“It ain’t moonlight kid.”
Tom drug me through the muck ‘n mire of the Mississippi. Water soured as we wandered into the Arkansas Delta;
old bones ‘n guilt clutchin’.
As it occured to me that I was drowning, flashes of history began to ooze up from the river-rocks.
A first generation Japanese-American looks up from the back of
the man in front of him to see the place that would be his
prison for the next two years. Unfinished, what was completed
was built on swampy flood-plain earth, hasty, and above all,
temporary, built to be washed back out to see where no one
could see it. He stares dumbly as a guard leads him to tools
and tells him he will help finish the construction. He thought
of California shores. Weeks later three boys would be shot and
injured in the woods with buckshot, and a week or two after,
three more would be shot and injured by a man who paid a fine
for his violence and nothing more. Flecks of this history hit
me in the face; some things will never wash away.
Here, Tom drug me from the water by the collar. “You alright?”
I sputtered, half the river began to slip from between my lips back to its flooded shores.
He nodded and hit my back a few times ’til the water was clear. “You still reckon you’re fit for the wedding?”
Fade in.
Lights up.
Whisper to unhinged tameless howl.
“No, no I don’t reckon I am.”
Tom looked me over, eyed me real hard. “’n why’s that?”
“Ain’t sure if I can handle seein’ her.”
Tom squinted. “Bride?”
I shook my head.
“Old girl.”
I thought a moment and shook my head again.
“Ah, that kind.” He took of my shirt and began to rub my chest. “Kid, there ain’t been a man I slept with that I didn’t feel guilty about.” He sighed. “Ain’t even that it was worth feelin’ guilty. Grew up midwestern, with closed off men who didn’t have much use for fashion or fads, dined, drove, and died in their work clothes. And they all went up to church on Sundays where their learned that stealin’ ‘n killin’ ‘n gay men were bad. Learned sometimes that killin’ gay wasn’t much worse than killin’ food. Grew up with walls of men who taught me what they knew and blocked all else from gettin’ at me. There ain’t been a man I slept with that I didn’t feel guilty about.” He was silent for a moment. “But it ain’t my guilt, and it don’t change what I am or what I feel. Ain’t no use draggin’ someone else’s around ‘n then letting it weigh you down. Now get up. Let’s get you movin’ so that blood flow’ll warm you up.”
V - Scroll - V
