seventeen (1)

Sitting in the floor, I had the harmonica on—holder around the neck completely comfortable with blowing the off kilter notes out into the open of a Dali plastered bedroom. On and on while my best friend strummed guitar. He was finally gaining weight again and not trying to convince me to kiss him. Things were not perfect, but they were okay.

Driving south on I-75 at 90 miles per hour, radio off and gritting my teeth. I thought my hands might rip the wheel out of the console. All I had was a phone call, and some anonymous girl crying to me that he would not get down from the car. I had no reference for the scene so I just ducked out of the room, told the brand new comrade “some other time.” On the run, to the rescue. Trying not to think the worst.

I pulled into the driveway of his parents’ house and my best friend was laying on the roof of his car, wildly swinging a bottle of vodka around and giggling. A not quiet situation. The anonymous girl stood by, trying not to laugh. I stepped out of my car. This isn’t funny, I told her. Go home. You aren’t helping. She left and I stood at the side of the car, saying over and over again: come down now. Just come down from there. The state of him pleased my request—a misjudged lean and he slid to a fwump onto the ground, still laughing. I tried to pick him up.

We are in his garage and he shows me a box. An AA book, baby blue and dusted up. A belt buckle that said Bud. A framed picture of a very young family. This is all I have of him, he said. I reached out to touch the buckle, to thumb through the book. The wind snaps past my extended digits as the box is cupped in brother palm and thrown across the garage, against the wall, into the holes of dry wall from knuckle punches between band practices. The objects scatter and the quiet is stupid.

And then, and then and then. Running around with a dictophone, demanding the grocers give their full names into the mic. The whispers of hours into wires—we’ve had tornados and bomb threats coupled with when are you coming home? Once more now, with feeling. We used headlights for sun during summer basketball games, a team of polo shirts just off work—nobody cared about paying rent yet. This is called young. And you can’t have it again. And I never thought that would be it—that years would push themselves between, that no knots held rope taut enough to keep it close. You get the faded things—the pleading in front yards and the soft blue of sweaters in open bathroom windows, the notebooks in libraries; some messes. The glories. All of it pushed together/blended, like watercolors wet again.