Spirit says: “Your words create
your world. Shoot for the stars.”
I say: “I’m 17 again...
only this time, this time!
I’ll go straight to the SavOn
(remember those?)
and buy hair-clippers to
shave my back and chest and arms
(I can handle the chest and arms
but I’ll have to find someone to
do the back – maybe Grammy,
she always seemed to know
what direction I was headed).
I’ll work out and run with my shirt
off, and then when I see Jason
at the Dales Jr. liquor store
and he gives me those eyes I’ll
ask him if he wants to go to
Carney’s to get food and he won’t
take his beautiful eyes off my
hunky arms and chest.”
Spirit says: “Don’t say will. Say Am.
BTW, he was already into you. Why shave?”
So I say this: “Okay, wait.
Maybe just the back.
Maybe that’s the way Jason and I
become friends because he is already
giving me those deep blue eyes
in class, so I don’t think he
minds clipping my back as we talk
in French and he tells me I’m
smart and I tell him ‘Let’s go get
food at Carney’s’ because I’m an
idiot, but then I see I’m being an idiot
so I give him a kiss and we roll around
for an hour or two until his Dad gets home
and we race to get dressed before he
comes upstairs laughing because
he already knows.”
Spirit says: “Don’t say MAYBE.
If you’re sure, it’s happening.”
Happening?
What did happen?
Forty years happened.
Life happened. Death happened.
Dave. Hmmm.
So I say this: “I’m 17. I’m at
Dales Jr. I’m skinny and hairy and
think I might be gay but I don’t know
because I’m scared of all the prostitutes
over in Santa Monica and it’s 1986 and
there’s AIDS and no one to talk to.
I’m buying Jim Beam for my Dad and
run into Jason. His hair is perfect
eighties, swooped back and free.
We talk. We’re shy. I want to kiss.
He leaves after waving goodbye.
He doesn’t want to go.
I float home and have a drink with
my Dad. He says there’s something
different about me. I say nothing.
But I know how I feel.”
Spirit pauses: “That’s what happened.
Those were terrible years.
Jason broke your heart. Badly.
Why go through all that again?”
I can hear hope in his voice.
He only wants me to say what’s true.
So I speak truth.
I say: “Why mess with perfection?
What I want to know is:
will I remember any of this?
It’s been wild so far!
Wait!
Don’t tell me!
I don’t want to know!”
Spirit says: “Good answer.”
He laughs as I fall asleep.
Such a bastard.
But a good bastard.
*
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Greg Beckman 