three of my sisters:
I am sitting on the computer and thirteen people are perched all around, smoking the linger of a joint, talking about drum machines. I just saw a metal band at a bar in san marcos. what? a metal band? how did I get here? the rhthym of the frenetic drums is etching polygraph lines onto my brain. 'I have always wanted to do that! I am going to do that!' the girl behind me squeals. 'the lights are all blurry and shit.' and shit. and shit. my heart is beating drum and bass. it is the cigarette I am smoking. I bought them earlier; I walked into the gas station and I bought them.
'do you have dunhills?' I asked the employee, a pakistani.
'we have the dunhills!' he exclaims, reaching behind the counter.
'they were hunter s. thompson's cigarette, you know.'
'hunter thumpkingkon? is he a politician?' he asks, as he rings the register.
'certainly not,' I say. he studies me, gravely.
'how old are you?' he asks.
'I'm almost 22,' I say self-consciously, studying my 21 year old feet. I am almost 22. I am almost dead.
'let me see your ID,' he says, skeptically, and I whip out my wallet. my picture, stupid, beams out. he grins in relief.
'you look 17!' he exclaims. I burst out laughing. 'you like... the cigarette?'
'um, sometimes,' I say, walking slowly out, backwards.
the picture at the top is of three of my sisters. faith (12) is smothering hope and holding her hand over ali. faith used to be the most mischievous, unruly of fiends. once, when I was 17, I remember christopher (brother, 20) bursting into my room.
'faith ran away,' he announced, saturnine. I followed him, outside, to the driveway, to the car. we drove alongside the road by our house.
'is she carrying a polka-dotted hobo's bag?' I wonder aloud. but then I spot her, driving her motorized barbie car, along the median. cars pass, cars honk. faith continues to putter along at a steady 1/4 mile an hour. we pull over.
'get in the car, faith,' I say, as I walk alongside of her tiny car. she shakes her head.
'we're leaving!' she shouts. 'I hate it at home.'
'no, come on, seriously,' I say, picking her up out of her car and placing her into our large real car, with a real engine, with real gasoline. christopher puts her barbie car in the trunk, and her small suitcase. she is crying. she is kicking.
'I hate you!' she shouts. five seconds later, we're back in our driveway. as christopher tries to wrestle faith back inside of the house, I curiously open faith's suitcase, expecting clothes, expecting food. one single brassy horse shoe falls out onto the ground. nothing else. faith's lucky horse shoe.
people are clammering to return to the bar and I must go.
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