The Void

Half-filled with drink and a burning stomach you are. Your boy lies awake in the guest bed you share waiting on you even though it is 1:30 a.m. He is stubborn as a fucking rock; and you are impatient as an old lady waiting in line. And that's a rough mix, boy. You sit over drink in the uncooled house with your too big unemployed belly and too long stringy hair wondering what to do. Too tired to go to bed you are. You sit in the hum of the refrigerator and the fluorescent bulb that hangs over the sink in your momma's kitchen. Your mind like a moth flitting here and then there. Wondering maybe will you hear more gunfire like you did last night. Your boy asking and you telling him, "9mm best I can tell." And all his wide-eyed questions, "...but who, why, where, how" and "who again?"

All you can say is, "Boy! It's Augusta. If you are here you will hear gunshots!" "Goddamn!" you add. And then further, "Best to be in here and hear them than out there in it."

"That makes sense, Daddy" he says. "I can see that."

And a water bug the size of a Wing Tip shoe clomps around the kitchen. His big old Delta wings and post apocalyptic arrogance. Your momma would be appalled. "Martha Stewart," you would tell her, "couldn't keep those nasty motherfuckers out. Why you think she don't live in Georgia?" That water bug scoots away, dodges what would be your momma's flailing. You watch all this. What else would you do? You take off your hat and run your hand through thinning hair--'cause you mostly don't ever know what to do with your hands. You fit your cap back. Your right hand traces at the frost of your drink glass. Your left hand wanders like an indigent here and there. You wonder should you go take a pill but it's late you know. That refrigerator hum, it's like it lives in your head after awhile. It's constant like the ringing in your ears from either too much or not enough caffeine. (You've never not known that ringing). Your momma's orchid to your right, lists forward, but is staked true and safe from fall.

The burning deep in your gut nearly finishing you. Boring a cavern through to your back. You look at the white liquor drink you have in place of your trusted bourbon. Thinking to give that belly sunspot a break tonight. But burn is burn.

Appliance hum, you think, is no company for man. Not even better than none.

You hit that drink and shoulder the burn. In the mid-brain you hear the multiple footfalls of the water bug guest searching the perfect crevice. You rise. Through the side door you exit, sure of foot. You pause beneath the triggered motion light and draw a palm through your hair and replace your cap. With purpose you lumber into the dark Georgia night, in the general direction of gunfire that once in awhile cracks open the void.

You need to see for yourself.