Wasted Words

a book of questions

There’s a book in Father’s study. I’ve never seen him read it, and I know he’s read every volume on those shelves at least twice. There’s a book, this large black ledger with gilt lettering:  A Book of Questions. Simple. Growing up, I thought it a coffeetable publication—something meant to stir conversation. Which president would you want to take tea with, what necessities would you bring to a desert island, that sort of stuff. I left that book on its shelf in favor of what I thought was more scholarly reading, what I thought I needed to make that early metamorphosis into adulthood.

Time passed, as time tends to. Father grew old, grew grey, grew thin, barked up dust, and also passed. Mother, in her grief, asked that my brother and I empty the house of any trace of Father. She preferred living in an empty home to a mausoleum, so we obliged her. 

I took to Father’s study, boxing up his letters and trophies and books. A Book of Questions caught my eye and, before I could put it in a box with the rest, I’d opened its cover. Why is the universe cold and random? Why do we still go looking for the truth? When will you atone for your sins? Why can’t we change? I’d been wrong. These questions didn’t ask us what we wanted. No, this wasn’t a book of questions, just catalysts for deep realizations. 

There was a photo, yellowed and dry, marking a page towards the end. There was a single question on that page—Who is going to watch you die?—and nothing else. The picture was of Father, no older than myself. His head was thrown back in laughter, his glasses threatening to slip off. In his arms was a woman I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t Mother, that much I knew. 

We carted Father’s things off to a U-Stor-It off the highway. I wondered sometimes about the rest of the items I gleaned over. The letters and photos and such. Whatever else remained of Father’s legacy, left to rot in musky silence in a storage locker obscured by weeds and rotting oil drums. I wondered after those things, but in that absent manner of wishing things to reveal themselves without having to do any work. Mostly, I returned to my daily routines and called that a life and never once complained and left nothing behind for anyone to puzzle over.

(Photo:  The Ross Project)

life’s a grimm thing to bear

Said the Wolf to the girl, ‘You don’t seem afraid.’

Replied the girl, ‘Neither do you.’

Said the Wolf with a chuckle, ‘And what, little girl, do I have to be afraid of? This here is my wood, as it has been for time out of mind. There isn’t a blade of grass that goes bent without my knowing it. Before me there were the bears, and before them the dragons, and before them the ancient demons of a world still new and uncertain of itself. Why do you think none of them remain? I could swallow you whole.’

Replied the girl, her nose up high, ‘Because my father is looking for me. He’s the strongest hunter in all the land. The king’s even said so, and the king has the stuffed bodies of bears and skulls of dragons adorning his throne room. He’s quicker with an axe than a bowman and his arrow. He’s been tracking me since the moment I got lost, and any moment now he’ll step through those trees and make a pelt of you.’

Grinned the Wolf, ‘He will try.’

But there was no trying. Nor was there the low rustle of boots through the long grass. No shout of Daughter! and return cry of Daddy! Only the low sound of water over rocks, a frog hidden along the stream, a wind’s murmur in the highest branches. The Wolf grinned. All others looked away.

(Photo:  Daniel Apodaca)

‘just a phase’

But I don’t remember the good times, just moments masquerading as fond memories. I step over those like quicksand, but I can’t help but remember a few. Mostly the winter of ‘86, the last winter with that group of guys—what the hell did we call ourselves? The Posse? The Banditos? I dunno, something ‘dangerous’—who’d cut out of school after lunch and get messed up on whatever Jonathan’s brother was offering. We’d pile up in Stephen’s car, the station wagon, and fishtail our way down to the lake.

I was the dramatic kid. Ever-sad Ethan, who just smokes and goes quiet for no reason at all. I had reasons, I had all the reasons that I thought were appropriate at seventeen but weren’t. There was a bridge beside the boatlaunch where we parked, one that spanned a bayou of sorts. While the guys took turns finding rocks to chuck out onto the ice, I’d bury my head low and start to cross the bayou.

I did this thing, I dunno, I pretended I wasn’t me but some explorer looking for the Northwest Passage and my ship had foundered between icebergs and I was the last sailor alive, crossing the Arctic on foot, wandering in any direction, not even sure which was north and which was south, and I had to ignore the treeline on the opposite shore and instead imagine those stripped elms as the tops of ice ridges that looked solid but could at any moment shatter and turn upside-down in that black ocean beneath my feet. Mostly I just pretended that I was someone else, and things felt a little better.

But mostly I collapsed onto my back in the middle of the bayou, snow filtering into the collar of my jacket. I’d stare up at clouds that looked like spilled watercolors and blink at the flakes that fell in my eyes. Once Jonathan, high and unsmiling, settled in next to me. We didn’t say anything for five minutes or an hour or a week. ‘Do, do you think you’re the only guy that feels empty?’ he finally said. Then he did a slow angel in the ice before mumbling something about how terrified he was being this far out. He walked away and I knew he was full of shit. Seventeen years old and already so certain of things. He might be scared but I didn’t feel a goddamned thing.

(Photo:  Ben The Man)