BANG OUT

In the New Year, fast forward, we gather, all of us middle weathering, a reunion of sorts, it would’ve been hot had it not been for Joe’s funeral. Drowned. What a way to go, someone says, as if any way is a good way. We eat honey cake at the altar, dropping crumbs intentionally into the casket. We are all miners without a parakeet and headlamps. What we need most is a time machine. Go back to the beginning of the story where the color blue was everyone’s favorite color and the multiplication of numbers our biggest concern. We are all love-crossed carpenters, not the kind that builds buildings or the savior of the world, more like hangovers and migraines. This new quiet broke. We were each other’s first love and loss. Listen, this isn’t rocket science. We’re not bad dogs. We all need miracles as I see it, yes, and an encore after the curtain falls. We throw mementos into the river. A rabbit’s foot, his favorite green sweater, and a toy dog with three legs, a few bright coins for luck. We chuckle at the sight of the dog flying through the air. In sixth grade, a three-legged Dachshund attacked Joe. Oh, the stories we could tell. Sometimes a good story says nothing of consequence. But consequence is what we carry, pull out of our pockets in the middle of the night and throw into the river, in the middle of our lives, we’re all a long way from the arms of a good woman, a short way from hell and hunger, a black cat and superstitions, but while we can, we whisper under starlight, next to a black river with the unlikely magic of Joe, grade-school and all the days in-between, looking on.




Copyright © Sean Mclain Brown, 2010