A SHOTGUN WEDDING'S GROOMSMEN

We are not little kids playing with big kid toys.
We are not men with maturity problems.
We are boys, and boys alone, with all the appropriate inadequacies of our youth.
We run from nothing. Not from monsters, broccoli, girls, pregnancies, infidelities, crimes. We hide from nothing.
We have the confidence of our fathers but the insecurities of our children.
We have mothers who would not be proud. We chase each other with toy pistols and shotguns.
We do not pick up our discarded pellet bullets and cigarette butts.
We don’t have to, because we are boys.
We shield our eyes with goggles because we are scared of what it would mean to be blind.
We are fearless, and terrified of the fact we are.
We are boys.

What It Tastes Like

There was one other seated booth. A couple, with coats on over pajama bottoms, sharing a plate of diner hash browns. They were happy. They were tired all over, tangled, greasy, exhausted everywhere but their eyes. Their eyes were awake, the energy ricocheting between them over their plate. Their eyes were alive and full. It was 4 a.m.

“I never liked her name,” I said.

“Yeah?” Josh was sitting across from me. He’s a good friend. He hadn’t touched his coffee. He probably still had plans for sleep at some point.

“Allie. I never liked it.”

“I guess you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Josh said. It came out like a joke, but I knew that’s not what how he meant it so I ignored it. A lot can be ignored at 4 a.m. “What made you think of that?” he asked.

“They were calling her Alyssa tonight. She never let me call her that.”

Josh said nothing.

“She said that’s what Joe used to call her and I didn’t like her thinking of Joe.”

“So you called her Allie.”

“Yeah, and I never really liked it. I had half a mind to tell them that she wouldn’t like them calling her Allie, putting it on all the paperwork, but I didn’t think it was relevant.”

“Probably wasn’t. Probably a lot of things don’t seem relevant now.”

I had already told Josh what happened and there wasn’t a lot else to say. There wasn’t a lot else to do, for that matter. My hands held the cup of coffee. I stirred it, sipped it, but didn’t really taste it. I wished I had something to do with my hands. I wished that there was somewhere else to go at 4 am, that there was something else to do. The pajama couple walked to the cashstand to pay. The boy had to let go of the girl’s hand so he could fish for his wallet in a coatpocket.

“I thought of the strangest things, Josh.”

“That’s normal. It’s a strange thing to begin with.”

“No, like really strange things. They sat me in a room for a half hour while they did the paperwork in the room next door. It gave me time to think.”

“They just left you alone?” Josh wanted something to do with his hands too. He stirred his coffee.

“Yeah. My left hand was handcuffed to the chair.”

“I see.”

I laughed. I wanted Josh to ask why I had laughed, but he just stared at his coffee, so I answered without him laughing.

“Kind of funny. I bit all the nails on my right hand because the left was cuffed to the chair. Every nail. Look.” I don’t know why I showed him, maybe to prove I wasn’t lying. He looked at them and then at his own hands.

“I kept biting. I bit hard and deep until there was blood. And here’s the strange thing – I was worried the police officer was going to think that it was her blood. You know, that I hit her more than once and there was blood on my hands. He had asked me already to see my hands. I guess that’s how they check.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah, so I was worried he’d see the blood so I sucked the blood out of the crevices of my fingers.”

The waitress cleared the table where the couple had sat and eyed our coffees to see if we needed refills. We didn’t.

“Josh. When I sucked the blood out, I could taste her.”

There was nothing Josh could say.

“I could taste her. How intense, beautiful, tragic, disgusting is that?” I knew Josh couldn’t answer. “After the blood, the snot, the tears, to taste her.” I had to tell someone that. Josh’s a good friend.

I wanted something to do with my hands, so I started biting the nail of my left thumb. Josh looked at me, right at me for maybe the first time since he picked me up outside the police station.

“You should quit biting your nails,” he said. “It’s a bad habit.” This time Josh was trying to make a joke, so I laughed.

“I know. Allie used to tell me that too. I told her that if I quit biting my nails, I’d be perfect, and nobody’s perfect. And then I did that thing with my shoulders and palms and the corners of my mouth that always made her laugh. She used to laugh so hard.” I smiled, so Josh smiled.

“Allie wasn’t perfect,” Josh said. “Nobody’s perfect.” He was looking at me again.

I nodded. “Nobody’s perfect. I never liked her name.”

I am not the dog-eared one

“But this isn’t the book you checked out.”

“Yes it is.”

“Where is the plastic sleeve and the barcode?”

“Ms. Critchfield, I know this is ridiculous, but I need your help here.”

“Listen, Tom, I’ve let you get away with overdue fees, with dog-ears, I even overlooked the water damage, but I simply can’t do this. This isn’t the book you checked out.”

“Yes it is! Please, I checked out 252 pages, I’m checking 252 pages back in. It’s the same book. The same words.”

“I wouldn’t even know how to scan it.”

“Please. I just need you to take this. I don’t want it. I’m donating it. Charge me the lost processing fee whatever just take it.”

“Tom, there’s writing in here. On every page. I really can’t take this. Look, your name is printed inside. This isn’t the book we checked out.”

“Ms. Critchfield, it’s the same book. It’s the same words. We pay for the words on the paper, not the paper itself. We don’t pay for the ink in the author’s pen, we pay for the author’s pen.”

“Tom, please be quiet. I’m sorry, I really am. If I could take this, I could. I’ll just mark the other one as lost, you take your copy, and we’ll move on.

“Pat!”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry. Ms. Critchfield! I need you to take this book, shelve it.”

“I told you, we’ll mark the other one as lost, and we’ll forget about it.”

“But what do I do with this one? You have to take it.”

“You wrote in it, Tom.”

“No, I didn’t. It's still in great condition. Never been read!”

“Someone wrote in it Tom, we can’t do anything with it.”

“It’s worth more, now. There’s more words than before. It’s like a bonus.”

“Then keep it for yourself. Look, right here, there’s a nice note in here addressed to you.”

Ms. Critchfield, please take it. I can’t keep it because then I’ll read it and I’ll cry and I’m not giving her tears. I can’t burn it because the ashes will float away like white feathers from our mattress and they’ll dust my lungs and make me cough and bring me tears and I’m not giving her tears. I can’t throw it away because it will decompose and become a part of the earth like the bird we buried in the pizza box and then the grass will grow from it and the grass will be cut and it will agitate my allergies and I’ll sneeze and I’ll cry and I’m not giving her tears. Ms. Critchfield, Pat, librarian, woman, you, take this. Shelve it. Give the words to someone else, to some other poor fuck. Make it his problem. Let him cry about it. Let him give her his tears. This is my last chance. Take it. It’s a good book. Take it. This is all I have. This is all there is. It is more than enough.