Run Run Run

Damp and downtrodden, sitting on a stoop wth dirt under my toenails. Shoes, socks, they were lost along the way. I'm catching my breath which doesn't seemed to have stopped running. Leftover lights give a sprinkling of levity and warmth. Where am I?

When I've collected myself and felt for my wallet and watch (in their respective pockets, somehow I always manage to get that right) I find a small twig. The plan is to dig out some of this dirt, scrape off as much as I can, minimize the leavings, minimize the questions. But after awhile one finetunes the lenses, picks up on less and less I suppose.

The only way I can stop myself is to stop running. Run away from the hair, the eyes, the body, the perfume, the opportunity. Run run run back to what I know, to what, really, I want. At least it's keeping me in shape.

Blue Pain

The cold, it pierces, it's wonderful and brutal. I don't trust an uneasy wind, but for some reason I'm at ease. A crisp face, plunged hands, darling smile. My darling, won't you smile with me?

Smoking and purple and quiet, a pain unlike any other this season. A new pain, a fresh pain, pain that stays and pain that remembers. Pain that is hasty, still, pain that is calm. Pain that will make itself known. I have to know it. We. We will have to know it.

When we leave it is all we can talk about. Subjects rise and fall but none come forth. We will either sleep or decide to keep going cross this plane of bad decisions. It will not matter which is which, which is now. But honestly, decrepit, we bury our faces, cringing at each word, each wind, as we continue to rise and fall.

The Devil's Work

You're the devil's work. The devil's. I don't know how much you know right now. Past comparison, beyond advantage, someone builds your potential. It is not you, and it certainly is not me. It is not of this earth. Our targets are grey, our knowledge is hazy, but individually we are sure. In this singular world we can say what we are doing. One work good, the other brave, one is gentile and the other will destroy. Few can solve our dull race. Few would want to. This is not chosen. It is in the fire.

Maps

He sold maps. When you'd pull in at a rest stop, go to the gas station, and see a collection of maps, he was the man who brought them there. He knew where he was going.

Nobody knew quite what happened. Bystanders said he suffered a massive heart attack and his car veered into the path of an oncoming semi. A series of instants and it was over. Although how a bystander could witness a heart attack from outside a moving car is anyone's guess.

His wife wasn't notified. It happened on a Monday, and she was called Friday. She and their daughter called everyone they knew, anyone they could think of, to try and find out what happened. Where was he? Where was he going? What was keeping him? Was he safe? Was he lost? They asked that last question not in seriousness, but because they had to ask something.

It was open and shut; heart attack, semi. Bystanders said the trunk flew open on impact, sending a hundred thousand maps scattering against the wind. Nothing caught fire, nothing was completely destroyed. But still it took five days to notify his family. And she would always wonder why, wonder what happened during those days. What she wasn't told, what someone was hiding. She would always hope that it was something. Because in those five days it could make sense.

Cut Time

My beautiful anger destroys the sound, picking doubtfully like a rainy suspicion. Selfishly, elegantly, outside our rare music, you fall in white-hot time. It is a smoldering chance, our chance, to be taken quickly or not at all.

We have fingers in our ears, and they are not moving.

Median

Sometimes when I open up my eyes I see the median, not as going up but going out, the landscape, snow perhaps. Each little light is there off in the distance, far away into the past. Blocks of white and blocks of black, split and freckled with a thousand stars. This is what I see when I wake up.

I used to pretend to sleep, coming home from dinner, that party across town. Seeing how long I could go, how old I would be, before my parents never carried me again. Seeing if somehow I could mew your false dream into a real one.

Cars are not the same anymore. Drives are not the same. Now I fall asleep and find the sleep is all too real. And after one eye opens, with the other close behind, I'll think about what it must be like to drive. Wondering if the driver sees this median the way I do. Wondering if he's thinking of turning, driving across that snow, and meeting those stars.

Why Can't Santa and Jesus be Friends?

Last year I auditioned for a hospital print ad. It was my first time getting called in as “Dad,” a horror that can be discussed another time. The audition consisted of my audition-wife and me asking our audition-children—two home-schooled brothers, ages five and two—about their favorite holiday.

“Christmas,” said the five-year-old.

“What’s your favorite part about it?” asked my wife.

“The presents,” he replied.

“Ooh, Santa bring you anything good this year?” I asked.

“We don’t do Santa,” he said.

“Oh,” I said, perplexed. “Well… what do you do?”

“We focus on Jesus,” he said.

I just stared at the boy.

“That’s awesome,” said my wife. That was the end of the audition, and I didn’t book the job.

“We don’t do Santa.” It seemed unthinkable. How could anyone, religious or not, exclude Santa from Christmastime? Why would anyone?

One of my favorite Christmas experiences is during our Christmas Eve church service. I grew up going to this church nearly every Sunday. It’s not a megachurch, where there are maps to help you find your way like in a mall. But it’s a sizeable church nonetheless, with a sizeable congregation, and they all come out to celebrate the little baby Jesus. The church’s services are typically a big theatrical production, and Christmas Eve is when they really bring the guns out. Each hymn is bolstered by a large choir, a full orchestra, and a booming organ. Everything is covered with poinsettias and gold ribbons. The readings are profound and the lay readers are endearing. There are moments of heart-pounding joy and thoughtful sadness. There is even an ill-advised light show.

But the most beautiful part comes at the end, when each member of the congregation – filling the sanctuary and pouring out into the hall – holds a small candle and passes around a flame while singing “Silent Night.” And by the end, there is no accompaniment, no organ or bells or band. There is only our voice and our light. And after the final verse, in the brief moment of shared silence before we extinguish our flames, you are reminded that you are part of a family much bigger than you could ever comprehend.

My other favorite holiday experience comes on Christmas morning, a tradition from my mother’s side of the family. When I was younger, that side would often gather together at my grandparents’ in Fairfield, IA: four daughters, their husbands, and all the little grandchildren. On Christmas Eve all the kids would sleep on the bottom floor of the house. Grandma would stock her second fridge with treats for the morning, because we weren’t allowed upstairs until a certain time (in fact, the top of the stairs was blocked by an impenetrable cardboard sign). On Christmas morning, we would eat our pastries, drink our juice, and then wait at the top of the stairs until Grandpa’s inevitable cry: “Oh no! Santa Claus forgot to come!” To which we’d all reply, “No he didn’t, Grandpa!” and run in for the frenzy.

It’s a tradition my family’s been carrying on ever since. We set a time for presents, and no one is allowed into the living room before that time. We usher ourselves into the kitchen, where we sip on orange juice and coffee and tap our feet. Then Mom walks into the living room and cries out that infamous line: “Oh no! Santa Claus forgot to come!” And my sister, Olivia, and I still reply, “No he didn’t!” And, lo and behold, lying by the fireplace, there are two groups of unwrapped Santa presents next to our stuffed stockings.

I’ve graduated from college and moved away, but the tradition still holds an immense power for me. The presents have gotten decidedly older and more mature, as have I. My toy saxophone and Brio train set have been replaced by an iPhone and a teeth-whitening certificate. And even though I know Santa probably didn’t assemble that smart phone, if anyone told me for certain that he didn’t, I’d cry out “Blasphemer!” and run them out of town.

You don’t do Santa? Because you want to focus on Jesus? What a dumb reason. Not because focusing on Jesus is dumb, but because it is entirely possible to do both. My parents did. You can emphasize the religious and spiritual side of the holiday for your children, and still awe them with a visit from the jolly old fat man. Awe. That’s what this season’s all about, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t you do all you could to inspire it? Christmas is a time where—however frustrating the practice might actually be—we torture ourselves over what will make the other person happy. If anything, Santa strengthens these sentiments: giving, selflessness, joy. Not to mention the whole “If you’re good you will be rewarded” aspect the two guys share. (And, frankly, I never understood the “Love your enemy” thing, I think giving them coal is much more fitting. Trump card: Santa.)

There is no reason why Santa Claus and Jesus Christ can’t be friends. And if you can’t figure out a way to make that happen, well, I feel sorry for you and worse for your kids, because you’re all missing out on something truly magical. Also, if your home-schooled son’s favorite thing about your Santa-less Christmas is presents, I’d say your plan didn’t really work anyway.

My parents moved last year. I don’t know where to look for my Santa presents. I don’t even know if there will be any. I’m worried that this year my mom will go into the living room, tell me that Santa forgot to come, and it will actually be true. And then I don’t know. Then I guess I’m an adult. And that may be the worst gift of all.

Precious Serpent

Long, white-hot oblivion; an eternity in a moment. Another precious serpent writing an old intention. Pauses, and laughter, and understanding.

But soon the tough pain sets, and neither buys it any longer, neither can buy with their deceitful bodies. They have lost the clock, and themselves.

Why so, Sirius?

We don't know exactly what this is, you and I. But we are certain that it is something. There is intensity, medicine; you witch. It must be so to go so long without and then to be so soon within.

Rotten mouth, tame success, something to do with animals. They flock to you, those flocks. It is a gift and I am envious. Although I look at you, and you, you're envious, too. I cannot say I am not pleased.

Nothing contracts, but nothing expands. And we will zig-zag until one of us collapses.

Reputation

I'll serve a foolish, nasty drink. There is an acidic comment, tossed toward this beautiful effect. It neither beats, nor traces, nor knows its home. It is simply made to unmake, it is what it thinks.

And as in a vacuous suicide, in some orchestral black hole, the drink is consumed carelessly. It is my wide-eyed reputation, burned by the war of rumor.

Ignition

We are participants in an ugly meeting of opposing confidence. Underneath our assignment everyone is altered, underneath everyone must be changed. It is a shadowed urge, shooting like a ghost, enlightening like the stars, forever as death.

The ignition spreads, it is our only option. She bears the argument, it is behind the daydream. This is a spiraling knowledge, and whatever decomposes will decompose.

Forty-five

She got the letter and the letter said no. She hadn't foreseen this. This was not an option, this was not a thing that was supposed to happen. Letters didn't say no, letters said yes, that was their job. So when it, this letter, this thing, said no, the tears would not stop.

Her father got home five hours later. Five hours of soaking pillows and snotty nostrils, runny mascara and the absence of lunch. He knocked on her door and, through some strength still inside her, she said "C-c-c-c-come i-i-in."

"I heard you got some bad news today."

The dam broke. "I didn't g-g-g-get in! My life is over! I d-d-don't know what I'm going t-to do with my life!"

He walked (and she only knew this from the sound of his loafers, for her head was buried deep in the pillow) to the window. She looked up at him, his back to her, arms stretch out on the frame, looking out at the world and larger than life. "I'm forty-five years old," he told her, "and I still don't know what I'm going to do with my life."

And with that he walked out of the bedroom, and she was ready for dinner.

Outside the Monsoon

Around the emotion we forbid it loudly. Outside the monsoon we're courageous again. The seething crack is among the truth, and we tell it lazily.

This mighty friendship splits.

Popcorn

Sometimes it's tough to know a person. Other times you're at the airport and overhear a person say, "Hey. Hold on, I'm licking my fingers. Yeah, I was eating popcorn." And you wish sometimes it were a little tougher.

Clap Clap

When did clapping with songs become a thing? Now everybody thinks they should clap with a song. Thinks they can clap with a song. But the average person has very little rhythm and very little patience. The two things needed to clap with a song and most people don't got 'em.

So you're in a crowd, and people get this notion in their heads. And they start, groups of them, and soon most of them have the same terrible idea. And it's a mess, it's not together, and I don't know how musicians deal with it. And the worst, the worst part of all, is that everyone loses interest. They just give up. You get twenty seconds of terrible clapping and then everyone is done. Me? I clap through the whole thing. And I'm the jackass.

In the Small Hours

There are certain things I'm taking to. A time of night I'm reaching more and more. I aim for dullness, as if I'm leading my senses off a cliff. I'm not truly happy unless I wake up at dawn, my lamp still on. Perhaps I'm fully clothed, now wouldn't that be something.

It started as a way of getting work done. The small hours were quiet, they were dark. The world was asleep and I could finally sit and think and act and do. Those hours were in fact small, and I felt big.

But like increasing cayenne on my eggs I became accustomed. I could not get the hours small enough it seemed. And it became a time not of work, not of creativity, but of the basest tasks. I could not do a thing until that time, and then there was no time to do any thing at all.

And so I lie here on my bed, shoes firmly surrounding my feet, wondering why I've woken up. Wondering when I will ever get back to sleep. Wondering just when it was I drifted away.

Already Ate

Something about the chicken is off. I pull the piece out of my mouth and rest it on the plate. Something about the entire meal is off though. I sit alone in my room, door shut, listening to my friends just outside it.

"Where's Danny?" one asks. "In his room," another says. "Why is he in his room?" goes a third. And I can only imagine this question is met with a shrug.

They are making dinner plans, dinner plans without me. Someone talks about my chicken, and whether or not I should be invited. I am of the school of thought that says you always invite. It's polite, and you never know. They don't know the chicken's gone bad, I haven't told them yet. I wonder now if I ever will.

I hear laughter and a few more bottle caps. Pizza, tacos, diner, grocery store. I look at my plate, my sad plate, remnants of sweet potato and a half-eaten breast. They settle on pizza, and I am so entirely hungry.

I finish the potatoes. I eat the chicken, even the piece I spit out. I open my door brandishing a clean dinner plate. They ask if I want to join them for pizza, and I tell them no, thank you, I already ate.

Coated

She wakes up and she gets high. She gets high before she says hi. I don't know what she's like the moment her eyes open. I've never looked over and seen them anything but bloodshot.

I have asked her about dreams. How she slept. What her day is shaping up to be. I have asked these questions and seen her get up, go to her spot, and get high before she says a word. She is talkative, but her words are coated.

She reciprocates, and I'll tell her what she told me, how I slept, my shopping list. And she sits there, listening, I think. Her eyes are glazed over, but with drugs or indifference I am not sure.

We are happy together and we do not fight. Not like we used to. For that, I suppose, I should be thankful.

Tooth Prize

She lets me use her tooth prize she had a name she had. Name for me she pushes me away she is prepared, it is late on a Saturday night. Her mother is calling out something nonsensical she has a name for me.

Spinning thimble nonsense dark smoke clouds blue black ink go green leaf. On leather porch chair. Finger twirling twirling twirling thimble as I said before. Protector of the silver light. Spinning all this indigo nonsense as lights from every angle tell me not to continue but I will not help it. Going from the ground, every single thing I think and feel is nothing. Nothing I have ever felt before and nothing I have never felt before. Or it is only but that which I cannot say what I am not smoke sitting in my black alone.

I see cars. I see accounts. I see nothing. But everything. And it is only a matter of time yes only a matter of the name she gave me.

A prize this damage on my legs, cut cross my forehead and isn't it funny how we feel right now.

Bedside Manner

Some people just know how to answer questions. I've never been one of those people. You look at Tom Cruise in Eyes Wide Shut and he has an answer for everything. It's a surface answer but it's an answer all the same, and it sounds just right. She says she's moving to Michigan and he says what a beautiful state it is, how much she'll love it, how good this step is for her. I would talk about the death of Detroit and that would be the end of that.

And, sure, he was scripted, a character. But these people exist in the real world. They have a bedside manner with everyone. Everything sounds so good coming out of their mouths. And you're too busy smiling to care that they're nothing saying much of anything at all. I envy those people.

Walking Man

I heard a ticking. Like water falling down. Like water falling down a drainpipe. Tick tick tick tick tick tick tick. I wasn't sure if it was water or the workings of some incessant machine. But it seemed to be getting louder. And then I realized it wasn't getting louder, it was being joined by another sound. And that sound was footsteps.

Step step step step tick tick tick tick step step step step tick tick tick tick.

The street lamps went out. Standing on my stoop smoking a cigarette I could feel someone, hear someone, coming down the alleyway between my building and the one next to me. I sucked on my dry three-week-old cigarette. I tried to suppress my cough though no one was around to hear it. No one, that is, but the walking man.

And the I saw my friend emerge, a bag of food in his hand. I breathed a sigh of relief. I tried to explain it to him. He looked at me with a cocked eyebrow and went inside. And when I saw the door shut I hacked a fume of cancerous smoke.

I looked below me to the Christmas light-encrusted bushes, and spat a long thick drool. I inhaled one last deep breath and exhaled, not quite sure where the smoke was ending and my own breath was beginning.

By Silas's Side

Silas doesn't much know what's good for him. He does what he likes, which isn't always the same thing. Sometimes it is but oftentimes it ain't.

Silas had a way with matches. He could take a matchbook, open it, rip one off, close the book, and light the match, all with one hand. I asked him how many hours it took him to get to where he could do that. He said he taught himself back in high school, practiced every day in Spanish class for two weeks. Went through a lot of matches in his lap and only got in trouble once, the final time, the only time he actually did it. He'd chew on matches from time to time, but those were a different kind, the strike anywhere kind. These were the chewing kind because—and I saw him do this multiple times—if a beautiful woman needed her cigarette lit he would flick the head with his thumbnail, kept the match in his mouth, and she'd have to walk right up to him, put her face just inches from his, if she wanted that fire. It was something you wished you'd thought of first. Goddamn, it was a good trick.

Silas hated smoking, but he loved to light those cigarettes. He was able to keep the two separate, he said. Just because he ain't a fan doesn't mean he can't help others along, especially when a beautiful woman gets involved. There's a hypocritical note in there somewhere, but I let him do what he wanted, he was going to do it anyhow. That's usually the case with these things. And usually the woman wouldn't offer him one in return, and when she did he politely declined.

What made me worry was when one woman did offer him one, and he did say yes. All my years by Silas's side and I never saw him act close to taking one, not even a consideration. So I knew this woman, she must be something. To Silas anyway. To get him to do a thing he always said he'd never do.

I didn't see him with matches after that. When I asked why he wasn't chewing he said he was ready for a change. When a beautiful woman asked if anyone had a light he didn't say a word. When he reached into his pants pocket he just took out keys. There was no fire anywhere on him. I asked if it was because of her, because of this smoking lady, and he said it wasn't, almost made like he didn't know what I was talking about.

One day he shows up, reaches into his pants pocket, takes out a box of cigarettes. He opens it up and half of them are gone, and in the empty space rests this lighter. Some cheap plastic thing, some drugstore add-on, some terrible green color. This bright green that maybe exists somewhere but I seriously doubt it. He bumps one of the cigarettes on the top of his hand a couple times and tosses it into his mouth, like he's been doing it his whole life. And he brings this green thing up and lights the smoke. I didn't know the man I was watching. I almost asked him his name, just to make a point, but truth be told there would have been more genuineness in the question than I care to admit.

I didn't spend much time around the two of them, and certainly not her. He moved into her place eventually, and a couple times was all I could take. Even when they weren't smoking you could feel it, that extra layer, deep inside the fibers of the carpet and resting on the blankets. I watched his teeth slowly yellow. I heard his voice, the voice I knew, the voice of my friend, fade away, replaced by some cut up voice saying words I didn't understand. And all this while I swore she looked at me the way you look at an enemy. And I probably did the same thing, truth be told.

Silas and I saw each other less and less and then not at all. I could count the years but it ain't a number I wish to think about. I hear things now and then from mutual people. I make inquiries from time to time, but I don't want word to get back. I like to think he makes inquiries about me, things he has to hide from her, this cigarette girl of his, this important bitch.

I'm sorry. I try not to be too bitter. I don't like being angry. It's just hard sometimes. I get the better of myself. It was going to be someone eventually. I just don't understand why it had to be her.

With the Strength of a Brick

Blood poured out of my mouth next to a pile of broken teeth and for the slightest second I couldn't remember whose they were. A quick sweep with my tongue and I felt better. I pushed myself onto my side, I hurt, bad, but not too bad, and figured I would be OK to stand. That's when I saw him. We had been so close and I didn't even realize.

I didn't think, I just acted. That's what people say, right? I think that's what I'm supposed to say, and really I think that's what I did. I saw him walking—I can't call it chasing exactly, I've seen chases I think and this didn't look like a chase. But he was walking after her and she was trying to get away. Trying, clearly, to walk faster than him, faster through the tears. And, boy, were they coming. He was yelling, what I couldn't tell. But there was this ferocity, how he was spitting out these words, such contempt. And she was crying so much. And when he grabbed her arm, well, I didn't think.

I ran down the hill to the sidewalk. I yelled at him to stop and they both turned on me, told me to shut up. That's what I don't get about girls. Clearly, I mean clearly, this girl is being bothered, clearly. Storming off down the sidewalk of campus while her idiot beau screams at her, is grabbing at her, looking this kind of violent. All I want to do is step in for a second, break it up long enough for her to get away a bit, maybe show this guy a thing or two. Although what do I know, I've never been in a fight. I'd like to think I'm scrappy but who knows? Anyway, in I come, doing the right thing I think, and she gets mad at me, too. She's telling me to shut up and go away just as much as he is. She wants to handle it herself, maybe, she doesn't want to have strangers fending for her. Or maybe she just doesn't want one more guy to deal with. Maybe that's it.

But I wasn't going to let it alone. I threw out things like What's your problem, You like to torment girls, and Calm down, bro. I got shoved a few times and shoved him back myself. I really didn't get to do anything more than that before she came at him with the brick. That shocked me, when you see actual teeth flying out of an actual mouth, and all the blood that comes with it. Only I didn't have much time for gawking. I was going to say nice job, or good going, or something, I don't know what. But before I could say much of anything she turned around and popped me one, right in the temple, and I went down. Just with her fist, but with the strength of a brick all the same. She muttered something to me, not sure what, but it probably wasn't nice.

And then faded in and out, and I came to, and I saw the blood, and the teeth. I pushed myself up off the stained pavement and looked around for her. But I didn't see her anywhere. I saw plenty of people, staring over, pointing, but I didn't see her. And when I looked down at my unconscious pal I could see what they saw. With the two of us there, with all that blood, who's to say which one was him and which one was me?

I Waited Ten

She waited five hours so I waited ten, but by then it was the middle of the night. She asked why I woke her up in the middle of the night. I could have said I didn't think she'd have her phone on, but that doesn't really apply to the millions I call my generation. All I could think to tell her was the truth, which was spite. She waited five so I doubled that. I knew she had her phone, she must have seen it, who doesn't have time, pick up a phone. This is our generation. So when she waited five I waited ten. And I was glad I woke her up, I showed her. Whoever she was.

One Answer

I'm a bad liar and I always have been. But really Tommy should have never come into my room. The door was closed, he didn't knock, and he should know better. But that's an easy thing to say.

It was some girl's purse, I told him. A girl who was over the other night. But that didn't sit right with him, he didn't hear anything, see anyone, and he's only hearing about it now.

Lipstick, tissues, some gum, a mostly empty wallets, easily canceled credit cards, a book of stamps. Laid out on the table, damning evidence. And idiot that I am with my knife still out. It didn't take him long to put it all together. Tommy's a smart guy. Me, not so much.

Things didn't exactly change after that, but they were never quite the same. There were jokes we couldn't make, things we couldn't do. I could never buy a round without a slight shift in his gaze. It was that one time, it was only once, and I wanted to tell him that. But I knew what he would say. And I knew that he'd be right.

I would never hurt anyone. But sometimes you can only see one answer. Sometimes you do a thing you don't want to do. But I would never hurt anyone.

Small Parts

He would tell them that he had to go. That he wasn't feeling well, or had a late night, or had something to do the next morning. He would tell them something. He did not want to be around them for any length of time longer than necessary, and did not want to be there at all but felt the obligation. He had to show some small sign of support. But more than that he needed to show that he was better, bigger, that he shouldn't be there in the first place. And perhaps that message were better served by not showing up at all. But there was that part of him, however small, the part that kept checking his hair and added cologne, the part that ironed his shirt and then ironed another. It was this small part that knew he wasn't bigger, or better, or anything of the sort. That he craved this kind of thing, these kind of people. And that he was going not because he had a message, or nothing better to do, but because he wanted to be there.

The Plane

"I haven't done it yet today," I tell her.

"So just do it," she says. I explain it's not a thing I can do around other people. "That's ridiculous," she tells me. But what does she know?

Habits are difficult, the ones you form yourself. It goes beyond what you want and what's good for you and becomes something so internal. There is not much that must be done save eating and drinking water, and even those needn't be constant. But to put something in your body, it is more than nutrition. It is more than exercise. It is breathing, it is blood, it is the very essence of life.

What does she know? What do I know? Perhaps the plane on which I am operating is faulty, insecure, inadequate. But for now, it is my plane, and it is good, and it keeps me in line. And I will have to think about these things another time, wondering if all of this has been for naught.

She is down the hall, looking at me, drinking. Smiling. And I do not know what to do.

Revolver

It didn't take much for her to imagine a life with him. Still, that never stopped her from going overboard. It was a drink of her own invention, if it could be called one drink. She was a bourbon girl, and she had her preference. The revolver was made by placing six shot glasses in a circle and filling them with Bulleit. Six glasses, six chambers, the name was obvious. And it was a special she would share with friends, usually, except tonight. Tonight she downed them one by one and gathered pieces of feelings she might call courage. Or if not that, whatever courage comes with distance.

What a face, what hair, what a black ensemble. He was what anyone would call tall, dark, and handsome, the kind of man whose entrance changes the soundtrack. There was an attractive self-contained violence to him. He sat like he was moving, and he drank neat whiskey.

Moira had seen him once before. Three or so weeks ago, at this very bar. She wasn't sure if it was the dim light or the weight of the drink that put him on this pedestal. He was a lover, a friend, a husband and father, a hero, hers, all at once and in an instant. She thought of nothing but villas and lovemaking, strong coffee and stronger language, silence and passion and all the good things. She had never imagined a fantasy quite so easily, or quite so fully. There was something about him that filled in all the gaps in her mind.

When she came to he was gone. She would ask the bartender when he left, if he was with anyone. She would go to the bathroom and sit in the stall for far too long. She would turn down water and order another revolver, firing through the chambers one by one. Throwing her head back, whipping her hair, trying to get someone's attention.

Our Own Waves

In a room marked "Vacant" we met, toweling off our sundried lotions. We both looked kind of perfect, the way the salt and the wind sculpt you over an afternoon, a patch of sand that hits you just right. There was something special about our anonymity, and we were both content on keeping it that way.

Throat, mouth, I was dry. She looked at me, her eyes changing with breaths, blue, then green, light to dark. There wasn't a light and if there was we kept it off, we would have kicked our shoes into the wall had we worn them. She was short, or maybe I just felt tall.

Lingering salt passed between us, back and forth, we were our own waves. Bright strips of color flashed when I could not keep my eyes closed. I'd like to think she'd say the same. That she saw something there, if only for a moment, some brief but sunny moment, and smiled.

Automator

When I wake up I turn the coffee maker on. I put the grounds and water in the night before so all I have to do is turn on the button. My oatmeal is in a bowl already in case I am running late. My water bottle is in the fridge, again, if I am running late.

I have a list of clothes, outfits, planned for every day of the week. I've been known to stand in front of the closet for hours, hours, not knowing what to wear, hating everything. So every Sunday afternoon I sit down and think about what I'll be doing and where I will be going and who I will be seeing and write out what I wear. And I stick to this list with almost no deviations.

I wear my father's moccasins around the house, but never on the bed. The inside fur is matted and torn, pieces of it missing. They do not smell particularly good. They have not aged particularly well.

I will drink a glass of scotch, neat, every night at eight thirty. Never more and never less. It's gotten to the point where I don't even think about it anymore. It just happens.

The lamps in my home are all specifically placed because they are all hiding water stains. I left the windows open during a storm. I wanted to clean things out. I do not think things through.

I have stacks and stacks of books, but no bookshelf. I like the essence of insanity that stacks of books give off. You can look at something like that and know a lot about a person, and I guess I would rather keep my mouth shout and have those books say it for me.

I never can remember falling asleep. I never can remember closing my eyes. As far as I am aware, I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, and it is night. And then, just like that, it is day again.

Pins and Staples

"That's a weird bump."

What weird bump.

"On your middle finger."

I can't tell her it's there because of her. I can't tell her about the staples, how the skin grew over them. How they're a part of me now. She'd get upset. And it's strange to not want it to happen.

It's good she can't see my foot, covered in a dozen tiny spots, filled with a dozen little pins.