Missing

A wedding story, in which the bride or groom goes missing, and the narrator, who finds her/him, convinces him/her to either return and wed or flees, according to the narrator's own personal motives.

Amy was not surprised that the bride was the better part of an hour late, with the church bedecked in lavender and white and full of foot tapping, watch glancing extended and largely unrelated family. She was not shocked at the sudden realization, brought on by a red faced and visibly sweating best man striding quickly to a suddenly very downcast groom, that perhaps the bride had fled, and was missing.

Though she’d only met the woman, Virginia was her name, only once, she’d formed an immediate and very strong impression. A nice enough woman, strong willed and Audry Hepburn beautiful, she was absolutely unreliable. No, she was not the least bit surprised that the groom, her cousin, was standing forlorn at the large rosewood altar just then.

It had been at the wedding rehearsal a few days before, which Amy went to because she liked the candid nature of ceremony without pomp or audience, when she first met Virginia. She’d been late to that too, but eventually came walking down the aisle smelling like cigarettes and walking like liquor. Amy had forgiven her then, for the moment at least, believing she understood how trying getting married could be. She rescinded that small grace, though, as she realized that Virginia was not stressed, was not in the middle of an emotional crisis, was not fretting over the sudden loss of her singleness and wild independence. She was loving every moment of a process that had darkened circles under the poor groom’s eyes, had the bride’s maids slouching and examining the vaulted church ceilings and half finished decorations, had her father snoring in the front pew, arms crossed, head tilted forward and to one side.

“Sorry I’m late,” she called as she weaved slightly down the aisle.

Amy was not fooled, did not believe for a second that this bride was not absolutely savoring the fact that everyone was waiting for her, that inside those double doors, the world had stopped and waited for her to finish her cigarette and sneak another draw from whatever bottle or flask she had hidden in her purse.

Maybe, Amy was thinking to herself, I’m biased. Maybe I don’t like her because she’s marrying my favorite cousin. She pondered this for some time, absently watching the empty ceremony come to a close. By that time, even she, one of the two people in the church who enjoyed the process, was ready to leave.

“Let’s do it again!” Virginia said with an almost childish enthusiasm. Groans seemed to rise from the floor of the church. The best man shot the groom a “what the hell” look and tapped his watch.

“Except this time, I want to watch.”

She strode over to the line of miserable bridesmaids and grabbed one, whom Amy noticed was the most attractive of the women, and slid her into place next to the very uncomfortable groom. Excitedly, Virginia bobbled over to Virginia’s pew and sat next to her, saying nothing except, “okay, start.”

They didn’t start, and Amy had only stayed long enough to hear the beginnings of a high pitched tantrum echoing down the aisle after her.

Amy was not surprised, despite the incredible amount of effort both sides of the family had poured into that event. She was not surprised, but she did not doubt that Virginia would turn up in her good time, if only people would continue waiting.

A morbidly obese man whom Amy had only seen once before at her great-aunt’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, looking red and short of breath in his impossibly large whale-gray suite, stood up and sidled his best sidle past Amy, who turned her legs sideways and pressed herself as far back into the pew as she could. His belly still grazed her, and she cringed visibly.

The woman sitting on other side of the large possible-uncle slide over next to Amy, and began to say something when the father of the bride, visibly irritated and sincerely apologetic, stepped to the front of the church with a microphone in hand.

“Hello everyone,” he began, pausing to cough and clear his throat.

“Its beautiful, isn’t it?” the woman next to Amy whispered.

“I’m very sorry for the delay. If you will please bear with us for just a little longer…”

“Look at the way they decorated this place. The lavender fabric goes lovely with the white roses. I absolutely love the roses.”

“we’re sure we’ll be able to resolve our little… problem.”

“My wedding is going to be so beautiful,” she almost squealed.

Amy turned suddenly, recognizing the smell of tobacco and rum before registering the face.

"Are you serious?" she shouted, her voice rising to a quivering pitch of disbelief, turning heads and raising grumbles and shouts from throughout the terribly lavender church.

Amy was very surprised.

The Other Side is in far better form, and probably got some sleep last night.

A Small Celebration

I would like to take a moment to point to the most recent short posted, and kindly suggest that my reader guide their discerning eye to my first post to compare the two. In only eleven posts, I feel, and my colleague agrees, that I have made a considerable amount of progress. Needless to say I am pleased, though I will anyway. I am pleased.

Too bad for Megan, she started this project as an impressive and solid writer, so she doesn't get the benefit of such a dramatic change. It's hard to pity her for that.

Anyway, if you read this, thank you for visitting. I hope that you enjoy what we have created thusfar, and hope you will continue to return.

If you are not reading this, well then... I have nothing to say to you.

Moving On

Your housemate arrives home and the apartment is an absolute mess. Dishes are broken, sheets are torn, and there is an angry zoo animal loose. Explain what happened. 45 minutes

I was sitting in the old chair I like—the lumpy recliner with the rip in the back. I was going through the shoebox full of pictures of us, full of movie ticket stubs and souvenirs and memories. I was bleary eyed, drinking a greyhound and blowing smoke into the ceiling. She was so dear to me. I knew I shouldn't look at that shit. I knew wasn't good for me, and wouldn't do anything except upset me. I knew this, but I was doing it anyway.

The smoke made me emotional, tapping my mind directly to the feelings of the memories in the box, and that overwhelming sense of loss that I usually smother with smiles and busy thoughts. I’d gotten to the bottom of the box, where I rediscovered her favorite shirt—a threadbare tank-top commemorating a trip to Cancun. It was carefully sealed inside of a freezer bag, and hadn’t been opened since its original encasing those four months ago. I opened it then, tentatively drawing the talisman from its case.

It still smelled like her.

I breathed her in, closing my eyes and letting the tears flow. I pressed the cold wrinkled cloth into my face and let the memories fill me. My mind was too fluid to grasp any single memory for more than a moment, but I could feel her arms around me, her skin against mine.

But she was gone. She grew up and away from me, and this shirt she treasured for so long was forgotten. She did not comfort me then—she’d shed this skin long ago, and I could do nothing but clutch it to me and shake tears into it.

A knock on the door drew me out of my memory and into the present. I weaved my way to the door and fumbled with the deadbolt, jerking the door open and falling back slightly as it gave. Standing at my door was a fat clown who I smelled before I comprehended. His frilled costume was stained and yellowed, the seam of the right shoulder badly frayed and exposing a small patch of hairy flesh. His face paint was thick and greasy, but did not hide the considerable stubble or the scar that decorated his left cheek. His painted mouth was frowning, and so was his real one. His plastic orange hair was tangled and had twigs and probably insects forever trapped. He wore a grimy Dodger cap that they give away on Hat Tuesdays. In one hand he held a bicycle horn which at that moment he gave a halfhearted, wheezing squeeze. In the other hand he held a leash, which was attached to a monkey.

Nothing interesting ever happens when I’m sober.

The monkey looked at me and with one hand shoved me backward. He (yes, it was a he) monkey-walked in, grasping the leash and pulling the clown stumbling after him. I don't know my monkeys, but I think this was a chimp. He didn't have a tail, and stood about waist high. It was the kind of monkey people put next to pictures of Bush. The clown held onto the leash and stumbled behind. The ape climbed up a barstool and deftly grabbed a grape from the fruit bowl my hospitable housemate had provided. He placed this is his mouth and began to chew, watching the clown expectantly.

“Where’s the birthday party,” the clown slurred, the smell of whiskey on his words.

The monkey threw a grape at the fat man. Monkeys can throw--or at least chimps can. The grape splattered flat and juicy on the clown's face.

“Fucking monkey!” he shouted, puffing himself up for a moment. The ape gave him a threatening glare and the clown deflated visibly.

“So I guess there’s no party. Little Suzy is going to be terribly disappointed. So, do you have any need for an alcoholic clown and a pain in the ass monkey?”

I wasn’t really sure how to react. I wasn’t doing any hard drugs, and certainly hadn’t had enough to smoke or drink to create a hallucination this strange, or a dream this real. The monkey unhooked the leash from his collar, which he adjusted like a businessman might straighten a tie, and leapt from the stool.

“Fucking monkey… Hey. You look like shit,” he said, suddenly taking a closer look at me.

I wanted to say something at that point along the lines of “look who’s talking” but I didn’t have time or wit to stammer such a thing before he slumped across the distance separating us and slung an arm around my shoulder. I immediately felt dirty, like fleas were migrating from body to body across the bridge he’d formed. Just thinking about it makes me want another shower.

“What was it, a woman? She take the kids and leave? She obviously didn’t take the money. Nice place. No no, you’re too young for children. Ah. I know. She broke your heart. First love? I can see it, yes. I’ll bet you have episodes where you don’t do laundry for a month, you’re moping so much. You haven’t done laundry, have you? You wore that shirt yesterday.”

I’d actually slept in that shirt, and had a mountain of laundry that would match the stack of dirty dishes if my housemate didn’t keep the kitchen spotless. And she had been my first love.

“Your hair looks terrible. You should stop getting twelve dollar hair cuts. At least you didn’t Flowbee it.”

Then the monkey came strutting back into the living room with my shoebox, wearing the tank top. He gave a knowing look to the clown, who glanced at the monkey and farted.

“Take some advice from someone older and wiser. Forget her. No! Fuck her! This bitch,” he said, pulling out a large portrait of us, smiling and holding each other, “is not worth it. Hot though.” He licked his lips and began folding the precious photo. I was about to object when another grape exploded on his cheek. He yelped.

“Okay, okay! Shit! Anyway, fuck her.”

He tore the picture lengthwise, and proceeded to shred it into dime size pieces of photo paper. He went into a frenzy then, dropping to his haunches and tearing through the box like a frothing beast, tearing notes, biting photos, disemboweling a stuffed bear she’d given me. He howled loudly and ran out of the room, flailing his hands above his head, throwing the confetti of my past into the air behind him.

“Fuck her!” he shouted as he overturned the glass-top table in the middle of the room. It cracked in half, and the large vase with the pair of birds of paradise shattered on the cold stone floor.

“Fuck her!” he screamed as he pulled the bookshelf away from the wall, dumping novels across the floor before sending the heavy wooden case crashing on top of them.

He panted for a moment, wheezing as though he’d forgotten he was a very fat man.

He picked up a barstool and flung it through the sliding glass door that lead to the backyard.

“Forget her.”

The monkey leapt from his perch on the barstool again, and clipped the leash to his collar once more. Placing the end of the leash in the clown’s hand, the monkey, still wearing the Cancun shirt, opened the front door and pulled the huffing clown out of my home. I stared after them for a few moments before I started to laugh, an uncontrollable fit that had me on my back, holding my sides, with tears running down the sides of my face.

That’s when you came home. You just missed them.

The Other Side is probably looking pretty good

Putt Putt

Drunk grandma makes a scene at a family gathering.

I was beginning to hate the fact that Alex was born in July. Every year since he was old enough to understand the concept of a birthday, a child’s whim forced us out into the summer heat for a day of sweaty fun. This year it was miniature golf, and not just any miniature golf. This course was huge, easily covering an area the size of a real golf fairway. It had a total of 54 holes, each with its unique challenge, fantastic props and obstacles. The obligatory windmill was huge and wooden, creaking and clacking as though inside, one might actually find a grindstone or some sort of belt-driven machinery. There were dragons and farm houses, miniature landscapes, hills and bumps, and my personal favorite: a giant typewriter that spat the ball out the top where the paper feeds. The walkways were fancy flagstone, and the entire course was lined with flowers. It was a lovely place, and would have enjoyed myself thoroughly if I hadn’t already soaked my polo tee shirt through. Luckily I’d worn a hat, but that too was slimy with perspiration. Even Uncle Ted had rings under his armpits, and that dapper gentleman didn’t sweat even after the most rigorous of tennis matches.

A markedly unenthusiastic burst of applause rose from the small group of adults as Alex, after nine or ten hasty strokes, finally sank his ball into the hole. His young friends had finished shooting already, each finishing in about five shots. The children didn’t clap or cheer. They looked tired and wet and slightly flushed with the heat. The fat boy in the navy golf tee looked like he was melting, his curly hair wilting and sticking to his dripping face. One girl, the wealthy McDoyle daughter gave a loud sigh that began with a snotty irritation and slowly groaned into genuine misery.

And still Alex ran. He ran ahead to the next hole. It was a train. He loved trains. His smile was fresh and he danced on the spot as he waiting for the party to slug its way to the next tee.

My cell phone rang as the birthday boy teed off. I watched long enough to see an overenthusiastic swing that sent his red ball skittering sideways and into the flowers. Alex was running over to crawl through the plants when I flipped the phone open to hear my brother’s voice.

“What’s up?”

“Hey Ryan, sorry I’m late. I had to go get grandma, and…” he paused a moment, and I already knew what had happened.

Our grandmother hated children, which was a cruel joke on my father and uncles, who all had interesting issues of their own, but it worked out okay for my generation. The offspring of that woman had all at one time or another sworn they would be better parents. They succeeded to some extent.

“…and well, you know grandma. She was three sheets to the wind when I got there.”

She was also something of an alcoholic, though she would say it was only on special occasions. It seemed reasonable to her, and I don’t know how.
I found my mother slouched under the thin shadow of a light post, watching her youngest son putt like a six year old will, and smiling slightly.

“Mom. James has grandma. They’re almost here.”

She nodded and said nothing, choosing instead to raise an eyebrow at me.

“Yes, she is,” I answered.

She rolled her eyes and took a sip of water from her bottle.

I could smell the gin on my grandmother's breath, sweating out of her skin as she strode up to the party. She carried heals in her hand, but was wobbling on her ankles a little anyway. She was wearing a black dress, slightly shorter than I like grandmothers wearing, but she had aged well, and she knew it. She was old enough that softness should have started pulling her flesh earthward, wrinkling and sagging as is the right of every geriatric. She seemed to be defying the pull. “Sagging means the earth is ready to pull you in,” she liked to say, “and I’m not ready for a grave yet.”

“Ryan!”

She shouted and ran to me first, though I don’t know why. She was most vicious to me of all my family when she was sober and her sharp words were not lost in a bottle. She threw her arms around me in a quick hug, and I was sure I smelled like gin too when she pulled away.

“You’re very drunk, grandmother,” I informed her in a friendly voice. She immediately darkened, her eyebrows lowering and casting those menacing shadows over her eyes.

“I know that, you dumb shit. I did it on purpose so I didn’t have to sit sober through stupid crap like that. Stop talking.”

She thought she was using her quiet dramatic voice—she’d done it many times in the past. This time, though, she shouted, and it was much less effective in hurting me, and much better at raising eyebrows and forcing me to grin, slightly embarrassed.

She seemed to forget me, though, and rolled amiably into the middle of the party, greeting and smiling, laughing loudly and tilting dangerously, though never stumbling. She was a very practiced drunk.

My mother sidled up next to me, her shoulder touching mine as she said quietly, “How long before she does something that upsets the parents and ends the party?”

“I give her five minutes,” I answered.

I gave her too little credit by half. She hugged Alex and wished him the happiest of birthdays, telling him to grow up faster so she could tolerate him. I’m sure he didn’t know what she meant, because he giggled and laughed in her arms. She even took in a round of golf, drawing the eyes of some of the older fathers as she bent unsteadily over her club.

It took about ten minutes, but I saw her standing next to one of the younger fathers. He was well dressed, handsome, and obviously in good shape. She was talking to him. He looked uncomfortable, even from where I was standing, but nobody could stop my grandmother once she started flirting. I couldn't hear her, but I saw him shake his head and step back. I saw her throw her head back with a very fake laugh. I saw her give him a playful shove, and I watched with only a little surprise as she proceeded to throw herself over the flowery hedge and into the very blue pond.

"You pushed me!" She shouted, splashing water toward the parents. "You naughty man! Now come swim with me!"

She laughed loudly and peeled her dress over her head, throwing it toward the McDoyles yelling "hold this". The pond must have been a foot and a half deep- enough for her to lay down in her black underwear and sigh happily.

Parents were snatching up there children and doing their best to storm. Most were too tired, and only managed a dragging sort of stomp. The party was over. Alex was still shooting golf. I was fumbling for my camera—It was, after all, my brother’s turn to keep her from being arrested.

The Other Side

And a Very Fine Scotch

We're both rather spooked tonight. We'll write a ghost story.

“Do you think,” Ryan said, looking up from his antiquated typewriter, “that simple acknowledgement of ghosts could make them… I don’t know, more real?”

Megan gave a quick glance across the old wooden dining table before returning her attention to the blue glow of her laptop.

“Absolutely,” she said, still staring at the screen.

It was a discussion they had with considerable frequency, despite their mutual preference to avoid the subject. They lived together in an old, moderately sized house that belonged to a great-uncle before he lost his mind and went missing some twenty years prior. It was a strange arrangement which neither of them could quite explain, though they tried. It only seemed right that two writers of such similar minds should congregate. They spent most of their nights like this, sitting across that heavy oak table, he using one of a variety of old typewriters, clacking out pages of poorly edited fiction, she tapping softly and rarely printing. They would sip at fancy drink, often sharing a new discovery or an old treasure. Tonight, both were sampling an ancient bottle of scotch, found in a dusty box behind a set of very old encyclopedias. The label on the bottle was faded and yellowed, and beginning to peel, but the cork was in fine condition, and the liquid so finely aged and delectable that even a wine drinker like Megan could not wrinkle her nose.

“Did you ever read ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’,” he asked, pausing his rapping again.

“Poe, right?”

He nodded, and knew that she would perceive this, though she did not look up from her laptop.

“I wish you’d stop,” she said. “You know it makes me uneasy.”

He knew, of course—He must have. Who could focus in that house, especially at night when the heat of the sun began to dissipate and the old wooden walls began to creak and settle beneath the weight of darkness? Sometimes, it sounded like footfalls through a hallway, or knocking on a wall, or a heavy man shifting his weight in the next room.

One such creak raced its way through the kitchen, directly adjacent to the yellow-papered dining room where they were seated. Ryan shivered visibly and stood.

“I need a blanket,” he said, indicated the tall window behind him. “Its cold on this side of the room.”

She nodded again without looking up. He left, certainly wishing she’d come with him, too embarrassed to ask. She most likely did not relish being left in that room. Neither said anything, feeling too foolish to indulge childish fears.

She could hear him climbing the stairs up to the bedrooms, could hear the old closet door squeak open. She could hear the whole house settling, noting a soft tapping in the kitchen to which she had her back turned. She probably found it unusual that the tapping was so persistent—usually such sounds lasted only a second, but this had been tapping like an impatient foot for at least a half a minute. Then it stopped, and she shivered and hugged herself, looking toward the door through which Ryan had left. Behind her in the kitchen, there was a sudden shattering of glass, and all the lights in the house were extinguished, except the glow of her laptop.

A shout of surprise and terror erupted from upstairs, followed by a heavy thud as though a bushel of potatoes had been dropped.

“Ryan?” She called, her voice wavering, her throat nearly stopped by her pounding heart.

He offered no answer, though she strained her ears for his voice. She heard something then, but it was not from upstairs. It was a very soft tapping, almost inaudible, and not noteworthy except that it was most definitely moving. Through the hall, in through the same door through which Ryan left, and to the center of the room, where it made a slow deliberate line toward her. An observer would have seen Megan’s eyes go wide, though the blue of her laptop screen would have hidden the sudden paleness. Quickly, she turned the computer around and shone the screen toward the noise. Eyes illuminated yellow and a long yowl filled the room.

She sneezed violently, an immediate reaction to the presence of dander. Her eyes were only squeezed shut for that second, but when she looked up, the cat was gone, and the lights were on, yellow and soft and slightly wavering—it was very old wiring, after all.

She breathed a sigh of relief and looked around for the cat. There were wet footprints on the table. She pondered this a second before remembering Ryan, and noticing that his untidy stack of papers had been scattered, thrown about the floor. His typewriter was gone, and so was his drink. The bottle was gone too.

She ran upstairs, searched the three cavernous bedrooms. In his room, she found his favorite quilt crumpled on the floor, but no sign of him.

She returned downstairs, unsure of what to think. Her feet carried her to the kitchen, where his crystal tumbler was shattered on the floor, the old liquor splashed across the rough wood.

She left the house then, running, wide eyed and fumbling with her cell phone, calling a friend to come pick her up from that old place.

Ryan was never found.

The Other Side

Uruguay

Bros vs. Hos, 45 minutes


I’d been visiting that house for more than half of my life, and it had become a second home for me. It was the home of a childhood friend with whom I was fortunate enough to maintain a constant and strong friendship well into adulthood.

We were sitting at his kitchen table—the same table I’d eaten at when his family invited me for dinner all those years ago—chatting and rolling joint after joint and sliding them into empty cigarette boxes. The blinds to the large window behind him were open, the dark of the very early morning pressing cold through the glass. I wondered if neighbors would know what we were doing.

“Two years is a long ass time,” he said, his tone as dim and somber as the lighting.

“Yeah, it is,” was all I could reply.

I’d already expressed how excited I was to be leaving, how great an adventure the Peace Corps would provide. I’d already assured him that I was sure I’d be able to find a steady source of marijuana in Uruguay. I mentioned it again as he placed another full cigarette box on the growing stack, and reached for another of the many empties.

“You never know,” he said, not looking up from his paper.


I almost didn’t get to spend that evening with him. Fortunately for me, he finally decided to be assertive.

“No, he’s coming over… Listen, we’ll fight about this later. He’s leaving for South America tomorrow. Amanda. Amanda. Amanda listen. He’s my best friend. He’s leaving for two years…. AMANDA. You can go back to your place if you’re going to act like that.”

He slapped the phone shut abruptly. I knew he was in deep shit, and appreciated the gesture more than anything he could have done for me. I wondered how many hours of grumbling and glaring he would have to endure after they finished their shouting match.

I arrived at his place before the summer sun began tinting the sky orange, and we wasted away the hours comfortably, as though we both knew that no extravagant plans or fancy celebration would compare to a few more hours of ‘chilling’.

More of my old friend trickled in, each wishing me well, some gripping my shoulder and letting me know with appropriate emotion that I would be missed. We spent that evening playing video games, drinking, and laughing over old memories. Twice, Amanda descended the stairs, stopping short of the living room, never leaving the stairs. Twice she glared around the living room full of smiles, and twice she climbed the stairs, more heavy-footed than her considerable heft usually caused.

We ignored her, and enjoyed the dying night. One by one my comrades left, leaving me with manly hugs and well wishes, leaving Jake and I to make our final preparations. A popcorn bowl full of fresh plant matter, a carton’s worth of empty Marlboro Red boxes, and several hundred rolling papers.

We worked and chatted like old women knitting, commenting on the irony that we should be crafting on the same table we’d done cub scout projects.

Somehow, she sidled up to the table without us noticing her, so we both jumped slightly when she spoke.

“Don’t you think you have enough joints?”

The tone of her voice was a familiar one, employed many a night when she decided it was time for us to leave. Before she came around I could often be found sleeping on one of the sofas in that house, but that summer, I’d been lucky to see Jake more than once a week. I knew what she wanted, but wasn’t ready to leave yet. I looked at the half carton of cigarette boxes full of expertly wrapped marijuana buds, considered the quantity with a very serious look on my face, looked at her and told her that I doubted it.

I’d never stood up to her before. Jake always had her back, and it was his house. She’s become so accustomed to the power, I was quite sure she had forgotten whose house it really was.

“Jacob Robert, I’m tired of having your fucking friends over here all the time. They stay too late. They’re too loud, and I’m tired.”

I would have rolled my eyes if I wasn’t so appalled at the title so recently bestowed. I was almost speechless. Almost.

“Hey Amanda,” I said cheerfully, “fuck off.”

I gave her a broad smile and she turned a funny color.

“I think maybe you’d better go home, Ryan,” she said to me, hands on hips.

I looked over at Jake, wondering how the night would end.

"I... Think its time for you to leave," he said, not looking at me.

Amanda smirked at me and nodded toward the door.

"Good night, Amanda," Jake finished, looking her straight in the face before turning back to his work.

The Other Side

Road Trip

You and a friend are very lost, and arguing, because there's nothing around to help you figure out where you are.

We were still slightly drunk. I know I shouldn’t have been driving, but we’d made it out of that little Mexican town and found open road. My old jeep was handling the roughly paved road with ease, and did not complain in the least when we drifted every so often into the dirt and shrubs that edged along the road.

We were still slightly drunk, with cameras full of strange people lifting drinks and shouting under the greasy yellow and sleepy blue of the incandescent bulbs and neon beer signs. Cameras full of drinking contests and strange women dancing with drunken recklessness in a country obviously not their own. Heads full of memories, heads full of dance, and of drink.

We’d entered this land three in number, but we lost one brave soul to a hooker who was beautiful except for that eye that refused to look forward. She was cheap, and James had been shouting “Cuanto cuestas” at women after the first round of tequila shots. “How much do you cost,” he’d been asking them, though I knew that his Spanish did not extend beyond that phrase, and where to find beer or a bathroom.

And so he bought that woman for the night, and promised to find his own way back into the states. We knew he would not be dissuaded, though his wife would be sure to ask us where he was. We would deal with that later.

For we were slightly drunk, and full of good memories, driving beneath Mexican stars and wondering at a world without street lamps.

“Dude,” Greg slurred as his eyes opens and his arm reach up to wipe the drool from his cheek. “Where the fuck are we?”

I didn’t know, and had not thought about it until he said those words. I must have been very drunk when we began driving, because I couldn’t remember how exactly we’d left.

“Are we even going the right direction?”

That was me saying that, though there was no way my companion could have known—he’d passed out within minutes of sitting down. He pointed this out to me, only he used the word “fuck” somewhere in the sentence to emphasize his displeasure with the geographic confusion. I lit a cigarette at this point, and breathed deep to unknot the tension.

“I guess we could drive until we find the coast,” I suggested, “or another town. Does any of this shit look familiar to you?”

We both looked around, seeing only shrub and brush and stones beneath the moonlight.

“Wait!” he exclaimed, his excitement giving me reassurance. “That bush! Right there! We passed it on our way here!”

He paused a moment, his excitement shifting quickly to a darker shade as he turned to me and informed me that no, of course nothing looks fucking familiar. He threw an empty can at my head and crossed his arms.

“Why don’t you call Boots? He knows how to get anywhere,” I offered.

Greg rolled his eyes and pulled out his cell phone, flipping it open and pressing it immediately to his face. He didn’t dial.

“Hey Boots! What’s up? Yeah man, I’m good. Listen, we’re lost in Mexico. We left La Puebla… how long ago bro? An hour? Yeah, an hour ago. No, I don’t know which direction we’re driving. No, I don’t know what road we’re on. No, I don’t see any signs. Its pretty much dessert.”

He snapped the phone shut and glared at me hard enough that I could feel it while staring forward.

“You seriously want me to have a conversation like that with Boots at three in the morning? You’re a fucking retard.”

Greg is an interesting person. He is soft spoken, meek even, with the good manners and strict upbringing of a very Asian family. He is also very kind—that is, until he starts to drink. Then he gets like this.

“I’m a retard?” I shouted back. “Mexico was your fucking idea. I wanted to go mountain climbing, you ornery fuck. I wanted to stay in my own god damned country.”

I flicked my half spent cigarette at him without looking. I must have aimed true, because he yelped and began shaking out his shirt. He called me a fucker then, and reached across and punched me on the jaw.

Now normally, this would be the part of the story where the car goes flying off the road, slamming into a conveniently placed boulder. Consider, however, that I can take a punch, and that I was still numb from tequila, and that Greg is a pussy.

No, we crashed anyway, tires swerving and squealing. There wasn’t a boulder, but there was a rather deep ditch in which we entrenched ourselves nicely. The impact slammed my face into the steering wheel, and I could feel blood leap from my mashed nose. Greg groaned and whispered his favorite word before informing me that his arm was broken.

“Crashed, lost in the middle of this backward ass country. My fucking arm is broken, and my cell phone was out of batteries before we crossed the border yesterday.”

I climbed out of the Jeep. It was desert cold out, chilled by early morning. I didn’t have any flares—the result of another bit of drunken “fun” a month prior. There was juggling involved.

Tires will burn for a good long time, though, and produce enough smoke to attract attention if there were any eyes to see. I suddenly saw myself standing beneath the heat of a desert noon, with a smoldering tire next to me and no help within miles. We had no food, no water… And who knew what kind of unsavory character would find us in our vulnerable situation.

I pulled the spare tire off of my tailgate and rolled it downwind of the jeep. I grabbed the gas can I always kept full and doused the tire. We had four tired, I figured as I lit the spare. It burst into flames, the rubber stinking and hissing as it began to melt. Black smoke twisted into the sky, though it was the flame that would attract attention at this dark hour. I went back to the jeep and fell asleep.

I awoke to tapping at my window.

“You fellas needing help?”

He spoke English. This alone pleased me beyond words. I nodded and opened the door.

“Sit tight then,” he said, smiling and climbing back into his faded blue Civic. “I’m sure I can find someone at the border check who can help.”

I told him he didn’t need to drive all that way, if only he would help us dislodge my jeep from its grave.

“I’d be easier,” he informed me, “to drive the three miles to the border and find a real tow truck.”

And with that, he hopped into his little car and drove in the very same direction I’d been going hours before.

The Other Side looks rather nice.