walker 1, hangover [february11 2022]

its snowing here. looking out my window into the grey-brown twilight i see flakes falling through the dome of yellow light of the arching street lamps. the rest is invisible in the dim air. its supposed to keep snowing through the night and all day tomorrow but it will all be melted by the next sundown– the ambient temperature has been too high. it’ll dump for 18 hours and we'll have less on the ground than we started with. its been like this for weeks. i feel like the weather is afraid to commit itself to the long winter so instead it leaves the city half- clothed and ugly in wet and melting ice.

my dreams are getting vivid again and its getting harder to hide my anxiety tic when im outside at work. stressful memories flash out of nowhere and my voice says “shut the fuck up” or “hello” or “i love you” and i have no control over it. if im not alone i start coughing or start singing to myself, “barges are there treasures in your hold, do you fight with pirates brave and bold” a camp song my mom used to sing to me and my sister before bed. if anyone on site has noticed they dont say anything. im grateful. the embarrassment of saying im fine after holding up a 3 pin cable and telling it to shut the fuck up. getting asked if im okay, a mask over the real question, “would you fucking knock it off.” “barges i would like to go with you, i would like to sail the ocean blue”.

the stress is anniversary syndrome or something, madigan told me about it a long time ago. something about how on or near the anniversary of trauma the body feels the stress of it again. i brought more than books and clothes with me when i moved back here from the valley. i havent known how to talk about it, that thing. its like telling somebody that i see a second moon at night. “oh damn” they could say “you know its not real right” and then i could say “yeah” and look up at the second moon and say “yeah i know”. Its not a moon though. its the Walker. val knows about it too. i wish she was here.

i was with madigan actually when we first saw it. That morning i woke up shaking from low blood sugar, climbing out of the familiar wreckage of a shallow and sexless sleep after a night of hard drinking with our friends. our place reeked. i bumped and leaned my way through the hallway to the kitchen. i passed the closed bathroom and heard madigan voiding himself. notes of his retching found the resonant frequency of the small bathroom, ringing like a bell: good morning. i bumbled on and found my harbor in the kitchen. my feet peeled off the floor, red wine dried sticky on the concrete. i opened the fridge searching for anything to thicken my blood. in my lizard state i almost grabbed the block of cheese to gnaw but ,y hand found a heavenly gift, a styro clamshell with two supreme tacos from burrito ballena.

i was standing over the stove refrying them in our pockmarked cast iron when madigan careened out of the bathroom and collapsed onto the couch. “did anybody stay over” i asked while i stared into the cheese shreds bubbling at the edge of the tortillas. madigan muttered a sweaty “fuck” and i heard him stumble off the couch and back to his room. the tacos were ready to flip. i gripped a little table fork and slid it between the taco and the hot pan. i readied myself for the flip. there wasnt enough real estate in the pan so when i flipped it it was going to land on top of the other taco. i didnt have a plan for what to do after that but i had confidence id figure it out.

“teddy’s here” madigan called from his room.

“hi teddy” i called back. in one fluid upward motion i executed the flip. the cooked side was completely black. madigan re-emerged from the hall and crashed more gently into the couch. “whats that smell” he asked with his face in his hands.

“nothing”. the alarm triggered. the piercing wail ricocheted through the apartment.

“what the FUCK” teddy shouted from madigans room. i flipped the other taco. It was charred almost to ash.

me and madigan sat on the blue plastic couch with all the windows open. i noisily and slowly crunched into my taco project and madigan slumped naked except for his thick red briefs. the tv politely showed a program about vanishing sand art from the southern coast. teddy strode into the living room half naked, bronze and shining with vitality. “did you fry cigarettes in here?”

“yeah” my cheeks filled with taco rubble “its a family recipe you want it?”

“no”

we all looked at the tv. a aged woman stood on a beach holding a long stick with a sort of comb attached to the end. she began a slow dance with it, her feet planted. she swung the stick in a slow and gliding circle around her, passing it between her hands. she bent backward and sideways and over and spoke in a rhythm.

madigan sat up and looked at me blearily, “i need to eat three dozen eggs.”

we decimated the breakfast buffet at the university cafeteria and afterward teddy left us for the painting studio. me and madigan were feeling renewed by the afternoon as we walked the long blocks across campus back home. the sun was gentle and the wind blew warm from across the eastern plateau. neither of us had plans or work hanging over our heads– the spring exams were all finished, the frenzied spiral to the end of the school year had slowed almost to stopping. it dawned on us that we were about to enjoy a perfect day.

“we cant go back to the apartment” madigan said suddenly

i agreed, “we have to stay outside”

“if we go back to that mess the day will all be squandered”

“i’ll become welded to the couch”

“and that’ll be that”

we halted on the small wooden bridge over the creek on the edge of campus. once we crossed the street we’d be back in our neighborhood of squat and languid brick shacks.

madigan looked up at the sky, squinting under his large red brows, “we cant go to turners, that place is probably in worse shape than ours”

i nodded “it was that spraypaint event last night. what about the mags?”

madigan looked down at the wood planks and blew air out his nose “they started smoking indoors again”. i watched the clear water bubble and run down its channel. its flow was stalled by a yellow traffic cone marooned in the creek bed.

madigan perked, “how about a drive”

my little green car was 19 years old and half of it was grey plastic. the hood ended in a low brow and squinted eyes over a thin grill stretching to a slight smile. the air conditioning was broken and when the heater core ran it covered the inside of the windshield in a thin film of oil. the whole thing weighed half a ton and i could take it anywhere. it deserved to see as much of the world i could show it in its twilight. it was more than happy to take me and madigan out beyond the end of the paved highway that followed the foot of the southern ridge. the pavement degraded into a gravel road and the easy slopes of the ridge were worn away to looming basalt cliffs.

the gentle heat of the early day had toughened and began to beat down on the valley. we were necessarily shirtless and my bra was leaving red tread marks across my ribs. madigan let his arm hang out of the window and looked at the basalt columns reaching to the empty sky. my mix cd played jittering machine music and we rumbled along the gravel.

madigan turned to me “so, you and val”. i tightened my grip on the steering wheel. “are you two a item yet?”

i tried not to crack, “lick my item”. madigan laughed.

“tell me though, i wanna know for real”

“i like her, yeah, everyone likes her shes cool and funny and she wears those small shirts”

he laughed again, “but you like her”

i chose the path of obstinance, “what do you want from me”

“realize the truth”

i made loud baby noises

“say it!”

i babbled and swerved the car across the gravel

madigan was unfazed “great i’ll tell her, shes been asking about you” i stopped swerving and looked at him

“wait really has she”

madigan looked at me and raised his eyebrows “do you wish she did?”

i narrowed my eyes at him and stuck my jaw out and looked to the road again and gasped and slammed the brakes. we slid to a stop in front of the wall.

the gravel road ended abruptly at a rock wall some 20 feet high. i looked left and the wall continued on down into the thin green gold forest of aspen and chokecherry. i looked right and it carried on straight into the basalt. straight ahead, there was a hole. about waist high off the ground a tunnel some six feet in diameter was bored into the wall. we got out of the car.

i walked up to the hole. the opening was a nearly perfect circle and the tunnel drove deeper on into complete darkness. the tunnel walls were ragged and a little trail of gravel had formed on the floor. i looked back at madigan, still standing next to the car. he looked back at me with his hands on his hips. i pointed into the tunnel and shrugged. he scowled. “im not doing that, no.” i stepped to the middle of the hole and hopped my ass up onto the ledge, still facing madigan.

“okaaay if you say so.” i brought my knees to my chest and crouched there on the ledge. i cupped my ear and pretended to hear something from deeper within. “but i hear what sounds like a knot of curious and newly bisexual men lost in the pleasure of each other” madigan looked at the ground laughing, “i guess i’ll have to tell them you couldnt make it.” i stood up and turned to face the dark.

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