Ok fine, I’ll take a shower

Mad yet full of giggles, Gibby stomps his way to the tub. Stepping over the porcelain lip into the spray, he scrunches his eyes as water falls from his brow onto thin shoulders. Sudsy nose and red assed, he sings at the top of his lungs. He steps out, dries off, squeals, runs for the underwear drawer and hops into Ninja underwear. He throws his wet towel on the bed. Unclear on the Ninja credo he yells to his older sister, “Lucy it’s your turn to take a bath."

The baton passes to the Buddha with a short fuse. Her lips move as she silently reads. She looks up, rolls her eyes and mulls over things she could be doing rather than bathing. She could learn about lizards, learn to sew, cook, or speak Spanish, but no, she must waste time on bathing. She says, “Great, just great” and closes the bathroom door behind her and draws a bath.

Wheezy War Cry

It’s the night before deer season opens, and Brad sits at the kitchen table to eat 
and clean his gun. While clearing the barrels to prevent misfire, he eats a dinner of two Big Macs and large fries. More than just tasty, the fats will stick to his ribs tomorrow in the frigid mountains.

At 3:00 AM they start the trip they used to travel every year to the Desolation Wilderness.

Doughnuts and coffee flow as the oversized jeep climbs the mountainside. More than a reunion of old friends, this trip is a test to see if Brad can still bag an 8-point buck.   

They arrive at camp as darkness leeches the last moments of night.

They go their separate ways.

Brad labors through the dense forest to his favorite spot from years ago. The altitude makes him short of breath, and the twigs snapping under his boots break the quiet. He doubts there is a deer within a mile now.   

Brad sits against a pine tree to rest and drink water. A nearby brush rustles.

He spots a buck yards away. The creature looks up from his chew and doesn’t dart. At peace, he stares Brad in the face.

Sunlight peeking over the ridge backlights the gorgeous beast. Brad smiles and pulls the trigger. The deer falls, and his last breath joins the mountain air.  

Brad let’s out a wheezy war cry, and tries to position the buck to carry it up the steep ravine. When he reaches the top, he’ll radio his buddies to get help. As he tries to drag the carcass, he realizes it will take at least two men.

A quick thinker, and never a fan of venison, Brad only wants the head and antlers, so he pulls out his knife. The sun shines on his blade and makes him squint. Beheading quickly becomes impossible, and again he notices his labored breathing.

Brad's chest is filled with muddy gears trying to gnash. He wonders if someone has turned his own knife on his heart, but nothing except the dead deer is within a mile of him. He tries to lift himself off the warm buck, but the cold air on his skin mixes with the heat of slow blood, and confuses him. He collapses. 

A whir he can’t hear enters his ears, and a strong breeze tosses his hair.

 He is a limp carcass strapped to a stretcher being carried to a helicopter. 

I write in bed.

Awake with wordy breath and ink stained pillows

Sheets gather round bedposts

Memory foam indents, waiting to forget

Imbedded in rhythm, lifting the popular song of life.

The Last Place They’ll Look

Baby aspirin for breakfast

Heads shape and shift
Concern with the phone
Voices muffle and spider plants dangle

Middle rack for a pillow
Heads become faces familiar, hidden in the stove

Snake Bite Kit.

Perfect circle hickey

On my face

Purple oozes blue

My big brother

What a dick

Halloween 1981

I am Honest Abe in my school’s fall performance titled

Lincoln: The Head Beneath the Hat. My family is thrifty so I wear the same costume for Halloween. 

Dressed as a ghost in a fitted sheet, my brother is my escort.

As long as we stay in the horseshoe-shaped housing tract with its cul-de-sac teats, we are safe.

After the first few candy bars drop into my pillowcase, I run past the next house because it’s Trevor’s house, and he and his dad scare me. Before I reach the next door I hear a rustle,  

like the sound of Sheila Stipes’ prematurely developed body as it whisks against her sweat suit in gym class.

Unfortunately it’s not Sheila, and I discover the sound is a large rock slingshotted at my jaw.

I deflate with a head full of hurt and hollow. Voices warped by warm wires arc in my mind and mock my name. I grasp the rock.

My ear bleeds down my cheek and I’m lifted into a wood- paneled hearse that doubles as our Plymouth station wagon.

To this day, when I come across that rock in my old stuff,

I remember there is a John Wilkes Booth Jr. still running amok.