Creek Wars

Ricky lived just a few houses down the street, and we always felt sorry for him, me and the other neighborhood kids, what with the downright ugliness of the place. It was paper bag brown with faded gray trim, green dewy all over, and the screen door flapped on a single hinge. The yard had a foul assortment scattered throughout, scraps of wood and trash, oil barrels, rusted bikes and parts of cars, gnomes with their faces worn, a few with no heads at all, cats roaming the lot of it. His momma was always yelling at him, too, loud like she had no shame about it, and she was as big as a house. You could hear her from the street outside yelling at him in there, and sometimes I could hear her plum from my porch. I do not remember her face, just the size and hatefulness of her, always in dirty pink cotton sweats, topped by a pale glob, black hair tasseling out of it every which way. I only saw her through that crooked screen door, a lumpy shadow on its other side. I reckon I must have seen her in the papers later, though, after everything that happened.

I would say she looked something like Ricky, but I shudder to think of the female form of it. He had black hair and bushy brows, thick like caterpillars, and dark eyes with purplish bags under them, all against the palest skin you had ever seen, nearly transparent. They called him a spook at the middle school. I felt sorry about that. He barely had friends in the neighborhood either, but you might call him outside if no one else could come. I do not remember a time that he said no, and that was worth something. He liked baseball, too, or at least if you asked him he would pitch to you all damned day at the diamond an old man had built for us down the road. Never once asked to hit himself. No one ever said it this way, and maybe he knew it, too, but I reckon that was about the only reason anyone ever hung out with Ricky.

The baseball field was at the base of a steep hill, that old man’s backyard, just a backstop and a lean-to for a dugout. We mapped our own bases: up the hill to first, across it to second, and I cannot tell you how many kids fell flat on their faces running down to home plate. Had to have legs about you for it. The old man never said one word to us, just built it all one day, and we showed up the next. He never ran us off, though, and no one else played on it either, so we figured it was for us.

We were playing ball the day we first heard of the creek wars. I was catcher, and Ricky had made it all the way to third base, the first and only run of his life, as far as I know. A base hit sent him off down the hill to home plate, and he always ran like he was having a heart attack, limbs flying every which way. I think he was only trying to stop himself by the time he got to me. He jumped up, squealed like a squirrel, stuck out all four limbs, rigid like a falling cat, missed the plate entirely and somehow bit my hand instead. One of his front teeth left a crooked scar on my palm that still shines, fifteen years later. I would rather forget all this mess, but the whole thing, how it all turned out, and how wrong everyone got it, always bothered the dickens out of me. I cannot forget it either, what with the shape of Ricky’s buck tooth there to remind.

Jeffrey was pitching that day. He lived only a few houses down from Ricky, and he was always blowing things up. You might say he was some kind of smart, had the periodic table on his bedroom wall and all. He was no nerd, though, because he was always collecting survivalist gear – knives, rope, lighters, that sort of thing – and he spent a lot of time in the woods, gave him some edge. Once, he wanted to see how big of a flame he could make by spraying paint across a lighter, and he built a big cube out of cinder blocks, sprayed all kinds of paint on the inside. When he flicked that lighter, it was the biggest flame any of us had ever seen, but, boy, did it light him up. He spent two days in the hospital and came back wrapped up like a zombie. To beat it all, he did the same thing a few months later, except that time he had the sense to light a paper ball and toss it into the cube from a distance. It was the same big flame again, but somehow the neighbor’s cat had wound up in the cube, and it was a big nasty mess. Jeffrey always swore he did not know it about the cat being in there, but I never could see how. I would not put it past him either, something like that.

Drew, my neighbor, was there that day, too, but he was a normal kid like me, though I reckon he could be a scaredy cat sometimes. If you even mentioned the word ‘ghost’, even in a story, he would all of a sudden have a curfew. We played ball together on the middle school team back then. His dad was a cop. My dad was a firefighter, so they got along pretty well. It was just us four that day. After Ricky bit me, Drew and I decided we would put the coke cans we had emptied throughout the game on our bike wheels at the fork and cruise the neighborhood on the makeshift motos. Ricky wanted to come, too, even him not having a bike, and we figured that was alright. He would just run behind us like he did sometimes. Jeffrey asked everyone into the woods behind the diamond, though. Said he had some big  secret.

“I’ve got to tell ya about the war,” he said. “Not here, though. Too risky out here in the field. You never know where the spies might be.”

“The what?” said Ricky. “What’s a spy?” His voice was deep for his age, and raspy, too. All the kids said he would steal his momma’s cigarettes, but I knew it was just his voice.

“A spy, Ricky,” said Jeffrey. “They watch you, what you do, where you sleep, what you eat, what you plan, all that for the other army.”

“Water you even talkin bout,” said Ricky. “Wut army?” His face was scrunched up, and you could barely see his eyes for his caterpillar brows.

“Into the woods,” said Jeffrey. He set off stomping – he was always stomping like a soldier in his camo cargos – right into the thick ivy. Drew and I held back for a minute and laughed at the both of them, but we were not uninterested. Jeffrey did know some crazy shit, even if ever so often he would blow himself up. Neither of us said so, but I know we were both scared to high heaven of those woods. Drew must have wanted to overcome the rumors about him being a sissy, what with him calling his mom to leave from stayovers all the time, so we went into the woods. I wish he had been a sissy.

Jeffrey and Ricky had stopped at the creek that divided our neighborhood, Cedar Grove, from the next one over, Budding Acres. A big wooden fence sat across the creek, backyards on its other side. We all sat down on rocks by the water, twiddled sticks, and Drew and I threw little twigs at Ricky while Jeffrey gave us his big spiel up on a large boulder. Ricky didn’t even notice the twigs, what with Jeffrey’s big to do and all.

He had a big walking stick that he had fashioned to a point on one end, held it out over us like some biblical figure. 

“There’s a war going on,” he said. “The Cedars and the Buds, been goin on for centuries. Every few decades, there’s a battle, and one is set for just one week’s time. If we’re not prepared, they’ll run us over, kill everything we know and love.”

Ricky’s eyes were as wide as cue balls.

“You’re fuller of shit than Santy Clause,” said Drew.

“Fuller than the damned Easter Bunny,” I added.

“Yea,” said Ricky. He said that, but Drew and I knew he believed every word from Jeffrey’s mouth. A year or so prior, Jeffrey had told Ricky that the sky was going to fall the next day, said it was actually a big block of ice that the sun had finally melted, and it was going to fall right on top of Cedar Grove the next morning. Ricky stayed up that whole night, tried to fashion some kind of lean-to so as stop the ice, made it out of two by fours and rusty nails, and by the next morning he had only managed to put three of them together, and in a sort of zig zag figure at that.  When nothing happened, Jeffrey told him that the sky must not have melted just yet, but that one day it would happen, and I think Ricky thought the sky was ice ever since. 

“If they’s some big ole war goin on,” said Drew. “How come we ain’t ever heard it?”

“There hasn’t been a battle in our lifetimes,” said Jeffrey. “But theys about to be.”

Ricky cleared his throat. Jeffrey locked eyes on him and sort of stared him down, nodded.

“Then how do you know bout it?” I asked. He turned to me and raised his staff, started to sound like our preacher at the baptist church, talking about end times and all.

“I saw them preparing, boys, and it’s a big army! I seen em!” he said.

“You guys wouldn’t know,” he added. “You’re too chickenshit to go over the fence, but they got ten times our size of an army. They been practicin, marchin, sword fightin, they got slingshots. And I bet I heard em yell ‘Kill em all!’ a hundred times.”

“They got swords?” said Drew. His dad had seen every Bruce Lee movie there is, and Drew had posters all over his bedroom walls. He had done karate for a while, too, had a few fake swords in plastic boxes made to look like glass.

“Sort of,” said Jeffrey. “They sharpened long sticks, but they’re as sharp as a sword. We can sharpen sticks and put nails in em, give us an advantage. I’ll make grenades, too”

Ricky stood up right then and started poking around the woods for swordsticks.

“But if you want real proof,” said Jeffrey. “Here it is.” He lifted up his shirt and a fresh cut ran down his side from his nipple to his hip.

“What happened?” I asked.

“One of them Buds caught me lookin’ over the fence,” said Jeffrey. “He drug me over and slashed me with a sword on the ground. Told me to show all the Cedars.”

“Won’t a big army like that just run us over?” asked Drew.

“Won’t be easy, boys,” said Jeffrey. But if we don’t fight, it will be Ricky’s mom that pays.” He looked at us. “And your moms, too, Cal and Drew, and mine. We either fight or die.”

Ricky had found a stick and brought it to Jeffrey to start sharpening. It had dry rot in the center, broke in two when he handed it over. Jeffrey found him another one. 

“This one is strong enough to kill a man, thin enough to wield,” said Jeffrey. He was scowling, and his face seemed to droop like an old man’s.

“One week, boys!” said Jeffrey. “And we have a lot to learn.” He looked to me and Drew. “You guys in? It’s us, or all of Cedar Grove will have hell to pay.”

“Sure,” said Drew. He was shaking and I knew he wanted to go home. 

“Why not?” I said.

I cannot say whether Drew and I believed it all about the war right then. We wound up sticking around in the woods until nightfall – sharpening sticks, talking strategy against the Buds, covering ourselves with leaves and popping out of them – and the longer it all went on, the more those woods felt like a real warzone, another world entirely from Cedar Grove. At the very least, it was more fun than the makeshift motos.

Things were different for Ricky, though, and we knew it, too. Drew and I were concerned to get the mud on our faces right so as not to look like goons in battle, wondered what color of bandanas we might wear. Ricky asked odder questions, more serious ones.

“How do you think they’d kill my momma?” he said.

“Probably tie her up and beat her,” said Jeffrey. “That, and probably use gas on her. That way they get those cats, too. The Buds hate cats.”

I never could see how Ricky could care for that woman, the way she yelled at him all the time, but what Jeffrey said made him madder than a hornet. Or maybe it was the cats.

“I’ll kill them sons ah bitches bloody,” said Ricky. “I’ll grind thems bones while they still alive,” he said. You could tell by just how ugly his face got that he meant it.

“You’d better do it,” said Jeffrey. “Or else.”

“You think they would kill yuns, too? Yous and Cal and Drew? If they the same age as us and all?”

“They’ll poke our eyes out, Ricky,” said Jeffrey. “These here are ruthless kids. Trained for blood. They ain’t like us.” 

“Won’t let em,” said Ricky.

Jeffrey had us sit in a circle in the dirt by the creek, and it was nearly dark. I thought he was going to have us drink each other’s blood or something, and I was prepared to tell him to go to hell.

“Put em in, soldiers,” he said. He stuck his hand out, palm down, in the middle of us. Ricky went in next, fast like he had been ordered to, then Drew, then me.

“It’s a pact,” said Jeffrey. “A pact to defend Cedar Grove and Ricky’s mom. Everyone else, too. To the death.” 

Ricky started to say the pledge of allegiance with his eyes still shut. Drew and I chuckled a little, but we held it together so as to keep things serious.

“No,” said Jeffrey.

“We say, ‘My heart is bound to the Cedars. Kill anything in its way.’” 

We all said it and stood up. It was only nine o’clock, but it was as dark as midnight, and my dad would make me pick a switch if he knew I was still out there in the woods.

“Train right here after school every day,” ordered Jeffrey. “It’s Sunday. We only have five evenins to prepare for battle. This is it. It will go down in infamy.”

“Yesser,” said Ricky. He was rocking side to side, head down, like the battle was to begin any minute.

Drew and I had baseball practice on Monday and Wednesday, and Drew had karate on Tuesday, and my dad had taken off Thursday so I could ride on the back of his motorcycle in the evening. Drew and I were not about to do any of this mess without the other one around, so we would not train for war until Friday, and we said so.

“Fine,” said Jeffrey. “Ricky and I will have to train even harder if the Cedars are to stand a chance. Meet back on Friday.”

Drew and I rode our bikes home in the dark, talked more about what color our bandanas should be. We stopped off at this old lady’s house and washed off with her water hose. She never knew anything that went on outside her house, bound to the inside as she was. By the time we reached Drew’s place, we were already back to talking baseball, about Ricky biting my hand, how funny it was that the spook had teeth. I felt bad every time I called him that.

Not much came of the whole thing until Friday. We saw Jeffrey’s bike at the edge of the woods in the field every day on the way home, though, and we knew he and Ricky were in there preparing for war. We heard at school on Thursday morning that a tree had gone up in flames behind the house of Mr. Davis, a history teacher who lived in Cedar Grove on the edge of the woods by the diamond. I reckon I thought it was pretty cool that Jeffrey had figured out the grenades, but I did not say a word about it. Ricky and Jeffrey did not show up for school on Friday. That was odd, especially for Ricky. The boy could not read a stop sign – I swear it – but he always showed up.

After school, Drew and I met back at the boulder where Jeffrey had given his big speech. Ricky and Jeffrey were already there, had been there all day, and looked like it, too. Soon as we showed up, Jeffrey handed us these long sticks that had been sharpened to a point on one end, had a bunch of nails hammered through to the other side so the pointy end was out on them. It was a downright weapon, and Ricky and him did some dance that was not so much a sword fight as pretend head bashing. Ricky looked strangely to grips with it. If he had ever learned one thing in his life, that day he had learned to bash a head with a swordstick.

Drew and I swung ours around, too, but we had sense enough not to do so at each other. We hit trees, and the nails would stick in. We pulled them out, hit another tree, and so on like that until our hands were blistered. Afterwards, we all practiced sprinting through the woods without tripping, and it took us an hour to get downpat a stretch back and forth across the creek, down into it over a log, through it over the algae covered rocks and up its other side into an army crawl. By the end of it all, by God, we probably did look some kind of soldier out there. Come nightfall, the whole thing felt real again.

Drew and I left for dinner, and everyone was to meet at the boulder again at five in the morning. We wound up telling our dads that we were going to play ball early, train like the pros did, and they bought it, might of even been proud.

“It’s important you boys are here right at five, right here at the boulder,” said Jeffrey. “I know the Buds are going to attack around ten after five. I seen it on their boards over the fence, so we gotta be here and ready.

Ricky had barely said a word all night, just squealed like he did here and there as he practiced attacks. I cannot say if I thought of it back then, but, thinking on it now, his eyes did look nearly black that night, empty like. Before we left, he had a simple message for everyone.

“Cal, Drew, Jeffrey,” he said. He looked down at the dirt and was breathing heavy like. “I will kill for ye,” he said. “For ye mommas, too.” 

We stashed our weapons at the base of the big boulder and covered them up with leaves. Ricky said he would sleep right next to them all night so as to make sure no Buds got to them. I almost admired it. If it was not courage, neither was it far from.

I remember the rest of that night well, strange as it was, almost dreamlike. I lay in bed, tossed with the same worried excitement I had before a baseball game, but this all had more weight to it. I remember images of camo and trees and rocks rushing by my head, quick like running through the woods, Ricky’s squeals in the background of it all. Without the light of day to shine any reason on it, my mind ran wild with what could come of the next day. We could be heroes, I thought. Or maybe we could die.

If I ever slept, I was up at four thirty, went straight to Drew’s. He was dressed for playing ball, but he had two camo bandanas from karate. We put them on, and we swore our bikes went faster for it. Made it to the boulder right at five. There was no sign of Jeffrey. Ricky was there, had our weapons leaned up against a rock, smart in case we had to grab them quick. Said he had done that at three thirty. He had camouflaged his face with mud and green and black paint, and with his matching outfit, you could not have found that boy in the woods if you burned them to the ground.

“Where’s capt’n?” he asked us.

“Jeffrey? We haven’t seen em,” I said.

It was three after five and we were to move from the boulder to an oak tree a hundred yards up at ten after, but not without Jeffrey.

“What do we do?” asked Drew. 

“Capt’n won’t quit us,” said Ricky. “We gots to wait. If they attacks, I’m ready.” He was almost snarling and kept wiping soppy snot from his face.

In the silence of those next few minutes, the woods felt queer. It was colder in the morning, more quiet, too, without the lawnmowers running or cars passing by. That was the first time I thought of it, that if Jeffrey were not full of shit I might wind up with a stick in my belly. I held it together, tried to remember all that crazy talk of his: “Aim for the head with the nails. He’ll handle the grenades. Stay put unless you hear Bud soldiers. Pop out. Kill.”

There was still no sign of Jeffrey at eight minutes after. I thought of his trick about the sky being ice, wondered if this was like that. But right then, out of that silent darkness, a quick fireball went up fifty yards out. It might as well of come from the next world over, just poofed up and was gone. Then another one just like it a little closer, but this time we saw a soldier’s shadow darting from one tree to another in the light of the flame. Drew and I sunk down behind the boulder. I was damn near crying, and I held my swordstick tight. It was all real enough, by God. 

“What do we do?” asked Drew? We heard rustling in the brush ahead, quick like running, and I poked out my head around the rock. That same shadow was closer now, still darting back and forth between trees, but I could not make out if it was one or many.

“We’ll stay put,” I said to Drew and Ricky. Ricky made a snarling sound. In the dark you would swear it was a mad dog. He took off towards the fireballs like a bat out of hell, squealing like he did, but this time louder than I had ever heard anyone make a noise in my life. Drew and I locked eyes, held ourselves to it like we were having a staring contest, listened for what might come next. Those were sounds you cannot forget, unmistakable violence, death. It was just Ricky squealing at first, but then another party let out a noise like a man getting hit by a truck, more squealing and the smack of rocks, then groans and quick steps through the underbrush. Then nothing at all, that silence of the morning again.

Drew was sobbing.

“We have to check on Ricky,” I said. 

“Let’s go home, Cal,” said Drew. “If this is real, our dads can help.”

We agreed to make sure Ricky was okay, then we would go home and let our dads in on it all. They were men, we thought, and they should be the ones in the thick of violence. We came out from behind the rock, and my stomach felt like it had a hole in it already. Did not see a thing until we got close to where the fireballs had occurred, and there it was, lying over a big rock in the brush, the shape of a man. He was dressed in all black, had a cotton mask on, like a bank robber, and the head looked like a smashed pumpkin in the mask, soppy wet with blood. It was not Ricky, but there was no sign of him either. It must have been a Bud, we thought. Ricky had killed the first one.

Drew vomited behind a tree, and I lost it myself on its other side. “We gotta get home. Get our dads,” I said. We took off running to the field, smooth like we had trained to do, and this time we did not trip. Our bikes did move faster this time, too. At Drew’s place, we agreed to meet back up at the field with our dads, but that never happened. Mine was not home, out running errands, and I was not about to tell my mom that I had seen a dead man in the woods and that we were in the thick of war with the next neighborhood over. I felt sick about deserting the Cedars, and I thought about going out again, but then my mom and I heard gunshots not too far out, two loud booms, and she told me I was to stay put until we knew what was going on. I took a knife from the kitchen into my bedroom, sat there on the bed and waited for what might come. I knew what was going on. People were dead. 

It only took an hour longer for Cedar Grove to look something like the war zone Jeffrey had promised. There were patrol cars with their lights on all over, cruising the streets, and three or four of them parked outside Ricky’s place. I heard his mom out there yelling plum from my bedroom, but this time it sounded different, sad like. My mom asked me again if I knew anything about what was going on, but I could not think of what to say. Said something happened near the field is all. Next thing I knew, she had turned on the local news on television, and it showed the baseball field roped off with yellow tape, cops crawling all over it, a body bag on a stretcher. The screen flipped next to outside a house in Budding Acres, and there were two body bags on separate stretchers there. A man sobbed to the police in the background of it all. Reporters were waiting on details, they said.

I would not find out what all happened until that night when Drew’s dad came over to talk with mine. Ricky had killed Jeffrey in the woods, beat him with a stick that had nails hammered through it, then caved his head in like a rotten tomato with a rock. He must have thought Jeffrey was a Bud. Drew’s dad said it was the most gruesome thing he had ever heard of, was glad he did not have to see it first hand. After Jeffrey, Ricky ran on through the woods, and at some point he hopped the fence into a backyard in Budding Acres. He must have thought he was making an advance, that he was gaining on the Buds and could end the whole thing before it even began. There was a boy in the backyard, and as his fortune would have it, he was playing Star Wars, holding a damned plastic light saber. Ricky whacked him upside the head with the same swordstick he had used to kill Jeffrey, just once, Drew’s dad said, and the boy took three nails to the brain, deader than hell. I guess Ricky tried going through that house rather than out the fence, and the man inside thought he was an intruder, shot him dead right there in living room with a sawed off, blasted him all over the walls, did not even know it yet that his boy was outside dead. By the end of it, Ricky, Jeffrey, and that boy who turned out to be named Adam were all cold dead. 

Drew’s dad mentioned to mine that Drew and I were playing ball in the field when it all started, heard some commotion, and stumbled upon Jeffrey in the woods. We came back promptly to tell our dads, he said, no mention at all of a war between the cedars and the buds. I figured that was what Drew had told him, and it was serious business at that point, what with the cops and all, so I did not say otherwise. No one ever knew anything different either, least not not until now. Drew died in a car accident last week at twenty-five years old. I guess anything can happen, and if something like that were to happen to me, it might be that no one would ever know about the Creek Wars. 

It was all over the town papers the next day, all of it dead wrong all over the papers. ‘TROUBLED TEEN KILLS NEIGHBOR IN WOODS, GOES ON RAMPAGE’, read one headline. ‘MONSTROUS MURDER IN THE WOODS; CHILDREN DEAD’, said another. The worst of them: ‘RICKY THE SPOOK, SERIAL MURDERER FOR A DAY, STOPPED BY FATHER OF VICTIM.’ Can you believe it? Called him a spook, right there in the papers. Each of them honed in on different details, but the gist of the story they told was that Ricky and Jeffrey were playing cops and robbers in the woods and got into a disagreement. Ricky killed Jeffrey, and somehow that anger stuck with him, led him to kill the boy; likely, they said, he would have killed that boy’s daddy, too. I reckon it made some degree of sense, as far as they knew, but goddamn if it could not have been more wrong. 

I’ve said it before, that I never thought much of Ricky’s old hag of a mother, but I wound up feeling sorry even for her. She did not have much to show for herself nowise, and now she had the whole town thinking she had managed to raise a cold blooded killer to boot. Some older boys in the neighborhood spray painted ‘KILLER SPOOK’ on Ricky’s mom’s garage door, and she just left it there in all the mess of that place, just like the screen door and them oil barrels and all. It stayed just like that until she died a couple years later, and I’ll be damned if that was not a spectacle, too. She had a heart attack, and, being alone and all, she must have ran outside thinking someone might help her, but she wound up tripping on one of those gnomes out front, hit her head on an old stone bird bath that was lying on the ground. Can you imagine, after all that, the mess of her life, she died face down in the muck of a bird bath puddle with that ‘KILLER SPOOK’ in the background, cats all over. Never thought I would, but I could not have felt more sorry about it. 

There it is, all of it that I know. Ricky was no monster, monstrous as the whole thing was. That boy was downright slow, and he was convinced by the first boy he killed in the woods that he was fighting a war to save innocent souls from being beaten, gassed, his own mother, and if you lived in Cedar Grove then, he was fighting for your momma, too. That ole boy over in Budding Acres, Adam, sorry as it wound up for him, was to Ricky another Bud soldier, ready to kill with a light saber. You could say that if anyone is to blame in all this, it is Jeffrey who sowed all the evil. But he was a kid, too, you know, and a troubled one at that. Far be it from me to know anything, but I reckon you might say the whole thing was just one of those dark confusions of a twisted world such as ours, like when a dog gnaws his own tail in two.

THE END

Bitter Dregs

“Little Sarah had her third daughter last week,” said the old man. He sat with his back against the stone, patting the earth, twiddling leaves. It was late September, early for the carnelian foliage. He was glad for it. Summer had nearly done him in.

“She came into the world with fire on her head,” he said.

“Can you believe it?”

“Never in our line, not that I know of, and she came out red-headed as a rose.”

The sun filtered through an oak and he allowed the pattern across his face, warmth on the cool morning.

“Sarah’s fine,” he said. “They both are. She has your strength, you know.”

“You should have seen that room, Ruthie. It was brighter than heaven.”

He fingered at the sun, dropped his head as his thoughts turned.

“I know,” he said. “I did drink. A little burned by it this morning, too. But trust me when I say that you are nearer when I do.”

He grinned at the thought of her, how she was always right.

“I know what you’d say about that,” he said.

“Closer to hell is no closer to me!”

“I know, Ruth. I know,” he said. “But what is here if you’re not? And where is hell if this isn’t it?”

A car drove by, and its driver noticed the man but turned away, sparing himself. They know her body is in the earth, the passersby, but so, too, does the man have her soul through the backlit imagery of mad love gone. 

“This damned yard, Ruth – I swear. We shoulda thought more about development when we settled these plots.”

He smiled along a worn path.

“I don’t even know that I oughta tell ya. You’d be downright sick to know it.”

“Do you remember that day?” he said. 

“We bickered all the way here. That was on me, I reckon’.”

“We were too young for such things, then.”

“Or I was. I was too young for your old wisdom, even five years your senior.”

“What did I say? – ‘We’ll never die, my love, not you and I. Plenty of time, plenty still. Why waste a Saturday lookin’ at dirt, when just any ole patch’ll do?’”

“Yes, that’s right – and what said you?”

He patted the ground to the rhythm of his words.

“‘You’re the only one I know, Sam! The only one I know that don’t expect to die!’”

The man let out a hearty laugh, as only she can bring out these days.

“You were right, too,” he said.

“And here I am, wishin I was – ”

“ – I know. What’s that you always said to the kids?”

He raised a finger.

“You buy the ticket, you ride the ride!’”

“That’s it.”

“But the ride is old now, Ruthie. It’s slowed now, and I’ve been ‘round and ‘round and ‘round.”

The man wiped his face and straightened himself off the stone.

“I was sayin’ about all this progress goin’ on around here. It would just kill you to know that not twenty yards from you now is a damned road. And down it a ways is a mall.”

“A damned mall, Ruth. It would just kill you to know.”

“Don’t you see what I mean?”

The man shook his head, tired of the same point, losing it to the vows.

“I know you do. I wear it plain.”

“You would say I’m here too much.”

“I know, I know. But the stone glows like you in the mornings.”

“Every morning may be too much. Maybe to others.”

“I know. You would say that the nice folks in the cars that drive by on their morning commute will notice me, what with you right here next to the road. You would say that it will make them sad to see an old man here every day when they already have to go to work.”

“Some of them wave.”

“And that’s just it, isn’t it?” he said. 

“They know, too. I wear it plain.”

“Would it not make them happy?”

“What if they drove by and after all these days they saw me being laid down next to you?”

He smiled, rested his eyes.

“I know, the girls.”

“I won’t, Ruthie. I won’t.”

“I won’t today.”

The man stood and once more let the broken sun through the oak across his face, imagined the backlit medallions on their embroidered sheets from the wedding.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he thought. “With any luck.”

The Mechanics

Two young mechanics sat in lawn chairs outside the bay door of an auto shop on a country road. They had closed an hour prior and had seen no patrons in four. They shared cigarettes and split a six pack and a Friday could be a Monday or a Wednesday and a Saturday could be a Thursday or a Tuesday because what they did that day is what they did every day but Sunday. 

A smartcar had taken on a flat from a nail in the road by the shop and its driver noticed the sign. It read ‘MECHANIC’. Below, among other things: ‘TIRES’

“Well, what a lucky duck,” said the driver. He eased the car into the lot.

The two mechanics sat grinning in their chairs.

“What on God’s green earth do you s’pose that is, Dan?” said one of the mechanics. His shirt was tagged ‘Ricky’.

They both eyed the tiny car as it rolled flapping into a spot at the rear of the shop’s lot near the road.

“The shit?” said Dan. “Hell if I know, Ricky. “Looks like a squished can.” 

They laughed.

Ricky squinted at the car and began to count. 

“One. Two. Three – Well, hell, Dan.”

“What’s that?”

“It sure as shit does have four wheels,” said Ricky.

They both laughed and Dan leaned back in his chair to grab two more beers from the cooler behind. He opened them both and handed one to Ricky.

Dan drank and set the bottle between his legs.

 “So,” he said. “What your sayin’ is –”

“Don’t you say it,” said Ricky.

Dan raised his hand so as to finish. 

“What you said was that right there –”

 He pointed to the car.

“— that right there — “

“Don’t you say it, Dan.”

“That right there –” said Dan. 

“– is a car.”

“Goddammit,” said Ricky. He slapped his knee and leaned back smiling. “I reckon it is, Dan. I reckon it is. That little squished can is a car.”

“Dan, how far do you think I could punt that thing?” said Ricky. “I bet if I get the boot right I could get it plumb to the far side of the road.”

“I can’t deny it,” said Dan. “You’ve always had a foot.”

“I have indeed always had a foot,” said Ricky. “I have always had at least one foot.” 

He raised a finger so as to signal his point.

“But if I can punt it,” he said. “Then it sure as shit ain’t no car, is it?”

“It couldn’t be, Ricky. It just could not be,” said Dan.

A large man opened the driver’s side door of the smartcar and he lifted his left leg with his hands so as to remove it to the ground and then twisted his torso to build momentum and then unpinned his right leg and flung it out with the other; he leaned on the door against its usual direction so as to lift himself up, and, finally, he stood.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Ricky.

Dan rubbed his eyes and opened them wide.

“Dan – I am no science man but I believe we have witnessed the end of it all,” said Ricky.

“The end of what, now?” said Dan.

“The end of science, Dan. ‘Cus there aint no Einstein in the world could figure out how that fat man could fit inside that tiny, four-wheeled, two-doored doohickey,” said Ricky.

Dan tossed his head back laughing and slapped his knee over and over and then smacked Ricky’s shoulder and the two of them pulled it together as the man from the car came near.

“What can we do ya for,” Ricky said to the man. 

“Well, I’ve got a flat,” said the man.

Ricky bit his lip.

“I bet you do,” Dan said into his shoulder.

Ricky nudged Dan with his elbow.

“Sir, I have got to know,” said Ricky. “What do you call that thing?”

“What do you mean?” said the man.

“I mean – what is it?” 

“Why, it’s called a smartcar,” said the man. 

“Ricky’s eyes went searching heavenward and then fell back back at the man.

“A smartcar, you say?” he said. He was nodding.

“Yes, a smartcar. Can you fix my tire?”

“Let me ask you somethin’,” said Ricky.

“Okay,” said the man.

“Do you think that that there car — that right there –”

He pointed at the car.

“— is the smartest car —”

“— for you?”

The man turned red faced and tense.

“Cus —” said Ricky.

“Easy, Ricky,” said Dan.

“Cus that there is a tiny little car —”

“Ricky,” cautioned Dan.

“ — For such a bigassed man!” said Ricky.

The man swung at Ricky and the latter jumped back and the man fell to the ground with his momentum. 

Ricky looked down at the man

“Dan!” said Ricky.

“Yessir,” said Dan. 

“Let’s get this smartcar fixed right up.”

“Ten-four, yessir,” said Dan. “I’ll grab the jack.”

“Dan!” said Ricky. “Look at that car!”

“Yessir,” said Dan.

“We don’t need no jack,” said Ricky.

The man stood and brushed himself off and took a beer from the six pack and a cigarette from Dan and sat in one of the lawn chairs as the boys fixed the tire. When all was done he shook Dan’s hand and eyed Ricky and Ricky smiled and bid him well. The man drove away.

Ricky and Dan sat back in their chairs and each opened a beer and they shared a cigarette.

“What a damned day,” said Ricky.

“What a damned day,” said Dan.

RERUM CONCORDIA DISCORS

The white-coats split their skulls

on atoms and they will

never know how rich 

 is the whole twisted thing.

The chosen ones?

But they, too, 

lay down their souls

for answers.

Philosophers,

how far you are from Greece,

having traded your discovery

— for what?

Prestige and meat.

But we know, you and I, 

the meaning of 

the moon and sky, 

the undulating mountains 

and the endless sea,

the depth of black,

the sphinx.

How they mock us,

and how beautiful.

The Penny Thing

A country store off highway 82 in Somerset, Kentucky, whitewashed and sunworn with a hand-painted sign naming it just what it is. A man of twenty stood at the counter with one hand raised so as to deny the pennies offered him as change for his purchase of a cold drink on a hot day.

“You can put the pennies in the penny thing,” he said.

An old man on the counter’s other side roostered his head. “What penny thing?”

“The thing where you put the pennies you don’t want.”

“The pennies who don’t wont?” said the old man.

“Well, I guess right now it’s the pennies I don’t want.”

“What in tarnation?” said the old man. “You ‘spect me to have a special cup just for the pennies you don’t want? Hell, what else? My daughter’s too old for ya.” He smirked. “Better lookin’ too.”

“Nossir,” said the young man. “It’s for the pennies nobody wants.”

The old man pondered that for a moment.

“Ya see that, young man?” He pointed to a box of candy bars beside the register.

“I do.”

“What is it?”

“Those are Twix,” said the young man.

“Thas right. Ya see, I put the Twix right there because everybody wants the Twix. And now you’re askin’ me to replace the Twix with a cup full of things nobody wants?” The old man smiled.

“Well,” said the young man. “If it matters, I don’t much care for Twix.”

“Well!” The old man smacked his knee and pointed groundward. “‘Member, kid. You can do down there for lyin’ same as ya can for stealin’.” He winked.

“I don’t like caramel,” said the young man.

“Hell fire, kid! Don’t mean much. You don’t like your money either!”

“Fine,” said the young man, extending his hand. “I’ll take the pennies.”

“You cain’t have the pennies!” said the old man.

“What are you going to do with them?”

The old man patted his pocket and change jingled.

“And if somebody else come along don’t want their money, I’ll put that in my pocket too. Hell, I’ll change my sign out front to read, BRING ME YER UNWANTED LINCOLNS. Cordin’ ta you, I might get richer than the man who invented tha Twix.”

Mondays

The day had been long and hot and the two men had ten blocks of marble to channel and blast from the earth before its end. Or so they were told by the quarry president, Mr. Mead, before he left for a Florida beach. One of the quarrymen relayed this fact to another as the latter wallowed in the impossibility of the task.

“Yea,” he said. “He wouldn’t know it if it took ‘till Monday. He’s on vacation. Cuba, I think. Or Mexico. Somethin’ like that. Somethin’ exotic. He’s an exotic fella, you know. That hat. The way he wear that hat cocked? I take ‘em for an exotic fella. Anyway. Yea, wouldn’t know it if it took ‘til Monday.”

“Vay-cation?” said the other man.

“Yea. Somethin’ exotic.”

“Well.” He pondered the idea. “I oughta take me a vacation.” He waved his hand and watched it and what he saw and what he wanted the other man to see was the wake of his hand in the immense cloud of dust that hung over the quarry like some gas emitted from a noxious substance at its bottom. “Ocean’d be good for the innards.”

‘Tellin me!”

“Then’gen, come to think of it,” said the other. “I need a real vacation. A —”

He was cut off. “You thinkin’ Mexico, ain’t ya? A senorita.”

“No no,” he said. “I don’t mean no siesta from the stone and the wife and the rascals but a real damned break from just evah-ree-thang.” He swung at the wedge he was channeling and advanced it an eighth inch or so into the stone. “Know what I mean?”

The quarryman squinted at the sun and back at the other. He did not know what the other man meant and stated so.

“I mean a vacation, dammit. Not just a break to somewhere I ain’t ever been but a total goddamned blackout. A downright vay-cay-tion.” He rolled his eyes downward and nodded on each syllable, addressing the earth, as if this somehow lent gravity to his point. You know, like a coma. A total darker’n hell midnight without a soul to make a sound kind of nothingness for a while. How’s that?”

“That’s nutsier’n hell is what that is,” said the quarryman. His brow furrowed and he struggled to come out with: “ya cain’t be nothin’ for just a while. If you’re nothin’ ya nothin’ dead-to-rights, full-boat and done with and that’s forever to the end of it all.”

“Nah,” he said. “Well, hell, I don’t know. I just mean you’d think it bein’ the twentieth century and all. Oughta be an option. Temporary suicide, I reckon. You know, just be able to off yourself for a lil’ while. Take a load way the hell off, ya know?”

“I know you’re nutsier’n hell,” said the quarryman. “And I mean it too. But if you’re thinkin’ thataway, I reckon we do need a break. Let’s get back at it on Monday.”

“Yea, ok,” said the other. He took off his hat and slapped it over his knee so as to clear it of dust and then returned it to his dome and sighed. “Monday, Monday, Monday — Oh, Monday, what if ya just didn’t come?”

Ole Blue

He rounded the bend of Ladd Landing Way at its intersection with the I-40 on-ramp as the patrons of a nearby fuel station scanned about for what housed the raucous engine. His ‘95 Oldsmobile, baby blue all save for rust, sputtered like a dying man up the hill to the stop sign with a load of scrap metal which like the limbs of a wintered tree stuck out from three windows and its trunk.

“C’mon now!” He smacked the car’s side as one might a difficult horse.

“If ya don’t wanna stop for that sign, Ole Blue, I won’t blame ya fer it!”

The engine bellowed and heaved and the Oldsmobile bucked through the intersection and across the lot of the fuel station but overshot the target pump by five yards and there it died.

“Hot damn if you could hit a tunnel with a train, Blue! Shit.”

He shifted the transmission to neutral, opened the creaking door and stood. Other patrons snickered and jeered. He rounded the car’s front and placed his hands on the hood so as to push the Oldsmobile back within reach of the hose. He acknowledged his spectators as they eyed his peculiar load.

“She thinks she’s a damned pickup, folks. I just don’t have the heart ta tell ‘er any different. You?”

Philosophical Pessimism

Here