Notes From The Overground

Paulo drove his midnight blue still kicking Buick Regal all the way to Bremerton in this beating rain
For a fifty plus Craigslist fuck, wearing a thrift store shirt on him that still had a whirlpool-shaped coffee stain
Dried into it from the last cup thrown at him after that great roadside diner toss off
He had a bag of pretty good weed he scored in Renton last weekend for 50% off, fire sale
Rolling papers he ordered all the way from India & a burning joint in his stuck open ashtray
He kept lighting it with his cigarette lighter’s tight red coil kept warm by the last of electricity
Flowing through the veins of his car kept together with screws in the metal & masking tape

His last email from Rita read like a dime store pulp romance novel all aching & throbbing
A coming come-on to something like a treasure he could unlock with his blunt instrument
Paulo just got off a twenty year bender of a marriage that was so loveless they stopped celebrating much
Just nothing at all, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, their kid’s eighth birthday
And this hit particularly close to home when his wife kicked him square in the balls
For being that kind of jerk Paulo was, bulging belly, thinning hair in a saucer pattern on his head
Trying to look cool in new Buddy Holly glasses & spiking the front of his hair like he saw Carson Daly do

He still he drove out of town with the window open splashing a few inches of light rain on his forehead
Attempting his Houdini escape, scratching himself, smiling at a lady in a pickup truck
Honking at the guy whose bumper sticker says, “The only president that I care about is the one at the NRA”
He felt like he had lost his fight, those radical hippy years, dropping acid with Timothy Leary in Santa Cruz
So he’s gotta run from the desk job, death & destruction so he can give it to someone who really wants it
From anyone & he was content being that anyone, content going to Bremerton at the drop of a hat
Content that chivalry was gone as he crossed the threshold, took a hit, coughed it out & listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd
—–
His cell rang around fifteen miles out & it interrupted a great guitar solo that reminded him HE WAS THERE
At Woodstock, naked in the mud, rolling around, getting high, making out with girls whose names
Sounded like flowers, astrological signs & cities he’s never been to, Rita was so pedestrian he thought LOL
But she wanted him & told him that with heavy breaths on the phone making sounds one might not make
For a guy who sent a naked picture of himself through email laying on the grass like a Cupid without arrows
And it just made Paulo want her more, the sweet release of having sex in a manufactured home up on bricks
Perhaps the smell of frank & beans casserole, imposter perfume & a floor carpeted in dirty clothes

Paulo pulled into the maze of North Fork (clever, Dallas, natch) & rode around in a circle & then a square
Seeing the laundry hung from fishing lines, kids’ bikes abandoned like landmines & “Home Sweet Home” signs
Embroidered in unnatural colors from a Jo-Ann’s store-bought pattern filled out with 1’s, 2’s & 3’s
And Paulo didn’t quite think Rita’s trailer was anything better than anyone else’s except that it had fresh siding
A red stripe painted around it he guessed that it made it look more NASCAR less stationary
He glimpsed her in the kitchen bigger than the window could hold, washing her underwear in the sink
And spun out slightly in the dirt making a cloud that traveled from trailer to trailer scaring the kids like a sandstorm

This is where they live, the soldier’s parents who wait for their kid to come home or a double-spaced form letter
Where there is a yellow ribbon that says “Support The Troops” on a black Chevy truck dying out there
Handwritten yard sign shouts “Bring My Boys Home” & a flag droops in the windless overcast skies of south Bremerton
And it made Paulo hardened, made that inside-of-him, long dormant fight spike like a knife pulled on a mugger
Made him straighten his collar, pull his shirt out of his Dockers, stroke his chest a few times, rev the engine
Suck the last juice out of his joint, crank the music & take a deep breath before grabbing that two-year old condom
From his glove box that had an assortment of things he gave up a long time ago but couldn’t part with

He knocked on the door & waited getting rained on by the Pacific Northwest’s light, impotent rain
Darkening his button-down shirt with the finest inlay pattern sewn on like the seams on a 1950’s Arrow shirt
He’d seen one like it in a movie where the boy from the wrong side of the tracks races in the alley
Wins at the last moment because he drives a car like a wild horse, gets the girl, gets it all
Rita answers the door in a knit peasant blouse hanging over her curves like it was poured on ten minutes ago
A skirt that swung like a circus tent from her hips & boots she’d bought in Fresno the last time she went down
To see that no-good ex-husband spending fifteen years incarcerated for what everybody figured was murder anyway

Rita stepped back inviting him in with a wave of her hand shutting the door behind with a left-right-left glance outside
Offered to fix him some Folgers Crystals instant coffee, he asked for something stronger with a shot of whiskey
He came up behind her at the counter real close like, reached out & shut that pink frilly blind, pulled up her skirt
And ran his hands around her ass as it showed through her thong which looked like the white lines of a two-lane road
With an area as ample as she promised, spread across twice the length of her hips, he was ready
There wasn’t even music on the stereo yet just the outside sounds of weedwackers & thudding air conditioners
The smell of citronella, the snap of bug lights & kids splashing in a plastic pool with fish on it stirring current

It was dirty sex like the dirty south, it would result in bruises & an odd pain two days later in Paulo’s gut
The Murphy bed to save space had to be cantilevered out of her wall & creaked like old stairs
But that didn’t stop Rita or Paulo, they got right to it without putting the legs down tilting the bed south
At an angle that made it look like they were both being dumped straight down a trap door to hell
And Rita told him in her first email she loved to be taken, Paulo had the fire in his belly raging
He remembered everything when he shut his eyes, a flood of first kisses & doing it behind the AM/PM
The rush of his first car accident at the corner of Main & 5th in his Dad’s old reliable

When it was over, Rita talked first & Paulo liked that because he didn’t have anything to say to her
She told him about her Ex, how he was never loud, never forceful & had a mouth that tasted of strawberry Skoal
That jail in Fresno was so sterile like the hospital room where she gave up her first baby
The Ex said he had won the argument one way or another & there was no blood on his worker hands
So Paulo laid in that terrible bed on a net of springs wedged up again Rita still flush
Naked & tired at the drop of a hat he pulled out that joint & a lighter from his shoe
Before he lit it, Rita told him not in this house because she thought she might have black lung
—–
Paulo didn’t know how long he had to lay there but figured it was somewhere between then & right now
And suddenly in the low light, almost dark of the trailer while he sipped a beer he then rested on his stomach
Rita’s face turned from a look of release to a look of fear as the clock ticked 6PM & the front door rattled
“Oh God man, Dick’s here. Paulo, get the hell out of here. He’s gonna have a gun!”
This didn’t register right away for Paulo, he was still feeling the Pabst vibe & wanted to go at it one more time
Shocking him the door was thrown open & a hulking stallion of a man with skull tattoos entered like a tank
“You see, Dick’s my ex’s brother & he comes by each night to say goodnight to my boy for his Daddy.”

Suddenly, Paulo had that flight or fight thing nailed down right now & he was revving into action
He jumped up, grabbed his clothes off the kitchen table right as Dick connected with his left eye
With a fist that smelled like cigarettes & concrete popping him hard & sending him to the floor
There was a lot of yelling & Dick was screaming at Rita something about being no good
There was a lot of rolling around on the ground as Paulo tried to shake off the sting
There was a lot of running out the door as fast as he could naked just born rolly polly body
Screaming that now he’d got it back, his stature & he was going to get out of there one way or another

His car started up right away on the pure adrenalin of his raging heart beating to get out of the maze
Dick was dust in his side mirror as Rita stood on the front porch crying from deep down in there
And Paulo gunned that goddamn Buick Regal subconsciously remembering the turns & running over a few lawn chairs
He got to the freeway a few minutes later, threw his shirt on without buttoning it, grabbed his joint
Lit it up in a fury of 55MPH heading south, cranked up the Drive-By Truckers on his two-speaker factory radio
Looked in his rearview mirror at his black eye purple like a new moon in the sky blooming over top of him
He knew what he wanted to fight for, he knew how he was going to get it & he knew how this next life would feel
© Adam Bresson

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