dmseay

Just write one sentence. Put the words together in some kind of cohesive form. A statement, question, poetry, or prose, something down on paper. Something to get the ball rolling.

I sit here in the dark with nothing to say. The keyboard is in front of me waiting to be touched. If I go a day without writing, it feels like a year; I’m trying to pick up where I left off. A story about this man, or that woman, maybe a child left behind. Write about what I see, images in my head, a life that has passed me by, people met along the way, homeless shelters, psych wards, on the streets in New York, Joplin, St. Louis, Montpelier,  Montreal, Iowa City,  sleeping in parking lots, being awakened by cops and shining flashlights, driving drunk up and down I-95,  consumed by madness, leaving lovers behind. Each day writing. Recording my actions. It is art, craft, discipline, insanity. Why would one sacrifice it all for a life of writing? poverty, ruined relationships, the search for peace. Because I have to.

But tonight, there is nothing to write. I am silent. The page is blank.

Pictures on a mantle. She looks at them. Old black and whites of parents and grandparents. Of children and ladies in their youth, handsome men wearing suits. A baby picture of dad.

So long ago, she whispers. Now they’re all gone. Disease, heartache, heart attacks, and old age, we’re all doomed, I guess, she laughs. No getting out of it.

The gray-haired lady takes a seat. Rocks back and forth. I wonder when I’ll join them, she smiles. I wonder.

We all wonder. We all look at pictures on a mantle, a shelf, book cases, or tucked away in cedar chests.

My father died in my arms, she remembers. He said he felt dizzy and then collapsed in my arms. We never said goodbye.

Saltine crackers and a quarter jar of peanut butter. A container of half and half. Dirty glasses on top of the counters. The constant drip of the water faucet. Semis streak down Highway 41.

He stands in the kitchen, looking through drawers. Coffee is stirred with a butter knife. The old man sticks it in his mouth and wipes the blade clean. The hot drink is slurped.

Walter begins talking to himself as he goes over to the couch. At first, it’s mumbling, then a full-on conversation with himself. He lights a cigarette. Hands are shaking. The old man blows out gray smoke along with white air. He covers his shoulders and body in a blanket while talking to an invisible Thelma.

Where are you? Are you here? I don’t see you. Must’ve been some kind of delusion the other night. Thought I heard you. Thought I saw you. I’ve been wrong before, he inhales. Walter looks at the pictures on the wall of stick figures holding hands. He realizes it’s a drawing of Bobby and Thelma. He’s nowhere in the picture.

You loved him. Didn’t you? Walter asks the air. He told me you used to hold him at night when I was away. Did you hold onto him for too long? He takes a drink of coffee. Did you love him more than me? he waits for an answer. I remember calling you from Pittsburgh one night. Was on one of my crazy drives. The phone rang and rang and rang. Nobody answered. It was late. Round midnight. And I wondered if you two were asleep. Wondered if he was tucked away in his bed or ours. Well. Which was it? Silence.  That’s what I thought. Exactly what I thought.

In walks Bobby with a duffel bag of pot bricks. He plops the bag down by the couch and starts unloading the contents on the table. The old man is still quiet.

What’re you looking at? Bobby asks. Hey, he snaps his fingers in front of Walter’s face. Come on now. Stop staring staring into space. He pulls out a bottle of Fireball. Here. Drink up. Bobby tosses the bottle to him, and he fumbles it. The old man picks it up and begins to drink. That coffee will only get you so far. Need some gas is what you need. A little fuel. A motorcycle speeds throughout the trailer park.

I need answers, Walter says. But I’m scared to ask. I’ve never been so afraid, he takes another drink. Did you and Thelma love each other? Bobby stops unloading the bag.

What’re you getting at?

All those times I wasn’t here. Did you…

Have another drink, dad. Maybe it’ll clear your head.

Or make it foggy. I know about you two boy. I’m onto you. Bobby smacks the old man in the face. Hits him hard with the back of his hand. He reaches into his pocket and grabs a wadded up twenty, and throws it at him. He begins to leave.

You should’ve been here, dad. Should’ve been here.

The End

The table is bare. No beer cans, nor bricks of pot on it. Walter sits on the couch with his feet firmly on a floor that’s never been swept. He points the remote at the television as he does every day.  The hum of the refrigerator is getting louder, and so is the chained dog across the street. The old man sits quietly.

Light comes through the window. It is the start of a new day. Walter pulls out a cigarette and lights it. He walks into the kitchen and looks for coffee as if he’s never been in his own house. The old man slams cabinet doors above and below the cheap linoleum counters. He looks inside the coffee maker, where there are used grounds, pours water in, and waits for a pot of light brown water. The dog is getting louder, and the refrigerator stops humming; dead, broken, like everything else in the trailer. The old man waits.

In walks Bobby with bricks of pot. He doesn’t have as many this time. Only seven, neatly wrapped packages. The kid places them on the table and has a seat in the metal chair. 

Waiting on something?

You could say that, Walter replies.

You and your brown water, he pulls out a twenty, wads it up and throws it at the old man. Go get yourself a real coffee, Bobby orders. I don’t know. A Starbucks or Timmy Hortons. Hell, there’s a gas station up the street, he laughs. Get out. Get some fresh air.

Had a dream the other night. Or, a memory came to me.

Yeah. What was it?

About the first time I met Thelma.

That a fact?

Just a kid back then. Both of us were.

Well. She was dad. You were robbing the cradle.

That’s a crude way of putting it.

It’s the right way of putting it.

Really?

She used to tell me stories about you two. Driving around the country. Getting lost. I didn’t know if they were true or false.

They were true.

Figured as much. She used to hold me at night when you were at work. She’d sing songs.

Hold you huh?

Yeah. Real tight like. Did she hold you like that dad?

Like what?

Tight.

None of your business what kind of holding she did to me.

I didn’t think so. We loved each other. She said she loved me. She ever tell you that?

What do you think?

I think she loved me more.

Bobby unwraps a package of Marijuana and rolls a joint with paper from his front pocket. He lights it with a large orange torch. 

Yeah, old man. I think she loved me more.

They sat on stools at a truck stop in Wichita. She watched as he poured sugar into coffee and a good dose of cream. The young man slurped his drink while the teenage girl twisted and stirred her Coke with a straw. The girl kept looking at him, almost staring. He just kept on drinking his coffee.

Walter remembered their first meeting as he sat on the couch drinking beer and smoking a cigarette. He remembered the way her hair was down over and around shoulders that were almost frail. The old man thought about how skinny she was; not his type. But the blonde hair and green eyes got to him.

You sure are loud, Thelma laughed. Sounds like you’re inhaling that coffee, she smiled. Are you?

Am I what?

Inhaling it.

No, he said. Just enjoying it. It’s hot. Been driving all night.

Where you heading?

Nowhere. Everywhere. Just driving.

Sounds like you’re running away.

Maybe I am.

That’s what I’m doing. Running away. That’s my bag over there in the corner.

Better watch that.

Waitress said she’d keep an eye on it for me.

That’s not her responsibility.

Maybe you shouldn’t talk about responsibility. 

Walter laughed a little. Maybe you’re right.

What are you running from?

Life. My life. Sometimes, it gets so hard I have to leave. Take off. Just go. One day, I’m in Nebraska, and the next, I’m in Kansas. No maps. No compass. Just driving aimlessly. Following road signs. Seeing what’s ahead, he pulled out a cigarette and offered it to the girl. She took it, and he lit it for her with a lighter that had a bulldog on it and the word Mac.

My son picked that out, Walter said. He liked the dog on it.

You gotta son?

Yeah.

What’s his name?

Bobby.

How old?

Three.

Gotta wife?

Not sure. She might be done with me. Getting tired of the running around. Two o’clock in the morning phone calls from Indianapolis, Chicago, Albuquerque, he laughed.

You’ve been to Albuquerque?

I’ve been everywhere, darling. I might be going there now. I don’t know.

Would you like some company? Thelma asked.

Aren’t your parents looking for you?

They done gave up on me.

So has she.

The old man got up and stretched while holding his beer. Sat back down and started to cry. Memories hurt.

The night is quiet. It is early morning. Still dark. Only noise is the hum of the refrigerator. There are no dogs barking nor cats hissing. No cars without mufflers; just silent and dark. 

Thelma sits on the metal chair in front of the table. She lights a candle, giving off  an orange glow. She places her hands in her lap, then above her head, stretching her lean body. Looks at the few bricks of pot left, one tore open. She touches it and laughs. 

Stems, she says. Twigs. She spies rolling papers on the table as well and proceeds to roll a joint. This reminds her of younger days. Before she met Walter. Back when she hitched rides throughout the U.S. trying to escape something she was never quite sure of. We’re all leaving someplace or something, Thelma laughs. It’s the American way. She lights the joint with the flame from the candle, sits back in the chair, and inhales while coughing just a bit. She blows smoke into the air.

Bobby? Is that you, Bobby? Walter walks into the front room. He can barely see in front of him. Thelma blows out the candle and runs to the door. Turning the handle and stepping outside, she leaves.

Walter fumbles for the light switch and finds it. He notices the door ajar. He looks outside and sees nothing. No dogs barking nor cats hissing. No cars without mufflers. Just a streetlight flickering on and off with footprints glistening in freshly fallen snow.

A rusted Dodge Dart held together with duct tape, and Gorrila Glue pulls up in the old man’s driveway. It is dark. The porchlight is off, and street lamps flicker a hazy blue hue. Bobby gets out of the car. He lights a cigarette and pops open a beer while leaning on the hood. A squad car drives by. 

Bobby breathes in the night air. He pulls a gun from his coat pocket and checks it. He looks it over. There are bullets in the chamber. He laughs quietly as he approaches the trailer’s door. The kitchen light is on. He knocks. 

What do you want? 

Open the Goddamn door. Come on now. It’s cold out here. Bobby bangs on the door again. The old man opens it. He’s in a pair of stained boxers and a T shirt. He holds a cup in his hand that says, Wisconsin Dells on it with a picture of a water slide. When Bobby was younger, the family used to go there. This was before Walter lost his job at the steel mill. Before everything went to shit.

The kid makes his way through the doorway, pushing the old man aside. A faint smell of coffee fills the room. There is a light brown liquid in the coffeemaker. Bobby begins to laugh.

You call that coffee?

I do.

It’s just hot water dad with remnants of grounds floating around. You call that coffee?

Mind your own business.

Bobby pulls out the pistol and points it at Walter. He begins to laugh at the old man. Walter covers his ears and begins yelling nonsense. Bobby laughs harder.

I’m not going to shoot you. Just wanted to show you what I got. Also bought a car for five hundred dollars from a priest over on Broadway.

How is she?

She runs. Not pretty. But she runs. Bobby walks over to the couch and places the gun on the table. He pinches off some pot from an opened package. It’s stale. Crumbles in his fingers. You got to wrap this shit up, Bobby says. Keep it fresh. Can’t you do anything?

I don’t smoke that shit. You must have forgotten. Bobby looks at the old man and continues packing his pipe.

Twigs, the son says. This shit is no good. He opens another brick. Tears into the cellophane and takes a good amount. He bangs his pipe on the table and refills it. He lights it with a torch; a huge flame from a Zippo lighter with a red, well-endowed woman on it who has horns on her head. He calls her devil woman.

She looks like Bettie Page, dad says. The body. Looks like Bettie Page.

Who?

She did teaser movies in the fifties. Real soft core shit. Some say she went off to be a born-again Christian. Others just say she lived a quiet life in obscurity.  Who knows?

You’re not as dumb as you look old man.

How about a little respect.

Bobby looks at him and laughs. For what?

I’m your father.

You’re a bum. You live off SSI. Could never hold onto a job. Your old lady left you. Respect? 

Now. Now, there’s a reason for all that. 

Yeah. Bobby wraps the brick up tight. He picks up the gun and stands up.

Got anything for me?

The kid pulls out a twenty and hands it to him. Then pulls it away. He laughs. Here. Just take it. The old man cautiously takes the bill as Bobby takes two bricks of pot with him. He lights a cigarette and leaves. Just shakes his head and leaves.

A snowblower keeps shutting off and on at seven in the morning. Semis going up and down Highway 41 sound like waves crashing on the beach. A chained up dog barks.

Walter looks out the window at boys shoveling driveways or making a path for cars in their yards.

The bricks of pot on the table are dwindling down; some are sold, and some smoked by Bobby. Walter notices that the scale is off; broken. He sits on the couch and tries to adjust them. He grows more and more frustrated at the busted apparatus. He picks it up and throws it against the wall, breaking it into bits and pieces.

Nothing works, the old man says. Junk. That’s all we have in this house. Junk, he kicks a beer can across the floor. Bobby knocks on the door and enters before the old man can get up to answer. It.

What a fucking mess, Bobby says. He sees the busted scale. What did you do?

Damn thing doesn’t work.

I could’ve fixed it.

Why didn’t you?

Listen. I’m in charge of this operation.  What I say goes. Just don’t touch anything. Hear me? Leave shit alone.

The old man mumbles incoherently. He stumbles around, looking for a cigarette and a small bottle of whiskey. 

Where are my smokes?

Gone.

You took them?

Bobby reaches in his jacket and pulls out a pack. He tosses one to the old man.

A thank you would be nice.

Thank you.

Snowblowers have stopped. The dog continues to bark. Kids are throwing snowballs. Bobby and Walter look at the nearly empty table.

It’s almost all gone. What have we got to show for it?

Bobby shakes his head and pulls out a hundred dollar bill. The old man smiles.

We’re rich, says Walter.

Yeah. We’re rich.

No one is home. No lights are on. On top of the table sits ten blocks of Marijuana tightly wrapped in cellophane. Next to it, scales and small sandwich baggies. Bobby enters the trailer. 

Dad? Hey, dad. Where are you? He turns on a light and sees the pot laid out on the table. Hey, Pop. Come out, come out wherever you are, Bobby laughs. He sits on the couch and unwraps a brick of buds. He smells it, tears off a little, and pulls a pipe out of his jacket. He packs it loosely and lights the green pieces of plants. Dad? He inhales. Get out here. Come on now. Gotta sample the product. Bobby takes another hit. Dad?

The old man comes home. He looks at Bobby, who is still sitting on the couch staring into space.

Boy? Are you stoned? Bobby looks up at him. He nods his head and hits the pipe on the table. Shouldn’t be doing that, Walter tells him. That’s money you’re wasting there, boy. Bobby packs another round.

The old man sits next to Bobby and picks up the remote. He fumbles it around in his hand, drops it, and bends over to get it. Points it at the TV. Damn thing.

Bobby laughs. You’re still trying to make it work, aren’t you? The old man pushes harder on the remote.  It’s broken, dad. The screen is busted. You can’t see that? The old man still points at the screen. I’ve told you a million times.

Bobby, Walter says. If poverty teaches you anything, it’s endurance.

The old man is stretched out on the couch. Sleeping. Snoring. Bobby is asleep on the floor with empty beer cans around him.

Thelma comes in through the front door. She notices both men passed out. The older woman takes a seat on the metal folding chair. Thelma picks up a beer can and examines it. She notices the ashes on the lip of it. Some kind of makeshift ashtray. She laughs quietly. Can’t even afford a real ashtray, she says. She looks again at both her son and her husband. Like father like son, she smiles and stands. She walks to the door and looks back at them. Damn shame, Thelma cries. Damn shame. She closes the door.

She was here, Walter says. I can smell her. He sits up straight.

What’re you talking about?

Thelma. Your mom. She was here.

You dreamt that, Bobby says and lights a cigarette.  Besides. We’ve got something important to discuss.

What’s that?

Aren’t you tired of being poor?

Have been all my life.

Now is the time to do something about it.

What? What are you talking about?

Turning this place into a goldmine. Selling pot.

The old man shakes a couple of Old Style cans and finds one half filled. He drinks the warm beer and points at Bobby. Don’t get any ideas, boy. I don’t want this place turned into a crack house.

No. That’s not what I’m saying. Marijuana is legal in the surrounding states, but illegal here. Folks don’t want to drive to Michigan or Ohio or Illinois to get their fix. They’d much rather buy it from somebody here in town, the kid says. There’s always cops just over the state line waiting to bust these people. If they come here to the trailer, they don’t have to worry about that.

Right. I suppose.  I still don’t want any crackheads around the place. This is my home. Why don’t you do it at your place? asks the old man.

Too obvious. Cops would catch on. The trailer is perfect, Bobby looks at his dad. This is our chance, old man. This is it. I got money saved up for a large purchase.  Good stuff. Grown in a hothouse down in Kentucky. These folks will eat it up.

You gonna advertise?

Spread it by word of mouth. You’ll see. And when we get enough money, we’ll leave this dump. What do you say?

You know. Thelma was here this morning. She was here.