E-Mail in the Dark Ages...

1962, way before the internet and computers changed everything. This is how I regularly sent e-mail to my best friend whose back yard backed up to ours. We were in the 9th grade, and got pretty good with Morse code. I had pushed a  small wooden desk up against my second story bedroom window, and had this set-up sitting prominently in the center. A wire ran out from my window, made a long, graceful arc across our entire back yard, and attached to the garage. From there it went on to the huge old Oak in David's backyard, and looped down again, into a first floor window at the  den room where his own key was set up. 

David and I had a lot of fun with that communication for a few years. I probably should not have assumed that all messages that came in to me were from David though. Especially when he said something about his father and I suggested that his father could only get sexually excited by farm animals... and it turned out to actually be Hank Callahan, David's father, that I was speaking with on the other key. Even after he identified himself, I didn't believe him and continued to suggest that he fuck himself with an array of shop tools and garden produce before I realized it really was Mr. Callahan on the other end...naturally that's when I told him that I was my brother, Kenny.

A Gift of Roses...

I held the roses low on the passenger seat as she walked toward the car. Gripping the base of their paper cone a little too tightly, I presented the flowers to her as she settled in, hoping that my first gift of such crimson beauty would overwhelm her onto a path of forgive and forget. Taking the bouquet from my hand, staring straight into my eyes, she methodically tore each flower from its stem and slowly lobbed them backward in lazy blood-red arcs. Continuing to move her murderous hands in slow motion, eyes still locked, she repeatedly broke the necks of those long-stems and threw the whole hemorrhaging mess behind us, like so much roadkill in the rear view. She never said a word about any of it. 

I just drove.

Late afternoon sun played a shifting game of peek-a-boo through the heavy brown slats that surrounded our dark balcony tables, a stockade between us and the expansive view shimmering up from the waterfront below. 

Ships, large and small, lined up like ducklings behind their mommy, motoring quickly at their turn to thread the needle mouth of the drawbridge as it yawned wide open each half hour. 

She-crab soup and a shared plate of fried Crayfish tails set the stage as the piercing sun now danced off soft blond fuzz on her upper thighs, blocked from going any higher by a loose yellow jumper. Our day had been one of introspective beauty, both of us unusually silent in the moments, still weighing the hurt. 

Everything changed, unseen, overwhelming, as she slid her warm hand over mine. With a glance, we told each other a thousand things as the bridge closed tight, secure. I exhaled deeply as traffic began, once again, to flow freely, unobstructed.