OCR Text |
Show Blue Run/90 Seen from underwater, everything gets bigger. The photo's from Ocho Rios ten-years ago, the trip I lied a three-way alibi into, and even had a photograph doctored to show me, Floy Melton and Juanita standing on the whitest sand, all that blue ocean eyeballing us every which way. We've had a time-me and Shawn Terrence-tromping through waterfalls and snorkeling up fish, gorging ourselves on smoked conk. It's hot as Hades, the kind of heat you forget Shawn's scotch-happy. He's singing "Earth Angel," hanging the high notes out to dry. We're waiting for the rest of our lives. Shawn's got these big deer eyes When I take his picture, one goes red and the other silver. He smiles like there's no such thing as O W. on this earth, like nice teeth and muscle and heart can get you through. Good god, I thought, that lightness you get in your blood. No. no. ho. no. no-^not love. Of a sudden, like when you walk out the back door after an all-night snow and the daffodil's bloomed. Sun shines through the petal veins and a man touches you from behind, kisses your neck, maybe, and then you trip on a patio chair and break teeth. That's how always been for me-love-stricken like every other idiot breathing air After, Shawn Terrence flew off to L.A. and joined AA, and I saved every scrap of him I could find. This second, he's in briefcase beside my night stand-the one with the oh so flimsy lock that a duck could pick it with its beak My hot tub's in Jimmy's room, the son me and O.W. lost in a car wreck sixteen years ago r Except for the therapy tub, everything's the same, dusty with spiderwebs high in the corners, but the same. Like Jimmy could walk in the door any second, six-feet tall with sawdust in his hair, and we'd all hug each other. The nightmare'd be undone and we could live our lives in love again. 0 W.'s crouched over me. His flattop's cut high and tight. The wedding ring I bought him , |