A Collection of Prose and Photography
I could get him down here with me. For that's what all pitiful people do, from the drunk, to the addict, to the miserably lonely. They tug and pull and drag those around them down into the pit where they reside. They beg and plead and lie and pretend until their prey is caught, until there is another in their dark room to share in the torture that is the bitter, empty, hollow captivity that they have erected about themselves. Escape is not attainable, but commiseration is.
Sean continued to navigate the truck through winding suburban streets, thickly settled but thickly wooded. Each home sat close to the street, bordered by juniper shrubs and uneven sidewalks. Behind them, sprawling yards remained brown-yellow from a long winter, while towering black pines appeared brilliantly green next to the bear slender arms of oaks, maples, and walnuts.
Somewhere deep within the border of South Carolina there grows a terrible jungle. It is comprised primarily of a handful of wild, spirited, blades of grass and knee-high clumps of innocuous clover. But within this suburban amazon grows a nefarious weed. Surely of alien origins, the hideous vine stretches and writhes its way across a patch of earth no bigger than a dining room.
My father didn't say a word as he switched from tool to tool to get just the right bend on a piece of metal. On his knees before the patio door, he snipped and clipped and crimped until the long strip of aluminum at last matched the profile of the wall. My father was meticulous in his craft. I stood beside him, equally silent, and handed him each new implement like a nurse aiding an ingenious surgeon.
It was a still morning in the heart of Geriatric Paradise, but my stomach was anything but peaceful as I pulled my aged station wagon up to the sidewalk of my inevitable end. The wheezing Buick came gratefully to a rest in front of the future home of its former owner. I shared the irony with the old red, wagon, but it wasn’t as amused as it should have been. Perhaps it knew how much of an asshole I really was. Perhaps it knew the real irony of that morning: that I should begrudgingly welcome one who had freely given to me.
B David Larson 