Diary of a Chronic Masturbator, 4-6-08

Much as I'd like to think after nineteen and a half years of junkyard dogging that I'd be able to say I know myself, I clearly don't. I thought when I masturbated this morning, it would relieve that growing pressure at the back of my skull. I'd gone nine days, I told myself. Nine days feels like a year when you're normally smoking three packs a day, if you catch my drift.

It all started as a bet that we brazenly copped from Seinfeld. My motives were misguided and muddled. I should have been in for the sake of competition, the desire to prove to my peers that I was the most manly. Instead, I just wanted an incentive to cure my own disgusting habits. In that context, nine days was more than enough.

But now that I've done the dirty deed, I feel like a man who's come in last place. Because once I admit that Mark didn't put his heart into the contest, it's apparent that I did come in last place. I'd lost sight of the competition and I regret it. My desire to be the best may be nothing more than a desire to have my ego stroked. Yet to bottle up this desire is to be able to push myself to greater things.

Therefore, I demand a second act. Although I am formally eliminated from the contest, I have begun Phase 2: a contest with myself. The stakes are higher than a mere ten dollars here. I risk sending my ego into a freefall from which it will never recover.

Needless to say, I plan to chronicle my adventures and misadventures here at FI. Stay tuned for further entries in Diary of a Chronic Masturbator

The primary objective, or: How I learned to stop worrying and love my balls

In my first blog post, I'd like to clarify my objective on this blog. In reading on FI and its predecessor, HB, I noticed an extremely positive trend: masculine chest-pounding.

Let's look at Lee the Agent. Over the years this scholar has pushed masculinity to an extreme. In his final post on HB, he describes a character holding a satchel with just a crowbar, a coil of rope, and a revolver. Now add a bottle of Jack, and that's my overnight bag! A recent story of his featured a character carrying around what sounded like a delicious prostitute fillet. Lee the Agent, as Ludacris might ponder, what you got in that bag?! Bravo, sir.

Since writing a final post on HB in which he pondered how to achieve alpha male status, the Junkyard Dog has found a way: satire! A recent story showed hilariously how a couple who discouraged their son to join the Army got their just desserts when their son was killed, his body never returned to them. His corpse is America's property now, bitches!

Don't worry Junkyard Dog, many great writers have grappled with this issue before. Chuck Palahniuk, notable author, and my hero (second only to this guy), had a serious crisis on his hands. He, sadly, was a faggot. Now, I know what you're thinking. You read a book by a faggot? Doesn't that make you a faggot? Hold on, gentlemen. Palahniuk's characters are almost always twenty to thirty-something men searching for some way to achieve masculinity while they aggressively fuck women. This is honorable. For years I've been proclaiming that even if you are gay or some kind of minority, you can always work your way to earn respect among the ranks of true men, by sanitizing your identity to appear more like us. We'll still ridicule you endlessly for where you come from, but you're a good sport, right?

Other authors have tried but failed to achieve the task of manhood. Don't be fooled by weak losers like Earnest Hemingway. He drove an ambulance in World War I. Seriously, Ernie? War's for killing, and one of the few true arenas of masculinity we have left. If you're not gonna fight, don't ruin the fun for the rest of us.

In books like For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway's main character falls in love with some Spanish ho, a "rape victim" who clearly wanted it from the rambling fascist armies. Although I can forgive this character for falling into the trap of love, I can hardly forgive him for statements like when he claims the earth moves when he makes love to this woman. Well the earth only moves for me about a minute after sex, relative to the burning tires of my Chevy Camaro as I escape the scene.

To pick up where Hemingway lamely left off when he woke up one morning and ate his breakfast out of a shotgun, I will solve your crisis of masculinity. I have been doing some reading and have solved my own, with the help of literary heavyweights like Tucker Max and Maddox. Seriously, having an X in your name is awesome. So without further adieu (believe me, that is the last French word you will find in my posts), I present my first tip for great men.

I've been sleeping in my clothes a lot lately. This is a recipe for manliness. Watch any action movie, and you will notice that the hero does a lot of things with his clothes on that a normal man does with his clothes off, like swimming or having a conversation with a woman.

While some may find doing these things uncomfortable not stripped to their bare caveman essentials, I think it shows a certain machismo. A man needs to be constantly pretend to be civilized so he can trick the rest of society, i.e. women, children, and faggots, into serving his manly needs.

You may think I'm over-analyzing this trend. After all, action heroes need to keep their clothes on so movies where they rip people's spinal columns out through their throats are safe for the whole family. But consider the trend's implications.

People often argue that Jeff Buckley's death was a suicide, because he drowned after going to swim with his clothes on. I say he was trying to be manly to make up for his ninny, whining "rock" albums. Now you may say, hey, Jeff Buckley was a beautiful person, a talented musician with a four-octave voice range! I say people who use words like "octave" ought to be punched in the voice box. And you're right, Jeff was a great guy. It takes a true hero to rob the world of such "talent."

So while the male norm used to be trying to remain pantless and shirtless at all times, I say keep your clothes on. Yeah, it may show true disgust for the woman you live with when it's six oclock at night and you still aren't dressed, letting the milk from you frosted flakes dribble down your bare chest and into your boxers as you watch Two and a Half Men (isn't Charlie Sheen the coolest?). But she'll be even more freaked when you refuse to take your clothes off, even during coitus. It says, hey, I never let my guard down, especially not for you, bitch.

And you'll always be ready in a true test of masculinity, like if a minority tries to rob you in the middle of the night. You'll be sharp and intimidating in a full suit, looking like you just came back from your high-powered job and ready to start a fight. Plus, then he has no way of ridiculing you for your inferior-sized junk, which hey, man, is just genetic and can't be helped. But don't worry, that's what these tips are for.

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I Guess You'll Do
a country love song by Dan Panno

Weeeeellll

I saw her walkin’ over she was lookin’ pretty fine,
She said she wouldn't do me even if she were mine,

So I went on to the next one and I looked at her and said,
Would like to take a drink with me or give me some...

Head on to the third one, I was lookin’ pretty desperate,
Began to talk to her before I realized I’d messed up,

It was then that I realized she wasn't lookin’ good,
But I figured it wouldn’t be so bad if I made her wear a hood,

Iiiiiiiiiii saaaaaid,
Well I guess you'll do!
Come on into the loo,

We'll get all down and dirty,
Even though your hole is thirty,

Cause I Guess you'll do!
Dear God let’s drink more brew,

I'll need all kinds of therapy,
Just because your face is scarin’ me…

(Here's when we go into a talking part)

"What? You have a sister?"

Weeeeeell
I guess you'll do...too!
Everything’s better in twos,

Your face should be a goddamned sin,
At least you don’t have a…twin?

The Renaissance Man

The news came in intermittent bursts of ringing telephones. The Freeman-Parker household had received two phone calls from the military that evening.

“You would think,” Mr. Freeman-Parker began, “that they would think that we would get the point. ‘Your son didn’t come back from the skirmish. We can’t find his body. Blah blah blah.’ I get it already!”

Ms. Parker-Freeman, busy darning a pair of socks, paused to look at her husband. There were creases on her face that Mr. Freeman-Parker did not recognize.
“Tom hasn’t telephoned in three days,” she said, “Do you think…”

“Preposterous,” said Mr. Freeman-Parker, “The boy is in North Carolina, not Tehran. He doesn’t have the brains to concoct such absurd fictions.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker rose from his chair, hoping the telephone would not ring again. The thought of it made him feel light-headed. He walked out into their study room, a room which contained no less than thirty-seven clocks. The clocks were neatly ordered, nestled into crannies between picture frames, looming above windows. The nine digital clocks were stacked in columns of three on top of a black oak dresser. Between two potted plants that hung from the ceiling stood a seven-foot high grandfather clock, its gold pendulum paused in anticipation. Mr. Freeman-Parker, sometimes unable to sleep late at night due to a general excitement about life, would often enter this room just to calm himself with the resonant quarter-hour gongs of the old grandfather clock.

“It’s eleven-twenty-three, my dear,” Mr. Freeman-Parker announced, returning to the reading room, “Perhaps it is time we retire.”

“Yes, but will those awful men ever stop calling?”

Mr. Freeman-Parker moved over to the wall and removed their fire-red phone from its jack.

“All they’ll be calling is a hole in the wall.”

The night was notable only because the couple did not make love. Despite their aristocratic pretensions, Mr. & Ms. Freeman-Parker both shared the viewpoint that the human being was inherently sexual, a device intended to harness the finer sensualities of life. For this worldly couple, there was a certain understanding that the primary needs of mammals were nothing more than sex and food. And thus this proto-aristocratic family, a lawyer and a doctor, respectively, ravished themselves with the tastes of fine wines and exotic cheeses. In the bedroom, they explored position after position, the thirst for discovery never satiated. It had to do with a unique comprehension of privilege, an understanding that they possessed things that other people would sell their souls for. Why be the man who has everything except happiness?

Their lone child, Tom, never seemed to partake in their refined philosophies and ways of doing things. He was by all accounts an average student and preferred Big Macs to haute cuisine. As a result, there was always a disconnect between parents and child. It was probably nothing more complicated than teenage rebellion, a desire imparted upon Tom by his peer group to do things 'differently.' But because the Freeman-Parkers had everything, especially happiness, they assumed their child was ill when just after high school graduation, he informed them that he was off to join the Army.

"We hate the military," pronounced Ms. Parker-Freeman.

"If I wanted someone to die for my country, I'd do it myself," offered Mr. Freeman-Parker.

Tom, his eyes pointing at the ground, said only "Someone has to keep the country safe."

"Well, Tom, this is where college would really help with your uninformed outlook," said Ms. Freeman-Parker. "Our country is perfectly safe. War is only valid if the very existence of our country is being called into question."

"The Civil War, perhaps, is an example?" said Mr. Freeman-Parker, now openly reading the Wall Street Journal.

"I’d say the Revolutionary War is the only example. The Civil War would have re-shaped the country, divided it into two, but us Northerners could still have had our piece of the pie."

Later that week, after Tom had long since packed his bags and departed for the train station, the Freeman-Parkers continued to politely bicker about what qualified as a just war. They came to no solid conclusions besides one: the Iranian war was the most unjust of all.

* * *

A few weeks after Tom’s departure from the household, the fire-red telephone had begun to ring. The sound of their landline was as obnoxious as any cell phone. It buzzed with a low, flatted sound, like someone blowing through a tuba with a small, dead animal inside.

“Parker-Freeman residence,” answered Mr. Freeman-Parker.

“Hello… Dad,” said Tom, on the other line, a tremor in his voice.

Mr. Freeman-Parker sighed and walked over to his plush white chair, telephone in hand.

“Hello Tom.” If there was any tension in his mind, he failed to show it.

“I didn’t expect they would let make you any calls from Guantanamo. It’s of course nice to hear from you as always. Shall I fetch your mother? She seems to miss you.”

“No, Dad. I wanted to tell you, you were right about the Army.” Tom hesitated. “I’m at my training base. Camp Wahooie in North Carolina. Well, to tell the truth, I ditched about six hours ago.”

“What did you expect?” Mr. Freeman-Parker interrupted. “There’s a reason rich men don’t send their children off to war anymore and it’s not because of money. It’s because our sons are weak and bloodless, pampered with luxuries from a young age. I’m not surprised you’re failing to keep up.”

“It’s not that, Dad. Why don’t you put Mom on the phone?”

“I guess it takes a woman to know a woman,” said Mr. Freeman-Parker before passing on the phone to his red-faced wife. She was flapping her wrists excitedly.

“Oh Tom!” she cried.

Mr. Freeman-Parker slid open the glass door that led out to the deck. The wood was dry and chipping. It was unlike him to leave it in such a state. He would have to lay a new coat of varnish. He walked down the red side steps into his yard. The grass was kept at six inches’ length at all times during the summer. He liked to keep his feet cool and enjoyed the intermingling of nature with his skin. He walked over to an oak tree, a member of the surrounding forest that had snuck within twenty feet of the house. Leaning against its reassuring trunk, he thought about his ceaseless quest to make himself a superior human being. He felt he had rather succeeded. Tom did have potential. But the military was a dead end. Even if Tom became a general, he could hardly hope to be a Renaissance man.

Ms. Parker-Freeman stomped onto the back porch.

“You know, darling,” she said, her teeth gritted, “you nearly convinced him to return to the base. He told me he wanted to stick it to you.”

“He never sticks to anything. He dallies, but he drifts.”

“Tom didn’t leave because he couldn’t cut it, dear. He left because he feels like let us down.”

“He should feel that way. I am let down.” Mr. Freeman-Parker put a comical frown onto his face as he flopped to the grass, intending to appeal to his wife’s sense of humor.

“I know we said remorse is for the proletariat,” Ms. Parker-Freeman began.

“As is anger, sadness, depression, any negative feeling at all.”

“But I told him that this time, at least, we were wrong. I told him I regretted the imposition I put into his life. I told him that we should have been willing to hear what he had to say.” She shrugged her shoulders, not knowing what to expect from her husband, who as always, showed not even the slightest sign of perturbation.

Mr. Freeman-Parker, still sprawled in the grass, sighed.

“When’s he coming back home?”

“In a month. He says he’s going to visit some friends on the coast.”

“Perhaps I’ll write him a sonnet. Somewhat romantic, somewhat conciliatory. It should serve much better than an apology.”

“Maybe you should get your head out of your ass,” Ms. Parker-Freeman retorted. She immediately put her hand over her mouth. It was her reaction any time she engaged in a faux pas. Mr. Freeman-Parker said nothing, but began to pluck individual blades of grass from the ground.

* * *

During the month of July, the Freeman-Parkers received daily phone calls from Tom. He seemed eager to talk to both of them, even dear old Dad, who he had so frequently appeared to detest during his last year at home. He told them lavish tales of his and his friends’ adventures on the North Carolina shore; sailing on the Atlantic Ocean at dusk, counting seagulls and skipping stones into the shallow rock pools near the coast. Every anecdote pleased Mr. Freeman-Parker especially, who was convinced that his son was beginning to lead the enriched life that he himself led.

Meanwhile across the country, Army reserve units were being called to fight the new war in Iran. As there were still plenty of troops in Iraq, the military was stretched more thinly than ever. With the political climate unwilling to support drastic measures like the draft, trainees with zero combat experience were packed into helicopters and dropped onto the Arabian desert with canteens of water and thirty-five pounds of gear. Even the baby-faced troops at Camp Wahooie were summoned into action, enlisted to shore up defenses in Tehran. Although Mr. Freeman-Parker was beginning to believe that his son might even have benefited from seeing combat, assuming of course, that he returned promptly home to attend university after the war, Ms. Parker-Freeman was grateful that her boy was safe with his starched-white friends on the Atlantic seaboard, friends who were heirs to a lighthouse fortune.

One evening, as Mr. Freeman-Parker read that day’s Wall Street Journal and as Ms. Parker-Freeman worked furiously on a pair of maroon velvet socks for Tom’s Christmas present, their phone began ringing. Ms. Parker-Freeman motioned her husband to sit down, then got up herself and answered the phone. She listened calmly to whatever the person on the other line was saying, adding nothing herself. Had Mr. Freeman-Parker been observing her and not his stock portfolio, he might have noticed that she looked rather pale. Yet by the time she had set the phone back onto its receiver, she was wearing a cheery smile.

“I say, dear,” she said, “the military must never have taken our son off the rolls.”

"What's that?"

"They're saying he's gone missing."

"Like I always say, military men are only good for polishing shoes and shaving their beards. Let someone else keep the books."

The obvious hung in the air between them all that night, even as they mercilessly severed the phone from its hook. Yet neither would admit to its portent.

* * *

At around six thirty the next morning, Ms. Parker-Freeman awoke to a sharp knocking on the door. Still naked, she rushed to the door, pulling a silk bathrobe around her body. She groaned as she entered the vestibule, where through the front windows, she could clearly see the jacketed figures of two military men. Both wore rows and rows of badges, flags, and pins, meant to connote their high ranks. She had to admit, there was a certain gravitas to their presence. The man on the left had to be pushing seventy, yet he held his body firm and strong, staring into her front door without appearing to blink. The man on the right, was younger, perhaps in his forties, black. As soon as she opened the door, the man on the right began to speak, his voice stern and rich.

"We don't normally do this, ma'am -"

"But we felt that you must be in great denial to ignore our calls."

"Tom was under my command, ma'am. I'm Col. Alonzo T. Jackson." He proffered his right hand. She shook it, expecting a firm, officious handshake, yet his grasp was tender and light. A man you could die for. The thought raced through her head.

"If you don't mind me asking, Colonel Jackson, what do you, as a black man, think you're getting from the military? What did this country ever do for you, besides to treat you and your ancestors like animals?"

The older man winced. Col. Jackson stared coolly into her eyes, his expression unchanged.

"Your son is missing, Ms. Parker."

"Freeman-Parker," she corrected instinctively.

"We don't expect to find his body." Jackson put his hand on her wrist, holding it with affection.

"Tom quit the Army," she said, but she found herself beginning to weep. The other man put his hand on her shoulder.

"I'm truly sorry," he said, “Tom was one of the most courageous soldiers I’ve ever had the pleasure to command.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker’s denial was harder to shake. It certainly unnerved him to wake to the sounds of Ms. Parker-Freeman sobbing, to have his eyes open to the vision of two stern-faced officers flanking his shrieking, beloved wife. He had never seen her cry, not on their wedding day, not when Tom was born. Crying was allowed in the Freeman-Parker household only if it indicated some cathartic joy.

“Mr. Freeman-Parker. My name is Genl. Richard Woodward,” the older officer said, holding out his left hand.

Mr. Freeman-Parker shook the hand firmly and then shook the hand of Col. Jackson.

“What seems to be the matter, gentlemen?” he said. He was putting on a façade, even he could tell, but he was in unknown territory.

Col. Jackson clenched his fists as he began to speak.

“Your son, Tom. We believe he was killed in battle in Tehran, about seventeen hours ago.”

Without a change in expression, Mr. Freeman-Parker continued his questioning.

“What would he be doing in battle? He left the Army after his first week. He said it wasn’t what he expected.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, sir, nothing has been what we’ve expected these days. We’ve rushed privates into battle and seen more and more casualties each day.” It was Woodward speaking, his hands held in front of his waist.

“But Tom was special. He knew how to lead men. He was prepared for all contingencies,” offered Col. Jackson.

“Except death.”

Mr. Freeman-Parker shook his head. His wife walked over to him and lay her head on his shoulder.

“It’s all true, Edgar. They took our boy.”

Edgar. He barely recognized his birth name. Mr. Freeman-Parker held his shaking wife then, staring wide-eyed out of the bedroom window. After some time he became aware of the animalistic sobs escaping from his chest. He could not control them.

"We'll be holding a military funeral in three weeks," said Genl. Woodward.

"It will give us time to see if anything changes," added Col. Jackson. "But I wouldn't get your hopes up."

Col. Jackson walked over to the Freeman-Parkers and patted Mr. Freeman-Parker on the shoulder hesitantly. Genl. Woodward shook his head and the two departed from the house, leaving the Freeman-Parkers to wallow in despair.

* * *

Mr. Freeman-Parker had always been of the opinion that grieving over death was an act borne of selfishness. Certainly the person who was dead would have no opinion regarding their death. No, it was us left behind who cared, it was we who were unable to fathom that we would never see our loved one again. He had tried to tell his wife as much but she had stared at him, her eyes wide and red. Now he spent most of his days lying in a plastic lawn chair on the back patio, attempting to distract himself through his favorite hobby of bird-watching. He was deeply ashamed that the military men had witnessed him shedding tears. Through a shapely pair of black binoculars, he gazed out into their backyard, a yard that dropped off quickly into dense forestation. The bluebirds and red-breasted nuthatches were nowhere to be found. In their place were what appeared to be thousands of black grackles shrieking mindlessly at some perceived slight. Through the distorting perspective of the binoculars the birds seemed enormous and terrible. He leaned back in the lawn chair and collapsed onto the porch, the angry canopy of trees staring into his face through the portal of the lens as night descended on the Freeman-Parker household.

He awoke to see his wife peering into his face. Tom’s funeral was in three days.

“Edgar,” she said, “you’re wrong about death.”

“Oh, but I’m right. It’s past time to stop moping.”

“We don’t have to be ashamed of being human, is all I’m saying. We’re allowed to miss our boy. We’re allowed to think about what we could have done differently.”

He reached out his hand and placed it delicately on her cheek. She smiled.

“No,” he said.

She grabbed his hand and threw it off her as if it were diseased.

“Fuck you, Edgar. Fuck you.”

As Ms. Freeman-Parker opened the door to the patio, she thought of something that she knew would breach her husband’s impressive defense mechanisms.

“I’m going to let the other doctors at the practice know something,” she said, almost sneering with rage. “I’m going to let them know to call me Dr. Parker.”

* * *

The sky was a pastel gray, the sun buried behind a constellation of clouds. Mr. Freeman knelt in the patchy earth of the graveyard, his hand held tremulously above his heart. He produced a small velvet bag from his front pocket.

"It's time, Mr. Freeman," the mortician said.

Mr. Freeman. The absence of his second surname, the sundering of his beloved hyphen. Gone. His eyes were as dry as always, but his fingers began to shake. His body trembled. With a jerk, Mr. Freeman gently laid the bag into the small rectangular pit that had been carved out of the ground. Tom’s body had never been recovered.

Guns fired into the air as a marching band began to play taps.

"We are here today to honor a fallen comrade," Col. Jackson began. Mr. Freeman ceased to listen, the world dissolving into a tuneless hum.

Summer

The following is the first short story I wrote for my Fiction Writing 2 class this semester. It's 9 pages long and may be conventional by this blog's standards, but what the hell. Enjoy!


The leather football released itself from my older brother’s hands, spiraling cleanly through the air. I ran backwards to catch it, bring it into your chest, bring it into your chest. My fingers twitched in anticipation. The football hit my hands, harder than I was expecting, and I winced. It fell to the ground. I gamely scooped it up, and without even looking at my brother wound back my arm and threw a wobbly pass that landed a good fifteen feet to his right.

“I wasn’t trying that hard,” I yelled, anticipating a rebuke.

“You suck.”

There it was. Simple, but it got to me. I caught Josh’s next pass, and threw it back as hard as I could. His hands plucked the ball inches from his groin, and with a flick of the wrist, the pigskin hit me straight in the ribs. I fell to the ground, breathing in staccato.

I picked myself up from the grass and immediately ran towards our home, its off-white coat of paint visibly chipping in the glare of sunlight, wailing as I ran. “Mom!”

On our front porch my father was taking a long drag from a thin cigarette. Cigarette butts were scattered around the porch, nestled into the cracks of the decaying wood. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed the ends between his fingers. With a small flick, the tube landed on the porch and added to the mire of tobacco products.

“What’s going on, son?” said my father, his brown eyes gazing narrowly out at the street.

“Josh hit me in the chest with a football!”

“Then catch it next time.”

Nor that day could I find solace in my mother, a short, brittle-haired woman with Type II diabetes and a hankering for Oreos. For all the medical babble about the dangers of cigarettes, my father had shown no ill effects besides a racking cough when he tried to sleep at night and what I imagined to be coal-black lungs. My mother’s addiction had proved to be far more costly, and each insulin shot was an adventure.

“You know, honey,” she said, not turning from the bacon she was cooking on the griddle, “Maybe you shouldn’t provoke Josh so much.”

“I don’t provoke him,” I cried, my wrists twitching, “he’s just really mean.”

Josh came up behind me and pushed me. I stumbled forward, struggling to maintain my balance.

“Fart,” was all he said to me. It was an injustice.


* * *


That summer I turned eleven. I was a gangly boy who was starting to look more like the beanstalk and less like Jack. Although I had grown large enough that I could defend myself around the neighborhood, I was not equipped to deal with my brother and his friends. Josh was a good kid, maybe, but he had started his freshman year of high school in the fall and suddenly his beautiful wavy brown hair was slicked down like a biker’s. His caramel brown eyes that charmed all the ladies had a glimmer of meanness to them in this, his fifteenth year. His grades fell through the floor and the boys he hung out with morphed from acne-ridden, bespectacled youth to boys in leather jackets and silver necklaces, boys who would sooner hit you than say hi.

On some breezy summer afternoon, the heat of our neighbor’s grill making the air tremble, I felt a rock hit the front wheel of my bike, knocking the cycle out from under me. I felt the scratch of weathered sidewalk on my palms. At least I knew how to land like a cat. Josh shoved me back down.

“Get the fuck out of the way, Bryce,” my brother said.

Josh was accompanied by two older boys, one of whom was carrying a can of Stag beer. He dropped the beer on the ground next to my head. The beer was warm with sunlight.

“Penis breath.”

The three laughed and moseyed on down the sidewalk.

I got on my bicycle and pedaled back to my house. The plan for the afternoon had been to go over to my friend Joey’s and play some checkers, but it seemed to me that going home and telling would be the more prudent action. Yet when I got home, my father was notably absent from his favorite old chair, colored a mixture of faded orange and soot, on the front porch. His truck wasn’t in the driveway. I assumed he had gone on one of his cigarette binges. There was a gas station about twenty-five miles from our house that sold cartons of cigarettes at dirt-cheap prices. He could have gone to the grocery store which wasn’t nearly as far, but this gas station was really the only place he ever drove. He would buy cigarettes like more responsible parents would buy canned food in case of emergencies. I was sure he had more cartons of Camels lying in closets, behind shelves, or in the basement yet he had made something of a ritual of this drive. Later in life, it would occur to me that this was his only real pleasure.

I walked into the house to find the lights off and the blinds in the living room closed. The door to my parents’ bedroom was open just enough that I could imagine sliding a packet of Oreos through the crevice. I heard the heavy sighs of my mother and assumed she was taking a nap. She never wanted to hear about Josh and me when she was sleeping. I poured myself a bowl of cereal without milk and walked out to the back porch. I wanted to eat out in the kitchen, but I was worried I might wake her up. It was the summer I turned eleven, and it was also a summer where I was beginning to realize that my family was held together by proximity more than love, stabilized only by apathy and resignation.


* * *


Six knights galloped across a desolate plain. I was one of their company, outfitted in a silver armored suit, a red plume waving merrily from the top of my helmet. I rode atop a cinnamon-colored stag with a long pointed lance pointing west towards the castle of Transylvania. I was surely a sight to behold. And then, a crash!

My eyes opened. I heard the sounds of collapsing wood, the revving of a car engine, the screams of my mother. I rolled off the top bunk and ran out towards the front of the house. It was three in the morning and my brother was not in our room. Entering my parents’ bedroom, the dream smells of horse dung and damp morning grass lingered in my mind, seeming much more realistic than the disaster scene in front of my eyes. It was easier to imagine myself as a knight in shining armor than to imagine a motor vehicle colliding into the side of our house. And not just any car, but my father’s truck. The grill was clearly visible where my parents’ TV used to be.

“Oh my God, Sharon!” my father shouted. He was standing next to the grill, wearing only tattered red boxer shorts.

My mother put on her pink slippers and ran out to the front yard. I followed her, even as she waved at me, signaling to stay behind. It had never occurred to me, perhaps any of us, that there was a certain risk in living at a T-intersection where a drunk driver could easily run a stop sign and drive into our house. We ran out into the yard, a red moon barely visible through the trees. Some species of bird was chirping away, oblivious to the carnage on our lawn and the fact that it was a good three hours until sunrise. My father’s truck was smashed against the side of the house nestled into the wall. The hood was compressed at comical angles and pieces of loose metal lay strewn about the grass. Immediately my mother ran to the side door and yanked on the handle. Surprisingly, it opened just fine, and out spilled the ragged form of my brother.

He didn’t seem to be bleeding or grievously injured, but he was in some kind of stupor.

“Mom?” he whispered.

“You fucking bastard. You fucking bastard.” A can of Stag beer rolled out of the driver’s seat and nearly hit my mother’s ankles.

“I’m sorry Mom.”

His eyes rolled into his brain as he passed out in her arms.
Our screen door swung open then, and I could hear the thud of my father’s footsteps coming down the stairs from the porch. He was still wearing only underwear, but was now holding two cigarettes in his left hand.

“Where’s my fucking lighter, Sharon?”

“Christ, Richard, look at the house. This isn’t the time to be smoking.”

“Well what the hell else am I supposed to do about it? That truck isn’t going fucking anywhere.”

“Maybe you should start by bringing your son inside!”

My father grimaced as he hoisted Josh’s entire body into his arms. He trudged back up the stairs, his face red with exertion.


* * *


I stood in the half-light in my room, watching my brother sleep. The fluorescent light hanging over our kitchen table was buzzing, its rays shining through the crack of the door onto my brother’s face. His eyes were closed, his lips curled slightly upwards. He looked peaceful. I stepped back out into the kitchen, surprised that my parents had stopped making a commotion. Only ten minutes had passed.

My mother was sitting in a chair at our kitchen table drinking what must have been old coffee.

“I can’t even make myself eat anything, Bryce. Nothing sounds good to me right now.”

“Is Dad out smoking?”

“Yeah.”

I didn’t blame him. Out in the tar pits, not a thing could bother him.

“How’s he going to buy groceries?” I asked.

“How’s he going to fix the wall of our house?” she replied.

My father walked in.

“Fuck!” was all he said.

I had never seen him so angry after smoking. He always had a placid disposition after he inhaled a few cigarettes. It was like his soul needed some black infestation to thrive. Later I would discover that his lighter wasn’t working.

“Good God, I need a smoke,” he said, his arms shaking.

“Oh, quit the acting, Richard,” my mother replied, sipping her coffee, “It hasn’t been more than a couple hours since you last smoked.”

“That truck isn’t going to run again. What did that damn boy think he was doing?”

“He’s your son, Richard.”

“He’s a disgrace. All I ever wanted were two sons and what do I get? A drunk and a mama’s boy.”

I clutched onto my mother’s arm in fear, unaware of the irony.

“Officer,” my father said, now on the phone, “I’d like to report an accident.”

“Mom!” I yelled, hoping she would be the one to come to my brother’s rescue. He had been a jerk to me basically all my life, it was true, but jail wasn’t for jerks. It was for criminals. I stared at her, with her red, puffy eyes and her dried pink lips curled into a frown.

“Daddy knows best,” she mumbled.

“He’ll go to jail!”

“Don’t worry, Bryce. It will work out.”

I was enraged but I didn’t know how to lash out. All I did was kick over the chair I was sitting in as I ran out to the back porch. Neither of them even said anything to me as I went outside. I went out and sat under the oak tree in our backyard, its branches hanging limply against my face. I didn’t intend to get up, but when I heard the low whir of a siren, I found myself compelled to meet this man of the law who had come to take Josh away.

As I walked around to the front yard, I saw the policeman, a gray, bearded, surprisingly svelte man in a blue uniform was lecturing my mother on the virtues of sending her son to spend the night in the slammer. No one paid attention to me as I joined the scene.

“I know you’d prefer to handle this in-house, ma’am, but we’re not just allowed to ignore an accident, especially one of this nature. Minimum, we give out a ticket, but for a DUI by a minor, we’re talking some big fines. I’m not saying extended jail time, but we’ll certainly sober him up a little bit.”

He laughed in a neighborly manner that I found inappropriate. My mother was sobbing, but my father, trying to appear serious and determined, nodded.

“I’ll go wake him up.”

I chased him into the house, determined to end this farce.
“Come on, Dad! He’s only fifteen!”

My father turned and looked me in the eye. It was not a normal gesture for him.
“He picks on you all the time anyways. What do you want him around for?”

I was shocked. Even at eleven, I recognized the callousness of his words.

“At least he still plays catch with me.”

His face turned a vibrant red. I almost thought he was going to hit me then, mark my name down in the long, shameful annals of domestic violence. But when he did nothing, I realized he was not angry, but humiliated. He turned around and marched into Josh’s room.

Josh could barely keep his balance as my father dragged him through the kitchen, through the living room, into the arms of one Officer L. Burnham. He was still drunk and exhausted, but awake enough that there was a distinctly terrified look on his face as Officer Burnham clicked the handcuffs around his wrist and moved him into the back of his car. My mother, at least, may have regretted that moment, but I’ve never cared to ask her for her opinion. As far as I was concerned, they betrayed my brother that day. Call it naïve, but age has done little to change my feelings on the matter.


* * *


I locked up my bicycle right next to the green figure of Abraham Lincoln, who as always, sat in his stone chair, hands clenched on his thighs. Three birds perched atop his head. It was a cool autumn afternoon. The canopy of the trees was painted in broad swaths of red and yellow. The beauty of the day made it more bearable to look at my brother, who was standing with a group of unshaven men in orange jumpsuits, each holding a long wooden rake. A man with a square jaw and dark sunglasses sat on a bench watching them rake, a smirk on his face. The sunglasses concealed what I imagined to be a mean expression in his eyes. You couldn’t even see the sun through all the trees. Nevertheless, I put my hands in my pockets, walked into the man’s field of vision, and asked to help rake.

“We’re out of rakes,” he said.

Josh, a neat pile of leaves at his feet, looked up and glared at me. He shook his hand, as if to suggest I should go away, but I caught a smile on his face. It wasn’t there for long, and I don’t blame him for that. This wasn’t a group of smilers. I walked out of the park, picking up some stray leaves as I left and placing them in a trash can. It was all I could think to do.

A quote from Henry Miller