dowdicus

[dowdicus]

So Many Reasons Why

When they diagnosed me I was in the middle of my divorce Astonished at how I had come to find myself In that time and place I told my girlfriend I was extremely lucky. She said, no, I had worked hard to get where I was.

I watched a Palestinian child sob and shiver On the dirt floor of a hospital tent Her skin burned away. No anesthetic. No triage. No comfort. I try to imagine what that feels like. I fail.

My mom likes to say she worked hard to get where she is. She wasn’t lucky.

I think about Victor Jara. Somos cinco mil. I try–and fail–to imagine how it feels To sing for a better world, And be forced to play guitar with no fingernails. Maybe knowing you are forsaken is worse. Maybe it’s the fingernail thing.

The national guard shot four year old Tanya Blanding with a tank while she hid in her living room. A cop shot twelve year old Michael Ellerbe in the back. Cops only come for me with warnings about driving too fast. I’ve never even seen a police car at my parents’ house in the sticks.

My parents both told me I worked hard to get where I am. They didn’t like hearing me say that I’m lucky. When Adam and I got arrested The cops knew his dad. (“Aren’t you Hot Rod’s boy?”) They booked us and charged us and a few weeks later The court case vanished into thin air My parents say it wasn’t luck–it was because they hired a lawyer

When I was a child I had a good friend His dad, in childhood, had been my dad’s good friend My dad would take me into the woods and teach me to identify Trees and plants and animal tracks His dad taught him to buy his Sunday beer on Saturday and huff gasoline to get high.

I once drove by my friend’s house–not too long ago–intending to stop I passed by instead That evening my phone rang again and again Where was I? Where was my friend? His parents and siblings had been murdered. The cops held him and did everything they could to get him to confess. He still can’t convince himself they were wrong.

When I was a kid my parents bought an acre of land from Dad’s uncle for one dollar.

[dowdicus]

Gallery View

White names on black backgrounds Silence “What can we say about the way this writer uses pathos?” Silence White names on black backgrounds

John is the only one who talks John is speaking up again. “I think the author sounds disappointed.” John is speaking up again. John is the only one who talks.

One student in the classroom. One set of eyes to contact. One locus of discomfort to fill the silence One presence to reassure

White names on black backgrounds Silence “How is everybody feeling today? Let’s take a few minutes to chat and warm up.” Silence White names on black backgrounds

[dowdicus]

What I took

Behind my desk in sixth grade math is a small, unobtrusive bookshelf.  Like most of the furniture in our school, it’s made of particle board, with generic wood grain veneer darker than the veneer on our desks.  It’s short and squat, with five rows of books.  Mrs. Bryant, the math teacher, or perhaps the school’s custodial staff, keeps the room well-dusted, and the shelf is clean, apart from the collection of cracked and faded paperbacks it houses.  It stands apart from the larger bookshelves with dictionaries, encyclopedias, and board games.  

I have a trick that usually gets me through lectures, but it doesn’t work so well for math.  Most of the time, I read my textbooks.  It looks like I’m paying attention that way, but I'm really just reading the short stories and case studies, the good stuff.  Now, I try poking around in the desk in Mrs. Bryant’s room, but the student who normally sits there doesn’t keep any books inside.  There’s an English textbook, and those usually have some good stuff, but there is no way to pull it out and read through it without getting caught.  There’s Mrs. Bryant's bookshelf, but I don’t know if I can get into it without being noticed.

Mrs. Bryant dims the lights and flips the switch to turn on the projector, and I start to eyeball the shelf.  The black and yellow-white spines of books, interspersed with the occasional blue, green, or red, are like the neglected, crumbling keys of an old, out-of-tune upright piano kept in someone’s living room as a decoration.

I resist the bookshelf that day, but keep an eye on it for the next few days—it never changes.  The books remain in their uneven rows of concave spines; none of them are ever even tipped out from having been looked at.  Keeping one eye on Mrs. Bryant as she works through a math problem on a transparency, I reach out with my left hand, placing my index finger on the yellowed top of an Anne McCaffrey book, tilt it out of line, grasp it with the rest of my fingers, and swiftly pull it off the shelf, hiding it under the lip of the desk, halfway inside the desk’s cavity.

I can’t hold the book up to my face for fear of being caught, but I can smell it faintly, like the dry leaves on the forest floor in the summer.  Holding the book down in my lap, leaning it against the bottom lip of the desk’s opening, I read cautiously.  I have to pay attention to the class--turn the page in the math book when necessary, and be prepared to answer questions when called upon.  As Mrs. Bryant nears the end of her lesson, I dog ear the page I’m on, and slide the book back into its place on the shelf.  

As the year progresses, I grow more confident at my stealth reading.  I learn to situate my math book so I can angle my head in such a way that I appear, from across the room, to be studying it instead of reading a book.  I figure the signals Mrs. Bryant gives before she starts calling on students, so that I can be more engrossed in my reading during certain parts of class.  It doesn’t take long for me to finish the bookshelf’s selection of fantasy books, making it difficult for me to decide what to read.

There is one book that interests me, but I’m not excited about actually reading it.  Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men sits on the shelf, white cracks running like lightning through its black spine.  I know the story.  My brother and I had watched the movie version with Dad a few times.  The one with Gary Sinise and John Malkovich.  After the first time he saw it, Ross had asked Dad, “Why’d he shoot that guy for?”

“Because that other guy with the glove, Curly, was gonna shoot him in the belly and let his guts hang out and let him suffer.  But George and Lenny was friends, and George didn’t want him to suffer like that.”  

“Oh.”  It’s hard to say if Ross was satisfied with Dad’s answer.  It seemed like a decent enough movie to me, but it was just a movie.  Dad says the book is better than the movie—and there aren’t a whole lot of books that hold his interest.  He identified with the characters in the book, the way they went around looking for work, living hand to mouth, trying to survive.  He had lived a life like that, day laboring, dreaming of getting a little place of his own.

I know it’s a story about the real world, and I prefer escapism.  I try to sit through math class instead of reading a book about the real world, as there can’t be much difference between the two.  It doesn’t take long for me to grow so bored of math class that I decide to read the book, even though I already know the story.  As I did with all the others, I sneak it off the shelf and open it in my lap.  I move through the story quickly, taking only a couple of math lessons to finish.  I let my guard down as I read, losing myself in the book’s worldly prose.  As I reach the end, I can feel the strain in my face and the tears welling up in my eyes as Lennie asks George, “Ain’t you gonna give me hell again?” but I can’t put it down—I have to see how the scene plays out.  “’Guys like us got no fambly. They make a little stake an’ then they blow it in. They ain’t got nobody in the worl’ that gives a hoot in hell about ‘em—‘”

Every couple of lines I have to look up to the ceiling, trying to slow my pace.  “’Go on,’ said Lennie, ‘How’s it gonna be?  We gonna get a little place.’” Eyes aimed back at the ceiling, I focus on breathing as Mrs. Bryant drones on about math.  I know what’s coming.  “’No, Lennie. I ain’t mad. I never been mad, an’ I ain’t now.’”  I blink, and a tear escapes from my eye.  Mrs. Bryant moves toward the middle of the room.  I quickly press my fingers into my eyes to wipe away the excess fluid.  “Slim twitched George’s elbow. ‘Come on, George. Me an’ you’ll go in an’ get a drink.’”  I close the book, and sneak it back to the empty slot on the bookshelf.  Breathing slowly through my mouth, I keep my eyes pointed up, trying not to blink and not to think.  I suddenly notice that the room has gone quiet, and I hear Mrs. Bryant ask, “Riley, what’s wrong?”

The class has stopped, Mrs. Bryant has focused on me, along with every face in the room.  I don’t know what’s wrong—I’ve seen the movie, it didn’t make me cry.  What’s wrong is the God damned injustice of it all, but I can’t put that into words.  I get enough flak for not doing my homework or not paying attention in class.  I can’t tell her that I’ve just finished reading a book that moved me to tears.  I put my head down, hoping she will move on, but she doesn’t.  I start heaving and sobbing uncontrollably, and in between breaths I gasp out a hurried “Nothing.”

I keep my head down, but I can feel everyone staring at me, watching.  I can’t tell her why I’m crying.  I’m not sure I can explain it to myself.

My surreptitious reading of Mrs. Bryant’s books got me through the sixth grade, and the experience encouraged me to take note of people’s bookshelves wherever I go.  A person’s books are a part of them.  Their bookshelves help to keep a lot of parts together.  The first thing I take note of when I enter someone’s office is their books.  I wonder, often, to what degree their books are ornamental.  Are they meant to convey identity?  Personal philosophy? Are they favorites or just the ones most often reached for?  I have never asked anyone, or indicated that I knew anything about their shelved books.  

When I was growing up, there was never enough room for all the books in our house.  Most bookshelves are simple affairs—a box of wood or plastic with horizontal shelves to hold the books.  Dad hung shelves on the wall for Mom using metal brackets, but she still had piles of books in the corner of their room, at the ends of the thin corridors between their queen-sized bed and the walls.  The weight of her books pushed the floor down away from the wall, leaving a small gap.  

As I neared the end of high school I started reading through her collection—she liked nonfiction, especially biographies.  If I thought one of her books was really cool, I’d try to hang on to it.  I still have her copies of Freud’s case studies, like The Wolfman and Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious.

I still have Mom’s copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses, too.  I had figured out at a young age that not going to church meant that I was not a very respectable person, and so I was very interested in ideas and things that made church people uneasy.  I was intrigued by Rushdie’s title, and asked Mom what it was about.  “I don’t know—I couldn’t understand it,” was her reply, “but it was a big deal when it came out.”  She recalled that the radio stations in Texas had boycotted Cat Stevens’ songs because he had made statements in support of the bounty on Rushdie’s head.  Khomeini’s fatwa was enough of a reason for me to read it.

That year—my senior year—I had an American Literature class with Mrs. Sladek.  She was a short, round, dark-haired woman with intense, bulgy eyes who kept her room orderly and quiet.  Some teachers seemed more interested in social status than teaching, and Mrs. Sladek struck me as one of them.  If you didn’t go to the right church, if your family wasn’t prominent enough, if you didn’t look fashionable, she wasn’t interested in you.  She was more dismissive of me than I was used to, even for someone who rarely did his homework.

Near the end of the year, we had a lot of quiet reading time in class. One day, I pulled out Mom’s copy of The Satanic Verses, found my place—marked by the glossy red and gray jacket—and started reading. My desk was near hers, and it wasn’t long before I heard her voice: “Riley, what are you reading?”

I was excited at her interest. I’d been struggling with the book—I didn’t know much about Islam or the cultures Rushdie was writing about—but I kept at it, rereading and trying to work through it slowly. Maybe Mrs. Sladek, an English teacher, could help me understand it.

I held up the book and said, “The Satanic Verses. Have you read it?”

She scowled. “No, and I don’t think I would.”

I put the book back on my desk and kept reading, but her response stayed with me. I’d thought everyone had heard of The Satanic Verses—Mom and Dad had told me about the protests, the bounty, the boycotts of Cat Stevens. I was surprised that she hadn’t heard of it—and more surprised that a teacher would shut down a book like that without a second thought.  I suppose not everyone thinks of books in the same way.

When someone dies and the family swoops in to divvy up their stuff, I try to get their books.  When Mom’s dad died everyone fought over what to do with his things.  I took his books.  He had a lot of books about faith.  He was a Catholic, and he struggled to reconcile his religion with his politics.  The church told him that in order to be a good Christian he had to vote for the party that wanted to outlaw abortion, but he felt that it was unconscionable to vote for the Republicans.  He had a lot of books about what it means to have faith.

Uncle Elbert, on the other hand, was a Republican and lifetime member of the NRA.  He owned most of the land that butted up against Tuggle Road—all hayfields and cow pastures and hollers where the woods were left to grow because they weren’t worth turning into hayfields.  Dad bought the piece of field where we put our house from him, and, when Uncle Elbert was dying, everyone bought the fields their houses sat in from him.  They were worried that there would be a problem with his will—he had family who would be able to claim his property before any Tuggles, though I’ve never met them.  They let me take his books when he died, but everything he owned was supposed to be sold off and divvied up to this other family.

Elbert’s bookshelf, which I keep in a safe spot at the top of my stairs, is made of a knotty old cherry tree that wasn’t quite worth sawing up into boards to sell.  I never dust it, and I don’t think he did either.  There may still be dust from his house on it.  It isn’t like most bookshelves—he had made it by hand in his shop.  It’s got two boards which serve for legs that are rounded at the top and come up about waist high, one of them is so full of knots that it has started to split and separate from itself.  Between the legs run three shelves which are each made of two boards put together at a right angle.  The books rest on their sides, not quite parallel to the floor.  It’s made to hold paperbacks about the size of your hand.  Uncle Elbert had filled it with dime store westerns by Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour.  

The top shelf holds a row of my own paperbacks that just happened to fit. The rest of the collection is fragile, held together more by memory than glue. I think about those books sometimes—about the legacy Uncle Elbert left me without meaning to. Maybe I’ll explore them one day. But I don’t think it’ll be as simple as pulling one down to read—it might crumble in my hands.

[dowdicus]

I. Nothing Exists

I. NOTHING EXISTS

I remember the astonishment I felt at your interest in me.  I, a lowly worm, you a bird of paradise.  You brought a kind of lightness with you when you came into my life, weighed down as it is by mental illness and a strange kind of consciousness.  Points of light in the darkness; weekends punctuating the months with a kind of joy that is hard to find.  I told you I wanted to occupy the same physical space in the universe as you.

You left something with me when things were still good.  Something you knew, a simple card with the word “YES” written on the front; inside are affirmations that I am loved.  I put it on the table on the top of the stairs, to remind me every night when I went up to bed.  And now I wonder if I should put it away.  You tell me that I’m still loved, but it’s not the kind of love that makes me a priority or makes me feel welcome in your life.

II. EVEN IF SOMETHING EXISTS, IT CANNOT BE KNOWN.

The relationship seemed to fall into place naturally for me.  I felt understood.  We had deep conversations that felt meaningful about politics and society and finding ourselves within the moments that passed.  I felt seen.  At any point of connection I could feel how you felt about me.  Maybe I wasn’t as warm to you?

And I was insecure.  I shrunk myself.  If a text went unanswered, it meant you were annoyed with me.  It meant that my text messages were a burden.  A weight I was tying around your neck; a demand.  I saw myself, instead of making plans together, begging for time.  And I told myself it was a cruelty towards you to feel this way.  My internal dialogue scolded me for looking for ways to manipulate the situation–if I ask for some time while we talk on the phone instead of by text, it will be harder to say no.

III. EVEN IF IT CAN BE KNOWN, IT CANNOT BE COMMUNICATED

I told you recently that I had a revelation of sorts; that I was afraid to want things.  It’s more than that.  I believe, deep down, if I voice my want for something that thing will be taken away from me and the possibility will be ended.  If I want to talk to you then you will stop wanting to talk to me.  And now you don’t want to talk to me.  I remember how I felt the first time you canceled plans with me.  And the first time you told me you weren’t ready to schedule any time with me.  “You still like me though, right?” I asked.  I feel so stupid for not understanding earlier.  

I wonder now if you understand how I’m feeling.  That I am heartbroken.  Cycling.  I haven’t tried to make you aware, but surely you can tell that I’ve had a realization.  That I have spiraled a bit.  There is a cold kind of bitter anger welling in my heart–a small puddle, but it seems important to recognize.  Resentment.  I want you to call me so that I can refuse to accept the call.  This petty bitter anger comes for me too–I want to go live in a cave and punish myself for this failure.  

IV. EVEN IF IT CAN BE COMMUNICATED, IT CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD

This feeling is hard.  It’s like I’ve been in the process of breaking up with someone for two years.  The hard part, though, is that I have been fighting against myself.  Arguing that this isn’t the case.  “She probably has a lot going on.”  I remember seeing pictures of you at the renaissance faire with other friends on your instagram.  It wounded me.  Why hadn’t you wanted to go with me?  Something from long ago eats at me, “If she wanted to spend time with you, she would make time for you.”  Why doesn’t she want to have fun with me?  A picture of you with short hair pulled the distance that had grown between us into my mind–I couldn’t ignore that you had cut your hair some time ago and that I hadn’t known.  It seemed like something I would have known much sooner just a year before.

At the end of the day the only firmament I had was that I believed I was important.  That I warranted a consideration.  But when we talked about labels and things not practically changing, it seems we meant that the status quo of the long breakup will be maintained.  I had thought it meant we were safe.  And I think back on all the times I have been inconsiderate and wonder, “What if…?”

And I want to be angry that you didn’t tell me.  I imagine your response, “We talked about not being partners anymore.” But when we became partners we said that it wasn’t changing things.  And when you dissolved the partnership, you said that it wasn’t changing things.  And I’m angry that I didn’t realize at the time we were lying to ourselves.  It did change things.  How could it not?  I felt an immediate change when you brought up the idea of being partners with me at some nice restaurant I can’t remember.  I began convincing myself immediately that nothing would change when you told me on the phone that we wouldn’t be partners anymore.  Of course things changed.  And I want you to tell me why.  And I want you to explain your reason why to my satisfaction.  And I want you to justify your explanations.  And I want you to convince me.  

I just want to occupy the same space as you, where our minds might overlap, and then I might know things to the degree I need to know them.

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dowdicus]

Why Publish?

To be a writer To write professionally To make a buck

To prove that I am a writer

For recognition For validity For an audience For a legacy

To teach To castigate

To have something to take home and say, “I’m better than the person who left here.”

For competition For dreams

For disillusionment

For posterity

Because thousands of shitty novels are published every day, and I need to prove to someone that I can write a shitty novel.

[dowdicus]

Good Workers

“We want our students to be good workers.” Administration proclaims

But the liberal arts are not suited To producing good workers

Dreamers, probably Rebels, maybe Disappointed idealists, surely

But good workers do not come From interrogating humanity

Let the admins proclaim what they will. I want my students to fight.

[dowdicus]

Re: Meetings

Subject: Availability Poll If everyone could please Respond to the poll By Friday—end of day. Let us know your availability.

Subject: Quick Reminder And please, Stop using ‘Reply All.’

Subject: Poll Results Are In The only shared times Are two p.m. Tuesday Or eight a.m. Wednesday.

Subject: Dietary Preferences Make sure you respond to Susan. Vegan? No gluten? She’s ordering lunch For everyone.

Subject: Update: Tuesday Won’t Work We’ll have to meet On Wednesday At eight a.m.

Subject: Meeting Confirmation When you arrive, Please sign in— To document your presence At this critical discussion.

[dowdicus]

Lennie

We met because the woman who owned you Had to let you go. I sat on the grass with you and held you And as you realized you were being left with strangers you struggled against me. I brought you home and you glued yourself to the window, Heartbroken.

I comforted you, and gave you a box to improve your vantage point, But you had no way of understanding what had happened or why.

Yesterday I left for work And you came to the window to watch me leave. When I came home a few hours later you whined and pawed at me and jumped In my lap. Maybe you thought I wouldn’t return? You danced for cookies and I gave them to you.

I sometimes think about your memory of the woman who called you Remington. I remember her crying as she left you with me.

You seem happy here, and I consider How a dog goes through life without words And must find contentment in the world as she finds it.

Language is a hell of a thing.

I would like to be able to tell you that I love you, So I throw your ball, and give you another cookie, and worry how you’re feeling Whenever I’m not home.

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dowdicus]

BRCM Co.

One Morning as the sun came up And the jungle camps were dampened Up the track came a New York lawyer He was a business champion “I’ve found me a land that’s far away Where no title can be counted. It’ll all be mine, I’ll lay my claim On the Big Rock Candy Mountains.”

On my Big Rock Candy Mountains You can pay by week or night You can use your credit card Or a cheque if you can write Where the railroad bulls are paid real well To make sure you don’t ride

On the trains that bring my cigarette trees To the factory where my workers bleed

At the BRCM Comp’ny

On my Big Rock Candy Mountains All the cops drive big ol’ tanks And I can call the National Guard If my workers sleep too late All these shiftless idlers Should profit me or die

I let loose the jerk who invented work Gave him a gun and I called him “son”

At the BRCM Comp’ny

In the Big Rock Candy Mountains All the hobos tried to fight But they didn’t have no tools or guns And right is made by might I locked them all up in my jail And gave them work release

Now they slave away for a dollar a day While I rest at ease with my dollar bill trees

At the BRCM Comp’ny

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dowdicus]

Ode to Frank

Frank, One would not guess Behind the bulk and the bark And the large muzzle (that isn’t so full of teeth) The kindness with which you treat others.

Frank, Your clumsy leaps and bounds Are joy and youth and sweet  Beams of sunlight cascading over a weedless garden full of ripened fruit And your shy, syrupy eyes Are lakes of pure innocence.

Frank, I cannot come any closer to God Than when you meet my gaze, And, wondering what the world is to you, I feel your soft velvety ears And the weight of your body as you lean against me.

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dowdicus]

No Purchase

A claw twitches A leg finds no purchase The mass doesn’t quite writhe They must be cold, piled on a bed of ice The sign reads: “Caution! The crabs WILL bite” I wonder how long it’s been since they’ve eaten. I’d like to feel their shells, pick one up; but they bite. I imagine, instead, waiting to die, chilled, on a pile of brothers.

[dowdicus]

Untitled

I’d like to climb inside a mind that doesn’t circle mine.

To feel the fears of thoughts half-formed— unwritten, undefined.

To dream a dream I’ve never dreamed, in shapes I can’t design.

If I could think another’s thoughts, and wear another’s skin—

then meet a gaze and do it all again, and then again—

Would I come home to recognize my own familiar tone?

Or would I find there is no self, just flesh around the bone?

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dowdicus]

Ten Dollars

It's one banana, Michael, how much could it cost?

Sixty-three thousand gallons of bunker fuel burned? A couple rainforests? One point seven million dollars for paramilitary terrorists? A few democratically elected governments? Thirty-six years of civil war? A superfluity, raped, tortured, and murdered?

It's one banana, Michael, how much could it cost?

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dowdicus]

The Convoy

Darren swirled his fingers in his belly hair. “Well,” he sighed, “shit.” He could feel the convoy slowing down and pulling over as he gritted his teeth against the irritating sound of the maintenance buzzer. Money down the drain, he thought to himself as he swung his legs out over the edge of his bunk and pulled off his virtual reality helmet. Darren glanced at the topless blonde on his calendar as he edged his feet into a pair of worn out, but comfortable brown slippers and pulled on his robe. He unzipped the privacy curtain and the bright red glow of the maintenance buzzer flooded into his sleeper cab.

As the truck slowed to a crawl, Darren plopped himself into the operator’s seat, looked over the instrument panel, and grabbed the computer to check the error code. The brakes squealed as the truck stopped and Darren could hear the sound of pressurized air escaping as he engaged the parking brake. He opened the door, and hopped down onto the road.

The moon was nearly full, and they sky was clear so it was easy for Darren to see, even without his flashlight. The lead truck had an air leak, and he needed to track it down. It wasn’t hard to find; air was rushing out of the red air brake hose at the back of the cab. He knew he didn’t have a spare. “Shit,” he sighed again. His convoy was in the middle of nowhere, it would take forever to get another hose. Darren placed the order with his company issued smart phone; it would arrive by drone in an hour. Good a time as any for an inspection, he thought to himself.

Darren operated a convoy of five smart trucks. His sleeper cab and most of his belongings stayed in the lead truck, as the four other trucks were not built for people to ride around in them. The trucks were all computerized and automated; Darren’s main responsibility was ensuring that the convoy kept moving across the country despite problems like leaky air hoses. He was paid sixteen cents for every mile that he traveled, and in order to make enough money to survive he needed to travel almost constantly. He showered about as often as he stopped for fuel; maybe three or four times per week. It had been two months and thirteen days since Darren had interacted with another human being. He liked to mark human interactions on the calendar he kept in the lead truck. Each month of the calendar featured a nude pinup girl. All of them were computer generated–endless facsimiles of the human form, each more perfectly proportioned than the last, could be churned out by computers in seconds targeting any demographic.

The convoy, though covered in grime and splattered insects, was in decent shape. Some of the tires might need a retread before too long, and truck #3 had a couple of running lights out, but those were things he could take care of the next time he fueled up. It felt good to walk around outside for a bit and stretch his legs, even though it was costing him money. He leaned up against the tail truck and watched other convoys rumble by at 45 miles per hour–all the major companies installed governors on their trucks for optimal mileage. He wondered what the people in the lead trucks were like. Probably like himself, anyway. Most truckers had similar backgrounds. Desperate to make money but without any pliable skills. Lonely. Desperate. 

Darren operated a convoy because school hadn’t panned out and he didn’t like the idea of living in one of the corpo buildings. A lot of truckers had the same story. They couldn’t make rent so they signed up with a freight subsidiary to safeguard an automated convoy line of three, four, even five trucks for one of the corpo states. They were paid just enough that, if they never stopped moving, they could save up enough money to buy something nice for themselves every so often. Of course, never stopping was unrealistic. There were breakdowns, loading and delivery delays, and sometimes you just wanted to stop moving for a God-damned minute. 

It had been almost an hour. Darren ambled back up to the lead truck, but didn’t climb in. Any time he could spend outside of the cab was like a vacation. All at once, he heard the low whir of a drone and the clumsy noises it made as it docked with the delivery port at the top of the truck. He climbed inside to grab the hose and set to work replacing the damaged one as the delivery drone flew away. 

He was moving again. If he didn’t zip up the privacy curtain the sleeper cab felt like it had twice as much space, but the glow of the truck’s instrument panel was irritating. With the curtain closed, the sleeper cab seemed unreal. Of course it bobbed and bounced as more and more miles of road stretched off into the distance. The gray plastic molded shelf and cot discomforted Darren–like they weren’t real. Toy shelves and a toy bed. At least the dashboard’s instrument panel looked real. A lot of operators went crazy. During training he had heard stories of truckers doing strange things. Hoarding things was common. Every company had stories of cabs that caught fire because they were full of newspapers and magazines. One of his driving instructors told Darren a story about an operator who killed himself. His truck was full of bottles of piss—gallons and gallons of it. The company had to decommission the truck because they couldn’t get the smell of piss out of it. Not that Darren believed that part—they’d probably make some poor sap deal with it before getting rid of the truck. 

Suddenly, Darren zipped the curtain up. He bumped and jostled along with the truck as his convoy cruised down the road. He looked down at his virtual reality helmet, but the idea of surfing the internet or playing a game gave him a loathsome, empty feeling that he wanted to avoid. He stared at the image on the calendar for a long time before grabbing a thick black marker and reaching up to add another ‘X’ to the series. Two months, fourteen days. He turned out the lights and strapped in.

Darren awoke to the feeling of the convoy turning a corner, and undid the safety straps that kept him from being jostled out of the sleeper bunk. He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep, but he could tell it was still dark out. The convoy was pulling up to its destination. Darren pulled on some clothes and unzipped the privacy curtain, climbing up into the operator’s seat. He liked to be alert and awake when his convoy was being scanned into the yard. Once, when he first started, he met a security guard. 

He was an old black man, fat, with short white hair cropped around his bald head. Darren could still remember the face, but the name had slipped his mind. The man had been worried about his job–after shipping and delivery were automated security guards came to be seen as unnecessary. They had talked about the weather–it had been raining a lot–though Darren went through most of his days completely oblivious to the weather. When he had nothing better to do, Darren liked to replay the conversation in his mind.

This yard, like all the others, was automated, and there would be no security guard, though this was to be expected. Darren hoped to spot another operator. Generally, the rule was that an operator wasn’t allowed out of the truck on customers’ property, but exceptions were made for inspecting trucks and trailers. Since the advertising bots and company spybots crowded people off of radios, there was a simple protocol to follow to meet other operators. As the convoy is being scanned in Darren would climb into the operator seat and start looking for other operators situated similarly. If he spotted someone he would engage the big yellow safety release knob and get out to inspect the truck. Operators had no control over where the trucks would park themselves, so whether Darren would meet someone always came down to luck.

There were only a few other trucks in the yard, but their operators weren’t visible.  Darren lounged sideways in the operator’s seat, resting against the door as his convoy pulled up over the switching pad.  The trailer’s air brakes hissed as Darren’s lead truck disengaged and pulled forward out of the way.  A dirty white yard jockey swung out from behind a row of trailers and hitched itself to the trailer Darren had safeguarded through the empty rural divide.  The trailer’s landing gear retracted, and the jockey slowly pulled it out into the yard, disappearing behind a light blue trailer.  The first tail pulled over the pad and detached, and another jockey pulled the trailer away.  The process repeated until all the trailers had been hauled away and parked somewhere.  

As soon as the final tail of the convoy was detached, each unit independently drove through the yard, hooking up to its next assigned trailer, and then came back together near the exit.  After waiting for a couple of jockeys hauling trailers up the road, his convoy pulled left out of the yard, heading west. Operators were never given information about their loads or destinations, but Darren could tell the direction by looking at the sky. Before he could pick up any speed, he noticed someone hiding in some bushes off the road. She was short, wide-framed, and ragged. She looked like she had been wandering through the wilderness for a long time. Her blonde hair was matted and tangled, she had a large scar on her right forearm, and the ring finger on her left hand was missing above the first knuckle. She wore common corpo worker clothes–cheap blue jeans and a plain t-shirt–but instead of shoes her feet were bound with cloth. Despite all of this, she looked determined. Confident, even. Without thinking, Darren popped the yellow safety release for another inspection. The trucks pulled over in a line just a few feet from the bushes. He hopped down and looked right at her as she watched him walk around the cab. Approaching the rear of the passenger side, he pressed his thumb into a biometric scanner and the side compartment popped open. He glanced at the woman again, and pulled a large stone from the compartment, tossing it beside the road. As he continued discarding stones, she stepped out of hiding, and, eyeing him carefully, declared, “I’m not gonna fuck you.” Startled a bit, Darren stammered out a response, “Oh, uhm, I’m sorry. You need a ride right?” “I’m headed west.” “I haven’t figured out which way I’m headed yet, but you’re welcome to ride along. We can take turns in the sleeper.”

He wanted to say something about how he was dying for someone to talk to, but she could probably tell.

After a moment, he looked down at the small pile of rocks he had tossed from the compartment—probably about the same weight as her. He shut the door.

“I haven’t had a shower in a couple of days, but you can take my next one when we refuel.”

She looked like she hadn’t had a shower in a couple of months.

“Thanks,” she said, and they got into the lead cab together.

A beat of silence passed before she asked, “You got food?”

“I’ve got some protein rations.”

[dowdicus]

Alienation

The urgent screeching of the alarm clock brought Alex back to consciousness at 6:00 AM.  She was in her bed, on the lumpy mattress that needed replacing. She reached over to the old nightstand and turned off the alarm.  Resolving to lay in the comfort of her bed, Alex took in her studio apartment. The gray painted walls bowed in places; and a large print of Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” concealed a thick crack in the plaster opposite the bed.  There was a cheap coffee table and an old couch, a bookshelf full of books she hadn’t read, a small refrigerator, an oven, a tv that didn’t work. A line of shoes on the floor. A closet stuffed full of clothes and storage boxes. Her mother’s cedar chest.  After lying awake for what seemed like too much time, she gathered the will to get up.

A dull but serious pain ached through her muscles and bones as soon as she put her weight on her feet, crawling up through her legs to her spine and torso.  She gritted her teeth and walked to the cabinet over the stove. After starting her coffee pot, Alex kicked off her pajamas and proceeded to the shower.

She noticed a new cut on her right forearm, and several tender purple bruises on her hips and legs.  Every morning brought new damage to her body. Bruises, cuts, scrapes, once or twice a missing tooth or fingernail.  She was lucky, though, she was still fit for duty, which meant she could pay her rent. Some people lost limbs or went mad and were turned out of the corporate municipality to die in the wilderness.  What were a few bruises compared to exile and death? Whatever work she did, it kept a roof over her head and food in her belly. Not remembering was probably a blessing.

The shower timer ran out and the water pressure died down.  Alex stepped out to dry off and gazed at herself in the mirror.  She had a black eye, and a busted lip. Maybe she had been in a fight?  Surely she would know if she had been in a fight–she would have been written up and given a slip.  She dressed herself–cheap bra and underwear, plain shirt, plain pants. Back in the kitchen Alex poured herself a cup of coffee and drank it black.  She toasted some bread and ate it. The clock read 6:40 AM. Elevator privilege for her floor ended at 7. She emptied the coffee pot, pulled on her socks and shoes, and exited her apartment, turning down the hallway toward the elevator.

Janice and Bill, from two apartments down, were also waiting at the elevator.  Janice was missing an eye and some teeth. Her nose was crooked from having been broken.  Bill, who looked big and strong, was missing several fingers and walked with a limp. It must have been very hard work they did.  The three were friends, though, and so they tried not to talk about work–what little they knew of it. They would meet on the elevator and ride to the sorting station together on the subway most days.  The corporation had declared the first and last days of every month to be a social holiday with no work for most workers, and Janice and Bill and Alex enjoyed cooking meals for each other when their holidays coincided.  Janice and Bill pretended not to notice Alex’s black eye, and Alex pretended not to notice the fresh scar on Bill’s face. They chatted about food and plans and getting older, anything but the elevator slowly rising up through the floors.

The elevator doors rolled open with a low ding and a rumble, and the trio stepped on board, fighting for space.  Alex hated fighting for space. She hated being trapped in the full-to-capacity elevator. She hated riding down to the sub-basement, and she hated having to fight for space on the subway cars that took them to the sorting station, where they would be induced and sent to work.  She focused on counting the seconds. If she controlled her pace, and didn’t let the anxiety of being trapped in a box with the entire floor get to her, the doors would open at around 750. The subway ride was a little bit faster, closer to ten minutes. Everyone was slightly maimed or disfigured, except for sometimes the young.  It must be very dangerous work. Janice, knowing how claustrophobic Alex was, held her hand throughout the journey.

After an eternity of being packed into tiny spaces with too many people, the subway arrives, and the doors open, and the crowd spills out.  The sorting station is clean–immaculate, really. Everything looks brand new, from the fences to the benches and the propaganda posters that line the walls.  Alex’s favorite was the “Keep your body healthy, keep the corpo healthy” posters with dietary and exercise information and first aid information. It was so colorful.  There were several different sorting lines, though it was never clear where any of them led. Some of the lines would be closed off after a certain number of people queued up, and so people would jockey for these more limited lines. Alex didn’t believe it mattered which line you got into, but Bill did.  He liked to stand back and watch how quickly the lines moved, what kinds of patterns there were in the headcounts, and how he felt–what kinds of injuries he had–after having stood in a given line the day before.  

Today, Bill picked one of the limited lines, and managed to get Janice and Alex in before they closed the line at 500 headcount.  They moved up more slowly than the unlimited lines, which Bill felt would land them gentler jobs. The painted white brick of the sorting station loomed large before them, with its multiple entrances and large portraits of the corporate board.  As they shuffled up the line, one by one going through the inducement machine, Alex prepared herself mentally for what was coming. She had no idea what kind of work she would be assigned to do or what kinds of injuries might result from it, she only knew she would have no memory of it.

They had passed inside the building.  Fans blew the air around so it was cool and breezy.  An oak desk sat in the entryway, unmanned, as the line formed up on one of the many inducement machines.  The inducement machine was more like a large room, or series of rooms, than a machine. Several people could go through at once, each in their own small inducement room, where a thin blue light will be shone into their eyes.  The moment this light is registered in their brains, the workers go blank. They will follow any command, and they will have no memory of anything that happens to them while under inducement, which lasts until they enter into a state of deep sleep.  Alex’s turn came up. She took a deep breath, and entered the room. After a few seconds, the light shone into her eyes, and she was out.

The urgent screeching of the alarm clock brought Alex back to consciousness at 6:00 AM.  She was in her bed, under the washed out and frayed comforter that needed replacing. She turned off the alarm and lay in the comfort of her bed for a few moments, taking in her studio apartment.  Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ” with his beautiful hair and face concealed a thick crack in the bowing plaster opposite the bed. A dirty coffee cup sat on the table in front of the old couch. A rug on the floor in front of the stuffed-full closet.  Her mother’s cedar chest. The cross from over the doorway had fallen on the floor. Her coat draped over a chair. After lying awake for what seemed like too much time, she gathered the will to get up.

from Sophistry and Solipsism in the New Millennium

[dowdicus]

Rust

Somewhere in the blue mountains of Kentucky is a holler.  It’s not a particularly large holler, and, in fact, exists as part of a vast valley between two immense hills.  Somewhere in the valley smaller hills rise up—earthy blue-green rhytids—and between the hills exists the holler, called Rabbit Holler.  It is populated with poplar trees and black walnuts, shaggy hickory trees and smooth-barked maples.  The occasional black locust, branching and gnarled, bursts forth from the ground. At the bottom of one of the nondescript squat hills that borders the eastern edge of Rabbit Holler is a hole in the ground big enough for a man to fit into.  Dropping down inside the hole, such a man will find himself in a small damp patch of cold darkness big enough to stretch himself out comfortably on the smooth rock floor.  In the spring, mayapples cover the hill like a raised carpet of green umbrellas, concealing the cave along with the dull orange-brown-gray of the leaves that make up the forest floor.  The green smell of young plants and the clear trickle of spring water fill the air. 

I discovered the cave when I was nine years old.  I had just learned to set snares, and I was out looking to see if I had caught anything.  Secure a string or wire with a slipknot at one end to a stake and stake it into the ground so that the snare opens about seven or eight inches up.  I hadn’t caught anything that day, but after I got done checking my snares I walked around pushing over dead trees, and nearly fell into the cave.  I remember thinking it was a solemn place, and that I was the only one who knew about it. 

It was a little bit easier to climb down into when I was younger, and it was an unremarkable cave—damp, cold, dark, quiet–except for one thing.  A spring of water slowly flowed from the far wall, filling the air with a low trickling sound.  The water from this spring was cold and pure like the first drops of water that trickled into Creation.  It flowed so smoothly and clearly that you could hardly see it, especially in the dim light of the cave.  I drank my fill.

Before long I got the idea to tote an old brown jug to the cave and carry it back to the house.  As I got older, I would carry more.  I offered some of the water to Mom and Dad, but they already knew about the cave.  They said I should keep it—that our well water was good enough for them.  My brothers and sisters wanted to drink it, but they were too lazy to carry water on their own.  My first few trips to the cave I wanted to share, but after having carried so many gallons, I got stingy. 

At twelve, I went to work cutting tobacco in the summer.  I was strong from carrying so many jugs of water, and I was eager to make some money to help the family buy a truck.  You carried a knife and a spear tip with you, cutting plants and staking them.  The knife was just a long stick with a sharp square piece of metal at the end. The spear tip was shaped like a bell, to help spread the big sticky leaves.  You’d walk down the row chopping at the stalks of the plants with your knife.  Jam a stick into the ground, fix your spear tip to the top, and then impale the plant.  It was dangerous because you were trying to go as fast as you could—we weren’t paid hourly.  I saw a man put a spear through his hand once.   A good cutter could cut and load a hundred sticks a day.  At twelve, I cut about 70.  Ten cents a stick. I’d bring a big hunk of cornbread and a mason jar full of water from the cave spring for lunch.  Even after it had warmed up, the water from the spring was refreshing and pure and energizing—at least as much as the cornbread.  After drinking a jar of that water I’d stand up straighter and cut faster for a couple of hours.  It was hard work, but as a result I grew wiry and strong.  I could lick kids five years older than me and twice my size.  Eventually I grew big enough to strike out on my own, so I went into town, got my chauffeur’s license, and started driving long haul for Peabody.  I didn’t have much in the way of possessions, and I was taking up too much space at home, so it was a good fit for me.  I lived in my truck but would visit home every couple of months to give the folks some money and fill up a couple of jugs of that sparkling clear spring water that tasted so much like home.  On occasions I invited others into my truck they would notice the jugs and assume moonshine.  Though they were often disappointed when I told them what the jugs held, it seemed like most of them agreed with me they had never known water could taste so good. I shared my spring water with people from all over the country—I even brought it over into Mexico and Canada once or twice.  Everywhere I went, if I was known, I was known for never shutting up about my water.  Either you had to try it, or I didn’t have any for you to try but you’d damned sure love it if I did.  Over time, I traveled through almost every state.

I also managed to save up a lot of money, since I didn’t pay rent or utilities.  When I decided to settle down, I started looking for land.  I got a great deal on a hundred acres in southeastern Indiana.  There were hills covered in grass and foxtail and black-eyed Susans.  The woods were full of straight poplar, hickory, oak, and walnut.  There were mushrooms and ginseng.  The hay fields were overgrown with blackberries and raspberries. 

First, I cleared a spot at the top of the highest hill and hauled an aluminum house trailer up there so I’d have someplace to stay.  I bought a tractor and some other tools and implements.  I built a sawmill and a large work shed full of table saws, sanders, planers and everything else I felt I needed.  I dammed up three different ponds and stocked them with fish.  After clearing the fields so I could grow hay, I fenced off pastures and populated them with cows.  I even built a pigpen.

It took a few of years, but my fields and gardens were producing crops and my pigs and cows were producing meat when I got a letter from two of my younger brothers, Cecil and Everett, asking if they could visit me.  They had recently come of age and were looking to get out into the world a bit.  Of course, I asked them to bring some water from the cave spring when they came up. 

I picked them up from the Greyhound station in Brookville in the spring of ’68.  Cecil, as always, was short and round, serious and talkative.  He read a lot, and always wanted to talk about what he was reading about.  Most of the time, though, his audience wasn’t familiar with the subject matter, and he spent so much time explaining he might as well have been talking to himself.  Everett was the youngest of us all—there were eleven of us—with dark eyes and dark hair.  He was also quiet, and only really spoke up to tell a joke.  They handed me a case of quart jugs full of water from the cave.  I hadn’t had water—not real water—in four years.  I greedily sucked down a quart of it before getting into my truck at the bus station.  A policeman stopped me, but I gave him a drink and he agreed that it was the best water he’d ever tasted. 

My brothers slept on cots in my living room and helped me with my cows and fields.  They helped me build a new house to replace the old trailer.  We spent all our time together, mostly working, sometimes talking, always thinking about the next improvement that needed to be made to the property.  Some nights we would go out drinking and looking for women.  The bar in town—the Longbranch—was known as a rough spot.  There were often fights, sometimes stabbings—though we were never involved in the latter.  Though I never married, Everett and Cecil both eventually settled down with women.  I sold them each an acre of land for a dollar and let them cut down trees to build their houses.

I would go back and visit my parents every couple of years, bringing back as much spring water as I could.  Eventually they died—cancer got one, then the other.  Everett doesn’t talk to Cecil or me anymore.  After Dad died, and mom came down with lung cancer, he went nuts over alternative cures.  He got her doing some kind of fungus cleanse that was supposed to kill the cancer.  Cecil and I talked her into going back to the doctor, but it was too late.  The cancer had metastasized all over her body through her lymph system.  Everett and a couple of our sisters blamed us for her death, since we talked her out the fungus treatment.

Cancer.  Such an evil, vile, merciless disease.  An indiscriminate demon.  It affects so many.  After all this time you’d think they would have found something more.  Something better than poisoning the victim to the brink of death only to tease them back to live out the last of their lives in pain and sickness.  Money runs the medical industry.  There’s no money in the cure; only the treatments.  It tears apart lives.  It tears apart families.  The last time I visited Rabbit Holler was ten years ago, when we buried Mom and went through the house—nothing more than an old shack, really—for heirlooms and valuables.  Margot, Esther and Everett refused to talk to the rest of us.  We let them go through the house first.  I brought some water back, of course, and savored it, not sure when I would be back for more.

Six months ago, I was diagnosed with skin cancer—from being outside in the fields and gardens every day, I suppose.  We stopped the chemo a couple of weeks ago.  For a while, it seemed like it was working, but the cancer started growing again.  I’ve been living in a rest home for the past couple of weeks.  Today, Cecil is coming to visit, and he is bringing with him some water from the cave spring in Rabbit Holler.  It’s all I want before I die. 

He arrives, carrying with him an old brown jug like I used to have when I was a boy.  I can’t help but stare at it as we exchange pleasantries.  He tells me I look good, lets me know how our sisters are doing.  He says Everett is upset at him because of some decorations he and his wife put up.  He gives me the jug.  I lick my lips, and, trembling, try to pull the cork out, but I don’t have the strength.  He opens it for me and hands it back to me.  I bring it to my lips and let the pure cool water flow into my mouth, covering my tongue and filling my cheeks. I swallow, and my face falls.  “What’s wrong?” Cecil asks me.

It tastes like rust.

[dowdicus]

Apostasy

I went to Travis’ reading a few weeks ago.  It was held on a Saturday in the Depot District at Two Sisters Bookstore.  It took me a few minutes to find–I had never been there before. This despite having lived in Richmond for a decade or so, and despite having lived only seven or eight blocks from the depot district for the first half of that decade.  When I went out walking I generally liked to walk along the railroad tracks heading east, under the J Street bridge, past the old mattress and the heaps of garbage and what looked like abandoned jungle camps. I imagine it’s all still there, five or so years since the last time I saw it.  

During undergrad I’d walk along the tracks to a wooded area where a large patch of polk grew not far from what looked like an old factory made of red brick.  When I first found the place, I had hoped mushrooms grew there, but they didn’t. In the late spring and early summer, before the plants had grown tough and woody, I’d gather the polk with a pocket knife and a grocery bag and bring it home to eat.  Strip off the poisonous red skin and cut the stalks into rings to batter and fry. I’ve never eaten the leaves before-they’re poisonous, too, and you have to boil them twice–though I’m aware people do. Tastes like fried green tomatoes.

I walked through town often enough when I lived in that part of Richmond, though I rarely walked through the depot district.  I liked the straight up and down lines of the number and letter streets. I never really met anyone that I hung out with for very long–I’d hang out with roommates, when I had them,  but I wasn’t very social otherwise. I’ve never been very good at being part of a community. When I was an ed. major one of my instructors asked me, after I had explained I was half an hour late because I had locked my keys in the house and had had to walk from E Street, why I hadn’t simply called someone for a ride.  I told her I didn’t know anybody I could ask for a ride. She didn’t believe me.

The Saturday of Travis’ reading I was tempted to message him and say I couldn’t make it.  Technically, Dad was coming up to help me caulk my leaky shower, but I had informed him of the reading and we planned to be finished in time.  I was anxious about being around other people. Isolation is something that people with bipolar disorder do to themselves. We avoid parties.  We shut ourselves up in our houses. We play video games by ourselves all day. I want to go, though, so even though I think I’ll probably have to talk to other people I get in my car and drive toward Richmond.

It was sprinkling in the Depot District when I got there.  I had to drive around for a bit to find the bookstore and more to find a place to park.  I’m familiar with the parts of Richmond where the streets are laid out like a grid–numbered streets running north and south, lettered streets running east and west.  The Depot District and Old Richmond are confusing. The roads are laid out like a can of worms, as Uncle Elbert had once described Cincinnati. I parked in an alley just away from the shelter of the bridge, about a block away from the store.  

When I stepped through the doors I had to stop for a moment.  I had never been in a bookstore before. Not like this. I had been to Barnes & Noble, Borders, Hastings, different college bookstores, but this was different.  It felt like a church is supposed to feel. The woman at the counter must have noticed my hesitation–she asked me if I was there for the reading and I said yes.  Just walk straight back to the room at the end. Bookshelves that stood about a foot or so shorter than me criss crossed each other on either side of the path I walked.  They were stained dark, or were naturally dark, and looked old. Handmade, maybe. It was quiet, sacred, like a library, and there were a few people browsing the shelves.  A family of four. A couple. A young woman. I wondered if they were there for the reading.

In the back room I noticed three things immediately:  One, I was under dressed. Two, Mary Fell was there. And three, all the seats were taken.  I didn’t say hi to Mary or indicate that I knew who she was. I only had one class with her a long long time ago, and I wouldn’t expect her remember me.  I thought she was cool, though, and I liked her. She sat between Travis and his wife, Karen, with the same gray hair running down to her shoulders in ringlets like she had years ago.  She wore slacks and a flowy blouse. Everyone was dressed nice–business casual it looked like.

Travis must have introduced me as a professor at Ivy Tech, because someone commented that I looked like a professor.  My hair, as always, was unkempt–short curls sticking out at all angles.  My beard had started to go wild–I was in need of a trim. I wore a pair of dark blue sweatpants long ago spattered with white and green and red paint.  My olive green sweatshirt was, likewise, spattered with a bit of paint. On my feet, foam flip-flops. Travis went around the room introducing everyone, his friends, to me–I don’t remember their names.  There were six or seven of them including the readers: One of Travis’ former instructors from Earlham, reading from a book of poems that she had had published, the other a woman reading from her novel that was about to be published.  The author with the novel had a man with her who I assumed was her husband–or maybe he was introduced as her husband, I can’t remember. There was another couple–the man, with his salt and pepper goatee reminded me of Ian McShane. There was Karen.  There was Mary Fell.

The room was small, and the seats were taken. I stood chatting a bit, terribly conscious that I was standing in the doorway.  The only other place to stand was behind the podium. Travis’ former instructor must have noticed my discomfort–or maybe she just wanted to get me out of the doorway–and offered her chair to me.  Thank God. I sunk into the green vinyl chair, hoping to sink out of sight, and she went out to find additional seating, bringing back a couple of folding chairs.

I took in the room. I want to say the walls were painted green, though maybe they had some kind of patterned wallpaper.  There was Sherlock Holmes paraphernalia everywhere–books, a street sign that said “Baker’s St.,” statuettes and busts on the mantle above the fireplace. In front of the fireplace was one of those black music stands to serve as the podium. Sofas and chairs surrounded the coffee table in the center of the room.  Eventually, someone else came to the room–she was wearing crocs, a t-shirt, and walking with a cane. The reading began shortly after she was seated.

I can’t remember a word of it, but it stirred something in me.  I’m unsure what I thought about as I listened, either except:  Why am I not doing this? Why am I not trying to publish? Why am I not writing?  Why am I not reading? I don’t even journal anymore. I don’t have answers, either.  My favorite instructor told me once, while we were discussing my writing and the difficulty I had understanding why I had escaped and my friends had languished, “Riley, you’re living the life of the mind,” but whatever else she said didn’t stay with me.  Without realizing it, I had always imagined myself a part of that life. Some of the poems, as I thought about myself and I thought about them–what might have inspired them, how they were written, how much work went into them, how much the writer reveals–made me tear up.  

Travis is the last speaker.  We clap as he finishes and sits down in his chair between Mary Fell and me.  “Pretty good,” I say to myself. I stretch and stand. “Welp, Travis, that was pretty good.”  He thanks me for the compliment, and I head out through the doorway, past the shelves, and out into the depot district.  I’m conscious that my immediate exit might seem odd, but I want to be alone. It’s stopped raining, though the sky is still overcast.  I walk down the sidewalk, glancing at the pushed together shops–coffee, ice cream, art, consignment, glass. Down the alley, on either side of me are run down homes–apartments attached to the shops.  Crossing under the bridge, I stop and look for the Blues Brothers car but I don’t see it. I find my white Impala and climb in.

On the way home, I drive past my old house on E Street.  It looks the same: Bad stone work–a web pattern–on the outside.  Empty cement porch. A “for rent” sign is staked into the ground by the sidewalk.  The store across the street is empty again. A couple of battered cars sit in the parking lot of the Tally Ho Pub.  Mrs. Black, the shut-in who lives across the alley (if she still lives) still has a yard full of garbage. I turn left at the light, driving over the J Street bridge.  I look out east, tracing the four parallel lines of the railroad tracks as they curve off into the horizon. I drive home.