Your Small House in Ruins

Yellow light filtered through the cracked slats of the stable walls. The horses were uneasy, and occasionally dragged their hooves against the ground, kicking up particles of hay that floated in the air. As the day passed, the slivers of light shifted across the barn’s floor, a natural sundial on the lazy Sunday before work would resume. The clinking of horseshoes continued from outside, and two men entered the stable from the side opposite the crowd, their hats in their hands.

The first man was beaten down, his shoulders were slumped, as if he had conceded something of great importance. The second man was younger, but it was clear his years had been hard, and he moved his small eyes around the room, quickly, in search of a very specific goal.

“Why’d you bring me in here?” the second man said, concern in his voice.

The old man raised the stump where his hand should have been, and simply pointed at the large bale of hay that dominated the open area of the stable. The young man began moving towards it, a bit of desperation in his stride.

He found her after the first few steps. He stopped, only for a moment, and then he squatted down in front of her.

Hay had been haphazardly placed over her face, but even so, it was clear to see that her neck was situated at a strange angle. Her white skin stood in stark contrast to the deep red dress she wore, and when he removed the hay from her face, he noticed that her lipstick matched her dress. Her normally tight curls were still in place, save for a few that had been mussed against the haybale.

“I found her a few minutes ago, do you think he did it?” The old man’s voice came out with obvious sadness.

The younger man, the sharp-faced man, didn’t respond other than to shrug his shoulders, as he reached out his hand and held it under her nose.

“She ain’t breathin’,” he began, mostly to himself. He moved his hand to her neck, and felt the unnatural lump of bone, jutting out from the spine, “Her neck’s been bust. He coulda done that.” That was when he saw the puppy, broken like the girl, and discarded to the side; it was also hastily covered with hay. Candy saw it as well. He looked back at the old man, and his face was intentionally unreadable, like he was at a card table. It was a test.

“What’re we gonna do, George?” the old man asked.

“Let me think,” George responded, “just gimme a minute.”

The two men stood still, gauging their options, and then George spoke again, his words chosen carefully.

“What’ll they do to him if they get him?”

The old man looked up from staring at the ground, and his expression was one of fear. “Curley’s gonna want to kill him. Especially after what he done to Curley’s hand.”

George took this as confirmation, “I think you’re right, Candy, I think Curley’s gonna want him dead. You know I can’t let that happen.” He was still testing Candy, to see how far his allegiance lay.

“I know George,” Candy responded, desperately attempting to get George to trust him, “That ain’t no good.”

“Okay, I got a plan, but it ain’t nice. I think it’ll work, but you gotta trust me.”

“Okay George, okay.” The old man was resigned to George like a dog. “Let’s just do it then.”

` George began rooting around the stable until he found a long rope. Candy stood and watched trying to figure what he was up to. George finally found a long snaking piece of hemp line, and threw the bulk of it over one of the stables rafters, while he held on to one end.

Realization began to creep onto Candy’s face.

“The way I figure it,” George began, “this tart has been spending every day of the last month of her life complainin’, and cryin’, and carryin’ on.”

Candy nodded.

“Maybe she came in here, and finally decided to end it. Find me a chair or a stool.”

Candy moved off in search of George’s request.

George took one end of the rope and began to tie the knot, he looped the rope, and threaded the loop through the coils he had created. Candy returned with a milking stool, and George showed him the noose he had made.

“I’m gonna go get her, and bring her to the stool. You just put this around her neck, and I’ll do the rest.”

“Okay, George,” Candy’s voice had gotten smaller.

George went to the body of Curley’s wife, he stood over her before picking her up. “I’m sorry about this,” he whispered, “but we don’t need this to get any worse. I’m not gonna let this happen again. We’re gonna get that old house, and not you or anyone else is gonna stop us.” There was a fierce gleam in his eyes, as the defiant proclamation rang though him, and he picked her up, easily, like she was a leaf. He could smell her perfume, even over the general stink of the stable.

He brought her over to Candy, who put the noose around her neck, and then he placed her on the ground.

“We need to make sure this looks right,” he began, “I’ll start pulling her up, you tell me when her feet would have reached the top of the stool.”

“Okay”

George walked under the beam and grabbed the slack of the rope. He found a place to secure it, and began to raise the body up.

“Hold it George!”

He stopped and watched as Candy began to meticulously pick off the bits of hay that clung to her dress. After a few minutes, he looked back to George and nodded. George knew then that Candy had made his decision.

George smiled.

He pulled her up a few more inches, and her feet came free from the ground as George took on her full weight. He brought her up to the proper height, and Candy flashed him a thumbs up. George tied the rope off on a support beam, keeping the knot simple, and released the rope.

Curley’s wife hung from the rafter in the dying afternoon. She swung in slow, loping circles, and her neck seemed longer than it once had been. The two men stood there, only for a moment, and then continued planning. The horses began to whinny and stamp their hooves in anxiety.

“What’s next, George? What do we do?”

George turned, and picked up the dead puppy from the haybale, kicking and scattering the hay where the woman and dog had been covered. He turned back to Candy.

“We gotta make sure this don’t land on Lennie. Lennie ain’t done this outta meanness. He probably just got confused. We can’t let nobody, ‘specially Curley, know what happened.”

Candy nodded, and George continued.

“I’ll go out to the bunk house, put the dog under Lennie’s bedroll. I’ll wait ‘til one of the guys comes in there, and then I’ll find it in front of one a them.”

Candy turned his head to the side, trying to deduce the meaning.

“When I find it, I’ll start askin’ around about Lennie, and then I’ll tell the guys about this place I told him to go if we got in trouble. When I find him, I’ll make sure he don’t talk to nobody about Curley’s wife; I’ll convince him she kilt herself.”

Curley continued nodding. “We gotta be careful George, we gotta get to that little house,” repeating it softly, as if it was a mantra.

Now George was nodding. “I know Candy, and we will, but we gotta be all over Lennie from here on out. He can’t be nowhere or go nowhere without you or me.” He placed his hand on Candy’s shoulder, “We’re gonna do this, I promise, but we can’t make no more mistakes.”

Candy was reassured, and he smiled, his mind on the little house, and the thick cream, and even the rabbits.

“As far as she’s concerned,” he motioned to the hanging girl, “you go out to the guys after I leave for Lennie, and tell them what you found. The longer you can hold off the better.”

“Okay George, I’ve got it.”

George left the stable, tucking the puppy under his jacket like Lennie had done before. He got to the empty bunkhouse, placed the puppy under Lennie’s bedroll, and sat at the square table at the center of the room. He sighed audibly, and relaxed in the chair, picking up the pack of cards and setting his solitaire lay.

He had placed two aces when Slim entered the bunkhouse.

“Hey there George,” Slim said, walking to his bunk.

“Hey Slim, you seen Lennie?”

“Naw, we been playing horseshoes for the past hour or so.”

George used this opportunity to get up, and walked over to Lennie’s bunk. He moved the top blanket away, revealing the dead puppy.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, allowing a hint of anger into his voice.

“What is it George?” Slim asked.

“Lennie kilt his pup.” He held up the dead puppy, limp in his hand, “I bet I know where he is.”

“Where’s that George?”

“I tol’ him that if he got in trouble, like he done in Weed, that he was to go to a spot a few miles from here, where we camped out the night before we got to the ranch.”

“It’s just a dog George, why would he think he was in trouble?”

“He’s afraid I’ll be sore at him. You’ve seen him with that pup, he’s probably crying in the woods right now, thinking I’ll be cross with him. Dumb bastard.,” George forced a smile at the end of his small tirade.

“Guess you better go get him then,” Slim returned the smile.

“Guess you’re right.” George put on his hat and his jean jacket, and headed out the door of the bunkhouse. “Be back in a bit Slim.”

“Take your time, it’s Sunday.”

George turned and left the bunkhouse, moving past the game of horseshoes, and giving Candy a slight nod as he walked by.

He walked through the ranch gates, and after about a mile, turned into the brush. He descended the slope, felt the crackle of fallen leaves under his feet, and began calling for Lennie. He thought about what had happened. He went over it in his head, checked for mistakes, things he had overlooked. Everything was fixed. As long as Candy and he could stay on Lennie, they’d make it through the month, take their money, and be on their way.

The little house. It had started as a dream, but become a reality so suddenly, so improbably. It was fate, he decided.

He reached the creek and a smile began to break across his face. He saw a small watersnake moving in the water, unsuspecting, toward a solitary wren. The snake’s head moved back and forth, but mistook the wren’s legs for reeds. George watched the wren slowly move its beak to strike, and he clapped loudly, scaring the bird to a sudden, jerky movement, which sent the snake in the opposite direction. The wren took George in, seemingly in annoyance, and beat its wings, taking off down river.

George began to shout again for Lennie, but then he saw him in the distance.

George began jogging over to him, calling out to him in the nicest tone he could manage. “Lennie! Lennie! It’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay.”

Lennie wasn’t moving.

He was on his knees facing the creek. His shoulders were slumped and he was staring of into the distant hills of the Gabilan Mountains.

George stood at his side. “Lennie, hey, Lennie,” George felt that frustration rising within him, but checked it. He had to make Lennie understand about the girl. He had to make him understand about the plan, how it could continue. How there would still be the house and the cream and the rain on the roof and the rabbits, most of all the rabbits.

Lennie’s head began to rise, and he turned to face George. He broke into a grand, slow grin. It took up almost all of his face. “Ain’ you gonna give me Hell?” Lennie asked.

And then George saw the side of Lennie’s head, where the bullet had come through. There was a dark flash of blood all down Lennie’s side, but he kept looking at George with those big, dumb eyes, and George was screaming now, screaming and looking at the gun in his hand, and he dropped the gun, still screaming, and his hand began to shake. A quaking, rocking shudder over took his body, and he saw himself pulling the trigger, pulling it a thousand times and the blood and the shattered bones and brains, and always the shaking hand that never stopped.

***

George pulled his head up from the bar. The month’s old beard on his face holding the drool from his mouth. Slim looked over at him, his brow furrowed.

“Time to go George, I think you’ve had enough.”

George got up from the bar stool, laid his week’s wages on the bar, and let Slim walk him to the door. He looked down at his right hand, and put it in his pocket, hoping the shaking would ever stop, but knowing it wouldn’t.

Working Toward an Ending: An Invocation

for A.F.

Press into me
the thoughts in your eyes,
control my mood
with the tilt of your head,
looking up,
a face below mine,
sweet, tall, and smiling muse.

The love invoked from your arms,
circled around my back,
clasping,
the inverted top of a Cupid’s heart,
is the feeling of stability
and home searched for
in vain, through the darker places,
finding truth in the faux-tiled floor of your kitchen,
knowing that the door
left through
remains open to me
in all climates,

knowing innately,
that you love me,

and that my devotion
is boundless.

What We Want for Our Kids

For George A. Romero in ‘78

In this life-deserted mall, alone even with child,
the men have gone out to kill for the day.
We figured out that blunt trauma to the head works best,
bullet or baseball bat, simply a difference in exertion.

There’s booze in this room, and my shotgun,
but no governing authority to inform me that
both are hazardous to my rounding stomach.

I wait for the men, and hope they
aren’t scratched or bitten,
dragging their feet and forgetting my face.

They’ve offered to kill it too, but I’m still on the fence.

I wonder now whether I’d want the kid
in a world that was still alive,
without the growing horde of walking dead, and should that even matter.

I fear my child will grow to resent the world we provided,
or that it will emerge with lifeless eyes
and a taste for flesh.

Some mornings, as I vomit, and the men are hunting,
I see a survivor, her hair wild and fierce in a new city,
growing in myth, returning the dead to their graves,
a hero of songs, a terrible beauty.

Mother at Cana

For Kim, before the baby; and for Teddy, after.

Start with fingers,
tapping nonsense in patient time
on a swollen stomach,
stretched to blossom and burst.

Move to palms,
carrying their prize
a wine flask that might drop
before the celebration begins,
a gift for those who wait outside,
in anticipation of its sweetness.

Drop your gaze to legs,
cracking with expansion,
preparing for the last steps
of a journey,
miles all earned
in the pains of carrying
children like crosses.

Look at the face,
eyes closed and content,
even in this fracturing,
inevitable departure.

Look at this woman,
remember her face, limbs,
before it began,
before she held an imperfect mirror
to her breast,

before she gave you this gift.

Passion is the word for suffering,
for sacrifice, love.
Amazing and beautiful
that meanings exist, creation,
the demanded burden of giving life,
the start of the story,

the first miracle.

Dead Highways

The first breath tightened my chest, as the crisp October air hit my lungs. Johnny’s pale 1972 Catalina idled in the driveway. I called out goodbye to my parents, and heard them respond from the kitchen, as I clutched the stolen bottle of whiskey inside my jacket a bit closer to my body.

Sitting still as stone watching- watching
People walking by you wondering why
No one ever stops to talk
or thinks about it-if they ever did

The Morningstar is out tonight, and I catch its gleam through the branches and dead leaves of the twisted Maple in my front yard. The backend spits exhaust into the dark, and is lit up white as the car is shifted into reverse. The cab is full, and I open the door to the warmth and beats of the blaring radio, before taking my seat behind the driver.
“What’s up man?”
I’m not sure who the question comes from, our whether it was only one of them, but the second question is more direct, and comes from Marcus.
“You got it?”
“Yup.”
I expose the top of the bottle in my jacket, the amber liquid sloshing in its glass compartment. Smiles light up all around.
“Nice.”
We pull out of the driveway, and turn down the street, towards the woodsy parts of town. A CD is pulled from a black case, and the track comes on. It’s 2002, and we’re listening to Dave so much it’s in our bones; the off-kilter mash of sound pounding into our collective views of the high school experience.
The tracks roll on like the car we are in, and we banter back and forth about the week’s events. The lights on Park Road shift from regular intervals to only the occasional lone post, as the houses become fewer and farther between. My reflection is raised in the window with each passing light, the slight stubble on my chin the only evidence of my impending manhood. I think the girls are meeting us tonight, and the fascination of discovery or a chance to impress awaits.

What if God shuffled by?
One day we might see
Doing not a thing
Breathing just to breathe
We might find some reason
But rushing around seems
What's wrong with the world

The houses are gone now, and everything outside the car is trees and bushes. I see the backpack on the floor of the car at Luke’s feet, he’s wearing his Birkenstocks, a last holdout against the end of the last summer before our Senior year.
“Lemme get that,” I say, pointing to the pack, and he hand’s it to me, the straps stressed from the thirty pack of Red Dog that it holds. There’s light metallic clanging as the cans jostle against each other. I unzip the main compartment and place the bottle of Jack inside, leaving the pack on my lap as we round the final corner.
The monastery looms in front of us; a large white building out of some southwestern school of design, with a red clay roof and black iron crucifixes throughout its stucco walls. All the lights are out, the brothers and sisters retiring after a long day of devotion.
The driveway and parking lot are located on the left, and Johnny looks twice before he kills the lights and pulls in. We draw down the music as well, the large car seemingly boating through the empty lot, making its way toward the tree-covered corner.

Lying on the roof counting
The suns that fill the sky I wonder is
Someone in the heavens
Looking back down on me -I'll never know
So much space to believe

We pull into a spot so the car isn’t visible from the street. All of us are silent now, and we exit the car quietly, taking great care not to alert the sleeping monastery. I shoulder the backpack, feel its weight on my shoulders through my jacket, and we begin walking.
In the woods, a space opens up, lined with woodchips. The walkway cuts into the woods, creating a black hole that we enter, the sounds from our shoes shifting from pavement to path. As we move into the trees, we feel it is safe enough to begin whispering again.
“Which one is it again?” one of us questions.
“Hold on, I’ll know it when I see it,” comes the response.
The path is used by the members of the monastery for reflections, and every few hundred yards, there are benches and a wooden sign. The Stations of the Cross are carved into each piece of wood, as we make our way along His journey.
Our eyes adjust to the light as the ordeal begins, and we trudge along as He is condemned.
“Matt, you sure about this?” someone, probably Marcus, asks in the dark.
The stars push light through the branches, and I watch the blue light cascade across his face as he walks behind me.
“Yup, let’s just hope the girls are as well,” I reply.
We pass a few more stations, and I begin to wonder exactly what it is I’m looking for. They see my concern.
“We didn’t pass it?”
“No, I don’t think so… but we’re close. Be patient.” I try to sound confident, but I’m not convinced it works.

Walking through the wood
No cares in the world
The world SHE'S come to play
She's all mine just for a day
There's not a moment to lose in the game
Don't let the troubles in your head
Steal too much time you'll soon be dead
So play

The Fifth Station. His friends help Him carry the burden. The carving shows Simon straining under the cross, and behind this, a small dirt path leads further into the woods. The path the senior at school told me about. The secret passed on.
“This is it.”
“Nice.”
“Let’s go.”
The path is tighter than the previous one, and the occasional pricker-bush snags our pant legs. We walk in silence for roughly five minutes, doubt again setting into our minds. This place can’t exist… The girls will never find it. At some point, I stop, and Johnny’s weight hits me from behind.
“Dammit!” he says, “What’s the problem?”
“Hold on,” I say.
I thought I heard noises ahead, but it seems to be only the last few birds sticking around before falling asleep; a far cry from the sirens and lights of the town cops.
We walk for another few minutes, and then the air itself seems to lighten. The path explodes into an open world. The light from the stars paints everything blue, and the low moon is finally visible in the distance.
We have arrived at the Dead Highways. For miles, there are two roads running into the distance. A large amount of brush divides what used to be a Jersey barrier meridian. Weeds burst though widening cracks along the paved surface.
We walk out into the opening, amazed at what has been left for us. High fives and smiles are exchanged, and we begin talking again, convinced that the protection afforded by this abandoned place is absolute.
I place the backpack on the concrete, glad to no longer carry the load. I remove the bottle, uncap it, and take the first swig. The bite hits my nostrils immediately, and the burning in my throat descend all the way to my stomach, where the warmth lingers.
We pass it around, the four of us, and wait.
“Let’s hope they make it,” someone, Lou probably, mutters.
“They will.”
All of us are in agreement. They have to get here, it’s so perfect.
The bushes in that divide the two stretches of road rustle, and we turn in unison.
A ragged shape shuffles from the darkness. It gets closer, and we can here the ramblings of his madness.
When he sees us, sees the drink in our hands, his eyes open wide, and his focus is solely on us.
“Hey boys,” his cadence is as inconsistent as his gait, “Whatcha got there?”
“Nothing, man,” Marcus replies, “Be cool.”
“Awww, you ain’t got nothing for me? What I done?”
His beard is mostly white, but every once and a while, patches of black catch the light of the moon, and I can’t tell if he’s been drinking already.
“C’mon man, we don’t want any trouble.”
“Me neither boys, me neither. We could trade sumptin’? Maybe?”
“Whaddyou got for us?” Luke says.
The homeless man looks hurt, “You boys been here before?”
“No,” I say, “First time.”
“Good, good. If you walk that way,” he points south to where the road disappears, “You’ll hit the real highway, ‘cept you’ll be on a bridge above it. It’s a nice spot, cool.”
By his grin we can tell that he is proud of himself for having this knowledge.
“Ok, thanks man,” Johnny says, clearly trying to get rid of him, “here’s a beer, have a good night okay?”
Johnny rummages through the backpack and hands him two Red Dog’s. The homeless guys reaches for them greedily, and shambles back to his bush at a quickened pace.
“Weird,” someone says.
“Yup.”

I find it hard to explain how I got here
I think I can, I think I can
And then again, I will falter
Dream

“So what do you think? Take a walk?”
“Let’s wait for the girls.”
As if on cue, three shapes emerge from the path we took earlier. By the giggling and the tone of voices they are easily identified.
“Over here girls,” Luke calls, beckoning with the bottle in his hand.
There is small talk, and drinking, and the guarded pretense and competition that goes along with almost any social interaction at this time in our lives.
The drinks take hold, courage swells, and I reach out to cup the elbow of the girl who has laughed during our conversation the most.
“Let’s take a walk I whisper,” letting go of her elbow, and motioning with my outstretched hand.
“Okay,” she replies, the hint of a smile noticeable even in her voice.
We break from the group, although I’m sure the lingering curiosity left by the bum’s claim will be enough to bring us all out there eventually.
There is small talk as we move down the road and toward the moon. It is arching higher in the sky, stopping the stars behind its glow from being seen. Other than the road, its cracks and refuse, everything around us is nature. The road stands out like a scar or shame.
At some point in the walk, she takes my hand. The space between our palms a haven of sudden warmth in the cooling air.
I smile and wonder if she is doing the same. It is quiet here; the sounds of our footsteps on the broken blacktop the only noise, the birds having recently fled.
Ahead, the brush and trees break away into the open air. The trees form a V on the horizon and suddenly, there is only the road.
To our left and right, nothing but dark blue air. Our hands break from one another, and we walk to the fence that now lines both sides of the highway. My fingers reach into the rusted rungs, tiny diamonds between myself and the sight below.
We are standing over I-84, and I know exactly where we are. The cars speed by below us, and I suddenly feel exposed. I step back, thinking I will be seen, exposed.
She turns and laughs.
“How many times have you driven by here Matt?”
“Jeez… Hundreds I guess.”
“Exactly, and how many times have you even looked up here.”
“Never.”
She’s right of course. We’re safe here, undetected. Yet we are observing the world. It’s like a secret painting with the eyes removed. We belong to this world, but are not a part of it. It is electric.
She comes to me, hands at my waist, and circles her arms around me. The kiss is sweet, the faint taste of whiskey on my breath and tongue. I place my hand behind her head, the victim of so many films and book covers my only instruction in these matters.
She removes her mouth from mine, smiling, and turns her back to me in my arms. Her body is warm, connecting to mine from foot to shoulder, and we watch the world pass beneath us for a while.

Out of the darkness comes light like a flash
You think you can, you think you can
Sometimes that is the problem
Dream little darling, dream
Spinning on the wind
The leaf fell from the limb
But everyday should be a good day to die
Oh, all fall down
It won't be too long now
Every fire dies

When the rest of the group arrives, their experience is similar, but not the same. Discussions are had regarding various crimes we could commit here, the thrill of being undetected hatching plans in our wild brains.
We walk back, I take her hand, and the group chatters.
The night passes comfortably, and we eventually realize it’s time to go. Johnny rattles his keys, impatient from not drinking his fill.
We trudge, all of us, back to the empty lot at the monastery. I give her a short kiss goodbye, and a promise to call tomorrow.
“C’mon, Romeo.”
“Yup.”
We get into the Catalina and leave the parking lot.
The conversations are fewer now, we are tired and contentedly drunk, and I look out the window, searching for the Morningstar. I find it in the window, reach my finger to where it is, and watch as it follows the car. I wonder about the red lights on the highway, the real one, the cars going off into the distance, and their passengers. The lights are white as they approached, becoming red as they left, finally disappearing from our sight.
I look back to the window; the Morningstar obscured by the trees, and close my eyes until we get home, reveling in my burgeoning secret life.

Oh I think I can, I think I can
Dream little darling dream
Spining on the wind
The leaf fell from the limb

Nightmares in Hugo

While searching for triggers
in an Iowa I’ve only read about,
my gaze finds a painted metal silo
above a ruined field.
A wooden ladder, laden with rot and splinters
is propped against a broken rusted opening near the top.
Barbed rungs catch and rip
the white flesh of soft hands,
but I climb to the hole.
Orange metal flakes break and flutter
to yellow ground as I enter,
and a spiral, cast iron catwalk
drops to blackness.
I descend, hear the sloshing
footsteps, the flailing movements.
A corpse walks and waits for the young
in a three foot puddle of murky
water, sloughed skin.
I dip one toe in cold wetness
dripping blood and tears,
a rotting hand finds my face
and fills my scream with cold fingers,
pulling me under,
with what I own.

Israel in Shotgun

For J.W.

Riding across burning macadam,
safe in this car,
my friend rests his feet on the side mirror
and dreams that angels crawl up his legs.

Hunched and steering, leather seats
collecting sweat, I lean forward to
cool my back, as the AC flutters
but can’t reach the heat.

I work so hard, and struggle to grow grass
while he cultivates roses and Jacob.

My hair long, with hints of red,
my soft-spoken passenger
grows a blonde beard —
almost invisible.

He sees a world I don’t understand,
is tickled by angels, while my face itches
from this thick hair, and the wind
never cools my sweating back.

But I am not jealous,
I drive with my brother.

Whatever Legacy Works

For G.S.

I saw the little girl’s ears flower
after the poet taught her to curse,
“Fuck” and “Prick” pollinating
her six-year-old brain. Maybe blooming only
later at home, when stubbing a toe,
or losing patience with an older brother.
The horrified mother, soap in hand, swearing
off poetry readings, and the smiles
of wizened and wilting old men,
as her daughter’s eyes water
at the taste of Dove and the power
of sound, word, immortality.

Training

Wet black roots crack open orange and soft,
exposed to 6AM air and the cold blade of my shovel.
The first hole of the day, but Gags is sweating from his 10 mile bike ride commute
to the cold and coffee at Begley Landscaping, outskirts of Hartford, cloudy late spring.

All the old men, except Gags, would take their “sweet fucking time,”
pruning at standstill, dragging tools to another cigarette break.
Gags is John Henry, Dean Moriarty, a sweaty Bill Gates.
“This isn’t a job,” he tells me, dirt and root flying from the pit we’re creating,
“this is training.”

I heard he tried to teach his dog to race,
holding him by the leash
out the driver’s side window,
and he got him running
faster than 45 miles per hour.

He ran too, and spoke and drank
and worked with fury,
a blur of tools and sweat
and pint glasses,
impossible
to tell his age.

I worked here with my “college hands”
and guys who smoked Lucky Strikes with no filters.
I spent nights with friends,
explaining goals and plans,
and Mike Gagnon simply trained.

Back on some doctor’s lawn, April morning, amid soil and visible breaths,
Gags rests on his shovel, picks up the root, orange and flaking from its rotted center,
“It just gave up, Matt”
He throws the root and resumes at full clip, grinning.

Evolution

Wading through the sea of cars
Towards Nordstrom’s and Penney’s and Filene’s
Under the gulls of macadam,
I’m frightened.
If Monarch butterflies find daisy and lilac
In Brazil and Boston,
Why can’t these birds find the coast?
Its beaches are not far
In this Ocean State.
Why would they leave
That dark hulk with crushing foam,
The smell of sand and salt,
For black paved fields
And speeding machines?
Perhaps they’re aware of something we’re not,
And maybe they see a future,
Perched and planning on rusty lampposts,
Over a flat lake
Filled with dead cars and commerce.

The Undeniable

I deny the music of the Elms, the Poplar’s
song of hope,
and beg for beauty in the pocked concrete,
the poured macadam. I strain for planks of dead
wood, mathematically arranged, built things.

A fender strikes a pole and leaves chrome
paint and a sustained reverb, a tone.
I smoke pulped wood and shards of fiberglass
and know it kills me, marginally, but can’t
deny the burning of leaves as retribution,
my own forest fire which ashes my body as well.

I stammer of myself, porch bound,
the last cigarette before bed forcing me out
into the night, its wandering skunks,
its Whitman and Thoreau at one with nature,
while I forget the names of trees,
and litter almost pathologically.

Yet I can’t repress the eddies and sandbars of childhood,
the play of sticks as swords,
the noise a blade of grass makes between thumb
and palm when blown on, or even the dunes that cry as they recede,
waving frantically their reedy hair, sandwiched
between progress and origins.

Houses

Layered walls
with stucco used
to patch a hole.

Construction on top of workers’
cigarette butts and
the phlegm of burnt lungs.

Empty coffee cups crushed beneath
Wolverine boots or the treads of
Bobcat diesels.

Beams and nails,
the scattered flesh
that goes into a home.

Plaster chips and graded earth,
smoothed-over graves,
archaeological insignificance.

Life as document:
time capsules of iron
for alien audiences.

Angelus

They stand in the rough skin of God,

the worked yellow bracken,

ankle high, bled pale.

They yield to barn and bell,

hands that worship the architecture of creation,

the strength of dead wood and iron work.

Slats and struts, metal bound,

protect stores

of dead

hay bales, dead corn and grain.

A dried-blood monument

commands lives

during the pale, orange wave of morning.

A different landscape

in dark indigo night,

Royal purple,

which mends the broken skin.

The wooden frame belies

this painted scene,

the absence.

Gift for the Darkness

Representation in wood, the chieftain’s painted guise
covers an ancient oak,
or pre-disease riddled elm.
The shell exists to inform, to show and document the past,
while speaking volumes toward our legacy of death.

Some will see the wooden savage, carved and ready to occupy a museum,
or smoke shop entrance.

Others will find discrepancy between a modern world,
its cars and sidewalks, and the old and superior way of life.

But from this plastic chair, I’m only reminded
of our obsession with the dead things,
that we exist in a country of ghosts,
dead wood, carved to fit our fancy,
and metal cages that burn our earth from the inside,
a horrible black-blood transfusion.

People pass through the frame, blind to the casualties that surround them,
desensitized to the graveyard society we’ve created,
shuffling and bemoaning a world that we don’t
hold in sway,
that we haven’t yet bent to our control. While everywhere, our trophies scream their finite silence.

Emily

The hand falls, turned upward in the shallow pool
created from the rest of the body.
Strange that a small stream
carries so much weight in water,
grinding slowly at its bottom rock.

Grass and reeds
surround the pale hand,
the exposed palm.

Wisps of floating hair, waving
as if blown from wind on a journey,
a skyward ascension.

The wrists, white
in contrast to the dark bottom,
flesh and rock.
Colored bracelets encircle
the dead girl’s arm.
Exterior growth rings, honoring her age.

Did she know about the justice that would follow?
Could she forsee the layers
of dialogue,
noir,
allegiance,
symbols?

The clues placed in passionate able hands,
only through storm and thunder,
hurting and leaving?

That love could be so thick
it became a place to be feared?

That words of little meaning could key her killer,
free an angry soul?
Tug,
Pin,
Poor Frisco,
and Brick.

Crossings

I put both hands on the slick wooden bar. Looking across the coffin, I attempted to make eye contact with my brothers and cousin. Danny’s face was down, his shoulders fighting to hold back the coming tears. Stephen put a hand to his shoulder, as neither I nor Mike could reach him. My cousin Chris stood tall and strong, replaying in his head the dignity of the man who had raised him. I stood in observation, taking in what I could, but devoid of the moment’s significance.
In unison, we lifted the casket. I felt the strain of our shared burden as we took to the steps, approaching the church where we would celebrate his life with him for the final time. I thought of the last time I had seen him, how he had gotten to meet my future wife, and the easy and peaceful conversation we had.
I had not shed a single tear.
***
Mornings at Nickerson State Park were always full of mystery. Waking to the filtered light of the family tent’s green roof created an ephemeral glow, that eased you from slumber unlike any house could. There was no need for eyes to adjust to the new light, as it was just bright enough to create a perfect transition to the outside world.
I remember unzipping the tent’s flap, and the smell of canvas at my face as I pulled the zipper up past my head, and the slight tug as the flap grazed my sweatshirt upon exiting. The short walk to the dining tent was punctuated by the accumulation of pine needles on the sides of my feet, despite my blue flip-flops.
Grandma was always waiting alone for us at the covered picnic table. The green, metal Coleman camping stove lit as she prepared toast and Postum for us; the cinnamon and sugar topping waiting next to plastic plates the color of robin’s eggs.
Grampa was rarely with us in those mornings during our early years camping with my grandparents on Cape Cod.
My grandfather would get up before us, take an inflatable raft and a piece of rope, and go swimming across the lake.
The first time my grandmother told us that this was happening, my brother and my cousin were in disbelief. The lake was huge in our young eyes, a vast expanse that no mere mortal could traverse. Only a true giant could complete such a feat.
Later in the week, we walked down with Papa Jack to see him off. I remember the way the fog clung to the small inlets that bordered the lake. The water’s surface was pure and undisturbed obsidian. The permanence of such a place, the knowledge that this scene had unfolded without me for thousands of years, flashed through my young mind.
Grampa removed his olive colored t-shirt, and put it in a pile along with his towel. His hair still had a few strands of black, and his physique was small but wiry and strong. He had a white, rubber inflatable raft at his side, and he attached a rope to his ankle before entering the water. He waded out to his waist, and in a fluid motion, dove, submerging his entire body. Upon breaking the surface again, about ten feet farther from shore, he whipped his head in a way that skewed his hair humorously. He took a few strokes while facing us, smiling, and turned towards the opposite shore.
“Bye boys, be good for your grandmother!” It was both a command and a reminder.
My brother and my cousin sat next to me on the crisp morning sand. I wonder now if they felt the same sense of loss, the fear that he wouldn’t return; the longing to join him on his grown-up adventures.
We stayed and watched until he was no more than a speck on the dark water, no more distinguishable than Orion to Artemis. We got up and trudged back to our campsite, up the hill through the winding path to our grandmother’s tent.

***

The day my grandfather died, I was sitting in the shade under a tent canopy in Central New Jersey. The day was painfully hot, but the refuge and shade offered by the tent allowed for a brief respite.
The phone rang, and my mother calmly explained to me that Grampa was gone. I asked a few mundane questions regarding how it happened, and was rewarded with a beautiful story of my grandfather’s last moments.
I waited for the tears that never came, the deluge that would consume me, and instead waited patiently for the next game to begin. I coached my third game of the brutally hot day, got in my car, and drove home in silence.

***

As the oldest, I was the first to be allowed to make the crossing with my grandfather the following summer. The invitation was such that I couldn’t sleep the night before. When light finally came, I followed Grampa out of the tent in my bathing suit and T-shirt. He grabbed the raft, and began to walk down the path. I followed, respecting the quietude of the pre-dawn morning light. We walked in silence down the hill. The path’s twists and turns were punctuated by the occasional root or pinecone. Pine needles stuck to our feet, but to no avail, as we would soon be swimming across the lake that waited below.
At the base of the hill, Flax Pond stretched out before us. The scene was almost exactly the same as the year before. The water’s reflective quality, mixed with its wisps of gray fogged corners, existed as if a painting had been placed before my eyes each day, with only subtle changes as time moved forward. I turned my head to the smaller side pond a few minutes away, and remembered the hours I had spent there catching frogs, as they gave themselves away with their incessant croaking. Now, there was nothing to hear, only the quiet and calming lapping sound made by the lake’s miniscule waves.
“Let’s go.” Grampa said softly, as he removed his shirt and moved toward the shoreline.
I was to be attached to the raft on this trip, and was told that I should take frequent breaks I felt even the slightest bit tired. I agreed, and we began to enter the water.
The first few steps into the water were and awakening in themselves. The slightly cool temperature at first sent a shudder through my body, but was quickly replaced with a reminder of my own warmth. After reaching my waist, I followed Grampa’s lead, and dove in.
If I wasn’t fully awake already, I was then. My hair flew back from my face, and I felt the water moving across my entire body. I broke the surface, and began swimming.
I had joined the swim team earlier that summer, and realized at that moment exactly why I made that decision. It was almost as if the previous two months had been training, a preparation for this one perfect morning.
I remember flashes from that first swim, but most clearly I recall the look of my grandfather’s head, as it moved through the dark water towards the waiting shore. He led, and I followed willingly.

***

Sitting with my brothers and cousin in the pew, the priest spoke to the congregation and remembered John Adrian Collins. He recalled the devotion to the Church that he showed, and the devotion to his family that he personified. The priest spoke, and we sat, before the wooden box, a colored cross-covered shroud covering the casket.
Our grandfather lay before us; we waited for further directions.

***

Halfway across the lake, I drew the rope toward my eager hands and grabbed hold of the raft. I called out to my grandfather to wait, and he turned back to me.
“Take your time, Matthew,” he reassured, “we’re in no rush.”
I took a minute, kicking while holding on to the raft, and then let go, allowing my arms to reclaim my own weight in the water.
After a few hundred yards more, the shore approached. I redoubled my efforts, trying to catch up to the seemingly effortless and graceful swimming of Grampa.
Soon, I felt the shifting sands under my searching toes. A few more strokes and I was standing. I slowly waded towards the beach, the water warmer at this shallow depth, and stepped out of the lake.
I felt good. My grandfather told me what a good job I had done, but to get ready for the trip back.
The pride I felt at getting just this far was overwhelming.
My grandfather began sauntering back to the waiting water, and I followed, ready to get back to camp and tell my brothers and cousin how amazing it was. This was mine now, this thing that only my Grampa and I shared.

***

When we got to the cemetery, the mood had lightened. The weight of my grandfather’s coffin was taken by strangers, and placed over a hole up the hill. We walked together; five young men united by a common man, and joined my family by the plot. My grandmother sat, quiet and serene, by the suspended casket. My mother and her siblings stood behind her, their heads down.
The priest began the rites.

***

In a few years, a sort of rite of passage had formed. One by one, my brothers and cousin joined me and my grandfather on the trek across Flax Pond.
A bird, flying over our heads during our morning swims would have seen a group of heads moving slowly across the reflective dark sheen of the water. One head, with light gray hair, would be leading the rest.
We would return after our swim together, and sit down to breakfast and Postum at our campsite. Our grandmother would talk about how much we were growing, and our grandfather would agree. We would eat to sate our ravenous hunger, and imagine the continued permanence of such a place.

***

The priest finishes his prayers, and we each lay a single flower on the box that carries my grandfather.
I turn to my future wife, and she gives me a hug. I hold it a bit longer than usual; take her hand and turn to watch as he is lowered into the ground.
My gaze is clinical; I’m not sure how to react.
I turn to my brother Danny, and watch as he begins to break down into tears. At the sight of him I realize a truth. He is only eighteen. As the youngest boy, he has had the least amount of time to learn from my grandfather. No longer will his warm hugs, and stubble scratching cheek be a part of our lives. He will not be there to see my children. He will never swim with them across a perfect lake, or teach them how to throw a knife into a tree. The loss takes shape for me, and as I embrace my brother, my own tears flowing strongly now, I hold him and we share in the loss that we are suffering. One by one the rest of Papa Jack’s oldest grandsons join the huddle. We stand together and remember, and at once we are five young boys, watching in awe as our grandfather begins a journey across a lake that we cannot begin to comprehend. He is a giant in our eyes, and he will be missed.

The Nightfisherman

The exits were flying by and we still weren’t talking.
Whatever it was about long car trips I wasn’t sure, but it always seemed to bring out some long underlying fight or dispute that inevitably led to these long silences. She drove, eyes forward, occasionally looking towards me with that damn questioning gaze, as if to ask, “So… what’s your problem?!?”
It was always these little wars between us. We’d been married a year, and we were still feeling each other out, still learning about each other’s little quirks. This wasn’t a true fight, the explosive kind, just the gradual annoyances that build up when you spend as much time together as we did.
Finally, I relented, reaching forward to turn the music in the car down enough to start a conversation.
“Look, I’m sorry okay? I wasn’t trying to imply that she’s not a good person, I just think you need to stop letting her run all over you.”
She took that quick inhale, as if she was about to speak, but I cut her off.
“I’m sorry, I just don’t want to keep driving in this silence; it drives me nuts.”
Becca smiled a crack, and I realized we could joke about it now.
“You really are a turd,” she began, “and you’re right. Sarah’s got some issues, but she’s still my friend.”
“I know, I know, I’m just looking out for you.”
“I know you are, which is why I’m still putting up with you.” She broke into a grin at the last part.
“Right, right,” I replied, stretching out the second one to emphasize my sarcasm. “I thought it was because I’m such a stud in the bedroom.”
“Okay, just concentrate on the road Don Juan.”
And just like that, we were back to normal.
The weekend stretched out before us. We hadn’t been away by ourselves since the honeymoon, and the way things had been since then in terms of work, we were ready for some alone time.
Becca’s parents had a house on the Jersey Shore, in Ocean City. It was billed as America’s Greatest Family Resort, and during the summer, we usually spent a full week there with her extended family. The house was literally right on the beach. A small sand dune was the only thing between the house and the Atlantic.
The house, like most houses in the area, was a two-story two-family residence. The Stephen’s owned the second floor of the property, and from their deck, they could see the entire beach, from the distant lights of Atlantic City, to the lighthouse on Sea Isle City.
The floor plan of the house featured a large kitchen and living room on the ocean side, and 4 bedrooms on the streetside. A long hallway ran the length of the house, with doors on either side connecting to the bedrooms. The two bathrooms were both attached on either side to the bedrooms, allowing access to a bathroom in each bedroom.
I had been sitting on the throne many times when realizing that I had only locked the door I came through. This had led to a few embarrassing moments, but I had typically caught them before I was accused of exposing myself to my wife’s family.
As we got to exit 25 on the Garden State Parkway, we began the 4 mile drive to the house. We stopped at Boulevard Super Liquors to stock up on beer, wine, and whiskey, and then went across the road to a restaurant called Yesterday’s to order take-out.
When we got inside the restaurant, I was shocked. The bar area was full of people watching college football, eating, and talking.
“Babe, there’s a ton of people here.”
“Why are you so surprised?” she returned.
“It’s late November, I thought it would just be a few townies.”
“No, this restaurant does a good job of drawing year-round.”
We got our food, paid the bill, and headed back to the car.
I was pretty surprised at the amount of people at the place, and my shock at the number of people was confirmed once we got on island.
South of 34th Street, the town get progressively more and more deserted. The sun began to creep below the distant skyline, and the truck’s lights blinked on automatically. By the time we reached the stoplight at 52nd, we were the only car, parked or otherwise, visible on the road. The wind howled by the car, the only sound a clicking from the blinker on the dashboard.
The light turned green, and we turned down the road. A plastic bag drifted down the street in front of us, a modern-day tumbleweed in this ocean ghost town.
“Well, that’s weird,” Becca said, as we pulled into the driveway.
A dark purple Saab was parked in the driveway. It was an older model, around 1995, and a convertible. The black top stretched over the car like a swim cap. The hubcaps were lined in a tinted gold, that made the car look cheaper than it was, and it was obviously not maintained. Dirt and grime lined the sides of the wheels. There was definitely some neglect and hard driving going on.
“Lucy must have a renter,” Becca concluded.
Lucy Daniels was the old woman who owned the first floor of the house. In the three years I had been coming down with Becca, I had only seen her sunbathing on her back porch. She never went down to the water, or left the immediate vicinity of the backyard. Her floral-printed one-piece bathing suits were massive, like spandex moomoo’s, and her loose flesh was trying desperately to escape them at every turn. All of this was easy to think since she was such a wretched human being.
Becca’s dad (my father-in-law) Jim, hadn’t spoken to her in sometime, as they were constantly fighting over the property.
We each grabbed some bags, so we could make it in one trip. We walked past the car, and I smelled a strong odor, like sulfur and rotting fish. I stopped, trying to pick up where exactly it was coming from, but it was gone. I though nothing of it, and followed Becca up the first flight of stairs, where she had stopped by Lucy’s front door.
A poorly handwritten sign was placed in the window, it read: “This house is being rented, realtors please call for an appointment.” The blinds on either side of the door were drawn, and it was impossible to see inside.
Becca turned up the second set of stairs, and I walked a few steps behind, watching her ass move back and forth in her tight jeans. We had planned to work on getting pregnant during our weekend alone, and I was looking forward to the work. I reached out and gave her a quick playful smack on the butt, and she arched forward, and turned quickly to give me a look that said, “Can’t you wait until we at least get inside,” before flashing that beautiful smile of hers.
“Honestly David,” she scolded, “someone could see you doing that!”
“Like who?” I questioned.
“The... renter downstairs, he could be watching us right now!” She had added a spooky tone to her voice.
I smiled back, “we could invite him up for a show if you want…”
“Gross!” she exclaimed, freeing the hand that held her keys, and fingering through them, searching for the right one.
“I agree, gross.”
The door opened and we stepped into the dark main room. The sun was fully below the horizon now, but the only low light came from the large windows that looked out onto the porch, which offered a panoramic view of the sea. It was calm tonight, the tide only swelling slowly against the shore, a few lingering fisherman lining the darkening shore.
I put down the bunch of things I was carrying, and moved to hit some of the lights. Becca quickly ran down the hall on the left to hit the bathroom. I walked to the sliding glass doors and let myself out onto the porch.
As soon as the doors opened, the smell of salts hit me, and I was transported to every beach memory from my childhood. I closed my eyes and pictured the Cape Cod beaches, both on the shore and bay. I smiled despite the brisk November winds that cut through my loose jeans with an ease that bordered on simplicity. The difference in temperature between the street and the ocean side of the house was extreme, and I found myself wondering whether the water would still be warm enough to swim in, despite the air temperature.
Becca came to the open doors behind me, having to almost shout to be heard.
“What are you doing?!?”
“Nothing. Why?”
“You can’t leave the door open like that, the bugs will get in. My mom will flip.”
“Babe, it’s almost December, there aren’t any…”
The sound of the door sliding shut behind me ended the debate. I turned my back on the dark shifting mass and walked back into the house.
We started drinking, and made a fire in the fireplace, which consisted of turning a knob, getting the pilot lit, and observing the illusion of the fake logs “burning.”
I sipped whiskey and she had a glass of Pinot Grigio, blankets covering her legs as we sat and talked for hours.
“That car in the driveway was creepy,” she said, “and the way that all the shades were closed up… it was kinda scary.”
I thought about trying to scare her, tell her a story about the miscreant downstairs, get into her head a bit. It would be easy, she had a great imagination like that, and more often than not, it culminated in us holding each other tight in our bed back in Morris Plains. The vision of me playing the role of guardian, protector flashed in my head.
I leaned in for a kiss instead.
Before our lips touched, the unmistakable sound of the downstairs sliding door opening shook the room subtly. We paused; I looked at the clock. It was after midnight.
I stood up and walked to the window, and was surprised as a dark shape shuffled toward the path in the dune that led to the water. I suddenly felt exposed, a voyeur, and quickly turned away, shutting the long blinds.
There was an irrational fear that I had been seen, and when I sat back down by the fire, I was somewhat shaken.
“What happened?” Becca began, “Why are you so pale?”
There was distinct worry in her voice, and I didn’t want to play into it this time. I didn’t want to scare her for real.
“The guy downstairs...”
“It’s a man?”
“I think so. He just walked down to the beach,” my mind struggled for an explanation, “maybe he left something down there, or he’s drunk.”
“Oh.” Her response was small, and not fully without fear. “Take me to bed,” she finished.
We went to the back room, and while we held each other the way I had thought about earlier, I wished we hadn’t had to.
The next morning, all was forgotten, the sun had come and taken any fear away from the mystery neighbor downstairs, and we went about our day.
Becca cooked breakfast while I made coffee, and we played a few hands of Rummy before we fell almost effortlessly into lovemaking on the couch.
“I want to go for a walk,” she said afterwards, perspiration glistening on her bare chest.
“Sure,” I returned, “Let’s get dressed and go.”
She walked to the back of the house to get dressed, and I pulled on my boxers, looking out the glass doors, and found myself wondering if we’d see the guy from last night’s footprints in the morning sand.
We walked down the stairs together, they were the only way up and down to the second floor.
As I passed the door to the first floor, I strained to see into the space, but there was no break in the shades, no entry point for my walking gaze. We reached the walk, and I saw the purple car still parked in the driveway next to my truck.
The sand in the backyard was curiously devoid of any trace of tracks, although it appeared that there had been a boat or large object dragged to the house. A sea kayak under the porch verified this thought.
We turned towards the beach, and started out to the dunes. Just before getting to the beach path, I looked back at the first floor porch, at the door that had been opened the night before.
I swore I saw a quick movement in the swinging blinds.
We hit the beach and started walking. Typically, we take a right at the water’s edge, and don’t stop until we get to the end of the island, a good three-mile round trip. The day was unseasonably warm, and I removed my sweatshirt after a few minutes, allowing the sun to heat my black t-shirt. We reached the last jetty on the island, and when we climbed to the peak, we saw hundreds of cars, glittering on the littered beach.
There were trucks up and down the beach, and in front of all of them, men in waders were fishing. They had set up 10-foot poles, placed in the sand, and they sat in or stood by folding chairs, a cooler by their sides.
We looked down the beach, a line of men fishing the sea, and waited for a catch. Right in front of us, a middle-aged man began wading into the surf, taking the brunt of chest-high waves as the tip of his pole bent back and forth.
He would move in and out of the water, sometimes dragging and sometimes reeling. Eventually, he pulled what looked like a small shark from the water. He placed the pole back in its pipe, and walked to his chair. He pulled out some type of tool, and began going to work on the thing’s mouth. It was at this point covered in sand, and had ceased any strong movements.
When he picked it up after removing the hook, I felt myself gasp slightly, while Becca exclaimed “Oh,” flatly.
The creature was much bigger than either of us had thought, and its thickness in the middle allowed us to verify that it was in fact a fish, and not a shark as previously believed.
The fisherman walked back into the ocean, carrying the brown fish by its tail, and dipped it in the water, removing the accumulated sand. It was then that the shine of the fish caught my eyes, and I saw the deep green of its sides, and the tell-tale white belly. It had to have weighed at least 25 pounds.
“What kind of fish is that?’ Becca asked.
“Bass I think, Striper. Man, he’ll be eating that thing for a month.”
As I said this, the man submerged the fish fully, and seemed to will it back to life, the fish regained its strength, and began to whip its body back and forth. The fisherman let it go, and the fish disappeared into the foamy chop.
“Catch and release. Huh.” I said. I was surprised someone would just let something that size go.
“I’m not sure what’s worse,” Becca started, “catching the fish just to catch it, or killing it. I mean, think about the terror it must feel.”
“Or,” I returned, “think of the jubilation it feels when it’s let go. That’s got to be better than ending up as dinner. I guess it doesn’t matter either way, fish supposedly only have like a 5-second memory.”
“Well either way, I think it’s cruel.”
“Let’s go back,” I said, “there’s too much going on past here anyway.”
We turned and walked back to the house. Before making the final turn toward the dune, I noticed some fish bones dotted with maggots and flies, and thought again of the beautiful monster of a fish that the man had reeled in.
“No wonder they’re all fishing down there,” I thought aloud, “those Stripers are huge.”
We got back to the house without any sign of the mysterious visitor from downstairs. I still hadn’t told Becca about what I had seen the previous night, it would upset her.
Becca started cooking while I played some Solitaire, there was an unwritten rule about television when the two of us came down to the shore. There was a large 42” flat-screen, but we never turned it on. It felt simpler that way.
We ate steamed clams and a nice chicken salad, and broke out the wine. We each started with a glass before I moved on to Bud Light Lime, a new shore favorite.
The food was finished and we cleared the table, listening to music from Becca’s iPod as we played Rummy. The night extended and the beer brought a nice lightness to my head. I was smiling more, and I knew Becca was feeling it too. Her head began to droop toward the table, and I moved her to the couch to lie down.
I should mention it was only around 10 o’clock at the time, Becca’s an early riser, but that also means she’s quite the opposite of a night owl.
“Babe, let’s go to bed,” I implored, “You’re falling asleep.”
“I’m not.” Her insistence was cute, childlike.
“C’mon, let’s head back there.”
“No, I’m fine. Davey…”
Her use of that nickname meant a request was coming.
“Can you rub my legs?” she finished.
“Sure Babe, sure.”
Within 5 minutes she was out. I shuffled under the weight of her legs, and worked my way out from under her. She mumbled something, and turned in toward the back of the couch.
“Game over,” I said, and poured a glass of whiskey.
I started looking through Becca’s iPod for something to listen too, good whiskey music: David Allen Coe, Hank Jr., or Ray Lamontagne. All I found was some Miley Cyrus, proof that the younger generations are capable on outperforming their parents.
I decided to head down to my truck, where my own iPod was waiting. I kissed Becca on the forehead, and told her I’d be right back. She said something unintelligible, and rolled her head slightly.
I walked down the stairs, ignoring once again the lightless first-floor and its sign explaining the presence of a renter. Turning the corner to my car, I saw the familiar sight of the purple Saab parked in its usual spot.
I opened my car and grabbed the iPod, locked the door, and turned back to the side of the house. For no reason at all, I ran my fingers over the hood of the purple car, and felt how warm it was against my skin.
The night had dropped down in temperature, and it was easy to understand that the car had been running very recently. I shrugged and walked to the stairs.
When I reached the first landing, I tried peeking through the side window, to see if I could catch sight of any sign of life. As I was standing back up, the hallway light came on. It shook me, froze me in my tracks.
The door swung open violently, and I caught a glimpse of shining obsidian before I was pulled into the room, without even a chance to scream.

***
The fish good.
The fish and the cold and the dark good.
The sound of the sea, the underwater sound, the filled ears.
A slow heartbeat, the waiting.
The fish.
The big fish in the cold water.
Eateateateateateateateateat all winter.
So many fish in the rolling waves, the clean sand.
I eat until full and eat again.
Swimming and rolling and laughing in the cold black.
Resting so close in the manrooms.
My treat, my winter eateat.
And every now and then…
Every moon or so.
The Luck and the fight and the feed.
The stupid man and the long feed.
The land feed.
The special treat eateat.

***

When I woke up on the couch, David was gone. My head stung a bit, the beginnings of a hangover morning, but nothing too serious.
I looked across at the cable box for the time.
2:38
Shit.
Usually it was David, in this position. He always joked about being from a family of “couch-sleepers.” I got up, and rolled to my knees, standing up slowly as my eyes adjusted to the lights from the dining room table.
No David.
I called out then. Not afraid, not accusatory, not bitchy. Just a wondering where you are “David?!?”
Nothing. That was fine, he was probably back in bed, TV on, or some book propped on his chest. I stumbled back down the hall.
In the bedroom, the bed was made up as it had been earlier that day. That’s when I started to worry. The “David?” that came out next had a tinge of concern, and most certainly, fear.
I checked the rooms, and he wasn’t in the house.
I called his phone, and it went straight to voicemail. It must have been off.
I screamed then, and when there was no reply, even though I waited at least ten seconds, strained to hear a reply, there was nothing.
I was back in the kitchen, and I caught some movement on the porch, before it disappeared. Walking there, my fear mounted. I turned the blinds to get a better view, but before I could open them, a hand went flat against the window. It was webbed.
I ran screaming for the stairs as I heard the thing outside fumble with the door. Luckily we had locked it earlier.
“David!!!” the name a shriek in my mouth now as I ran out the door, down the stairs. I reached the first landing, and stopped. The lights were on in the first floor, and the door was open.
David’s iPod was on the landing, and his shirt was on the floor in the house. I walked towards it like a mummy. My legs were on autopilot. I bent down to feel the shirt, smelled it deeply and there was my David. He was here.
I looked around frantically, and found a block with the chef’s knives sticking out. I grabbed the meanest looking one, and started down the hallway.
I had never been this deep into Lucy’s house, that old bitch, but I realized instantly that the floor plan was exactly the same, and that there would be rooms on both sides. I snuck into the first bedroom on the left, surveyed it quickly, and moved to the bathroom that joined it to the next bedroom.
Nothing.
The next bedroom held more of the same. As I crossed the hallway to the third bedroom, I noticed that the second bathroom’s door was closed. I reached out my hand to turn the knob, but the pressure from my hand swung the door on its own.
This bathroom was somewhat different from the ones on our floor. It had clearly been outfitted for an elderly person, a person of considerable size. There were handrails everywhere, and a large walk-in tub that was almost a Jacuzzi.
David was suspended over the tub. I stared at him dumbly. Nothing escaped my mouth, no words no breath.
His eyes were blank. He was shirtless, and below his ribcage, most of him was gone. I stepped forward. His legs were still attached to his torso, but it looked as though his insides had been scraped out, like a pumpkin on Halloween. The guts were in a pile at the bottom of the tub, and when I looked back up, I realized I could see the front of his spine as he hung there.
I vomited in the tub, vomited all over his insides, and ran back into the hallway. Tears began to well up in my eyes as my body remembered to breathe. I stumbled forward, only concerned with getting away from what I had just seen, getting to the police.
There was a noise behind me. I wasn’t quite a click, it sounded deep and guttural, like someone choking on the word “chuck.”
I turned slowly, and something was standing at the end of the hallway. It was the size of a skinny man. I recognized its hands at once. It took a step toward me and seemed to smile, revealing a wide jagged smile filled with glistening teeth.
I ran then, fast, right to the door. It was locked, and I broke my silence with a rage-filled scream as I turned the handle, pushing and pulling on the door.
The thing was at the opening of the hallway now; it walked slowly, and had skin that looked smooth while as rough as a shark’s at the same time.
I made a run for the sliding doors. They were open, and I flung myself through them and out to the porch and the November night air. He was gaining speed, and as I threw my leg over the railing to get down, he almost grabbed me.
I started sprinting to the corner of the house, to get to the street, but it landed in front of me, forcing me to turn around.
I swear it was laughing, a sick clicking laugh that shook me.
I turned and ran to the beach. The sand seemed to slow it down, but it was still gaining. I ran over the dune and to the water’s edge. It stopped twenty feet away and cocked its grey head, and for the first time, I saw its eyes clearly. They were pure black, and spread too far apart for humanity.
I stepped backwards into the water. Again, it looked at me quizzically, cocking it’s head to the other side.
I had a plan now, turning, I took a few large steps into the water, the cold cutting into my legs, and dove in.
My breath caught in my chest. I surfaced and stood in water up to my chest, and felt nothing below. I opened my mouth to breath, willed my body to function, and noticed how bright the stars were so far from anything and anyone.
My breath returned, and with it came the pain of the cold water. I pumped my legs for circulation, and looked quickly at the shore. The thing was gone, and I had a horrifying realization as I felt something sweep strongly against my leg.
Something grabbed my hair, pulling me under briefly, toying with me, and I made a break for land, cursing my stupidity.
I swam hard, kicking and pulling with my hands. I was making decent progress, and only felt a quick stabbing pain at the backs of my heels, before it was gone. I got to about 10 feet away from the beach when I tried to stand up and collapsed immediately.
The pain was cruel and monstrous. I reached down with my hands into the black surf and felt my ankles. The tendons had been shredded. I turned and he was standing above me smiling. Water dripped down his body (I was now sure it was a man somehow) revealing pumping gills along his ribcage.
The smile, those rows and rows, got me moving again. I scrambled on my hands, dragging myself toward the shore, and knew he was walking behind me.
I screamed a few times, at him, at God, for David, but the surf always found my mouth, and I lay in the sand, exhausted, cold and bleeding. I rolled to my back, and he was looking down at me, cocking his head and smiling.
He reached his clawed and webbed hand towards my shirt, and ripped it away from me. He shredded my pants, and I lay on the ground, sputtering and crying, naked on the beach with this thing, helpless.
He ducked down to a knee, and craned his rounded head toward my face, and opened his mouth wide. It smelled of the sea and blood. He lowered his mouth to my white neck, and I could feel the small points of his teeth resting on my throat.
He bit down slowly, and my breathing became wet.
I saw him spit something aside before he grabbed my ankles, and began dragging me back to the house.
The stars were darkening, and the faint glimmer above reminded me once more of the morning’s Striper, swimming out in the diminishing ocean behind me, as my eyes closed.

Biter

BITER: A SMort Story

1.

My first memory is of my mother standing at the sink. The morning light seeps in through the window in the kitchen, turning her soft yellow. She’s washing her hands and glancing at me. She seems puzzled, as though she’s trying to make up her mind about something. When her hands become visible above the lip of the stainless-steel basin, I notice the blood dripping from her fingers, seeping through the washcloth she holds like a red mitten.

Her mouth moves without speaking as she looks at me, and I realize for the first time that I’m sitting on the floor as she towers above me. The tears fall from her adult face, striking the tile beside me.
“What’s wrong Mommy,” my three-year old self asks.
“Nothing, Baby. Nothing’s wrong.”
She bends down to pick me up, and I feel her hands jitter as they cup underneath my arms. She places me on her hip, favoring her good hand.
I remember leaning in to hug my mother, and her short stifled shriek as my arms closed around her neck. I remember her dropping me, and running from the room.
The police came later; my father was missing, and the windows of my bedroom flashed red and blue all night. We moved here shortly after that day, and it is my only surviving memory of that place, so many miles and years away.

2.

“Scott?!?”
“Yeah, Ma? What is it” I yell down the stairs.
“Is she up there with you? You know the rules.”
I look at my girlfriend Lucy, sitting on the floor of my room, the black and red board game between us, moves momentarily suspended. She smiles at me.
“Ma, we are literally up here playing checkers.”
“I don’t care what you’re doing up there, she is not to be in your room, whether I’m here or not,” she yells, and with a change in tone, “Good afternoon, Luce!”
“Hey Mrs. M!” she replies, “I’ll bring him down now.”
Lucy starts to get up, and I moan my disapproval.
“Just stop fighting it Scott, we can play downstairs.”
“It’s the principle Lu,” is my standard reply, “We’re seniors in high school for God’s sake. It’s not like we even fool around here anyway.”
“She’s your Mom, Scott. She just wants what’s best, and doesn’t want to worry about you.”
We round the stairs, checkerboard in hand as evidence of my retained innocence.
“What’s there to worry about? I’m graduating, with Honors, and I’m already accepted into college. What else do I need to prove?
“That she’s still your Mom, and you’re still her son. Cut her some slack Scott, she knows she’s losing you soon. It can’t be easy on her.”
Of course Lucy’s right. Leaving for school was going to be hard on my mother, as she’d be in this empty house for months on end. After my father walking out on her, it was only natural to see why my impending departure would be difficult.
We reach the bottom of the stairs, and Lucy skips down the hallway to greet my mother. The hug and say hello, and I realize how happy I am that the two women in my life get along so well.
I put the checkerboard down on the kitchen table. The plastic pieces rattle a bit as I drop the board the last few inches.
“Are there any more groceries in the car?” I ask.
“Just a few bags, I can…”
“Not a problem, Ma,” I cut in, “I’ll get them.”
I leave my Mother and Lucy and step out onto the front porch. It’s a short trip to the car, and I’m wearing jeans and a sweater, but the Minnesota cold is biting as I reach the car. In every direction, the snow dominates the landscape. Our house is an old farm on the outskirts of a small suburb. We don’t have cable or internet access.
Lucy’s house is at least five miles away, but we still attend the same high school. It’s borderline desolate, but I can’t imagine living back in New Jersey like we used to. We moved when I was four, but my Mother will talk once and awhile about how busy it was in Red Bank. How much confusion existed there. How everything is so much simpler here.
I grab the two bags from the car, and walk back to the house, fingers starting to burn from the cold, and step back inside.

3.

The dream doesn’t come often.
I’m in an attic. The ceiling comes to a point above me, and the exposed wood forms a triangular hallway. It’s warm here, and I can feel the rough floorboards beneath the soles of my bare feet.
I’m standing at full height, even though the ceiling can only be five feet high at the most. There is a circular window at the far end of the room. The light flooding into the attic is orange, and with every step toward it, it moves to a deeper red.
A familiar trunk sits below the window. I can see that it is not latched, and some sort of fabric sticks out on the side; a floral print, some type of dress material.
By the time I reach the trunk, running my hands over its cold, brass corners, the window is pulsing red. My fingers find the fabric, rubbing the material until my hands feel the heat of friction.
I begin to open the trunk and a smell like almonds mixed with iron dances out, teasing my nostrils slightly. My jaw tightens, and the cords in my neck seize up. My eyes spin wildly in their sockets, and my entire body convulses, as if I need to vomit, but without the sick cramping in my stomach.
My head hits the floor, and I can feel foam rising to my lips.
Suddenly I’m standing again, looking down at the open trunk. Its walls are lined with a dark velvety material, and the fabric on the underside of the lid is torn, like something was fighting to get out.
At the bottom, as always, are the dolls. Cracked faces and black eyes stare blankly to the sky. Limbs are askew and often missing, heaped in piles of empty grasps. Only one doll is complete, and free of the marks of neglect. It looks up at me, arms inviting, its pink floral dress finely pressed, and blinks once.
I wake up with a start; face down in my bed, a warm pool of saliva dripping from my cheek.

4.

The only light in the dining room came from the fake candle arrangement at the center of the table. Amidst the sound of fork and knife on plate, the wind batters the house, screeching occasionally through dinner.
My mom was being unusually quiet this evening. Normally, dinner was like an endless job interview for a position I already held. She would rattle off question after question about my day, how school was, or what Rebecca and her family were up to.
Since we moved out here, my mother hadn’t left the house much. She made the occasional trip to the supermarket in Downtown Deer River, where she would make some money selling homemade jam and preserves. She receives a check each month from some agency, and that allows her to not need a job.
“What’s up, Ma?”
“Nothing, Scott. I’m sorry. How was your day?”
Her response is robotic, making me more concerned. I’m pretty convinced that my Mom suffers from some level of depression. She rarely drinks, and she never talks about the past. The past few months had been good though, so I’m shocked to see her take such a turn.
“Don’t lie to me. I know something is wrong. Let me help you with it.”
When she looks up, her eyes are watering.
“You can’t,” she says, digging back into her salad. Her short curly hair is my only companion at the now silent table, and soon, she gets up and goes to her room. I hear her crying through my wall, and I wonder where my father is, and what he did that made my mother such a mess.
I walk back downstairs and grab a book off of the shelf. The phone rings, and I’m heading to the library with Rebecca to do some “homework” almost immediately. Somehow I know I’ve made a dangerous decision, but I kiss my sleeping mother on her tear-stained cheek anyway, and walk out the door as myself for the last time.

5.

Lucy is waiting by the door when I pull up, and she runs out to the car as quickly as she can. The sun is down and the temperature has dropped substantially in the February night.
“Hey you,” she starts, giving me a quick peck on the cheek.
I can feel the cold outside on her lips, as the kiss lingers like breath on glass.
“So what’s going on?” she continues, “Why the rush to the library?”
“I made a decision today. I want to know about my father.”
“Why now?”
“My mother was a mess tonight. I feel like she’s getting worse. I need to know what happened, and I can’t ask her; she won’t tell me.”
We drive in silence for a bit, the snow tires biting into the hardpack, creating enough control to drive in this near-arctic town.
The Deer Park library is ahead, a soft glow emanating from its many windows, and we pull in.
“Are you sure you want to know?”
For the first time I can tell she is afraid, and it takes me aback.
“Wh-what?” I reply, as we reach the door and walk inside.
“I’m just saying… it might be really bad. He might have hit her or something, or maybe he’s got a new family now. Do you really need to know that?”
I though about it for a second, but I already knew the answer. I simply needed to know.
“It’s more important that I know who I am; who he was.”
She nods, but it’s a nod of reluctance, and we make our way to the computer desks.
A few quick Google searches produce no results. Entering “Kevin Marsden” into the search field brings only a few hundred Facebook pages. Narrowing down the results, I start adding terms like “Red Bank,” “Red Bank NJ,” “Alice and Kevin Marsden,” “Alice and Kevin Marsden Red Bank.”
The last search kicks back only a few results. A few of the links refer to race results for some marathon in Long Branch, New Jersey. But one is a newspaper article from fifteen years earlier.
I click on the link, directing me to the Asbury Park Press. There’s a picture of my mother and a man who looks like the descriptions I’ve heard of my father.
I scroll down the page, and hear my life as it cracks apart.

6.

It’s hard to tell whether I’m parked correctly between the snow and the tears in my eyes. I throw it in park, and take the keys out of the ignition, opening the door with my left hand.
As soon as I step into the night, I can feel the water on my face crystallizing as I rush to the front door. I’ve been out of the house for a grand total of a half-an-hour, but in that short time, my view of everything is shattered.
The house looks like a cave, not the mountain it once was. It is a hole, a place of secrets and darkness. I get to the front door, and swing into the hallway. The lights are dark, and a sole candle sits on the dining room table.
It sits, jutting out of a cupcake, next to an empty rocks glass and a half-finished bottle of Bourbon. My mother has her head in her hands; she is trying to hold it together, and I’m glad I made Lucy go home before I did this.
“What are you doing home already?” she manages, speech starting to slur.
“What are you doing?” It’s more of an accusation than a question.
“Noth-Nothing. I was hungry. It was dark…”
“Bullshit.”
“No…,” her voice drags off.
“Bullshit. I know, I know everything. I know about dad and I know about…,” I choke up a bit, not sure where its coming from, “…about Amanda. What I did.”
She looks up at me now.
“Today was her birthday,” she starts, voice in tatters, “she was so beautiful…”
The anger that emanates from me is unlike anything I’ve experienced, and it shocks her into sitting up, rigid, as if she’s anticipating a hit from me, as if she is afraid.
“My last name! My father killing himself! What I did, What I DID!”
My shoulders slump from the weight of it, and my voice become small and pleading.
“How could you let me do it?” I ask, “How could you both let me?”
“I’m sorry Scott…” she begins, but I’m across the room with the bottle of Jack in my hand and it’s flying through the air instantly, exploding across the dining room wall and my mother has her head in her hands and she shrieks and suddenly I’m three in that kitchen all those years ago and my head starts to spin, body locking up and I’m on the floor wrapped up in all of it, the muscles twitching like hot electric current, my teeth locked in agony as my screams become grunts and I know that this must be the feeling from the nightmare as the seizure takes my sight and I feel the bile and foam cross my lips and she’s over me screaming and screaming and it goes black as black as black on the darkest night of all the moonless years…

7.

Little Boy Bites His Baby-Sister to Death While Parents Sleep, Father goes Missing.

Red Bank police are investigating a bizarre death of a newborn girl. Most likely, the baby girl was killed by her own brother, who was just three years old. The tragedy happened while the parents of the two children were sleeping.
Forensic experts have already determined that the little girl had died a violent death.
The victim was only 22 days old. The baby arrived at the hospital of the town of Monmouth, in a critical condition. Paramedics were horrified to find bites and bruises all over the child’s body.
Medics took lifesaving efforts, but four hours of struggle for the girl’s life did not help. A forensic expert said that the baby died of a closed cranial injury and a blunt head trauma. It looked like someone had repeatedly bitten various areas of the child’s arms, torso, and head.
A pathologist later determined that the bites had been made by a three-year-old baby, the victim’s own brother.
The mother of the killed child told the police that she and her husband had been drinking together and fell asleep. When they woke up, they saw their son laying on the floor convulsing. When the mother got up to pacify the child, she noticed the body of her daughter on the floor as well. The mother, Alice Smith, tried to ensure that her son did not swallow his tongue. Still seizing on the floor, the boy bit down hard on the mother’s finger, drawing blood.
The baby was not moving, nor was she showing any reaction to anything. The woman called the ambulance. The father took the baby girl to the car immediately, driving to the hospital himself, where the child was pronounced dead.
Most likely, the suspected killer perceived his baby sister as a doll, not as a human being, the police believe. The boy has a history of seizures, but none were as extreme as what the parents woke up to that morning. The little child was most likely screaming during the awful game, but the parents did not hear anything while sleeping.
An expert said that the boy might have killed the baby deliberately, out of jealousy, since the parents started paying more attention to her after birth.

8.

When I come to, she’s standing over me, praying. Talking about how I haven’t had a seizure since that day fifteen years ago. Suddenly, details that were missing for so long are replaced with vivid racing memories. She’s asking If I’m okay, that same worried look on her face, and I simply smile at her, lazily. She’s talking about how I changed when the seizures stopped. She’s explaining how much she loves me, her little boy. Nothing matters to me that once did. There’s a look in her eyes of recognition, some remembrance of what she had seen before, and now she’s apologizing. Sorry now about not telling me about my father firing a bullet through his head, about changing our names, about moving us out to this wilderness. About how she never should have tried to escape what our family had become. It comes out her mouth and enters my ears, and I just sit. Listening and smiling on the floor.
Soon I’m in the car, leaving her behind. The car spins its tires from time to time, and a small tremor will razor through my brain and muscles on occasion, but everything is under control. I arrive at Lucy’s house around 10PM, and her parents are asleep. She holds me at the front door, crying in the wrinkles of my sweater. I smile and smile, and let her know that I’m okay. That everything is finally okay. We walk up the stairs to her bedroom, free of rules, and she falls asleep as I rub her back and she tells me how much she loves me. The light on her TV flickers as it gets later, and the programming turns off, the call signs of the local channel illuminating my smile as the images bounce of my exposed teeth.
I think about my purpose, buried so long ago. I think about the stranger I’ve been riding along with for the past twelve years, and the opportunities he’s provided. I think about my mother, and how quickly and quietly she went on the dining room floor, almost allowing it. And I look down at the sleeping girl on the bed. The first bite is always the best, and I move her hair up off the back of her neck before I lean in and begin.