4.16.2009

Pellets

When I opened the trailer door this morning
Ed was sitting over the blueprints
with red eyes, pretending to be absorbing
the Big Picture; I knew he was secretly
wishing he had gotten some more sleep
instead of crawling to his basement at 3 a.m.
to load more ammunition. His efforts will
pay off someday if this plays out as predicted.

I sat down on the rigid metal folding chair
four feet from my future self
and waited for the punchline that wasn't coming.
Some men let those go, you know.

The packaged shoelaces sat on his desk
in front of me calling my name. I broke
the silence with a laugh.

"I knew you'd forget to pick them up again
so I got ya some last night," he gently snarled.

There are children outside my window playing.
There are children.
Playing.

I looked down at his boots and noticed
that he had bought the same set of laces for himself.
It would've been weird if he hadn't, almost unacceptable.
That'd suggest some things that neither of us
would want to admit: that we love each other deeply
and without reason; that we fill roles in each other's
broken lives; that we're both closet drunks
with a penchant for beers with orange slices in them.

The day went on as you would imagine--
I hated pipe in general and sang '80s hip-hop in my head.

A little after lunch we went into a classroom
to check the status of some ancient copper heat lines
that our contract required us to replace.
There were tanks, cages, and aquariums
along the perimeter of the room;
evidently it was a biology class.
It was Spring Break, I forgot to tell you that.
No one had been in there for a week, wouldn't
for another four days.

The ball python hid under some molded tree-bark, a lizard
was perched near the lid of its tank, two red-eared sliders
swam in a ten-gallon tank next to the goldfish they'd eat
and then there was the hamster. I say "hamster", but
it could have been a gerbil, the bottom line being
that it was a small gray rodent running in a wheel.
I approached his cage as he spun his fruitless vice
and saw that his water bottle was empty.
Did the teacher really think it'd survive
twelve days without a refill?

"I gotta give this thing water, Eddie."
"We're not supposed to interfere with the classrooms."
"This isn't about class."
"I didn't see anything, do what ya gotta do."
I did.

It turns out that wearing the same shoelaces
and shooting the same caliber rifle
don't make you the same person.
Thank the god that laughs loudest.

The rodent kept running in its wheel.
The three of us would live to see Monday.
The sun set on me and my liquor-drunk friends on my porch.

They're gone now.
I'm OK because I remember.
That's not always an affliction.
Sleep soundly next to your mortal enemy.
Glory.

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