Jacob and Brandon (The Best Friend Song)

Dug up another old one, circa 2009. Damn Summer makes me miss those kids--

The boys next door are digging a hole in their back yard.
"What are you guys doing?" I ask.
"We're digging for treasure!" says the older brother as the younger one holds a dirty rock above his head in like a trophy.

Awesome.

I want to grab a shovel and join in.
I want to hop the fence in the middle of the night and bury something for them to find.
I want to stop their dad from yelling at them when he steps out for a smoke at halftime.

But sometimes you dig for treasure and don't find anything at all.
Or at least those dirty rocks aren't as interesting as they used to be.
Then sometimes you find yourself brushing the dirt off just to see what's really underneath.
A lot of things are like that.

I am another

I am another.

I am
a sucker in a candy store
a color on a palette
a note in a symphony
a star in the sky
a tree in yr neighborhood
a joy
a knife in a kitchen
a memory in yr head.

I am
this sucker in the candy store
this color on the palette
this note in the symphony
this star in the sky
this tree in your neighborhood
this joy
this knife in the kitchen
this memory in yr head.

I am a dark forest.

I am burning quietly.

Luke O'Dell

William O’Dell is waiting for the bus on the corner of 39th and Troost with his wife of fifteen years. William O’Dell is, arguably, on the wrong side of town, but nobody around him could possibly know that he’s hardly ever been on the right side of one. He’s smoking a cigarette, watching the cars pull up to the stoplight, shiny cars and beaters, nearly everyone blasting loud music, everything vibrating and squealing and honking. His wife is chewing her cheek.

“Damn find of the sun to be coming out this late in the afternoon,” he says to his wife but really just to hear his own voice. It’s February and he’s sweating beneath his leather jacket. He thinks today would be the damnedest day of his life if he had twenty dollars and nowhere to be. As it is, the old lady needs a few tests done down at the hospital. He drops his cigarette on the sidewalk and grinds it with his heel. Everything should be alright, they both think. But still.

People keep piling onto the corner. There’s an older, bigger black lady and her daughter to the right of him on the ledge, both holding several bags from the drug store in their hands, there’s a few high school kids fooling around up front by the curb, yelling at the cars as they roll past. Everything is a little less heavy in the city, William thinks, when the sun is out in February. To his left there’s a boy and a girl talking about something. Movies or work or school or something. William turns to his wife.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks.

She looks at him for a second as if she’s just woken up. She stops chewing her cheek. “Oh. Just Harris. The moving company’s been gettin’ less jobs. He says he had to let one of his boys go last week. You remember Freddy? No? Well, I guess nobody’s moving into or out of town lately. Least nobody who needs movers.”


“Times are tough, mama. Can’t worry about everyone and everyone’s children.”

“Just wish I could help it.”

William leans back and contemplates, squinting into the sun. Not much to be done these days, he thinks. There was a time and a place when there was, maybe, but it wasn’t 2011 and it wasn’t at the bus stop. He wonders if he’ll ever get used to it.

Somewhere to his left there’s a baby crying. The high school kids by the curb are shoving each other a little bit. One of the smaller ones falls over and the others laugh at him. He laughs too, but not the same. Fucking kids, William thinks.

The boy and the girl next to him have edged a little closer. They are talking about a friend of theirs.

“—sure, he’s great. We were rough housing a like bit while Mary was making the drinks and he had my entire forearm in his jaws. He wasn’t clamped down hard, but you could really tell he could tear the thing off if he wanted to,” the boy, somewhere in his early 20s, said.

“Oh, I love Brusier!” the girl says.

“Yeah, yeah. He’s a beautiful dog. Pits get a bad rep for a lot of reasons, but Mary’s really got that dog wrapped around her finger. It’s funny watching her walk the guy. It’s just this huge dog almost dragging her up and down the street. She’s so small, you know?”

“I know, right? I--”

“I had a pitbull once,” William says, interrupting. The two kind of look at him half confused. He doesn’t notice, “by the name of Luke. He’s like you said, real nice, real good around kids. Good around anyone actually, ‘slong as they weren’t givin’ him too much shit, he’s playful as could be.”

“Oh. Yeah?” the girl says.

“Oh yeah. He’s beautiful too, little baby brown brindle. Raised him from a pup and we’d jump around in the fields behind my house and chase squirrels and shit. This was down in Joplin ‘bout 18 years ago. Boy, he was a good dog.”

“Sounds like it,” the girl says, ready to change the subject, “what are you out doing today?”

“Oh just headin’ up to the hospital with ma here.” He squints into the sun for a second. “But Luke was a good dog. He’s the most beautiful pit you’d’ve ever saw. People just don’t know what to do with pitbulls. Some of ‘em just think cause they’re kinda ugly and tough they can treat ‘em like it. Luke was a good one though, he died too young.”

“Oh! What happened?”

“Oh, I don’t know... Well, my wife—not ma here, but my wife at the time, down in Joplin—she, well she kicked me out of our house down there, it was her family’s you see.” William’s face tenses up a little bit as he begins and his voice is a little quieter. “Well, she kicked my ass out real fast and I had to leave my truck since it wasn’t runnin’ at the time and I had to leave Luke too, she kicked me out so fast. So I went into town and stayed there for a bit, had to work you know? Well, a week later I come back and figure I’ll run up to the old lady’s house—she was a firecracker, far too young for the younger old man I was back then. But I call ‘er up before and tell ‘er what I’m thinkin’ and she says alright, come on up you son of a bitch. So I run up there with some tools to fix the truck and when I get there I see that the truck ain’t where it was when I left. My blood was boilin’ when I saw that so I storm up to the front porch and see her brothers and her pa settin’ there waitin’ on me. Well, she’s still pissed as shit and her folks are settin’ there all ugly lookin’ and I ask what the hell she’s done with my truck. She says she sold it for 250 bucks.”

“Damn,” the boy says.

“Yeah. Now that was a thousand dollar truck, and she went and sold it for 250. Well, she gives me the check, some name I don’t recognize, some guy in Webb City. Now I’m not about to argue too much with a crazy woman, that’s one thing I knew then and somethin’ I still know, and I’m ‘specially not about to argue with a crazy woman whose got her ugly family settin’ all around her ‘specially when they all look sober and probably armed at that. So I say ‘well, okay, where’s Luke?’ and she just stares at me, the closest thing I’ve ever seen to the devil I swear, and says, ‘why don’t you just go out back?’ So I go out back and, sure enough, there’s my baby boy, raised from a pup, and—well, he’s just lying on his side in the grass with a bullet in his head.”

“Oh my god.”

“Fuck.”

“Yeah... Now I don’t know this, but I think they had just shot ‘im. Probably right after I called up there. But he’s just lying there, still chained to his post, flies just startin’ to buzz all round ‘im. I about started cryin’ right there. I ran back into the house mad as a bull but when I get in there, there’s her folks again. So I just walk out that front door and went back on down the road.”

“Oh my god.”

“Did you take her to court?” the boy asks.

“Nah. No. Wasn’t about to do that. Just moved south for a little bit. Down to Texarkana in with my sister for a bit. He’s a good boy too... had a couple dogs since, but none of ‘em were quite like ol’ Luke.”

Everything gets quiet. Everything feels heavier for a second. The wind picks up a little, but it’s not cold today. The sun is shining even brighter and the clouds have drifted east for the night. The bus comes up on the corner. As its air brakes squeal through the wind, William’s wife leans over and mumbles something into his ear that he barely hears.

The boy looks back at William and asks, “What did she say?”

William looks up, “what’s that?” He squints for a second before finding a little smile and says, “oh, ma’s just tryin’ to make me feel better about my dog.”

He did.

The Gift of Getting

Well, the sky hasn’t died yet, but it’s still, bleeding black all over this side of the planet. There’s a boy passed out in a field and dreaming, propped up against a rock and leaning into its ivy which is slowly crawling up his arm.

There’s a war on, and it’s rushing around the field and around the boy. Shell shocked but alert, he stands in the eye of a hurricane of human bodies. He runs. He runs wherever he can find to run. The swell of war is an overwhelming weight on his senses, falling walls of disaster in every direction. Finally, the boy spots an opening, an opening he leaps into before collapsing onto the dirt. He lies still for a moment and forever then picks his head up and, as he does, the air breaks open with the sound of booing. There, in front of him, is the largest, most vigorous group of ex-girlfriends he has ever seen. One, Christine, pulls back her bow and fires an arrow, hitting her target. The boy falls and hits the dirt once more. A flower begins to shoot up out of the wound.

Some new dew, now dying, materializes out of thick air and lies down on the grass next to the boy. The ivy pulls the boy’s body closer, into its body.

The quick drift of friends and family and hospital staff into and out of his room plays before his eyes in fast motion: his mother, his best friend, his roommate, his stepfather, his real father (what rock has he been hiding under?), his nurse, his other nurse, his new favorite nurse, the doctor, the old lady who changes his sheets, people, other people, and other-other people all stare at him, glance at him, read him paeans—though he can see everything and is thankful for nothing—and have conversations over his now immovable vessel.

The ivy is at the boy’s throat.

The fields have emptied and the bed is gone. The boy stands with his hands at his hips catching his breath. The air and his mind are sharp and dense and foggy. He felt as if he was absorbing the fog instead of the other way around. The sky’s gone missing and all that’s left is nothing, and nothing is in order. But the order is recorded for only the briefest moment in his mind as a flash of light fights through the fog and, suddenly, before him stands four horses and a chariot. In the chariot is a man draped in gray and bathed in light, carrying a golden bow. This figure drops the reins and steps onto the ground, holding out to the boy a sack held together by a drawstring. The boy walks toward the light, slow but not hesitant, and reaches for the sack. As he opens it the light rips through him as well.

The boy wakes up, and as his eyes break open there stands before him a universe of colors—dark and loud, light and quiet—all visible just behind the leaves that have finally covered his face.

Revealed

Why are you the sun?
Why are you inside with me
when night has come? Oh.

Maybe Later or Sometime After That

It stinks. Something in this car is rotting, dead or dying.

“Are you alright?” she asks me, without looking over.
I want to strangle her and then myself, but she is driving my car and I’ve just woken up. We’re going to a wedding, I guess; they’re some friends of hers from high school that are far too young to be making such large decisions. I’ve been drinking since we began the trip.
“Yes,” I say.
“Okay.”
Wyoming feeds my hangover, and it’s a hungry beast tonight. All these shit hills and dry grass make this god forsaken state look like exactly like the wild west I’d always imagined, if the apocalypse had already come.
“Is there anything here that isn’t barely hanging on?” I ask, with my head on the dusty dashboard.
“I saw a couple of deer a mile ago.”
“Doesn’t count.”
“...”
“What if we were the last people on the planet?”
She looks at me in mock despair; she knows I love this game—mostly when I’m aroused, or trying to be. I haven’t seen a car for miles. Apparently it’s getting late. The shadow of that other side of the world I know nothing about stands over everything here that’s almost dead and the only two things I know that are almost living. It’s a beautiful summer night.
I continue, “But wait, listen, it’s a blessing in disguise. We can just forget about this wedding and pull over to the side of the road. I can grab the blanket and you can put the seats down, we’ll settle into the back and just look at each other. No words for a while, until you decide to tell me what you want me to do. We’ll fall asleep with the windows down and the doors unlocked, nobody is around to rob us, honk at us, arrest us, or stare at us. And then tomorrow--”
“You’re going to keep going?”
Like she could stop me if she tried. “Listen. Listen, we need to plan ahead. And then tomorrow...and then tomorrow we can make a couple sandwiches and grab the blanket, put on bugspray instead of clothes, and then run through the high grass here until we get to the top of one of these hills and stop for lunch. And then we’ll be on top of the world! Not the real top of the world, of course, but as far up as we’ll ever need to be. We’ll look out over everything that looks dead now and realize it’s more alive than we would have ever known if we hadn’t been forced to realize that life has nothing to do with other people. But you and I...” I’m an unhappy liar, “and then we’ll travel. We have all of the gas that we’ll ever need, and it will be as free as we will be. We might be eating canned goods until we get enough books to learn how to farm and maybe raise livestock, and I’ll learn how to barbecue. I’m sure we can do it! Shit, our kind used to have to! We just need to find that. And that brings me to the first step in this process...”
She looks at me, in the way I had hoped—damnably bemused. Is that going to work?

I lay back in my seat and fire up a cigarette as she starts the car again. I think about the first time we met, nothing worth remembering out loud. She waits for a car to pass and pulls back onto the road.
“I’ve developed a cough since I’ve met you,” she says.
“It’s cute,” I say.
“There’s a word for people like you--”
She pauses for effect, I think, but then says nothing else. I love it when she does this. I love... a few things. I love having her sitting next to me driving my car, but sometimes I don’t. But I’m not yet up for taking the wheel.
“You’re driving beautifully,” I say quietly.
She smiles just a little, Wyoming’s fucked hills keep rolling into and out of the headlights. “Thank you,” she says, and then a second later “I need to use the restroom.”
She pulls off the highway and into a gas station, which is also a bait shop. Laramie, apparently. Somehow, it’s still open at 10:34... no wait—fucking clock—10:21. We get out of the car.
“Why do you always slam the door?” she asks.
“My car.”
She walks in first, the bells jingle as she opens the door—“do that!” yells a voice inside. She holds it open a little and looks back for a second before taking in her surroundings quickly. She beelines for the back corner. I look left toward the counter where a younger guy, early 20s, is standing in front of the cigarettes. To his right—and to my surprise—is a gun rack. Talking to him, before we came in at least, is another guy about the same age and several inches taller whose face is bruised. They’re both looking at me... well, staring.
“Hello,” says the clean one behind the counter, obviously a little discomforted by the arrival of what I’m sure looks like two unkempt strangers.
“Uh, hey,” I say quickly, at the same time making a turn to the right. I walk all the way back toward the soda and bullshit section and stare at the Cokes. In the reflection of the glass I can see that the two dudes at the counter have resumed their conversation, albeit in a much quieter tone than it had been carried on just a minute before. What is this about? I look at them carrying on in the glass and I see his black eye staring back at me.
“Hey.”
“Fuck!” I say a little too loud, the girl’s managed to scare me, and then turn around a little too quickly. Suddenly it’s blinders and all I can see is those two fellas, framed by an aisleful of cheap candy and potato chips, looking at me a little uneasily. I make a quick apologetic shrug.
“So that’s just a hallway,” my lady whispers, “do they have even have a restroom?”
“I mean, they have to right?” I say.
“Well, where the fuck is it?” She stares at me blankly...
Outside. “Outside?” I ask rhetorically, looking back at the counter. “Want anything?”
“No.”
I reach for a Coke and turn around and walk toward the counter, grabbing a Twinkie midstride, unwrap it and take a quick bite. The guys stop talking about whatever it is I’ve decided I don’t want to know about as I make my way up to the counter.
“Is that it for you?” the one behind the counter asks.
“Sure. Do you guys have a bathroom?”
“Yes, it’s actually outside and around the corner on the left.”
“Thanks,” I say, turning around to where the lady is still standing, staring blankly. I nod at the dudes and lead her outside.

We go around the corner and open the doors to the restrooms simultaneously. As I open mine, a tiny black cat springs out into the open. I follow it with my eyes and see that it’s stopped, turned around and is looking directly at me.
“Hello,” I say, shyly closing the door behind me. It’s a dirty yellow bathroom, the kind I’ve seen more times than I think I should have. And out of paper towels.
When I step back out onto the pavement, I see that cat in the same spot as before, lifting its tail and laying its tail back down at an absurdly slow rhythm. I sit down on the curb and wait for the girl. The cat is still staring at me. Huh.
“You’re an alright cat, you know that?” I say. It blinks. “No, but really... you’re just roaming, huh? I’m not sure how I feel about Wyoming so far. Culture’s damned me, I think, but up here you guys do it right. I mean, shit, you guys can buy guns and worms at the same gas station and then go kill some shit for dinner. Of course, if you’re getting Friskie’s and I’m eating gas station hot dogs then we’re both rolling around in our plainly adorned domesticity aren’t we?”
The cat lifts its tail, sets it down again, licks its lips, and nods. I inch a little closer, seeing if it will run away. It’s sitting on the edge of the grass about five feet away.
“Huh. Y’re alright cat, y’re alright.”
Where is that girl?
“It’s sad though isn’t it? I mean, it’s sad though isn’t it? I mean, it’s sad that you and I are fated to see each other for only such a brief moment in time. I wish I could run off into these hills with you, though it’s clear that neither of us are equipped with the instincts necessary to survive the adventure. But we could learn! Well, I mean, it’s sad that won’t happen.”
I hold my hand out as if, and I’m surprising myself here, my heart is in it. The cat starts purring Sigur Ros (or something... I think...) but otherwise remains as calm and controlled as before.
“I wish you’d come see me,” I say.
“...” the cat is listening, still not thinking too much of it, just playing it cool.
“Maybe... maybe I’m making an ass of myself here,” I say, knowing there was no maybe about it but not being able to help it.
I nudge a little closer just as the door is thrown open behind me, “Shit!” I yell and as I turn back around I see the cat has scampered off into the grass.
“Hey,” my lady says, “ready?”
I keep staring out into the grass. “Yeah. I’ll drive.”
She hands me the keys, “are you alright?”
“Yeah.”
As I get in the car I feel something brush up against my leg quickly. I pull the door closed and look out the window, and... and there’s the cat. It’s on all fours, alert, looking right at me. I roll down the window and give it a small smile.
“What are you looking at?” the girl asks.
I don’t look back at her. “It’s uh, this cat I was trying to be friends with,” I say.
“Don’t do that! It’s a kitten, it’ll think it’s yours and then you’ll have a cat.”
“That’s fine, I can raise it.”
“No you can’t.”
I whirl around at her and just about reach for her throat before restraining my hand. I make the worst glare I’ll make for a decade or two and then look back around. The cat is gone... I look straight ahead for a second, still mad as fuck but drained. The guys inside are both looking at us. I start the ignition and put the car in reverse.
bump.
I brake and clinch the steering wheel, white knuckled. The guy with the black eye makes for the door quickly. I hit the gas and get the fuck out of that gas station and Laramie, WY, not getting a chance to check the rearview mirror until it’s all far, far behind us.

Conversations Not to Have

"I asked the psychic about you."
"What'd you ask?"
"If you had a soul."
"What'd she say?"
"She asked me if I cared."
"Seriously!? What'd you say?"
"Doesn't matter what I said."
"Fuck you."

Based on a True Story

I once ended a relationship with a girl because of her pre-dominant obsession with death. Not the act of dying or what comes after, but corpses and their ghosts.

A few years later, thinking about what we had and when we had it, I think I'm beginning to understand.

But she's a real, live mortician now and I don't think I could have dealt with that. I'd rather keep digging things up.