We would come to blows we got so bored. On bulk pickup day, we rummaged the tree lawns and the alleys. We plucked a waterlogged guitar. It had two rusted strings that broke. We snapped them against our wrists until we broke skin. One of us, a streak of rust stuck under his skin for the rest of his life. It wasn’t very long but long enough we lost contact. How it is with boys is you remember each other longer than you know each other. We sat on a loveseat that sagged in the middle. We lay on a mattress that was wrapped in plastic. Bedbugs were on our shoulders. Somebody left out a fishtank. It was filled up with water and fish. A guitar like the one we’d been plucking was there too, except in miniature. One of the fish was the color of rust. We did nothing but tap on the glass and maybe get our hair a little wet for slicking back. The garbage men were pissed we didn’t wreck the thing and make it easier for them to not see and drive past. They said it’s what they would have done were they still boys. We came to blows. They played it tough but you could tell they were too tired to really defend themselves. Learn us something, we taunted. One of them broke the bottom off a glass bottle and wielded it like it was a motion picture. Some of the fish were the color of technicolor. One of them misspoke the only line it was given. We couldn’t stop laughing. This is a story I tell now and then.
~
Michael Credico is the author of Heartland Calamitous and an editor at the Cleveland Review of Books. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio. His website is www.michaelcredico.com.