patrick-charles

[patrick-charles]

Giving Sun

It’s cold in our apartment because it’s late October in Wyoming. 

There are dirty dishes in the sink and dust on the floor. 

I spoon honey from a jar and twirl it into my tea. 

The lights are off and the plants are happy. 

The afternoon sun beats down on the patio, so I grab a folding chair and set it right in front of the glass window. 

I can feel the heat on my hands and on my legs, underneath my corduroy pants. I think of her every time I wear them. 

I get a book from the table and put it on my lap. The pages feel new and the spine stiff. 

The skin on my palms gets hot as I grip my bones around the mug. 

The steam from the tea floats away like a winter’s promise. 

I shuffle my boots against the hardwood, cross my legs and open to page twenty-two. 

My toes curl in my socks. My ankle feels sore from rolling it over in a basketball game. 

I blink hard at the sun - the lovely, giving sun. 

[patrick-charles]

The Boston Dispatch

I first learn there are two dime-sized holes in the soles of my brown leather boots as we slosh down the narrow streets of Cambridge with our necks shrugged into our coats fighting off the sideways sleet of early April.

Winter came back to life in New England. Hands tucked deep inside coat pockets, the mess of a gray slushy winter lie dirty in the entrance of every bar and hotel lobby. The falling, freezing rain glitters in the sky. Cars ride by slowly as if navigating a flood, headlights guiding the way to safety.

We step off the curb near the Dunkin Donuts, the glorious coffee shop of the northeast, the purple and orange signs on every corner you turn, fueling an entire city, region and area. The country must run on this stuff.

Nearly every stop on the T is filthy, dirtier than I remember New York ever being. But it was a respectable kind of dirty, hard-earned and struggling, dependable and determined. The red line screeches to a halt at Porter Square and we pile on, heading into the heart of the city. A dimly lit pub has two open seats at the bar so we pony up and order our first bowl of clam chowder. The Friday crowd is happy and loud. I rub Sam’s leg, she skims her spoon on the surface of her soup with a silver smile.

It’s halftime at the Garden when we run into scalpers who have got two different box tickets in two different sections. I take a piss to think it over. We fork over $57 for the pair and find seats at center court next to a couple from Ireland in Celtics jerseys who secure us spots. Isiah Thomas does what he does and the C’s hang on in a one-point win. The stairwells are packed with green. The weather rains on the fans in t-shirts, guys take their girls back home, call cabs from the corner.

Inside a dive bar off Massachusetts Avenue a group of a dozen locals take up space at the center table, pulled three tables together to make room for pitchers of beer and pizzas. Not one of them on their phones. Instead they jaw and laugh and holler in those accents. Older men sit at the wraparound bar watching the Bruins postgame show. Our waitress slaps down a plate with Philly cheesesteak, a caesar salad and a tallboy of Harpoon’s IPA. We listen to the accents, grease up our fingers and watch winter come down in thick white pellets.

The next day we stand in line at a brewery for over an hour as it rains and temperatures fall below 30. Right on the harbor, major boats sit idle and wait for joys of summer. The line stretches on forever. We drink a flight of dark beers and can’t get buzzed fast enough. I have a hard time holding or walking, all my digits on the verge of falling off. My hands stay purple up to my wrists for an hour. We have dinner plans so we head out into the cold again, make one more pit stop for a Boston-only beer for Chris back at home and catch a bus across town.

Duck tacos, more chowder, shrimp and grits, glasses of water, big wide windows showing traffic. Rain dribbles down the glass. Sam across from me, shaking her head in delight and trying new foods, her favorite thing in the entire world. I’ve sat across her in these moments in dozens of cities across the country, tasting, picking, forking, nibbling, smiling, chewing, closes her eyes, the shake of her head and then that smile, like a light that wishes it could grow brighter with every bite.

The sun comes out the next day. We stroll along the green, blue and yellow houses of the northeast. We walk along ‘50s Boston. I feel as if I’m walking in Kerouac’s Lowell, in the midst of classic Americana with tiny sidewalks, big bushes out in the front yard, Victorian houses painted the colors of an autumn rainbow. The trees barren but pretty, the mailboxes full, cars in the compact driveways and garages, big wide windows with the greens of gardens and hanging plants. We walk slow and take it all in, get lost on purpose down the winding streets.

For lunch we eat gourmet bagels with almond butter and scallion cream cheese. Downtown, coming out of the train station, we spot a miniature blonde in a long white winter coat with flowing, thick blonde hair. She waves and smiles in sunglasses too big for her and runs across Causeway Street and gives Sam a long, tight, loving hug. Eleanor, all five feet of her, hasn’t lost a lick of her Tennessee drawl or southern charm. She smiles big, tosses her hair with her small hands and calls and Uber to catch our brunch reservations she made on the train ride down from Portland, Maine.

Strong mimosas in flute glasses, syrupy chicken on a plate, pizza with mozzarella and basil. Laughing from the two girls at the table, reminiscing of old friends years and miles away. What happened to our younger selves? Have we forgotten who we are, who we used to be, is it okay to feel old now? At only 25? They talk and ask about Megans, Sarahs, Rebeccas, girls I know and don't.

We step out into the sunlight with full bellies and walk our tired feet across town with coffee in paper cups. Street performers with kids dancing holding plastic instruments gather at Boston Common. The pond of summer is brown like sewage. The grass dull and dead, trees the same. Sidewalks are packed with strollers and healthy dogs on leashes. We sit on a wooden park bench and take in the movement of a city. A woman lays in a tree with her legs sprawled out in beige jeans and leafs through a novel. An Asian couple in Red Sox windbreakers nap on each other’s shoulders.

The crooked streets of North End spine through four story flats like an Al Pacino movie. I look for his handsome face as the sun sets on the buildings beyond downtown and over the river. A 90-year-old bakery on a corner is packed with patrons and cannolis. They make every dessert under the sun and they're all on display in dough-smeared glass cases. We grab $15 worth of treats and Sam and I finish them off with licked fingers as Eleanor boards her train back up north.

The Harvard Arboretum isn’t full with green life this time of year but we stroll hand-in-hand anyhow and imagine June in Massachusetts. A small creek runs through the stones. Kids play near the pond, geese gawk at their silliness.

The blue harbor matches the blue sky for a twilight walk along the water. The lights of the sky twinkle in a big way, a catch your breath and make sure you don’t forget how she walks and moves her neck across the street watching for reckless cabbies kind of way. That moment of the weekend that resembles the dreams you had when booking a flight across the country and the memories that linger forever. At the time I’m frustrated with tired knees at every Italian and seafood restaurant we pass up for an imaginary and perfect one. But looking back this was it, walking along in silence and taking it all in with my southern lover, with my two-and-a-half year lover, the one I’ve given the most time to, the scariest one, the one who knows me best out of anyone. She whispers the names of street signs to herself, biting nails, scarf around her neck, her small ears turning pink with fading winter.

Dinner is a disaster. We walk into a five-star jaunt wearing sweaters and sneakers. The hostess wears a suit. The owner with gray hair and grace asks us how the gnocchi is. I write a note to the staff on the receipt apologizing. Never did we both want to be out of a meal as fast as that one. Neither of us want to stand up to even take a leak. We slump out after a high-end dinner and hightail it out for another dirty subway ride back to Cambridge.

The first Monday in April means baseball, and Boston does their baseball right. Like in movies, TV shows, broadcasts of my youth, sitting in front of the TV watching and gawking at Fenway Park. I find it outside of a subway stop, men and women selling programs, juggling autographed balls, the same scalpers on the sidewalk now as the Garden. Cold beers in cans on the patio as the first-pitch roar of the crowd comes cascading over the Green Monster. A flight of IPAs on the other side of the block with the sun shining down, the glow of Boston goldening the small glasses of heavy beer with the crowds and chants and fans filling up the streets. Sam clinking her rings on the glasses, taking sips of beer and more chowder. Bostonians fill the street, happy with red hats and navy blue jerseys celebrating the first win of the season.

We end our last night in Boston drinking beers in a living room watching the NCAA championship game. Cambridge glows in the rain outside as we toss and turn on the air mattress.

Tuesday rains on us, the city bidding us farewell with more cold and clouds. The owner of the burger joint down the block wishes us well on our travels. On the bus to the airport Sam and I share a half hug-half kiss in front of sad strangers, traveling with the same Tuesday blues. The city sits beneath a falling puddle as planes wait for passengers at the gate.

Where did the days go? Where do adventures take us? Why do we long for them?

To see the way buildings are positioned together next to the ocean. To hear how people talk to each other with pints of beer in their hands. To taste clam chowder, duck tacos, Boston brewed beer and to hold hands on cobblestone streets tight enough so your palms sweat with love and excitement.

Boston did this for us, and so much more.

[patrick-charles]

The West, Further

The sun gleamed off the silver tint of the airstream trailer out back underneath the pines. Our host walked us around, showed us the fire pit on the bank of the subtle stream, set us up in the trailer, pointed at the bed and sink, if we need anything at all just ask. 

We asked some twenty-somethings holding bottles of beer where to go for the night. Downtown Dubois was a four-block strip of western bars and shops. We dug through old records and found Joni Mitchell’s Blue and an old Neil Young album among others. Ten bucks for six of ‘em. 

Holding hands down the street, we ducked into a bar to play pool. Five bucks for a beer and a shot of whiskey. Two games of pool, split. Rubber match was never scheduled. The bartender shared his calzone with us, brought out two healthy servings and some forks. 

We must have crossed the street a half dozen times that night, buzzed and happy, never a worry that we’d be crushed by oncoming traffic because we were in one of the west’s last best kept secrets. I remember the street lights coming to a dim, hence the city coming alive with the slightest heartbeat and glow. 

Fire by the river, a peaceful scene. Red wine from the bottle, journaling and music. Fall asleep in red sheets. Soft skin in the morning. Hot tea from the kettle, breakfast in underpants. Summer fading away outside the small windows. 

Back in the car and onto the Tetons. North for another hour. 

We find a secluded campsite and pitch the tent. Rainy and cold, fall and winter asking us if we can take it. We grab beer from the connivence store and hummus from the car, take a drive over to the real big ones, set up the hammock right there on Jenny Lake, wind howling like its mad at us.

Waves and mist blowing, the atmosphere curling up over the ridge, curling up next to my lover, her hiding her face from the wind, smiles back at me, deep blue eyes like the lake that rocks her. 

Remember that look. Remember it always, the crunching sound of our hiking boots up the summit, the funny voices she uses when complaining about the cold when the breeze blows off the pond and then about the warmth when one jacket over a sweater is too many. The way her nose furrows when she smells a flower, how her eyebrows jump up when she puts a finger to bright green moss. Hiking will warm the blood, I told her. She skipped away in the forest. 

Goosebumps in the night. Rain overhead. Coffee and oatmeal in the morning. Picnic table damp. Pack up, new socks, new clothes, skin to the air. 

Big mountains once more, heat in the car blasting. Music too.

Long way home and a long way away from those days now. 

[patrick-charles]

Going Home and Leaving It

The grass on the hills of northeast Wyoming is all dead but the night’s alive. I’m going home again, and something always stirs in my blood at the thought of sleeping in my old bed again. 

I let my old car, new to me, top out at 82 on I-25 as the green signs above the highway read Cheyenne, Colorado Springs and finally Denver. Five hours and four minutes from my new home base in Gillette and the night falls on the entire state as I blow by it in a huff, a single bag packed, the remains of my work clothes strewn in a heap behind the driver seat, boarding pass printed and folded neatly in my shirt pocket. 

One lane turns into two. Headlights get brighter as the night gets darker. Buffalo roam on the range just like they say they do in the country songs Dad listens to on his stereo in the basement. Big and brown beasts scattered all over the ranch, they must look like brail from the sky.  

On a four track rail, one long train of 40 carts labors south. I race it down the highway as it chugs. The carts are full of coal, the good stuff. Black as tar. Black as a starless night. Black as the dirt under my fingernails. Good and black. I heard a guy talking just the other night about how they used to send 40 train loads a day from Campbell County alone. These days it’s closer to four. I pass up the train and leave it in my dust. 

I find a quiet subdivision three miles outside of the airport and park my car in the quiet night of suburban Denver. I call a car. It picks me up just after 1 a.m.

There’s no traffic at all. I make it to the airport in 11 minutes and 20 minutes later I’m at my gate tired as hell. So I put my stuffed bag underneath my head, my hip jammed into the hard slab of airport concrete. I sleep for a total of 90 minutes, if that. Every 15 minutes the intercom lady says something about safety and suspicious activity and can’t I just be home by now? 

My brother and my girl and all my friends are getting drunk on the streets of Wrigleyville, taking drinks out into the streets as the bar closes and chasing girls down alleys and splashing in Lake Michigan at five in the morning and after nearly six hours at the airport I board my flight and we ascend towards Chicago.

But I go back to the blood and the stirring and the excitement and the familiarity and all the same goddamn things I’ve written about over and over about friends and bullshitting and 3 a.m. and backyards and porches and walks home and you need a beer yeah get me one and you remember that one time and guess what you missed last month and I missed you too man what have you been up to and I love you too Mom good to see you thanks for picking me up…

It only takes the thought of all this for the blood to stir. For my brain to start to tick.

It’s the thought of holding her in my arms. It’s the comfort and safety. It’s the reasonableness for love, the unreasonableness for leaving. It’s the absence of longing. Closeness, her smell on my clothes again. That spot on her neck where I bury my lips and nose. Good thing I shaved.

It’s the thought of drinking beers under the dark night that hangs above my hometown. The thought of taking the last sip of beer, shaking it, asking who else needs one, taking the trip to the cooler or fridge, hearing laughter boom from the patio, twisting the cap open and missing out. I’m gone for 30 seconds and I missed something. Take it all in, ask what I missed and don’t take it for granted. 

It’s the thought of Mom preparing everything. Doing everything for me. For us. It’s Dad firing up the grill, him calling out the White Sox score from the window, who blew it in the 9th this time. It’s him laughing at just the thought of having us home with all the knuckleheads crammed in the backyard around a table full of empties and the leftovers of all the snacks Mom brought out hours ago. And this time it’s missing Allison. 

I remember Saturday like I remember third grade. It all kind of blends in. Drinks by the pool, nap, sun, Johnny orders pizza, dinner, snacks, more drinks, Gabe and Will drive, bar, dead, another bar, better, dance, drink, spill some, another bar, food, losing juice, sit on a curb, you can’t sit on this curb, take a hike pal, take a cab, sleep in a cab, sleep on the sidewalk out front, cold pizza, Sam’s in bed, sleep. 

On Sunday I forget how beautiful and vibrant and lively Bucktown is so we decide we’ll live there one day. Years down the road when we all come back and live a block away from each other and we can grow plants in the window and take the train to work and spend Tuesday nights together at some corner bar or fancy restaurant. 

Sunday turns into Monday and we have breakfast out on the patio at Elmwood, just the two of us. Her plane leaves in two hours. Back to Nashville. Back home. Just for a little while. We’ve made it this far. We can make it a little while longer. Man the biscuits and gravy are good here. I’m either hungover or plain sad so I shrug and decide both and shovel pancakes and swallow coffee and get the airport melancholy out of the way with Joe at her side and think of Wyoming and work and is the weekend over already?

Going home and leaving it. The next time I see Jimmy he’ll be a civilian. The next time I see Ali we’ll be celebrating a holiday. Same with my folks. Chris and I grab Wing Stop for dinner. Aidan comes later. Dad drives to the airport. I call Sam on my to the gate. Alone again. 

It’s hard when the hey man good to see you’s turn into it was good to see you too man be good’s so quickly. Instead of stirring, by blood sits like old soup. There’s a pit in my stomach that lasts the whole trip home. All two hours waiting at the airport, two hours in the air, five more in the car. Now it’s not only dark but it’s a lonely dark when the radio can’t even keep me company. I chug a coffee and a Red Bull and drive home solemnly, sulking behind the wheel. 

Home. Returning is always like a dream. Leaving it always hurts. 

[patrick-charles]

The Tillett Place

The beer is cold and refreshing, born and brewed in the Rockies, but my hands and fingers are covered in cow shit so after the first couple sips I taste that too.

It’s three o’clock in Shelbyville. Two kids on four-wheelers scream by on the two-way highway just past the gate. Trucks and two-seater gators are parked right up at the pen, a gray barn sits useless 40 yards away, its wood peeling and chipping. Tall weeds dance in the spring wind. Summer’s on the horizon. It’s Sunday and the late May heat is starting to get to the cattle. They’re separated by calf and cow, the big ones squeezed into one section, the calfs split up in two. The lone bull huffs and puffs alone.

An hour earlier, J.B. sorted them all like a magician, using a stick with a rubber knob at the end, much like a walking stick. He let the cows run and scurry away. When the calfs tried to follow their mothers, he’d hold up the rubber end and shoo them away as they tripped over their own feet in hurry. In 10 minutes, all 99 animals were sorted and accounted for. Fifty years of farming experience pays off when you’re chasing daylight.

Kenzie sits in the truck and works the book while Hayes and his daddy Eddie prepare the tag guns, needles and fly spray. Samantha organizes everything on the truck’s bed and Nolan and Tyler smoke cigarettes and get the head catch and alleyway ready. J.B. continues to sort them in the pen and before I know it, the first one comes and they don’t stop for three hours.

Squeezing and sprinting and banging and spitting and kicking all the way down until the head catch. One at a time, Hayes slams two metal doors right at the neck of each cow. No way in or out until he pins each ear, fly sprays their backs, shoots them up in the shoulder with an ointment for disease as they throttle and jump for fear of every damn thing in the world. Heifers go by with a breeze but the steers have to be castrated. With the head in the catch, Hayes bends down below the hind legs of every male calf and carefully and forcefully snips and rips the balls off and throws them in a grocery bag to later be fried and eaten. The other boys and I take turns grabbing hold of the tail and pulling it all the way back until it’s parallel to the spine, temporarily paralyzing the back legs. In this moment I appreciate cheeseburgers more than I ever have. 

For three hours straight these massive animals clang against a rusted metal cage. It is like listening to a refrigerator full of cinderblocks fall through a roof over and over again.

Sweat drips down every forehead, laughs and coughs leap from our happy mouths. We lick our lips, take sips, drags. More sweat. We wipe our hands on our clothes, the condensation on cans is half moisture and half shit. It all goes by in a blur, our legs and hands tired. The sun creeps down, supper is served in the houses off the highway. The ice in the cooler melts. 

The book is checked and double-checked. Sunglasses are flipped back up on the tops of dirty heads as we shake hands and thank each other. The cattle find shade on the farm. Engines are started and the gate is opened, the highway leads to the night. 

[patrick-charles]

Buttercup Season

the truck roars to life, the mud sits sloppy and new the hay bales tall and fresh, hornets make home in the passenger seat mirror - buzzing around for pain or pleasure

one bale down, two, then three, the moss on branches linger, the grass stays dead the giant tires roll over flowers, cigarette smoke wafts from the driver’s side - a puff and a sigh, she wishes he’d quit

but never a time to be sad when spring comes to life

“this is when buttercups start to bloom,” she whispers, hair playing in the breeze

the buttercups, yellow like a happy warning, sat and waited 

this is the time we all bloom

[patrick-charles]

Sinatra Turns 100

Time travel is possible with the right kind of music. 

The mood of a room can change with the right brass instrument, the perfect sound of a kick drum, the selective baritone voice. Cocktails in hand on stage for the singers, jittery hands in the seats in anticipation to see something familiar, to hear a piece of time. A time in their life, a slice of it, now forgotten from top forty radio and studio sessions. The band was 20-deep, four singers, three male and one female, one doing Sammy, one doing Dean and the other, a church pastor from Tullahoma, doing Sinatra. 

Old men wore sweater vests and the ladies wore cotton gowns. A combination of gray and white hair on every head in the house. Most wore glasses and shiny shoes over thick socks. The space in front of the seats was carpet fashioned into an ugly blue and gray combination of diamonds and squares. The pretty things were left for the stage.

In back there was a long table with plates of cookies, some chocolate chip and some oatmeal raisin, some fresh and some stale. The coffee shop across the street provided regular and decaf. The floor was slicker in back. A perfect view of the stage and the timeless magic that it held. The band did the ones that you know from the movies, from the television specials, from the documentaries, from your uncle’s vinyl collection, the one about flying a plane in that DiCaprio movie. They told jokes about drinking, singing and hogging the spotlight. Sinatra suggested the crowd dance. A few of us did, most didn’t. There was an intermission. More coffee. More cookies. The second half had more energy, more nostalgia. The crowd was on their feet for the final seconds of the final number. It was rainy outside and late for most of the audience so they shuffled out with umbrellas and raincoats with wide smiles and the same jittery hands. 

Outside the pastor took photos in front of the marquee with his big family. A night for Sinatra. A night as Sinatra. The drizzle wore off. A couple kissed by the fountain in the town square. Cars emptied the parking lot and returned home to a regular Saturday night in this day and age. 

[patrick-charles]

A Friday in France

Sergeants tell their soldiers not to roam around Europe alone. You travel in a pack or you don’t travel at all. He had been to Nuremberg for kicks, Oktoberfest for the booze and the Alps for a soldier retreat. The only time he crossed Germany’s borders was when he flew back home to Chicago for Christmas. He had been stationed in Germany for 18 months and had left the country once during his enlistment.

A couple months ago he booked himself a room in a hostel and snuck off to Venice by himself. He walked along the water and sipped chardonnay out on patios. He made it back to the barracks in time to report for duty on Monday.

On Friday, November 13, he snuck out again without signing the right papers and filling out the right forms. He told a few of his buddies in his platoon, told them to keep an eye on his stuff, packed a bag for another room alone and got on the 12:55 train that read "Paris."

Eight hours later he was in France. He walked past the Eiffel Tower, posted an Instagram, found a restaurant and ordered a glass of chardonnay for 10 euro. Then my brother called our mother.

“Hey Mom, what are you doing?”

“Oh nothing, just working. What about you?”

“Nothing really, just hanging out in Paris.”

“You're there?! Now?!”

My brother laughed. He didn’t tell anyone his plans.

“Yea I'm just sitting at some restaurant drinking chardonnay. I got to see the Eiffel Tower earlier.”

“Oh my gosh I am so jealous. Well have fun and be careful.”

“Will do, love you Mom.”

He hung up the phone and made plans to check out a nightclub a friend recommended to him. It was chilly outside so he figured he’d head out soon. Thirty minutes later, two women sitting in the restaurant asked if he was American. Yes, he said. They told him that an active shooter was in the city 20 minutes away. Seven were reportedly dead. My brother sipped his white wine slowly and remained calm, blending in as much as he could. Then the text messages came.

“Hey I heard you're in Paris, are you OK?” “Hope you're safe man, give me a call when you can.” “28 dead in Paris, you safe?” “I heard there are 60 people dead in Paris.” “Get inside man, now there's a hostage situation.”

An hour or two went by and the atmosphere felt eerie. There were no cabs in the streets. Police stood on every busy corner, all heavily armed. A strange excitement ran through my brother’s body. Call it soldier instinct. On his walk home, a police officer stopped him and warned that going any further north was a bad idea. A man saw the interaction and offered to give my brother a ride home. His phone was low on battery. He couldn't communicate with anyone back home or on base without Wi-Fi. Five long hours later, he was back in his room.

He woke up the next morning and found eight soldiers blocking off the small street he stayed on. He walked down to the corner café and ordered a coffee and a crepe. One thing you inherit as a soldier is to never let someone come up behind you. He sat with his back to the wall, lit up a cigarette after breakfast and watched. The city seemed in better spirits than he expected. He took another walk towards the Tower and strolled through the Christmas market on Champs-Élysées. It was surprisingly crowded. Everywhere he walked, he found an escape route, constantly listening for the crack of an AK-47.

The day turned to night and he had one more on the town. The evening was tired and somber. He wandered around more restaurants and bars, more wine and beer. At Corcoran’s Pub, the crowd was small for a Saturday but spirits were better than expected. Rugby was on the tube. My brother sat and drank.

A man later walked in with a woman hanging on him. Another woman ran to him and embraced him. My brother knew exactly had what happened. The man went out for a smoke and my brother followed. They talked for a bit. His best friend was at the Bataclan on Friday night. His best friend was shot and killed 24 hours earlier. My brother cried with him, cried for him, apologized to him. My brother asked if there was anything he could do. What was there to do?

“No thanks,” said the man. “But that’s very nice of you.”

My brother felt so small in that moment. He texted our mother and told her he loved her. He walked around Paris again wondering what would happen next. The people of France were on his mind. Through all horror and tragedy, in that pub, it was nice to see people caring about people.

For the second time, he returned to base safely from a weekend trip away. After Friday's events, he felt the strength of France. But what would happen next?

[patrick-charles]

Snow day. Second pot of coffee up and in, Sam on the couch while the music plays in the living room. Every school shut down, thirty-three crashes on the interstate before 10 a.m. and not an inch of snow on the ground. Sidewalks are wet from hail, stone cold as winter, our toes chilly under blankets. The smell of nail polish floats, the taste of hazelnut and day-old omelets on our tongues, heat rises and stays, the sky utterly gray. Christmas tree still up, lights strung up proudly. Waking up slow with no alarm, bosses call off work, send good news through text message, sixty new pages of a new book, sixty new leaves on a new plant for the house. Movies in the evening in a dark theater, popcorn bucket full, butter, seasoning, more butter. Water, water, water, plant, sod, grow, more coffee for the afternoon. Tennessee, cold but not so lonely. A Sunday in the middle of the week. Water and grounds, coffee. Water and pots, growth. 

[patrick-charles]

On the Road Again

At a Pilot gas station up on the second deck of a double decker en route to Chattanooga, away from family and friends this morning once again, a suitcase packed as tight as it can get with flannel shirts, socks, cut off jean shorts and my bulky and handy typewriter. People dig their greasy hands into Arby’s bags and take bites of honey buns, bagged popcorn and corned beef sandwiches on the bus. Everyone has an empty seat next to them so it’s just about half full. I watched the sun come up at 5 a.m. after staying out all night for Johnny’s birthday in the drunken streets of Chicago. The goon turned 24 and ended his night puking up booze and blood in between two dumpsters in an alley just blocks away from Wrigley Field. One of those nights, one of those summers and one of those lives. A chapter done, a new one beginning.

Driving into Louisville and the bus keeps rolling on. As does life. The sun glimmers off the Ohio River and the city looks surprisingly pleasing. Traffic is fine and the bus jumps and rumbles at every crack and break in the road. The grounds crew on Louisville Slugger Stadium take their time with the tarp and see no sign of bad weather for the evening. The bus pulls off slowly near a large construction site off the highway and stops near more anticipating and tired lonely riders. The parks and sitting areas outside Jimmie Johns and Pizza Hut are vacant. Everyone spends this Sunday inside, a beautiful sunny day wasted. The capital building looks ancient and gorgeous. People wait for another bus, a van parked near a hydrant collects half a dozen tickets, suitcases piled up on the curb, always a romantic sight. In Chicago and Indianapolis it was the same thing. Mostly black men and women waiting for a bus to take them far away. Some people going home and some people leaving it. Kids with big gold watches sit on a banister waiting for something, eyeing every passerby with tempting and judging eyes. Hipsters walk by with Dunkin Donuts coffee. I meet a guy named Jordan heading to Atlanta and we talk about our cities, our travels and our work. He’s a wiry black kid with dreads tied up loosely with a hair band and black-framed glasses. Others sit on their suitcases, smoking cigarettes, saving half for the next time their off the bus, butting them out on light posts and shoving them back into an old pack of Newport’s. A couple cries off to the side while embracing each other in a long goodbye, both standing on the dirty city street with flip flops. Chicago is quiet on Sunday mornings. It’s just about 9 a.m. and there are no sounds of honking or yelling, just a distant screech of the Metra train at Union Station blocks over. The bus hums at the curb and the baggage checker yells cities, tags bags and throws them into a pile sloppily. The bus is cooled and the seats are uncomfortable plush. No cushion, tiny armrests and average legroom. Worse have been used in the air. It’s early yet and a glass of orange juice and a homemade egg, bacon and cheese sandwich did enough to give an hour of energy. Crashing comes soon, as does sleep down 290 and 297 out towards Indiana, away from home and the tallest buildings in America as they recede out of sight, clouds hanging over the beaut of a city. Before anyone knows it we’re in the rural south of Kentucky, driving over Salt River and the most awesome flea market in the south. A lone donkey stands stiffly in a wired cage, a John Deere super store takes up what seems like a mile of highway road and the hills bomb forever. Every other exit is advertised as a distillery of some sort, usually the brown stuff. The hills above the road remind a traveler of the moonshining that used to go down here in the hills as cops and robbers shot and fired and flashed through old dirt roads with bottles of booze clinking and rolling in the back of old, old trucks. The bus stops for a driver change out front of a Comfort Inn. Time drags, the clouds sweep by and the highway continues. A pregnant woman sits on a bench next to her friend who smokes a cigarette. Our new driver introduces himself over the loud speaker and makes sure to note that no illegal drugs are allowed on his bus and tells us which staircase to take in order to use the facilities. We trudge back on, forward and onward. The sun begins to set after Nashville. In middle Tennessee the sky turns a sweeping pink and orange, mixing with the fading blue and emerging black. People snap pictures out of the bus window and the tall green trees flash by at different heights. The night grows darker and the overhead lights flicker on. They’re a dark, creepy green, giving the bus the aroma of a laser tag event. Traffic’s ahead as Highway 65 has been under construction for what it seems like a decade. We crawl along at varying speeds with the help of headlights, semi-trucks passing us by, children across the aisle shout at stuffed animals and video games, a couple meeting for the first time near the back exchange stories about their trips overseas.

We go slowly up and down Signal Mountain, the site of old Civil War battles before us fought in the trees and on the rocks, beneath the birds and on the soil above the bugs. The connection dies out from the satellites miles and miles in the sky so my eyes turn to the windows and my head moves to the thoughts of days to come, months ahead spent in a different city with a girl I call my own. As we change highways with 20 minutes left, she gets off work watching two rugrats, puts them to sleep at a decent hour, gets behind the wheel of her small four-door sedan and creeps to unfamiliar territory on the south-side of town in-between a KFC and a shoe supply store, the parking lot dark and lonely. She waits for me with the radio on low, the lights out in her car, she checks the address again to make sure she’s parked in the right slab of concrete. 

The bus labors off the highway and past deserted fast food chains and parks itself in a short driveway in front of waiting cars with all their headlights beaming with anticipation. From the sweat and sleep and sincerity of travelers past and present, I make it to the parking lot, to the new city, to the little sedan, to the little lover and to the little green house that I’ll call home. 

[patrick-charles]

Bonnaroo, 2015

You’ll feel energized packing the car out front of your house. All other cars locked and alone, yours spilling with blankets and coolers, pillows and groceries. You’ll say goodbye to your folks, your hometown, to buddies and to the normal life you’re used to living and you will hit the road toward a familiar place, a familiar community, a welcoming one. You’ll feel energized for the first four hours, behind the wheel or accompanying it. Then you will need gas, both the car and your body, so you fill up with ethanol and 42 ounces of generic coffee. Louder music will be played through the truck’s speakers, snacks will be passed around, stories of past trips and festivals will be told. The coffee cup collects condensation, you hold it for warmth and drink it for stamina. Another 200 miles down, 200 to go. 

When you arrive, fog will float above Tim’s Ford lake, the sky will look blue and feel pink. The concrete feels and looks lighter, numbers decrease beside the Manchester sign and your love will be waiting in a bed of white blankets, half asleep at 5 a.m. You’ll hold her close and whisper your homecoming softly into her ear. She’ll kiss your face and you’ll sleep for two measly, restful hours. 

You’ll wake up with southern voices talking with excitement. Also, to the smell of more coffee. The last of the bags will be packed, the last of the beer and liquor bought. Your shins will ache, your eyelids will feel weighted, your mind slow, your feet heavy but your soul happy. The weekend will begin whether you’re ready or not. 

And then it all goes by in a dirty, sweaty, loud, wonderful and surprising blur. You’ll set up camp quickly, with tents, canopies, chairs and bedspreads. You’ll designate a grill spot, a kitchen, bedrooms, changing areas, a parking spot. The whole area a drinking spot. You’ll scowl over the schedule, circle, highlight, underline, memorize, forget and obsess over the schedule. It’s all you’ll talk about and it will be perfectly fine. You’ll see and meet people you’ll never see or meet again. You’ll feel their energy, feel the strong and vibrant vibe they give off. You’ll be one with them. Then you will look on strangely at others because assholes are everywhere. The sun will beat down on you ruthlessly and endlessly. You’ll sweat salty and heavy sweat for four days straight from every pore on your tired skin. Your hair will naturally form its own nest and if you scratch and claw and untangle a beetle might fall out. Ants will crawl over crackers and in between toes. You’ll be uncomfortably hot during the day and uncomfortably cold during the night. Dirt will cake under your fingernails, around your ankles and under your chin. You’ll smell like your feet feel and feel like you’re feet smell. You’ll drink plenty of water, sneak a swig of Jack from a Gatorade bottle at every other show, grill hot dogs and bacon over a tiny charcoal grill, laugh and frown on and off all weekend, stand at benches and eat peppers and pepperoni on pizza and listen to live music. 

The music. 

You’re there for the music. Don’t forget that. You’re there to see Florence dance and skip and hug a fan in front of her enormous crowd. You’re there to witness Dawes confess everything that’s good and bad with Los Angeles, for Brittany to howl at the setting sun, for Hozier to croon and play with jittery glee. The same excitement as Gregory, Shakey, Courtney, Houndmouth, Tyler & Josh, the Jacket, Benjamin and a kid named Billy from Jersey. And you’re there for Mumford. Finally Mumford. 

You’ll feel your legs, knees, back and feet start to go. That’s when you know it’s the last show of the last night. When the disco ball glimmers on top of the tower and the neon on the ferris wheel spins slower than usual, it’s Sunday. It’s always finished Sunday. 

Under the white light you’ll pack the truck quickly with urgency. You’ll want to beat the traffic. And you will. Cars will crawl slowly down country roads, hitchhikers will find comfort in a pick-up truck bed. The line will shrink and stretch to the freeway and you’ll eventually find your way out of harm’s way and away from your fellow Bonnaroovians. The roads will be black and empty in middle Tennessee. The lake house isn’t far, so one should not fret. 

But before you get there, remember this. This and everything else. With the rock music blaring from the speakers, look around at your best friends in the car and at your lover a seat over and feel life all around you. Roll down the window and feel the highway wind blow past and through and all around the entire car. Watch the gray glow of Bonnaroo over the dark silhouettes of trees as it winds down. Follow the phone wires waving up and down in the pitch black night. There are beers waiting for you at the house. In the fridge cooled and ready. Tonight you’ll take them out to the lake, put them on ice, strip down naked, wash yourself with a bar of soap and shampoo and drink cold beer in the warm lake. “A perfect summer night,” someone will call it. It’s 3 in the morning. Monday now. You’ll miss this night more than most. So will the others. You’ll talk all night and drink some more, thinking of people back home and the different people you used to be and used to love. And here they are. The people of your life and the ones you want close, floating on a paddle board off a dock in Tennessee, an arms length away from your girl instead of three states away. 

Remember Sunday night and Monday morning. Make it a good one. On the way home you’ll get lost off a back road, drink more beer in the car, piss off the side of Highway 64 into tall brown weeds of grass and make it home safe in the red glow of Chicago. Remember the dirt, the coffee, the sounds, the vibrations, the love, the beer, the road and the feeling of it all. The feeling of freeness in a world that’s convinced it knows what’s best for you. 

You know. All you have to do is feel and don’t forget. 

[patrick-charles]

Being Away

“We’re goin’ to California but we’re all out of work I guess that’s better than a grave and a Hearst” 

Tonight I’m in my secluded bedroom in the far corner of my aunt and uncle’s house getting drunk on light beers. Already quite drunk if we’re being honest. I turn on a lamp light, grab cans from the kitchen fridge, put them in the chilly closet that holds the winter’s temperature outside and sit impatiently in front of my computer screen watching old black and white films. The story plays out on screen but my mind is somewhere else. My knee bounces in excitement. 

Before smart phones and the free access of the Internet my best friends and I would pull out my family’s dated atlases and trace our fingers and pencils along the blue and green highways toward the sea out west. We’d imagine a life with a driver’s license, a life without a curfew, a life without social responsibilities and just pure freedom for adventure. We urged and begged to get out of our hometown. 

This afternoon the fees were paid and the flights were booked. Two of my best friends and I are taking off for California in late May for a wild vacation for no good reason other than kicks and ambition and freedom and the fact that we’ve sat in my basement on green leather couches planning and plotting an exact trip toward the wide open west in search for an out and nothing more. 

I pause the film on my computer and in a vision, I see our trip, I envision our journey, I hope to see, feel, breathe, smell and hear the following during our stay... 

The flight attendant calls out the freedom of the cabin. Earphones and magazines are used and read. Someone drove to the airport, a sibling or friend. Departure from Chicago, a familiar feeling. Unfamiliar is the direction: over the fly-over states – Kansas, Nebraska, Utah, Nevada – over the mountains and Rockies of Colorado, into the golden wonder of California. We couldn’t possibly sleep on the early morning flight. We had thought about touching down in this very state for years now, maybe even a decade. Even the flight attendant seems prettier than usual. 

After we land the air feels brighter, the sun hotter, the sky a better shade of blue. The wonder will quickly fade, the smog will take over the clarity, but the fantasy will continue because that is what we’ll hold on to... 

We’ll get drunk in loud and noisy bars, eat ballpark hot dogs as Kershaw pitches in the seventh, spill our guts and drinks in the shadows of alleys and the glow of neon signs on Sunset Blvd., flirt and smile at blonde women in white dresses, float on down the bright nights of a deceased Los Angeles, a city of angels once destined to be authentic. In the afternoons we’ll hike up valleys in sweat shorts and black sunglasses, gaze out east in a way we never have before, with the country all on the horizon for the very first time, being as close to the Pacific Ocean as one could, the salt water absorbing in the pores of our toes. In the mornings our heads will ache and temples will throb. Coffee will be put up in tan kitchens, bedspreads will be spilled about on couches and living room floors, the sun will scream its’ brightness through stained windows and freckled clouds. We’ll wake with tired eyes, sad livers and happy-as-all-hell souls. We’ll feel alive being on the edge, being on the run, being away. Away. Away. 

Away from a life we live and a life of prior engagements. We’ve never been the bunch to make and follow up on plans and we won’t start now. We’ll wander around the city in a borrowed car, drive by the bums of Skid Row, ride up and down Kerouac’s San Francisco past the yellow and red two-story houses following the telephone wires of yesterday, gaze at the early summer flesh of Venice Beach, live in a way we haven’t yet. “That’s what the trip is for,” we’ll think to ourselves over cases of beer, shots of whiskey, vodka on the rocks in clear glasses. The trip is to get away, to explore, to realize dreams of the west as reality. To find something spiritual in a vacation, something meaningful in a brotherhood, something big in everything small.

[patrick-charles]

Westhaven Blvd.

On a delivery in a gated community, white fences gleam in the sunshine. A pond glows off the freeway, pick-up trucks sit parked in the grass, poles hanging from the bed. Will we always have these Saturday afternoons? The ones that smell like fresh cut grass and chlorine pools.  The ones when you let the tires roll on forever in pursuit of a night under stars, a conversation with a crush, a quickening heartbeat, whispers in a quiet bedroom.  A group of high schoolers stand around a car, so cool and sure, hands in pockets, long pretty hair flowing. One smiles and waves.  I do the same, wishing I could imagine where her night takes her,  hoping for a time again when that’s all I’ll worry about. 

[patrick-charles]

She Visits Him

The afternoon smelt like daytime. 

Coffee had been made. So had love, in the early hours of Saturday morning. Fresh sheets, easy sunrise through white shudders, empty house, tired eyes, fresh winter bodies. 

Out in the backyard she sat next to him in a cushioned chair with her feet perched up under her bottom, cupping a coffee mug with her palms, holding the steam up to her nose, taking in the 2pm sunshine. Her messy hair was pretty in the sunlight. Her face was happy in the sunlight. Her being was present in the sunlight. He looked at her between sips of his own coffee and felt as if he was living inside of a perfect day, a day that couldn’t get better if it had tried. Then she got out of the chair and settled down in the grass. 

The small dog was quiet inside. Music played softly on the patio speakers. The heater hummed in a room upstairs. Back outside, a jogger ran past on a concrete trail. Then a couple with a golden lab, then a pair of bikers, then an elderly woman, breathing hard and heavy with a windbreaker on and a mission in mind. 

He watched her get comfortable in the lawn. She tossed and turned with leaves between her feet and in her brown hair. She put a hand under her head and the other in between her knees. Her hair blended in with the dead leaves of February. He smiled - distracted from his book - when they caught onto her sweater and forehead. 

She closed her eyes softly with her eyebrows and lashes still, her mouth in a settled and perfect position of content. She slept comfortably in the grass, just like the girl you see in old photographs.

He finished a chapter or two. The wind started to pick up and set a chill on the backyard. He was used to the cold, she wasn’t. She began to shiver slowly and tucked her fingers into the sleeves of her sweater. When the wind picked up she sat upright and began picking up leaves from the ground, tossing them in the air hoping to use the wind’s direction to hit him sitting at the table. She laughed and giggled through the wind, through her sweater’s sleeves. After a dozen tries a gush finally sent a leaf at his outstretched leg. They both smiled at each other. 

As clouds swept past the sun she stretched her limbs with gymnastic experience and exhaled beautifully with ease. She tiptoed over the grass in black socks and made her way over to the patio where he sat half-lost in his book. She then placed her left hand on the back of his neck and without a word, sat on his lap and nuzzled her chin and nose into the pulsing veins of his neck. A perfect fit. She crossed her ankles over his legs, traced her fingernails over the ink of his tattoos and squeezed at his body, hiding from the wind. 

Later that night they split hot wings and a bacon cheeseburger in a bar playing college basketball games. They drank more coffee and ate popsicles, peeped through antique shops, walked down gravel streets arm-in-arm, skipped rocks on a creek under green and sad trees, listened to a man named Greg play acoustic guitar on a stage in front of a window and got drunk on red wine and California beer. But all he could think about all day was her sitting on his lap, breathing sweetly in his ear, whispering plans for their day, holding on while he read his book and finished his coffee. 

“Surely,” he thought, “this day couldn’t get any better. Surely not.”

And then somehow, it did.

[patrick-charles]

January Blues

A soft winter wind blows outside my bedroom window. The gray sky is sprinkled with soft snow, misdirected and messy. Pretty still, like a shuffled snow globe. The beautiful red tree of autumn is brown and bare. Someone with boots and thick socks scrapes the fresh snow from their sidewalk with a metal handheld plow. They breathe heavily into the air. The tips of their fingers pink and winter-bitten. One pair of headlights slushes by, then another, then no more. 

The wind sends creaks through the house's walls. The TV's volume is muted. My keyboard clanks away like toenails on a wood floor. Books on the shelf go unread, clothes go unfolded, laundry piles up. Jimmy's bed empty. 

Down the street there are bloodstains on the concrete. A New Year's Eve football game. We skipped the grassy part of the intersection and went straight to the street. Joe's bloody knuckles, Johnny's bloody nose. The hazy yellow light glimmers above Dickens Ave. PBR cans sit on the curb, frozen inside and out. When Jimmy's home, it's as if nothing's changed at all. 

*

But day-to-day, nothing does. Then you graduate high school, then college, then you need a plan. Even at 22 you need a plan. Something always has to be next. Just like how we were forced to map our futures at 18, we are now forced to make new plans, to continue on the map created before adulthood. The walls don't quite cave in all at once. Just like how things change over time, the process is stretched. The walls come in slow. And before you're even ready to make a move, you begin to feel trapped.

So I itch for a new start, a change in direction, a misguided purpose like the January winds that bring snow and sorrow. 

*

The Christmas tree now lies helplessly on the curb awaiting a truck. From the center of the room - accomplished, proud - to the road in the dirty snow - weary and misplaced, awaiting the next journey. 

[patrick-charles]

An Afternoon with J.B. Burton

The farmland on either side of the two-lane highway was as dry as a wool blanket. On winding hills along the barbed wire fences, the autumn wind rushed into the windows of the black four-door sedan. The sun in the Shelbyville sky grew hotter with every hour like a pre-heating oven. The air cleaner and dryer by the minute, the smell of cattle lingered.

After a few attempts and wrong turns down a paved road, we approached a gray barn in the distance. Two cars were atop the hill on the rocked driveway: one a black pick-up, the other a navy blue SUV. The truck was empty and the SUV drove slowly to a stop. In the front seat was Toddy, a tan, muscular man with dark hair and dark sunglasses. A former football player no doubt. The driver raised an eyebrow at us and showed a small smile. I saw his happy, eager face through the dusty windshield.

Driving the SUV was J.B. Burton, father of Samantha, who drove our black sedan. In shotgun of our car was Caulyn, a Scottish girl raised in the country towns of Tennessee. From the driver seat window, Sam called out to J.B.

“Hey Diddy!”

“Hey sweet thing. Y’all ain’t lost are ya? What’re doing ‘round here?”

The visit was expected but I quickly learned that J.B. Burton made a joke whenever he saw an opportunity to make a joke. We got out and shook hands. J.B. wore a white t-shirt and light blue boot cut jeans. His boots had permanent dirt stains from long days on the farm. The hair on his forearms was silver, the hair on his head was full and white. When he talked, he ran his left hand through his hair as if to reminisce on the days he used to have brown locks of youthful hair, back when he used to pull it back into a bun just like mine. When he listened, he crossed his arms at his chest and scratched an elbow with the first two fingers of his right hand. His eyes were ocean blue. Soft, intimidating. Almost see-through. I wondered how many people got lost in them the first time meeting him (Caulyn and I being the most recent). Sam later told us that the reason her mother started up with J.B. was because he had a Mustang he would whip around town that perfectly matched those blue eyes of his.

After introductions he looked me up from boots to brows and reached a finger out to me and tugged at my shirt.

“Better put some meat on them bones young man, winter’s comin’.”

I let out a genuine laugh. He could be Jeff Bridges’ twin.

J.B. cleared the seats of his SUV and we piled in for a tour of the farm. Caulyn curled up behind the driver seat with her knees at her chin, Sam sat back middle with her arms rested on the shoulders of both front seats and I sat shotgun. J.B. insisted.

The car, although comfy, was a cluttered mess. Bills and papers spilled out of the glove box and littered the dashboard. Tobacco spitters lined the floor of the car, each a third full with dark liquid. I counted at least six empty cigarette packages in the console. There was little change in the coin box; what was there instead was a pocket knife, sunglasses and dust. The trunk held water gallons that swished and swashed as we drove down hills and over creeks. Cattle feed moved about in the back next to a small ladder and various tools.

“Three hunnerd thousand miles on-it. Been wit’me everywhere.”

We rode our way through weeds and tall grass, past oak trees and maple ones, acorns and various nuts were scattered around the floor of the farm. After showing us a group of cattle, J.B. opened his door and reached down for one of the nuts on the ground.

“These here just like pecans. I’mma open it up then y’all go on and try some.”

He took the pliers to his pocketknife and attempted to crack it open. After he couldn’t get a good grip on it, Sam offered to help with her smaller fingers and steadier hands.

“They supposed to be sweet I dunno how they gon’ be.”

We passed them around as we continued on the land. Tall trees bordered the farm and the road outside. J.B. pointed out the elder cattle, some worth over a thousand dollars each, and their youngins, some born just last night in the silence of a chilly southern night. He worried about some of their bottles being full (that is, their milk loads underneath). Each grown cow had a number pinned to its ear for when buying takes place. A rancher will know which he wants and a farmer will know which ones are ready to be emptied, fed or sold.

“See what number that black one is o’er there Sham.”

“Fifty seven,” she said.

“Alright fifty seven, we’ll make a note of that one,” J.B. said as he slapped down on my left knee as if to make sure I was paying attention to every little thing he said. And I did.

He would do this a dozen more times, mostly teasing, but it surprised me every damn time. After each whack the girls in the back would giggle and I nodded my head in assurance, while J.B. Burton peered through squinted eyes with a smile from the driver’s seat.

With each young, cute looking calf, Caulyn would Ooh and Ahh out of her window. J.B. told us stories of Sam when she was young, pulling her own slack like the rest of the farmers in all of Bedford County, told us of his dislike of guns and hunting and of each grass and weed type that inhabited his farm. We eased close to each cow, surveying the bugs and gnats resting forever on the eyelids of their thick skin. Caulyn looked out with sad eyes, the freckles on her forehead wrinkled with worry.

“What you gonna do today after we leave Diddy?” Sam asked.

“Oh well I gotta fix that that old bushhogger and get her up and runnin’ soon,” he said. “Might save that for tomorrow though.”

In recent years, Sam said J.B. wasn’t as strict about deadlines or wake up calls as he used to be. He sold a good chunk of his land so that well-off families could build fancy houses and slick driveways along the ponds. With older age came an easier schedule, flexible mornings, more time to take tours of the farm with strangers.

We drove down the last stretch and wheeled back around to where we started.

“Hey Diddy have you seen my raincoat? Think I left it here last time.”

“I saw a coat hanging from your bedroom door the other day. Bet that’s the one!”

Whack.

We parked back on to the gravel road and filed out. A combine sat vacant a hundred yards straight ahead underneath tall trees.

“Y’all wanna take a ride in the combine?” J.B. asked.

“No Diddy I think these kids have had enough of the farm for one day.”

Just like that, we said our goodbyes. I shook J.B.’s calloused hand and thanked him for the tour.

“Alright then Patrick. You be good and enjoy this weather. Have a safe trip back up north now.”

Before leaving, he noticed one of Sam’s tires was flat.

“Hey Sham, go on and get that fixed o’er at Lander’s. Ask for Tyler or Coon Dog. Tell ‘em J.B.’ll cover it next time I’m in.”

I doubted he knew everyone in town, but everyone in town knew him.

He slipped Sam some cash from his back pocket and forced it into her hand after a slight refusal. We drove slowly back down the gravel road on to Tullahoma. I waved out of the open window at J.B. and Toddy, hoping to be back one day, because an afternoon with J.B. Burton just wasn’t enough. 

[patrick-charles]

Sundays

Sundays are for painkillers. Saturdays are for 3am beers and comedy specials on the television, but Sundays are for headache pills. Waking up in a windowless room at 2pm is a lousy way to start an afternoon. The living room a mess of empty beer bottles and frozen pizza leftovers, the oven cooled, the couches dirty.

Sundays are for coffee on a balcony, daydreaming of Willie Nelson’s Texas, flipping through a Rolling Stone magazine. The sun setting in a yellow, cloudless sky. Cicadas alarm in trees beyond gravel parking lots, a swarm leftover from the summer. Sundays are for bare feet around the apartment, cleaning and drinking pink lemonade.

Sundays are for football. In dark rooms all over the country, broadcasts from Dallas, Chicago, and San Francisco are seen from the comfort of our homes. Or of our second homes. I think Sundays are for homework too.

Sundays are for silent nights alone, watching a film on your computer in your bed, the covers draped over toes, the glare from the screen flickering on your tired face. Sundays are for missing loved ones. 

Sundays are for relaxing, reading, watching and reflecting.