We watch long enough for the whole building to go up, the flames casting shadows on the sky a thousand feet high, before we disappear, almost before you can hear the sirens.
10 October 2012
October 10, 2012
October 9, 2012
Plans and promises
The white and purple flowers shiver in the breeze, just out of reach. I wish I could tell you what they are, what they're called, but I've never seen them before today. I suppose that's not much of a regret to have, not when compared to the laundry list that's been rolling through my mind for the last hour, but in a way this one stings more than the others. I'm not one to cry in public, and I suppose this counts, so I try to keep it to myself. It's a good way to go crazy, always acting like somebody's watching, and I always figured in the end it would be for the best to stay well-behaved, and yet here I am. So much for that.
I try to work my way closer to the flowers, but my legs aren't cooperating and I couldn't drag myself along with one arm anyways, even if I wasn't spilling out everywhere. The shivers are weaker now, fewer and farther between, too. Cold comfort, I guess, but I'll take it. I'm a little surprised I'm not colder, what with the dew and the dark and that tugging breeze, but again, I'll take it. At least it's quiet, peaceful.
I think about her and how she'd hate me if she heard this, how she'd tell everyone who'd listen, and I think I'm glad at this point she won't hear a thing about it. There's no one left to breathe a word of this, this absolute disaster, to her, to cause that crooked smile to drop, slow, to introduce doubt and fear to her eyes and denial to her heart and lips. It's better this way and I suppose, somewhere I chose and choose to avert my gaze from, I always knew it would be like this, and I think in some way I welcome it.
My breathing is slow and shallow and the blood is thick and sticky on my hand. I'd say I've given up on anyone coming along and finding me, but I honestly never entertained the possibility. Besides, that's a great way to ruin a moment, a sunrise like this, some idiot yammering on, just spewing noise and confusion and stupidity, and I'd like to enjoy this morning, to the best of my ability, and preserve a bit of quiet dignity, if at all possible. I wish I could say that was the reason I've been so quiet, suffering in silence and all, but there are practicalities at play that have a way of relieving me of my choice in the matter. I guess I'm just glad I can still appreciate what poetry there's left for me at this point.
I'm watching the sunrise that should be breaking over the horizon, watching the sky that should be easing itself towards day, shafts of sunlight burning off the mist, bringing warmth and light into the world once more, but instead it's getting dimmer and I still can't quite reach those flowers, turning to face the dawn.
9 October 2012
I try to work my way closer to the flowers, but my legs aren't cooperating and I couldn't drag myself along with one arm anyways, even if I wasn't spilling out everywhere. The shivers are weaker now, fewer and farther between, too. Cold comfort, I guess, but I'll take it. I'm a little surprised I'm not colder, what with the dew and the dark and that tugging breeze, but again, I'll take it. At least it's quiet, peaceful.
I think about her and how she'd hate me if she heard this, how she'd tell everyone who'd listen, and I think I'm glad at this point she won't hear a thing about it. There's no one left to breathe a word of this, this absolute disaster, to her, to cause that crooked smile to drop, slow, to introduce doubt and fear to her eyes and denial to her heart and lips. It's better this way and I suppose, somewhere I chose and choose to avert my gaze from, I always knew it would be like this, and I think in some way I welcome it.
My breathing is slow and shallow and the blood is thick and sticky on my hand. I'd say I've given up on anyone coming along and finding me, but I honestly never entertained the possibility. Besides, that's a great way to ruin a moment, a sunrise like this, some idiot yammering on, just spewing noise and confusion and stupidity, and I'd like to enjoy this morning, to the best of my ability, and preserve a bit of quiet dignity, if at all possible. I wish I could say that was the reason I've been so quiet, suffering in silence and all, but there are practicalities at play that have a way of relieving me of my choice in the matter. I guess I'm just glad I can still appreciate what poetry there's left for me at this point.
I'm watching the sunrise that should be breaking over the horizon, watching the sky that should be easing itself towards day, shafts of sunlight burning off the mist, bringing warmth and light into the world once more, but instead it's getting dimmer and I still can't quite reach those flowers, turning to face the dawn.
9 October 2012
September 4, 2012
Revealed by degree
We roll into town around midday, the boy still bleeding in the back. I look through the dust-caked windshield and take in the main drag, roofs hanging over walkways casting shadows pitch black compared to the glare of the sand, almost white. I check the pistol again and stow it, the other one under the dash in case anyone gets too close while I'm gone.
"I'll be right back," I tell her and jump out of the cab. She latches the door behind me almost before I hit the ground. She's a good kid; she knows what to do.
The sand's so hot I can feel it through my boots. Used to be you could still see patches of asphalt here and there, traces of ancient roads that once stretched from horizon to horizon, roads the masters of this world built before turning it into a cinder, still crackling and hissing in the sun, a perpetual desert, ash covering everything the sand can't. This world was a different place not so long ago. Long enough the little ones never knew it, but not so long ago as to be lost completely. Most of those you meet now can't remember the way it was, or won't, anyway. I suppose I understand that. The ones that could remember often found they couldn't forget, couldn't force this new world to make sense and couldn't find a place in it. Most of them have managed to find their way out of it by now.
A moment to stretch my back is about all I can stand out in the sun, so I make my way up onto one of the walkways and let my eyes adjust to the shade. The walkway runs off into the distance, stopping suddenly at the charred bones of a house or shop. I can't imagine what anyone'd be selling anymore, but I suppose opportunity springs eternal, even if nothing else does. The walkway across the road is battered, with loose boards popping up, twisted and gnarled, beneath holes rent in the roof, shafts of light stabbing through like puncture wounds.
There's no one outside, but there wouldn't be, this time of day. I make my way down the row of buildings, each shabbier than the last. A dry decay has settled into this town, beat down and on its last legs, but it's still a good step above the wasteland stretching out for eternity in every direction beyond these dessicated buildings. Though at least out there you can see death coming for you, striding across the sands, casting a shadow a mile long, ready to swallow you up. In the towns, in the ruins, there's death and danger around every corner and in every hidey-hole: cutthroats and rapers, slavers, the diseased. Cannibals. It seems sad that nowadays the safest life is the solitary one. If no one gets close, no one can hurt you. No one can sniff out your weakness, your fear, your need, and turn it on you. So you keep to yourself, keep moving, and stay away from the settlements. Except when you need something, which we do.
They're not likely to have medicine here, The good stuff, the old stuff, or the herbs and rags you find people that swear by, people missing eyes, people with weeping sores, people clutching themselves, racked with pain that won't abate. You have to trust it, they say: It's the power of belief. Well I don't and they do, and look at them.
The windows are battered and pitted, like the rest of the building, and so caked with sand and dust it flakes away under my touch. Even wiped clean I can't see inside, the darkness on the other side of the glass is impenetrable, hiding God knows what. The twisted shapes lurking within are creatures worse than any that ever strode the earth. Ghosts of decent men, driven beyond reason, molded and pounded into horrible new configurations, appropriate inheritors of this world of the dead and the dying.
I pound on the door and wait, any sound from within lost beneath the hiss of the unrelenting wind. I pound again and reach for the knob, but the door jerks open before I can touch it, open just a sliver, just wide enough for the barrel of a rifle to slink out.
"You get back in your rig and you get out of here."
The eyes behind the rifle are wide and wild, ringed by crow's feet. I tell her that we need medicine, that the boy is hurt, dying, and we need their help.
She doesn't falter, doesn't blink. "We don't want no trouble. Now whatever you brought here, you take it away with you."
I understand her decision. I imagine I would do the same thing. But all the same, it fills me with a great sadness. We've all of us become new beings to suit this new world, twisted reflections of the new landscape and the horrors it holds, our wickedness maybe not so new-found as some of us would like to believe, revealed by the same scouring wind that ground down the great towers and monuments to ourselves, leaving waste and ruin, girder ribcages with steel arms outstretched, broken and asymmetrical, clawing feebly at the sky. It seems some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: that we have the ability to visit such evil upon each other marks us as deserving of that same evil. Our capacity to inflict suffering earns us the suffering we find ourselves able to inflict.
"You wish death upon the boy," I tell her, and back away from the door. I take another look at the battered remains of this town, this little pocket of humanity struggling to survive despite itself, and I walk back to the truck, the little one opening the door for me. I climb in and meet the girl's hopeful stare, but she should know better. I take a look back at the boy. He's pale, sleeping or unconscious. Medicine wouldn't have helped him anyway.
4 September 2012
"I'll be right back," I tell her and jump out of the cab. She latches the door behind me almost before I hit the ground. She's a good kid; she knows what to do.
The sand's so hot I can feel it through my boots. Used to be you could still see patches of asphalt here and there, traces of ancient roads that once stretched from horizon to horizon, roads the masters of this world built before turning it into a cinder, still crackling and hissing in the sun, a perpetual desert, ash covering everything the sand can't. This world was a different place not so long ago. Long enough the little ones never knew it, but not so long ago as to be lost completely. Most of those you meet now can't remember the way it was, or won't, anyway. I suppose I understand that. The ones that could remember often found they couldn't forget, couldn't force this new world to make sense and couldn't find a place in it. Most of them have managed to find their way out of it by now.
A moment to stretch my back is about all I can stand out in the sun, so I make my way up onto one of the walkways and let my eyes adjust to the shade. The walkway runs off into the distance, stopping suddenly at the charred bones of a house or shop. I can't imagine what anyone'd be selling anymore, but I suppose opportunity springs eternal, even if nothing else does. The walkway across the road is battered, with loose boards popping up, twisted and gnarled, beneath holes rent in the roof, shafts of light stabbing through like puncture wounds.
There's no one outside, but there wouldn't be, this time of day. I make my way down the row of buildings, each shabbier than the last. A dry decay has settled into this town, beat down and on its last legs, but it's still a good step above the wasteland stretching out for eternity in every direction beyond these dessicated buildings. Though at least out there you can see death coming for you, striding across the sands, casting a shadow a mile long, ready to swallow you up. In the towns, in the ruins, there's death and danger around every corner and in every hidey-hole: cutthroats and rapers, slavers, the diseased. Cannibals. It seems sad that nowadays the safest life is the solitary one. If no one gets close, no one can hurt you. No one can sniff out your weakness, your fear, your need, and turn it on you. So you keep to yourself, keep moving, and stay away from the settlements. Except when you need something, which we do.
They're not likely to have medicine here, The good stuff, the old stuff, or the herbs and rags you find people that swear by, people missing eyes, people with weeping sores, people clutching themselves, racked with pain that won't abate. You have to trust it, they say: It's the power of belief. Well I don't and they do, and look at them.
The windows are battered and pitted, like the rest of the building, and so caked with sand and dust it flakes away under my touch. Even wiped clean I can't see inside, the darkness on the other side of the glass is impenetrable, hiding God knows what. The twisted shapes lurking within are creatures worse than any that ever strode the earth. Ghosts of decent men, driven beyond reason, molded and pounded into horrible new configurations, appropriate inheritors of this world of the dead and the dying.
I pound on the door and wait, any sound from within lost beneath the hiss of the unrelenting wind. I pound again and reach for the knob, but the door jerks open before I can touch it, open just a sliver, just wide enough for the barrel of a rifle to slink out.
"You get back in your rig and you get out of here."
The eyes behind the rifle are wide and wild, ringed by crow's feet. I tell her that we need medicine, that the boy is hurt, dying, and we need their help.
She doesn't falter, doesn't blink. "We don't want no trouble. Now whatever you brought here, you take it away with you."
I understand her decision. I imagine I would do the same thing. But all the same, it fills me with a great sadness. We've all of us become new beings to suit this new world, twisted reflections of the new landscape and the horrors it holds, our wickedness maybe not so new-found as some of us would like to believe, revealed by the same scouring wind that ground down the great towers and monuments to ourselves, leaving waste and ruin, girder ribcages with steel arms outstretched, broken and asymmetrical, clawing feebly at the sky. It seems some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy: that we have the ability to visit such evil upon each other marks us as deserving of that same evil. Our capacity to inflict suffering earns us the suffering we find ourselves able to inflict.
"You wish death upon the boy," I tell her, and back away from the door. I take another look at the battered remains of this town, this little pocket of humanity struggling to survive despite itself, and I walk back to the truck, the little one opening the door for me. I climb in and meet the girl's hopeful stare, but she should know better. I take a look back at the boy. He's pale, sleeping or unconscious. Medicine wouldn't have helped him anyway.
4 September 2012
August 1, 2012
Made of stone
We steal up the steps and into the church, the doors swinging lazily, refusing to close. I'm confident no one saw, but she's convinced. I don't know if the shadows here are deep enough for her to hide, to feel safe, but if not here, then where? This is supposed to be some kind of sanctuary, but I can't tell if those eyes are looking down on us with pity or accusation. Hundreds of eyes in hundreds of faces, staring down from pedestals and windows, not so different, as it turns out, from the very same eyes and stares that drove us in here, into the dark.
She's breathing hard, a knife edge on each quick gasp. She won't look at me, and I know why. I leave her to her thoughts and walk deeper into the church. My hand hovers over the holy water font, miming the forgotten gesture with a mind all its own. I look into the yawning dark and see no one, no one to cast us out, to see us for what we may be, to hold up that mirror that we've worked so hard to convince ourselves is distorted, twisted. It seems we may find peace here after all.
The door slams in its frame, knocking itself open again, the resonating boom echoing through the church, repeated a thousand times, the voice of judgement, perhaps. But the sound diminishes, and disappears. This place holds no terrors for us, no great unknown. We'll be safe here if only because it's empty.
I draw her deeper into the church, slowed to her stilted pace, and keep my arm around her. When she does look up, her face is streaked with tears. It was before, too, and my response, my rage, is to blame for our flight, our need to run and hide and not be seen. Her tears have always had that effect on me and I have never seen it as something that needs to be controlled or tempered. If she does she's never said so. Something leads me to believe it's a welcome response, proof somehow that the world still makes some sort of broken sense. And if she needs that from me, if I can provide some bent compass rose to her, then all the better. I'm happy to do it.
But this time her tears weaken me, and I hold her tight. I don't know quite how to do this, but I try and find that she seems to approve of the results, though I feel awkward and weak, uncomfortable and embarrassed. It's stupid of me, and I know it, but there's nothing for me to destroy here, nothing to break in order to fix her, so I have to do my best in unfamiliar territory. There's a weakness in her that I love, that I find myself protecting like a flame, holding it gently, against everything else there is that seems to want to crush it. Sometimes I'm able to open my hands and let it go, to let it soar and wheel through the air, reveling in a beauty I can't detect or fathom. When it flies high enough to leave me behind I'm left with traces, dust on my fingers from a moth's wings, sitting silent on the edge of the bed, paint peeling around me.
But it crashes to earth, it always does. The gravity of this place is just too much to escape, no matter how light your soul is, how overwhelming your need to be free. So I rush back to protect it, to put it back together and let it heal and forget.
Her breathing is even now, and slow, punctuated by the sniffles of a child. I know she didn't want to come here, but where else was there to go? Soon she'll lean against me and we'll make this place our own. Her eyes will close and I'll lie beside her.
1 August 2012
She's breathing hard, a knife edge on each quick gasp. She won't look at me, and I know why. I leave her to her thoughts and walk deeper into the church. My hand hovers over the holy water font, miming the forgotten gesture with a mind all its own. I look into the yawning dark and see no one, no one to cast us out, to see us for what we may be, to hold up that mirror that we've worked so hard to convince ourselves is distorted, twisted. It seems we may find peace here after all.
The door slams in its frame, knocking itself open again, the resonating boom echoing through the church, repeated a thousand times, the voice of judgement, perhaps. But the sound diminishes, and disappears. This place holds no terrors for us, no great unknown. We'll be safe here if only because it's empty.
I draw her deeper into the church, slowed to her stilted pace, and keep my arm around her. When she does look up, her face is streaked with tears. It was before, too, and my response, my rage, is to blame for our flight, our need to run and hide and not be seen. Her tears have always had that effect on me and I have never seen it as something that needs to be controlled or tempered. If she does she's never said so. Something leads me to believe it's a welcome response, proof somehow that the world still makes some sort of broken sense. And if she needs that from me, if I can provide some bent compass rose to her, then all the better. I'm happy to do it.
But this time her tears weaken me, and I hold her tight. I don't know quite how to do this, but I try and find that she seems to approve of the results, though I feel awkward and weak, uncomfortable and embarrassed. It's stupid of me, and I know it, but there's nothing for me to destroy here, nothing to break in order to fix her, so I have to do my best in unfamiliar territory. There's a weakness in her that I love, that I find myself protecting like a flame, holding it gently, against everything else there is that seems to want to crush it. Sometimes I'm able to open my hands and let it go, to let it soar and wheel through the air, reveling in a beauty I can't detect or fathom. When it flies high enough to leave me behind I'm left with traces, dust on my fingers from a moth's wings, sitting silent on the edge of the bed, paint peeling around me.
But it crashes to earth, it always does. The gravity of this place is just too much to escape, no matter how light your soul is, how overwhelming your need to be free. So I rush back to protect it, to put it back together and let it heal and forget.
Her breathing is even now, and slow, punctuated by the sniffles of a child. I know she didn't want to come here, but where else was there to go? Soon she'll lean against me and we'll make this place our own. Her eyes will close and I'll lie beside her.
1 August 2012
May 24, 2012
Zeno
Mick starts talking about all the girls he fucked, and I don't want to hear it. I've heard this story about a dozen times and I don't believe a word of it. Well that's not fair. I guess I just don't believe the word "hundreds".
Mick didn't talk at first, and that was nice. I thought we'd be able to just lie here, waiting, in peace and quiet, the only sound our labored breathing, but I guess he tired of that eventually and opened his mouth. He'd asked me if I knew how many girls he'd had, and I told him I didn't. I didn't ask for any more information and he didn't offer it, so we went back to silence, just breathing and waiting.
"Three," he says. After a second I look up at him and he's looking right at me. He gives a little nod and repeats it, and this time I have to ask.
One is some girl I never heard of, not that I should have, as from the sound of her she was just some truck stop whore off the turnpike. I don't know many who paid for their first, and I'm comfortable saying I know less who would admit to it, but there you go.
He tells me about her and honestly he paints a pretty picture. Obviously I got the sense to not fall in love with the first girl to throw a piece my way, much less a whore, but Mick's not the most worldly of individuals, as is becoming clear. It sounds like the cutoffs are what did it for him, what made him pick her out of all the girls working that night, and I guess if he felt like he got his money's worth then that's all right, but I'll tell you, I'll take tight over short any day of the week and not think twice about it. It's entirely likely that says more about me than him, but there it is.
The whore was all right though, he says. She was nice, she was sweet. She kept her bra on and took her shoes off and Mick didn't know which way was up by the end. She had big eyes and dark roots and the way he talks about her you can tell he was thinking about how he's gonna save her from all this and take her away somewhere, give her a good life, make her happy, be the one that she turns it all around for and everything else, every fairy tale his fool head was full of, and she smiles while she smokes, nodding along and "Sure, sure, of course," even while she's pulling those cutoffs back on and when he tells her he loves her and she says it back, walking out that door, he believes her, and I can't help but sympathize. My grin turns into a wince, but he's worse off than me by a long shot.
Donna's the next one, but I knew about that already. In fact, that's the one I did know about, because everyone did, because everyone was there when she came ripping into the shop screaming like hell about she was gonna kill him for what he was spreading around. Never once did she deny any of it, but she swore up and down he'd regret opening his mouth the way he did and I swear to God I expected him to come to heel like a whipped dog, but he just stood there, cool as can be, shrugging it off, trying to calm her down in that way that just makes them madder, until she knocked a socket set down into the Dodge and stormed off, the sockets clinking and clanking down through the guts of the car and into the oil pan beneath it.
Now like I said he was very cool: he didn't rattle. But then again he didn't talk about Donna again, even if someone asked. He'd laugh and say something about how that was nothing and get a load of this, and he'd whip out some other story about some other girl, but none of them ever had that meat, the blood and bone in the story where you know it's in their flesh and coming out their mouth. For all his stories, it was Donna all along: Donna the scene queen. Donna the party girl. Donna the hellion. Donna big tits. And I guess I understand that.
I wonder why Mick's telling me this- I know why he's telling me, I just figured he'd still think he was going to make it out of here: I didn't expect him to figure it out quite yet. I guess he put that quiet time to good use, thinking it over, figuring out the lies, rather than just lying there bleeding. He's come a long way, really. I'll be sure to tell the guys how impressed I was with him by the end.
He starts in on Jen and I go rigid. My vision goes white for a second and fire rips through me. That was stupid of me, but I guess I deserve to get hurt, still keeping her so close. Even now she does this to me. Even now she's got me tearing myself apart trying to make her mine, trying to keep her mine. Years of playing the game, years of the chase and Mick's the one she picked? I'd drag myself over there and choke the life out of him, but that's not the smart play. I need to sit here and breathe and save my strength. That's why I'm making it out of here and Mick's laid out, spilling his guts. I'll outlast him and I'll make it out, they'll come and get me and patch me up and it'll be too late for Mick there but hey, I'm still here and I'll have years yet to make her see me the way I need to. If he can, I can.
Only he can't. Or he didn't, anyway, not that he didn't want to, not that we all didn't. He wanted her bad, he says, yeah, him and everyone else. Legs forever, great figure. She had this hair that was just... He wanted her as bad as me, and by the sound of it, she was about as interested in him as she was in me. Obviously that didn't stop me from chasing her, year after year, trying my damn best. Mick tells me he tried, too. He did everything he knew how, even going so far as to swear off the dozens, scores, of other women beating down his door, if only she'd say yes. I'm confident she saw right through that, but she just laughed that laugh of hers and turned away, gliding.
It was then, Mick says, that he made his decision. He went out and he found a girl with that same look: tall and strong, deep, dark eyes and a neck that was just so, and I guess she did the trick. This one he doesn't have much to say about. She was a looker, obviously, but even he knew it wasn't the same. In a way that probably ruined it for him, and were he a thinking man he would have known that, recognized the shame for what it was, and known the disappointment was in himself. Instead he took it as enough of a victory to move on, satisfied he'd put that dream to rest in a manner close enough to the ideal as to make no difference. That doesn't sound half bad.
I try to keep pressure on the hole in my side like you're supposed to, but it hurts too bad. It's starting to get dark, but that's okay, it can't be much longer now. Mick's lying there, pale, looking at me with glassy eyes, and I can't help but pity him. He's gonna die here with that story on his lips, and I'm gonna get out of here and make that girl mine.
Mick laughs a little and looks away.
24 May 2012
Mick didn't talk at first, and that was nice. I thought we'd be able to just lie here, waiting, in peace and quiet, the only sound our labored breathing, but I guess he tired of that eventually and opened his mouth. He'd asked me if I knew how many girls he'd had, and I told him I didn't. I didn't ask for any more information and he didn't offer it, so we went back to silence, just breathing and waiting.
"Three," he says. After a second I look up at him and he's looking right at me. He gives a little nod and repeats it, and this time I have to ask.
One is some girl I never heard of, not that I should have, as from the sound of her she was just some truck stop whore off the turnpike. I don't know many who paid for their first, and I'm comfortable saying I know less who would admit to it, but there you go.
He tells me about her and honestly he paints a pretty picture. Obviously I got the sense to not fall in love with the first girl to throw a piece my way, much less a whore, but Mick's not the most worldly of individuals, as is becoming clear. It sounds like the cutoffs are what did it for him, what made him pick her out of all the girls working that night, and I guess if he felt like he got his money's worth then that's all right, but I'll tell you, I'll take tight over short any day of the week and not think twice about it. It's entirely likely that says more about me than him, but there it is.
The whore was all right though, he says. She was nice, she was sweet. She kept her bra on and took her shoes off and Mick didn't know which way was up by the end. She had big eyes and dark roots and the way he talks about her you can tell he was thinking about how he's gonna save her from all this and take her away somewhere, give her a good life, make her happy, be the one that she turns it all around for and everything else, every fairy tale his fool head was full of, and she smiles while she smokes, nodding along and "Sure, sure, of course," even while she's pulling those cutoffs back on and when he tells her he loves her and she says it back, walking out that door, he believes her, and I can't help but sympathize. My grin turns into a wince, but he's worse off than me by a long shot.
Donna's the next one, but I knew about that already. In fact, that's the one I did know about, because everyone did, because everyone was there when she came ripping into the shop screaming like hell about she was gonna kill him for what he was spreading around. Never once did she deny any of it, but she swore up and down he'd regret opening his mouth the way he did and I swear to God I expected him to come to heel like a whipped dog, but he just stood there, cool as can be, shrugging it off, trying to calm her down in that way that just makes them madder, until she knocked a socket set down into the Dodge and stormed off, the sockets clinking and clanking down through the guts of the car and into the oil pan beneath it.
Now like I said he was very cool: he didn't rattle. But then again he didn't talk about Donna again, even if someone asked. He'd laugh and say something about how that was nothing and get a load of this, and he'd whip out some other story about some other girl, but none of them ever had that meat, the blood and bone in the story where you know it's in their flesh and coming out their mouth. For all his stories, it was Donna all along: Donna the scene queen. Donna the party girl. Donna the hellion. Donna big tits. And I guess I understand that.
I wonder why Mick's telling me this- I know why he's telling me, I just figured he'd still think he was going to make it out of here: I didn't expect him to figure it out quite yet. I guess he put that quiet time to good use, thinking it over, figuring out the lies, rather than just lying there bleeding. He's come a long way, really. I'll be sure to tell the guys how impressed I was with him by the end.
He starts in on Jen and I go rigid. My vision goes white for a second and fire rips through me. That was stupid of me, but I guess I deserve to get hurt, still keeping her so close. Even now she does this to me. Even now she's got me tearing myself apart trying to make her mine, trying to keep her mine. Years of playing the game, years of the chase and Mick's the one she picked? I'd drag myself over there and choke the life out of him, but that's not the smart play. I need to sit here and breathe and save my strength. That's why I'm making it out of here and Mick's laid out, spilling his guts. I'll outlast him and I'll make it out, they'll come and get me and patch me up and it'll be too late for Mick there but hey, I'm still here and I'll have years yet to make her see me the way I need to. If he can, I can.
Only he can't. Or he didn't, anyway, not that he didn't want to, not that we all didn't. He wanted her bad, he says, yeah, him and everyone else. Legs forever, great figure. She had this hair that was just... He wanted her as bad as me, and by the sound of it, she was about as interested in him as she was in me. Obviously that didn't stop me from chasing her, year after year, trying my damn best. Mick tells me he tried, too. He did everything he knew how, even going so far as to swear off the dozens, scores, of other women beating down his door, if only she'd say yes. I'm confident she saw right through that, but she just laughed that laugh of hers and turned away, gliding.
It was then, Mick says, that he made his decision. He went out and he found a girl with that same look: tall and strong, deep, dark eyes and a neck that was just so, and I guess she did the trick. This one he doesn't have much to say about. She was a looker, obviously, but even he knew it wasn't the same. In a way that probably ruined it for him, and were he a thinking man he would have known that, recognized the shame for what it was, and known the disappointment was in himself. Instead he took it as enough of a victory to move on, satisfied he'd put that dream to rest in a manner close enough to the ideal as to make no difference. That doesn't sound half bad.
I try to keep pressure on the hole in my side like you're supposed to, but it hurts too bad. It's starting to get dark, but that's okay, it can't be much longer now. Mick's lying there, pale, looking at me with glassy eyes, and I can't help but pity him. He's gonna die here with that story on his lips, and I'm gonna get out of here and make that girl mine.
Mick laughs a little and looks away.
24 May 2012
May 10, 2012
A father in the wastes
I put two feet of steel through his belly; that seems to shut him up.
His friends are up immediately, reaching for their irons, but none of them quite makes it. They're looking at me, looking at him, looking at each other, and none of them's moving. The room's silent, went quiet when I cut that last word out of this boy leaning against me. They're all watching, waiting, the whole world holding its breath.
I slide my eyes across the men at the table, standing over fallen chairs, hands hovering, unsure above their weapons. Some of them meet my eyes, some watch the lifeblood of their compatriot drip drip drip off my blade, still in him, clean through him. Some of them look away, chewing their lip, hating me for all the times this has happened before, trying to curse themselves into action, not realizing, perhaps, the value their fear has.
In the end they're cowards, all of them, but even cowards have their moments. One of them will have his today: he'll follow me outside after failing to goad his companions into action. He'll fly out that door, his blood hot in his veins, and he'll know that he'll kill me, that he'll set things right, and every time he woke up gasping, clutching at something, anything, in the dark will be washed away. He'll be a new man, a strong man, and it won't all have been for nothing.
He'll know these things, somewhere he doesn't know how to look, and when he comes through that door, all fire and vengeance, and he points his weapon at my back, he'll be the man he was always meant to be, for that moment, and I'll take it all away for him in one screaming second.
The boy's knees are going and he's batting at me feebly, like a kitten. I let him go and he slides down off the blade. Nobody moves to catch him, or to see to him once he's fallen.
I turn to leave and stop, my hand on the door. I look back at him, the one in blue, the one who'll come out after me, and he meets my gaze. I think I envy him his moment.
The battered ceiling fan spins on overhead.
10 May 2012
His friends are up immediately, reaching for their irons, but none of them quite makes it. They're looking at me, looking at him, looking at each other, and none of them's moving. The room's silent, went quiet when I cut that last word out of this boy leaning against me. They're all watching, waiting, the whole world holding its breath.
I slide my eyes across the men at the table, standing over fallen chairs, hands hovering, unsure above their weapons. Some of them meet my eyes, some watch the lifeblood of their compatriot drip drip drip off my blade, still in him, clean through him. Some of them look away, chewing their lip, hating me for all the times this has happened before, trying to curse themselves into action, not realizing, perhaps, the value their fear has.
In the end they're cowards, all of them, but even cowards have their moments. One of them will have his today: he'll follow me outside after failing to goad his companions into action. He'll fly out that door, his blood hot in his veins, and he'll know that he'll kill me, that he'll set things right, and every time he woke up gasping, clutching at something, anything, in the dark will be washed away. He'll be a new man, a strong man, and it won't all have been for nothing.
He'll know these things, somewhere he doesn't know how to look, and when he comes through that door, all fire and vengeance, and he points his weapon at my back, he'll be the man he was always meant to be, for that moment, and I'll take it all away for him in one screaming second.
The boy's knees are going and he's batting at me feebly, like a kitten. I let him go and he slides down off the blade. Nobody moves to catch him, or to see to him once he's fallen.
I turn to leave and stop, my hand on the door. I look back at him, the one in blue, the one who'll come out after me, and he meets my gaze. I think I envy him his moment.
The battered ceiling fan spins on overhead.
10 May 2012
May 9, 2012
Arrowhead
Tony pulls his head out of the toilet and he sprawls backwards, gagging and vomiting up toilet water and piss as he tries to scramble back out of the stall, splashing across the tile floor. He whips his head around, looking for a way out, I guess, but in front of him's Tony and behind him's me and even though he's soaked I can see he's crying because he knows as well as I do that he's not getting back up off that floor anytime soon. It's a pathetic sight, really, but I look up and Tony's smiling, so I guess it can't be that bad.
This is the part where he tries to reason with Tony, to talk his way out of this hole he didn't even know he was in. He's sputtering, like they always do. He needs time, he needs help, he needs another chance. They all need something, but at the end of the day, I've never seen one of their little speeches work. Tony gets what he wants, or as close to it as he's willing to settle for for the time being, and we go on our merry way.
I met Tony when I was fourteen. He was kicking the shit out of a guy I was trying to deliver a sack of brown to. He didn't seem to notice me at first, so I just stood there in the doorway, watching Tony beat on this guy. All things considered, I should have bailed the minute I saw what was going on, but something made me stay. It couldn't have been what Tony was saying, because he wasn't saying anything at all. And it wasn't that I'd never seen a hellacious beating before, because that's not exactly a rare sight down here. I didn't know what it was, and I think I still don't, but I stayed there, watching this guy get his ass kicked, knowing there wasn't any reason to stay, knowing he wasn't going to have anything left to pay me with when it ended (if it ended: I've never known Tony to tire, or bore, easily.) and that the maniac bouncing his head off the radiator would almost certainly proceed to help himself to any cash and whatever else I was carrying once he noticed me, but I stood there and watched.
When Tony did look up from the guy he asked me if I was confident I was making the right decisions. I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now, so I guess the years haven't changed everything. I've been watching Tony hand out beatings all up and down the highways and byways of America for some time now and while it started as one thing, it's become another, and suddenly I'm not entirely sure this is where I want to be. Not in this bathroom, watching drops of piss and tears drip off this guy's face, not sleeping in bucket seats and waking up with every muscle in my body making a fist, not forever following, lacking the conviction of the man who's leading. I'm not entirely confident I'm making any decisions anymore.
Tony drags the guy across the tiles back into the stall and leaves him there, crumpled on the floor. He turns to me and tells me it's time to see my stuff.
The guy cringes away from me but I get my hands around his neck all the same. I don't really know what I'm doing, but as I press my thumbs into his throat I realize that it feels right. I start to squeeze and the guy's barely fighting when Tony steps back in.
"Not like that," he says. "I'll show you."
9 May 2012
This is the part where he tries to reason with Tony, to talk his way out of this hole he didn't even know he was in. He's sputtering, like they always do. He needs time, he needs help, he needs another chance. They all need something, but at the end of the day, I've never seen one of their little speeches work. Tony gets what he wants, or as close to it as he's willing to settle for for the time being, and we go on our merry way.
I met Tony when I was fourteen. He was kicking the shit out of a guy I was trying to deliver a sack of brown to. He didn't seem to notice me at first, so I just stood there in the doorway, watching Tony beat on this guy. All things considered, I should have bailed the minute I saw what was going on, but something made me stay. It couldn't have been what Tony was saying, because he wasn't saying anything at all. And it wasn't that I'd never seen a hellacious beating before, because that's not exactly a rare sight down here. I didn't know what it was, and I think I still don't, but I stayed there, watching this guy get his ass kicked, knowing there wasn't any reason to stay, knowing he wasn't going to have anything left to pay me with when it ended (if it ended: I've never known Tony to tire, or bore, easily.) and that the maniac bouncing his head off the radiator would almost certainly proceed to help himself to any cash and whatever else I was carrying once he noticed me, but I stood there and watched.
When Tony did look up from the guy he asked me if I was confident I was making the right decisions. I didn't have an answer then and I don't have an answer now, so I guess the years haven't changed everything. I've been watching Tony hand out beatings all up and down the highways and byways of America for some time now and while it started as one thing, it's become another, and suddenly I'm not entirely sure this is where I want to be. Not in this bathroom, watching drops of piss and tears drip off this guy's face, not sleeping in bucket seats and waking up with every muscle in my body making a fist, not forever following, lacking the conviction of the man who's leading. I'm not entirely confident I'm making any decisions anymore.
Tony drags the guy across the tiles back into the stall and leaves him there, crumpled on the floor. He turns to me and tells me it's time to see my stuff.
The guy cringes away from me but I get my hands around his neck all the same. I don't really know what I'm doing, but as I press my thumbs into his throat I realize that it feels right. I start to squeeze and the guy's barely fighting when Tony steps back in.
"Not like that," he says. "I'll show you."
9 May 2012
April 8, 2012
I can't say I mind
We bring the bats down on Jerry a couple more times before he wises up and stops moving. Shanahan's already sweating and breathing hard. He'll be easy when the time comes, and I'm sure it will. He might know it too, but he's not telling.
The basement's wood paneled, with a dinky little bar in the corner. It's a little early for me, but Wilkes is already working on his third. It's not that he doesn't have the stomach for this- well it's not just that he doesn't have the stomach for this, because he doesn't, but he's got himself a weakness. He'd be easy too, but I don't think that'll ever fall to me. Something about him says he'll handle things himself, nice and tidy. Either way, we got time: Jerry's lady's at the grocery, picking up lamb shanks and asparagus for Sunday dinner. Must be nice. This idiot can't do anything right, can't even keep his mouth shut, and he's got all this. Meanwhile I do what I'm told and do it quiet and I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating takeout every night. I tell you, there's no justice.
Shanahan's giving Jerry an earful, wheezing as he does it, and I take the opportunity to stroll around the basement, giving my back a stretch. He's got some of those neon beer signs hanging here and there. Pretty tacky, I always thought, but then again I'm not the type to buy a ranch house in the tree streets, so what the hell do I know about it? The dart board I don't mind, but there's more holes in the wall than in the cork, and that gets to me. You'd think he'd get good eventually, but I guess that's just not him.
I grab a mug and fill it with water, taking a seat at the bar. I take a sip and swish the water around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of blood. I bit my tongue roughhousing with Jerry when we came in, trying to get him down into the basement. By the time we got him down here Wilkes had the radio on loud enough to keep our little encounter from the neighbors. Ask me, they'd have to be idiots to not know something was up, but if you ask me most everybody's idiots as it is, so there you go.
Jerry's whimpering on the floor, bleeding out his mouth into the carpet. The Ames Brothers come on and I guess Shanahan feels like he's made his point, so it's time to go. I finish my water and put the mug from some shitty little fishing town in Wisconsin back on the bar. I head up the steps with Wilkes on my heels. Shanahan gives Jerry one more shot in the ribs and tells him we don't want to have to come back out here, which is true, and he climbs the steps after us.
We're at the front door when we see that Wilkes left his bat downstairs and Shanahan sends him back down there to get it. Something tells me he did it on purpose, but before I'm halfway down the front steps I hear him yell and a shot rings out. I turn around and try to get back inside but Shanahan, that lump, is halfway in the doorway and halfway out and about the slowest moving human being I've ever encountered. By the time he's turned and headed back into the house Jerry's there with his .38, putting three into Shanahan's chest. He falls forward and I follow him into the house, taking a wild swing at Jerry on my way to the floor.
I connect with Jerry's face right below the cheekbone and I can hear everything break. His eyes went wide when he saw the swing coming, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do at that point, except for watch it happen. Jerry drops and the piece falls through the glass end table where he was standing. I pick myself up and he's already trying to drag himself away, one hand holding his jaw together, the other scrabbling at the carpet. I stand over him and put my foot on his leg to keep him steady. I aim for the base of his spine the first time, and it's effective. His legs kick a little with each swing, but he's not going anywhere now.
Jerry put one bloody hand up, some feeble attempt to wave me off, but my next swing connects just below the elbow and I guess he decides it was a bad idea because he folds back up, gurgling. He's not the only one gurgling though, and I look over to see Shanahan roll himself over onto his back, coughing up blood and whatever he had for breakfast. Maybe he's going to make it after all.
I turn back to Jerry and take another swing as Shanahan says "Get me out of here", gargling on the words.
I'm going to have to drag him back to the car and get him patched up, and me with a bad back. I bring the bat down. I tell you, there's no justice.
8 April 2012
The basement's wood paneled, with a dinky little bar in the corner. It's a little early for me, but Wilkes is already working on his third. It's not that he doesn't have the stomach for this- well it's not just that he doesn't have the stomach for this, because he doesn't, but he's got himself a weakness. He'd be easy too, but I don't think that'll ever fall to me. Something about him says he'll handle things himself, nice and tidy. Either way, we got time: Jerry's lady's at the grocery, picking up lamb shanks and asparagus for Sunday dinner. Must be nice. This idiot can't do anything right, can't even keep his mouth shut, and he's got all this. Meanwhile I do what I'm told and do it quiet and I'm sleeping on a mattress on the floor and eating takeout every night. I tell you, there's no justice.
Shanahan's giving Jerry an earful, wheezing as he does it, and I take the opportunity to stroll around the basement, giving my back a stretch. He's got some of those neon beer signs hanging here and there. Pretty tacky, I always thought, but then again I'm not the type to buy a ranch house in the tree streets, so what the hell do I know about it? The dart board I don't mind, but there's more holes in the wall than in the cork, and that gets to me. You'd think he'd get good eventually, but I guess that's just not him.
I grab a mug and fill it with water, taking a seat at the bar. I take a sip and swish the water around in my mouth, trying to get rid of the taste of blood. I bit my tongue roughhousing with Jerry when we came in, trying to get him down into the basement. By the time we got him down here Wilkes had the radio on loud enough to keep our little encounter from the neighbors. Ask me, they'd have to be idiots to not know something was up, but if you ask me most everybody's idiots as it is, so there you go.
Jerry's whimpering on the floor, bleeding out his mouth into the carpet. The Ames Brothers come on and I guess Shanahan feels like he's made his point, so it's time to go. I finish my water and put the mug from some shitty little fishing town in Wisconsin back on the bar. I head up the steps with Wilkes on my heels. Shanahan gives Jerry one more shot in the ribs and tells him we don't want to have to come back out here, which is true, and he climbs the steps after us.
We're at the front door when we see that Wilkes left his bat downstairs and Shanahan sends him back down there to get it. Something tells me he did it on purpose, but before I'm halfway down the front steps I hear him yell and a shot rings out. I turn around and try to get back inside but Shanahan, that lump, is halfway in the doorway and halfway out and about the slowest moving human being I've ever encountered. By the time he's turned and headed back into the house Jerry's there with his .38, putting three into Shanahan's chest. He falls forward and I follow him into the house, taking a wild swing at Jerry on my way to the floor.
I connect with Jerry's face right below the cheekbone and I can hear everything break. His eyes went wide when he saw the swing coming, but there wasn't a whole hell of a lot he could do at that point, except for watch it happen. Jerry drops and the piece falls through the glass end table where he was standing. I pick myself up and he's already trying to drag himself away, one hand holding his jaw together, the other scrabbling at the carpet. I stand over him and put my foot on his leg to keep him steady. I aim for the base of his spine the first time, and it's effective. His legs kick a little with each swing, but he's not going anywhere now.
Jerry put one bloody hand up, some feeble attempt to wave me off, but my next swing connects just below the elbow and I guess he decides it was a bad idea because he folds back up, gurgling. He's not the only one gurgling though, and I look over to see Shanahan roll himself over onto his back, coughing up blood and whatever he had for breakfast. Maybe he's going to make it after all.
I turn back to Jerry and take another swing as Shanahan says "Get me out of here", gargling on the words.
I'm going to have to drag him back to the car and get him patched up, and me with a bad back. I bring the bat down. I tell you, there's no justice.
8 April 2012
March 25, 2012
Liars, all
I take my eyes off Tommy and watch the cruiser as it rolls down the street towards us, slowing to a crawl. I don't like doing it, taking my eyes off him, and it's not something I'd recommend, but I can't watch the car and Tommy all at once, so there it is.
I met Tommy about three years ago, when I needed something and someone sent me his way. I didn't like him, I didn't trust him, and I guess I still don't, but for the time being I need him and I'm pretty sure he thinks he needs me, so I guess in that regard things are on an even keel. He calls me, like he did last night, when there's something need's doing, something that might end up something of a mess, and we put our heads together and see what we can see.
I headed up the steps ahead of him, climbing the musty staircase with the broken handrail, the carpet worn to nothing where a thousand men like me had walked before. I'd like to think, and I used to, that there were no men like me, that I was a different breed, set apart and unique in my abilities, but we're all killers and thieves, we're all the same, and I'm nobody special.
He let us in the door on the third landing and closed it behind me. The apartment was cramped, littered with the evidence of a thousand years of solitary life, hidden away behind locked doors and ratty, faded wallpaper. Dust pinwheeled in the air, suspended in shafts of light stabbing through the rents in the macrame curtains. An ashtray sat half-full on a tv tray in front of the couch, reminding me of Virden and my mother.
We walked through the kitchen, the garbage already turning in the can, and headed into the bedroom, a sad little temple to loneliness and loss and the eventually accepted belief that it probably didn't matter in the first place. There were little nicknacks covering every surface, dried out little snow globes and painted spoons from far-off places like Spokane and Lebanon. The one in Kansas. Maybe she'd had something of a life before, or almost did. Maybe someone'd taken pity on her and brought these back, one by one, trying to convince her there was a world out there after all, a great big place full of horrible little towns to die in, and not some dinky one bedroom walkup in a wasting hulk of brick and rotting timbers.
Didn't work though. So Tommy pointed me across the room, past the woman on the bed, to her vanity sitting spotless in the corner. I don't know why, but I expected everything to be dirty, covered with dust and long-abandoned. I always did, but it never was. I don't know if that was a disappointment, but at the end of the day it probably made things easier, made it feel a little less like the grave robbing it was.
The mirror was clean, and as I gathered up the rings and bangles, the little pearl earrings and necklaces with bits of amber and coral, worthless jewelry worn around the house for years and years, I watched Tommy's reflection as he looked over the room, knowing full well there was nothing else for us to take, no strongbox, no bonds or cash, no silver or family pictures even. That's probably for the best: Tommy's got a weakness. It's the little ones, and I don't like that much but it hasn't got in the way yet, so I'm inclined to look the other way for the time being.
I packed away the rings and such and as we turned to leave we heard the front door open. No voices came with the sound, and that said it all. Tommy took off through the kitchen and I was right on his heels, crashing through the back door and flying down the lopsided steps and across the yard. Over the fence and into the alley, we split up and were gone, without even a shout to fade away behind us.
I turn back to Tommy as the cruiser slinks off into the darkness, the taillights fading embers beckoning, drawing us into some new oblivion if we would only follow, and Tommy's smiling.
25 March 2012
I met Tommy about three years ago, when I needed something and someone sent me his way. I didn't like him, I didn't trust him, and I guess I still don't, but for the time being I need him and I'm pretty sure he thinks he needs me, so I guess in that regard things are on an even keel. He calls me, like he did last night, when there's something need's doing, something that might end up something of a mess, and we put our heads together and see what we can see.
I headed up the steps ahead of him, climbing the musty staircase with the broken handrail, the carpet worn to nothing where a thousand men like me had walked before. I'd like to think, and I used to, that there were no men like me, that I was a different breed, set apart and unique in my abilities, but we're all killers and thieves, we're all the same, and I'm nobody special.
He let us in the door on the third landing and closed it behind me. The apartment was cramped, littered with the evidence of a thousand years of solitary life, hidden away behind locked doors and ratty, faded wallpaper. Dust pinwheeled in the air, suspended in shafts of light stabbing through the rents in the macrame curtains. An ashtray sat half-full on a tv tray in front of the couch, reminding me of Virden and my mother.
We walked through the kitchen, the garbage already turning in the can, and headed into the bedroom, a sad little temple to loneliness and loss and the eventually accepted belief that it probably didn't matter in the first place. There were little nicknacks covering every surface, dried out little snow globes and painted spoons from far-off places like Spokane and Lebanon. The one in Kansas. Maybe she'd had something of a life before, or almost did. Maybe someone'd taken pity on her and brought these back, one by one, trying to convince her there was a world out there after all, a great big place full of horrible little towns to die in, and not some dinky one bedroom walkup in a wasting hulk of brick and rotting timbers.
Didn't work though. So Tommy pointed me across the room, past the woman on the bed, to her vanity sitting spotless in the corner. I don't know why, but I expected everything to be dirty, covered with dust and long-abandoned. I always did, but it never was. I don't know if that was a disappointment, but at the end of the day it probably made things easier, made it feel a little less like the grave robbing it was.
The mirror was clean, and as I gathered up the rings and bangles, the little pearl earrings and necklaces with bits of amber and coral, worthless jewelry worn around the house for years and years, I watched Tommy's reflection as he looked over the room, knowing full well there was nothing else for us to take, no strongbox, no bonds or cash, no silver or family pictures even. That's probably for the best: Tommy's got a weakness. It's the little ones, and I don't like that much but it hasn't got in the way yet, so I'm inclined to look the other way for the time being.
I packed away the rings and such and as we turned to leave we heard the front door open. No voices came with the sound, and that said it all. Tommy took off through the kitchen and I was right on his heels, crashing through the back door and flying down the lopsided steps and across the yard. Over the fence and into the alley, we split up and were gone, without even a shout to fade away behind us.
I turn back to Tommy as the cruiser slinks off into the darkness, the taillights fading embers beckoning, drawing us into some new oblivion if we would only follow, and Tommy's smiling.
25 March 2012
March 19, 2012
"The time of test is just upon us"
I listen as their laughter fades and the sounds of night slowly make
themselves known again. When I'm satisfied they've gone, I lower myself
from my hiding spot and pick my way carefully down the ruined stairs. Glass crunches under my feet, the bigger pieces long since removed, raised in desperate defense or drawn across the throat of one of the precious few of us left. What a cruel joke, that I should linger here, alone, while my children lay in unmarked graves. Crueler still the knowledge that had they lived they would surely have cost me my life by now. They didn't, they couldn't, understand the gravity of this situation, know the need for silence, mistrust, fear.
They couldn't have lived: they are not for this world.
Wisps of cloud drift overhead, the last remnant of the toxic storm that blew into the valley below, choking the life out of anything unfortunate enough to be caught exposed and unprepared, finally carried off by the western wind, carried off to ravage some other land, some dusty pocket where decent folk try to scrape some semblance of a life out of the poisoned soil. Then the storms come, blow their homes to pieces and steal their breath. Then the vultures come, the vultures on two legs, picking over the remains, taking what they want and leaving the rest to the dust and the wind and the sun.
These ones stripped the clothes off the bodies, taking that and more from the mother, then packed up the few misshapen vegetables the family'd managed to coax from the earth and headed southwest. They all headed southwest after they got the word (heard it from a man who heard it from a man), taking what they could along the way. And now I was headed that way too.
Moonlight streams into the house through the hole in the roof, though at this point it's more hole than roof. I hold my breath and listen, but nothing's taken notice of me. I peer through the remains of a window before slipping through the doorway. I want to head down into the valley and look over what the vultures left behind, but there's no time. I need to keep moving and I've already lost too much night. Besides, the last thing I need is to be confronted again with the dream laying dead down there on the valley floor. I need to see it, but I need to see it alive, fighting for survival against a world that wants to stamp it out of existence, fighting against this new, ugly human race. That's why I'm headed southwest.
I get my bearings and start walking again. It's tougher now, the stars don't make sense. Someone took this world and shook it, some vengeful god, raining fire down on the good and evil alike, leaving a broken world of wickedness and wrath, with a hopeful few barely holding on, fighting against the storm of destruction threatening to topple everything they've built. They know how delicate it is, and I know too, and that's why I have to see it. I have to know we've got a chance, that these animals that stalk the night don't have the right of it. I have to believe there's a reason to take another step, and for right now, getting to that church is all I've got.
I track the men leading me south around a towering mesa, but they make no effort to disguise their trail. After all, what do they have to fear? We made ourselves masters of this world, and destroyed it to show it. I stay safely out of sight, maybe half an hour behind them, until they set up camp to sleep through the upcoming day. It would be easy enough to slip into their camp and wipe them all out, one by one, make them pay for what they did to that family and I'm sure countless others I wasn't there to witness, but I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know how many of us are left and I have to believe they'll be of some use, they'll serve some purpose. So I wedge myself between some rocks, thankful for the shade they will provide, and cover up as much of my skin as possible. I watch what I can of the coming sunrise before covering my face as well, weariness claiming me beneath my tattered tarp.
I think I imagine a far-off wail, carried by the wind.
19 March 2012
They couldn't have lived: they are not for this world.
Wisps of cloud drift overhead, the last remnant of the toxic storm that blew into the valley below, choking the life out of anything unfortunate enough to be caught exposed and unprepared, finally carried off by the western wind, carried off to ravage some other land, some dusty pocket where decent folk try to scrape some semblance of a life out of the poisoned soil. Then the storms come, blow their homes to pieces and steal their breath. Then the vultures come, the vultures on two legs, picking over the remains, taking what they want and leaving the rest to the dust and the wind and the sun.
These ones stripped the clothes off the bodies, taking that and more from the mother, then packed up the few misshapen vegetables the family'd managed to coax from the earth and headed southwest. They all headed southwest after they got the word (heard it from a man who heard it from a man), taking what they could along the way. And now I was headed that way too.
Moonlight streams into the house through the hole in the roof, though at this point it's more hole than roof. I hold my breath and listen, but nothing's taken notice of me. I peer through the remains of a window before slipping through the doorway. I want to head down into the valley and look over what the vultures left behind, but there's no time. I need to keep moving and I've already lost too much night. Besides, the last thing I need is to be confronted again with the dream laying dead down there on the valley floor. I need to see it, but I need to see it alive, fighting for survival against a world that wants to stamp it out of existence, fighting against this new, ugly human race. That's why I'm headed southwest.
I get my bearings and start walking again. It's tougher now, the stars don't make sense. Someone took this world and shook it, some vengeful god, raining fire down on the good and evil alike, leaving a broken world of wickedness and wrath, with a hopeful few barely holding on, fighting against the storm of destruction threatening to topple everything they've built. They know how delicate it is, and I know too, and that's why I have to see it. I have to know we've got a chance, that these animals that stalk the night don't have the right of it. I have to believe there's a reason to take another step, and for right now, getting to that church is all I've got.
I track the men leading me south around a towering mesa, but they make no effort to disguise their trail. After all, what do they have to fear? We made ourselves masters of this world, and destroyed it to show it. I stay safely out of sight, maybe half an hour behind them, until they set up camp to sleep through the upcoming day. It would be easy enough to slip into their camp and wipe them all out, one by one, make them pay for what they did to that family and I'm sure countless others I wasn't there to witness, but I can't bring myself to do it. I don't know how many of us are left and I have to believe they'll be of some use, they'll serve some purpose. So I wedge myself between some rocks, thankful for the shade they will provide, and cover up as much of my skin as possible. I watch what I can of the coming sunrise before covering my face as well, weariness claiming me beneath my tattered tarp.
I think I imagine a far-off wail, carried by the wind.
19 March 2012
March 11, 2012
Wreathed in flames, he descended upon us
"I don't take kindly to being lied to," I tell him. He looks at me for a minute, thinking, probably, thinking "Does he know, or is that just something to say?" But I know, I've always known. He opened his mouth and I could smell his lies, clear as day, clear as crystal, there they were, all laid out, like I was stupid. I try not to be mad, but it doesn't work. I tell myself I'd have done the same thing, but it's for nothing. I want this man dead.
Two days ago it'd have been different. Two day ago he was my son, she was my wife, and I wasn't nobody's fool. Except I was, except I didn't know. I didn't know and I hate to think I liked it better that way. I hate to think I preferred being the fool, being whispered about and having no idea. I could float along without a care and not even know it was me they were looking at, it was me in those sidelong glances. I never knew I was a wretched creature.
I try to piece it together, but I don't know who I'm mad at. He's easy. He's a target. He did this to himself and far as I can tell he deserves whatever's coming. Truth be told I don't know what that is just yet.
She's harder. I don't want to be sore at her, but then I didn't want this to be the case neither, and here we are. I suppose in the grand scheme, she's worse than him and I suppose that makes me worse than her, but I don't much like that idea. The thought that this is laid at my feet frankly makes me ill. I suppose it's my fault I can't trust her. I suppose it's my fault she can't talk to me. I never laid a hand on her before tonight and if there's a God in heaven I never will again, but it's out of my hands at this point. I've done what I can to be a good man, but the evil in this world seems to cry out for something. Destruction?
"She said you was dead. She said you wasn't nothing."
That hurts. But a part of me knew it was coming, I think. It seemed familiar, like a whuppin. Course that don't make it much easier to take. That's another one I chalk up for him. It's not her fault. She doesn't know. She's weak. That's why she ran. She's got that in her. Her dad was simple. Scared. He didn't put up no fight. I suppose, knowing that, I should have seen this coming. It's poor breeding. But I can't fault her for that. There's only so much one person can be expected to be responsible for.
This man wronged me. He crossed a stranger he thought was dead. Part of me thinks that makes things worse. Part of me says he should walk away from this: he didn't mean no harm. Course ignorance's no excuse. Ignorance'll get you killed quick as can be. Quick as spite at this point.
"I want to kill you. I want to watch you die."
He doesn't like that. Didn't expect he would. It's hardly my concern what he feels right now, but that part of me wants to understand, wants him to understand, and wants me to be the bigger man, to let it go and walk away, turn my back on this. But he won't be no different. And neither will she. And my boy, if he is my boy, is going to call this chickenshit daddy? Well that about turns my stomach.
I recognize I'm fueling my own fire. He's not saying nothing, but I'm building my case against him, building it up brick by brick, letting it just snowball right on up, and I think I'm hoping I'll hate him by the end, and that'll be enough to carry me through.
Walking away from this I think will be the hardest thing I've ever done. I've suffered. I've shoveled shit and ate crow. I've had a lifetime of almost and too late, but not doing this, not doing that one thing you do not do, that's what'll get me. That's what'll break me down, show me who I really am, show me who I'm willing to be. There's a thing inside of me, and it's screaming for release. I take a breath and close my eyes, put it away and think of her.
I think of her smiling up at me, years ago like it was a dream. I think of her smiling and she means it. She's happy and I saw to that. I gave her this bright spot, this moment of life that seems for a second to matter, and she gave it right back to me.
I think of her smiling up at me, and the rest is easy.
11 March 2012
Two days ago it'd have been different. Two day ago he was my son, she was my wife, and I wasn't nobody's fool. Except I was, except I didn't know. I didn't know and I hate to think I liked it better that way. I hate to think I preferred being the fool, being whispered about and having no idea. I could float along without a care and not even know it was me they were looking at, it was me in those sidelong glances. I never knew I was a wretched creature.
I try to piece it together, but I don't know who I'm mad at. He's easy. He's a target. He did this to himself and far as I can tell he deserves whatever's coming. Truth be told I don't know what that is just yet.
She's harder. I don't want to be sore at her, but then I didn't want this to be the case neither, and here we are. I suppose in the grand scheme, she's worse than him and I suppose that makes me worse than her, but I don't much like that idea. The thought that this is laid at my feet frankly makes me ill. I suppose it's my fault I can't trust her. I suppose it's my fault she can't talk to me. I never laid a hand on her before tonight and if there's a God in heaven I never will again, but it's out of my hands at this point. I've done what I can to be a good man, but the evil in this world seems to cry out for something. Destruction?
"She said you was dead. She said you wasn't nothing."
That hurts. But a part of me knew it was coming, I think. It seemed familiar, like a whuppin. Course that don't make it much easier to take. That's another one I chalk up for him. It's not her fault. She doesn't know. She's weak. That's why she ran. She's got that in her. Her dad was simple. Scared. He didn't put up no fight. I suppose, knowing that, I should have seen this coming. It's poor breeding. But I can't fault her for that. There's only so much one person can be expected to be responsible for.
This man wronged me. He crossed a stranger he thought was dead. Part of me thinks that makes things worse. Part of me says he should walk away from this: he didn't mean no harm. Course ignorance's no excuse. Ignorance'll get you killed quick as can be. Quick as spite at this point.
"I want to kill you. I want to watch you die."
He doesn't like that. Didn't expect he would. It's hardly my concern what he feels right now, but that part of me wants to understand, wants him to understand, and wants me to be the bigger man, to let it go and walk away, turn my back on this. But he won't be no different. And neither will she. And my boy, if he is my boy, is going to call this chickenshit daddy? Well that about turns my stomach.
I recognize I'm fueling my own fire. He's not saying nothing, but I'm building my case against him, building it up brick by brick, letting it just snowball right on up, and I think I'm hoping I'll hate him by the end, and that'll be enough to carry me through.
Walking away from this I think will be the hardest thing I've ever done. I've suffered. I've shoveled shit and ate crow. I've had a lifetime of almost and too late, but not doing this, not doing that one thing you do not do, that's what'll get me. That's what'll break me down, show me who I really am, show me who I'm willing to be. There's a thing inside of me, and it's screaming for release. I take a breath and close my eyes, put it away and think of her.
I think of her smiling up at me, years ago like it was a dream. I think of her smiling and she means it. She's happy and I saw to that. I gave her this bright spot, this moment of life that seems for a second to matter, and she gave it right back to me.
I think of her smiling up at me, and the rest is easy.
11 March 2012
March 6, 2012
The future was all laid out
Town where I grew up you had two options: work at the mill or work at the prison. Retirement plans were suicide and also suicide, respectively.
We'd jump off an old railroad bridge into the river in the summer, til the day we found that boy, bloated and fishbelly white. I watched him as he floated by, slow, under the bridge. I watched him til Lorna started screaming, til Tom Mickelson and his deputy waded out there to pull him out of the weeds. We never did much swimming after that.
Lorna was already what you'd call a dramatic girl, emotional. Seeing that dead boy didn't help that none. Maybe the town never changed. Maybe I did. But things was different after that, after that day. And I don't know when, but I realized, not all at once, it came on slow, but I realized that I knew I would die in this town. Not in some fanciful, journal-writing sort of way, "I'll die if I don't get out of here." No, I didn't know the when, but I knew the where. I knew when my time came I'd meet my maker in Smith's Ridge, no matter how far I'd traveled, how I'd labored to keep that dusty nothing of a town at my back. And history would prove me right.
26 February 2012
We'd jump off an old railroad bridge into the river in the summer, til the day we found that boy, bloated and fishbelly white. I watched him as he floated by, slow, under the bridge. I watched him til Lorna started screaming, til Tom Mickelson and his deputy waded out there to pull him out of the weeds. We never did much swimming after that.
Lorna was already what you'd call a dramatic girl, emotional. Seeing that dead boy didn't help that none. Maybe the town never changed. Maybe I did. But things was different after that, after that day. And I don't know when, but I realized, not all at once, it came on slow, but I realized that I knew I would die in this town. Not in some fanciful, journal-writing sort of way, "I'll die if I don't get out of here." No, I didn't know the when, but I knew the where. I knew when my time came I'd meet my maker in Smith's Ridge, no matter how far I'd traveled, how I'd labored to keep that dusty nothing of a town at my back. And history would prove me right.
26 February 2012
Pine trees and foggy roads, nice big yard and a house that feels like a home.
I smash his mouth against the edge of the tub and I don't want or need
to look at the results. All I know is he stops moving and I let his
greasy hair slide out from my fist. The tub rings as his head connects
with it again on the way to the floor. I should have thought about
moving the mat away beforehand, but I didn't, I never do, and the puddle
forms around his head and runs to the mat like it's home. I watch the
pink turn red, almost brown, and wipe my hands on my pants. That son of
a bitch must have never washed his hair once in his damn life.
I watch him for a minute, not really looking at him so much as breathing and just standing there, not thinking. I turn around and head into the kitchen and then into the living room. There aren't a lot of pictures around. I don't know why I thought there would be. It's a nice enough place, but she obviously took care of that. No way Ern had much of any hand in setting any of this up. Not that he couldn't, but I think I know Ern enough, just enough to know he'd have nothing to do with the process. It's just not something he'd spare the time for. And that's fine. I would have done things a bit differently, a bit better, but that's neither here nor there. It is what it is. It wasn't my choice. And besides, I got nothing against him. Just wish he'd wash his hair once in a while is all.
There are pictures, I didn't mean to give the impression there weren't, but it's not like I thought it would be. I'm not in any of these pictures, it's just them. Well, them and others, friends I guess. It's not really any of my business. The point is it's not me in the pictures, not a single goddamn one. Now I'm not going to go through closets and such, digging around to find shoe boxes of photos from way back, making sure and taking a peek, well I haven't yet anyway. I am going to, I just haven't yet. I've been busy. But I'm not in any of these and I can't say as I like that too much at all. I can't say as I expected any different, but I was hoping. I had hope and coming here, well, I didn't mean for things to go as they did, but then I never did and they always zigged when I zagged and so here I am.
I find one picture I like, one that twists it just right, and I take it off the shelf. It's her out on a pier, out northwest it looks like, and it's pretty cold I guess, and windy, and she's smiling that smile and her hat's pulled low and she's got that red in her cheeks and it kills me a little bit, but I'm smiling again, smiling and smiling and I'm keeping this one, regardless of what's in the upstairs closet, whatever I end up doing with that mess in the bathroom, this is mine, this moment is mine, and I'm taking it with me and keeping it safe and secret next to my heart.
I hear something back by the bathroom and make my way through the kitchen. He's dragging himself out of the bathroom, leaking blood out of his mouth and halfway wiping it up with his clothes as he drags himself across the floor, leaving that blood trail, wide and ugly, right across the threshold. I stand there watching him struggling, breathing hard and raspy, wet breaths I'm sure hurt like hell, until he comes upon my feet. He stops and looks up at me, shaking a little, which I attribute to the shock. He's been sort of groaning, low and quiet, since I found the picture, and he doesn't stop when he looks at me. He doesn't even know who I am. That makes me mad, but not at him. I got nothing against him. In fact, I agree with him, we got the same taste. I imagine we'd be fast friends were the situation different. But it isn't.
I crouch down next to him and look into his face. He's trying to talk to me but he can't, between the blood and the broken teeth. He's trying to though, just gurgling away, making little half-words, flashing those teeth at me, jagged and shattered, his lips torn to bits, just a mess to look at. I keep looking though, I don't turn away. I put my knee on his throat and lean. Yeah, we would have got along fine.
7 February 2008
I watch him for a minute, not really looking at him so much as breathing and just standing there, not thinking. I turn around and head into the kitchen and then into the living room. There aren't a lot of pictures around. I don't know why I thought there would be. It's a nice enough place, but she obviously took care of that. No way Ern had much of any hand in setting any of this up. Not that he couldn't, but I think I know Ern enough, just enough to know he'd have nothing to do with the process. It's just not something he'd spare the time for. And that's fine. I would have done things a bit differently, a bit better, but that's neither here nor there. It is what it is. It wasn't my choice. And besides, I got nothing against him. Just wish he'd wash his hair once in a while is all.
There are pictures, I didn't mean to give the impression there weren't, but it's not like I thought it would be. I'm not in any of these pictures, it's just them. Well, them and others, friends I guess. It's not really any of my business. The point is it's not me in the pictures, not a single goddamn one. Now I'm not going to go through closets and such, digging around to find shoe boxes of photos from way back, making sure and taking a peek, well I haven't yet anyway. I am going to, I just haven't yet. I've been busy. But I'm not in any of these and I can't say as I like that too much at all. I can't say as I expected any different, but I was hoping. I had hope and coming here, well, I didn't mean for things to go as they did, but then I never did and they always zigged when I zagged and so here I am.
I find one picture I like, one that twists it just right, and I take it off the shelf. It's her out on a pier, out northwest it looks like, and it's pretty cold I guess, and windy, and she's smiling that smile and her hat's pulled low and she's got that red in her cheeks and it kills me a little bit, but I'm smiling again, smiling and smiling and I'm keeping this one, regardless of what's in the upstairs closet, whatever I end up doing with that mess in the bathroom, this is mine, this moment is mine, and I'm taking it with me and keeping it safe and secret next to my heart.
I hear something back by the bathroom and make my way through the kitchen. He's dragging himself out of the bathroom, leaking blood out of his mouth and halfway wiping it up with his clothes as he drags himself across the floor, leaving that blood trail, wide and ugly, right across the threshold. I stand there watching him struggling, breathing hard and raspy, wet breaths I'm sure hurt like hell, until he comes upon my feet. He stops and looks up at me, shaking a little, which I attribute to the shock. He's been sort of groaning, low and quiet, since I found the picture, and he doesn't stop when he looks at me. He doesn't even know who I am. That makes me mad, but not at him. I got nothing against him. In fact, I agree with him, we got the same taste. I imagine we'd be fast friends were the situation different. But it isn't.
I crouch down next to him and look into his face. He's trying to talk to me but he can't, between the blood and the broken teeth. He's trying to though, just gurgling away, making little half-words, flashing those teeth at me, jagged and shattered, his lips torn to bits, just a mess to look at. I keep looking though, I don't turn away. I put my knee on his throat and lean. Yeah, we would have got along fine.
7 February 2008
Everything seeks its own level
I lick my knuckle an work the spit in with my thumb to break up the blood. If you use spit all you really need to worry about is the stainin of the skin. Everythin else breaks up n flakes off, but less you get to it fast there's stainin an there ain't much you can do bout that. I'm seein my boy today n I can't have him see his daddy looking like this. Can't have his mother see it neither. She'll open her mouth an that's what got me here in the first place, that mouth of hers.
Billy's tellin me there's work out of town, trying to get me out of this place, away from this madness, but I think I'll die if I leave the city. I need it hot n dry n ugly so's any woman I meet's got somethin to offer, somethin new n different that I don't hate yet. An I never hit any of them. That's the God's honest truth. Never a one.
Billy's been pushin hard to get me out of the city, out into the fields or on the road or some such. Says I been gettin in trouble, says I need to get my head straight and stop bleedin on everythin. Might be he's got himself a point. Way I look at it though I'm feedin this town, an takin my use from it. That's the least it could do, really, as I see it. Not that I'm owed nothin, just that it's the decent thing to do. Not that there's anythin decent about me by any stretch but I seem to get by alright.
We're standin in front of the yellow mercado and Billy's talkin n talkin an I got blood in my mouth. Sun's beatin down an I ain't really listenin to Billy too close on account of I'm distracted and the blood's dryin too fast on my fists. Probably a good thing as most of it's mine. Mighta broke the pinkie. Can't really tell, never bent right anyway.
So the sun's beatin down and it's good n dusty and I think about it and I hate this place probably bout as much as I hate myself, so I reckon we about deserve each other. Hate to waste good beer, hell, any beer, but my mouth's too dry to deal with this blood an I need to see my boy today.
Billy's uncle, Billy's sayin, is lookin for folks to knock down buildins in Amarillo. I look over at Billy (Christ he got fat. Never used to sweat like that, even in the heat of the day.). He knows I ain't been to Amarillo since, an I wasn't figurin on goin back any time soon. Soon as I think on it though, there it is. Quick as it comes, I feel the firecrackers up my spine n I smell the bleach again an Jesus Christ she's gone n she ain't never comin back an shit this is what I got? I got money's no good at Shonda's n I got a boy his momma's turnin gainst me an I got aches in the mornin n fights at night n I gotta Yes sir No sir all day long an I gotta bite it back cause I'd break him in two an go back up n ain't no comin back this time around an this place is fuckin killin me, bleedin me dry. I'm leavin holes in walls an pukin up my blood in alleys n parkin lots an only reason I got to mind it is I got a little boy sittin front of a TV somewhere while his momma's suckin a cock to put food on the table an I ain't good enough?
Billy's talkin n talkin n I ain't listenin. I'm takin my boy, I'm takin him an goin North, so's I can teach him to fight an fuck an be a man an make the world his own. I'm takin my boy an raise him up right, show him you don't let no one break you, show him how to put someone in the ground, someone you loved, an walk away strong. Teach him to take a punch an get right back up and take another.
Billy's talkin and talkin and I step off the curb an find myself weightless.
8 March 2007
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