Dying Cowboys / When You’re Ready To Pay 

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                            For X.N. 

 

Dial tone. A click. Crunched static voice on the answering machine. We’re here to help you when you’re ready to pay. Dime store whiskey. Burnt throat and a pack of cheap cigarettes. Stove top caked in olive oil. Mice in the cupboards again. Leave the dishes in the sink. Frozen pizza in the fridge. It’s better cold anyway. A call to your son that’s met with dial tone, an automated voice on the other end that echoes back, Leave a message after the beep. Click. Another glass of whiskey. Crusted pepperonis under the fading TV screen. Cigarettes that spawn coughing fits so you leave them simmering in half-drunken red solo cups. Phone rings. Another spam call, but you answer anyway. Just to hear the sound of someone’s voice. Words filter through in broken robo-English, but you still understand them. We’re here to help you when you’re ready to pay. Click. A drink. Another stale slice of pizza. Outside, the neighborhood cat scurries by, mouth clenching chewed mouse. Good, you think. Serves those ugly bastards right for crawling through my walls. You change the channel. Some old western’s playing. John Wayne. Stern-faced and flush against the dimming TV. Memories of vagabond days and playing stick-'em-up with the neighborhood boys. The best shot always got the girl. Floral dress, giggling, and you didn’t have to know her name to know you wanted her. You change the channel. It’s been years since you thought of cowboys. You try your son again. Ring-ring. He has a new wife, a little baby, so you forgive him for not calling anymore. Nevermind the text he sent several months ago. We have to talk about it sometime, Dad. Son has always been soft. Son is like his mother. And you think, look how that turned out. Yellow floral dress. You remember her best in the old days, back before her face wrinkled and your anger made markings in her jaw. We have to talk about it sometime, Dad. And you left him without an answer. Whiskey. Another cigarette to smooth the mind that’s pivoting to displeasing thoughts. Aching lungs. A feeling in the pit of your stomach that’s familiar, but you don’t want to admit that it’s guilt. I should’ve left it on the western. The bang-bang of good guy shooting bad guy to save the day. It’s cheesy, but it makes you feel good about being a man. You flick through the channels. Guns ablaze, dashing horses. But then the TV blurs. John Wayne washes over in inverted greens, and the dying light finally gives out. It was bound to happen sooner or later. All the bad men draw their hands too late and even the cowboys have to die. Empty room darkened, except for the flicker of cigarette. Mind left to wander on memories best forgotten. We have to talk about it sometime, Dad. Floral dress. Long brown hair. You see her in the reflection of the blank TV. The way she used to be before. Before she met you and you ruined her. You shuffle through the dark to get another piece of pizza. Light from the fridge reveals the empty box. Wayward mice traverse the scaffold built from empty cigarette cartons. You retreat to the couch. Mind wandering to Wife, to Son, to John Wayne. Overwhelmed with time long-too-late, you reach for the phone. You click the message over-repeated. Automated voice. Like a choir singing just for you, and you sing along. We’re here to help you when you’re ready to pay. 

 

 

Shit, Fuck, Hell

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Shit. Fuck. Hell. Those are Tini’s favorite words. She sing-songs them rapid fire, gasping for breath, while she jumps on her trampoline. Shit! Fuck! Hell! They burst from her lips like firecrackers, creating an orchestra loud enough to draw attention from the neighbors. Mr. and Mrs. Pelletier holler at her to stop that racket. The Jeffries say it’s a sin for a young girl to shout such vulgar words. Old Lady Bernadette blames her parents—they’re too liberal or lenient or working too much. My big brother says Tini is a nuisance. He has to turn his heavy metal music up loud enough to balance out the chanting that floods into our backyard. Only the neighborhood kids are jealous of Tini. They wish they could say the words she says without getting grounded by their parents. 

 

One day, I climb the fence between our backyards to ask Tini why her mother never punishes her for saying the words kids aren’t supposed to say. She stops her jumping just long enough to look at me and squint. 

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“I have to say Shit! Fuck! Hell! or my head will explode.” 

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“Why?” 

 

“Just 'cause.”

 

She shrugs, rounding off her explanation with another declaration of those sacred words. I leave her to her chanting, to annoying the neighbors, to the drowning out of Black Sabbath coming from my brother’s bedroom.

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When I overhear my father complaining about Tini, my mother tells him that Tini has Tourette's, and that means that sometimes she says things she doesn’t understand. I don’t bother telling either of them about the possibility of Tini’s combustion, and my father doesn’t believe my mother anyway. It doesn’t matter what my father thinks or what the neighbors say or anyone else. Tini is determined not to explode. 

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There are times when the backyard gets quiet, when the neighbors shut their windows, when my brother turns his music down, when I look out my window to see Tini on her trampoline—her head expanding with all the bad words only she is allowed to say. 
 

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Video Game Days 

 

The space below my brother’s bed is pitch black, except for the stream of light from my Nintendo DS, which glows against our soft, reddened faces. I’m playing Mario. I like the way the game goes and goes without my say-so, smashing buttons to keep up with Mario’s running, narrowly jumping to avoid sinking into a gaping hole to nowhere. I like to collect all the 1-Ups, so when damage is done, I restart automatically. Over and over. That way I can die as many times as I like without the game ever ending.

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It was my idea to lift the mattress and crawl into the compartments underneath the bed. I am always finding spaces for us to hide, caves to dig with plastic shovels, forts to build out of fallen tree limbs and broken winter sleds. Beside me, my brother clicks open his own DS console, and the Legend of Zelda theme drifts from stippled speakers.

 

Duh Duh Dun Dunna Duh Dah.

 

My brother hums along, conducting his stylus like it has the power to change the direction of the wind. The most he can conjure up is a jab to my ribs with his elbow.

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“Hey, watch it.”

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“You watch it.”

 

“I’m trying to play my game.”

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“I’m trying to play MY game.”

 

Electronic boops transmitting through the bed boards cut our grumbling short.

 

Boop. Boop. Boop.

 

We almost forgot about our best friend, Danny, hidden in another compartment below the bed, with his own DS to keep him company. My brother calls out, You okay in there? and Danny lets out an exasperated groan that makes us all laugh. The mish-mashing of out-of-sync video game music creates a choir of noise and little kid laughter, and childhood is forever bound to hiding under cover with flashlight in hand—in some form or another.

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“I could stay under here for the rest of my life,” I say.

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“Me too.”

 

“Then I wouldn’t have to go back to school.”

 

Danny’s voice is muffled under the sounds of Mario’s bouncing and Link’s hurdling. 

 

“We could live like cavemen.” 

 

“But won’t we run out of air under here?”

 

I push up on the too-heavy mattress, secretly hoping to be trapped within the confines of the wooden frame; that way Mom will never find me and tell me that it’s time for the school year to start. The mattress relents under my pressure, it rises up, and for a moment I am greeted by the cool air, the stench of the Cheetos and Cinnamon Toast Crunch smushed against my brother’s bedroom floor. I drop the mattress back down.

 

“Nuh uh.” Brother shakes his head. After all, children never die. We have time and time forever, little Mario men jumping without the fear of diving off the stage, boinging our way to the next level. Summer. Fall. Winter. Spring. Summer again. Where we waste the dog-days riding our bikes until the sun goes down, watching reruns of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, sneaking horror movies behind our parents' backs, and playing video games. We play single-player games on parallel devices until our DS dies, until Mom calls to us that dinner is ready, and we’re forced to return to the three-dimensional world.

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“I gotta go home,” Danny says, nonchalantly, and we walk him to the front door. We offer to let him stay for dinner. He stays for dinner most nights, but tonight he says he really has to go home because his mom is waiting for him. We watch him slip down the steps into the darkening night, the moon brimming white and hollow through the trees.

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“Bye!” We scream so loudly that Danny stops, turns back, and laughs at us.

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“See you tomorrow!” he calls.

 

“See you tomorrow!” we echo back, swinging the door open and close, as our mother scolds us from the kitchen to stop making such a racket. We drop the door handle, letting the door sway open, and we stare blankly into the darkness. We watch the moonlight lead Danny down the path to his house, not wondering if it will be the last time, never thinking about the game over.