luck of the draw

The kid wore a red bandana and a Lakers jersey. His girl, as she was assumed to be, wore designer jeans, a Saints sweatshirt and had a tiny blue heart tattooed on her left cheek. Both were dead. Shot in the back of the head. Cops found no signs of forced entry and not much else. The report would hit the news in half an hour. Perhaps something would break, then. Or not. Edwin “Maize” Walker was the detective assigned to the case. His turn. Bad draw. And he knew it. This one would take too much time and no one would care, anyway. He was right about the former, but dead wrong about the latter. Literally.

Gait way

She didn’t realize what she’d given away – and what she’d taken -- until later that day, when she saw his wife walking across campus in the gathered evening. Until exactly then, until that very moment, it had all been a blur – exciting, sexy, heady. He’d chosen me, he was having me! And what was funny, or, better, perhaps, odd, was that it was the way she, his wife, the wife, walked that did it. Her gait was hurried, purposeful, as she headed, through the cold, lonely, dripping rain, home, to him, to theirs. It was at that moment that her body revolted on her, revulsed, physically, and she had to run to the bathroom to vomit. The way she walked; the way she walked; the way she walked – and she picked up the phone to call her mother.

gertie mcnurt

Gertie McNurt was a crispy old soul
who always went shopping for friends,
she’d slow up the checkout to divvy the goods
for Clara and old Mrs. Bends.

‘til a voice this one day grumped out loud ‘n’ clear
that his time “was a’wastin’ an’ fast,”
And if ol’ lady Gert chose to shop for a crowd
she might start start out by kissin’ his ass.

To which she replied with a grizzled ol’ stare
“Sonny, boy, that’s an oddly request,
but from looks o’ what sits on th’ top o’ yo’ neck
it might be the choice that’s the best.”

That shut him up quick and silenced him fast,
Then Gertie took more of his time,
by fussing through old age and Medicare cards,
‘fore paying in nickels and dimes.

The moral’ve the story is simple and hard:
Respect for the elderly? No!
It’s: don’t get in line ‘hind Gerty McNurt
and her traveling shop-for-you show.

For Gertie McNurt was a wankish old soul
who shopped out for all of her gals,
then grid-locked the checkout to divvy the goods,
“Jesus Christ,” “m-----------,” et als.

mourning thoughts

She awakes every morning with the same idea -- it’s time to start over, time to move on – and lies, there, until she manages to convince herself that she can make her way through one more day, and then another and another and another until a new week passes into old and she feels the relief, again that she’s not put waste to everything they’d built, or worked at building. He is not a bad man, though probably not as good as she’d convinced herself through the years. In fact, he’s pretty much like she, she’d admit, struggling to make sense of who he is and what he is and where he is. And there is honor and dignity in that, for both of them. But what continues to nag is the idea that there’s something more she’s missing, and maybe, probably, him, too. And life is short is what everyone tells her. So, she decides, as she has before, that tonight will be the night. Tonight she will tell him that she is leaving. Then she will. Or not. Her bags will be packed, but it will depend on the moment. Again. For the umpteenth time. She laughs at herself, sadly, for she does know what she will do.

it is

Might it be possible? he too often thinks,
then decides not to
test himself, tempt himself,
torment himself with the idea and
rather
tries to content himself with the
image of her
smile and her eyes and her
spark and the vulnerability
that
she allows him
to see and keenly feel. It is a treacherous business
this idea of love, this concept of
love, this
possibility of love, this offering and
proffering of love. It is intoxicating and
addictive. It is right and it is not so right. It is
of hope and of desperation. All as exactly it
is
supposed
to be.

sam

The two dogs studied him, carefully, warily. Strays, he was sure. Only two houses still stood on the street, at separate ends, different sides, too, and he was in the middle, amidst all that had been abandoned. One of the dogs moved a bit closer, then stopped. The other growled, low. It had been an odd idea, getting into his car at midnight and driving three hours to the old street, to see what was, to see what it had become. It might’ve been an idea fueled by drink, except that he’d given up drinking four years earlier. The late fall wind pushed against his back and the forward dog retreated to its partner. He backed toward his car, slowly opened the door, got in. Three more dogs poked their heads into the dark. Then another two. He sat in the emptiness for ten minutes, maybe more when one of the dogs, one of the last to appear, moved close to the car and he opened his window. The dog whined, then licked his hand. He opened the back door and the dog climbed in. It was how their partnership began. When he arrived back home, he named the dog Sam, for no particular reason. It just sounded right.

no surprise, here

They called him “Little Armadillo,” which was redundant, “armadillo” meaning “little armored one” in Spanish. They called him that because he always wore a bulletproof vest – always. He wore it at work, at play, and even in school, where no one, not even the former NFL walk-on assistant principle, ordered him to remove it. When anyone asked – and few did, anymore – he said he’d been marked by a rival gang and that it, really, was the only thing keeping him alive. Few believed him, of course, but in this forgotten part of America’s forgotten corner, who could know? Then, he met a girl who said she wouldn’t be seen with him, with him wearing “That thing.” So, he took it off. Two days later, he was dead. Shotgun blast to the chest. He’d been right all along, everyone said, with a shake of a head. The girl’s name was Crystal and she didn’t even like him that much.

mooch

He lived in a ramshackle place near the train tracks, so close, in fact, that the house bounced when the 10:22, 16:45 and 20:25 rushed by. He’d lived there for three years, now, though never planned to stay. He began by squatting, then when no one seemed to care, he started trying to fix up the place, though nothing was easy, and before long, he not only felt invested, but responsible for the place, it beginning to feel like a real home. The final straw was the night Moochie arrived. Mooch was a hound dog mix, with blue spots, a black tongue and a notch that slotted one ear. He could never be sure, but it seemed as though Mooch’d been through a lot, too, so he welcomed him and treated him like family. At night, Mooch slept at the foot of the bed and went with the bounce when the train passed. Him and Mooch lived there, like that, in that place they’d adopted, for 13 years and when he died, Mooch stayed for a bit, long enough, by instinct, it was thought, then pushed his way out through the back door and moved on. He would’ve wanted it that way.

questionable

It was a bad idea, though not
seemingly so, at the time, he finally said
to
her, about the years that started
with a walk
then turned into a sprint, and led to the
moment
when
she
decided that she wasn’t interested in
finishing the marathon, and she said to
another that it
was one of the nicest things
he’d said to her in a long, long time, which led
him
to
wonder: what could be so nice about admitting
that
maybe 28 years had been, other than somewhat productive, pretty
much
a
mistake?

shy anne

She sat, alone, in her room, the small, spare one she took for the night on the third floor of the boarding house in old downtown Cheyenne and listened to Neil Young sing in that rough, caustic, wilderness voice about affairs of the heart and some of the soul, and she wondered where her whole life had gone in such a quick instant. She was 47 and she had just enough money left for a bus ticket back to Minot, with maybe a sandwich or two along the way. She smiled, softly, sadly, fingered the medal that hung around her neck. She wished, now, tonight, at this very moment, that she might be able to redo so many things. She wanted to hug her children like she hadn’t, before. She wanted to listen to the birds, for once, really listen. She wanted to be home, really home, not just be there. But home was such a long, long way. Home. And everything else. She answered a knock on the door. A man she’d met, earlier, at a local bar. A drifter, like she. Sure, she said, why not. Home could wait. So must tomorrow. She needed to be held, tonight, and he would have to do.

a friday night

He sits on the back porch at the Beach Comber, alone, at a table for two, cooled by the warm breeze that blew in with the sunset. Ice water with a slice of lime. Grilled chicken sandwich. Stars to the left sparkle the black sky; fireworks to the right, out across the boulevard, spackle it. A man at the next table orders in Spanish for all four of the diners. They don’t understand what is “Caesar salad.” He grunts, a bit. The other man, the watcher, feels satisfyingly unencumbered. He begins to wonder if being solitary might not be a good thing. There are tradeoffs, he understands. But at the very least he does not have to explain to his companions what it is they are about to eat. He sups on the sandwich spiced with pineapple and accompanied by homemade potato chips dusted with parmesan cheese. A slender blonde across the way catches his eye. She smiles; he smiles back. She is with her husband. The subtle assignation is a bit enthralling, or at least enough for this night. It is a dark walk to the car, what with the fireworks done, but he doesn’t mind.

eddie

His name was Edward Wrobleusky and he drove a school bus for the middle school in Hampton Falls, Ohio, though he wanted to be a writer of serious fiction or precious poetry, one or the other, because, quite frankly, he couldn’t imagine the luck of succeeding at both. He lived alone on Bessie Street in a mostly empty apartment above his landlady Esther Wampole, whose place reeked of Vicks Vap-O-Rub and singed butter. His favorite possession was a 1959 Topps baseball card of Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Harvey Haddix, who was as famous as the day was long, as Edward would say, without telling you why, because if you didn’t know, you probably didn’t deserve to know. Edward lived to be 68 years old, which he considered a bargain, seeing as how he didn’t really want to live much longer. On his deathbed, which wasn’t at all attended, because he had no siblings and fewer friends, he wrote this: “I bequeeth (sic), to all who come after, the happiness I never met. From here I go into the darkness. When you might think of me, light a candle in a grotto.” Bennie Grodlowe, the rookie cop who found the body when Missus Wampole called in the foul stench emanating from Edward’s apartment and who later would be shot to death by a 43-year-old meth addict, took one read of the note, shoved it into his pocket, and lit a candle for Edward every Friday for the rest of his life at St. Albert’s outdoor shrine, behind the school's softball field. He had no idea why. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

music

He played the harmonica in
the dark. He played quiet and he played
low and he used his heart and soul. No one else knew,
of course,
until one night, when his neighbor, Maddye, couldn’t sleep
and heard and listened all night, until he was finished, and woke the next morning still hearing
the plaintive,
haunting notes, and began to weep, silently, then smile, then
proceed next door, knocking twice and, when
he answered, wiping at her eyes and asking him if
he could teach her to
play, and he said yes, if she had
a soul, and she said
she did. And she
was right.
She
did.
Beautiful music. The way
music
is supposed to be.

PRE-monition

As he drifted up and away from his body, he felt a freedom that he’d only imagined in a life that'd seemed restricted and constricted and full of stops and starts, but no steady rhythm, and as he looked down and saw what was left of him, he felt a bit embarrassed that he looked so tiny and frail and, well, human. Human. He was no more. But what was he, now? He expected some sort of sign, some figment of reality that he was in purgatory, or en route, somewhere, but he felt instead, only a sense of relief, a sense of being part of something larger, finally. He looked for the bright light, but saw none. But he didn’t care. It was light, enough. Then, he saw a brilliance that he would never, ever, be able to describe and he moved toward it. Then he heard a buzzing, dull and monotone, and he reached over and turned off his alarm. He sat up, and knew: He would die, today. He knew it for certain. And he wasn’t afraid. Not at all.

breakfast

A friend says, “There is no
clarity, that’s not what it’s about,” and
he listens, because she seems to know that of which she
speaks, or at least talks a good phrase. “It’s about
understanding the complexity, or at least working
through
it,” she says, continuing, as his brain struggles to keep
from feeling concussed. “Besides, who really wants
clarity? Simpletons? Prosecutors? Divorcees?” she asks and he nods,
perfunctorily, while he checks to make sure
he’s taken his
morning
anti-depressant. “Life would be boring with
clarity,” she says, nodding, as if to try
to convince him, and asks, “Are you ready
to order?”
He says he needs a few more minutes,
and she harrumphs and lights a cigarette and
orders scrambled eggs, whites only, no butter
and
grits. “Just keep it simple,” she says. “It’s
best that way. Everything is best that
way.” And he orders
a bagel. Plain.

out there

There were times, at night, late,
when the ocean stretched an unseeable
distance, black and silent, below a sky
that hung high, speckled with
stars that lit, though just a bit, the darkness,
and it was then that he would stop and look and
listen and try to feel the quiet and understand the
shroud. He remembers it like it was
yesterday, and it was, in a fashion. Today, when life teems
with sound and voices and duties and distraction,
he wishes to be back there,
if only for a moment, in the darkness and
stillness, to be surrounded by it, again, and, this
time,
to appreciate it, being a dot
in
the
universe, feeling small but alive. He would mention it to
a friend or a lover, too,
sometimes, was tempted to, but knew that he
could not do it justice, so
he simply thought it and
recalled his
youth.

The Conun Drum

You look into their eyes,
trying to see
what they see,
which is what you saw, once, before
you saw different colors
and different hues, and shades of
nuance and gray which made
everything
murky, unclear,
obtuse and, yet,
somehow vivid, if you really looked,
which you didn’t,
because you didn’t have time, what with
work, and family and bills and soccer games and
hockey tournaments and
dance classes. You want to tell them
that things will become unclear, then, someday, clear
again, if they remember to
keep looking, and when they ask what they’re
supposed to look for, tell them:
whatever it is
there is to
see.

a voice in ...

“In the end," the speaker, said, “we’re
all responsible for the
oil
catastrophe. We’ve made ourselves
beholden to BP and Haliburton and similar henchmen and
rapists. If the seagulls can’t raise their wings
to fly,
if the pelicans smother to death when washed over
by a
wave of crude, if the fish
and plant life suffocate, and
if
the fishermen commit murder or, alas,
suicide, we’re all
partly, at least, to blame. It is a time,” he said,
“to assume responsibility. It’s late,
but not too late. The tide
cannot be cleansed, but it
can be turned.
We have a sea of troubles, but we can
make things into an
ocean of possibility.” The speaker stopped,
then checked his watch, took
a drink of water, and looked about.
The wilderness was
a
lonely, desolate, desperate
place,
especially
at
night.