Despondencies

Thomas walked into the alley, kicking pebbles forward, and spat to each one, only hitting one. The rocks passed each one by four or so feet and sometimes he’d kick a pile, leaving him only to sit and think which to spat on. He’d only walked into the alley when she’d return from Portland. One a month, sometimes more, in midday he’d set out and pace past broken televisions, scrapped lumber, graffiti, and pebbles he’d already kicked once before.

She came into the house while he scraped the Nutella off the knife and slid it into the pantry. With the intonation of the door closing Thomas knew it had been Portland. That drab city, Portland. Where old elephants go to die. Where the rain sticks to the walls and washes  basic senses of morality into the sewer. The screen door didn’t slam. He put the two pieces of bread together and listened to the door slowly let to a close, the back of her hand pressing against the screen, the bottom hitting first and the warped top to follow. Portland, Oregon, Portland fucking Oregon.

He left through the back door while she came through the living room into the kitchen. He shut the back door with the handle pulled as she  simultaneously pulled the French doors leading into the kitchen open.

A group of four kids rode their bikes towards him as he lumbered along.  He’d wished they were actually Cholos. Cholos with neck and face tattoos and he wished he wore his red shirt and that when they rode past he’d tell them to fuck off and they’d take some of the scrap wood out of the garbage can and beat him with it. He’d be laying in the middle of the concrete and he’d see nothing but his own blood pool into his eyes and they’d deliver the last blow and he’d die and everyone would be sorry and he’d never have to be home when his stupid wife came home from Portland and he’d never have to watch her turn away and look away, and bite her stupid broken flapping bottom lip and be sorry. He’d never have to read letters she left out. Correspondence from this rube, poor little rube, sent to the city, to only ruin a stranger’s life.

The children rode past; one skidded with his back brake for a few feet and carried on. Thomas lit a cigarette and sat on couch that had been in the alley the last time he’d been there. Some wrote, “UPTOHERE” in spray-paint across the backrest and another person had gutted an entire cushion. The graffiti caused him to laugh for a moment before he sat. The filter of the first cigarette began to burn but he inhaled in anyway and used it to light another.

He’d memorized three of the letters and the first one had been salutated, “Come up to here.” Sometimes laziness seems more compelling than life itself. Every repetition of the salutation make him laugh a little more. After thirty or so times his bottom lip bounced to the though and he began repeating, “Up to here” until the morphemes gave way to laughter, and then the words themselves joined and he pulled his cigarette from his lips, flicked it at a post and the cherry shot out of it while the butt fell behind a trashcan. Within a few minutes the cherry gave way to ash. He lit another, propped his foot up on a television and laughed again.