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
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