<\/p>\n
Tie that one down, wrap it up, throw it over your shoulder. One more is
\none less, moving forward through this pile of madness and words. Rowe
\nSween flashed a crooked smile, tilted his head and squinted an eye. The
\nclock was flashing. There was no time. No way to tell. Even the phone
\nhad been disconnected. Not as in a surprise disconnection, a missed
\nmonthly bill. It had been disconnected a year ago. For Sween, that was
\njust fine. After what he’d been through, no business for a year was a
\nnice vacation. He only kept the office so he had someplace where he
\ncould get away from the world. Nights and weekends, he was alone. One
\nmore tiny office in one more crumbling block holding against the
\nvicious wave of gentrification.<\/p>\n
Money was no problem. That was nice to say. He smiled again.<\/p>\n
He held both hands up to his eyes, left over right, one on top of the
\nother, and he looked through eight fingers at the immortal spider plant
\nflourishing in the corner. It must be sucking up water from the air. He
\nwaggled his fingers, a dizzy fan, then blinked and took his hands away
\nfrom his face. Nothing changed. That was the way to go. Nothing
\nchanging.<\/p>\n
You know, it’s worth lingering on some things. Money is no problem.<\/p>\n
Sween’s thought pattern for a year.<\/p>\n
He stood, stared down at the old case files, then ambled back to his
\ndesk. Everything in here was grey and dark, even with the windows open.
\nIt was an old way of life, a memory. Maybe that’s why he really kept
\nthe office. He ran a hand through the dust on the bare desktop —
\nhumility.<\/p>\n
He opened his backpack and took out a 10 ounce glass. He put it down
\ngently and watched it, as if expecting something, then he opened the
\nmini-fridge squatting beneath the desk at his feet and let his fingers
\nwork blindly for the tiny ice cube tray. Little baby cubes went into
\nthe glass from a warped, cracked plastic tray. He’d had the fridge for
\n25 years now. Amazing how some of this shit kept running no matter
\nwhat. Plug it in, turn it on and, a quarter century later, youth still
\nhad power. It still drew electricity. Nothing perished. Nothing that
\nwas undeserving of death, that is. Youth, beauty, hope. They all lived
\non. They may change shape and voice and identity, but they lived on.<\/p>\n
That was worth lingering on, too.<\/p>\n
He pulled a 750 ML bottle of Stoli out of his backpack and rolled it
\naround in his hands. Two hours. That’s what he would allow himself to
\nfinish it. He was an older man, now. He had to control himself. He had
\nto relax and take it easy.<\/p>\n
When his mini-fridge was new, Sween had often joked that the building
\non the Stoli label was Chernobyl. He was an older man, now. He had seen
\nChernobyl. He had seen Russia. He had seen too much. He turned the
\nlabel away. “Chill Before Drinking” was on the back. He might put it in
\nthe fridge later, but who really had the luxury time to wait for
\nchilled vodka? He pulled out a half gallon container of Tropicana and
\nmade a strong screwdriver, then sat back in the old leather chair and
\nglared at the glass door that led to the outer office and, from there,
\nto a hallway full of ant traps and flickering lights.<\/p>\n
He touched the glass to his lips, meager ice and warm screwdriver.
\nNothing mattered. He felt the vodka rush into his body. His lips parted
\nand he closed his eyes as he felt parts of him, genetic or learned,
\nconnect and fire. The chair rocked back so his stomach pressed against
\nthe edge of the desk, the mini-fridge sending a bass-hum through the
\nbottom of his feet into his bladder. He shifted back further and
\nslammed the drink with a hungry, insane shudder, coming up straight and
\nblinking when a shadow fell across his door.<\/p>\n
One year to the day.<\/p>\n
And then she walked into his office.<\/p>\n
He’d always wanted to say that.<\/p>\n
She walked in as if he had seen her just yesterday. She kept her eyes
\nat a point just over his right shoulder as she sat down, black pants
\nand black top, tiny purse held at her midriff, legs crossing in a
\nsilken shift that defied her age. Her brown had been visited by grey,
\nher blue had been invaded by tiny riverbeds, her smile had gone from
\ntrusting to mature. She was beautiful, as always.<\/p>\n
“Surprised you’re still here.” She said, turning to look at the window,
\nthe sounds of traffic one story below rushing by on University
\nBoulevard. A horn blew up the street somewhere, the left turn to Elmo
\njust beneath her gaze and \u2018Elby’s Beer and Wine’ glimmering in the
\nmorning sun. The sign lit the office at night.<\/p>\n
“We had a date.” Sween replied.<\/p>\n
She shook her head and smiled, meeting his eyes for the first time
\nsince she came in. For the first time in a year. “Back to where it all
\nbegan.”<\/p>\n
He had a sudden shift in emotions. A storm surge, a surprise punch, a
\nflick of the wing. Everything came down to something, but he couldn’t
\nput his finger on what. Then, just as quickly, that lump in his veins
\npassed and he was breathing again. Same old Sween, one year later.<\/p>\n
“Where it all began.” He echoed.<\/p>\n
“I was another girl, then.” She said.<\/p>\n
“I was another man.”<\/p>\n
She held his gaze, blue on green for what seemed a lifetime. He
\nexpected to break away and find that the sun had set, the days had
\npassed, the windows blown out, the walls rotted around them and trees
\nrisen from the abandoned concrete of a lost civilization.<\/p>\n
No time had passed.<\/p>\n
“You are the same man,” she replied. “That’s why I hired you.”<\/p>\n
She pulled a white envelope out of her tiny purse, crinkled along the
\nseal, rumpled and folded too many times, the bright white fading.<\/p>\n
She slid it across the desk, leaving a clean trail.<\/p>\n
“For all we lost. Now it is time for another.” she said.<\/p>\n
He thought of West Virginia. He thought of the strange call those
\nmountains held for his city bones. He could smell autumn, the strength
\nof September in those insane hills. It was haunting. It was a drug.
\nSomething about her still smelled of West Virginia. After all, that was
\nwhere he had shot her. That was where everything had ended a year ago.
\nHe thought of the smell of her blood, her piss, her shit, her musk.
\nCordite. Powder on his hands. An ancient musket in the mud. A cave in
\nthe deep hills. The sound of a train in the far distance. King Coal.
\nKing Timber. A woman screaming in his arms. His reality no longer
\nsecure.<\/p>\n
He picked up the envelope.<\/p>\n
“How are you feeling?” It was a stupid question.<\/p>\n
She focused again just over his right shoulder.<\/p>\n
“You know it was – ”<\/p>\n
“I know.” She answered quickly, cutting him off.<\/p>\n
“You’re so beautiful.” He kept his eyes on the envelope, turning it around in his hands.<\/p>\n
She laughed. It started in a strange way. Her face broke with a flashed
\nsmile. Then she barked quietly to herself. Then she chuckled in a
\nstaccato burst, a skipping stone. Three or four times.<\/p>\n
He waited for the laughter to stop, then set the envelope back on the desk.<\/p>\n
“Guess I’m back in business.”<\/p>\n
“Twists and turns.” She said, a smile in her voice and creasing her
\nnarrow, pale face. “Neither of us imagined this. Believe me when I say
\nthat.”<\/p>\n
“But you have the advantage.”<\/p>\n
“I’m the one who was touched.”<\/p>\n
Sween looked up at her, as wide-eyed as a child.<\/p>\n
“Who can love you and still be standing?” she asked. She looked into
\nhis eyes again. “Do you boys fear the same things we fear? Do you hear
\nthe same things we hear? What is it like for you?” She let her eyes
\ntravel, drift, fall down his chest and to a spot on the desk. “What is
\nthis world we’ve made?”<\/p>\n
Sween took a breath. He’d forgotten to do so for some time or, at least, it felt like that.<\/p>\n
He closed his eyes till she had left. He held back the horror, the
\ntears, the fear. When the outer door closed gently, he looked again.
\nShe was gone; her envelope remained. He stood and crossed to the files
\nhe had dug out when he arrived earlier. He dragged his backpack with
\nhim and made a second, warmer screwdriver. This time the orange juice
\nwas only there in spirit, a syrupy discoloration to seven ounces of
\nvodka. He drank it too fast to notice and hoped that the vodka would
\nmove quickly into his blood, shift into his brain, settle behind his
\neyes. He hoped it would erase things. He hoped it would stop him from
\nsitting, cross-legged, on a filthy floor with his mouth turned down. He
\nhoped it would silence what was in his ears, he hoped it would take the
\nenvelope from him. He hoped it would erase a lifetime of mistakes. He
\nhoped.<\/p>\n
There are some thoughts worth lingering on.<\/p>\n
He picked up a file he had set aside.<\/p>\n
Very.<\/em><\/p>\n He opened it and looked at her. How she had changed. A year. How she had changed in a year.<\/p>\n He turned past her picture, past his case file template, past his notes on five by five cards.<\/p>\n “Rowe Sween,” he read his name from off the newsprint. Then he read
\nhers. Then he read the rest. Then he put it aside. He smelled her blood
\nand shit and piss. He smelled the West Virginia mountains in autumn. He
\nsmelled the leaves and the dreams and the freedom. He remembered
\nlooking at the Appalachian sky and the colored trees and the clouds. He
\nhad looked anywhere rather than look into her eyes<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[352],"tags":[353,404,339,127],"class_list":["post-2487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gsarchive","tag-gs-archive-2004-2008","tag-nachos-lousy-novel","tag-vignettes","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2487"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2814,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2487\/revisions\/2814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greatsociety.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}