way of such things, fleeting; she knew the rules of thinking: each thought is here but for a moment and can be expanded upon by digging deeper, but there is a limit to the number of layers of said thought you inherently have access to.

Finding the final layer to any thought was always a sad affair for her, knowing that she would have to exert some amount of effort to drink deeper of the cup of this particular knowledge; she knew this thought wasn’t worth spending any more precious time on—oh, how many times she has put this plan into motion!—and would let it go, a pathetic game of catch and release. The trouble was, she was fishing wearing a blindfold. Sometimes, she could reel those suckers in, bring them right to her face, the ability to touch and smell and taste, but never see; other times, like right at that moment, the blindfold was lifted, and she was granted access to all of her senses again. Some might say this is a gift, a miracle, and others may say it is a damnable curse; where you fall on the spectrum of those options is really up to personal preference, now isn’t it?

Anyway, she had thought this thought before, had reached its inevitable conclusion several times in the past. Experiencing an idea of this banality for the second, third, or god help her, fourth time was tantamount to torture; she didn’t know how long the blindfold would be off. Any second could be the last that she still possessed this context of thought. Come to think of it, a blindfold might not be the best metaphor; it would be more like trying to fish while a movie is playing in your head, every scene running past your inner eye in crystal clear hi definition and every sound plugged directly into your ears. Sure, you can still cast the line and reel it in, you are still physically capable of performing those series of actions—and you know what, it’s something you enjoy doing, damnit!—but you are so very distracted by this running narrative that for all you know is fiction getting completely in the way of reality. Like, what the fuck, right?

She hated this cat and mouse game with lucidity, though cat and mouse had become far too tame a term to describe the brutal ass kicking she was receiving from insanity. Long gone are the days of Tom and Jerry, her mind constantly being able to outwit the slower manifestation of its own annihilation even if that manifestation was constantly attacking (though, she would have to confess to, at times, poking the bear so to speak); no, now she was in the era of Predator, the sci-fi lord of the hunt hot on her tail, and she still just a fucking mouse. Like, Arnold was able to take out that ugly motherfucker, but that’s fucking Arnie! How in the name of hell do you expect Jerry to survive against that kind of onslaught?

It’s not possible, if we’re being honest with ourselves, and she was being honest with herself. Even in these ever shrinking moments of being fully connected to reality, she would fall down the rabbit hole of thought, just letting synapses fire for the sake of firing, instead of trying to do something with his ever rarer coherence. She was acutely aware at times like these it didn’t actually matter what kinds of thoughts she chose to entertain because she wouldn’t remember those very thoughts shortly. At some point a shark would nibble on her line, yanking it, the pole it’s attached to, and the individual holding onto the pole, into the water. Then that shark will devour the tasty meal that’s just ever so kindly fallen into its waiting maw (yes, she is aware that sharks don’t really eat humans, but since this is one of the few thoughts she will get to enjoy for who knows how long, she’s going to let the Jaws fantasy happen). She smiled briefly, reveling but for a second in the brilliance of that shark attack comparison, knowing it was very apt to describe this disease in terms of consumption. Just like the shark not being as dangerous as once perceived, maybe dementia was just another carnivore eating to survive, sustaining itself on a diet of memories and conscious thought. Maybe someone would make a horrifying—for its time—film about dementia, only for humanity to do an about face just a generation later when we understand it better.

That was always her hope in those moments, that this illness would someday go the route of the boogeyman, evolving from a terrifying monster that parents tell their unruly children about at night and that makes audiences faint right there in the movie theater, to just another thing that exists in the world, a part of creation—neither good nor bad, just is—living for the sake of living like everything else is. She sometimes wondered if diseases had motivations, if they targeted certain individuals for a reason, or if they were mindless, machines with a narrowly focused impetus: consume, reproduce, colonize. Regardless of the true nature behind why sickness—whether bacterial or viral—behaves in the manner in which it does, she was convinced that humanity had evolved from illnesses. We weren’t the descendants of some ancient primates, no, we had been born of plague, something contagious and virulent, persistent and sustainable in almost any environment. After we had infected everything on the planet, after we had altered DNA and rewritten nature, we had decided to hunt the biggest prey of all: the planet itself. We occupied the very rock every other living thing had found a way to coexist with peacefully. If we were genetically related to things like dementia, the way she believed we were, our motivations could matter very little and we could be driven by the same inane impulses: consume, reproduce, colonize.

She imagined the first space colonists having these kinds of thoughts, looking out of their cockpits to see nothing but the everlasting emptiness that is the expanse of space, pondering on the very nature of their mission from the species wide implications of their actions and their history. It broke her old heart that he would never get to see the virus of humanity spread to the corners of the universe; she knew we would utterly devastate the whole of reality the more of it we find ourselves able to conquer, but what would being the first human launched into deep space be like, as far as thought progression and loneliness is concerned? She imagined it would be similar to having dementia. She imagined it would be like casting a fishing line into a deep part of the ocean, not sure if you were going to pull up a shark that would devour your consciousness or an interesting morsel of fact you could chew on for a few moments.

And so it went, she enjoying her briefer and briefer minutes of being awake, like a space explorer stranded to an eternal mission of hopefully landing on a planet that supports life and propagating. Too bad his female copilot was already dead and he was running dangerously low on fuel and other resources. He had been on his mission for so long without successfully locating a habitable planet that the craft built to sustain his life was beginning to fall apart, his mission coming closer and closer to an abrupt end. This mission could be considered a failure from that perspective, from the continuing march of the species, the spread of the disease, viewpoint. But that isn’t how he looked at it; no, instead he saw the culmination of all of his experiences as a rousing success. Sure, the woman that had been flying through the cosmos with him had expired, but what fun they had had landing on other planets inhospitable for sustained human existence or meeting new species and learning their customs and trades and generally finding odd shit throughout space. If she were one of the first space explorers, humanity would have invented a way to catalogue experiences such as those and quantify them; following the rules of this yet-to-be-discovered mathematical equation that values experience, her life would be considered well-lived. Maybe that would be a good thing in this far future, but then again, maybe it wouldn’t matter.

Her one regret that she struggled with in those moments where she was able to enjoy the tranquility of the deep ocean and the silence of deep space was that she had never recorded certain events and experiences from her life. She had told herself time and time again that she needed to write this story down or that she should have filmed this moment in history. Somebody, somewhere in the world, would have benefitted from getting to experience her story in some way. Maybe she should have written an autobiography or allowed any of the number of people interested in her life to write a biography, but neither of those things had occurred, and while she wasn’t exactly sad, she felt that the future of humanity would be missing her story. God, what an arrogant thought.

It didn’t really matter anyway, though. Any second, that shark would tear her from the boat and into the deep water, thrashing and biting and drowning her in subconscious thought. And then, at some point later in the future, she would come back to reality, remember that she is alone in this craft drifting through space, his partner gone and his rations running low, his mission reaching its lonely conclusion. She sighed, just once, looking back up at that damned popcorned ceiling (wishing all of a sudden she had actual popcorn to munch on), smelling that warm butter as if she were in the lobby of a theater, the bustling sounds of movie goers and theater employees droning incessantly about her ears. She couldn’t remember what movie she was there to see, but she knew it was something good, something thrilling and heart pounding because she could feel her pulse tighten even as she made her way to the front of the snack line to buy that popcorn, a snack that she so desperately craved all of a sudden. With one deep breath, she began to recall scant details about what she knows of the film she is about to see: something about a lone space traveler fishing for life forms in an asteroid field battling the space shark that has made that asteroid field its hunting grounds. Or maybe it was a character driven drama about long lost friends reuniting. Or it could be that monster one, the film so bloody and gory and gross that she could feel the bile rising in her throat alright. The best part is the theater was in 6-D, so she got to feel what the characters in the movie got to feel. She walked into the theater, bucket of popcorn under her arm, with a goofy smile plastered to her face, ready for whatever cinematic adventure she was about to go on.

And so it went, her moment of clarity devoured by the shark, his space traveler falling back into cryostasis or hypersleep or whatever. She would wake up again, come out of her movie theater, she knew.

There was coming a time when she wouldn’t, though.

 

***

 

She felt like she was in her forties, though she wasn’t sure why that was suddenly so important; she had always (Always: a concept that someone suffering from dementia has lost, sadly, as she could no longer remember what she had Always done) said that age was just a number, but right now, in this moment, how old she was was essential. Mid-forties, somewhere between forty-four and forty-seven, seemed about right, but narrowing it down any further than that was a task she found so difficult to complete.

“Answers without questions are just facts,” she stated to the near empty room. There was her bed in the center, with its machines and wires, a dresser to its right, a single window along the same wall as the dresser, and television on the wall opposite the bed. She didn’t know all of this, because laying how she was on that very bed, all she saw was the popcorned ceiling. While it still demanded her attention, she was too focused on her age to even entertain the thought of pursuing, once again, the ceiling. “And questions without answers are just frustrations.”

It was a sentiment she had long held, and even though she couldn’t remember saying it before, I can tell you with certainty that this was one of her core beliefs; she held it with conviction, Always wanting an answer to her every question, long before the parasite of dementia had lodged itself deep within her brain. She was right, about her age, even if she couldn’t find that answer when she most wanted it: she was forty-four years old.

Did finding out her age even really matter then? She knew that ultimately, it did not, that it should hold no significant weight on her ever shortening span of attention, that she should devote every second of lucidity, no matter how incomplete that lucidity was, to finding a solution to her mental problems. Even as the disease devoured her every waking moment, she held fast to the belief that she could will herself better, that dementia was no more a threat to her well-being than a common cold. She had battled far worse than this, after all, like that time she told herself to quit having the flu and her body had listened, or that time the adenovirus had stepped up to take her down, and she had told it to fuck right the hell off. There was not an illness strong enough to beat her, to really put her highly developed immune system to the test. This was just a setback, not being able to remember her age, something she could bounce back from.

She couldn’t remember this either, but she had Always bounced back.

“Then again,” she whispers to the ceiling, “Always slightly mispronounces hallways. It also echoes it.”

That was just a nonsensical thing to say, but in that moment, lying in bed, trying to find her age, it was exactly what she needed to hear. Since nobody else was in the room to offer her confusing sentences about words and their echoes, she’d just have to do it herself. Because she was a strong, independent woman. Of that she was certain, even if her exact age continued to win at their game of hide and seek.

She was so tired of Always having to seek, missing the days when she had tried to hide from her thoughts. It was Always a losing game, much the same that it was now; thoughts were just better at hiding and seeking than their creators. It was just their game, which didn’t really bother her, because she believed everything was good at something, even if that thing happened to be useless. Hide and seek wasn’t the most useful thing to be good at, but it also wasn’t the most useless. Man, she could remember an old friend who used to be really good at finding small amounts of weed, Always enough to make a bowl out of. Talk about a useless gift, right? At least being good at hide and seek, her thoughts were Always one step ahead of her.

There it was, the theme of this particular period in mental cohesion: Always. She had used it a total of twenty-eight times since the last time she couldn’t remember things (not including her age). Abandoning the quest for how many rotations she had around the Sun—she was sure, however, she would have a foolproof plan to tackle those bastards shortly—she began to wonder what was so important about Always, wandering down corridors of thought with a sense of adventure. No longer was she fishing, waiting for the nibble of the shark to become her death, no. She was venturing into the unknown, heading deep into her own head, trying to locate any and everything that might help in this fight against the disease. Somehow, in some way she couldn’t begin to fathom yet, Always was important to this investigation.

But why? Why was Always so integral to this fight? She rummaged through trunks and suitcases, left behind by her sane brain cells when dementia came to their neck of the woods, the thought of being devoured by this menace terrifying enough to leave behind scant belongings. Whenever she would get the opportunity to scavenge, she would usually find a few key puzzle pieces for how to win, even if she didn’t know how those pieces fit toget—Wait…

Yes! That was it! The pieces currently in her ruck were her biological sex, her general age down to the decade, her fondness for marijuana, and a sense of victory over illnesses throughout her life. Now she had the piece of Always, which when placed with others, pointed to her needing to figure out who she has Always been. She would need things like her name, her exact age down to the year, and important details from her life. No more random popcorned ceilings or fishing metaphors. She knew which thoughts to pursue! Since she had already began wondering about her age, it made logical sense to keep tugging at that particular thread.

“Hang on. There’s an easier place to start.”

She held her arm up to her eyes, eclipsing her view of the ceiling. It was white, like actually white, pale and near translucent.

“Okay, so I’m a vampire,” she quipped.

While not extremely important, she now knew the amount of melanin in her skin was very low. Race was a word that popped up into her head, but she dismissed it, seeing no correlation between a competition and this new knowledge. She filed her skin color away with her biological sex, feeling like these facts weren’t important parts of the puzzle she had Always been. They were good pieces to physically identify her, but that did nothing for who she actually was. Her age would help so much more, allowing her to pin point which historical moments had occurred while she was alive instead of the ones that happened long before she had begun existing. This is what having thoughts with no context was like, at least in her experience, but she knew she could do this, could slowly piece herself back together.

It would help if she either knew what year it was or the year in which she was born. Having the general age range helped not at all without one of those years. What other avenues were available to her to further this thought? Or was this as far as she could go without more information? She could turn the TV on, but that wouldn’t exactly help figure out what year it was or when she was born. Maybe the info screen about whatever was on could give her some of that information, but having to read would throw her mind into the blender and she would lose all of this progress. She remembered once enjoying reading, but now it was something she could only bear when she was trying to forget some newly learned piece of knowledge.

This was it then. Of all the years she could remember, none of them felt like the current year or the one in which she came tumbling out of her mom’s uterus. Hey, at least she still knew how birth worked, even if she couldn’t narrow her age down. A single year repeated itself several times, though, even if it was an answer that didn’t fit either of the questions she was asking: two thousand sixteen. She filed it away with her skin color and biological sex, figuring it might come in handy, but not holding her breath. Still fumbling with her thoughts, she didn’t hear the nurse walk into the room.

“And how are we this afternoon?” the newcomer asked, coming to check the machines next to the bed, making no move toward the lying woman at all. “Do you need anything?”

Yes! Yes, she needed all of her questions answered. But nothing about this person—from their short, black hair or brown eyes to their blue scrubs—gave the impression that they would have any answers at all. Unfortunately, she couldn’t conceive that the nurse had access to her blood type, her protein and enzyme levels, her fucking birthday. She knew the word nurse meant some sort of help (she had picked that up in her stay here, wherever here was), but she couldn’t remember what else nurses might know.

She just lay there, mouth slightly agape, pleading with god-knows-what color eyes for any kind of knowledge this nurse could offer. But she didn’t know which question to ask first, which one would end up being most important, which one would lead to figuring out who she had Always been the fastest. It was a moment of panic, one that almost ended in silent tears, as the nurse walked back towards the door. This was her only chance and she was blowing it, but she didn’t know how to not blow it!

“Wait!” she finally called, finding her voice somewhere in the weeds, just in time to make it known that she did in fact need some kind of help. The nurse looked hopeful, as if it were their sole mission to ease any discomfort she might have at any given moment. Maybe that was the rest of the definition of nurse, but that wasn’t a worry right now. She had to get one question answered. “Do you know how long ago the year 2016 was?”

“Of course,” the nurse answered. “It’s been twelve years. The current year is 2028.”

Her smile was the biggest the nurse had ever seen it.

 

***

 

The year was 2028! That would put her birth year somewhere between 1974 and 1977, which gave her some historical context for her life, couching her in a time period. Like, she now knew she should have some strong feelings about the fall of the Soviet Union, should likely know where she had been when Iron Curtain collapsed. Maybe she had been upset, maybe she had been elated, maybe she hadn’t cared in the slightest; she wasn’t quite sure what her thoughts had been about the implosion of communism had actually been, she just now knew she should feel something about it! The first names Samuel and Francis, surnames Fukuyama and Huntington, came to mind in regards to the USSR and its death, but she wasn’t sure why.

The important thing was, though, that she had another piece to the puzzle, another clue in her search for identity, in her search for what she had always been. There had clearly been a time before this room, before this bed, before this fucking popcorned ceiling, and even if she couldn’t access it yet, she now knew for certain that she had existed in that time. Was it frustrating that her history was nothing more than tattered pieces, and incomplete map that one fucking disease had ripped into verifiable shreds, feasting on the vital connections between moments that made human life in any way possible? Yeah, it was fucking frustrating! But in all her life, this life that she had very little context for, she knew that she had never faced an adversary like dementia.

The competition was thrilling!

It was readily apparent that the disease had the upper hand, was winning in this Predator vs. Jerry game of galactic hide and seek, but she didn’t care, refused to care. If the outcome was already decided, if ultimately dementia would win in the end, then she was going to play for keeps, ignoring any and all rules of engagement and going for whatever weak spot the disease gave up, exploiting whatever loopholes in the agreement between parasite and host she could find. If this was going to be a bloodbath that would leave her dead on the floor, then was going to cripple the disease, maim it beyond recognition, so that next time it picked a fight with a member of her species, it would remember the throttling it had received, how hard the kill had actually been to achieve.

She wanted to dementia to shudder when it considered going after a human.

Even with her near-total lack of clarity, she had read the board, knew that checkmate was something the disease would get to claim, that at this point, she was just staving off the inevitable, but she refused to give up. Dementia would have to earn each and every piece of hers that it struck down, each and every small victory costing the disease dearly. For every pawn of hers it took, she would take one of its, and she had already done so. Hopefully the disease will write its difficulty with her into its genetic code, a memory written in DNA about the hard fought battle she turned out to be.

Isn’t that just the way of evolution, an old, tired, worn out and outdated organism clinging to some semblance of relevance by fighting tooth and nail against whatever killer reality has cooked up to reap its soul? Dementia was supposed to kill her, was supposed to claim her life for its trophy, but what hunter wanted an easy hunt? None that she would ever respect, and she respected this adversary. If only the strongest organisms were supposed to survive, she would make damn sure the disease that took her life would have to be strongest possible disease nature could come up with.

She now knew when she was born, not to the exact date, but close enough that figuring out what she had always been should be easier. Should was always the operative word, huh?

It was while she was planning her next offensive against dementia, that the nurse walked in, checked her vitals, and walked back out. If she had looked, maybe she would have noticed that the nurse wore a different face today, but it wouldn’t have mattered much to her. As far as she could tell, the nurse always had a different face, one that didn’t like to stay still. She could respect that need for change, knowing that one look could be very boring. Not that she even noticed the nurse or anything.

The nurse, however, sure noticed her, this strange waif of a patient, a woman who had clearly been through some tough shit, though it wasn’t in her chart just what kind of shit. Maybe it wasn’t medically relevant, but the nurse desperately wanted to know just what kind of story the older woman had to tell, what kind of story she had lived. She had only been at the private, in-patient clinic for a few days, but something about this patient stood out as odd to her, and it wasn’t just the severity of her condition, not that her condition wasn’t debilitating. God, this nurse had seen patients live well into their hundreds without facing dementia as aggressively as this woman, and she was only forty five years old! Her curiosity had stopped her legs from moving as soon as she was out of the small room, standing right in the middle of the hallway.

“What has she said that has you so flummoxed you’re that still?” The question was bemused, the thick voice surrounding it amused and friendly. Dr. Turner knew just how fascinating, how distracting, this patient could be.

“I’m sorry, doctor,” the nurse responded when her voice returned from vacation. “She hasn’t said anything, but, well…”

“Trust me, I know, she’s interesting. When, or if, you ever get to hear her speak, listen, I mean really listen. She’s quite insightful when she’s lucid.”

Dr. Turner walked away, heading for either his office or another patient’s room. The nurse had not yet see him enter this patient’s room, the one he found so intriguing, so why did he speak about her with such reverence? What was it about her?

“Doctor!” she called, jogging to catch up with him. For a man of six feet, he had a long stride, the kind that covered great distances quickly. Maybe it was that stride that had allowed him to become such a renowned and respected neurosurgeon at such a young age; maybe his intellect was just as long as his gait. “Wait!”

“You have questions about 1408, yes?” he asked when she caught up to him, his brown eyes hidden behind glasses and another patient’s chart. It wasn’t that he wasn’t acknowledging her, he was just capable of reading a medical chart and carrying on a conversation at the same time. He had a tall mind after all.

“Yes sir, I do,” she said, knowing already his no bullshit policy. If a staff member had a question, they were free to ask, and if he didn’t have the answer, they would search for it together. That had been his stance on things since meeting the patient in room 1408.

“Come to my office then. There’s no point in standing on ceremony about this.”

They moved to his office, he settling himself behind his paper-strewn desk, her settling into the chairs usually reserved for grieving families hearing for the first time that their loved ones had passed away. The doctor gave his nurse the same look he gave those families, knowing that he was about to impart some depressing news. It always hurt, telling people this, but he had made a habit out of it, knowing that he owed Hunter that much. Unlocking his bottom desk drawer, he pulled out the manuscript, the one he had promised to publish to when its author passed away.

“You’ve read her chart, her file, I’m assuming?”

“Yes sir. A full, successful brain transplant…wow! Even with the side effect of dementia, that is so impressive! Think about all the possibilities, the applications!”

“I do, nurse…” he waited for her name, knowing it already, but wanting her to feel the weight of his authority. It wasn’t a power thing or a gender thing, just something he needed her to recognize before he could slide the manuscript over to her. He needed her to understand that even someone as noteworthy as he was, as accomplished as he was, could be humbled by this story.

“Simmons, sir,” she said.

“Nurse Simmons, the patient in room 1408 used to be a brilliant young man, who in 2011 suffered severe bodily trauma. We put his brain the body of a woman who had recently overdosed on heroin, because while she was brain-dead, her body still functioned. In five years, the only major side effect or complication was migraine headaches. In 2016, however, this brilliant young man trapped in a woman’s body stopped taking his immunosuppresants, and the body began to reject the brain. This rejection so closely mimics the effects of aggressive early onset dementia that we have been treating this patient as if they have that disease, but the truth is, the connections between his brain and her body are just deteriorating at a very slow rate.

“Before this person allowed their body to reject their brain, they wrote this. It’s the only story from their life that we actually have now, that they wrote, and it was written a month after they had stopped taking their medication. Some of the details within can be corroborated, but not all of them. If you really want to know about this patient, read through it. I promised them I would publish it after they had kicked the proverbial bucket—their words, not mine—so I try to share it with the nurses that work with her. And yes, figuring out which pronouns to use in regards to this patient, is maddening, which is why we don’t stick to any which ones. She’ll use whichever ones she feels like, so we just do the same.”

Nurse Simmons examined the manuscript before running her fingers over the bland title page. Speaking Well about Things that Matter Together it read, and she picked it up, nodding to the good doctor as she left his office, a silent promise to read through it.

Dr. Franklin Turner watched the new nurse leave the room, running his fingers across the bridge of his nose, the calloused tips providing just enough pressure to ease the headache as it settled in for the night. How many times was he going to do this, have to have this conversation, hand over that tattered fucking manuscript? This process was becoming unwieldy, encumbering, and downright old. He was tired, goddamnit, of having to do this every time a nurse quit, every time someone could no longer stomach to see that woman, the one who shouldn’t be! It was maddening hell on him, unrequited responsibility on his staff (especially the ones that could only hack it for a few weeks or months), and gut-wrenching on his patient.

“Are you sure want the world reading this story, Hunter, at least while you’re still sucking in air? Are you sure you want to keep doing this to yourself?” he asked to his empty office, the silence the only answer he would likely ever get.

The Dotted Line

The truth is, I hate wasps. It’s not that they frighten me or that their stings hurt all that badly (look, they hurt, but there are far worse pains lurking out there in reality, so count your blessings it was a wasp sting and not cancer or rape (unless you’re allergic, in which case, I am so sorry and my God have mercy on your soul)), or even that they can be a real nuisance, all swarming about, interrupting a perfectly good cigarette break. No, what I hate about wasps is a little stranger, a little deeper, and requires you, dear reader, to take what I’m about to say at face value, as literal.

I hate what poor negotiators wasps make.

Look, hear me out on this. If they could just accept that my existence doesn’t necessarily threaten them but that I am much larger, much stronger, much smarter and shouldn’t necessarily be fucked with, we could get along great. They can set up shop on my patio, doing whatever it really is that wasps do (this isn’t an opponent I’ve felt the need to do any amount of opposition research on, okay?), so long as they shoo when I need them to. If we, the wasps and I, could agree on that, we’d be friendly neighbors. Instead, they have declared war on me, without even trying to figure out what it is I might want! Sure, it’s in their best survival instinct to treat me as hostile, but it’s just going to lead to their eradication. They’ve picked a fight when they should have tried to negotiate. You see, they’re poor negotiators!

I would say that nicely gets us to where we need to be, just enough whimsy to keep you hooked, just enough truth to seduce you, just enough weird to strap you in. I’m good at this, like really good at this, and I really need you to know that up front. Okay, so now that we can safely start where we need to start, let’s begin. Take a seat if you need to, grab a drink, something strong if you feel the need, because I don’t pause much.

Mark Twain was only half right. He claimed that his profession was that of a professional liar, implying that the very profession of writing is that of lying. And, yeah, duh. But, writers are more than just liars that get paid to lie, at least some of us. Here’s what I mean: Twain is talking about a liar who is also a gentleman, a scoundrel with a heart of gold, someone like Malcolm Reynolds, the version of Han solo that didn’t shoot first. Yeah, those kind of writers exist, the kinds that you know up front are still going to treat you honorably, still abide by rules you are familiar with. Here’s the thing though: not all of us have agreed to lie honestly. A professor once told me that I shouldn’t actively try to obfuscate the truth to subvert readers’ expectations, that essentially I should lie honestly.

He’s wrong, Twain, and, coincidentally, my old professor; there is no gentleman’s agreement between writer and reader about how we handle our lies and our truths. And if you thought there was, I highly suggest you sit the fuck down and seriously consider what this relationship actually entails, the one between you, dear reader, and me.

There is still an agreement between us, some things we need to settle before we begin whatever fictional narrative of mine you have selected, and that is what we’re here to do. To begin, I am in fact a scoundrel, but I have no honor. I am the true version of Han Solo, the one who shot first, the one that takes no prisoners and sustains their existence on a mental calculation that often reduces humanity to objects. I am a thief and a murderer, a villain capable of unthinkable tortures and sufferings; my hands are stained with blood.

Think of me as Jigsaw, an architect of horrific designs and contraptions, except that my materials are words, nouns and most dangerously verbs, sentences and paragraphs, my hideous puzzles stories and essays and novels, enigmas that I want to see you solve, desperately want to see you solve. But I never said I was going to hand you the answers, that the key to that bear trap on your head wasn’t hidden somewhere you didn’t really want to go, and I can’t have you thinking that I agreed to that. Now, I don’t consider your wasted life (if, in fact, your life has been wasted) consent to the tortures I have planned for you. No, you have to make the choice to step into the hells I’ve put together for you. Buying one of my books, reading one of my stories or essays, is your explicit permission to me to put you, dear reader, through whatever mental anguish or emotional battering I can come up with. I don’t hold punches, and my gloves are lined with barbed wire, but you will survive the endeavor, maybe look back and enjoy what I did to you, or shudder at what horrors you were forced to endure.

I believe in fairness, though, in negotiation. The wasps couldn’t agree to my terms, so it’s war, regardless if they understand just what they’re going up against. You, dear reader, now have an inkling to what I’m capable of, of just how far I’ll go to thrill you, to make you think, all in the hopes that you’ll solve my riddles, in this battlefield you have agreed to meet me on. If you need to pace or take time to think or take a slug of strong drink, I understand. What I’m asking of you is a lot, and I’m not giving much up in return. You’re agreeing to enter a world I created, with rules I designed holding its reality together, rules you may have never been introduced to, that you may have no concept of, and all I’m promising is that you won’t be disappointed by going on the journey. I might not end up holding up my end of the arrangement in your eyes, and that’s just something we both will have to live with.

If you can agree to those terms, then we can begin. If you would, dear reader, please just sign on the dotted line.

Sand and Salt

The air was dry, arid, suffocating, the wind blowing sand and salt all about, small particles dancing on the breeze, trying to act nonthreatening. It was just an act, though, that dance, belying the true nature of this place. This desert is nothing more than a tomb, an open air grave, the quicksand a few yards in front of me bubbling with hunger. It knows that a meal is near, ready to metabolize the protein and calories hiding just under my skin.

With a deep inhale, sand and salt coating my lungs, I closed my eyes, her face smiling at me from her resting place on my eyelids. She only exists in song now, only lives in my memories. It should have been me, not her.

“It’s beautiful, no?” my guide asked, his own smile creeping out from under his hood. He was dressed in the traditional garb of his tribe, flowing robes that would protect his supple, hairless flesh from the harshness of the desert his people call home. “The living desert of the gods. How did you know of this place?”

“My father,” I answered, turning to regard my guide, my eyes staring between the peaks of my sheathed sword and bow. His brown eyes lit up, excitement pouring out of them.

“Was he a believer!?”

“Not in your gods, no. He believed in strong poetry and stronger drink. He used to sing about this place, his gravelly voice trying and failing to do it justice. It is beautiful.”

The desert was gorgeous, a lifeless place somehow emanating power and strength, the heat rising up from the quicksand like wavering glass, a mirage so tempting that over half of the pillars rising to the sky had been unintentional, a mistake that had cost many lives. How many weren’t accidents though? How many others had come here like me, like my father?

“Did your father ever get to see this place?”

The guide knew the rules of his people: outsiders weren’t allowed here. It was sacred, the desert of the gods, a place that only the faithful should see. A thick bag of gold can convince even the most pious of the tribe that an outsider has the requisite belief though. My own tithe had convinced my guide. How much had my father paid those many years ago?

“He did,” I answered, beginning to strip weapons and armor from my body. The guide looked on in astonished horror at my naked form when I had removed all garments, his eyes taking in my scars and tattoos, a story written on my flesh in pain and ink. I nodded my head at one of the pillars, its midsection distended, my father’s gut still so full of song and ale that even in the form of a salt pillar it could be seen. “That’s him. He walked out there some thirty winters ago, became a permanent fixture of the landscape.”

“He fed himself to the sand?” the guide asked, deep reverence weighing his words down.

“He did.”

I stared back at the sand and salt, knowing that it would be painful, knowing that it would hurt like hell to be calcified. I had met suffering before, though, on too many occasions. We had become fast friends, pain and I, so I had no problem meeting it here in the desert of the gods. It would be a fitting end to a life that had ultimately amounted to a fucking pile of nothing.

“That’s why you’re here isn’t it? To feed it?”

“Something like that.”

“I am sorry about your father, but I cannot allow you to walk out there, to feed yourself to the desert. You are not worthy. Please put your clothes back on before the sun makes murder of your skin so that we can leave this place respectfully.”

“Slayed a dragon once,” I responded, turning around again to face my guide, my back to the pillars, my flaccid penis the only thing he seemed interested in looking at. It was nothing impressive, my cock, but it had served its purpose. “The sun has nothing on a dragon’s breath. That fire will take the flesh right off your bones. You ever seen the distant star do that?”

“No, sir,” he answered, clearly in awe, wondering just what kind of man I had been to have gone toe to toe with a dragon and come back to tell the tale. That was a lifetime ago, back when they were all still alive, when she was still alive. I left that man buried in the haunted forest that took her from me, though I had crafted my armor out of the chitinous hide of the beast that had eaten half of her. It was more than just protection, a trophy I could wear, a reminder that I had failed her. “Was the dragon what gave you those scars on your back?”

It was hard not to smile, knowing this guide had become enthralled by my story; he wanted more, tales from a life that no longer existed. The smile was bittersweet, though, becoming more of a smirk as I turned back around, my nimble fingers tracing the deep gouges in my back, gashes that had been opened up by an impossibly sharp sword. Feeling the scars took me back to that prison, the lab she had saved me from somewhere in the middle of our careers. We hadn’t yet faced the dragon when the wizard had captured and tortured me.

“No. A wizard cloned me once. In order to escape, I had to fight and kill my doppelganger. He left me with these as a reminder of just how good a swordsman I truly am.”

It hadn’t been me that had killed me, but her. I was bleeding out on the stone, those slashes tearing into muscles I desperately needed just to hold a sword, let alone swing it with any force. She had arrived before my clone could take my head from my shoulders, her knives digging so deep into the back of his skull their tips ripped through his eyes. She had had to drag me out, carrying me to our party. That had been a good adventure.

“You’re an adventurer aren’t you?” my guide asked, not questioning the veracity of my answer, just wanting to know why I was here in the most holy of places to his people.

“I was, once upon a time. Now I’m just a man tired of this existence.”

He pulled a pipe from his robes, packing the exotic leaves down with fingers used to such motions. The smoke smelled sweet and hot, like sugar had been poured over a fire, as he drug. I missed the pipe, but had refrained for the last few weeks, needing to breathe easy to make this journey.

“Is that why you want to feed yourself to the sand?”

“I have the resurrection sickness,” I said, the confession needing to finally come out, needing to be heard by another human aside from myself and the healer who had told me there was nothing that could be done, outside of divine intervention. So I had traveled to the desert of the gods, not to plead for healing, but to die as my father had.

“Where?” the guide asked, familiar with my plight, likely one that had taken someone from him. The resurrection sickness was a random killer, taking any and all that it wanted, no motivation behind its violence. I had faced orcs and goblins, knights and wizards, whole armies comprised of nightmares that wanted nothing more than to rip me into too many bloody pieces, a godsdamned dragon and had survived. My own body wanted to do me in now. I pointed to my chest, touching where my lungs were hiding behind my rib cage.

“Too much pipeweed?” the guide asked, trying to put his pipe out lest he offend the dying man in front of him.

“Keep smoking, my friend, it doesn’t matter much to me anymore.”

We had been rich, her and I and them, the five of us amassing wealth other adventurers could only dream of. It had never been a glamorous career, the life of an adventurer, when your only income comes from ridding villages of pesky monsters or raiding ancient tombs and graves for whatever might be hiding in the darkness. That dragon’s hoard had been so full of treasure that we had been able to do anything. Much like my guide’s smoking, those untold riches we had accumulated, that only I could do anything with now that everyone else was in the dirt, mattered very little. He who dies with the most toys, after all, still dies.

One tear fell from my felt eye, its salty moisture evaporating almost immediately, never making it to the sand and salt at my feet. This was it, then, the end to my story, an end I had written too many winters ago. Would my pillar last as long my father’s? Or would I crumble to the dust below like countless others? Would I stand, a calcified curse, in direct defiance of time itself for eternity?

I turned back to my guide, grabbing his hooded head in my hands before he could voice protest, his pipe landing near his sandaled feet as he dropped it in his shock. Resting my forehead against his, I imparted the knowledge of the dead dragon’s lair, its location and all that it housed, letting the last of my magic out in that moment. We had opted for keeping our riches in that underground cave, knowing that it would be safer there than under the prying eyes and thieving hands of the city vaults.

“The treasure is yours and your village’s. Make better use of it than we did.”

With that, I walked out into the desert of the gods, the sand and salt digging into my feet until I reached the edge of the quicksand. A final wink is all I gave my guide before plunging into the bubbling goulash, feeding myself to the sand.

Accidental Arson

The door dinged once, a chime that was just background noise to most people, as she walked into the small coffee shop. Forty years ago, the place might have been described as a hole in the wall; now, however, it was just a shithole. Bare brick facades lined each wall, though she couldn’t be entirely sure they were in fact facades. The floor was naked concrete, cracked and paint-splattered, occupied my mismatched tables and misfit chairs. It wouldn’t be surprising if each piece of furniture in the joint had been pilfered from a landfill.

He was situated at a table to the back near the till, predatory eyes watching her from over the rim of his Styrofoam cup. The right side of her head was shaved, the hipster fashion that seemed to be a throwback to the days of Cowboys and Indians, but he couldn’t deny he found it hot. Her hair was red, not the bright color that only comes out of a box, but a natural red intermixed with blonde and brunette. The dress she wore was black and stopped at her knees, bright sunflowers dancing around its fabric. Wearing flats and high socks, she still stood at least six feet tall.

Of all the elements of her appearance, though, his gaze settled on her eyes. He could see the brown of her irises, a chocolate that could almost be described as warm if it weren’t for the set of her stare. Her eyes appeared bored, lazy, uncaring. It was a farce, he knew, a tactic to set an opponent on their heels. Hell, he had used it enough times on subjects of his own.

That gaze tried to set a fire in him. If he wasn’t here to eviscerate her, he would want to fuck her.

“All the wind blows and the angels sing,” he mumbled, the sound barely a breath escaping his mouth.

She moved towards his table with definitive purpose, her feet knowing exactly where the rest of her was headed. His dress shoes were scuffed, his slacks wrinkled, his tie eschew. There was a week old beard, more scruff than anything else, lining his jaw and cheeks, and his fingernails appeared chewed, wrapped around that coffee cup as they were.

If she didn’t already know what he looked like cleaned up, she would think this was his normal appearance. But it was just an illusion, an act meant to distract her, to catch her off guard. Maybe it worked on the other people he had interviewed.

“Paul I take it?” she greeted when she had reached his table, a bubbly inflection in her voice alerting him that the game had already begun.

“Yes ma’am,” he responded, keeping his ass firmly in its chair as he reached out to shake her hand. She had a firm grip, one of calluses and strength, one that betrayed nothing. “And you must be Holly…?”

He waited for several seconds for her to give him her last name as she settled herself into the chair opposite him, but the name wasn’t forthcoming. Clearing his throat once, he pulled a notepad and a pen from his inside jacket pocket. At the same time, she removed a manila folder from her oversized purse.

“Let’s start with the basics. Can I have your full name and where you’re from?”

Holly smiled, though bared her teeth would probably be a better phrase.

“Before I give you that information, information I know you already have, your paper wants to write a human interest piece about a small funeral home?”

“Something like that,” he answered. She could smell the lie wafting over his nicotine-stained teeth, like a politician’s backhanded promise. When she remained silent, he cleared his throat again. “Holly Michaels. You were born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, before moving to Texas twelve years ago. You attended the Dallas Institute of Funeral Service, and have worked in three funeral homes since graduating. Of course I know all of this already, but this interview would go smoother if you would answer the questions.”

“Oh, I’ll answer your questions. Just as soon as I understand why you want to interview me. I’m nothing special or newsworthy.”

“Yeah, well, don’t journalists get to decide what is newsworthy? Besides, special is a subjective term.”

“Maybe they do. And maybe special is subjective. But if it is, your definition of special and mine don’t have to coincide. So maybe you could explain why your paper finds me special.”

“We like to do pieces on professions that people seem to forget exist but are extremely important. After all, where would we be as a society without funeral homes and the morticians that work in them? Someone has to do something with the dead.”

Paul took a sip of coffee, grimacing at the cold bitterness that slid down his throat. Holly mulled over his answer, selecting her words carefully.

“Ask your questions then.”

He removed the cap of his pen, flipped to a new page in the pad, and looked back up, his grey eyes meeting her brown. He lost the staring contest.

“What made you want to pursue a career in mortuary science?”

She sighed once before answering, the puff of air clearing the cobwebs of memory from her head.

“I guess I was just that weird kid who poked dead things with a stick, wanted to have a closer look, was never freaked out about the idea of mortality. Got to see my first autopsy at fourteen, took a career aptitude test in high school and got funeral director, and had the opportunity to work in a funeral home at seventeen. Left home to go to school for it and that’s really it.”

His pen moved to the cadence of her words, writing each word down as if they mattered.

“Not exactly an exciting story,” she said when his writing had ceased.

“There you go again, using subjective terms as if they have any bearing on objective reality.”

“According to Kierkegaard, objective reality can only be experienced subjectively. So these subjective terms have a lot of bearing, don’t you think?”

“Never been a fan of existentialism,” Paul responded, licking the tip of his pen. “The idea that I’m to blame for where my life ends up regardless of what happens outside of my control is bullshit.”

“Whatever you say.”

He had no desire to stick with these fluff questions, but he had to ease into the accusatory ones. She seemed too sharp to be caught off guard by allegations, however, and he still had no clue what she was hiding in that folder. There was no way she knew, but it was enough of a reason to remain cautious.

“What does a typical day in a funeral home look like?”

“Well, it starts with a phone call that leads to a body. We pick the deceased up, take them back to the mortuary, and start the miles and miles of paperwork. Once all the necessary forms have been started, we set up a meeting with the family, if the deceased had a family, plan the service, finish the paperwork, get the permits, embalm or cremate the body, and have the service.”

“Sounds like you really do have this down to an exact science.”

“Every profession in human history has been boiled down to an exact science. You think caring for the dead would be any different?”

Paul chose not to take the bait, seeing the carnivorous twinkle in Holly’s eye, knowing she was holding something back. There really was no way she knew…did she?

“Do you ever wonder what kind of people they were in life?”

“Every time I see a body. It’s hard not to, you know? I’m sure you wonder about the people you interview, who they are outside of the scant moments you get to spend with them. The difference being you know those people are still out in the world, still living and doing things. The people I wonder about will never take another breath, will never see another sunrise, will never love or laugh or cry again.”

“That has to be a heavy burden to bear. How do you cope?”

“Actually, it isn’t that heavy. When I was in school, I got the opportunity to hold a human brain. In that moment I literally had someone’s thoughts, someone’s feelings, someone’s hopes and desires and fears, someone’s very consciousness in my hands. A brain is nothing more than an inert piece of grey matter. So even though in life that ten pound piece of flesh had housed everything that made that person a person, in death those things are gone. That experience really reinforced this idea that there is a disconnect between the body and the self for me. So I might wonder about who they were, but I know that their body doesn’t really contain that essence.”

“Does this disconnect between the body and the self that you discovered that day in school change any thoughts you had about violent acts?”

And there it was, the real reason for the interview, the real reason Paul had wanted to chat. She had wondered how long it would take him to finally get to it, like waiting for a guy to finally ask for her number when she knew that was the only reason he was talking to her.

“You want to know about the fire?”

There was no shock on her face, no indication that Holly was surprised by this line of questioning. Her brown eyes remained bored, lazy. Hungry. Paul could swear she smiled ever so slightly, a smile of terrible beauty usually reserved for the dead.

“Yes,” the journalist finally said after taking another swig of coffee, “I want to know about the fire.”

“The funeral home burned down, an accident caused by a candle left overnight and heavy curtains, a fire made worse by flammable embalming fluids.”

“You really expect me to believe that?” Paul asked, sitting forward in his chair, his eyes becoming granite, ready to land the killing blow. “I have a fire investigator’s report that indicates an accelerant was used.”

“You mean this report?” Holly asked, pulling the first sheet out of her folder and sliding it across the old table to the journalist. He perused it, his stare softening as he did. “You’ll notice there was no indication of an accelerant. The fire was an accident, an accident that cost me my job. How dare you accuse me of arson.

“But I’m not the first person you’ve accused of something they didn’t do.” She removed the next several sheets of paper from her folder. They were copies of sealed ethics investigations, pink slips from various publications for fabricating evidence, an indictment for extortion. There was no way…

“How did you get this?” Paul demanded, his teeth threatening to crack under the pressure of the truth. “This is bullshit!”

“No, this is your legacy. I had nothing to do with that fire. And if you try to publish anything that implicates me in anyway, these get published in every paper in the area. I’m surprised you haven’t been blacklisted already if I’m being honest.”

Holly’s eyes remained bored, lazy as she extricated herself from the table and the journalist still poring over the documents she had presented. She didn’t look back once as she left the coffee shop. He wouldn’t be the first, she knew; there would be other journalists and reporters, law enforcement officials and members of the public that had questions. It was sheer luck that the first person to dig into the fire had lacked journalistic integrity. The next one would be cleaner.

She was smart, though, would figure out a way to keep the arson secret for as long as she had to.

Last Night on Earth

“Is it just you here?” Kyle asked with a laugh as he walked into the apartment, six pack in one hand, cell phone in the other. Kyle always marveled at the place every time he set foot inside for several reasons. For one, he had to walk up a flight of stairs just to get to the front door of the two bed/two bath apartment. For two, one bedroom/bathroom was up another flight of stairs once he was inside. The design of the location just blew his mind.

“Aye!” Aaron answered, bouncing off the ratty sofa. Aaron was a big man, not overweight or anything, just large in a general sense of the word. He stood six foot four and weighed in at just under two hundred twenty pounds. Had his face not still looked like it belonged to a twelve year old, he would probably be intimidating. “Sarah and Matt are still at work. I borrowed Sarah’s keys from her earlier.”

“Borrowed?” Kyle was still laughing, not entirely surprised that Aaron would steal Sarah’s keys so he could hang out at her place. And in his defense, she had given them all permission to throw a small party at her apartment; it was not their fault they did not work when she did. “Will she be over at some point?”

Aaron shook his head, not in response to his friend’s question, but in acknowledgement of Kyle’s obnoxious crush. Kyle had that lovesick look in his eye every time Sarah was around, and Aaron was growing tired the other man’s obvious romantic feelings. It was probably in hopes of impressing the young woman that Kyle had elected to wear a fucking suit to a going-away party. Maybe if he had known that Aaron would only be breathing for a few more months that suit would have consisted of more than just a pair of grey jeans, a black button up, and a blazer that was a size too small.

How could anyone know that Aaron would get his face blown off by an IED in Afghanistan just eight months after this night, though?

“What do you got?” the big guy asked instead of answering Kyle’s probe of Sarah’s future whereabouts.

“Bud Light Platinum,” the smaller man answered, setting the six pack on the coffee table in front of the sofa. Aside from the couch—which was in dire need of deep cleaning—and the table—which was stained and scratched and losing its finish—the living room was bare. There had once been a high backed chair and a recliner as well as an old TV, but in order to pay his share of the rent in December, Matt had pawned all three, even though they actually belonged to Sarah. While Matt lived there, the place was definitely hers.

Neither Aaron nor Kyle minded the barrenness of the place. Somehow it fit, this emptiness, a good match for the stained carpet and the stale cigarette-smoke smell. The apartment was dingy and dirty and a little gross, yet they all still came over to hang out and drink too much shitty beer. They all fit in as much as the emptiness and stained carpet, these petty criminals and burnouts.

“When are Isaac and Glenn getting here?” Aaron asked when Kyle sat down next to him, grabbing a beer and officially starting the party. The four of them—Aaron, Glenn, Isaac, and Kyle—did life together, even though they had very little in common. They all spent their days doing different things, working different jobs, taking different classes, breaking different laws. But at least four nights out of every week, they were together, invading a booth at the IHOP on 35 and Main Street, drowning in cheap coffee and syrup for too many hours. Those moments full of pancakes and cigarettes somehow made up for all the other moments that separated them.

“Glenn is off work at nine, Isaac at ten. Looks like it’s just you and me for at least a few minutes.” Kyle also grabbed a beer, twisting off the cap, and clinking the bottle against Aaron’s. They drank in silence for a time, both young men pulling out different packs of cigarettes and lighting up their smokes almost in tandem.

The two men had known each other for years, the silence between them not awkward or forced. There just seemed to be no words worth saying, not yet. They finished their smokes and beers, each grabbing another bottle and continuing the process they had already begun. Someone knocked on the door as they were finishing beer number two.

“It’s open!” Aaron called, his voice a boom that did not at all match his face.

Glenn strolled in, using both hands to wipe the front of his shirt as he entered, his customary greeting. Nobody really knew why he did this, he just did.

“What’s good, gents?” he asked, grabbing a beer from the six pack and standing in front of the coffee table.

“Just waiting right now,” Kyle answered, looking up at his friend from his seat on the couch. Glenn still wore his work uniform: black pants, black shirt with the Pizza Hut logo, black apron tied around his waist.

“Sarah’s still at work,” Aaron went on to explain why it was just the two—now three—of them in her apartment.

“Bet Kyle’s a little upset at that.”

“Fuck off, man.”

“Called that shit.”

“Isaac still working?” Aaron asked, interrupting Glenn’s jeering, even though he had thought it was funny. Everybody found Kyle’s crush funny.

“Yeah, but he should be off soon. This the only beer we have?”

“Yes, sir,” Kyle answered, his defensive posture melting under the possibility of more to drink.

“We need more then,” Glenn stated, lighting up a menthol as he did. “There’s the Shell up 121.”

“Time to venture!” Aaron announced, jumping off the couch again. He put his hands on his hips, striking a heroic pose, and grinning like an idiot. The stance was like Glenn’s wiping the front of his shirt: just something he did. Kyle sighed as he stood up, acting aloof but excited for the adventure.

“We could stop by 8’s first, have a round really quick,” he offered, stretching as if he was tired. Both Glenn and Aaron liked the sound of that. The three of them left the apartment, Aaron using the pilfered keys to lock the door behind them as they left. Glenn reached for his own keys, intending to drive the party to the bar.

“Might as well walk, brother,” Aaron said as they bounded down the stairs. “It’s less than a block from here.”

“True…” Glenn answered as he considered their transportation options. Car keys in the one hand, emptiness in the other, he balanced each wordlessly, before agreeing with Aaron. The three of them walked out of the parking lot and hit the sidewalk going west on 121.

They were a motley bunch, the three young men who had known each other since boyhood, each dressed in a uniform unique to their own twisted sense of style. Glenn still dressed for work, not giving a shit that he was no longer delivering pizza, his long blonde hair whipping about in the February wind. Kyle in his pseudo-suit, once-blonde hair dyed black and slicked back, a poor man’s Christian Slater several inches shorter than his companions. Aaron, the tallest of the group, striding along the sidewalk in his cut-off jean shorts and faded blue t-shirt, his goofy smile giving him the appearance of a very large toddler. It took them less time to walk to 8’s than it would take Aaron to die of massive trauma in November of that year.

The bouncer there was required by law to check their IDs even though he personally knew each man was twenty-one. As usual, there were fewer than twenty patrons mingling inside of 8’s; it wasn’t exactly a popular bar, unless it was a tournament night.

“What can I get you boys?” the bartender asked, the same bartender who had gotten Kyle so trashed on his twenty-first birthday on Four Horsemen that Kyle had entered the woman’s restroom to vomit, the same bartender then entering the restroom to haul Kyle’s drunk ass out of the bar.

“Three Four Horsemen,” Kyle answered, sliding a crisp twenty dollar bill over the bar to the heavily-bearded man serving drinks. There was challenge in Kyle’s order, as if he knew the bartender would scoff at his newfound love of the drink that had fucked his shit so thoroughly up not eight months ago. “Jaeger variety.”

“Make mine the whiskey kind,” Glenn piped up before the bartender could pour the drinks.

“C’mon, you pussy,” Aaron sneered, his grin still affable as he shoved the smaller man in the back.

“What? I don’t like Jaeger.” Glenn had a tendency to get defensive about his drinking habits. This was when he still enjoyed a shot or two of whiskey, before he spent a majority of his time hiding deep in bottles of cheap vodka.

“Wait,” Glenn said before they drank, needing to follow their unspoken rule. “What is this for?”

“Here’s to swimming with bowlegged women,” Kyle answered immediately. The Jaws toast was always his go-to.

They drank, coughing as much as most twenty-one year olds do after downing hard liquor. Glenn ordered another shot, straight whiskey again, Aaron and Kyle declining a second round. So he drank alone, the other two joking and laughing. Had they known this was to be their last night together, maybe they would have taken Glenn up on the offer.

With that warm feeling in their bellies that only strong drink can provide, the three of them left 8’s, making for the Shell station that was just across the parking lot. Each lit up another cigarette, smoking their various degrees of lung cancer as they plodded along the dirt path that separated the bar from the gas station.

Kyle went and grabbed a case of Budweiser while Glenn and Aaron finished their smokes outside. Exiting the gas station with the beer in hand, their mission was almost complete. The trek back to Sarah’s took them half an hour.

“I have to pee!” Kyle yelled as they entered the apartment, stepping through the door and into the dining portion of the living room. There was a folding table up against the wall, a table they were going to use for beer pong very soon, and a door that led to Matt’s room just off the kitchen. Inside the room was a single mattress, several pairs of dirty jeans, and nothing else. The bathroom inside the bedroom was much dirtier, but Kyle chose to ignore the disgust he felt at living in such a manner. There was a knock on the door while he was in the bathroom.

Isaac was as tall as Aaron, though rail fucking thin. He weighed maybe a hundred fifty pounds and his Black Label Society t-shirt and basketball shorts hung loosely off his frame. In his hand was a bag full of bitch beer—Smirnoff Ice this time; he had not yet developed the stomach for actual beer. He was both the youngest and newest addition to the group. Whereas Glenn, Kyle, and Aaron had met fifteen years ago on a summer league swim team, Isaac had joined the now-foursome only a year and a half ago, a coworker of Glenn’s who had rounded out the group quite nicely. While others played guest roles often—Matt, Sarah, Brandt, even Kyle’s brother Simon—the group really consisted of the four of them. Glenn, Kyle, Aaron, and Isaac were the corners, the edges, the perimeter that housed all of the other people in their various lives. And now they were saying goodbye to one of those corners.

Nobody expected it to be a permanent farewell.

“Beer pong?” Glenn asked in everyone’s general direction.

“Bitch pong for Isaac,” Kyle responded. Aaron laughed and Isaac just scowled.

They unfolded the table and found the cups stashed away in the cabinets from the last time they had played over here. Kyle wondered if maybe they should clean the cups, but kept his concern to himself. The balls, thank god, were brand new, hiding out in Isaac’s bag of bitch beer. Since Isaac couldn’t drink real beer, it was agreed upon that they would play singles. Glenn and Kyle opted to go first, pouring two beers each spread out into ten red cups.

Beer pong has the potential to be the Monopoly of drinking games: it can take forever and friendships can be lost. Not the way the four of them played, however. Kyle’s and Glenn’s game was just half an hour long, and way too close for comfort in Glenn’s eyes. Both men ended play with a single cup left, but Glenn managed to sink his last shot. As the reigning champ, he had to stay at the table and play Aaron. The results were similar, Glenn winning again with two cups still on his side. Isaac stepped up then, pouring two Ices into his cups. During this third game, the front door of the apartment opened.

“Sarah!” Aaron called, wrapping his large arms around her and picking her up in a single motion before she could even say hi or put her purse down. Bear hugs were Aaron’s specialty and she just laughed through the whole ordeal.

“Glenn, Isaac, good to see you boys,” she greeted when Aaron had finally put her down. She smiled in Kyle’s direction, but stayed silent. His crush was not exactly hidden from her, and Sarah had left her flirtatious mood at work.

“Hey, Sarah,” Kyle said, not noticing her indifference, trying and failing to sound impressive. Had he known how this would eventually play out, would he have kept trying?

“Nice to see you too, Kyle,” Sarah answered, her smile dazzling him. Amazing what a smile can do to a boy still so new to manhood. She knew what her smile would stir in him, had known the last time she had bared her teeth in his direction. If she was aware that they would fuck in a month, that he would fall headlong in love with her, and she would not be able to reciprocate, that she would inadvertently hurt him, maybe she would have smiled in a less tempting way. Maybe.

The trouble with the future is that it is impossible to predict, impossible to know how to act so that the best possible world will one day exist. If they could know where their lives would end up—if Aaron knew that the Afghanistan desert was going to be his tomb, if Glenn knew that his penchant for binge drinking was going to lead to several stints in rehab, if Kyle knew his depression was going to eat him alive until he choked on the business end of a twelve gauge—would their last night together as a full group be spent playing beer pong or flirting with the wrong person?

The future tried to push itself into the present, tried to warn the four men, but was hamstrung by the rules that governed it.

Isaac’s and Glenn’s game ended with Isaac having to drink the four cups full of beer left on Glenn’s side of the table. Since beer and Isaac’s stomach still vehemently disagreed with each other, Glenn downed them all in victory. He was table champ that night, and nobody could take that glory from him!

“I got next,” Matt said, sliding the last two beers out of their cardboard prison. Glenn reset the table, visibly wobbling at the other side. Drunk would become his norm over the next several years, sobriety a suit he only bothered to put on when he needed to ask his parents for money. But that night, drunk looked good on him. He beat Matt like he had beat everybody else.

Too bad they were now out of beer.

As they all checked their phones for the time—surely it was not past midnight yet!—a silence came over the six of them in that apartment, one that laughter and jokes and flirtatious remarks could not shake. They all knew why they were there, drinking more than they usually did at this point in their lives on a Friday night: one of them was leaving. How do you say goodbye to a friend, to a brother, properly? Nobody had an answer to that question.

Earlier in the week, Aaron’s paperwork had officially gone through. He was leaving Sunday morning for basic training with the United States Army. Each person there was proud of their friend, each in their own way. Glenn had bought him a round on Wednesday, the two of them getting plastered at 8’s. Kyle had had dinner with him and his family on Tuesday night, reliving the glory days of high school over plates piled high with spaghetti. Isaac had taken him bowling just last night, Aaron drinking a pitcher of beer over those few games. And Sarah had offered her and Matt’s place for this very get together.

A get together that needed more alcohol before it descended into tears.

“Guys,” Glenn spoke up, his words as shaky as his stance, “I’m going to be sick.”

He tottered into Matt’s bathroom, leaving the rest of the group in the living and dining rooms. It would be hours before anybody saw Glenn again.

“Do you have any liquor?” Kyle asked, looking directly at Sarah. She just shook her head at the boy, before turning her gaze to Matt, raising her eyebrows in question.

“We did…until last night,” Matt said, looking down at the carpet instead of at anybody.

“For fuck’s sake, man, you knew we were getting together tonight!” Kyle again, throwing his arms up in frustration.

“Maybe you should have brought more beer!” Matt shoved his finger into Kyle’s chest. Everybody just sighed, sick of the macho bullshit the two of them seemed to secrete when they were around each other. The number of arguments that had escalated into fist fights was reaching a count close to thirty by this point.

“I thought other people would bring alcohol!”

“What if we call someone?” Isaac asked, his voice a tight sigh. He only really interjected to keep the two assholes from resorting to blows. “Anyone we know that might spot us a bottle?”

Everyone began to brainstorm, to think, of anyone they could contact who might have alcohol and be willing to share. Nobody, not a single person in the room, mentioned relocating the whole shindig to 8’s, even though the bar was still open. One could not accuse the group of always flexing its collective intellectual muscles.

“Bettencourt,” Kyle finally said. “Bettencourt probably has a bottle or two we could procure.”

“You’re going to call someone underage to try and hook you up with liquor?” Sarah asked, the sarcasm of her words so palpable it could almost be seen coming out of her mouth. “Tony mentioned something about throwing a party tonight…”

“That. Sign me up,” Matt said.

“That is a good idea,” Aaron began, rubbing his beardless chin and looking around. Both Isaac and Kyle were visibly scoffing at the idea, neither one really a social butterfly around people they did not know. “How about this: Kyle, you call John, see if he’ll spot us some liquor. If the answer is yes, you go get it and we’ll go to Tony’s while we wait. If answer is no, we all go to Tony’s now. Yay or nay?”

“Well, since Kyle’s already on the phone, I’d say that’s a yay,” Isaac answered when nobody else spoke up. “Though I want to amend your plan. I’ll go with Kyle to pick it up if Bettencourt can supply it.”

“Sounds good. And break!” Aaron intoned, putting his hand in the center of a non-existent hurdle and launching it ceiling-ward.

“Alright, I got us a bottle,” Kyle said some minutes later.

“Party time!” Aaron called, already moving towards the front door. Sarah and Matt followed behind, the three of them leaving the apartment before Kyle could explain any further.

“He said we could have it if I’d smoke with him,” he said to Isaac when the others had left. “I’m pretty buzzed, man, and haven’t smoked in about a year. You mind taking this one for me?”

Kyle knew that Isaac had only been high a handful of times in his life, but he had learned the hard way last New Year’s not to mix his marijuana with his liquor. The two were not peanut butter and chocolate in his opinion. Isaac remembered that particular party—who didn’t?—and considered his options.

“Are you good to drive right now?” he asked Kyle, needing to know before he could make this decision.

“No sir.”

“I am. I’ll drive us, I’ll smoke in your stead, and we’ll come back heroes.”

“To being heroes!”

“We should probably tell Glenn we’re leaving, huh?”

“It’s what heroes would do.”

They both poked their heads into the bathroom, where Glenn had removed all of his clothing except for his Dark Side of the Moon boxers. Kyle had seen his oldest friend strip nearly naked before when hugging the toilet and cracked up at it all over again. Isaac, on the other hand, had never seen this side of their drunk friend.

“What the hell, bro?” he asked over Kyle’s chuckling.

“I had to get comfortable!” Glenn slurred without raising his head off the floor. Both Kyle and Isaac wondered how dirty the floor was.

“We’re going to Bettencourt’s. Everyone else went to Tony’s. Just stay in the bathroom, man.”

Glenn raised his thumb in mute agreement.

John Bettencourt was a childhood friend of Kyle’s brother and lived just east of Sarah on 121. Pulling out of the parking lot, Kyle laughed at the fact that every location of the night was situated somewhere on 121, like this stretch of tarmac was the only road that mattered. Maybe it was.

“What’s good, man!?” Bettencourt boomed as he opened the door on Kyle and Isaac. A brief handshake turned into a hug as the two men entered the dump of an apartment. Trash was piled in almost every corner, some of it in bags, some of it just stacked, accidental modern art. Isaac would have called it “Millennial Man” if he could have placed it all in a museum.

“You remember Isaac, right?” Kyle asked, taking a seat at the small table just to the left of the door. The chairs around it were padded with scratchy wool, the kind of chairs that were popular in the 80s. John had probably pilfered them from some dumpster or off the side of the road. On the table rested a very large handle of Sailor Jerry Rum and a bong that had just been loaded.

“Yeah, man,” he answered, the slight giggle in his voice giving away the fact that he was really fucking stoned.

“Well, if it’s alright with you, he’s going to smoke for me. I’m pretty drunk at the moment and don’t feel like getting cross faded.”

“Yeah, that’s cool, I get it. It’s just we haven’t smoked together in a minute, man!”

“I know, I know. It’s been years, bro.”

John and Isaac both sat down, John flicking a Bic to life and ripping the bong like there was no tomorrow. In a sense, there was not a tomorrow, not for him. Every day of his adult life would look exactly like this one had, every night full of the same kind of bullshit this one was full of. He would bounce from dead end job to dead end job—smoking copious amounts of pot during each of these employment stints—well into his thirties. It is not that he would settle down and live the life of a family man or anything; he was just going to get fed up with it all, live in a deep-seated dissatisfaction, always wondering what kind of man he could have been.

But tonight, that future was still a fantasy, still unable to push itself through into the present. The only realities were the two men sitting at his table, bong and booze between them. He passed the bong over to Isaac.

“Man, the last time was that night at Hedrick, man. You remember that shit?” John was laughing now, the memory of his birthday three years ago something that always brought a smile to his worn face. At the age of twenty, laugh lines were already settling into wrinkles.

“Fuck! How could I forget that mess,” Kyle responded, laughing himself at the absurdity of that night.

Isaac was still trying to figure out the intricacies of the bong, not quite sure how to smoke out of it. His only experience with marijuana up to this point had been in the form of joints, so this contraption was like magic to him. After several seconds of quiet investigation, he put the lighter to the bowl and gave it a shot. It was not the best hit, but it was good enough for a novice such as him. Coughing and sputtering, he set the bong back on the table. No smoke came out of his mouth when he exhaled.

“Dude, let me show you how,” Kyle suddenly said, his frustration at Isaac’s pitiful attempt outweighing his desire not to be too fucked up, taking the bong and ripping it just as hard as John had, but slowly, so that Isaac could see just how to do it. He exhaled a ghost, one that would haunt the three of them for the next several minutes, before it dissipated into the ether. “Make sense?”

“I think so,” Isaac said with upraised eyebrows, taking the bong again and giving it another go. His exhale came out in a cough, this time a cloud of smoke erupting out of him.

“Oh, buddy!” John exclaimed.

“There it is!” Kyle joined in. “Now I gotta tell you a story, man.”

Nine times out of ten, Kyle’s stories began with “We were so high…” or “We were so drunk…” with the occasional “So I woke up in a puddle of my own vomit…” While the majority of these tales involved stupidity and illicit behavior, he definitely knew how to tell them. He was kind of the group’s storyteller, at least for the moment, and Isaac had loved listening to the way he told them, even if he had been present for the event that would become a story.

Looking back, this night is one of Isaac’s favorites, even if Kyle is no longer around to tell it.

“So, it was Bettencourt’s birthday, and it was about a month before school was starting up again. This was to be our last hurrah before the summer ended, before I had to stop smoking again for the season. It was John, Simon, Me, Mike, Caleb, Frank, and this cat I just met that night named Zeke. All of us wanted to smoke minus Caleb and Frank, and Zeke said he was just going to get second hand. Didn’t want to fuck up his voice, he said.

“Obviously we couldn’t smoke at John’s place: his parents were still around. So our brilliant asses decided we were going to shoot some hoops at Hedrick Middle School. At least, that’s what we told the parentals. We grabbed a ball, hopped in two cars—Caleb and Frank took Frank’s Mustang, the rest of us in my old Taurus—and headed out. Simon had a piece and a water bottle and constructed a bong for us. I totally miss the days of water bottle bongs.”

Kyle took a break from speaking to hit the actual bong. Isaac was clearly baked, his eyes bloodshot and his mouth twisted into the biggest smile. John was laughing quietly in his chair.

“We get to the middle school,” Kyle continued, his voice husky from the smoke, “and park right next to one of the portables. The car was facing the football field. Remember that; it’s important. Frank parked near the basketball court, and him and Caleb actually played for a few minutes. So I was in the driver’s seat, Bettencourt in the passenger, Mike behind me, Simon in the middle, and Zeke behind John. Simon got the thing together and loaded, and we started passing it around. We made it through one circle when Caleb came up to the car and gave us the basketball. Still not sure why he did that. As we were gearing up for the next round, John got hot. August in Texas, five dudes smoking in a car. It made sense. That is what saved our asses.

“I turned the ignition, blasting the AC. For some unknown reason, Zeke just happened to look up once the car was started, saying he saw a man walking towards the car. Every one of us turned where he was looking. Sure enough, here comes this motherfucker just waltzing right to us. All of us had the same thought, but only Simon vocalized it: is that a badge? I shit you not, this guy was a cop!”

Isaac spat out the hit he had just taken, smoke flying to every corner of the room. John’s only thought was gratitude that it was not liquid coming out of Isaac’s mouth.

“Now, remember that we’re facing the football field and that the car is on. Everyone is yelling drive, so I slam my foot on the brake pedal and John throws the car into drive. We all watch in a mix of horror and awe as the cop starts running, but not for us. He’s headed to his car which is parked where Frank and Caleb had been. This dude is expecting me to reverse and hit the street. That isn’t what we do at all, man!

“Before I gun it, Mike decides he’s going to bail. He also happens to be holding the fucking bong at this time. He throws his door open and makes it halfway out of the damn car before Simon grabs onto his belt and holds him in place. So as I hit the gas, Mike is only in the vehicle because Simon is holding onto him. He pours the bong water all over my brother as we hit the football field. I pop the curb off the field going like forty and Mike finally crawls back in and gets the fucking door closed. By the time the cop even gets to his car, we have hit the parking lot and make the street. My lights are off and we hit side streets, taking the most convoluted route to get back to Bettencourt’s. We get there, not having seen a single cop car or patrol light, turn off all the lights in the house and hide under the kitchen table.”

Isaac’s mouth is just agape, completely enthralled by Kyle’s story of escape. John is still laughing his ass off from across the table.

“Like an hour later, Caleb and Frank knock on the door. We have no fucking idea where they’ve been, but we’re convinced they’re just a decoy and that the cops are waiting for us outside. So we don’t open the door until they can convince us that there are no authorities with them. And that’s the story of how we outran the cops by driving on a middle school football field.”

“Holy fucking shit, dude!” Isaac’s words are more laughter than actual speech, but both John and Kyle are high enough to understand what he is trying to say. “That’s absolutely incredible!”

“Only time I’ve actually had to evade officers and it was goddamn terrifying. I never want to have to do it again. But it makes for a great story, huh?”

“The best story,” John pipes in, his smile contagious. The three of them devolve into stoned laughter and mirth for a solid ten minutes. Kyle gets up first, stretching and yawning like he has just woken up, Isaac on his feet shortly thereafter.

“You want a bag for the Sailor?” John asks, knowing the other two are about to leave.

“That would be great, man. Don’t want to get caught stoned and carrying a bottle of liquor I’ve gotten from a minor while in the company of another minor.”

John ran—well, walked a little faster than normal—to the kitchen, returning with a large Goody Goody Liquor sack. Placing the bottle inside, he handed the package to Kyle who held it with both hands in front of him. He and Isaac strolled out of the apartment, promising Bettencourt they would be back for more pot and stories, making their way quietly down the stairs so as not to wake the neighbors.

They never did end up going back, the shared bong and procured bottle of Sailor the last things Kyle or Isaac shared with John.

Silence was their aim as they meandered through the parking lot back to the Camry, Kyle looking down at his scuffed dress shoes hitting the cracked pavement the entire time. He figured if he looked down, he could not see other people. And if he could not see other people, they could not see him. It was a fool-proof plan to the baked mind of the twenty-one year old.

Reaching for the handle of the car once he had reached it, Kyle found the passenger’s side door locked. Finally raising his gaze from the ground, it took him more than a few seconds to realize Isaac was not with him. How had he lost such a tall motherfucker in the near empty parking lot? Panic that can only be brought on by too much bud told him Isaac was likely dead and he would be next, that there were snipers on the roofs and ninjas in the trees, and there was no escape. His only weapon was the bagged bottle of rum, but given the dire circumstance, he would have to make it work.

Just as he was raising the bottle out of the bag to slug any and all assailants, Isaac sauntered over. He looked so relaxed, which made no sense to the still paranoid Kyle.

“What the fuck, man?” Kyle whispered, though he wanted to yell. “Where did you go?”

“I had to take a piss,” his tall friend said. Now the serenity plastered on his face added up.

“Where did you piss? I thought you had died!”

“What!? No! I went behind the dumpster,” Isaac responded, using one of his freakishly long arms to point in the general direction of the fence-enclosed dumpster.

“Let me get this straight: you felt like taking a piss, outside and in public, while you are baked as fuck at one in the goddamn morning as your friend carries booze scored from somebody under age? Do I have that correct?”

“That about sums up the situation, yes.” Isaac had unlocked the car and was sliding behind the wheel.

“Might be the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever fucking heard,” Kyle said behind fits of quiet laughter as he put his seatbelt on. When he was done cracking up at another absurd night, he fished his phone out of his pocket, looking up Aaron’s number.

“We have the package. Headed back to HQ. Also, we baked as fuck.”

“Good shit! I’m headed in that direction and will meet you guys there.”

Phone conversations were usually that short between the four of them. Isaac and Kyle remained quiet on the way back, the reticence of the phone bleeding out into meat space. This was the hallmark of a good friendship, Isaac thought, not needing to talk but still feeling connected. This was how he felt while around these three men: connected. He belonged to this group and he liked belonging. The smile he wore was only partly because of how high he was as he pulled into the parking lot. Aaron was waiting at the base of Sarah’s stairs for them.

“Matt and Sarah wanted to stay at Tony’s, but I wanted to see my boys. And I knew you’d come through, you beautiful fuckers you!”

Aaron led the procession up the stairs and then into the apartment, Kyle sandwiched between him and Isaac, Isaac holding rear guard. The flat was just how they had left it: beer pong still set up; empty Budweiser cans spilling out of the small trashcan just outside the kitchen; Glenn still hiding in the bathroom.

“We’re going to have to rally him,” Aaron pointed out. He was trying to come up with some kind of plan, knowing how testy Glenn could get when he was hugging the toilet. Kyle had other ideas.

“PUKE AND RALLY!” he yelled as he stormed into the bathroom, not giving a shit about the time of night or how Glenn might actually be feeling.

“Puke and rally!!!” Glenn shouted back, jumping off the floor and charging into the living room in nothing but his boxers. “Oh…right.”

“Here you go, man,” Kyle said behind him, holding out his black pants. “We’ve brought the liquor! Bro shots!”

Aaron had already poured four generous shots of Sailor Jerry into mismatched shot glasses. Straight liquor still made Isaac queasy—something he would grow out of—but he knew he had no choice in accepting the drink. Someone had called bro shots after all.

“What’s this for? What’s this for?” Glenn was really antsy, clearly still drunk, but now a functioning member of the party again. Everyone kind of scratched their heads, looking first to Kyle, but when he just shrugged, they all clammed up.

“To brothers,” Isaac spoke up, not normally the one to dedicate their drinks. “The ones you’re born with. And the ones you choose.”

The boys all smiled, liking the toast and the sentiment. They pounded their shots, the rough rum ricocheting off their throats and landing with a thud into their already alcoholic stomachs. There were coughs and grimaces and “whooee”s as the young men dealt with the burn.

“Another round!” Aaron demanded after they had recovered. Kyle and Glenn agreed, but Isaac had to pass, his stomach needing a break. He was plenty drunk from his Smirnoff, plenty high from John’s pot, and was good where he was in terms of inebriation. But he watched with mild amusement as his friends, his brothers, poured the liquor down their gullets.

“I’m going to step outside,” Isaac said, something unknown pulling him from the living room and away from the group. It was the future dragging him outside, but he didn’t, couldn’t know that, the sudden melancholic ache in his chest foreign and frightening, a cold fist punching through his sternum and wrapping itself around his heart. All he really knew was that he needed fresh air.

Stepping back out into the early February morning, he gulped, needing the oxygen to burn through his high and drunk so that he could think. He needed to think, but he didn’t know about what. Call it fate or predestination or god or whatever, but the future needed him to think.

Isaac was the only one who was going to make it, the only member of the group who would survive adulthood in any meaningful way. The future had pushed its way into the present, finally ignoring all the rules that normally bound it, to provide this one moment of clarity to this one young man. He didn’t know why or how, but Isaac just knew that it would only be him, and standing under the crushing blackness of space outside Sarah’s apartment that realization was somehow comforting.

It was also isolating, but Isaac wasn’t granted any more than the knowledge that he’d succeed against all odds. He didn’t know what kind of loneliness that success would bring, didn’t know that his path would take him places his friends could not follow. The future could not show him Aaron’s death, an IED in the desert halfway around the world. It could not show him Kyle’s death, a shotgun in a shitty motel room and a suicide note with only two words written: forget me. It could not show him Glenn’s battle with substance abuse, the rehab facility in Arizona, or the open road he would turn to when he finally felt his addiction was behind him. It could not even show him how he would succeed, what kind of brilliant man he would become, just that he would in fact make a great name for himself.

Isaac’s shoulders slumped even as his breathing became easier. It was a bittersweet moment, this very clear knowledge that his life was going to be beautiful, and he was not totally sure how to handle it. This knowledge told him there would be no more stories from Kyle, no more absurd nights with Glenn, no more good advice from Aaron. There would be no more pancakes and cigarettes with his brothers.

The future had moved away from the present, unable to stay for very long. Just giving the young man the briefest of glimpses into what was to come was almost impossible. But it had done it. Isaac knew.

“Hey, man, you alright?” Aaron asked from the suddenly open doorway.

“Yeah,” Isaac answered. “Just thinking about this group’s last night on earth.”

“Jesus, dude, that’s melodramatic. I’ll be back after basic. And then there’s leave and shit.”

Aaron wrapped his arm around Isaac’s shoulder, leading his friend inside where more shots were waiting. That ache that the future had stirred in Isaac’s chest stopped throbbing and the present beckoned with the promise of a still wild night. Somebody had put on Bohemian Rhapsody and Glenn handed him another shot.

“To waking up still drunk instead of hungover!” Glenn cheered.

They all slammed the shots, Isaac savoring his, knowing it would be one of the last.

Coffins for Two

A long time, before any of us were born, a storm married a funeral. I’d like to think it was a beautiful ceremony, that lightning crashed in time with mourners’ wailings, that thunder boomed at the moment the body was lowered into the dirt. That the sky opened up, tears falling from the clouds as the deceased was laid to rest for the very first time. The couple gets together every time somebody dies it seems.

It’s not raining now, though, as they throw your body into the clay. There isn’t a single cloud in the sky, just the pale blue and the Texas heat. The rain is streaming down my cheeks, starting in my bloodshot eyes, falling to the cracked earth. It’s a poor substitute for the real thing.

Maybe they got a divorce, the storm and the funeral, or maybe they’re in couples’ therapy. Or maybe the storm knows no amount of thunder and lightning will be enough to do the sorrow of losing you justice. The heavens themselves could crash into the planet, a violent flood of the cosmos destroying this rock we call home, and it wouldn’t be enough.

The radar gives a one hundred percent chance of precipitation tonight, the kind of thunderstorm you deserve on the horizon. It won’t come from the sky, however, but the bottle. An amber flood, a symphonic hurricane composed of whiskey, the kind that can level cities and move mountains. The kind we used to sail through together.

Sunlight is beating me to a pulp as I watch everyone else walk away from your new grave. The bottle is in my car, seven hundred fifty milliliters of potent liquor that I intend to dive into later, the small ship of my body crashing into the ochre waves until it’s swept into and under the current. That near-future drowning has already been pushed out of my head, though.

All I can think right now is I wish they made coffins for two.

Owls in the Walls

The cab smelled, the way cabs often do. In the day of Uber and Lyft, it almost seems like a safe assumption that taxis would be interested in upping their game. Judging by the stench—an awkward mix of cheap wine, Lysol, and menthol that was somehow both subtle and pungent—it was clear they didn’t much care so long as passengers chose them. And Derek had picked the cab over his other options. After a flight that seemed to be made up of more hours than it actually was, he felt a little cheated. Was “smells pleasantly” too much to ask for?

“Where are you headed, sir?” the driver asked. He didn’t have a thick southern accent, but it was noticeable enough to the passenger.

“Denton. 626 Gabe Avenue,” Derek responded in a voice that was both bored and irritated. The cabbie just nodded and the passenger continued his trend of not speaking. He had said less than ten words on the plane and saw no point in adding to that count in the taxi.

He had been warned before leaving New York that Texas was under constant construction, but hadn’t considered what that reality looked like. Arriving at an unfinished airport and driving down a road that had half of its lanes closed gave him some insight into the stereotype about Texan drivers. Their aggression on the road made complete sense given all the orange cones and broken concrete.

The drive from DFW International Airport to Denton should have taken about half an hour, at least according to Google Maps. The trouble with that estimated time frame was that it only existed in an ideal of world of no traffic or stoplights or construction stops. Fifty four minutes after leaving the airport, the cab pulled up in front of the address.

“Comes out to $85.65,” the cabbie announced once he put the car in park. Derek reached into the back pocket of his slacks and removed a crisp hundred dollar bill. Before the driver could even offer change, Derek grabbed his briefcase and exited the vehicle, closing the door with a soft thud that left the cabbie no choice but to leave the premises.

Staring at the one story house, Derek let out a sigh, the kind of sigh only desperate men and women breathe out, the kind full of pent up anger and dissatisfaction. The details of the structure blurred into nothingness; the siding could have been lime fucking green and Derek wouldn’t even have noticed. He had looked at too many houses like this in his life for the particulars to make a lasting impression.

The front door would be locked. It always was by the time he showed up, but he always tried it just in case. Maybe one day some cop would fuck up and leave the damn place open so Derek could get to work without having to walk into a police station. The door didn’t budge as he turned the knob, so he fished the card he had been given out of his wallet and dialed the first number on it.

“Denton Police Department. If this is an emergency, please hang up and dial 911. How can I help you?” It was hard to tell if the voice on the line was coming from a flesh and blood mouth or if it was a recording.

“Sgt. Williams, please,” Derek responded, his voice still carrying the edge only tedium can create. He knew he should have been nicer, but it was too late for that.

“Can I ask who is calling before I transfer you?”

“Derek Francis.”

“One moment please.”

There was no static-infused music while he waited on hold, just a no-nonsense silence that he much preferred. It gave him time to think, though he had more than enough time for that in general. Thinking was all he did some days. Before he could fall completely into the rabbit hole of thought, the line clicked.

“Sgt. Williams. Who is this?” Derek had wanted the voice to be gruff, mean even, so the customer-service politeness of it was grating on his already frayed nerves.

“Derek Francis. I’m calling to inquire about the death of Marshall Mendoza. His publisher said you’d be expecting me.”

“Yes we did receive information that his publisher would be sending someone. How exactly can I help you, Mr. Francis?”

“Well, I’m outside the deceased’s residence and would like to get in and look around. If that wouldn’t be too much to ask.” Derek’s request was sickly sweet and he knew what kind of face Sgt. Williams was likely making. The police officer’s probable frustration brought a sort of smile to Derek’s face.

“Sir that is an open crime scene. I can’t grant a civilian access to it until it is closed.”

“Good thing I’m not just a civilian. Send the detective in charge of the case to the residence and they can review my credentials. Or I can contact your city’s DA and have this conversation with them.”

There was another silence, this one born out of subdued rage that just made Derek’s smile widen. The Sargent didn’t want to be told what to do or threatened, especially by an outsider. Cops were all the same no matter what city: proud and willing to fight for that pride. Derek got a kick out of it every time he had to deal with it.

“I’ll send somebody.” Click.

Derek took a seat on the porch, knowing there was little he could do outside of waiting. Actually, there was a lot he could do, a lot he should do, but he knew that for the moment at least he should operate within the confines of the law. There would be plenty of opportunities in the next few days for illicit behavior.

Ten minutes crawled by as he sat there. He had let his thoughts wander again, allowing them to graze in whatever pasture they found themselves in. None of them went too deep, and he was thankful for that. Deep thoughts were a distraction, and he didn’t feel like being distracted. A Denton Police cruiser pulled up to the curb in front of the house and two uniformed officers stepped out. When Derek stood up to greet them, they both placed hands on their side-arms.

“I know we’re deep in Trump country here, but you don’t have to draw your pistols just because a black man with dreads stands up,” he greeted, his words a savage joke. Part of him—the violent part that he rarely acknowledged—wanted them to draw, wanted the excuse to bleed them dry. As they approached, he pulled a manila folder out of his briefcase and held it out, ignoring the impulse to gut both officers. One of them took it, flipped it open, stared incredulously, and then handed its contents to his partner.

“Who…who are you?” the first officer asked after reading through the few pages in the file. They indicated that one, Derek Francis, had valid private investigation licenses for all fifty states as well as in Puerto Rico and Guam, that he had been deputized in fourteen states (including Texas) as an officer of the law at the state level, and that he was currently in the employ of a New York publishing house. What wasn’t in the file was Derek’s military career, his stint in the CIA, or those few years he worked for the Catholic Church as an investigator.

“I’m just a man on a case, something the two of you should understand. I am allowed into this residence, crime scene or not, and would appreciate one of you unlocking the door.”

The second officer concluded his review of Derek’s credentials, ending on the contract between him and the publishing house. The man was correct; he had jurisdiction here in his capacity as a hired investigator.

It was late in the day, about 7:45 PM, and the cloud-covered sky was beginning to darken. Night was falling as the two officers unlocked and opened the door for Derek Francis, who told them to leave, that he could manage from here. When both balked and tried to explain that that went against policy, he just smiled.

“Shove your policy up your collective ass and get the hell out of here. I’ll lock up and bring the keys back to the precinct when I’m done. I still have to speak with the detective in charge of this case. And since neither of you are that detective, scram!”

As with the cabbie, Derek didn’t give them a chance to argue. He just took the keys out of the door and closed it behind him in the officers’ faces. He just wasn’t in the mood to deal with that amount of bullshit, not when he already had an idea of what had happened here.

“Marshall Mendoza,” he whispered as he made his way into the house, surveying the sparsely-furnished living room with eyes well trained at surveying. “Two time national bestselling author currently working on your ninth novel. And now you’re dead, suicide according to the preliminary medical examination. Though we’re still waiting on the official autopsy. What are they going to find when they cut you open, I wonder.”

There was nothing of import in the living room, but that was to be expected. Mendoza probably never spent time in this part of the house, based solely on the amount of dust carpeting every surface. It was in the office, Derek knew, that he would likely find what he was looking for.

It was only a two bedroom house, so the search wasn’t going to take a terribly long time. Flipping on the light in the room closest to the living room, Derek stumbled into Mendoza’s bedroom. A bed, a table, and a dresser were all that occupied the space. The author probably did nothing but sleep there, and even that would be pushing it. Turning the light back out, Derek walked away.

The next room was the busiest in the house. It had a desk under the window, one that was crowded and crammed with books and notebooks and pens and several empty bottles of bottom shelf whiskey. There was a clearing in the center where a computer used to reside, but the cops had bagged it as evidence.

Beside the desk was a filing cabinet, also supporting books. Derek found nothing useful in either drawer, just some tax information, a couple of bills, and a receipt for new wallpaper aside from the dime-store novels stashed inside. Two of the walls were obscured by bookshelves, but there was no discernable order to them.

After rifling through everything in the room, Derek made his way back to the desk. He opened the singular drawer and upended it, spilling pens and paperclips and several more small books onto the floor. The bottom of the drawer was marred and scratched. Mendoza had taken an X-Acto knife to the particle board, scribbling just two words over and over again: the owls.

“So it is the owls again,” Derek mused as he examined the drawer. There were no other such scribblings on any other surface in the room, and Derek spent the next several hours checking them all. Mendoza had clearly been careful, at least in regards to the scratching. Derek would have to check the hard drive of his PC before he could be sure.

Before leaving, he popped his head into the bathroom. Mendoza had been found four days ago in his bathtub, both wrists slit according to the publisher. There had been no water in the tub when he was discovered. The tile floor was one large red-stain, Mendoza’s final story written in his own blood. He had left no note.

Derek inspected the restroom, taking extra care not to disturb the stain. There was nothing in the cabinets or the drawers, no towels or toiletries, and no more scratches. The walls looked new, even the parts coated in crimson, and Derek knew he would have to cut the new paper away and check underneath. Pulling a sharp knife from the inside pocket of his blazer, he stood on the toilet and began to slide the blade through the thick wallpaper. Removing roughly a square foot, he found what he had been looking for.

“There you are,” he sighed as he looked at the words scratched into the walls.

“Don’t let them out,” they read.

He’d have to replace the square, but it was almost two in the morning. He had had a long flight, a smelly cab ride, and had to deal with the arrogance of a college town’s police force. Rest or high doses of caffeine were in order. Stopping at the bathroom door, Derek growled and turned around. It wasn’t like him to half-ass anything.

Square of wallpaper replaced and both rooms in the shape he had found them, Derek walked out of the one-story house. His watch read 2:38 AM. Wave after wave of exhaustion broke on him in that instant, and he felt that he might drown under their pressure. Unfortunately, he still had a long walk to the police station ahead of him.

It took an hour to trudge from Mendoza’s house to Denton’s police department, an hour under the Texas stars and heat. Seeing stars did a little good for his nerves, but only a little, and he arrived at the station in much the same mood he had been in when he had to deal with two of Denton’s finest. Approaching the lone officer manning the front desk at this ungodly hour of the morning, he twirled the keys around his fingers.

“Marshall Mendoza’s house,” Derek proclaimed as he placed them on the desk. The officer took the keys and then looked at the investigator in an almost apologetic way, that lying form of pity people often invoke when they really don’t give a shit what happens to you.

“Derek Francis,” came a customer-service oriented voice from behind him, “you’re under arrest.” Another officer—likely one of the ones he had called racist—slapped bracelets on his wrists and led him away.

“Did you boys stay up all night just for me?” Derek mocked as they led him to one of three interrogation rooms. So much for getting any amount of rest tonight.

“Who are you?” Sgt. Williams demanded as he stormed through the door. His quiet voice didn’t really do the movement into the room justice. That voice was at odds with his large frame. “Who are you really?”

“Francis comma Derek,” Derek began, the irritation overtaking the boredom in his voice, “hired by the publisher of one, Marshall Mendoza, to collect a final manuscript. You confiscated my briefcase, so you already know as much.”

“We looked through your belongings. What the fuck does a publisher’s assistant need a sawed-off shotgun for!? Or a can of gasoline?”

“Really? You’re going to ask about a gun in Texas?”

“How did you get an illegal weapon on a plane?”

“Long story.”

“You aren’t going anywhere, so you might as start talking.”

“Seventy-two hours. That’s as long as you can hold me since you have no legal reason for arresting me. And you shouldn’t ask questions you don’t actually want the answers to.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it means: you won’t like the answers I give you. So quit asking me questions.”

“I will ask as many—”

Derek didn’t let him finish the statement.

“You will shut the fuck up and give me my phone call. And if you don’t, I’ll have your goddamn badge.”

Williams should have had some macho-man response ready to go, but something about the quiet way Derek made his demands shut him up. There was power in that voice, power that the Sargent didn’t understand or even really recognize. He escorted Derek to the phone bank.

“Let’s hope your city’s DA is awake already.”

The conversation was quick, tense, but subdued as if someone had wrapped the whole thing in cotton. After only a few seconds, Derek held the phone out to the Sargent.

“He’d like to speak with you.”

“Williams! Give this man access to whatever he fucking needs to access. If I have to come down there to ensure you don’t interfere with his investigation, I will!” Click.

Derek just held up his hands, still encased in handcuffs, with a sarcastic smile on his face.

“What do you need?” Williams asked, barely holding his ire back.

“I need to look through the files on Mr. Mendoza’s computer, which your department has impounded. I need to see his body. And I need a full autopsy performed on it in the next six hours.”

Sgt. Williams grabbed Derek’s arm as he tried to walk past, holding on tight.

“How?” was all he could ask, trying to grasp what gave this stranger such authority.

“Magic. Whole lotta magic.”

Derek made his way from the Sargent and over to the evidence room, looking not only for his belongings but those of Marshall Mendoza. Collecting his briefcase, wallet, and blazer, he also procured the author’s laptop and a thick stack of papers. He leafed through those quickly.

“Has anybody else looked at this?”

“It’s evidence. So yeah.”

“Sarcasm is unbecoming, son,” Derek said before turning to walk away. The clock on the wall read 5:16 AM.

The cop shop would soon be infested with personnel and Derek’s boredom was becoming panic. Something told him he wouldn’t have a few days to deal with the problem that was Mendoza; he’d be lucky if he had a few hours. He made his way back to the interrogation room, needing the quiet space to read and think. The Denton Police Department wouldn’t have much choice but to let him.

Settling himself into the hard-backed aluminum chair, Derek began reading through the thick stack of papers. It wasn’t the manuscript he had been hired to procure, but was in fact the reason he had agreed to this job in the first place. The only surprising thing about the pages was that they didn’t start like the rest; there was no build up, just insanity on paper from page one.

“They’re in the walls. They’re in the floors. They’re in my bones. They’re in my head.”

The pages went on like that, all sixty odd of them. Derek had seen this all before, the same frenetic writing about owls in places owls shouldn’t be, but never this concentrated. His first encounter had come courtesy of a painter four years ago. The artist’s words were less frantic as this author’s, but the content had been much the same: the owls were getting closer. That painter had swallowed a bullet, leaving behind nothing but a stack of pages and several grotesque paintings that may have been of owls.

Derek laid the pages aside, booting up Mendoza’s laptop. A year and half after the painter, a violinist turned up dead, strangled with one of her strings. The hardwood floor of her loft was scratched into oblivion, the words “the owls” taking up a majority of the space. She had also left several dozen pages detailing where the owls were.

The PC took its damn time getting logged in, and Derek was losing patience. The pattern fit, but he still didn’t know what that meant. Mendoza was number four, at least the fourth that Derek had seen, and he was no closer to an answer than when he first found that painter’s brain matter splattered all over the canvas. There had been a poet about a year ago, bled to death from a nick in the femoral artery, who left behind the same stack of pages, the same inane writing on the wall.

All three of the creatives had been deemed suicides. The first two had been cremated without autopsy. The poet, however, had been buried. It wasn’t the first grave Derek had robbed, but what he saw when he cut the young man’s chest open wasn’t right. That was the only way he had been able to describe his feelings of revulsion and terror at the lack of organs he found.

Before he could relive that night, the laptop finally stopped loading. Derek quickly poured over every file, looking for any reference to owls. There was none on the machine. Mendoza must have kept all the madness to the pages sitting next to the computer, the desk drawer, and the bathroom walls. That brought some small amount to relief to Derek as he read through the author’s most recent manuscript, the one he had been hired to collect, until he read the final chapter. Pulling a flash drive and a large magnet from his briefcase, Derek saved the manuscript to the drive (deleting the last chapter) before sliding the magnet over the computer’s hard drive. He would have to wait to light the pages up, but he could take some small solace in having wiped the PC.

It was closer to seven than to six when he left the interrogation room, looking for the morgue, both the wiped PC and the pages in his briefcase. His thoughts wanted to be free again, to dive deep this time, but he couldn’t let them, not right now. They would be much more than a distraction if he allowed them to wander.

The morgue was on the other side of the building, down two flights of stairs, one of the few basements anyone would find in Texas. Nobody sat at the desk in front of the double doors, so Derek just pushed them open, needing his answers now. A medical examiner was drinking coffee when he barged in.

“Can I help you?” the young-ish woman asked.

“I need a full autopsy done on Marshall Mendoza and I need it done now.”

“Ah, yes, you’re the one Sgt. Williams mentioned.”

“That’d be me. Can you get on with it?”

“A bit pushy, aren’t we?”

“Just in a hurry.”

“Sir, you can’t be in here for an autopsy.”

“Do you have an observation room?”

The ME couldn’t tell if the stranger was kidding or not. An observation room? At the morgue? When Derek didn’t flash a smile or start to chuckle, she knew he was serious. Dead serious. It was hard not to laugh at her own private joke, but staring at the face carved out of stone staring down at her, she kept her mirth to herself.

“We don’t. You can wait outside if you like.”

“I’ll be right outside the doors.”

Derek stalked back out of the morgue, taking a seat at the unoccupied desk. If a guard or officer was supposed to be posted here, fuck them. He needed to be close. Running his hands through his thick hair, Derek tried to take several steadying breaths. He had been in Denton less than a day, and the pattern was holding, but that didn’t mean a hell of a lot. Here was another creative loner rambling about owls before offing himself. If the medical examiner found what he expected her to find…

A thorough autopsy can take several hours, but Derek knew this wouldn’t be a thorough autopsy. She would find in Mendoza’s chest what he had found in the chest of the poet. And then what?

“Fuck!” he whispered, his voice shaking, with fear or exhaustion he couldn’t tell.

All it took was an hour before the ME opened the door, her smock almost crisp, bone saw still in her hands.

“What…what is…what is it?” she faltered, but Derek had already brushed past her and into the morgue. Mendoza’s body was on the first slab, his chest cavity open but far from inviting. Derek’s heart began to pound and thump, louder and louder, until the cadence was the only thing he could hear.

There were no organs inside Mendoza’s chest, no blood or viscera, and no visible spine. The top of the dead author’s rib cage and sternum were laid on the table next to him, but they were the only real indication that what Derek was looking at was in fact a human body. Inside was black, blacker than black, a void so deep it hurt just to look at. Derek pulled the overhang light down and angled it just right to see what he was looking for. Within that void was a maze, walls and tunnels that probably circulated throughout all of Mendoza’s body. It cascaded down, traversed far past where the body’s back should have stopped it. Derek reached his hand inside, felt the cold of the abyss and the coarseness of whatever the walls were composed of before backing out of the morgue as calmly as possible.

“That isn’t a goddamn body! What the fuck is it?!” The ME was in hysterics as Derek exited the morgue, but he had no words with which to comfort her.

“Burn it,” he said between her bouts of screaming. “Burn it now. And if anyone asks, I told you to cremate the remains. Do not tell anyone what you saw.”

He didn’t wait for her to comply, just turned and walked away. Derek didn’t stop by the evidence room or to say goodbye to Sgt. Williams. He just walked out of the precinct and into the early morning Texas heat. Same pattern, same fucking words, same fucking maze. Before he could let the implications set in, he fished his phone out of his pocket and dialed his current employer’s number.

“I have the manuscript and need a flight back to New York,” was all he said, the boredom back in his voice.

“Very good! We’ll email you the flight details. You really do—” Click.

Derek wasn’t interested in hearing the rest of the compliment. His thoughts had settled onto the final words of the author’s soon-to-be-posthumously-published book, the words he had deleted, the words he had read in the poet’s last poem, in the journal of the violinist, in the last painting of the painter. Words that Derek could now hear scratching at the inside of his skull.

Don’t forget there are owls in the walls.

Weekend Warrior

It’s hot out, the way August in Texas tends to be, with very little moisture. The air above the grey cement is wet, a wavy mirage on the edge of the horizon. There’s but one cloud in the too-blue sky; it must not have gotten the no-work-today memo.

The gasoline fumes are almost as oppressive as the heat, but almost really has no bearing on reality, not unless we’re talking horseshoes or hand grenades, and right now we’re just talking the heat. The high today is supposed to be 107 degrees Fahrenheit, but for the time being the temperature is hovering just over 100. Once it’s over around 98 degrees, does it really matter how hot it is? It’s going to unpleasant outside regardless of your choice of clothing.

Looking at the man who’s just dismounted a motorcycle in front of one of the two pumps at the small gas station, you could easily describe his choice in clothing as inappropriate for this weather. His leather jacket is zipped up to his chin, the exposed flesh of his neck protected by a thick, brown beard. His jeans are torn at the knees and faded nearly white, or maybe they had been white originally and faded almost-blue after so many washes with darker pairs. It was impossible to tell. His aviators sat on his crooked nose in a bent-out-of-shape way that allowed both mirrored lenses to cover his eyes. His boots were scuffed and brown, probably of the working-man’s variety and not the chic motorcycle style that guys who have never ridden like to wear. Because of the cut of his jeans, though, you couldn’t be sure just what kind of boots they were.

He pulled a wallet out of the back pocket with his right hand; he placed the left arm protectively around his torso, mimicking how wearing a sling might impact its movement. Jumping through all the necessary hoops of paying for gas with a credit card, he turned away from the pump again to remove the cap from the gas tank of the bike. It was green, the gas tank, and not exactly clean. There was a layer of dust relaxing on top of the green paint, and the body of a mosquito unfortunate enough not to have gotten out of the way was smeared down the clutch side. With the gas cap removed, he pressed the middle-octane button and pulled the hose from the pump, placing the nozzle over the open gas tank. As he did, a white SUV pulled into the gas station, taking the only other available pump.

Wes—the biker now watching the driver of the SUV—didn’t start the process of filling his motorcycle with needed gas. Left arm still curled around his chest, he recognized the look of the middle-aged man now exiting the large vehicle. It was a look of joy, of friendship, of comradery.

“She’s a beaut!” the man called out to Wes, even though they were standing less than five feet from each other.

“Thanks,” Wes growled, turning back to the task at hand, not wanting to have this particular conversation.

“What size is she?” the man persisted.

Wes changed position again, still holding the nozzle without pouring anything. The man was bald though he hadn’t accepted it yet, still allowing what was left of his greying hair to halo around his head. Wes knew his own hair was thinning, but had promised himself he would never let himself do what the SUV owner had done. He had promised himself a lot of things, though, promises he had been unable to keep. That thought awakened his left shoulder, the pain going from a dull ache to sharp and hot.

“750,” he answered in his same non-conversational tone. This time he poured the gas, looking down to make sure he didn’t overfill the tank.

“Nice! A little hot to be riding, though, isn’t it?”

This was the part of the conversation Wes didn’t want to be a part of. The older man would say he owns a Harley, some custom built monstrosity that had cost him a pretty penny, that his wife hated it. He’d go on to say that he rode most weekends between the months of April and September, provided it wasn’t raining or too hot, and that there was nothing like it. The brotherhood of the bike some riders called it, this pseudo-friendship that every person on a motorcycle claimed to believe in.

Wes thought it was bullshit.

“Not all of us have air-conditioned vehicles,” he replied, his voice sharp and quiet, somehow both a whisper and a yell. He resumed putting gas into the tank.

“Well there’s still nothing like it!” the man replied cheerily.

A love of the open road from the back of a steel horse was the only thing the two of them even remotely had in common, this full-time biker and this weekend warrior. Wes’s smile was cheap and sarcastic as he considered the man’s words, knowing that the SUV owner had no real concept of the road, probably had no real concept of freedom. He shut the nozzle off when his tank was full, the four gallons costing him less than ten dollars.

“Yeah, I own a Harley,” the older man continued, even though Wes had given no indication he cared. “An old school Fat Boy if you can believe it.”

“I can believe it.”

Wes wanted to hit the road again, continue this cathartic ride through the blistering heat, but his shoulder hurt too much to allow him to work the clutch. He was stuck in the shade of this gas station until he could trust the injured limb to not give out on the road. Hopefully the other man would leave him be soon.

“You been riding long?”

Silence was too much to ask for apparently.

“About a decade now.”

“Very cool! I’ve only been riding for about two years, but I just absolutely love it.”

“Most people do.”

“Let me ask you: what do you do if it’s raining?”

“I stay in or I walk. Or I ride. Don’t have much choice.”

“That’s dedication, brother.”

“It’s life.”

The nozzle clicked, indicating the SUV was full, and the older man replaced the hose at the pump. Maybe he would drive away now, taking his too-clean vehicle and his purse-lipped wife in the front seat with him. That would require luck Wes just didn’t possess. See the gunshot wound in his left shoulder.

“Well, the Misses and I are going to grab a quick bite to eat inside. Why don’t you join us?”

A sigh was Wes’s first response, one full of annoyance and guilt. The older man didn’t wait for more of an answer, just hopped behind the wheel and pulled into a parking spot in front of the station. That was when Wes noticed the Trump/Pence bumper sticker on the back of the SUV. His shoulder burned all the deeper staring at it.

“Sure,” he breathed, the heat of the day masking his growing anger.

“Do you mind if I ask about your arm?” the older man asked as he got out of his vehicle, his wife’s door shutting about the same as his question landed in Wes’s ear.

“I got shot a month ago,” the biker answered, wanting to vent the truth on this fucking piece of suburban trash.

“Shot!?”

“Did I stutter?” Wes had taken a step forward, the toes of his boots touching the older man’s boat shoes, his mirrored lenses providing no emotion for the SUV owner to discern. “Am I making you uncomfortable?”

“Y-yes,” the older man said, his face visibly paler than it had been a moment ago.

“I apologize,” Wes mocked, using his right hand to remove his sunglasses, his brown eyes glaring down into the older man’s blue. “But I’d like to tell you a quick story if you don’t mind.”

The older man didn’t respond and Wes didn’t back off, though the man’s wife was now watching the exchange, her own facial expression neutral behind her bug-lens sunglasses.

“I was at a bar with some friends of mine a month ago, just a typical night out. We were laughing, we were drinking, we were having a great time. Now, one of my friends—Tanner—is gay. Not exactly an important detail, but it’s necessary for this story. You following so far?”

The owner of the SUV nodded.

“Good. This friend of mine, you see, went back inside to get himself another drink. We didn’t think anything of it. Except ten minutes go by and he still hasn’t returned. We give it another five minutes, and Tanner comes stumbling back outside holding one side of his face. He gets to the table and has one nasty bruise forming over his right eye. His bottom lip is split. Looking back to the bar, we all see three guys pissing themselves laughing. Do I strike you as the kind of person who sits back while something like that goes on?”

“N-no.”

“I’m not. So I stroll over, all casual like. I intend to be cordial, but as I approach I notice the goddamn SS bolts on one of the bastards’ necks. He’s fucking proud of himself, and my eyes get real hard and real mean. You do know what SS bolts are, don’t you? Where they come from? What they mean?”

“I don’t kn-know.”

Grabbing the older man’s shirt with his right hand, taking pains not to dislodge his left arm, Wes dragged the man to the back of his car, only letting him go to point at the bumper sticker.

“Your boys there made skinheads and other pieces of Nazi shit think it’s okay to walk around in public brandishing their racism and homophobia. So you should know what SS bolts are.

“Now, my fists are clenched tight when I get to these three guys still laughing their asses off. It’s really easy to figure out which one actually hit Tanner—he’s got blood on his knuckles. So I swing for him first. Since the idiots are standing in the doorway, it’s easy to hit one without getting surrounded. He goes down, hard, and I’m smiling now because it’s been too long since I’ve caved some fucker’s face in. But I got him in the sweet spot, right where the jaw connects to the rest of the skull, and he’s out.

“The other two don’t take too kindly to this, and the asshole with the SS bolts charges at me. Lowering my shoulder, it isn’t hard to flip him over. I crushed his windpipe with my boot. He’s still in the hospital, breathing out of an artificial lung.”

The man’s wife has been yelling since Wes hauled him to behind the SUV, but there’s nobody else at the gas station aside from the pimply high schooler working the register. No way that kid is coming outside to deal with this, and even if he did, one look at Wes and he’d turn tail and run.

“It’s this third guy that proves the entire group is cowardly. Attacking Tanner with fists is one thing; they assumed he wouldn’t put up a fight, and even if he did, three against one are terrible odds. Tanner was smart to walk away. Me…I’ve never been too bright. This third guy though pulls a goddamn piece, his hand shaking like some Parkinson’s ridden patient. Even if he pulls the trigger, it isn’t going to be a very precise or accurate shot. I’m still smiling as he backs farther into the bar, people screaming that he’s got a gun.

“Something inside spooks him, because he turns his attention away from his two dropped friends and me. So I do what any badass in this situation would do: I charge. His wits come back a little too late and he squeezes once, that single shot tearing a hole through my shoulder. It isn’t enough to stop my inertia, though, and I barrel through him, taking him right to the ground, removing most of his teeth with my right hand.

“As you would expect, the cops get called. Here’s my biggest issue with conservative fucks such as yourself: you think you have a right to kill others in self-defense. This guy thought that also, after he had assaulted my friend, after he had seen me beat the ever loving shit out of his. Apparently, according to you assholes, if you’re losing a fight you have a right to pull a fucking trigger. My warning would be make sure that shot kills whoever has been kicking your ass.”

Wes hauls the older man up and throws him into the back windshield of the SUV, all with one arm. It’s obvious that the biker is enjoying himself, his smile full and genuine. He puts his sunglasses back on.

“The four of us get arrested, though all three of them are taken to the hospital instead of jail. Even though I have a bullet wound in my shoulder, I get placed in holding first. The coward with the gun did claim self-defense through his ruined mouth as they gurneyed him into the ambulance. After two hours in jail, where they got my statement, they took me to the hospital. I honestly expected a trial and a prison sentence.

“They took everyone’s statements though: the three Nazi fucks’; mine; Tanner’s and the rest of our friends’; bar goers’; even the bartenders’. After they get all of that information, guess who gets to walk free with no criminal charges pending or filed?”

“Y-y-you?” the older man sobs.

“Damn right,” Wes seethes, his teeth clenched and his breath hot. “Turns out your little friends don’t have a god given right to blow holes in others just because they’re losing a fight.”

Wes lets the older man go, flips off his still screaming wife, and walks back to his motorcycle. Weekend warriors are not true bikers, not in his mind. They wouldn’t be willing to take a bullet for a friend or for what they believe in.

“So long as that bumper sticker is still on your SUV,” Wes called back after his bike is started, “you’re no better than those assholes I put in the hospital.”

Finally straightening his left arm out, Wes pulled the clutch in before gunning the throttle. Hitting the concrete street harder than he hit those Nazis, Wes aimed to become part of the mirage the heat had created.

College Girls

College bars are always full of college girls. Bunch of sorority sisters coming in to drink appletinis and talk about the quarterback’s muscles. Always so loud, yelling for shots even though they can’t hold their liquor. Always running around in skimpy clothing, announcing to the world that daddy didn’t love them enough. Eventually crying, because they’re such good friends and they can’t imagine life without each other. And the sad part is they’re hot. Sure, in a typical-bleach-blonde-fake-tits-too-much-make-up sort of way. But still hot. They are hot girls. Emphasis on the word girls.

I was having one of those deep, introspective moments that only too much alcohol can create when that thought hit me. Men drool over children. Yes, they are legally adults. But as far as maturity goes, they are no older than twelve. This probably wasn’t the first time I had this particular thought. But watching those girls try to drink, hearing them scream and shout, just made me sick. Or maybe that was the amount of dark beer swimming in my stomach. Seriously, it’s like trying to eat a whole loaf of bread in one sitting when you down eight or nine Guinesses.

It was during this inner monologue regarding the problems of attraction and what society sees as attractive that she walked in. She was gorgeous. Not hot like the sorority girls. But gorgeous. She didn’t look like she was starving, had a little meat on her bones. She was curvaceous in a natural way, but she didn’t try to flaunt it. Her dark jeans were tight, but they covered her entire legs. She showed cleavage, but not an obscene amount. She had the right amount of make-up on, just enough to accentuate her natural beauty. She truly was breathtaking.

This woman—you couldn’t call her a girl—walked up to the bar with authority. By the way she carried herself, it appeared that she was used to guys (and probably a fair amount of girls) fawning all over her. And watching her standing there, next to those stupid fucking college girls, you could just tell she knew she was better. The group of obnoxious girls eyed her suspiciously, especially when she ordered a Guinness. It was an unforgivable sin for a woman to order a beer, apparently. But nothing looked sexier than watching her chug that Irish beer.

The political correct disease had yet to infect Denton, so it was still completely legal to light up a cigarette in a bar. So it wasn’t really shocking to watch her remove a pack of smokes from her back pocket, aside from the fact the she pulled them from her pocket. Why not her purse? Because she wasn’t carrying one. My drunk mind couldn’t deal with the fact that this woman didn’t have a purse. But what really floored me was the kind of cigarettes she had pulled from her pocket. In her hand was a pack of Marlboro Reds, god damned cowboy killers. A woman who eats (or at least appears to), drinks Guinness, and smokes Reds. I might just be in love.

She slowly puffed away on that Red, taking drag after careful drag. Smoke poured out of her nostrils, coming out in streams. It reminded me of a cartoon bull, angry and hateful, steam puffing out of its pierced nose, eyes glowing red. Except her eyes were dark, smoldering chocolate. She put the butt in the ash tray at the bar and asked for a second Guinness. This one she took her time with, just like her cigarette, as if every drink meant something. It took her twenty minutes to silently finish the beer. She didn’t say a word to anyone but the bar tender. She paid with a twenty and expected no change. Then she left the bar, her heels once again clicking on the floor, as she made her way deliberately out. The sorority girls all stared as she left.

I ordered another beer, a Blue Moon this time. My stomach couldn’t handle dark beer anymore. I wanted to cry as she walked out, this real woman. My heart broke when the door closed behind her. Something told me I would never see her again, never watch her lips caress a Red or her brown eyes challenge everyone who looked into them. I took a sip of the light beer. At least I would always have my college girls.