Amazement
by Richard Thomas

Rubbing my thumb and forefinger over my eyelids, stars shoot across my vision as circles morph into headlights, and the dull thud of his car door fills my head with cotton. Thick brown hair, the color of anticipation on a university campus as the leaves change and fall from the dying frames.

Keys drop onto concrete, and a grunt is followed by a string of mumbling profanities. The ability to hit a fastball, and the ability to strike out fast into the space where contemplation should have sat, regardless of the person in front of me, regardless of age or sex. A penchant for busty women in tight clothes, turning off every warning system, tossing aside every red flag that landed in my grasp. Long fingers that allow me to reach well over an octave on the old upright piano in the beige carpeted living room, next to the red and black brick fireplace. Cookies and carrots, and a glass of milk, year after year after year.

And the ability to hold four bottles of beer in each hand, cold and wet, the only company on many a rain splattered night. Many a hot, muggy summer’s yawn. Many a cool, peaceful evening. A string of 842 days. Flecks of gold with the odd green sparkle that always looked forward, never content for a moment, always seeing what could be, what should be, not what is. And for that blindness, the additional gift of fingers that can only let sand sift between them, no matter the fear or grasp. The inability to change the oil, adjust the carburetor, or repair the manifold, a deep seated resentment in the back of that Candy Apple Red ‘66 Mustang, the naivete and desire of youth fighting against the hatred he instilled in me.

Sitting on the steps in the dark, my ass cold and numb, I wait. Watching him stumble towards me, the brilliance of his ego spins a web of disillusionment around him, a protective coat of armor. Not tonight. His secretary at the office, accounts payable, accounts receivable. She was my first crush, until she revealed herself to be no more then an ornament and distraction. The bartender on bowling night, my first job unclogging the pins from the machines in the back, every limb flexed and stretched out amidst the trembling framework of metal teeth that yearned to take a bite. Up at the country, the neighbor lady, just stopping by to drop off some venison jerky she’d made from a buck her husband had shot not too long ago. Glances held a bit too long and wandering eyes that held no remorse.

Nature and nurture. Success and failure. As the heroin coursed through my veins, and my head swam, my body shook and oozed a warmth that was false and fleeting. I could hear his voice, the excuses, the stories. Those tales and yarns that had caused my eyes to widen, my heart to fill with promise, now only shoved the pain beneath my sinuses, into my temples, and down my throat. I was visiting him, here in this lonely garage, his true firstborn, the choice he made so many nights. Revisiting, in many ways.

Or the next five seconds, anyway. Again and again, the noise, the space filled with a cacophony of metal banging, smoke and oil, every night that I had snuck out, and back in again, every hope and dream dashed by his seed. In those moments of brilliant light, he had only one expression for me, amazement. If only I had gotten that look earlier in my life. At any point in time. On the baseball field, at the school play, the graduation ceremony, or book signing, the wedding, or birth or death. Any of it, at any point in time. Just once.

Finally, we would do something together, with perfection, and permanence. My lips wrap around the barrel, the smell of burning flesh, and if only I could feel it. The last muscle tightens, my finger pulls, and there must have been one more flash, one more bang, before I fall on top of him, in a final embrace that was not at all enough to fill the gaps and voids in this young boy’s heart.