beyond Jimmy-town

I ventured outside. It was gloomy. The sky the color of ashes. The light stifled like windows caked with soot.

“Don’t know if there will be a breakthrough today, so keep your wits about you and your mittens too”, mother chided just as I closed the door.

“I will, Mum,” I called back half up the walk, “I will!”

It was cold but I’d felt worse in my first decade, feeling so worldly and tempered by age. This was after all, my tenth winter, and those included two bad blizzards to boot. I knew what I was in for, I reckoned.

Buckroot waited down by the ferry dock. With the river now froze over, there’d be no ferry running though we could easily walk across to Jamison, but don’t tell, because Mum would never accept the notion. She was always 'fraid the ice would break and the cold river swallow us up like so many before. It was true, poor lads, but I had Buck and he could read the snap and crackle of the ice bed. I’m sorry those that perished did not.

Buck greeted me with a thump on the chest, which caused me to wheeze slightly, and him to laugh. “You ready for this journey?” he said in the deep tremolo of his native tongue.

“Have you ever known me not to be ready, Bucko?” I mocked him, and shot an elbow to his thigh, which might as well have been a birch for the hurt it inflicted me skinny arm.

“How’s the arm, then? Want to go back in, to Mum?”

I stopped rubbing, and locked at him cross. “The arm is fine, I just struck a bone.”

“Yeah, the funny bone…”

“That’s right. How’d you know?”

“Cause it made me laugh. Maybe you should arm wrestle.

Wazzat?

Men play it…boys too.”
“Men play a boys’ game?”

“Perhaps it’s the boys playing the men’s…”

“Men don’t play games. Men go on adventure and wars.”

“Men play a myriad of games, Nico. Some deadly, like war.”

“Why do you try to frighten me?”

“Simple truth. Fair warning. If the thought of that frightens you, Mum has a nice toasty fire a burnin’ and some warm shortbread, I’d wager.”

“Get on with it. We don’t got all day.”

“Who says? I say we got a lifetime of adventure ahead. Want to step out on the ice?”

“I thought you were leading this expedition!”

“Not  into oblivion, I ain’t. Too many boys gone under. I’ll stand here and watch you trek over to yonder shore.”

“Well, why not join Mum, in that case, and watch from yonder window, near the fireplace, while eatin’ me shortbread? Serve ya’ right, if I fall through.  You can tell Mum all about your big plans for adventure then. I bet she’ll be pleased.”

“You’d have me do that to yer Mum?”

“What kind of guide, sits back and watches?”

“An alive guide. Conversely, What sort of fool would wander where a guide would not?”

“A brave one!”

“The brave fool. You are right. Do you hear the sense in that title?”
“I do.”

“Fine. The bridge is only a short trudge up the creek, then it’s a safe walk over to Jimmy-town and what lies beyond.”

“You really thinking we’ll keep going?”

“We might.”

“Beyond Jimmy-town?!”

“We might. But not if we stand here discussing…be careful the banks are slick. Go slow…steady…do not rush the a journey, but partake in it instead. Step-by step. One wrong step the journey ends...”

Guntitled

I have a gun.

A gun? Where the hell did you get a gun?

I swear to god, Creighton if that knob moves a fraction I’ll put a bullet through that door.

How much is a fraction?

See what happens when you drop out of school, fool? You understand “a jiggle”?

You know I do.

Then don’t jiggle that handle or I will put a bullet through the door, the wall, up and down and every fucking place I can shoot, just hoping for the chance to knick your ass.

Are you that seriously pissed off?

BANG

Hey! Geezzus-h-Christ would you please?! The neighbors will have the cops here!

I warned you.

We need a story, a misfire. No domestic shit, just a misfire. You put it down, open up and we cool down. Fuck! I didn’t want the cops here…!

Should have thought of that.

Where the fuck did you get a gun?

Bought it. Legal.

Who?

A guy.

Some guy…?

Not some guy off the street. A professional salesman. Firearms. He had a beautiful shipping trunk. Antique, like TITANIC days. ‘Steamer trunk’, they call it. There’s 96 guns in that case. Eight dozen. Beautifully lined up in even rows. He has four trays, and under the last one are stacks of ammunition. Boxes of bullets. So beautifully laid out, all new. I love mine. You should see it. Shiny. Came right to the door like he was selling Avon.

Avon ?

Cosmetics. Makeup. Your Mom probably did it…

Oh that. So, can we talk?

No! Fuck no…!

Hey, hey! Let’s stop with the ‘fucks’ okay?

Fuck you, ‘stop with the fucks’. YOU should have stopped with the fucks! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck…but that’s your only thought process , you dickhead.

We need to get our shit together and be civil. Cops come, we’ve got to be cool or they’ll pick it up and want to enter. Don’t let them enter – they see the hole, they search the house….see where this is going? Hello?

I told you I would shoot your ass off and I mean it. I FUCKING!!!! mean it. …been going to the range up by the dam. Getting pretty good. I seem to have a lot of time on my hands …fills the void.  They say I’m deadly at close range, so by now I’m thinking maybe I could hit that tiny dick.

Don’t be thinking the dick.

That’s all you’ve been thinking with - asshole.

Only the Three women…over all those years….

Twelve years is NOT a lot of years Creighton. A lifetime is a lot of years, you idiot. It’s called a marriage!  Three sluts in 12 years? One every four years?! One every fucking four years?!

No…all…the three

ALL THREE FOR TWELVE YEARS!!!

BOOF! BOOF! BOOF !

(muted gunshots in quick succession.)

It’s snowing feathers in here Creighton!

Goddamn it Trudy stop this shit! Damn it I’m bleeding.

You’re still talking so you’re not bleeding enough. I got plenty of pillows and plenty of bullets. And I’m ready to shoot every goddamn one of them. Let it snow! So you might want to get your ass out of this house.

I have nowhere to go.

BOOF.

You have three options already,  and I’m sure you can pick up another couple along the way somewhere…bed you down for the night, mend your wounds. It’s already been, another ten minutes gone by and that’s a long time to go without a woman, so get busy, get out of here, and go fuck one.

That’s my bedroom and you’ve got my clothes…

I’m sure you look halfway respectable after your dalliance tonight, but I would worry about the stank. Get a room, take a good shower, and air out the rest. Come get your clothes tomorrow…or, I can shoot those up, too, if you want?! I hate you. Now go away.

None of it meant anything…

Three woman for twelve years meant nothing?

…three…women…twelve…my god…I’m stupefied. I’m a stupefied fool, is what I am…all this time…

There was nothing there…It was empty.

No it wasn’t. Nothing was empty too long. Filling all those holes! Weren’t you the big stud?

Trud’ please.

BOOF

 Trud’!  STOP!

BOOFBOOOFBOOOFBOOOF 

You will never touch me again!

It’s a nasty collision course you’ve put us on. Can’t say as I blame you, but still, you don’t give many options. I would like to stay, and I’m even up for a close call with a bullet. I really am shot, you know? But I’m not up for oblivion… You give me no choice.

You had it…you gave that up…

Then Creighton was gone.

imposition

Everything Changes

It shifts

in the Night

Impressions

of Strangers

Once friends

hide from sight

drift behind

memories

dark curtains

drawn

tight