We Recline

We are reclining in Adirondack chairs, looking over the lake on the Fourth of July. It is serene and the waters reflect the milky oranges and purples of the sky.
The fireworks rise over the hills beyond the lake, and we recline further.
I put my arm around her out of pattern. It is a gesture of affection done everywhere, yet today, I don't know what to think.
The controlled explosions light up the sky, illuminate our faces, and she dips her head onto my shoulder. I shudder, the last time I was in this arrangement I was in love, and this isn't love. But I am happy.
We joke about the fireworks, and the fireflies scoring the sky, and the fires burning on the beaches around the lake. We recline further, our soft backs against hard wood, our feet digging into the camp sand.
It is late, I've got to sit duty over my bunk tonight, on this Saturday, the Fourth of July. I turn to her ready to say this, and out of instinct, our faces peering together, I instead lean forward and find myself in a kiss.
A tremble.
We are two on a beach in the evening, and we recline.
As we walk back, our hands slide together. They are different from the hands of one I used to hold, but I find comfort in them.
What do I make of myself?
It won't last beyond a week, but I do all I can to not think of it.

Two People I Never Knew

For the past five weeks or so, the thought of me returning to my grandparent's house has been constantly on my mind. I've had fervent thoughts of younger weekends spent in their back yard, climbing the trees my dad had climbed, walking the neighborhood to the now decrepit playground, and the Autumn walks in the botanical garden reserved solely for the males in the family, a Thanksgiving tradition I never quite got, still being only 13 at the last of these walks, ever. (However I still remember one of those particular walks, in which I found a 5 euro piece in a wishing well, and I took it out of sheer curiosity and intrigue, and on another occasion, my older cousins finding a rock that looked remarkably like one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's heads, but that was a reference far above me, I never cared for cartoons.)

And yet, I find it strange, just that I have had thoughts of returning to this place that I can no longer go. My grandparents on my father's side have been gone for about five years, now, and that house is past.

Why there was cheap imitation-wood siding on this, and all the other houses in this all Irish neighborhood? What was the use of the Buick parked in the garage? Never to be used, and sold instead of given to me as a present for having gotten my license, I guess that was perhaps one last "fuck you," from my uncles to their younger brother, my father... but I always wanted not to think that. And what of the pads on the old lawn furniture that never seemed to age, having reached their asymptote of fading and being left out on too many sunny and rainy days; Or the seven or eight whiffle ball bats - equally faded - what was their story? These were all mysteries to me, questions that I longed to have answered each time the family traveled there, but they never were. 

What I could figure out, through my constant love of searching through memories left in bureaus and night closets, was that my grandfather loved Louis L'Amour novels (I found a ton when I rooted through his things, once), and that he golfed and worked for IBM, as well the fact that he was an advance scout in some regiment serving in Europe in World War II, and that he saved many lives, got wounded, then refused to accept his Purple Heart because the man in the bed next to him had gotten his testicles blown off, and that his sacrifice, getting shell blasted into his skull, when compared to the man next to him, was nothing. That man would never be able to have children, and I never told my grandfather this, but I thought he was the most honest man I had known, I looked up to him, I really did, and a map of his regiment's movement into Germany hangs above a book case that he made me when I was seven. 

However, I don't think he took too kindly to my father after he converted to Judaism to marry my mother, which is strange that, in recent light, searching through family records, my father and uncles found that our origins, my grandfather's grandfather, was originally a Russian Jew who shed his identity upon coming to America. Of course with a name like Moses, I don't know how he managed.

My grandmother was even more mysterious. The epitome of frail, she had thinning white hair and a very hunched back. She was very loving, and I remember her simply being thrilled to be in the presence of her grandchildren. I always thought our religion had nothing to do with her love, but perhaps I was wrong, I was only a kid, remember. The most I could ever gather about her was that her great uncle had been a drummer-boy in the Civil War, and he was shot and killed. That always made me laugh when, in recent years, I would look at my drum set and my drumming performances with my high school jazz band. It would always subtly hit me that I was playing this music which was the embodiment of a people that my great great great uncle had fought to free, whether he was for it or not, that was another story, but I always figured there was a direct correlation between my great great great uncle fighting in the Civil War and my playing the jazz.

Of course, there is one memory I have in specific which shines resplendent in my repertoire of longing.

I'm not sure what the circumstances were, but I found myself alone with both of my grandparents when I was about seven, maybe eight... but no older than nine, I'm sure; and they took me to a dinosaur museum! (All the excitement I had is brimming over the cup in that exclamation point.) It wasn't the Museum of Natural Science, I remember, it was in the country, or at least out side of the city. I remember holding both of their hands as we championed through the darker halls of skeletons and stone. A funny thought strikes me now, that this was the first time I had witnessed anything older than my grandparents, these dinosaurs. Unfortunately, the rest of the trip to the museum is lost in the annals of my mind, but the one reminder I have of it is a green and black dinosaur figure. It's a T. rex, with poorly painted on teeth, yet it still managed to scare me at the time. I look back on it now and can do nothing but smile. Perhaps the most meaningful gift I ever got from them was this dinosaur given on a rainy day trip to the museum in April.

These are the memories that I've gathered from my visits to my grandparent's house in Long Island, the last I think when I was 13, after my bar mitzvah. I remember they didn't attend, but I still loved them. It's a hallowing thought to think that there are questions about my origins that I will never know, because of their silence. and I can never go back to that house in that all Irish neighborhood, I'm sure someone's already moved in, anyways. 

I guess I just wish I knew them, really, that's not so much to ask is it?

Clutch

Am I a weak man? 

Or do I simply need a soul to clutch?

One to tenderly hold me, an anchor through affectionate touch?

I wish you not to become just another meager source of raw material for lamed stories,

as others have become over my ages.

No, I want the happiness, the soothing tranquility - like the soft first snows - of your presence to echo boldly though these pages. 

I wish not to be cast away - dash'd upon the rocks after failed flight.

I want to work on life.

But I am a frail, ill-guided boy, 

drunk tonight. 

Call Me Juvenile

Call me juvenile,

but I cannot wait to celebrate the end of a presidency that dictated my malleable youth

while beckoning in a new which will glorify it.

I am drinking early this election day,

a toast to the last of naivety,

welcoming in responsibility.

Call me juvenile,

but I cannot wait to celebrate tonight with you.

To reassure myself that this world is geared in the right direction.

To tell myself that we are the happiest people in this Atlantic city.

I am drinking early this election day,

a toast to the last of naivety,

welcoming brighter days, warmer relationships, and truthful love.

I will drink it down bitterly, because those cold days will not go down without a fight, those curmudgeons,

 but I will love every ounce. 

Song to Paints

Another poem from 2007.

Song to Paints

I sing to the paints

to thick globs of acrylic oranges and yellows

to crimson and molten mars.

They capture my thoughts on canvas nets.

They sift through my bad tastes, acknowledging kindly,

And echo my most purified truths.

They channel love – newfound –

A love for life! For paint!

For a girl, no doubt!

            They sing:

“you are a waning 17-year-old!
            Live in the rain;

            Between the sycamore and the chestnut!

            You are a boy!

            Live! Love! Express emotion!”

I sing to these paints on my pallet -

            a repertoire of everything me -

They sing back -

            a portrait reflecting the purest joys in life -   

Some Poetry

Just three poems from the summer of last year (2007)

The Bird Nest

There was a bird nest

on the deck posts behind my house.

It is ruined now, however,

blown down after the storm.

I found it in a jumble:

thick straws entwined in peat mosses,

tatters of yarn meshed with naked bronze leaves.

I say jumble because it was not earthy, as nests should be,

But rather, it was more unnatural; bizarre; human, dare I say it; a freak accident of a bird nest, like a plane crash or collision.

Only I

never found the surviving eggs.

 

 

Prop

The journal that I use as a prop, it’s

simple; brown with a black binding.

The ghost of a price tag inhabits the back cover, confusing its readers as to top or bottom.

Margins are placed at odd angles, like a house of mirrors, they are off by centimeters, but it makes miles of difference.

On its pages are written nothings.

An asylum of sense-enticing ponderings that

One must have written while back stage.

Clues to survival or advice on life.

It reads like a book of love written by a teenager in ennui, devoid of interest.

Fourth of July

I wonder what my friends are doing back home.

Last year we stared and chased our pretty girlfriends

In the fields near Nader’s decrepit warehouses in the

juvenile Afternoon, on the Fourth of July.

Come Evening,

            [Although we didn’t know it,

            or care to record it at the time,]

we experienced what it was to be

American Children

On the Fourth of July.

As fireworks illuminated our faces

and

kisses peppered our lips, we

laid in the grassy fields near Nader’s decrepit warehouses,

under the sycamores lit by erotic fireflies us. 

Usdan Reinstein is still a Child

“Usdan Reinstein is still a Child”

            So of course I’ll start with my name; it’s Usdan Reinstein, but people just call me Uzi. Not like the gun, I’m not violent or anything, I’m just Uzi.

            And I guess my social conflict is my missituation. Fuck, I don’t feel in place here. I don’t feel in place anywhere really, except home. I’m in college, by the way, I’m up in Boston. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like it and all, but… it’s not home. I can’t not identify that I live in a town called Barkhamsted, in grand old Connecticut. If you say it you can hear its quaintness. Barkhamsted… it’s a tiny town outside the old money, outside the noisy city life and all that, it’s not dull, it’s just nice. It’s my New England fix; but really, there is no place better than Barkhamsted, Connecticut. Argue it with me, sometime.

            I started thinking and all as I walked down from the radio station, I’m interning on a jazz show from four to six on Sunday evenings for the college radio, I’m at least trying to fit in, you know? It’s nice, but I’m not exactly a huge fan of the jazz. Anyways, I’m walking back, and it’s a cold Sunday in September, the last Sunday in September, actually. And it starts pouring. Just fucking pouring rain out of nowhere. And for some reason, now I’m not a violent person, remember, but for some reason all I wanted was to just get hit by a car as I crossed Commonwealth Avenue. A modest proposal, right? A car or the T, either or, really; the T would’ve added a nice little sardonic touch, but anything really, I conceded to myself, would've done the job. If a car could just swerve a corner and bash my brains out, or slide on the wet road and crush me into the slick pavement, or even just stop short and smoosh my toes, anything to send me home, I think that’d be perfect.

But as I crossed and reached the other side, the side with Marsh Chapel and the Student Union, no car, or T, for that matter, had hit me, and I was at that moment both sad and frustrated; both distraught and worried for myself. I was sad that, of course, I hadn’t been hit, and frustrated that I actually wanted to get hit. Why would anyone want to get hit? Shit. It really bothered me that I thought that.

I stepped into the Student Union to get out of the pouring waters. It was closing up, so there wasn’t much for me to do, but there was one cashier on the far left still open, an old Asian woman with ‘Allison’ written on her nametag. I doubted very much her name was Allison, for some reason her accent and actions, completely foreign, gave me the impression she clearly wasn’t from the greater Boston area, much less the United States; not that there’s anything wrong with that, I just didn’t think her name was actually Allison; probably something more cultural. I had grabbed a strawberry milk and she scanned it.

“One dollar and seventy five cents!” she yelped in a too cheery disposition, punching the buttons with worn, but exercised fingers. I wanted to ask if she had been working here long, but my guess was that she had, so I kept quite, and handed her my credit card.

“Thanks,” I said, and then found a seat, sat, and sipped my strawberry milk.

Call me a child; because that’s what I still am, a nineteen-year-old child, but I love my strawberry milk. It’s comforting, a safety I suppose, to remind me of when I didn’t have to worry. I can still remember summer camp from years ago when they’d bring a big crate of milk cartons and cheap cookies to us on August afternoons. We’d sit and just eat our goddamn cookies, and it was so beautiful, you know? Now that I think of it, it was the greatest time of my life, and I was about eleven.

But you see, I suppose that’s also a contributing factor to my dissituation here. I still feel like a kid. I still feel like I should just pack my books up and get on a nice big yellow bus that’ll show up in front of my house. I still feel as if someone should bring me my cookies and milk as I sit on a nice wooden table with all my friends from home, who have probably left for their schools and, I hope, feel the same longing as I do, but probably don’t.

I finished the milk, and wiped the pink liquid from my trimmed beard. I can imagine how I looked, and it made me laugh a little. A nineteen year old giggling to himself with strawberry milk on his upper lip, now that image made me flat out laugh out loud. I stopped as Allison turned and gave me a questionable, quizzical glance. Simone had pointed Allison out when we first ate together. She loved Allison and her cheery disposition; the diligent cashier. I shrugged it off and went for the door, but of course, it was pouring rain out, fucking pouring, man.

I thought on my feet and grabbed a used tray on the counter. It was small and plastic, and reminded me of one I had stolen from a Taco Bell back home with some friends of mine. We did some pretty stupid things like that, but we were kids. And well, I didn’t steal it, I still have all the intention of giving it back whenever I’ve got the chance, it’s just a low priority. A lot of things are low priority, right now. But I grab that tray, and raise it over my head and backpack. It barely covers me at all, and I hold it at a shallow angle so as to deflect the rain behind me.

I felt pitiful as I walked down that street, Commonwealth Avenue. It’s a pretty busy street I guess, there are two rows of traffic, each about two or three lanes, and in between that there are two lanes for the T, the olive colored streetcar that runs into Boston on its grimy wheels, but as I said, I felt pretty pitiful. The rain just wouldn’t stop hammering me, I mean really hammering me under my poor little lunch tray.

My jeans, soaked, really drenched, started to vibrate. It was my cellular. What was once a cute little silver phone, yes I used cute to describe my phone, was now a bulky black thing. I had had my previous precious silver phone all through high school, and yet, the first thing I wanted to start my freshman semester off was a new phone.  Maybe I felt some sort of separation anxiety from him, Cellular that is, because this new one simply wasn’t cutting it. I had plastered my former friend with Dole and other produce stickers: oranges from California, plums from Chile, even a pineapple sticker from Costa Rica had crowned the front, and yet this new phone, this intruder, didn’t take to kindly to stickers. No matter how many I put on, they all fell off.  Instead of the simple safety I felt with my Cellular, I had access to the Internet, the ability to take pictures and send them anywhere, I could even play tetris on the damn thing. The greatness of the modern world can allow so many things, but they can’t duplicate the bond that was shared between Cellular and me. Call me a phony, but it’s the truth; pathetic I’ll admit, but what isn’t sometimes?

I looked at the caller identification; “Simone” was displayed on the screen, and I opened it up to talk to her.  She was this chick that I had met a week or so ago, she was pretty chill, I suppose, but things were a little sour with us for some reason, I’m not sure why. Chick is actually a good word to describe her, maybe I’ll call her that next time I see her. She’s small, like a baby chicken or something, except cuter, of course. I liked talking to her, we had gotten along well the week we first met.

“Hey… what’s up?” I answered.

“Hey, Uzi? nothing really… you alright in this rain?”

“Yeah, I’m almost back to my side of campus, I’ve got this dingy little tray to keep me dry!” I tried to chuckle to myself.

“Hm.” There was a long pause after her ‘hm’ of amusement. I kept plodding on in the rain, puddles and all.

“Puddles.” I said all of a sudden.

“What?” She put in.

“Puddles… isn’t that the name of that song you like by that Icelandic band?” I tried humming the melody, because I didn’t know the lyrics, they were in Icelandic, but my humming rendition must not have cued any recognition, and she continued;

“I don’t know what you’re doing, now.”

“Neither do I.”

“Well I just thought I’d call to see what you were up to. My dorm is quiet.”

“Thanks, I’ll try to head up there next week.” I lied. Things were just awkward with us now. But I did enjoy her company. I stepped in an especially big puddle for her as I continued. “I had fun yesterday.” I admitted. There was a long pause, followed by a conscious “Yeah.” She conceded.

“But, uh, this rain just isn’t doing it for me, right now. I’ll call you later?” I tried to fish a ‘yes’ out of her.

“I guess.”

Rats.

“Bye, Usdan.”

“Later.”

We hung up the phone and I kicked at a shallow puddle, sprinkling the pavement in further wetness.

That was a dismal talk.

See, things were just dismal, here. Of course I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a place like this. How can any kid deal with the rain and a conversation like that? It kept raining as I walked towards what was called ‘West Campus,’ where my dormitory was.  I still felt like a stranger, swiping my identification just to get into a building. It was still pouring as I opened the door to my room, really pouring, big surprise, right? Shit.

I undressed and went to sleep. Somewhere outside, I heard a car crash, or a T. Maybe it was a car crashing into a T, I don’t know, but I heard it, and it kept raining. Really pouring

The Underdog

Reggie was a good kid. I knew this because we had been friends since forever. But when he told me of this “master plan,” I didn’t quite catch his drift. I know of no one quite like Reggie. He was the kind of kid who volunteered at school carwashes and organized charity-walks; he thrived on volunteering and community service. And yet here he was pitching his “master plan” to me as we walked. This plan of his – beating some kid up – just wasn’t him, and I knew that.
We walked because my car battery was dead. The gray sky, uniform like parchment, carpeted the horizon, and the bold leaves— acrylic paints of the trees— kissed the sky canvas, a masterpiece Pollock-esque scene that only natural New England herself could render. 
Our feet trailed the bare road as we walked toward town, on our way to put to action his “master plan,” although I was still unconvinced as to why he wanted this. He interrupted me mid sentence as I tried to pry it out of him.
“Hold on . . .” he fished his cell phone, a silver, beaten thing, out of his equally worn corduroy pocket. The caller I.D. read: “Don’t pick up, Anthony Sams.” He scoffed and distastefully remarked for me, “Ugh it’s Anthony . . .” He shrugged again into neutrality.
“I never liked that kid,” I injected, pulling my jacket closer, keeping me warm against the October wind and Reggie’s stubborn demeanor. It was one of those military jackets I had found at Goodwill, a peacoat with broad epaulets over the shoulders and pockets enough to hide whatever needed hiding. It wasn’t an officer’s jacket. No, it was a private’s coat, for dealing with the brunt of command: obeying. And what did I hide in its pockets? My ill thoughts about this damn “master plan” of his. 
He bit his lip and shrugged in agreement before answering. “Uh, Anthony? What’s up? No, I’m here with Andrew – yes I know you don’t like hi – he hates your guts as well.”
That was another thing about Reggie, his blunt honesty. Through gritted teeth I managed, “Why’d you say that?” His response was immediate: a mute mouthing of “I don’t know?” with a shrug and a confused stare. But his demeanor shifted, and he continued with Anthony.
“What? How’d you hear about my master plan? It was confidential; only I knew about it until I actually wrote it down! How’d you find out? No, wait, don’t answer that. It was a rhetorical question . . . What? You want in?”
My hand flew to his shoulder, hitting him hard but with a point.
“NO!” I may not have been too sure about his “master plan,” but I sure as hell wasn’t going to carry it out with the likes of Anthony Sams.
Reggie bit his lip, thoughts zipping behind his intense blue eyes, calculating. He was analyzing my posture. Something in those indigoes told me he was thinking deeper than I had ever known him to. He nodded slowly, a thin smile projecting from his lower lip. “I trust that decision.” He turned back to the phone, “That’s a negative,” and quickly shut it amidst an astonished shout from the receiving end. 
I must admit, I was surprised and relieved at the trust he had in me. That, even I didn’t know he had. “Thanks,” I managed, “I never liked that kid.”
“Same here,” he admitted, resuming our walk into town. “I don’t know how he found out about my plans, though . . . I don’t know, he could’ve been some much needed muscle for this operation.”
Myself, I was still unsure about this “operation” of his. He just wasn’t a violent kid. Something simply didn’t make sense to me. I took in another breath in an effort to probe the mechanics of his thinking. What would make him contemplate this? “So Reggie,” I began. Good start. “Let me get this straight. We’re going to beat this kid up. Why are we doing this again?”
He sighed, and with reason. This was a conversation that had been had before. “Because this kid is –” 
“Dennis?”
“Yes, Dennis – because Dennis is . . . a bad kid.” He looked to the sky and put his hands on his hips, raising one to pull at something irritating in his teeth, an itch. I wasn’t convinced. Should I have been? I drew my shoulders up and with hollow eyes let out my confusion in a long, suspended exhalation. I paused where the sidewalk began and a wire fence barred trespassers from a vacant lot. I was impatient to be persuaded. 
But something about Reggie’s demeanor spoke to me. He didn’t give up in his trying to convince me. He turned again to me and started with a second wind. “Listen, Andrew, he’s got no discipline. He’s completely out of line. You know what I’m talking about; he called in that bomb threat a month ago – did anything happen? No, but still . . . Then he sucker punched that janitor, Mr. Bangar, after the soccer game a week ago. Hell, he’s even roughed you and me up every now and then, you know that. But what’s even more significant is that he hasn’t been punished for it; not by the school, not by the fuzz, his parents, even the Janitor’s Union – nothing. He gets away with everything he does! And he needs to learn the consequences of his ways, man! The consequences of his cold malicious ways!” He had his arm over my shoulder, his blues staring into mine. They told me he couldn’t be dissuaded; there was a fire in them, but it wasn’t violent. I couldn’t put my thumb on it exactly, but it blazed with a passion.
I drew a breath. “There’s a Janitor’s Union . . . ?”
His expression turned from serious to hurt as he commanded a fist from his open hand. It shook in the wind, a flag under attack, before he threw it sternly into a wire fence, illustrating his irritation. It rattled in the cold wind, angry at me as well. “Damn it, Andrew,” he let out quietly, adding under his breath, “you just don’t get it, do you?”
I shuffled my foot on the gray cement, scratching my head. I felt immediately ashamed of my trivial heckling. 
“Yes there’s a Janitor’s Union,” Reggie began again. “I even checked it on Wikipedia . . . now will you please stop belittling me . . . and will you give me a lift?”
The fence he had hit separated a barren lot from the shops and offices on the outskirts of town. What could I do but give him a boost? I was compelled, now, to make it up to him. Cupping my hands, I hoisted him up. He wasn’t the most agile person; if anything, he was the most unfit of our tight knit group of friends, but after a minute he managed to awkwardly straddle the fence. He teetered on either side, slightly off-level, the simple wire digging into his pants. He stayed in that position for a stiff second before jumping off the other side, rolling, then crashing into the brush. His breath was shallow and his eyes seemed distant for a moment, as if he had over exerted himself. I jumped and clung on, overing it and landing with much more grace than he had managed. Now I just felt embarrassed as he stared at me, envy in his blues.
“When did you get to be so athletic?”
I shrugged, trying to mask my ability with modesty. “I’m not sure, myself . . .”
He failed to recognize my ploy, commenting, “That’s good, we can use that raw muscle. Here, look at these!”
He pulled out a small manilla folder, and I caught the words “Master Plan” written in permanent marker on its side. He unwound the string around its opening, and sifted out a small ream of papers, handing them to me. I didn’t quite know what to make of it. Before I could inquire their meaning, he began, unfolding one of the pieces.
“We can breach the gate to his house here – you can boost me like you just did – and then we can flank him at his vegetable garden while he’s out –”
“I, I don’t get it . . . what is this?” I cut in, clearly missing something.
“Maps!” he added enthusiastically. “Oh, and this is a schedule I made of where this kid usually is!”
He thrust them into my hands again, and I took them, quietly, turning them over to reveal a simple map and schedule written in different colored pens on lined papers. It was glamorously done, if not superfluous. I felt bad. He meant to see this all the way through, one hundred percent, and I was barely pulling my weight. I didn’t want to do this, but I felt bad, and hid my unfortunate regret by burying my nose in the schedule, titled “Dennis’s common haunts.” After a minute I looked up.
“You’ve made a schedule of where he usually . . . ‘haunts’? Reggie, are you seri-”
“Exactly!” He began walking fervently, leading me by my forearm. I followed, some kind of faithful spaniel to its passionate owner. “Don’t you see, man? I’ve done the leg work! Look at this – I usually see him leave school early around lunch. He fucks around with his friends, often times graffitiing some of the buildings around town! Look!”
He pointed at the Laundromat across the street. In uniform blue and platform red was an elaborately - albeit poorly - graffitied silhouette of a clenched fist. Under it, where the paint had dripped and clumped together, was written "Control's in your hand, slam your fists on the table and make your demands." Reggie shook his head slightly, raising his eye and repeating, as if agreeing, "Control's in your hand."
I didn't get him, but he continued from his reverie.
“At maybe 3 o’clock he heads out to hit on the cheerleading girls at Grover Cleveland High School across town, and, sometimes, after that I’ve seen him blazing at his house; man, it’s all here! All I have to do is teach this kid how foolish he is, and that he won’t get away with it all!”
He let out a shriek of excitement, but I stopped walking and shuffled the sidewalk – again. 
“You don’t believe in me, do you?”
“Reggie, it’s not that it’s just – ”
“You don’t see that what I’m doing isn’t just for me, man! It’s for our town – society! It needs this kind of purging every now and then!”
I held back a chuckle, then bit my lip to keep from laughing. Could I help it? I resumed walking, but turned back after a few paces to find him glaring at me, shaking his head quietly.
“You’re disgustingly mean sometimes. Did you know that?”
He stepped heavily off, passing me; I was rigid with no response, but I caught myself in my cruelty.
“Reggie . . . Reggie, come on, wait! I trust you, it’s just . . . don’t you think you’re a bit too . . . gung-ho on this?”
He stared at me with those blues. They were now quieted, muffled, deflated. It looked like they harbored a tear but he wiped it away before I could tell.
“It’s crossed my mind that you might think I am, yes.”
We sighed and stood there, both helpless to look up to one another. I walked around the area in that “I wish I could help you” manner, before sitting on a bench beside us. I still wasn’t convinced yet, not even close.
He sat next to me, just far enough from me to make us both feel alienated from each other. Then, he began. “Listen. I understand you might be weirded out by this idea of beating someone up for the right cause, but . . . think of me for a second. When has anyone ever thought ‘when’s it going to be Reggie’s turn?’ I volunteer. That’s what I do, and I’ve asked nothing in return. But, for me, man . . . it’s got to be done. It’s just been on my mind for ages and it’s got to be done . . . it’s Reggie’s turn, now. This is the only thing I’m asking for in return.”
He stood up and took a few paces away from me, but turned back and put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up to his face.
“But I need my wing man on this! Are you with me?”
I realized at that moment that I had been neglecting the very foundation that was our friendship by not previously acknowledging him, while at the same time, I had been with him since the start.
“I’m in. For you, man, if it’s got to be done, I’m your wing man!”
He laughed and I felt the prior burdens of my pestering vanish from my shoulders.
“Yes!” he chuckled, grinning wide. “That’s what I’m talking about! Teamsmanship! Ho!” He gave me a brotherly slap across my back, and in the afternoon sun we made our way to our distant destiny. 

“Here we are; 4:20 PM and he’s out on his porch blazin’, just like we predicted. Are you ready, hombre?”
We lay hidden beneath the mountain laurel, on a ridge maybe twenty feet from Dennis’s backyard. With a clear view, we could see everything. Bottles of green and brown littered the yard, and the fumes of alcohol suffocated the nostrils. Aluminum cans stuck out of the ground like tombstones; shards of glass were non-recyclable zombies hidden in the barren dirt. Surveying it all from the porch sat Dennis with his water pipe, some kind of black horse king on his throne, a shoddy Adirondack chair. Reclining, he took a deep breath from the tainted hookah, and laughed; that stupid grin of his sculpted over his face. 
We were in the shit.
I turned to Reggie.
“Reg, has it ever occurred to you that this is illegal? I think that just occurred to me . . .”
“Andrew, are you serious?” He spat, as if I were breaking orders by talking out of line. “Come on, man! Get your game face on! Now, did you rehearse those lines I gave you?”
“What? What are you talking about? What lines?”
“The lines I gave you! You didn’t –?” Reggie cast an eye of disbelief on me, raising his shoulders out of frustration, but he was cut short.
From the porch, Dennis broke out of his reverie. “Who’s there? Who is that?” We froze as he charged into the house, the screen door slamming angrily, rattling like bones. Reggie and I exchanged glances. Mine was a little more worried where as his was frustrated. Is it not too late to just leave? Similar thoughts raced through my head, battling, until Dennis emerged, a grotesque gun in his hands. Again, the screen door hissed furiously, rattling its skeleton.
“Who’s out there?” he commanded, brandishing the menacing shotgun lazily over his head. 
Although it’s natural instinct to respond to such simple questions, I would have figured our situation would override that instinct to reply. But it came as no surprise to me that, on impulse, Reggie blurted out, “No one!” before hitting himself silently for his own stupidity.
“What?” Dennis hollered back, the irony never dawning on him.
Without thinking a second time, Reggie responded. “It’s no one, Dennis!” Then he bit his tongue and scrunched up his face as if to say: “I’m the greatest fuck up of them all!”
I eyed him after a moment. “Did you seriously just do that?” I demanded, stinging from under my breath.
“What? So I fucked up. I’m sorry, but it’s my plan! And I’ll be damned if –” He was cut short by the ratchet-like loading of a shotgun. Like an imperfect cricket, it was a sound I thought I’d never hear save for in cheap action flicks and poorly done zombie movies. Yet here we were, facing down that ratchet-cricket shotgun under Dennis’s drug-influenced arm. It stared us down, two barrels of mean steel, some kind of obtuse, overly large bastard of an elephant gun. Perhaps it was compensation for something less-than-phallic? A sign of pure machismo? What greater an emblem of dominance than two loads of buckshot staring you down? I think it might have been comic in any other scenario, in a film or play of sorts. 
But why was I thinking about Dennis’s gun? Why wasn’t I bolting through the backwoods, miles from here, pissing my pants trying to escape?
Well for starters, I hadn’t been to the bathroom since breakfast, but I wasn’t about to waltz into Dennis’s house and use his either. But I suppose the reason why I didn’t leave Reggie to his own devices was your basic “deer-in-the-headlights” response. Call it that, or mock-loyalty, or what-you-will, I didn’t run.
Dennis’s finger twitched on the gun.
“You can run, now. If you want.” I heard from my side.
“Can’t.” 
Reggie looked me in the eye, then we turned cautiously back to Dennis from our hidden ridge. We were some kind of stupid or courageous kids. The finger inched closer to the trigger. It clicked, and Dennis let out a high shriek, a cackle, a pathetic excuse for mimicking the sound of the cannon supposed to be killing us right now.
Reggie jumped in fear, while I lay camouflaged under the laurels witnessing the awkward stillness and confusion of the moment. After a minute of dying giddiness, Dennis broke the suspense.
“Reggie Winters?” he laughed stupidly, caught completely off his guard.
“What?” admitted Reggie, embarrassed, if not slightly astonished. I think he was surprised Dennis even knew his name.
“Huh?” Dennis whooped in return, as if he had actually been asked a question by this would-be ruffian. Reggie looked down at me, and I, through the laurels, up at him. I saw him give me a curt nod before pulling up a red bandanna over his nose. In the fashion of a cowboy? I thought to myself. No, he was a Zapatista, social change through revolutionary action, a visionary. I knew, then, why his master plan had to be finished, and what’s more, I knew why he wanted it. His plan wasn’t just hazing. I looked before me at Dennis and I saw trash, a cancer to this town as he spoiled its quality. I looked at Reggie and I saw a true civil worker; this was genius; this was revolutionary. It was societal purging, true, but this was Reggie’s idea of community service, taking out the trash. 
“Now?” I mouthed silently, patiently, waiting under his order. He stared at me, and he seemed to realize I was his. His chin dropped in the affirmative. 
He let out a great Whitmanian yawp, something purely improvised, but none-the-less with reason. A yawp of triumph, of glory, a cry for the underdog. He yawped for all things right, for all things worthy, and for all things revolutionary. With stunning, alien, athleticism he charged, bounding through the brambles with ability that I hadn’t thought possible for him. I jumped up, intending to join him in his near-righteous actions, but fell just as quickly; tangled in the mountain laurel. God damned state flower. I looked up just in time to glimpse him vaulting over the fence, locking into a fight with the Trash. Both arms welded to the empty shotgun between them, they struggled to better one another, swaying slightly after each burst of adrenaline. Bottles broke in the grass as persistent feet leveled them flat. Grunts and sweat poured out of them in a show of raw machismo, both fighters locked between the gun. 
I freed my ankles from the laurel and prepared to join my friend in arms, but paused. Something touched my ears, not the groaning and weighted breathing of these two combatants, something else. Something not natural, not New England, something The Man.
It was the something of tires on back roads, the snapping of twigs, the moving of dirt, of rubber on cement. It was the something of a standard police cruiser. I directed my ears in time to see it pull into the gravel drive way, the distinct shuffle of pebbles under tires coming to a slight stop. I panicked and dropped once more to the laurels, my friend and the Trash still thick in battle.
“So this is it, right? This is the address that Anthony kid gave us?” One of the officers said, exiting the cruiser, a bald, beefy man with an overly starched collar that backed up into his neck.
“Uh, 142 Pine Way . . . yup,” another responded from behind a thick mustache and solid aviator glasses, like something out of a terrible 80s cop flick. 
I burst from the vines a second time. If I was going to do anything, it was going to be done now. “Reggie the cops are here!” I hollered, just as they came into sight of the two in their Yin and Yang struggle. The Man doesn’t care if you’re Yin or Yang; you’ll be put down either way. Silence fell on the five of us. Reggie and Dennis ceased their struggle and turned to the two fuzz, who paused out of amazement at the situation before them. 
Here were two kids fighting over a presumably loaded shotgun, broken liquor and beer bottles carpeted the yard around them, and to top it off, a water pipe sat precariously next to the beaten up Adirondack chair. The scenario reeked of promotion to them, and they seemed to drool at the prospect. 80s cop slowly drew his aviators off to further dramatize the moment.
It couldn’t have been staged better. As if on cue, my friend and the Trash bolted, rocketing around the house followed by the two officers, Starchy and Gangly 80s cop. I don’t know how, but they managed not to see me as I took off after them, following my friend into town. I couldn’t leave my wing man hanging. 
Cement beat heavy under my feet as I raced along an adjacent road to that of Reggie and Dennis, Reggie keeping up with the Trash who seemed to be leading the chase. As I glanced at Reggie, I couldn’t help but notice his persistence and the rage that seemed to boil in him. He wasn’t thinking like himself. I knew Reggie well, and if he were sticking to any plan, his or not, he would know when to quit, when to call it off for another day. But no, as he ran I couldn’t help but think he pursued the Trash for ulterior motives. 
Dennis took a hard right, crossing the road that I was running on, leading down a slight pair of stairs onto Main Street. 
I never knew why there were stairs there. They were strange things, only four or five crumbling concrete steps down a thin alley between two older brick buildings. Dennis padded down the steps, each drug-addled pace echoing. But as Reggie approached, he leapt and cleared all of them. As if with some god-given grace, Reggie soared over those cement stairs, time suspended at his whim as he almost flew. It was something I could never imagine; my friend, who was never athletic, was now commanding glory as he vaulted into the air. With a pristine roll he landed on the pavement that the alley exited out to. The few passers-by turned and gasped: never had they seen such a perfect landing from such a sudden jump. It was better than Hollywood. 
But it wasn’t real. 
A horn scored the silence and brakes screeched as my friend turned just in time to stare at an oncoming bumper and say a gentle hello to it as well. 
It wasn’t fatal, but neither was it kind. The car had stopped but just before meeting him square in the chest, shuffling him back a foot with a heavy “Ooof!” It might’ve been funny had it been in a movie, but as my friend lay sprawled on the road, Dennis making his get-away, I saw nothing humorous. I ran to his side.
“What are you doing? Run! Get out of here! The fuzz – !” he accused me as I came to his side.
“What? No, Reggie . . . I’m your wing man!” I protested.
“And I’m telling you to get the fuck out while you still can! Come on, Andrew! Follow orders! Stick to the Emergency Plan and go to the coffee house on 5th street!”
“What Emergency Plan . . .?”
“Just get!” he shouted, further annoyed. I glanced around. The cops were nowhere to be seen, but other people were gathering around Reggie and me, some kind of reality TV show for free. I got to my feet ready to follow orders, but I crouched back down to him.
“Why’d you do this? I know why we did this, but why’d you do this?” There was a pause after I asked that question. 
With a childish glint in his eye, he began. “I guess I was just jealous that Dennis could get away with those kinds of things and I couldn’t . . .” It seemed like wishful thinking to me, but he chuckled. “Control’s in your hand.”
“What?”
“The graffiti . . . over there by the Laundromat . . . I did that. I planted it to look like it was something he would do. But now that I look at it . . .” He pointed to the Laundromat and the clenched fist graffiti tagged on it. “What am I saying? Get out of here!”
I ran. Pushing through the small crowd before us, I shouted back, “I’m still your wing man!” I couldn’t hear if he responded, but I heard a muffled “And I’m fucking innocent!” As if he said it to himself. His words fell on the deaf ears of the crowd as they surrounded him. How many of them were a cancer to society? How many of them were trash? How many of them were small time doctors or garbage men?

“What happened, Hank? Did you get yours?” 80s cop guffawed to Starchy from outside the cruiser, leading Reggie with his hands cuffed. I saw this through the crowd.
“No, I lost mine. He got away,” Starchy replied, leaning on the hood of the vehicle with his weight.
“Shit, well, I got this one. Let’s bring him down to headquarters.” 80s cop opened the passenger door and Reggie bowed down, taking one last look out of the window. I caught his eye from behind the semi-tinted glass, and he mine. I chased after the cruiser for a few blocks before it sped off down Main Street, but I swear I saw him put his fist up to the window and shout the muffled words “We are the Underdogs!” 

The End.