Pull-out Couches

The verdict was in: I was found guilty as sin by a jury of one. Withholding of love the charge, though by and large I would disagree. I made my plea, but facing ten years of compiled evidence, deaf ears, and deference the trial was over before I’d known it’d begun. 

Oh sure there were tears, (like I said, ten years), but the choking dejection, the prevailing oppression, stemmed less from love lost and more from rejection. Relieved of my house, a ghoul on the couches of momma and friends, a life on the fence, no permanence. Manhood revoked, the clock in rewind, and I’m left behind by folk whose heads shake and speculate at wrongs I must’ve perpetrated. I, a drifter, adrift in my failure to force love to endure. 

What’s more, the abhorrent sting from naked ring finger. Lingering leers from family and peers. I, a pariah, breaker of covenants in South Carolina — where Bible school and barbecue rule, impugning my point-of-view. “Do what’s right. Put up a fight!” Such insightful advice from those who’d never known the blood on the battlefield. But I yielded the floor so they could settle their score with God; and with a nod, they’d whisk off to discuss more important issues like the color of new pews. 

Battered and bruised by southern sun, (and adopted daughter), what’s a bum to do but seek out safer waters.

Hit escape, book a flight. Pack light, (pile of clothes momma folded prior night). Predawn, scratch my cheek and big yawn, won’t be long now. Shave the beard in momma’s sink, (like to think it makes me look older), and she’ll scold me for the clippings, but I’m a child sipping coffee, (too much cream), waiting to leave as soon as she’s ready. My car keys take a permanent seat on her mantel.  Hoowee! Can’t handle that heat; even at 5:43, can’t breathe. But heck, Carolina can melt, cuz I’m checking out indefinitely. And they won’t see me, (not that they’re looking), so keep on cooking, in your own hot gossip, and stew in your useless, (clueless), jurisprudence, Carolina. This dude is saying sayonara. 

It’s no quiet ride as momma chides my last minute decision with shreds of truth and historical revisions. A witness to my erasing, (though unaware of my replacing), she prays for reconciliation — a preoccupation which I’m sure even God and his wisdom has found tiresome. For so had I, red-eyed, on callous knees pleaded before the throne, still yet to have known any reply, so why should she expect otherwise. 

Pass the exit to my workplace. Boss quoted the Saints the day I lost my way, a shoulder pat, a pen click, expected me back in at dawn’s crack. They won’t see my face for a few days, or weeks, (outlook is bleak), maybe never at all. I suppose I should give a call, but I’ll just let the chips fall. Never cared much for their falderal: Cheshire grins while digging knives in spines. I’ve done my time playing dead, keeping head low, staring out the window at jets setting off just down the road, so now’s my moment to go. 

I kiss momma goodbye, and she cries, but she’ll be fine, long as the tv don’t die. Sling my pack and terminal cruise, humming the blues, navigating to departure gate, towing memory scowls and maudlin frowns that cling to my coat tails, each wailing like banshees. Woah is me, no empty seats at the gate, I hesitate, then plop on the corner floor. Glass fogged by humidity, can’t see the sunrise outside, while inside I’m hiding in my corner with some vocal ghosts. And my host while I wait for my plane is little baby Dane, (his mother bleats his name), who sings a song of discontent. Plane’s delayed, says the intercom lady, and I lament this sad attempt at escape. Fated to remain like screaming Dane in southern purgatory, my story’s final chapter. From here on after it is I, the punchline, the dependent, the vestigial appendage, the incarnation of why bother, a goner, already on my way.

“Now boarding group A.”

Oh hey, baby Dane, is that an angel on the radio? Is that hope — a light at the end of the jetway? A smiling greeting on the way to my seat. Even Dane passed by me completely asleep in mother’s arms, and I’m already forgetting about southern charm and blessed hearts. Ding, there goes the seatbelt sign, up front a safety pantomime, (a delightful show). The pilot knows which way to go so I can close my eyes. The voices inside try to infiltrate as we pull away from gate thirty-eight. But the engines roar, seat back, ready to soar. Turbines whir, Carolina lines begin to blur. Nosing upward, speed of sound, tires leave the searing ground. 

Hollow silence all around. Nerves unfurl. Ten thousand feet above the world. Flight attendant calls me sir. Vodka ginger, give a stir. A single pack at my feet. No itinerary. New skyline, new city where I’ll remove the she from we and learn to be me without thoughts or prayers or momma’s despair. And I’ll sit cross-legged in the center of streets, name every star, drink solo at bars, wade into fens and talk with the reeds. Cuz I don’t need anyone, anything not a home nor a ring. Just get me away for four or five days, away from the crazy, away from that lady, away from the country-fried hypocrite malady, where I’ll write every one of those names on a list, then set it on fire, forget they exist.