William L. Domme's Blog, page 2
April 14, 2020
Free Kindle Download (The Confluence)
April 12, 2020
Grocery List from a DeSoto Jail
April 2, 2020
EVIKT
March 30, 2020
Notice
Noir Blanks
March 24, 2020
Don’t Adjust Your Set
—Do you feel pain?
Suddenly walls stood in four sided rooms that opened into each other with wide, door-less frames. The only light burst from the television and baked the walls and the towel around my waist. I stood in the dampness of the moment, just out of the bath and anxious to see any updates on the screen.
I was aching for a singular
tragedy. It had not occurred in quite
some years and I figured time was coming…for someone; a murdered monarch in
some once great nation, a favorite son of a wealthy family kidnapped, or maybe
just the “accidental” overdose of a tragic artist well revered for her
illumination of the human condition.
The news was a cycle of repetition
those days. When it had been
regurgitated and received by the most eyes and ears deemed possible by the technicians
in the control rooms a break was assigned—clever commercials produced by
captains of industry to reach out into our homes to invite us to enjoy their
products. We, the eager capitalists,
paying for the wire to connect us to the information. Paying to have people suggest we spend more
to get more.
When just the news was not enough,
heads started popping up. At first, they
were a welcome change. The wildflower
whose seed fell from the wind into our yards and brightened up the lawn as they
matured. Insight was fed into the
wire instead of just the observation of news happening. Then heads started multiplying. Permutations became obscene and they took
over like raging weeds battling each other for the best spot in the light. The cacophony became a success. We took sides. I really think this guy is the smartest man
on television. You prefer the guy on the
other channel because he seems to be more grounded. This one’s an entertainer, that one’s a
fink. I dig them all and I have my
favorites.
A single man or woman would sit
staring out at you with mighty pen in hand, the source of all authority, and
spill a compiled list of viewpoints deemed necessary for cable subscribers, for
us.
—Do you feel pain?
I watched the news channels every
chance I could. I hungered for a
substance that never seemed to arrive.
The news was the same. Somewhere
a man clung to a tree in raging flood waters that stopped rising but rushed
furiously. A crew in a helicopter, there
for the rescue, arrives just in time for the crew in the helicopter who catches
it on film. The man in the tree would be
a boy tomorrow. The next day the boy
would be a woman in a tree in the raging floodwater.
Somewhere a commendable rescue of a
little girl caught in a tree just above raging, muddy water was being captured
in the minds of only those present. I
would never see this. I would never
anxiously anticipate the moment of triumph.
No camera crew had arrived. She
silently shuffled into her future as a memory told by her family when they
gathered at Easter or when she sat with her parents and they watched the rescue
of some lucky civilian from the torrent rapids flowing around the tree, seeming
almost to run right through the tree itself.
News1; gone to commercial.
The first four seconds of the
erectile dysfunction commercial are always the most painful. I watched the couple run on the beach.
She ran her fingers through his
hair.
He shot baskets at the court with
his friends, all of them quietly part of the same conspiracy; to defy nature’s
urge to keep them from pleasure.
The name of the pill crawled up the
screen like a slow erection and stopped right in the center. It held and then faded as the man sat on the
couch, “Tonight, I’ll be ready…”
The woman in his life creeps up
behind him in slow motion. Bends down to
get close to his ear. She puts her
finger on his shoulder and whispers in his ear.
The man turns to her, turns back to
the audience, “…for her.”
The station cuts into the stream of
advertisements to remind you, “Up next on American Truth, Truth takes on
President Rimmel and his willingness to go against the wishes of the American
nation regarding the U.A.F. Join me,
Harvey Mitberg, on American Truth, right after the Jones Show.” The station has played Harvey Mitberg saying
that at every commercial break from four hours ago. The Jones Show is News1’s most popular show
with ratings higher than every other cable news show.
The light in the bathroom
flickers. It reminds me, because I was
not thinking about it, of the cold tiles that line up in the straightest
pattern from the floor to the middle of the wall. They are white and have memories. They have reflected the passing hours with a
weakness. The light that could bring me
or you into view on one of those tiles would have to be so bright that a
million suns would seem a trifle. And
so, in the night when a million suns reveal themselves across the dome and I
sit in the warm water in the cast iron bathtub under the window with curtains
drawn it is true; I cannot see myself and I cannot see you.
The tub full of hot water creates
the vapor that hits the walls and slides down the tiles in slow rain drops like
soothing perspiration. In there I sit
with Silence who hides everywhere, invisible; listening on the closed toilet
seat, behind a mask of steam in the mirror, or traveling a circuit around the
rim of the tub.
Silence cannot participate in the
clamoring city of thought that rises of its own design—here a new tower that
the memories of the day will call home…at least, for a while…there, the park
where thunderous birds beating their breasts flock to statues of ancient names
I’ll never see again.
Millions of little ideas bustle
anonymously up the scraping spires, across the midday traffic, through tunnels
under the subconscious bays that connect to the vast ocean just out of
sight. The little ideas lead their quiet
lives and die unassumingly and unnoticed in the periodicals that bring word of
feeling and sensation. “This just in…,”
the voice moans, reading the text of the extra edition of The Body
Times-Ledger, “…the body is submerged and wet in the bathtub. The steam and water look to be relaxing for
another half hour or so. More updates to
come.”
—The first four seconds of the
erectile dysfunction commercial are always the most painful.
From one of the new tower’s windows
comes the distant beckoning of something I said almost twelve hours ago. “Remember me.
Remember me.” The voice yells as a man, leaning out of the window toward
the sky, waves a banner of the things I said earlier.
In the bathtub, Silence always slips
away. The first moment or two all would
be calm but then it just goes away—behind the mask of steam. I dread the cold tile in the dry daylight.
—Do you feel pain?
The flickering of the bulb reminded
me of this that moments ago I was in there.
I tried to entice the silence, to pull it in. I lit a joint and smoked calmly in the tub
until it got too small. Until the paper
at the tips of my fingers smoldered from a creamy white to a virtuous black
that signified a well rolled cigarette.
I deepened my promise to relax. I
dropped down in the water so that my chin stopped just under the surface. I heard the silence. I heard it come in. I knew it was there. I could sense it waiting for me. I wanted to catch it and keep it and train it
to obey. I showed it the back of my hand
to ease it. I let all sense of fear fall
away. I stood naked and without
threat. And then I began to beg.
It dropped behind the mask and my
head became the city. Crews got to work
building the towers. Cars tore through
the streets. Banners hung from every
window. I waited for it all to pass.
—Do you feel pain?
Ajax, Halliburton, Musselman’s,
Alcoa, Welch’s.
Merck, Bayer, Eli Lilly, Pfizer,
Genentech.
Marlboro,
Apple, Epic, Armani, Ferragamo.
Delta Dental, Delta Airlines, Smith
& Wesson, Glock, Steyr.
The commercials went to News1.
The bombings were getting worse
every week. The death tolls held steady
in the low 200’s but they came with greater frequency. Souls left the earth before they learned to
walk. Milk spilled from the breasts of
mothers and swirled in the aftermath with the pooling petrol and blood of the
animals that were stabled at the market those afternoons.
Eight years now, this conflagration
has raged. The buildup to it was
apparent to any eyes that saw it all come together. Twenty years ago, when I was only nine, the
nation of South Africa persuaded its neighboring countries to form an alliance
they called U.A.F. (United African Freedom).
In time, their neighbors convinced their neighbors and so on, to join
the U.A.F. It took almost ten years for
them to solidify their ranks to the nations south of 10˚ N longitude. All those with territories north of 10˚ N,
were split by tribal warfare and the border of the new nation, U.A.F., was 10˚
N across the sweep of the continent.
Fifteen years after the first
alliance of South Africa with Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia, Mozambique,
Zimbabwe, and Botswana, United African Freedom was on its way to becoming a
superpower, the third one.
Russia had already returned to
communism, which it touted as a new, improved version built on lessons and
mistakes learned from its previous stint at fascism and mass murder, and become
the second superpower again. The world
stage was now set much like in the middle 20th century, plus or
minus a few powerless nations here and there.
U.A.F. was up for another land grab
in that fifteenth year and no one really wanted to stop them because of the
benefits the members of it had achieved by coalescing with a whole, larger
body. Their stated goal, which was distributed
from the bloated capital in Johannesburg, where organized crime ran operations
side by side if not sometimes within the government of U.A.F., was to stretch
its boundaries to the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. This was 21st century manifest
destiny.
As the effort to push this to fruition
raged on, an eager extra-Africa world watched with mixed emotions on cable news
and read in newspapers. Every once in a
while you could lean forward as though sitting at a sporting event in
anticipation of the grand slam, of the hat trick, or the triple crown, when one
or more country would give way and sign on with United African Freedom. It was violent revolution on a continental
scale but the world had suffered long with the African continent; unable to
solve their hunger, disease, debt, and tribal genocide. A united continent might eventually be a
scary contender to reckon with but their strength would allow other nations to
grow also. ‘You’re only as strong as the
weakest among you’, was a phrase people could do well to appreciate.
This played out on News1 between
nattily dressed hosts of shows that bore the title of their own names: Renaldo Hour, Source1 with Gil Carmel, Namir
Element, and scores of others. Accomplished
men with degrees of knowledge sit in pantomime of the one true pundit who never
will reveal himself.
The first four seconds of the
erectile dysfunction commercial are always the most painful.
The sewer rat at the bombsite sniffs curiously at the miasma of blood, milk, and petrol and thinks it safer to just walk away.
appeared originally in Eight
March 19, 2020
Strange Race
The last intact
panel of glass had blistered and so stood upright magnifying the scene outside
of the phone booth in which Russell Scales was standing. His veins burned all up and down his arms,
clinging like vines to tree trunks. His
temples were fixed in flex because his teeth were clenched to stop himself from
grinding them to powder. His jaw jerked,
lips reverberated—shockwave spreading and collapsing. His left eyelid recoiled behind his eyeball
so that for a moment it seemed to float in the air. And then an immediate return to his default
clutch. Sweat hardened on his face in
leprous salt craters. He pulled the
phone from the hook and pushed some coins into the slot.
His jaw jerked.
It pulled the
cramp in his neck.
A storm sat on the
horizon behind him in a crimson sky scratched through with charcoal lines like
some terrible mistake—unable to be erased, blotted out, or forgotten.
He mumbled into
the receiver, into the silence.
Scales was tired
of it; ultimately exhausted by his survival.
Cyclones pogoed into the line of fire toward the back of the rubescent
dome. The atmosphere was alive with
lightning. “You told me not to bother. I have to tell you, to get this off my mind,”
he said. Debris clattered against the
metal frame of the phone booth. “But I
know I’m not getting through.” A coyote
with an open wound in its flank strained through the rootless panorama. He counted its steps; noted the silence of
the gory beast’s struggle to persist.
Looking at the cord he had been absentmindedly twisting he saw it was
severed and for the first time felt the handset moving untethered against his
ear. He spun round and round in the
booth; sweating, hyperventilating. The ruddy
sky became a lung heaving for air and finding little. Dead satellites pushed out by its surface
fell once more into their unknown orbits independent of all control but
physics. He saw the wind before he felt
it blowing through the booth, wheezing in his ears. His little brother again. Gasps muffled through the thin attic
wall. Scales staring at the corroded
brass lock slid shut to keep his brother from escaping. Just a game, he reminded himself. Just a game.
“I didn’t know he could die. I
swear, Mom, I swear I didn’t know.”
Scales jaw jerked. He bashed the handset into the
faceplate. The coyote was swallowed into
the wasteland.
He came up short
when he reached for the door. Confused,
he pushed his hand out again grinding his forearm along the shard crowned
frame. His affect plateaued, “Memory was
a name. Name was a game.” Walked across the crushed gravel lot, “Game
was the same. Same gets the blame. The
blame game.” Boots kicked up dust flying
faster than Judas’ dying prayer. He put
a hand on his motorcycle, “Name of the highway,” he put his ass on the seat. “Name of the highway is…” He kicked the starter. Nothing.
“Highway is…”
“Unknown. Shut up and ride,” Scales heard.
He looked down,
braced and watched the road fly beneath the knucklehead. He rode toward the horizon, away from the
storm. A cobweb of nerves short
circuited around his elbow and he released the handlebar but still the cycle
rode straight. The engine roared.
“At least one of
us is in control,” he heard.
“I need to take a
car next chance I get,” Scales said. The
cycle accelerated and a recriminating thunder pealed atop the highway.
A jagged line of ruby glass cut a shark’s grin at the end of the lot beside the highway. It glowed with the headlamps of a car coming up the highway. The blood fell to the ground and splattered. Four men stepped out of the car beside the phone booth. The driver put up his hand to motion them to stand still. The driver went to the booth and ran his finger over the busted faceplate and then along the glass where Scale’s blood stood. He ran his finger through the blood and put it on his tongue. His jaw unhinged with a loud rusty metal clang and chomped shut just after he had pulled his finger away. He nodded to the others at the car.
© William L. Domme
March 15, 2020
Virtual Reading on the Ides of March (betrayal edition)
Hello!
To mark the 5th anniversary of the publication of The Confluence, a western horror novel, I am sharing this recorded reading of the intro to Chapter 1. I’m not a great out loud reader but I hope you enjoy. And if you want to purchase a copy, please order through your local bookstores which you can access here: Indiebound
Just press play on the big orange arrow to listen to the beginning of The Confluence as read by the author.
January 29, 2020
The Dogshit Summer
The phone is loud, the kids are screaming at each other, and
the throbbing in my head must be the first step on a short trip to an
aneurysm. My eyes are trying to escape
my head because they can’t convince the lids to close and the fingers trying to
button the bottom button on my shirt play some weird game of tag that keeps me
from getting on with the day.
The car shakes so bad when I put the brakes on at every stop
that the steering wheel rocks side to side and almost rips itself out of my
hands. It’s hard to concentrate on the
road with this and the kids playing as we go to Fannie’s, their sitter, before
I have to work.
The streets are already hot and ugly at ten in the
morning. No clouds. No shade.
Even the trees seem to be packing up for a different climate. Shelby’s in the backseat trying to fog over
the window with her breath and even though there’s no fog, pulls her finger
across the glass, “What are you drawing baby?”
“That dog on the side of the road.”
“Where?”
“Back there.”
“That dog was dead,” Hank Jr. says.
“No he wasn’t,” Shelby slaps at him and misses, “Mommy,
can we get a puppy?”
“We’ll see.”
The surface of everything looks bad, the whole town, single
story buildings put up through a dozen decades, with their different styles and
fashions, look like empty shells painted over, starting to blister and crack,
ready to flake away and float into the wind like the soft white bulbs from the
cottonwood trees that drift along; making it look like snow in the heart of the
summer. A moment of dreaming makes me
think the window of my door is liquefying and running down on itself.
It’s back to work, for me, for a half shift at Harold’s
Steak & Brew. The past week was the
disaster of my life and the months leading up to it, the years really, screamed
at the impending doom. I don’t throw that
word out there lightly. There would be
death, prison, and failure but seriously, how was I to know? I have three kids to raise and had a husband
to baby-sit. There was no time to look
at the signs.
* *
*
Our trailer vibrates with a rattle, again. I just want to read the new Harlequin
book. It was the Harlequin/NASCAR series
of books I’d found at Wal-Mart last winter when we were looking for a heavy
winter coat for Hank to wear to work.
That was when he was working for the garbage company. He lost that job because of a urine
test. Shit.
The neighbor’s stereo is blaring and the bass is shaking
every house in the neighborhood. I’ve
told Carl James about this before but I guess he doesn’t know that I’m home
today. Hank’s collection of beer cans
dances on the shelf above the plasma TV.
They’re empty so they get to moving pretty good.
Hank Jr., Shelby, and Cody are down at Hank’s parents’ house
just down the street a ways where the trailer park lowers to a pretty wooded
park type area. On the other side of
Stranger’s Crick, the stream that runs down to the river, is the women’s
prison.
I had the house to myself, except for the noise. Hank is supposedly down at the crick, fishing
with a friend he hasn’t heard from since high school but I guess it’s only
three years ago that Hank dropped out of junior year.
Feeling the book rest on my thigh but unable to come out of
it, like my whole body is asleep except my mind, I decide to look for Hank’s
pot. It should be in the nylon bag where
his Glock is supposed to go but from the couch I can see the gun on top of the
refrigerator. The book falls to the couch and I walk to the bedroom.
The room’s a mess but I know where everything is pretty
much. The bag is under a pile of damp
clothes next to our bed. Looks to be
just enough for a skinny joint and that should do the trick. I haven’t smoked up to now since when I found
out I was preggo, bout nineteen months ago.
Wow, I realize Cody’s near to a year old. I’m only twenty-one.
“Papers. Papers? Papers?” I sing while I riffle through the
pot accessories on the dresser. “There
you are.”
Back on the couch, trying to get comfortable, stretching and
throwing the kids’ clothes they’d left lying around, I get upset they aren’t
picking up after themselves. Laying
down, about ready to light up, the smell of flat sody and stale bourbon blows
at me from the half full cups on the table poured at the end of the party here
Sunday night. Must be some cigarette
butts in there too cause I smell ‘em also.
For a minute I’m sixteen again cleaning out the men’s room at Harold’s,
scrubbing out the urinals, dragging soggy butts up the rim and into the bucket
on the floor using the little scrubby brush.
Not caring cause all I could think about was getting off work, sitting
out with Hank at Stranger’s Crick, getting high, and fucking like animals.
The window unit a.c. blows cold air across the house and
makes the paper burn faster than the weed in the joint. The better part of it is almost lost so I
turn to face the back of the couch and shield it against the rushing air. It clicks off and I roll onto my back
again. A piece of the cherry falls to
the couch and smolders a little hole into the cushion. I put it out with the leg of a pair of Hank’s
jeans.
Laying down, holding the joint in one hand and the book in
the other, the smoke fills the room. I’m
getting high again for the first time in two years. It’s my day off and the closest I’ll get to a
real vacation.
I must have passed out cause I wake up and hear the bass
from a car parked just outside the door.
Getting up to go to the door I knock over one of the stale cups on the
table and have to sop up the poison brew with the pair of Hank’s pants I used
to put out the couch. The door slams
against the outside of the house and I stare out into the white heat unable to
see for a couple of minutes cause my eyelids feel stuck together and my lips
appear to be glued shut also. Damn
cottonmouth.
I hear, “Hey sweet tits, you’re up.”
“You’re out of pot.”
I shut the door and hear him cuss me to Tyler Ferry. They’re back from fishing. I’m at the sink doing some dishes looking out
the little window and see the two of them standing around Tyler’s car, I guess,
with a Styrofoam cooler on the hood, a big chunk broken off the corner and
sitting in the grass. They drink tall
boys and I see Shelby hitting the barbeque-er with a branch bigger than her
arm. Carl James comes out of his trailer
and walks over to the guys. I prick my
finger with a knife I’m scrubbing, say, “Fucking Carl James,” cause it’s his
fault I’m scrubbing mad now. He’s a
no-good low life and keeps Hank from getting a real job. Lets Hank help him sell small amounts of meth
and pot and recycle copper wire. Pretty
sure Carl James just siphons gas from cars at the mall instead of going to a
gas station. Gets drunk, calls it his
own personal gas station.
Shelby comes into the house, “Mommy.”
“Bay-bee.”
“Mommy, I’m going back to Granma’s.”
“Have your daddy walk you down there.”
“Bye mommy.”
“Bye,” the door bangs shut, “baby.” I scrub harder at a dish.
She tells Hank. He
waves her on down. Just stands there
drinking with Carl, James and Tyler.
Tyler, at least raises an eyebrow.
I stop with the dishes and look in the fridge for something to eat.
The front door squeaks open like some giant dinosaur bird
tearing at the metal roof of the house.
Popping up to see who’s coming in I bump my head on the door handle of
the freezer. “Shit.” I mumble.
Hank is carrying a plastic sack full of clunky metal and
wires that stick through like rosebush clippings in a plastic lawn bag. It looks like another stolen stereo. He clenches a cigarette between his straight,
white teeth saying, “Welcome home baby, I made dinner,” and throws the sack on
the couch.
“When you come home from a day at work I’ll make you
dinner.”
“I’m looking for work.”
“Where, in other people’s cars?”
“What are we going to do about that kid?”
“What kid?”
“Hank Jr. They were
all set to play at Mom and Dad’s, I told him he could swim as long as he wanted
and out of nowhere he starts fittin’ like he was a daughter and not my son and
crying for me to take him with me. So,
he’s been with me the whole day.” He
pulls down the Glock from the top of the fridge and checks the chamber and then
the clip. The slamming of the metal
parts echoes in the trailer.
“So what’s in the sack on the couch?”
“You hear me? I’m
saying our son’s acting like a little sissy and you wanna know what’s in the
bag? It’s a fucking CB radio.”
“What are you, Smokey and The Bandit now? What the hell we gonna do with a cb? And whose money did you spend on it?”
“Didn’t spend nobody’s money on it. Wheelin’ Tom owed me for a couple of grams
and we picked it up on our way back.”
“So this is your business, trading meth for obsolete
communications devices?”
“You high again?” He
grabs my face by the cheeks and turns my head side to side looking into my
eyes. “You only talk like that when you
used to smoke.”
“Told you, you were out of pot.”
“Thought you were quitting?” he says, walking over to the
front door. “Course, see your smut book
open there.”
“What about your dvd collection?”
“Our dvd collection.
What happen, you start getting all sweaty,” he walks toward me in slow
stalking steps, “reading about them racers, so you toked a little and started
fantasizing?” Coupons and magnets fall
off the fridge when I back into it. They
flutter and crash to the torn up linoleum floor. He pins me right there. Finishes.
And I finish the dishes.
Saturday night at Harold’s Steak & Brew is the busiest
night of the week. “It’s like bleaching
sheets in a madhouse.” Polly says. She’s
drying bar glasses while I pour drinks for the waiters and waitresses. Most of them are still in high school and
think their job isn’t permanent. The
ones who don’t escape become the bartenders and cooks and hostesses. I mix up four Tom Collins’ for a table of
Realtors who come in every other Saturday.
Two nice couples, tip big, leave drunk.
“Sorry, what?” I say.
“Bleaching sheets in a madhouse?” Polly’s bending over dropping glasses in
soapy water in the big steel sink behind the bar. “They’re usually all decked out in white. So…”
“Oh. I see. Nice metaphor.” My face twitches.
“You got it.”
“Go in the back and get me two bottles of Jack Daniel’s,
Polly.”
“Two Seven & Seven’s, one Jack & Coke, and three Bud
Lights.” Missy says blowing the bangs up off her forehead.
“Crazy night.” I look at her for a moment. We used to be friends.
“Yep,” she turns around to look over the tables.
Victor comes rushing up to the bar, he’s a waiter, in
Polly’s class at the same high school.
“Hey, can I get four cokes?”
“You can come back here and pour them. It’ll be faster.” Before I get the sentence out of my mouth
he’s around the edge of the bar. He’s a
worker.
“You know Polly’s up for valedictorian?” He says. “It’s a tie right now.” He’s practically out of breath and I think
it’s because he wants to get into Polly’s pretty little panties; she’s a
good-looking girl. He starts putting the
cokes on the tray. “She’ll probably get
it though cause she volunteers and all that other stuff.”
“Slow down, Victor.
Those cokes will be on the floor if you don’t breathe,” Missy says.
Polly comes back with the two bottles of Jack. “Where do you want them?”
“Up here, we’ll pour them before the night’s over with,” I
say.
“Jeez, that’s a lot of booze.”
“Not really. You
should see Hank put that shit away.”
She raises her eyes.
“So, last months of high school.”
“You know where you’re going? Probably Washburn?”
“No, I think I could get into a better school. I don’t know.”
I feel stupid and my face feels warmer. She furrows her brow and seems ashamed of her
statement.
“So where are you thinking about?”
“I sent applications and stuff to Middlebury and Coe
College.” She looks to see if they sound
familiar, I think. “Coe is in Cedar
Rapids, Iowa and Middlebury is in Middlebury, Vermont.”
“Quite a stretch.
How’d you find those?”
“I looked up the colleges of two of my favorite writers who
are still alive.”
“So, you want to be writer?”
“No way. I just want
to study literature. But I thought it
would be cool to walk where they walked.”
Harold is glad-handing with the patrons and keeps looking back to see
what we’re doing at the bar. He leers
like I’m not wearing clothes and I get a little nauseous.
He made a pass at me two years ago in the kitchen after work
and I thought about saying yes to him for a good minute or two before
remembering that Ian had told me Harold had the clap. Now, I throw up in my mouth a little every
time I remember that moment.
* *
*
The night winds down to the last table.
“Harold’s in his office.” Polly says.
“He’ll be in there until we finish cleaning up. He never comes out until it’s time for all of
us to leave.”
“Doesn’t like to clean up?”
“Likes to watch on the video cameras. Try not to bend over too much.”
“Gross.” She wrinkles
her face up and it looks like it hurts.
My cigarette burns slow in the glass ashtray at the end of
the bar and I catch Polly looking at it every time she gets near it. Finally, “Do you want one?”
“No, they remind me of my father,” she says. “He…”
“I know. So, I’ve
been thinking about going to Washburn and taking classes to get a degree. Even just an associates.”
“I said you should.
You can get a better job than this one.”
“You probably know more than me about getting in. Do you think you could help me with it?”
“You want to meet me at the library and we can fill out the
application, like on Sunday?”
My heart races at the thought of going to college; all the
people, the tests, the homework.
“Okay. Two okay?”
“See you there.”
The bag of food on the seat next to me makes the car smell
like the exhaust fan above the grill at Harold’s. I think I’ll never get away from that
place. The thought of going to school
again makes me feel excited though, almost to a panic.
Pulling into the trailer park I imagine for a second that
it’s a neighborhood with actual houses.
Then the cars in front of our house remind me of where I live. Hank’s having a party. A group from the restaurant are here, always
are when there’s a party. I can hear the
music before I open the car door and I breathe out for a minute.
A few people are standing on the little wooden steps that go
up to the front door, smoking and drinking and slapping each other on the
arm. They separate for me so I can get
in the door and there’s Hank; standing on the couch getting ready to jump down
on Ian, the cook. They’re doing their
wrestling show again for everybody. The
house is packed. “Food,” he yells at me
and jumps on Ian who turned to look.
Hank gets up and walks up to me to grab the sack. “What do you got?”
“Mushrooms…”
“Shroooooms,” he yells.
The crowd mutters about shrooms and it gets the different
groups standing around talking about the times they’ve tripped on
mushrooms. “Mushrooms, fries and gravy,
and a chicken fried steak,” I tell him.
He kisses me on the cheek and tears the bag out of my hand
and takes it to the kitchen counter.
He’s washing big bites of food down with huge gulps of whatever he’s
drinking. The whole house smells like
cigarettes and booze. The stink of
grease and meat sneaks up my nose though and I go back to the bedroom to
change. The party lasts for hours.
Until the last of the drinkers are left. That’s when the political talk starts. And the religious arguments bulge and pop in
booze pickled hiccups. And everyone left
agrees they love each other and would kill and die for each other and then the
last of them get to their cars to swerve and blur their cars like fuzzy stripes
through the empty streets at four in the morning.
I fall asleep just before the sun comes up. It’s hot as shit as I lay there on top of the
sheet that hasn’t been washed for a month.
It smells like alcohol and cigarettes and burned plastic because that is
how Hank smells a lot of the time.
He doesn’t get to bed before he passes out on a bar stool in
the kitchen surrounded by half full cups that serve as ashtrays and
spittoons. This is how I find him around
eleven in the morning.
He begins to rustle around as I get my clothes on and pick
up a little. “What time is it?” he says.
“Almost noon,” I pause, “on Monday.”
“No way.”
“Sunday. I’m going
down to your folks to get the kids. You
want to take a shower?”
“I’m good.”
“You want to take a shower.
You smell like you been sleeping in pig shit.”
“Alright, mama.”
“See you in a minute.”
* *
*
Outside the sun is burning hard. The smell of dog shit hangs over the
yard. And then I see the culprits; Carl
James’ two giant boxers penned up outside his trailer. They just mope and prowl, sniffing the gravel
and each other, and biting flies off their own backs, coughing out air like a
couple of old men smoking at a bar. Carl
James is passed out on his back, legs hanging off the back of his white Dodge
pick-up. The steel from the tailgate has
to be burning like a cattle brand into his calves. Hope it burns them right off. I spit out a couple of sunflower seeds in his
direction and walk around and down the road to Hank’s folks’.
The kids look like angels.
They’re laid back on the couch watching a movie. Vera and Lou play cards at a little table
between the couch and kitchen. They all
say hey mom, even Lou and Vera. “Watcha
watching?”
“Cars,” Shelby says and goes back to watching with her eyes
barely open. The paper is laid out on
the table where I sit for a minute.
“Well, how was the party?” Lou says. “Gin.”
“Again he wins.”
“You’ve been winning all morning.”
“What’s news?” I
thumbed through the papers but didn’t really read anything.
“Bobbo was killed last night.”
“What?” I look at Lou waiting for this to mean something.
“He was shot outside the Muddy Creek Saloon. They know who did it but they ain’t caught
him yet,” Lou says and drinks his orange juice.
“Her, they ain’t caught her yet,” Vera says.
“Her?”
“They gave her name in the paper, bottom of the front page.”
Vera says. Cody starts to turn in the
little crib next to the table. He sleeps
some more. Flipping the paper to the
front I see the name before I set it down.
“No shit. Claire
Hibbert.” My eyes go all buggy and then
settle back down.
“That’s not the Claire from your high school?” Lou says.
“Yeah, she beat the crap out of a lot of girls in health
class when it was time to take showers.
Big girl. Mean girl.”
“You ask me, Bobbo should’ve have got the death penalty for
what happened to Terri Crensh.” Lou drinks
his orange juice again, empty, he gets up to get some more from the
fridge. “That guy crawls through the cab
window of a truck while it’s being driven.
The gun in his hand, he thinks isn’t ‘loaded’, goes off and kills poor
Terri and he doesn’t get convicted of even negligent homicide. Screw that guy.” He sits back down at the table and shuffles
the cards.
“Forgot about that.
What a scumbucket. He went to
Terri’s funeral with his new girlfriend.
Him and Terri were together for a year almost.”
“She shouldn’t have been hanging out with that crowd in the
first place. Big Bobbo did time for
assaulting a police officer when Little Bobbo was five. He got pulled over for speeding and wasn’t
having it and just started wailing on the cop.”
Vera spreads the cards she was dealt in her hand.
Lou lights a cigarette and it fills the air that up to now
smelled like cinnamon rolls.
“Well we better get out of your hair. Let you guys have the rest of your day.”
“Just going to Wal-Mart to stock up on a few necessities.” Vera lays down a card.
* *
*
A couple of bees float up and down by Shelby’s arm as we
walk to the house. Hank Jr. takes a step
and plants each foot and pauses to watch the dust kick up and drift behind
him. “Cool,” he walks this way all the
way up the road. I don’t tell Shelby
about the bee cause it might freak her out.
Cody’s shirt smells cleaner than when I put it in his bag yesterday
before I dropped them off.
“Hey kids.” Hank
folds laundry that’s separated across the couch. “Want to help daddy fold the clothes?” To my surprise Hank Jr. says yes and he and
his sister go over to help Hank with the pile of laundry tangled up on the end
of the couch.
“What happened to you?” I said.
“Nothing baby, you were down for so long I had time to clean
a little and get the laundry going,” Hank said.
The place looks…clean.
It still smells faintly of last night’s drinking but more of lemon
scented cleaners and soap. “Thanks
baby.” I kiss him on the neck, he smells like soap, shampoo, and cologne and
I’m surprised. The water is running from
the tap while I look for a cup in the cupboard.
“I made tea too, it’s in the fridge.” Hank doesn’t look up from the laundry. I think he must have taken a bump when I woke
him up earlier. He’ll do a bump and then
do fifty productive things out of the blue.
“Kids want anything to drink?”
“Pepsi,” they say together.
They grab the cans of pop out of my hands and start getting
antsy right away. “Can we light the rest
of the snakes? Can we? Can we?”
“Sure kids, go get them.”
They run to the bedroom behind the wall the TV’s on and rip
through a plastic sack full of little fireworks leftover from the fourth. The door slams and I can hear Hank Jr. jump
down the wooden steps and crunch across the gravel. Hank goes to the door, “Keep ‘em out of the
grill.”
“Wow,” I said.
“What?”
“Been busy. Tweakin?”
“All tweakend long.
Get’s the job done.” He laughs
and his shoulders and head bounce in opposite directions. He’s a fucking bobblehead.
A sigh slips out and he gets offended so he goes out to
watch the kids burn the snakes. He makes
sure to pick up a tall boy on the way out the door.
“Christ.” I walk to
the bedroom and sit down for a minute.
The Glock is on the dresser and the clip is sitting next to it. Next to all that is a line of Go-Go. I want to scrape it into a bag and flush it
down the toilet. I want to go to college
and get a better job, get a better life.
Bending over it and sniffing it up my nose with a little straw I start
to feel electrified. I pick up the empty
gun and toss it between my hands like I’m in the old west, “Annie Oakley rides
again.” In the mirror on the dresser it
all looks cool and then I see the clock on the table behind me. “Shit.
The library. Polly.”
“Hank.” The smell of
the burning snakes is in the air along with the dog shit and fresh mowed grass.
“Yeah babe?”
“I-gotta-meet-Polly-at-the-library-at-two. I forgot.”
“So go.”
“You watch the kids?”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
My face feels like it isn’t there while I wash it with a
soap that has little beads in it to exfoliate.
Same with my teeth when I brush them.
I might be able to clean the ripping buzz off me if I scrub hard enough
and then Polly won’t see me for who I really am.
The place is packed.
Who comes here on Sunday? So many
kids and parents walking around the parking lot; everyone looks lost and I
definitely want to pull out and go back home.
“You gotta do this.” In the
rearview mirror I look okay, my eyes look clear.
The inside of the library is cold as shit. Not remembering where we were going to meet I
just sit on a bench inside the front doors.
A lady walks by with a half dozen books in her arms. “Excuse me,” I say and she turns to me,
“could you tell me what time it is?”
She looks at me like I asked her for a cup of urine. “It’s only one now.”
“Thanks.” And sitting
there I can’t tell if I’m grinding my teeth because I’m freezing or from the
Go-Go. I try to flip through my purse to
keep my mind busy but there’s nothing to organize and I close it. The automatic doors slide open and Polly
walks in. Thank god.
“Hey, I was going to look around before you got here but
you’re here early too.” Polly says. “I gotta put these on the return
conveyor.” She starts to walk that way.
“Yeah, I haven’t been here in a while so I was going to look
around but then didn’t think we had said where to meet so I thought I’d
wait. It’s freezing in here, isn’t
it?” She walks deep into the library
past information desks and tables with computers.
“We’ll go back to the quiet room and get online. Should be able to submit the app. through
Washburn’s site.”
“Glad you’re here. I
wouldn’t know the first thing about this.”
Twenty minutes later we’re out on the sidewalk and she asks
me what I’m doing for the rest of the day.
The sun is white and bounces off the concrete walls of the library and I
can barely see her face that just looks like a shadow in front of me while
other shadows walk behind her.
* *
*
Bonnie Dick pulls out of the yard when I get home. Inside, Hank is sitting in his shorts with no
shirt on playing Xbox. “What’s going
on?”
“Nothing. Bonnie
stopped by with her kid and wanted to know if the kids wanted to go to the pool
with them.”
“What about Cody?”
“He went with mom and dad to Wal-Marts. Got the casa to ourselves again,” Hank says,
probably expecting sex.
“Guess I’ll see the kids later in the week when I’m done
with work.”
“Sorry baby, they wanted to go swimming and mom wanted to
get Cody some new clothes.”
“She suck your dick while she was here?”
“Whoa. What?”
“Sorry, but she’s a whore.”
“That was in high school.”
“Anyway. I applied to
Washburn today. Polly helped me.”
“How are you going to go to work and school?”
“I was hoping with the student loans I could work part time
and then you could look a little harder for a job. I mean you’re really good at Call of Duty but
how much money have you made killing fake armies?”
“Why don’t I sign up for the marines?”
“I don’t know, why not?”
“I tried man, they found crank in my blood at the fitness
exam. I was clean for almost a month
before I went to that.”
“So.”
He gets up and tosses the controller at the console and
grabs a tallboy from the fridge and walks outside. The music from the video game plays until I
turn the tube off. Back in the bedroom I
fall onto the bed and stare up at the ceiling and imagine what the first day of
classes will be like. How will I wear my
hair? What clothes do you wear to a
college class? Will I be able to stay
awake in the classrooms?
I can’t sleep but I need a nap. The laundry in the bedroom is piled up as
high as the bed and all the way around it.
We don’t have much laundry soap but I thin it out with water and try to do
as much laundry as I can while the kids are gone. Hank must be at Carl James’, I don’t see him
outside anywhere when I pass by the window over the sink. Carl James’ truck is gone too, so who knows
where they are.
* *
*
The door opens about one in the morning. Hank bumps around the living room and I
listen, hoping he doesn’t wake up the kids but he probably will. Cody’s asleep on the bed next to me, he looks
like a little turtle with the blanket over his back, his butt stuck up in the
air. Hank stands in the doorway bobbing
back and forth a little. I whisper,
“Cody’s asleep on the bed.”
“What are you doing sleeping with another man?” he laughs.
“Ha ha. Go to
sleep. I’ve got to work tomorrow. Today, now.”
The bed bounces when he rolls into it and Cody shifts around
but doesn’t wake. I stare up at the
ceiling hoping to god that something gets better but I can’t say what.
Rain starts to fall and Hank snores.
* *
*
Nick pulls into the parking lot at Harold’s while I smoke a
cigarette and stare at the cornfield across the old highway. My eyes blink slowly while I try to imagine
him not here. I’d slept with him one
night at the house, when Hank Jr. was just a toddler. Hank was on a canoe trip with Carl James and
a few of their buddies down to Oklahoma.
I was already pregnant with Shelby but Hank and Nick didn’t know. When they did know a couple of months later
it caused all kinds of problems. Nick
knew if Hank ever found out about the affair and thought Shelby wasn’t his he’d
kill Nick, no hesitation. I believed it
too. Finally, I had to set Nick down and
tell him to do the math, that it couldn’t be his and that I was pregnant and
didn’t want to deal with him being so dramatic around me.
Nick gets out of his car.
“Yo, baby.”
“Nick.”
“Whatchoo and Hank up to Friday night?”
“Hank’s probably drinking, wouldn’t you guess?”
“Thought I’d let you know me and Heather are having a party
at our place out on Forty Third Street.
You guys should come.”
Heather, a trampy little senior who works with us. She hates getting stoned but does it anyway
cause she thinks bloodshot eyes make her irresistible to Nick and every other
dude at the restaurant. But I think only
Wally, the fifty some year old dishwasher, thinks, the two seconds a night she
speaks to him, they’re in love.
“I’m sure we’ll be out there. Hank definitely, but I may stay home with the
kids.” The gravel crunches under my foot
when I step out the butt. Don’t ask how
Shelby is, you creepy fuck, I think to myself.
“How are the kids?”
“Kids, ya know.”
He walks inside and I fake like I forgot something in my
car.
Now with the flies.
There is a drain in the floor beneath the bar where I spend nine hours a
day, six days a week serving gin fizz, cognac, and brandy spritzers to golf
course wives who act like they’re stepping down to eat in this place. But they come out with their husbands cause
it’s where their husbands’ parents brought them on Sundays when they were
teenagers.
The wives talk about shopping trips to Kansas City’s Plaza,
skiing in Colorada, and the kids away at space camp somewhere in ‘Bama. They look at me like I’m not good enough to
pour their drinks. A fly scratches my
leg as it buzzes around the floor. The
wives pass by on their way, stumbling to the toilet, giving advice like, ‘don’t
get tied down to one man’ or ‘life is short, don’t waste it with a dick.’
I imagine them all sneaking off to fake salon appointments
to meet up with each other for scandalous lesbian group cries in secret hotel rooms,
tucked into pockets beside shiny highways in Kansas City, Kansas that cost
their husbands a fortune. Whatever they
do, they’re phony bitches, with twisted up faces, and Martha Stewart taste in
fashion. If they’re rebelling, they
forgot how. One of them walks by and
smiles a pathetic grin. I want to slap
the shit out of them and tell their husbands the quickest way to their wives’
hearts is with a sharp knife.
Polly comes over beaming like an orgasm and I tell her so.
“You know I’m saving myself for college.”
“I was just kidding.”
“No, you were right.
Xavier and I did it in the barn at his friend’s house last night.”
“Tell me you’re on the pill.”
“Of course. My mom
put me on it when I turned seventeen.
That’s how old she was when I was conceived. Which reminds me, I need to throw up now.”
“Right. Help me get
the glasses from the kitchen.” The
hallway in Harold’s Steak & Brew is dim from the sconces that look like
candles and seem to give off less light even though they’re electric. They hang on wood panel walls that were in
style thirty or forty years ago but sag now like you can see the mold and rot
just waiting to creep out through the cracks.
Ian is standing over the butcher block decked out in his
grimy white t-shirt and Chief’s pajama pants tucked into his black high
tops. His hair is greasy and the sweat
stands on his forehead like he paints it on there every day to make it look
like he’s killing himself at work. He
carves steaks off a giant piece of meat and chomps on a cigarette. He drinks with us a lot and he and Hank have
been friends since they were babies. He
coughs in our direction. A flurry of
ashes snows down onto the chopping block and soaks into the pooling blood;
turns to black specks against the deep red gore. The smell of blood and tobacco fills the air
just over the orgy of fried foods hanging in the air like a sponge of hardened
grease; persistent as the hot tar they rolled onto the old highway last
weekend.
“Smells like death in here.”
Polly waves her hand in front of her nose.
“I thought it smelled like murder in here.” Ian drops the knife through the meat and it
hits with a shocking thud.
“He’s a teddy bear,” I turn to Polly, “when you get to know
him.”
“That’s what they said about Theodore Roosevelt,” Polly
says. I don’t get her joke but smile
anyway. She makes me feel dumb when she
tells jokes. She grabs a couple of racks
of glasses and hands them to me and then grabs the other two herself. Down the hallway I squint to see my way
through the dim light and a hot towel hits me right in the back of the
head. One side of the rack slips out of
my hand and a couple of draught glasses crash to the carpet and bounce against
the wall.
Nick says, “Sorry, meant to hit Jake.”
“You know we’re open for business.” The towel hits him in the leg and I walk by,
“Hit me again with one of those towels and I’m going to stick a bottle of
bourbon up your ass.”
“Idiot.” Polly
follows to the bar.
“You can’t talk to me that way. Harold’s my cousin.”
Turning to look at him from the corner of my eye, “Maybe,
but he thinks you’re worthless too.”
We set the racks on the bar and start putting them
away. “Any news from Washburn yet?”
Polly asks.
“I get to go. The
acceptance came in the mail today. I
forgot with all the other stuff at home.
I’m excited. I talked to the
advisor and they said I should commit to meeting with a tutor since I’ve been
out for a few years. Something about
developing study habits, relearning them, I guess. I have to ask Harold though to cut back my
hours.”
“That won’t be a bad thing, right?” she says, glasses
ting-tinging as they bump in the overhead racks. “I mean you’ll have financial aid to make up
for it.”
“I don’t know. The
debt when I get out could make us homeless.”
The laughter coming out of my mouth sounds far away and I feel a little
ashamed. I want a cigarette, a shot
would help too. I want to see the
kids. I’m tired of working so much.
“I think I know where I’m going to school this fall,” Polly
said.
“You got another acceptance letter?” The smile on my face is real; I get so happy
for her.
“To my first choice school.”
She jumps a little when I throw my arms over her shoulders
and hug her. Nick whistles from the far
side of the bar.
“I’m so happy for you.
What was it called again?
Middle…march?”
“Middlebury,” she smiles, “it’s in New England.”
“Way to go!”
“Thanks. You still
have to go to Washburn though, get out of this job, even though I won’t be here
to help.”
“I just wish that Hank wasn’t being this stay at home
dad. It doesn’t really pay to have
someone sit the kids and then he’s doing nothing the whole time.”
* *
*
An hour after the last of the customers leave a group of us
talk in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes, Nick has a joint. It floats around and I hit it a couple of
times just to wipe the work away from my brain, but Polly, standing beside me,
passes it on to the next without a drag.
“So, you’re sure you don’t want to stop by our house for a
little while?”
“Yeah, I’m beat like Jesus.”
The laugh that comes out of me sounds like a psychotic
ferret through the fog of pot in my head.
“Alright sister, see you later.”
“Goodnight, dude,” Polly said.
Her car growls out into the night, two red taillights blur
into the fog and they become one faint red ball of light sinking into the
city.
We all pile into a couple of cars like a brigade of circus
clowns on a mission to forget the workweek.
Nick’s car tears ass up ahead of mine on the old highway. He weaves back and forth to the edges of the
road.
At the house a circle of friends jack-jawed madly, stomping
feet in laughter, kicking dust across their hard black boots, even the girls
were in combat boots. Gina is the only
one of them who’s actually been in combat.
She’s been to Afghanistan twice; lost two fingers to shrapnel in the
desert during a raid on a prisoner camp by some suicidal Taliban. She could crack any skull here before she was
seen coming. Gina straight up grabs Bobby
at the nuts with a beer in her other hand and says something I can’t hear, but
she’s laughing and he’s trying to. “Hey
Gina, gotta handful there?” I said.
“Hey there, baby. How
was work?”
“Ready for a drink.”
Inside at the kitchen sink, through smoke and a rattle of
loud conversations, there are three people I don’t recognize. They look out of place, neat Saturday night
clothes, hair teased up with gel and pomade, what Polly’s calling Product,
which is also a local band a friend of ours is in. He’s here in the corner brooding over
something meaningful. A couple of guys
are talking to him but he stares at the table and nods once in a while. He’s a big Buddha type presence but quick to
violence. Walking over to the fridge
through bodies packed like sardines, I see Wes, our psycho Buddha, slap his
hands on the table and stand up. His
knees bump it and raise one end nearly tipping all the shit on the table which
would make the mess of the century, with all the half full glasses of booze,
leavings from one of Hank’s tweaker projects that involved stripping wires and
sorting the colored plastic into piles.
He pushes through the crowd and goes outside.
“No fucking way.”
Looking at the three strangers in the kitchen, Stevie becomes familiar.
“How you be, lady?”
After not seeing him for more than two years I have to hug
him to make sure he’s real. Over at the
table, Hank winks at Stevie while I’m hugging him. Hank’s been suggesting swinging or a
threesome for like a year, and I know that’s what’s on his mind when he flips
that lid at Stevie. And hell yes, if I
had the chance I would do Stevie right there in front of God and everyone. Well, if Polly were here I would take it to
the bedroom.
Stevie tells me the two guys he’s with are friends of his
from Washburn.
“I’m going to Washburn this fall.”
“Alright. Way to
go.” Stevie takes a drag from his
friend’s cigarette; a little strange in this crowd.
I hear out of the background, “I bet they share the other
guy’s dick, too.” The voice sounds like
Rick’s and I hope Stevie didn’t hear it because he’s a brutal mother, when he’s
pushed. Looks soft as hell though.
Hank’s driving to blackout fast. His confidence got crazy when he blacked
out. He told me once after a night in
the ether, that he felt like Hitler at the Nuremberg rallies when he got to
that point, minus the putting people in ovens.
He comes jump-dancing over to us to the beat of the metal on the
stereo. “Stevie, you bitch, where you
been?”
“Working man. What’s
up with you?’
“Can I get some of that Tequila?”
The two friends of Stevie look like they want to fit in so
bad. They smile and shake their heads to
the music and laugh when Hank calls Stevie a bitch, which is often.
“So, when you going to join the Marine’s, you motherfucker?”
Stevie says.
“Oh shit, I love this song.”
Heavy guitar rips across the room.
They all start nodding their heads.
“What is this?” One
of Stevie’s friends wants to know, to belong.
“My Sister’s Machine.”
Hank says this without looking at the guy.
“This song’s fucking shit,” Stevie said.
“Fuck you man,” Hank says and looks at his friends, “if I
never found this guy he’d still be listening to Tori Amos and probably emo
now.”
“L7, Shitlist.
Remember that tune buddy?”
“Yeah, I put it on the P.A. at the grocery store in Sand
Creek when we came back from that Gruntruck show in Kansas City.” Hank looks at the two guys, “We got chased
out of the store with brooms by the old lady that ran the place. ‘You freaks go
back home.’”
“She was hilarious.
Probably tells that story at every holiday with her family.” Stevie laughs and high fives Hank. “You ever find my Circus of Power cassette?”
“Give it up man, that shit sucked.”
“Hank, get over here.”
Rick’s looking for Hank to do some shots out of a bottle of vodka. Hank jumps through the rooms on an invisible
pogo stick.
“Come on, we came here to get fucked up,” one of Stevie’s
friends says to the other. He’s shoving
the bottle of Tequila they brought into the other dude’s chest.
“You going to introduce me?” I say to Stevie. His arms look huge and tight.
“Sorry, this tall freak over here is Grime and the one in
the pink polo shirt is Kerry.”
Grime tears the bottle of tequila away from Kerry and pulls
a big shot. He slams the bottle on the
counter and turns to the sink. “Easy
there, fella.” I say and hope he doesn’t put the puke-meat of his belly into my
sink. He makes a move like he’s going
to. His throat recoils. His torso spasms and he burps out a toxic
cloud of tequila and whatever he’d eaten for supper.
“So, my girlfriend works in the student loan department at
Washburn. If you want any help with
stuff like that we could get together, you, me and her and get it all sorted
out for you. Be a big help, I think,”
Stevie says. He turns to Grime, “You
going to be alright?”
Grime just nods his head.
“Write me down your number, so I can get hold of ya. We have to use the phone at Harold’s, so I’d
have to call you.”
“No phone?”
“Can’t afford it.”
“Sure, here’s my number,” he scribbles on a paper from his
pocket, Hank jumps over to us again, Stevie says, “if my girlfriend answers her
name’s Beth, so don’t think you’ve got the wrong number.”
“She’s some hot little fox with a friendly little box, I
bet.” Hank said and grabbed the bottle
of tequila from behind Grime and looked at Stevie, with his free hand made a V
and flapped his tongue through it.
“Jesus, Hank,” I apologize with a look, “Thanks, maybe with
the student loans we could get a phone line in here.”
“Even a prepaid cell would be good. You’ll need it.”
The night spirals out around me. I get to bed somehow and wake up forgetting
how the night ended. I’m still in my
clothes and cold on the bed. I put my
hands in my jeans pockets. The paper
crinkles in my hand. I pull it out to
see what it is. Stevie’s phone
number. Hank snores behind me. I put Stevie’s phone number back in my pocket
and am happy. I’m going to college and
getting out of this trailer.
END
January 4, 2020
Bleeding Kansas
Amputation. Laceration.
Scissors to safety nets.
Hedge funds hedge bets.
Your turn for the tourniquet.
Foot the bill. Cost of doing
business.
Country justice. Country
medicine.
This little piggy went to market.
All’s
Lasseiz-faire when you’re taxing
the polls.
Safety in preventing numbers
From interfering with the numbers
game.
Tangerine sunset or rather blood
orange.
Harvest unwanted. Phantom limb
soon to haunt your days.
Prices eventually skyrocket. Arm
and a leg.
Phrases tossed around casually
like the detritus
of a civil war surgical station
in the stink of battle.
Ax to grind. Solder and
cauterize.
Deep cuts. Tightened belts.
When the smoke clears will the
smell?
poetry published in Sunflower Sutras special edition marking the 14th Annual Aaron Douglas Art Fair. summer 2019.
Cover by Tara Bartley
