II
You came to me as a ceremonial dagger. The last thing I hoped to ever see. It felt natural to see you like this, a weapon with a greater purpose. Maybe it was the way you looked tall even with your head tucked. Maybe it was how you were a fighter jet when you put your hands on your hips. I could never put my finger on it, but there was always something about you that made your capacity to hurt feel certain. But you never were cruel. You were just on the clock.
You look dapper these days, have you been taking care of yourself? You seem to have freshened up. You’ve traded grease for oil and leather for terrycloth. Maybe you always poured oil? It seemed like grease to me. Something just a little more grimey than what you have now. But you don’t look bad. You still look coy. You still look away. No, no that’s not quite right. You’re looking right at me. You’re looking into me, through me, past me. Past me? Boy, you really are a rube. There’s nothing after this. When all this dark nonsense is through, we’ll never travel again.
I think back to the wintertime, how we felt as the cold swept through. I recall the ice that stationed us like amber, that chilling death which preserved us for the scavengers to come. Sometimes, I feel we are still suffocating under the snow. There are days where I get goosebumps and I see my own breath and I look for you but you never are there and isn’t it warm tonight? There are moments where I look for my blood but I never find it and I know you have stolen my veins to blanket you under the tundra and why aren’t I there with you now? Why aren’t I there with you now? I carry an icicle on my shoulder and I splat holly on my hip yet I feel so warm it makes me want to die and where did all the ptarmigan go? It’s lonely in the hull. It’s a mythless age on the lame vert sea. But isn’t that just the way?
Quit looking at me like that. We were both deserters. You were fantasizing with your starmongers and your stripescrubbers, but I was living, actually living, with Goliath. You sought scraps, lapping up slobber like it would get you anywhere. Was I any different? Maybe not. But I was there. I was really there. Not a guest, not a visitor, a presence. You hate me for it. I’m not blind anymore, I know where your confidence comes from. It’s because you’re standing next to me. You like me but you don’t fear me. Maybe it’s the frost in the air but I can’t keep myself from running sideways. I don’t think you’ve jogged a day in your life. You get what I mean, don’t you? It’s not my fault you found heaven in your 20s. You ought to rub your eyes and notice that there’s a real world everywhere you look. We don’t eat dreams, you know. We deserve something to show for the journey, you can’t blame me for seeking it out.
II
I’m so glad I get to do this. I woke up this morning and I visited a local confession box, because I was so excited that I felt guilty about it. Nobody should be happy in a situation like this, but I can’t help myself. I’m still smiling, even now. I figured that it was just concussion fever. A crossed wire or a loose tooth. Something. But the day grew nearer and nearer and the jubilation never dampened. It was new year’s every night. I could hardly get to sleep.
The distance has nothing to do with it, I want to get that straight. People will tell you that the distance had something to do with it, but I need you to know that it had nothing to do with it. I couldn’t have cared less, I was happy for you, in fact. You finally got the courage to stop living in my hotel rooms, to quit tugging on my waist so damn tight. I still have the rugburn from the way you’d clutch me as we drifted down the road. You were a real sap, you know. I always figured you were trying to make us crash, but then you could’ve just messed with the bike. Maybe you just wanted it all to yourself. All this while, you’ve only ever wanted your own set of wheels. Congrats, champ, you finally got yourself a pair. Just in the nick of time.
And what a lousy ride it is. Is that why you went sailing for so long? So you could find this heap in a wreck yard off the coast? I can see the paint peeling off this thing, how much did you pay for it? Oh, that’s right. You stole it while the dogs were busy. That’s one thing you always had a knack for. You’re the leading authority in petty theft. Was it warm? Were you warm on the vert sea? I hope so. I hope you lost all the tenacity and anger you’ve ever had. All your verve, drowned in that doomed algae tide. Your rosaries tossed overboard as the lifeboats caught fire. If I were a betting man, I’d put some money on all that being true. Everything I said really happened, didn’t it. Nobody looks like you without a little panic. But what did you expect? You took a ride with two of everything, now you’re shocked to learn you’ve been split apart? Yeah, you’ve been cut down the middle, alright. You’re half the man I rode with through the north.
Do you remember the north? Do you remember how it felt? All comic book and supernova? The policecar lights that kept the road visible? Do you remember how we’d stop for a breakdance and how you’d always two-step without my say-so? You and your cowbells. We had a working horn, why’d you keep the cowbells? I don’t see them here. Is that how you got the ride? Did you make a deal with the salvager? Oh, I forgot. We’d already agreed that you stole the thing. How do you think the engine will hold when the frost kicks in?
II
It’s not hard to recognize the doubts. Lying comes so easy to them. The whole world circles ‘round, it doesn’t matter how you travel. The friend realizes this. Oh, how badly he wishes to tell the companion.
“Companion, don’t you see that we live on a hula hoop? We can’t go anywhere but here again!”
But it’s not so simple these days. These days, he must use his words. He is forced to clarify what he means, to whittle it down to a definitive statement. There was never any defining the storm. They never had to do much talking at all in the storm. All the friend would have to do is point, and the companion would know instantly where he was pointing. Sometimes, it would require less than that. A single head nod could chart out their next week, all in that one blink of understanding. Sometimes, it would still require even less. They would need only live and feel and wish for the other to understand, and like prayer it would come true. They prayed so often. Always, always they would pray. To each other, to themselves, to nothing. But they would never pray to the same thing at the same time. It was as though their beliefs ran parallel.
But the cycle is long since gone now. Spring is just around the bend. Bluejays and robins will soon litter the street, their sickly saccharine tones yelling it’s not mitten season anymore. The world will be repellingly green. Heat will reign. But that is all soon to come. There are still ducks in the south, there are still carp frozen in the lake. They cannot glide anymore, but there is still time to skate. Watch again as the pact they made as children gets renewed now as men. There’s a knowing disappointment in the companion. There’s a burning submission in the friend. Bottoms up, one more for the road.
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