Jeffrey Graessley
(Originally from Rind Issue 4, September 2013)
Disgusted, I smack the round knob on my dash and it spits out the CD with her writing in cramped, neat circles.
“This really doesn’t need to be in here,” I tell the empty car, and take the right on Joan Bridge, two and half wheels skidding– then ease it into my usual spot at the bar.
A cloud of smoke streams in lazy plumes to my right. I can smell it, pot. One of my uncles smiles a wide turn, holding a glass piece. Wet coughs drip his lips, low-rider eyes, happy content living; I see it in the lines on his forehead.
“Where you been, young blood?” he asks, wrapping his free hand around my shoulder, pulling me into a hug; a blue collar at-work-all-day smell, sweat and intoxication.
“I’m about an inch from running, unc. I don’t give a fuck anymore. She’s gone.” My eyes search the cracks in the parking lot for answers, but find none– his rough hand grips my shoulder, flint and steel eyes boil into mine.
“You’re fucking WHAT? How you gonna talk like that?” And, like the Heisman trophy stance, he stiff-arms me, I feel the pressure on my shoulder– a stare, like a cop’s light signaling me down.
And the asphalt still doesn’t have any answers.
“The house is so empty,” I finally manage. Her shape asleep in our- my bed. Memories dance through my head, a slow Spanish number. Mountains of wrapped blankets, a sheaf of almost-black hair poking through. My fingers can still taste the sweat drip from her body, working.
A shake on my shoulder, little like an earthquake, rattles me back.
“Listen to me,” he says in a cloud of bliss out his lips. “A woman has everything she needs to break a man. You can’t let them. She’s gone? Then let her go.”
He smiles, wide, passes the piece to me, lighter follows directly after. “They’re just like birds, you gotta let them go, and if they every come back, then they’re yours.”
I laugh– breaking into a smile.
“Hit that, young blood.”
