Date: Mon, 19 Aug 2002 06:21:38 +0800 From: dirge Subject: The Last Supper of Beer (M/b) Disclaimer: This story contains scenes of sex between men and boys. This story is copyright protected, If you have any questions or comments regarding it please email me. Thank you. THE LAST SUPPER OF BEER by dirge (dirge@operamail.com) I am a from a long line of white men who are big and strong. My great great great great great great-grandfather was a Viking slaver. He had a ship with a single mast and a large sale adorned with the silhouette of a sun wildly burning. My grandfather was a baker somewhere in Minnesota, and my father does odd jobs on an Indian reservation somewhere in Montana. This is the reservation where I was raised in poverty like my brothers the Indians. I was laying in the back of my 78 Dodge pickup by a river watching the midnight sky. It was the last night out for my friend who was going to propose to his girl. Our supper consisted of steaks and a pony-keg of MJD. I was drunk and spinning. I put a mattress in the back because I knew I wouldn't be driving home anytime soon. My friend Sam and his girl Hannah were by the fire. I could hear them laughing and then whispering. In my minds eye I tried not to imagine what they were doing. Sam shouted that he loved Hannah so that it echoed back off the clay walls on the far side of the bank. Then I heard him ask her to marry him and she started crying. I was so drunk that I puked over the side of the truck and they both started laughing. I groaned because I knew that I would be asked to be the best-man and that my throwing up would be inserted into their proposal story for years to come. This story is a complete work of fiction. Nothing is true. I sit here as I type trying to think of words that can follow the others in a semblance of understanding. This story is true. It is more true than the fading ghost of a boy who stands behind me. He has followed me for a long time now because I keep a picture of him in my wallet. Truth is why I must be careful with facts. I say that I was in Montana, but it could be Idaho or Wyoming or Maine. It could be Maine. The river is real. You can't make up rivers; they contain too many spirits, so making one up would be a sin. It was the river W---. The Reservation of my childhood was the R--- reservation, and Sam and Hanna are pseudonyms or they did not exist. People contain one spirit---two at most---so I can safely fabricate them for the purposes of plot. Likewise, lets say Sam and Hannah are for real, which they may not be, but let us say they are. Lets believe that this story is true. The river proposal happened at the end of a summer of El Nino so the valley was like a kettle. The valley was hot. I thought I might refer to it as the Summer of Grasshoppers, or the Summer of Sin, or the Summer of Elderberry Wine. I tried to think of all the things a summer can contain. Here, I've made a list: mowing the lawn, sleeping late, getting drunk, fixing the air conditioner, falling in love, falling out of love, not falling in love but falling into despair, camping on the badlands, at least one wedding, at lest two funerals, car breaking down, sitting next to the broken down car and crying, waking every night for a week at 1:18am because of the falling dream, not falling into love, a Bar-B-Q, the lake,... That summer my father was fierce, but he had grown older and calmed to a silence that was more wild than his temper. I was helping him rebuild a an old car for a local man of wealth. It used to be that people would hush around him and the mayor would come for political advice. A lot of the time that advice was public relations with the R--- tribe who wanted to place a tax on the city well. They claimed in their law suit that the white man had killed all the buffalo and antelope herds, corralled their people on a small reservation and converted their children to Christianity. This was in fact true, but it happened (the mayor claimed) a long time ago and now a tax would be unconstitutional. During high school I never had a girlfriend. I was popular enough to get by. I had one real good friend who was very religious and tried to bring me to Christ. It never took, but we remained close. Some years after graduation I was talking to a girl who had a crush on him. She brought up that she always thought we were gay so she never tried anything. I told her we were not gay and she hit her head like people do after they realize the truth and it is too late. She had a baby from some guy who wanted nothing to do with it or her. He was from out-of-state and never came back. I guess I felt bad for her because she was plain looking and I guessed it was the first time she ever had sex. First one's a keeper. Maybe plain looking girls are the most fertile. Later that summer she asked me to marry her because she needed a father and she didn't want to become an old maid. I laughed. I never had a mother so why the hell should her kid need a dad? And if she became an old maid it was for the sole reason that she was plain and golfed too much. I told her this (that she golfed too much) and she said she just did it to kill time. I told her she wasn't my type which was the same as saying she was ugly. I felt better after this until she started crying. I'm sorry, I said. She just sobbed. I touched her arm and she tried to kiss me. I should have let her, but my hand, with its own brain, came between my face and hers and she ended up licking my palm like a loyal dog. Why would you think we were gay, I asked her. "Well you never dated and you were always together. Everybody thought so." "Have you ever done... thought about doing anything with another girl?" "No way." she said. "Why not? Doesn't everyone think about it at sometime." "Have you?" "Yeah, I've thought about it." I was leading her on like this because I thought if I could plant the seed of doubt in her mind about my sexuality that might put to rest the marriage idea. She didn't pursue it because of this fact. My father's shop was on the corner of 9th Street off of Main. This is a quiet town most of the time. There are some days in early August when the county fair is happening that are more lively. On the Saturday night of the fair Main Street is closed off for a dance. The open container laws are suspended and white man and red man drink together like it is the last supper, the last supper of beer. One year the county sheriff, who was supposed to be keeping order, passed out by the barbershop. His deputies, the Doyle brothers, started looting the clothing store owned and operated by the prestigious Harry Wu Esq. Wu never drank because he was Jehovah's Witness, but he did subscribe to Militia Monthly and Guns Unlimited. The story goes that the older Doyle brother was trying to carry out a rack of denim jackets when Wu pulled up in his Ford, packing. He told the brother to drop it on the count of three or he'd blast his knee-cap off. Wu said "one" and fired and the brother went down like a pig to butcher, squealing. No one filed charges on either account; the sheriff stays sober now and the Doyle brothers still buy boots and chew from Wu's store. We were working on the car trying to fit a new high-rise manifold. It was one of those late summer evenings that are remembered mostly in soft blue tones. The garage door was open and we had set out a droplight over a chair to attract the bugs and moths away from our heads. Down the street Crazy Mike's Bar was blasting a country song. I heard it coming before I saw it. The driver jerked left and pulled up, letting the big tires bounce to a stop against the curb. A tall Indian got out. Dad wiped his hands on a grease rag then on his chest. The Indian's hair was long and black like the night to come. He wore logging pants and heavy boots. "Help ya?" My father said. "Howdy," said the Indian, stopping outside in the swarm of insects. "Howdy." said my father, "Help ya?" "Need to work on my truck. Won't shift." "Probably the clutch." "Expensive, eh?" "Depends." "Well I need it to haul wood next Wednesday." A boy got out of the passenger side and stood back from the man. I recognized him from around town. He was about twelve years old. Unlike his father his hair was thick and wavy and his skin was light. "I can have it done by then." my father said. "How much?" "I can't say. Not a lot." "OK, I don't have a phone. Can you drop it off at the end of Old Gulch?" My father nodded. The man left with the boy lagging behind. At Crazy Mike's he entered; the boy kept going. Old Gulch was about six miles out of town toward the buttes. A stream discovered (or not) by Lewis and Clark dams up down in a holler making a good pond to fish in. I went skinny dipping in it once in high school. It was freezing but I think it did the job of washing away a particular darkness. After that the tribe bought it and posted it off limits to non-tribal members. An article in the paper called it "Medicine Ground." I believed it and hoped it stayed quiet spot. One shouldn't play among ghosts without being prepared for the consequences. The boy vanished and I knew he was going to make the whole walk. I pictured him turning into a animal when he was safely away. ... I never felt white in my life. I always thought I was an Indian or I would become an Indian. On reservations Indians move like they did in their nomadic days when they followed the bison. But with the advent of the railroad the bison were shot and killed, mainly to decrease the native population. I can close my eyes and think they move to the ghosts of those lost herds. If the wind changes or the grass bends that means that it is time to go. Their teepees have become Volkswagen vans and trailer houses. Their hunting grounds are clearly marked as tribal only. If the earth disappeared I think the ghosts-herds they follow will become solar winds and the Indians will find a way to move among the stars. I see great futuristic ships, beautiful in their simplicity. Their sales are silicon-poly-fiber material that stretch for miles in the void to catch the energy waves of dying suns. When I was fourteen my father was working as a caterer. His specialty was pig roasting and goat roasting. We would set up the pit at whatever function; I remember watching the impaled animal turn slowly and brown, the smells wafting up and about causing mouths to water and people to draw near. It was at the end of one of these events that had been held for a dead tribal leader; I had retreated back into the woods to get away from the people. I've always sort of been a loner. My mind is turbulent so I can't concentrate if I have to listen to someone else. My dad was talking about politics and I was feeling myself become the invisible son. An Indian named Crow was walking beside me. I had not heard him come up, but these were his woods. Perhaps he was a tree and he just shifted into a man when I was close. I do not know all the secrets of these people. Crow drove race cars and lived part of the winter in Arizona where he taught Spanish to Hopi Indians. My heart stopped as he reached out a hand and touched my chest. We were just beyond the border of the trees and I could vaguely see shapes moving. I could hear them laughing. I could hear my father. "You think your an Injun." he said. "You ain't no Injun." I couldn't talk. I felt the energy move from his hand into me. He was sleek like a mountain lion. Was that his spirit guide? Would he morph before my eyes and consume me? Would I cry out? "I saw you fight Charlie White-owl last year." he said. Charlie White-owl was a big kid who hated white boys. He and some cronies caught me on Main Street. I saw the blow coming like they do in the movies when they play the sequence in slow motion. My arm went up and my right fist collided with his face. I kicked him on the ground. "He swung first." I said. "I know." Crow said. His fingers were working across my chest. "I'm not gay." I said. He shrugged and started to undo my pants. I felt the button catch. It was containing the last visage of my modesty. For boys this is a crucial thing, like a marble in their pockets -- a jewel theay are destined to lose. My pants flipped open and with a discerning finger he touched the skin beneath. He touched me in the way old women taste a custard to see if it is sweet, the way they choose a squash making sure it is ripe, the way a drunk knows his vice, the way an artist palms a brush to determine its balance. I reached for him. I heard my father start to tell a story about Vietnam. He pulled me down to the forest floor where we were consumed by the flora and the insects. When it was over Crow walked deeper into the forest. He was naked and soon I could not see him from the overgrowth. I dressed and went to help clean up. My father was sitting alone drinking a beer. Paper plates had blown out onto the large lawn and one was floating in the pond where a duck was investigating. An old Indian lady was sleeping under a tree. I tried to reconcile a time differentiation. I could feel my cheeks were flushed and I still felt moist from Crow's breath all over me. "Where you been?" he asked me. It was the way fathers ask questions of their boys when they don't want the truth. He looked hunched and weak, like the old man I would know years later. "I went back in the woods." I said. "You see anything?" he said. I shook my head. My clothes felt like sandpaper against my skin. "I thought I saw a dear so I went that way. It was nothing." "You OK?" "Yeah, I'm fine." I said. He looked at me like I was a piece of glass resonating at a frequency close to terminal. "Let's get it cleaned up." That was the last time my father ever talked directly to me. I don't know if it was my doing or his. Perhaps both. But the wall that went up was a hideous thing that made us both safe. We instituted a don't ask don't tell policy about our lives and let the years slip by. When I went away to college I never called except at the end of the spring term when I told him I was going to Alaska to work at a cannery. Alaska was lonely. The men were hard and angry. One man named Red had an outstanding warrant in New Mexico for breaking his wife's legs and running the handle of a toilette plunger through her left lung. She survived and pressed charges. He and I formed a cordial relationship where we would stay up late playing chess. Sometime after telling me why he was hiding out up there, we were playing---I was winning, he asked me if I had a girl. I told him no and tried to let the subject drop. You gay, he asked. I looked at him wondering what he wanted from me. Ain't nothing, he said. I ain't gay, I said. He stared at the board like each square had a different movie playing on it. I like boys, I said. He looked at me. I said it serious so that he knew I wasn't joking. I said it with a touch of crazy in my voice, the way straight guys say they like broads with big boobs, and mean it. He nodded. He told me he had a son and pulled a worn picture from his wallet. The boy had strawberry blond hair and was smiling at the camera. He had Red's dimples. You like him, he asked. I said that I thought he was very handsome. Red seemed pleased at this. He nodded as he gently returned the photo to a pocket in his wallet. Rook to Queen's Knight. Check. He won again. He was crying and reached to hug me. I pulled away and he sat back holding his head in his hands. His name was Nate, he whispered, He'd be your age. That's why I broke her legs, she let him drown in a swimming pool. I wanted to kill her. I couldn't really speak. It's like when you're driving down the interstate and you come on an animal that has been hit. It's not dead, but it's beyond help. Most people keep driving---I do. Maybe Crow would be one to stop and sit on the asphalt until the animal kicked it's last. At the moment of death maybe its spirit rises from the carcass, maybe he tries to catch it. Not to hold it forever, but to help it through the transition to a purer form of freedom. I wondered if it was the same with people. Towards the end of the season Red and I were working the line. The fish would come down and we had to sort them to size. Some where too large to lift and we let them pass. It's the kind of job where your mind starts to wander. If you get good you can lose sense of place and time as your hands and arms go through the movements. It was toward evening. No sun for six days, nobody cared. My arms ached and my mind was somewhere in the South Pacific---National Geographic style. Your secret's safe with me, Red said. I looked at him not really catching all the words. He smiled. Thanks Red, I said. Yours too. See you for chess, he asked. I nodded. He didn't come. A storm was blowing. I went to bed and had a nightmare about running from some large animal. It just wanted to eat me for no other reason than it was hungry and I was prey. Mostly you only dream for a short period of time each night, but I think that one lasted all night. I woke tired to a gray morning. Red's bunk was empty. We found him in the Cold House. He had put a meat hook under his chin and jumped off a chair. Coroner said he probably bled to death. That means it was a slow going and painful. I think he wanted this. From his wallet I took the picture of his son. I still have it. It's like a crucifix for me. I think he's my patron saint. The patron saint of perverts. God knows we need one. Red, Alaska and College passed like a summer rain. I ended up back on the rez for a few months while I was waiting for an out-of-state job to come through. My father was like a stranger. I had forgotten his patterns. I woke one night to him watching TV and couldn't ever remember him doing that before. The only part of him that I felt was a remnant from my childhood was the smell of his cigarettes and they way he coughed from deep within his lungs. When I was a child I thought a monster lived in the hallow of his chest and provoked him on these fits, and his coughing was his body trying to expel the demon. The demon never left. ... We worked on the Indian's truck with a vengeance. We forgot about the classic car that needed a bumper and fender. The clutch in the truck was shot. I reached up and pulled down the pressure plate like I was removing the heart from some big animal. "Damn." I said as a piece of metal fell by my face. "Hot rodding." my dad said. "He popped it one too many I guess." "Yeah, tares em up." "Take your lunch." he said. "I'll put it back in and you can run it out this evening." I went to wash my hands with the orange smelling soap. Part of the wall between us was that my father treated me like an employee. I left needing air from the proximity to him. A group of boys had gathered on a corner. They were all dressed in baggy pants and long t-shirts, their hair done short and swept up in the front---a bunch like some hoodlum school of equality. The Indian's son was standing in the center. His large eyes trying to watch all the boys at once. He was dressed in tight jeans and cowboy boots. His tank-top was tucked in and showed the leanness of his body. One boy with blond hair shouted, "Fuck you -- ya goddamned prairie nigger." "Come get it white ass." said the Indian boy, shoving his little chest in the air like a flustered grouse. The boy who was much bigger than him stepped forward and let swing. The Indian boy moved inside and belted him in the face with a slender fist. "Fuckin---" and the white kid went down. "Hey!" I shouted. The Indian looked up at me. The other white boys split. He was about to pounce on whitey. "Fuck em, they're bitches. Lets go." "Fuck you." he said, "This one's dead." "Come on. They've got more friends. Where're all your skins?" The boy shrugged. He backed off suddenly looking small. "I'm taking your dad's truck back later. Want a ride?" "K," he said. "Fuckin white boys can't fight." and spat at the large boy's feet. "I know I said." remembering the times I'd been creamed by native kids. We fought because our fathers fought and there was nothing else to do. When you were younger you fought. When you got older you got drunk and fought. If you where straight you got drunk, fought, and had sex. We walked to the empty drive-in on the far side of town and sat among the speakers. They seemed like an embossed army of odd totems to the ebb of a certain era in technology. The place was falling apart. A billboard advertising Bic razors sat where the screen used to be. The grass hadn't been mowed; it somewhat hid us from the people who never came by. The boy's name was Paul Spotted-elk. He ate half my sandwich and laid back with his arms behind his head, his coal hair coming to his shoulders like a raven's wing. It contrasted with his light skin and red lips. I told him this and he said his mother was Irish and her last name was O'Manny. My eyes traced the arch of his body as he basked in the sun. I was about to ask him why he dressed like a cowboy when he said, "You look part Indian." "I ain't." I said. "I see Indian in you. It got there somehow." "I don't know." I said. ... We rode in silence to the gulch with the windows down so the wind would caress us. I was happy to be out of town. Paul stretched putting one leg on the dash. This is the part where the man reaches over and puts his hand on the boy's thigh. Most men who would, only do this once in their lives because, contrary to popular belief, such an opportunity only arises once in a lifetime. The boy either accepts or denies the action and responds accordingly. If he accepts, the man is torn by guilt. If he denies, the man is torn by guilt. We never learn the man's story as it is usually never told accept in indeterminacies when he has passed on: a collection of pictures in a shoe box, a series of short stories, the letter to his family, the letter to a boy. Mostly it's never contextualized, wives cry, children question, and he who was a saint becomes a sinner. And so the dead shall sleep forever. The boy's story comes later in life when he has had time to contemplate the good or evil of that one moment. The forum for this is usually a Wednesday night guest speaker at the First Baptist church. In attendance are large-haired soccer moms, their bony fingers gone chalk from clutching the cold word of God; their sons (who are to learn a lesson in this) fidgeting, feeling a sudden curiosity about the soft of their lower backs, or the slight of a tanned shoulder. Almost always we learn that the man was a sad fellow and the boy was used, his innocence plucked from his body like one plucks the bud of a wild flower. Paul looked at me so I had to look at him again. He laughed a little to himself. He slunched back with his hand on his crotch. "How you getting home?" he asked. I shrugged. "I guess your dad is going to drive me back." He shook his head. They had a trailer house above the holler. A drilling rig for a well was in the yard. A large lab came padding up to me followed diligently by a three legged mutt. Paul's father was sitting on a little porch with a beer in his hand. "Hey, you brought my truck back," he said. I told him what we did to fix it and how much the charge was. "Shit," he slurred, "Fuckin too much money." "Dad." said Paul. "Shut up!." shouted the father. "Fucking white man just takes everything." The boy looked embarrassed. "Get the fuck out of here, Paul. I'm drinking tonight." "Thanks for the ride." Paul said under his breath and bolted down the hill. "Who the fuck is it?" came a voice from inside the trailer. "Guy who fixed the truck. Wants some money." "How much?" asked the lady now at the screen door. "One-fifty." I said. She went away and came back with a check. "Don't cash it till next week." she said. She had pale skin and jet black hair. She looked good, hardened by whatever factors hardened her, but good. "Thanks." "Wanna ride back?" "No, It's a nice evening. I'll walk." "Don't let the wolves gitcha." He shouted after me. I heard the dogs barking behind me. To the side and below I heard the stream sliding on the crust of the earth in long meanders like a lazy wind. And there was also a lazy wind, bringing the scent of the alfalfa blossoms from a field or so away. My chest felt tight like you get during the sad part of a book. I thought I might walk out of myself and become the summer night. I felt my body drying like the husk of a June- bug. Maybe it was the Medicine Ground that pulled me west, or the ghosts of shaman that were walking beside me. I heard the words Crow said that afternoon while my head lay on his shoulder and we were both trying to reconcile our breathing and our hearts. You might be some Indian now. I turned toward the holler. Paul was sitting where the stream emptied into the small reserve. I walked over and sat next to him. We watched the night pool waiting for it to rise up and become the sky, the mosquitoes the stars. I wanted him to know I was there. It was selfish. I guess I was looking for an impossible event. I leaned toward him, my lips gently brushing his, then his cheek. I kissed him. I had to bend forward because he just looked straight ahead. Then he looked at me, or through me and kissed me back. I pulled away and threw a rock into the liquid sky. The ripples expanded from the center until they were small waves lapping at our feet. Paul was looking at me with those large eyes. I couldn't bring myself to look at him. He tried to kiss me again. My lips were still and he pulled back hugging his knees to his chest. We heard his father shout a curse at his mother and the screen door slam. A dog barked. I didn't know if it was the mutt or the friendly lab. The truck started followed by the grinding of gears. Paul rose and undid his belt. He kicked off his boots and pulled down his pants. He was wearing a tight pair of jockey shorts that he quickly shucked off. Then his dirty tank- top. He was naked. I couldn't look at him as he stood next to me waiting for me to see something. His presence was like the Indian Crow, but softer. He was a boy, yet wild, or partly wild. He was half broke like a sour colt. This made me sad and I wondered where it had all gone wrong for him---or me. He stepped into the pool like it was holy water, his ankles disappearing into the oily blackness. I watched the water rise to his calves, then to his thighs. He paused when the wet touched the spot where his legs gently swooped up to become his buttocks; he shivered. He didn't look back until he had reached the center and the water was at his chest. I thought of Red crying because the loss of his son. I wanted to cry as well, but my eyes were dry. How long had I been so cold? I tried to think back to when I petrified. I kept rationalizing that I was born this way. That the odds are slim, but it happens. One out of every ten, one out of every ten of them. I just drew the wrong card and I was playing it through. I had always justified myself as beginning half solid and getting stiffer from there. I never liked to swim because I always thought I'd sink to the bottom and rust away. I was the kind of boy who spent hot summer days reading or working. The lake represented a body of movement and I was the antithesis of that. A shooting star flashed across the sky. Paul looked up at it, then he went under. I held my breath for him. The surface of the water moving, then stilling, then still. When I could no longer contain it, he burst up, his baptism complete. He looked to me as if I were a lost soul at the end of time. More clumsily than he I became naked and entered the water. It was neither cold nor warm. As I went deeper I became the reflected sky. Paul and I touched briefly. I was sinking into a silence. I looked around and saw my childhood home. My father was working, and then the stars, and I was back in Alaska, and then the stars, and I was at college. I saw Crow hitchhiking down a long road. I was wet. My lungs plunged for air. I was floating up, floating up, and bursting into the surface world. The water was ice on my skin. Paul was on shore naked and laughing and I was laughing, coughing, spitting, cold. Was I crying or was that the water from my hair? I stumbled back to the rocky bank. I picked up the boy and embraced him---I, shaking in sobs. He wrapped his legs around me. I hungered for the touch of human flesh, something I had denied myself since I was fourteen. I saw the night fleeing from me, to rob me of a moment, to expose me to day. We kissed. We rolled into a tattered old blanket and kissed. When I drew back his brown eyes seemed to hold me in contemplation. Never in my life had I felt more judged. I ran my hand through his dripping hair. It smelled of smoke. He smiled at me and sat up and pecked my face with his soft lips. His taste was the earth and the wind and a boy. The bullfrogs croaked their understanding. I heard a fish jump. "Sorry about my old man." he said. "It's ok." I said. I kissed his forehead. "I want you to do me." he said. "I shouldn't." "Please. I've done it before." he looked toward the house that was strangely silent after the cursing. That quiet still scared me. I knew how Indians were supposed to be able to walk without making the slightest sound. All I could hear were crickets singing in what seemed to be the rhythm of my heart. I reached my hand to the shallow at the intersection of his leg and hip like Peter reached for the hand of Christ in the sea of Galilee. He took it and placed it on his stomach. He moved it down to where he was hard. I laid back and he worked his way onto my stomach, his knees by my sides. In our cocoon it was warm. "It's going to hurt." he said. "Try not to jerk too much." He put his head on my chest and worked his way down, guiding me into him. Most of the time it was he who moved. I wanted to kiss him but was to afraid I might rupture something in him. He was noiseless. I always thought that this kind of sex would elicit sounds. I became used to the natural breath of night, the bugs, the brush in the wind, the stream was like a third person in some bazaar threesome. It gradually picked up speed and slowed and Paul seemed to move in this same manner. After awhile it was slick inside him, the fluids of our bodies creating a film which he used. I tried to get creative and thrust my hips while guiding his. He told me to stop, then he sat up and started to lift himself up and drop down. I came and he quit moving. He let me kiss him. Soon I was hard and he began again. I heard the coyotes yelping their play off in the valley. Their howls came closer and closer. "You wanted to know secrets he said." panting, nipping my skin like a pup. They were running over us and by us. One stopped and sniffed between our bodies. I was too scared to move but Paul continued. When it was his time he gripped my sides with his knees like Indian boys ride ponies. He trembled. I had the pleasure of watching the rotation of the sky. A meteorite left a path going toward Alaska. I don't know when we fell asleep. I dreamt of my grandfather on his slave ship. His crew was sleeping, he, the captain, pondering the waters. I dreamt of a prairie and a campfire where a man was sleeping. He was a cowboy. His heart lost somewhere. A long time ago someone broke it open and little pieces of the heavens glittered out into the breeze. He's been looking for them ever since. I dreamt of a city that was empty except for me. All the buildings were empty husks like June- bugs stuck to the tips of wild oats in October. At the edge of the city the ocean was washing away the pollution. I heard waves, but the water was still like glass. I dreamt that my father had laid down in his shop because he was too tired to work on the rich man's car. He was crying and holding a photo of my mother. Predawn came with a cold that heralded the impending fall. Paul was over me in the same position. I was in him and he shivered violently. His lips were blue. I kissed them. He kissed back. I never wanted to part. He urged me forward, partly for his warmth, partly for his need. Once again we made love the way wild horses run. When it was over he rested his head in the crutch of my armpit and I petted him. I traced each turn of his body onto the canvas of my mind. It was the grumble of the truck that roused us. Slipping apart, touching to see if we were still real, sorrowfully dressing, reversing the night. He smiled wickedly at me---those red lips--- and ran up the road to his home. I turned. The pool was just water, dull and gray. Sometime during the night clouds had moved in. A storm was coaxing on the outer east blowing my way. I felt full. I felt that if I opened my mouth a thousand blossoms of innocence would explode from me like a swarm of moths. I followed the stream out of the holler toward the old highway. About halfway to town Sam passed me. He stopped and gave me a lift. Hannah sat between us smiling. She had a book of bridal dresses. Sam looked happy. He told me their engagement story that I was there for. ... Author's Note If I have written a beautiful story from vulgar words, or a vulgar story from beautiful words, I have done my job. dirge