Written 2006
One boy spends his days in Wal-Mart parking lots, parked in the last space, with his windows rolled up and a thin billow of smoke, never ceasing its spiral up to the dirty, colorless ceiling where it hovers, as if expecting something. Sitting beside him are the skeletons of old friends, empty and useless now, their names printed across their chests proudly and bringing to mind the models and cowboys who had advertised them, their cardboard counterparts. He keeps them with him because he doesn’t have the heart to dispose of them, to cast them out of his life without a second thought to the memory of why he had emptied them in the first place.
Marlboro for the day his brother died. Virginia Slims for when he met Charlie. Liggett’s for when he had emptied his heart into the river.
Oh, an addiction as a cure, life as a disease, skeletons of memories in his passenger seat.
He had the eyes of an addict, always looking for something. Even he didn’t know what he was searching for, but a given was that it was not in the parking lot of America’s downfall. Thus, added a memory to the pile, light as a feather that had never been used to soar.
On a winter day that thought itself summer, with a feeling of redemption and a sun embracing the world warmly, as if to let us know the universe hadn’t forgotten about little old Earth. But none of this penetrates the thin metal armor of an old rusted car parked in the last space of an economic monster.
“Where do you plan on going?” The voice was muffled and distant, because the source was on the other side of a dirty window. A troubled head turned to see the reason for the Virginia Slims.
“Hello, Charlie.” My own voice surprises me. I am not used to speaking while smoking. These are the times that I am looking down at myself, so far away, with a dizzy, distant feeling. I was not myself, until I saw Charlie. I put my cigarette out because I do not like to smoke, and I do not like to smoke in front of people.
“Roll down the window,” he tells me. “It feels like you’re in prison.”
I think about laughing, but I don’t. “Wouldn’t you rather have it that way?” I ask him. “Then, as a prisoner, I cannot plan on going anywhere.”
“Please roll down the window; I can barely hear you.”
I do not like being told what to do, so I do not do what he says just yet. “You’ll suffocate if I do. I’m saving the world from the beast’s innards. It’s toxic in here.”
“Take me with you,” is what I think he says because he doesn’t use his vocal chords to say it, but rather his eyes, and the fact that he’s placed his hand on the window.
I stare at him, because my passenger seat is taken up by my past, and I’ve already told him that any sort of contact with the atmosphere inside my car could cause an instant death. But I am once again watching myself as I hit the unlock button just below Charlie’s hand, and he stares back at me, and we’re frozen in time. But I don’t like the cold, so I want him to decide whether or not he really wants to run with me right now before I cease to exist.
And like that, he is in my backseat, understanding that I am not ready to clean out the space beside me. I am both glad and not glad that he understands this because deep down inside. very deep down, where I confess that I do miss my brother, and that I do regret putting my diary into a bottle and sending it off to faraway lands, and that I did want to hit the unlock button myself, I feel that the space beside me is very heavy, and I’d like it to be light with the weight of somebody I love.
And once I am back inside myself, we are headed to the park, and my window has been rolled down slightly so that the innards of the beast trail behind us as the atmosphere we’re in becomes habitable again.
I think Charlie had been talking to me, but I had been exploring the deep parts of my mind, the parts that extend past my toes and past the leagues of the sea, through the tectonic plates of the Earth, down to where people start to speak a different language and where I begin to consider hitting the reset button on my life.
Charlie asks, “What’s happened to you?” but he asks it gently, and not accusingly.
So I respond, “Nothing that can’t be resolved,” and this makes him wonder out loud, “Will it be resolved?”
I tell him as honestly as I am capable that, “It will be resolved, and I’m glad you’ve come with me to do so.”
Then he says, “I’m glad you let me know you needed help,” but I am confused, so I tell him, “I didn’t let you know that.”
He says, “You’re right,” but I know I’m not.
I spend more time in the place where people start to speak a different language, and when I swim back to my car, we’re not even in my car anymore. My passenger seat is empty and we’re down at the riverbank with pens and a notebook, and we’re writing letters to people we don’t know, and we’re putting them into my memories, and we’re sending them out to sea where we know the water will beat and batter them, but we’re doing it anyway, like when kids write to Santa and put their letters in the mail box, but the letter is a dead one because the address they wrote down doesn’t exist, and they don’t know to put a return address on the letters they send.
Charlie looks over my shoulder to see what I’m writing down, and this is probably what he reads:
To Whom It May Concern,
The box you’ve just looked inside to find this used to house the memory of a boy I once knew. Sometimes, I wear his shoes because it makes me feel like he’s still around, and that I’m walking with him, like I used to. His shoes are too big for me, which is sad because people expect me to fill them. But I’m letting him go now because I know it’s not worth it to pain myself over somebody who loved me, and who still loves me, even though his shoes are too big for my feet. And I think it’s important for you to know there are people who will still love you, even if the shoes you want to fill are too big. I know I’ll miss this box, and the boy who lived inside, mostly the boy who lived inside, but I cannot expect to keep him locked in forever, and I cannot honestly believe that the box was him. But I can believe that he is still with me, while my physical manifestation of him is not. Please throw this box away because littering is bad, and it has lost its soul. I only think it’s important for you to remember it’s the feet people love, and not the shoes.
Love,
But I don’t sign the letter because this is a small town, and I don’t want someone to find me or know who is emptying their memories into the distant ocean. I fold the paper up, put it into the Marlboro box, and gently set it off into the river because even though my brother isn’t in it anymore, I feel like I should still treat the cardboard with respect.
Charlie and I stay there for hours, even though we don’t put all the boxes into the river because I have forgotten what most of them mean, so we throw the rest away and spend the hours talking about the “good times,” and I watch our words float away like my diary, and I know I won’t miss them because this time next year, my car will not be a monster; the space beside me will not be space at all, but be light with the weight of someone I love; and the last space in the Wal-Mart parking lot will be empty.
j.k. armstrong 