Juice

Guy is emotional, so we are listening to Juice Newton. Juice is just a poor man's Ronstadt, but Guy doesn't care. I guess I don't care either, because I am a poor man, too. We don't deserve Linda, so we get Juice. I have been talking a lot today, and I cannot stop, and it is all bad and negative and things that I should move on from but instead I drag them back up and kick them around out loud for some unknown reason. We are sitting at the kitchen table, and I can see the look on Guy's face, and I see his expression and I can remember watching Blind Date with my cousin Ruth at my Aunt's cottage before she moved to Costa Rica to ride horses and give massages.

Is it therapeutic for you to talk about these things? Guy says.

What do you mean? 

Would it be better for you to just sit quiet, or to try to talk about fun things, or something, or just anything else?? Guy says.

Do you want me to shut up?

Guy clearly wants me to shut up, but for some reason I can't. We are both not happy, I think because our scheme has been slow to catch. Inventory, Guy says we just need more inventory.

Guy says if we lived closer to Virginia Beach, we could go see the house where Juice Newton was born.

I point at the house across the street and tell Guy that if Juice Newton were born there, it would still be stupid.

What it means

Guy takes me to a house, and I don't even know why I agree to go with him, except I have nothing better to do, what with not having to work today, and without having anything to fill my days, so I go with him, to a house on the outskirts of the outskirts, in a cul-de-sac covered in trees and shrubs in need of manicures, lawn ornaments, fences, long driveways, dogs tied to trees with tennis balls in their mouths, or bones, and we go into the house and we walk from one room into another, around one person, into the kitchen, where I see these butter knives, and I know that I must have them, feel with my entire being that I must take them home with me, but that I must not use them, ever, and Guy moves on into another part of the house while I pick up the knives, remember the one I stole, and why did I steal it? and why do I want these knives? why do I feel that I must have them but must not use them to spread butter? and I gather them into my hands and pay for them, two dollars, and I put them in my pocket and when Guy comes back, with some knickknacks under his arms, some albums, a paperweight, a poster, a picture frame, and a koozie, he asks if I'm going to get anything, and I say no, no that I will not get anything, and he asks: How will we be able to sell nothing? I say, I don't know if I'm going to sell anything, and he pays and we drive back to my house, and I say goodbye to Guy, who says that he is going to sell what he's bought and if I want, I can join him to see what it "all about" and then he drives away and I make my way into my bedroom and take out the knives and place them on the pillowcase and crawl into the bed, beside them, looking at them, wondering what I'm doing, why I am like this, and I love them, and I will take care of them, good care of them, and I will never sell them, and I wonder how anyone could let them go, and for two dollars! I pick one up and pretend to spread something in my palm, a nice, cool butter in my palm and I spread and I spread, and I watch the knife move and do its thing, and it is doing it nicely and I set it down and I pick up another one and spread something, a nice, creamy butter onto my other hand, and then I set it down, and I am feeling something, something so strange and this must be what it means to be alone--to spread imaginary butter onto your hands in a bed on a Saturday afternoon, yes, this is what it must mean.

Dad has this movie on VHS:

Today, my sister came over and all three of us watched it.
Afterwards, my sister said she didn't feel well and left.
Dad walked away and has been in his room ever since.
Truth be told...I just don't know...I just don't know.

Dead Things

When people die, Guy says, sometimes a company comes to their house, or apartment, for one reason or another, and price their belongings to sell.

He is explaining something called "estate sales" to me, though I already know what they are and have even been to a few. But how do they know how much something's worth?

They don't, he says. That's why we gotta go to a few this weekend and buy what we can, and then set up a stand in the street and sell what we bought. But for much more.

I don't know...

Forget your cleaning job, Guy says. Forget the gas station. People want old things, small things, or big and sometimes ugly things. People want what other people once owned.

Why?

Because isn't that how it always is? Isn't that in our nature?

What? Whose nature?

You know what I mean. You want what I have, don't you?

What do you have?

I have what you don't have and I want what you have.

You do?

Sure, Guy says. All that butter. All that time you spend in your head.

I'll think about it.

Don't think too hard.

Dog Daze Butter

On TV, there is a dead horse in Houston. Though I've never met the horse, I know that it was gray and starved to death. That is all I know before Dad changes the channel.

Outside, it is hot. Hot, hot, hot. A truck drives by and a man says, "Caliente!" Maybe it is the name of a restaurant or a bar, one that plays Christian rock with Russian bartenders and has "Cheap pizza deals" on Tuesday nights. I feel something, and it is not bad or good, but the fact that I'm feeling is great.

This is how you make Dog Daze butter. You make butter, just plain old butter. Then you sit outside with it smeared on a piece of toast. But it has to be August and it has to be hot. There has to be stillness, and it has to be the late afternoon. The TV has to be playing somewhere inside, and you have to be able to hear it outside, where you have to be sitting, where you have to be thinking very little, in a place that has to be "off the grid." Then you have to take a bite of the toast with the butter and you have chew slowly, and it has be slow, otherwise it is not Dog Daze butter. Then you have to think about the butter, but it has to be a quick, lazy thought, it has to be both, not one or the other. And that is how you make Dog Daze butter. You can get up after you've finished the piece of toast. You can go about the rest of your day. But you don't have to. You can think about something terrible you saw on TV earlier. You can think about how hot it is. But you really don't have to.

His father...

had a harpoon gun, used to shoot spears into trees, or bales of straw, with a ten gallon hat on his head, screaming he was Tom Mix, godd****t! 

had a pet fish named Honus, after Honus. Used to throw chicken bones into the tank for Honus to eat, and later, we fished them out, and HE really believed Honus ate them.

had a trick, called "Crack the Egg," in which he would pretend to crack an egg on our heads, spreading his fingers out like yolk, except one time, he actually took a real egg and cracked it open on his son's head, then pissed his pants because he was so drunk. Later, since it was the 4th, he lit a sparkler and tossed it into the fish tank, for Honus to play with, and my mother came to take me home. My friend, he smelled like eggs for a long time afterwards, no matter how many times he washed his head. Everywhere we went, someone said, What's that smell? After that, my friend took to hard-boiling all the eggs in his house.

had a son, who was my best friend. We played and played, and when we did, we could almost forget his father outside, screaming, I'm Tom Mix!

What kind of cheese?

Today, I went to a lake.
Today, I went to a lake and saw my reflection in the water. I picked up a rock and threw it in the water, where it pierced my gut and sent small waves, erasing the features of my face. Then I watched myself return in the water. Then I left, in a daze. ]

At home, I read:

Perhaps he had stumbled a bit and something slipped in his brain. Perhaps something he loved had been lost. Perhaps he had been, unbeknownst to himself, waiting for something uncommon to occur.

Then dad shouted from the kitchen. He asked me how to make a grilled cheese sandwich. What kind of bread? What kind of cheese?