Now

I go, “Please.”

And you say, “No chance.”

So, “Please. Please. Please,” I plead.

“No. No. No.”

Twilit. Almost all dark, outside, on our lawn is the stack of pallets your brother hasn’t come for. Not yet. And not for months. So. Now, when the squirrels successfully dash the street, they catch their breath between the slats. They rest themselves and their two-stroke hearts where the weeds are. But it’s fine. I like the stack. And the squirrels and the road they run. I like the other roads around our house, too. The catcall of the highway not so far from us. That airport. The idea of that airport. Of travel via flight. And bags. And cones. And siren lights that seem like they make noise but really just flash American light.   

“Please,” I say more serious, solemnly almost.  

“Absolutely, one-thousand-and-ten percent, not happening.”

I almost yell, Screw you. But you hate me talking jokingly.

So, instead I say, “Please” quietly, once more like I’m losing.

Because I am a little.

And you know I am but choose to say nothing. You just go back to stretching. Or thinking about stretching. Pre-stretching, maybe.

Then.

Long after you’ve left me, I do paint a big stripe across the garage.

“Like a racecar,” I say huffing, my cheeks tight. Everything blistered.

Everything racecar.

And there are flecks of Real Red in my hair because I am not very good at painting.

I look at it.

Stare at it, until evening becomes night. And night becomes goodnight.

Goodnight being: right about when the teenager band up the street turns down their amplifiers and starts dreaming.

I set down my drink and step back to admire.

To confirm.

The moonlight helps soften things and the line looks tighter the farther back I stand. So, I go way-way back and put my hands on my hips like I’ve really done something.

And.

And yes. You were right. You were.

It’s a nightmare; a complete and total fucking disaster.

It’s exactly––yes.

Exactly the way you told me it would be. 

__________

Sam Berman is a short story writer who lives in Boise, Idaho. He has had work published in Forever Magazine, Joyland, Expat Press, Maudlin House, the Northwest Review, The Masters Review, Vlad Mag, HAD, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, CRAFT, Dream Boy Book Club, and Rejection Letters. He was selected as the runner-up in The Kenyon Review’s 2022 Nonfiction Competition as well as a finalist for the 2022 & 2023 Halifax Ranch Prize. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions and Best American Short Stories. And has forthcoming work in Back Patio Press, Soft Union, and The Idaho Review, among others. In addition to his writing, Sam is also the Director of Storyfort, a literary festival held during Treefort Music Fest every March in Boise, Idaho.