—YOU WIN AGAIN

On the Way to See Dad

 

I took an Uber to your funeral. The driver was eating a carcass of some sort, his face bleeding motor oil across the steering wheel. He was robed and everything smelled like grease and regret.

He kept trying to tell me something or warn me but his voice sounded like 

chowder or the gibberish a phantom might moan when there is no more human flesh left to eat. 

He wasn’t in any hurry and you were still dead and I really wanted to be sorry but there were maggots poking through the headrest wiggling their gluey blind eyes at me. 

When I leapt out of the car on 1-5, half the vehicle was aflame, the driver’s torso smoldering black tar. For a brief moment, the smoke broke apart in the shape of a face that could have been yours or anybody’s.   

 

—YOU CAN’T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT

 

…I know what I want right now—a freshie.

 

…Why is there that instinct to make things seem better than they are? Maybe it’s optimism? I sure wish I had that gene.

 

…He was embarrassed by this—his need to be needed.

 

…Till the stars grow cold…

 

…I’ve got a good feeling you’re going to be just fine.

 

…I just hope you like it.

 

…And in the end, it’s you—fork high, eating eggs that kill me. 

 

--Am I fucked up?

--100 percent.

 

…Or…maybe you can just stop being such a Dick.

 

…That’s it? That’s all you’ve got? Really? 

 

…Maybe I am a charity case.

 

…I could do without some memories.

 

…That’s how you know.

 

…“She’d forgotten this sound existed. A sound she loved.” Eric Puchner, The Dream State

 

…I looked, and it’s still sunny out somewhere.

 

…Sometimes you don’t know how good, or bad, those apples are until you get home and open up the bag.

 

…“It was dark, like always, but good dark.”

 

…That’s a sign, if I ever saw one.

 

…Every space has its boundary. Sounds kind of heebe jeebe, but I think it’s actually true,

  

…Yeah, I got it. With my eyes closed, I got it.

 

…Whatever you do, don’t rub your eyes.

 

…This looks like an ambush.

 

--Okay, what’ve we got here? 

--Another Dick? 

--Shocker.

…Everyday in the How-the-Hell-Can-He-Get-Away-With-That? category, there’s something. Today’s:

Dell inks $9.7 billion Pentagon contract after Trump acquires stock, praises company Ethics experts say the president’s recent investments in the tech company create a conflict of interest. Trump has repeatedly praised the company at public events, and government disclosure forms show that on Feb. 10 his portfolio acquired stock in Dell Technologies valued between $1 million and $5 million.

 

…What’s The Four Minute Rule?

 

…Five out of ten is not that great.

 

…When you’re told something you’ve created is “stunning,” it’s hard not to believe they’re lying.  

 

…Do I really need to hear that?

 

…Go get some coffee, Doug.

 

…Give it up for the team.

 

…It’s hard not to take it personally.

 

…“I know what I want to say, but it’s hard. I’ve been trying to say it for weeks now. They’re just words, but it’s so hard.” Lisa Ridzen, When the Cranes Fly South

 

…I’m learning to embrace Goodbye.

 

…Muscle memory is overrated.

 

…Every time I close my eyes I just see you written in big lights. You know what it says? ‘Stop making this hurt.’

 

…I got a rash on my face from what you wrote.

 

…Granta is one the most esteemed print literary journals there is. Each year they hold a contest, The Commonwealth Prize for best short fiction. This year there were 7,800 (!) entries and the winner was later found to have used AI to write the entire piece.

That’s pretty bleak on a lot of levels.

 

…Is a handful okay?

 

…This way breath. This way life. Through here.

 

…“Believe me when I tell you that everything is temporary. Everything. There’s not a thing in this world that will not change, including you.” Alexis M. Smith, Glacier

 

…I woke up with a hat full of leaves.

 

…What did you think was going to happen?

 

…"If you can find joy playing to nine people in a bar, that never leaves you," Jack Antonoff

 

…Doesn’t matter who you are—no one likes to be second-guessed.

 

…Well, that’s going to go down soon, just like the sun does when you’re south of the border,

 

...I’m not too worried about that, but maybe I should be.

 

…When I was talking about balance earlier, I meant a tray with lots of drinks on it.

 

--Look at those guys. They have to be drug-dealers, right?

--And I bet they’re very good at their job.

 

...“It’s a strange product of infatuation, she thinks, to want to tell someone about mundane things. The awareness of another person suddenly sharpens your sense, so that the little things come into focus and the world seems more beautiful and complicated.” Alexis M. Smith, Glacier

 

…I’m aware that my memory lets me down from time to time.

 

…Sometimes I just need to have a little rest.

 

…I don’t know what "really bad" means anymore.

 

…How hard can it be to just tell the truth?

 

…There, that’s the last one.

 

…What did you think? That everything would just go back to normal?

 

…Silence is about the only weapon I have now.

 

…Always push “Save.”

 

…You always knew more about that sort of thing than me.

 

…Stop being such an idiot.

 

…Is it normal to take this long?

 

…I think your census must be wrong.

 

…All these fucking bridges.

 

…I get that, that ground pepper means different things to different people.

 

…“I’m lying here, about to die, and I just don’t know.” Lisa Ridzen, When the Cranes Fly South

 

…I hope you find your way, friend.

 

…That’ll have to do.

—THROW AWAY THE COBWEBS AND THE SORROW

 

 

Plastic

 

Sometimes you don’t 

know how good the apples are 

until you take them home 

and open up the bag, 

is what she said to me 

after we’d had three years

and twelve days together.

Our cat, named Socrates, 

looked up at her with

a metallic glint, evil or otherwise,

and I felt ambushed 

by the love I thought I still held.

There were children 

laughing in the hall—

gibberish sounds, like God

snoring or chuffing at the

same time. Some kid stole 

the flagpole, hoping to

hock it for twenty bucks 

or to resurrect a future.

We were still in bed then,

caterpillared like content cocoons,

poor but rich as fuck, 

you jabbering in your sleep again—

Give that girl a drink!—

as everything crackled and shrank

like the plastic on a hot day 

we would never get back.

—WHO’S THE GOOD GUY IN THIS STORY?

 

Sweater

 

I think of that too 

especially on Mother’s Day

Mom stuffing us inside 

the station wagon and 

peeling gravel pinging

off metal as if she’d become

some kind of stunt driver 

Dad still standing at the 

window in his urine-stained 

white underwear waving 

like a phantom or wax figure 

the husk of us wondering

what now what again 

what are we are we even 

what people call a family 

and can you have one 

if you live in a trailer

until the next day when 

Mom drove home and 

parked the coffin-car sideways 

and Dad met us before any

door was opened wearing a sweater 

though he’d owned one 

and never would again.

 

—I DIDN’T KNOW I WAS BROKEN TIL I WANTED TO CHANGE

 

 

…“Darling, I’m afraid you are very wrong.” Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe

 

…Another civilization might think, “This is the way to go!”

 

…You don’t have to tell me whatever it is.

 

…You can never go wrong being gracious.

 

…What happened to us, anyway?

 

…Love me or leave me, that’s as good as it’s going to get.

 

…That wasn’t supposed to be it, but at least we don’t have to carry that anymore.

 

…You don’t want to do that right now, or anymore, or ever again, trust me.

 

…Some people still trust me.

 

…There’s always the restroom window.

 

…Author’s Note: Nothing I post here on Friday’s, or any day, is necessarily chronological or actually true.

 

…It’s your call.

 

…I could people watch all day.

 

…It could be weather-beaten skin or just a well-lived life staring back at you smiling.

 

…I can’t remember what I was trying to remember.

 

…It’s called fiction. How much more is there to understand?

 

…“How had she known what parts of herself to change?” Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe

 

…I think I’m getting confused about what’s real and what isn’t.

 

…It doesn’t matter what it is, only that I don’t know it.

 

…I keep thinking things would be different if I had a dog whistle, but, nope.

 

…There’s nothing more precious in the entire world than a three-year-old girl dancing by a water fountain.

 

…See, before all that, you didn’t know I’m an idiot.

 

…Sometimes I don’t even know why I’m crying.

 

....“It’s the greatest pain and the greatest love you’ll ever know.” Margo’s Got Money Troubles, Rufi Thorpe.

 

...Some stories never die and some do. It’s a lucky thing either way to ever have had a story. 

 

…Words can be made hollow, and once they’re hollow, anything can be done with them.

 

…The good and the bad, they always seem to arrive tangled up together.

 

…There’s The Breakfast Club and then there’s Wednesday Morning Club. It’s not even close, which one was more epic.

 

…I feel like I’m taking too long to get to the point.

 

…Maybe I’ll have an answer in a few months, or years, or never, which would be an answer.

 

…How could I be so blind? Even after cataract surgery?

 

…Without context art is just art, a different kind of art.

 

…I have to admit, I’m really sad to lose that coat.

 

…It’s amazing what you don’t find if you aren’t looking for it.

 

…If you fall in love with a book, is it the character(s) or the author you fall in love with?

 

…How do we find a way not to waste all that?

 

…Someone told me I should keep these Friday posts more succinct, so I’m going to try that. Just this once, anyway. I’ll keep the other 32 pages on my desktop for later.

 

…If you’re not careful, you’re going to get stuck here all night.

 

…It’s gonna be a bright, bright sun-shiny day.

 

—IT KEEPS ME RUNNING

 

 

Don’t Just Stand There

 

     This morning, I read an article in The Bismarck Tribune entitled, “How to Have a Difficult Argument.” 

     I ate a peyote button beforehand but didn’t tell a soul, not even the pooch who knew too much already.

     For once, the words made perfect sense—laid out like steps to a ladder. My wife was standing right there beside me at the stove as I repeated certain parts and phrases, her slapping my head with a spatula as if we were both in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon.

     I knew then that I’d been trying too hard to love her, to make her love me again after all I’d done, because now it was just sand down there, the Gobi, everything dry as an iguana taking its last gasp.

     She said, “Jesus son,” and smacked me again like my mom would when she walked the trailer topless and I failed to comment.

     I knew I loved her, though, my wife, not my mother, because fate is painted on every man’s soul somewhere.

     “I was a broken girl, you know?” my wife said chewing on a pepper sprout.

     When I reached for her hand, she actually let me take it—the gift of a lifetime or eternal forever.

     Behind us, the kettle on the burner kept whistling. It sounded like a train going somewhere we’d never been before.

 

—ALL DAY AND ALL NIGHT

 

 

The Children

 

They wanted to be loved. 

Somehow, young as they were, 

they knew love was the 

most important thing, 

as precious as an antique coin, 

far more essential to life 

than water or air, so to them 

the bombs looked like 

cherished friends or clouds perhaps, 

somehow symmetrical and gleaming

that afternoon. Each child left 

the school yard before the bell rang,

lining up, waving with their very best smiles.

 

 

      (2/28/26, Shajareh Tayyebeh^[ Elementary School