I want you to tell me everything you and Terrence knew about Whistle Wood, Bobby. Yes. Okay. I was drunk. Do you want to put a breathalyzer on me? I’m scared as hell, so we can do that and you can arrest me for driving under the influence or being out after the curfew that you won’t explain to anyone about or you could treat me like a person and talk to me, Bobby. Because I would like to talk about the man who was in my house when I came home. When I drove up here after closing up Josie’s Place, he was waiting for me outside my mud room. The lights were all on and the music was running over Terrence’s old Sony disc changer. I have lived on these four acres alone since Terrence passed, I have never been bothered by a church recruiter or even one goddamned trick-or-treater on Halloween. The place is isolated – nothing around for miles in every direction except echoes, Bobby. So you tell me who this was. Because he did not look like any of the train-jumping youths from Klamath, like your deputies have been suggesting and he was not a ‘dope-head’ or anyone else desperate and looking for a fix. We could hear the high school football announcer the whole time. Football games are long right? I mean to say, he wasn’t in a hurry. He wasn’t rough with me either. His hair was dark and slicked and his shirt and pants were pressed. But he was young. And really sad. Like he’d been gone from home too long working a bad job and didn’t want to talk about it. The way Terrence got when the boys started going missing. This man – he kept snapping his fingers to the music on the disc changer while I cooked us steaks. Wanted it medium-rare but didn’t want me to take my attention off him either. Kept asking me if I’d promise him the next song. And when I did dance with him — I’ve never held onto anyone that needed me to hold on to them like that. I know what a dream is. He was solid and warm, and he smelled like trees in autumn. And you were just now in there Bobby, you saw that even though the furniture was all upturned and my jewelry was scattered – the only thing missing was my pictures. Photo albums. Pictures of Terrence and me. I know you loved Terrence, and I did too, but you have to know how lonely this town is, Bobby. You know what it’s like to have no one and nothing and to wake up gasping from weight on your chest – knowing you’ll never have anyone again. How do you explain that a man comes into my home and makes me feel like I’m not alone and then when he leaves, he takes the only things I had to remember my husband by? So how do you explain that this world can have manners and mysteries so hurtful as that for the few of us left behind?
Inktober Ninth. “Precious.”
Published
El Golpe Avisa 