Ordinary Handsome

The place has gone to hell, Dad, he said. But it’s bigger than I remembered.

Almost twelve acres, I said.

He let out a low whistle.

I waited for a few minutes, and said:

This is the place.

His eyes looked strange, like he was trying to remember something important.

I know this place, he said, and collapsed almost directly on top of the old used-up grave site.

Lay me down in a bed of chrysanthemums instead of this unmarked road I can feel the gravel poking my back and my torn guts leaking out there’s not even a moon, and if there are any stars, I don’t see them in my peripheral I see dead leaves flowering the ditch, windblown and restless and everything around me crunches and crackles and everything in me is wet and slippery, trying to squeeze things together, but it’s all wet meat, loosely packed and unraveling like a balloon filled with Jell-O, so that’s what intestine feels like.

There’s a man nearby I hear him rooting through the trunk of his car making metallic sounds, thumping and clanking, cheap cymbals from a street corner band using hubcaps and old skillets, I don’t even know who he is, just the driver, but what does it matter, this is the place where I die.

Excerpt from Ordinary Handsome. Available at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00P46ZPA0

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