I.
“Stupid piece of shit,” I told my reflection.
I straightened my tie, got out of my truck, and walked toward Andrew’s house.
It was cloudy.
Through the window I could already see her sitting at the table.
I slowed down.
II.
“Alright,” Andrew said reluctantly, “Chandelle wants you to go on ONE date with her friend.”
I sighed and pulled the phone away from my face. Andrew was still talking.
I put the phone back up to my face.
“—and that’s why, come on man, she’s pretty. Blonde. You love blondes! And, blue eyes.”
I sighed loudly.
“Come on man, we’re worried about you. Chandelle thinks you’re going crazy.”
“Well it depends on her definition of the word ‘crazy’ the metaphysical linguistic structure of the word implies—“
“Yeah yeah, your Jordan Peterson impression is very good.”
There was silence on the line between them.
“I miss you, man.” Andrew said.
“Alright. Fine. I’ll go.”
“Good! Hey, I’ll make the duck.”
III.
I knocked on the door and Andrew opened it with a smile.
IV.
“You’re very handsome,” she said to me.
“Yeah I uh,” I coughed, “this place looks different than when I last came here. It uh, there was a stripper.”
She laughed.
“Yeah, I love strippers.”
She stopped laughing but kept smiling.
Chandelle glared at me.
“In an abstract,” I coughed again, “metaphysical, uh— anti-realist sense— more, uh, I don’t respect the commodifying of beauty, but I … I read Judith Butler’s book, so um— I do respect, the uh.. women.”
I slapped the table.
“oh my God, Andrew can I get some fucking water, please? ICE is deporting my people, I’m fucking distraught. Jesus Christ.”
She laughed some more.
“Can someone else talk, please?” I was almost begging.
“I saw your show. You were very funny. You’re funny now, too.“ she said.
“Oh. You like my comedy?”
“Yes. And, I saw the poem you wrote that Andrew has framed. The one about the Owl in the storm? I wanted to meet you but you ran out of the club.”
“That’s a really good poem. The food is almost done.” Andrew said from the kitchen.
“Well. Here I am. Uh, hey, I’m going to use the bathroom.”
“To the left,” Andrew said, chuckling from the kitchen.
I stood up and went into the bathroom. In my jacket pocket I had codeine. I took two 25mg pills and drank some water. Then I looked at the toilet.
Should I flush? I should definitely flush. No, stop. Think. You literally came in here and immediately, as far as they know, turned on the sink. They’re gonna expect you to wash your face. If you flush, what the fuck did you turn the faucet on first for?
“Stupid piece of shit,” I said out loud.
I opened my jacket. There were three shots of whiskey in my pocket.
I drank them all back to back.
Then the drugs began to take hold and I took another pill.
V.
“Oh god, Chandelle, we need to go to a concert sometime! It’s been so long.”
I overheard them as I wandered around Andrew’s house.
Beside a grand piano was the original of my poem, The Owl and the Storm.
Underneath it was a picture of Andrew and his family from when he was a boy. He was smiling.
My eyes carefully scanned his books. A picture of him graduating from college and then a picture of him and his wife when he graduated law school.
My eyes moved upwards to my poem. Andrew had it framed in ebony. It had a gold trim.
The Owl remembered
that the cloud was once
small
and alone.
and it left, and then
when he grew older,
he became
cold and black and rotten
and it did thunder
then rain
and it did drown
life beneath it
And the Owl did flee.
My eyes went back to his books.
One stuck out to me.
I ran my finger along the spine of a book and then picked it up.
“How Al-Anon Works: For Friends and Families of Alcoholics”
I opened it. There were highlighted words in the book, as if he had studied it.
I put the book back.
“Oh, dude. There you are!” Andrew said.
I turned around.
“Checking out your poem? I had the frame custom made. Check it out man, this is 24 karat gold. It’s kind of indulgent but you deserve it. I read this, no shit, every day.”
He seemed sincere. But something in me couldn’t believe him.
“Anyway, the duck is done. I know you love it. I even glazed it with that strawberry sauce you like. It’s gonna be great.”
Andrew started to walk back to the kitchen then stopped abruptly.
“Hey, we’re going to drink tonight. I know you’re trying to stop. Are you okay with that?”
I nodded.
VI.
We sat down and Andrew poured the wine for everyone at the table except me.
Outside it had started to rain.
The girl was telling a story about her dumb sister. Something about how she couldn’t read a map. She was fascinated by geography for some reason. I didn’t give a shit but I was nodding and she seemed satisfied with that.
Andrew had whispered her name to me on the way to the table, I had already forgotten it, then remembered it, then forgot it again.
“Do you like it?” Andrew asked her.
“It’s incredible,” she said. She looked at me. “Do you cook?”
“I make sandwiches,” I said.
Andrew laughed from the end of the table.
“He’s being modest,” Andrew said. “He is an incredible cook.”
“Sandwiches. I make incredible sandwiches. That’s the full extent of it.”
She smiled. She had been smiling at me all night like she knew something I didn’t.
“Your earrings. They’re beautiful.” I said.
“Thank you,” she said, “my mom’s.”
Andrew raised an eyebrow at me.
“Your shoes. Are… they comfortable?”
“Do you really want to talk about my shoes?”
Andrew and Chandelle looked at us. They didn’t say anything. Andrew looked at my duck. I hadn’t touched it yet.
“We’re having dinner. What’s dinner without small talk?” I said.
“I … dont want you to be someone you aren’t. You’re intense. Be intense. Please?”
I looked down at my duck. Then I looked up.
The drugs had quieted my emotions. They didn’t exist anymore.
“The poem,” she said quietly, while Chandelle and Andrew were talking. “The cloud. Is that someone specific?”
“It’s a cloud.” I said.
She nodded slowly and took a sip of her wine.
“What about the Owl? Are you the Owl?”
She looked away when my eyes hardened.
“You alright?” Andrew asked me.
“I need a cigarette. I’ll be right back,” I said.
“I’ll walk with you. I gotta use the bathroom anyway.”
Andrew stopped me before I walked onto his porch.
“Are you good?”
I nodded.
“Simone likes you, man.”
I took a cigarette out of my pack and stood on Andrew’s porch.
The rain was punishing.
Through the window I could see them. Chandelle was saying something and Simone was laughing. Her head tilted back when she laughed.
I hadn’t noticed that at the table.
I watched her for a moment.
Even through dulled senses I was wholly entranced by her. I was atop a frozen mountain and she was the warmth of a town below: what was rotten and blackened in me became the miles of rock and ice that separated us as far as east was from west.
From atop the mountain I could see hope
She looked toward the window and I retreated into the dark where I took two more pills.
But I had become the mountain.
The cigarette burned down to the filter.
My hands were shaking slightly, I told myself it was the cold.
Andrew appeared in the window. He was refilling her glass. He said something to her and she smiled. She looked toward the window and frowned. I don’t know if she could see me. Andrew walked toward the window and stood there for a second. Then he went back to the table and put his hand briefly on her shoulder as he passed.
I thought about going back inside.
I stood there and thought about it for a long time.
The second cigarette burned down to nothing and I hadn’t noticed. The ember had reached my fingers.
I looked at it.
Andrew came outside.
“I found the bottles.”
“I’m high.”
Andrew brought his hand to his forehead.
“What the hell, man? You said you were good.”
“I lied.”
“So what? Now I have to go inside and tell everyone you fucked off and got high? You said you were good.”
“I lied.”
“Why the hell would you do this?”
The look on his face made me look down.
“Because I had to, Andrew.”
I turned away from him and walked back to my truck.
Andrew wasn’t on his porch anymore when I looked in my rear view mirror.
I lit a cigarette as I drove home.
Only when the drugs released me did I realize that I was starving.
VII.
And the storm did pass.
The desert took the rain and pulled forth life from the broken ground.
The Owl emerged from his burrow
feathers charred and black
and yet amidst all the black
there remained a spotless white
atop his heart.
so much is said about the narrator without ever spelling it out. genuinely beautiful control of tension here.
This is fucking great!! I loved how you framed the owl poem in reference to the larger story. It really drives home how we cannot escape ourselves.