The passing stream
soundtracks their afternoon, the arc of her E.T. doll’s elongated head curving
out over the edge of the hotel’s picnic basket now emptied of its content,
spread out between them across the unfolded red and white checkered cloth.
With a paper napkin ache1 dabs gently and repeatedly at the edge of her bruised eye, embarrassed by its damn near continuous watering; having asked about his mother she’s still awaiting his response.
Skunk (eventually): She’s ehm,
again hesitant, his perpetual struggling with that residual sense of shame from out of which he understands himself proceed
Skunk: she’s she’s ill, she’s not well.
ache1: Ill how, like
pause
Skunk (bluntly, nodding): She’s insane. She’s insane.
rubbing hard at the now hot flesh of his forehead, his blemished ankle likewise afire in its boot.
Still moving as they do somewhat gingerly each around the other, both are more than aware of allowing themselves whatever quiet requisite to such revelation as each hopes will draw them closer, a tenderness and consideration borne of mutual damage recognition, even from that albeit limited amount of time passed in each other’s company.
The river flows on between their every interstitial silence.
Skunk: I think she carried a lot of grief, uh, for, and I, I mean a lot of grief, an...
shrugging
Skunk: an uncarriable
pausing to question the word’s actuality
Skunk: uh amount of grief, for, for my dad, and uh, and the baby she lost. She was, I mean I think eh, I think she was traumatised. She is traumatised, still.
She chides herself to suddenly wonder if the audible texture of passing water will change once they remove those last of their beer bottles.
Skunk: Still.
ache1 manoeuvres her body to facilitate sitting up, whereupon Skunk raises a hand
Skunk: What? What?
ache1: Uh, beer?
He pushes himself to his feet and crosses to collect their last two bottles of Moosehead from where they have been cooling in the stream’s edge, the glass gluey with residue, their labels having soaked off to float away in the current.
Returning to prise off their caps on the edge of a nearby rock in absence of the forgotten bottle-opener, for no reason he can comprehend he again pockets each with those previous for souvenirs.
Skunk (offering one of the bottles to ache1, then sitting back down adjacent): It took everything she had, I think, to keep going
both now wiping at their palms with the remaining tissues, removing the smear of greasy adhesive
Mother: Keep going.
Skunk (each hand mirroring the other’s circular gesture): and I don’t, I really don’t know if she was waiting for me to leave, if she wanted to make sure I was um, you know that I
He abandons the statement, thinking perhaps of the years his mother watched him, holding on desperate for some sense of his manifest independence so that when she recognises the moment she finally can leave him, she will.
Following his disclosure, Brother Skunk rises and walks unsteadily back to the edge of the stream, locating an eddy with depth enough in which to fully immerse his head, which he does, emerging with a gasp at the cold, his black hair flattened to his skull, the water pouring down across his Levi’s shirt, causing his whole upper body to shudder.
ache1 (shaking her head, laughing): Hey Skunk? Two words for anyone who chooses to put their head in any stream, anywhere: sheep shit.
He comes back to lower himself alongside,
Skunk: I still dream about her the way she was, the...
pause
Skunk: ..before.
but the words carry only their surface detail, his any understanding of them limited by the very proximity to their speaking, which will itself dissipate in these coming years.
They sit within the unceasing sound of water, complemented by the arrhythmic drip of that same water displaced, dropping from his hair and face into the dampness of itself gathering upon the checkered cloth.
Eventually
ache1: Okay, so when can I meet her?
With a paper napkin ache1 dabs gently and repeatedly at the edge of her bruised eye, embarrassed by its damn near continuous watering; having asked about his mother she’s still awaiting his response.
Skunk (eventually): She’s ehm,
again hesitant, his perpetual struggling with that residual sense of shame from out of which he understands himself proceed
Skunk: she’s she’s ill, she’s not well.
ache1: Ill how, like
pause
Skunk (bluntly, nodding): She’s insane. She’s insane.
rubbing hard at the now hot flesh of his forehead, his blemished ankle likewise afire in its boot.
Still moving as they do somewhat gingerly each around the other, both are more than aware of allowing themselves whatever quiet requisite to such revelation as each hopes will draw them closer, a tenderness and consideration borne of mutual damage recognition, even from that albeit limited amount of time passed in each other’s company.
The river flows on between their every interstitial silence.
Skunk: I think she carried a lot of grief, uh, for, and I, I mean a lot of grief, an...
shrugging
Skunk: an uncarriable
pausing to question the word’s actuality
Skunk: uh amount of grief, for, for my dad, and uh, and the baby she lost. She was, I mean I think eh, I think she was traumatised. She is traumatised, still.
She chides herself to suddenly wonder if the audible texture of passing water will change once they remove those last of their beer bottles.
Skunk: Still.
ache1 manoeuvres her body to facilitate sitting up, whereupon Skunk raises a hand
Skunk: What? What?
ache1: Uh, beer?
He pushes himself to his feet and crosses to collect their last two bottles of Moosehead from where they have been cooling in the stream’s edge, the glass gluey with residue, their labels having soaked off to float away in the current.
Returning to prise off their caps on the edge of a nearby rock in absence of the forgotten bottle-opener, for no reason he can comprehend he again pockets each with those previous for souvenirs.
Skunk (offering one of the bottles to ache1, then sitting back down adjacent): It took everything she had, I think, to keep going
both now wiping at their palms with the remaining tissues, removing the smear of greasy adhesive
Mother: Keep going.
Skunk (each hand mirroring the other’s circular gesture): and I don’t, I really don’t know if she was waiting for me to leave, if she wanted to make sure I was um, you know that I
He abandons the statement, thinking perhaps of the years his mother watched him, holding on desperate for some sense of his manifest independence so that when she recognises the moment she finally can leave him, she will.
Following his disclosure, Brother Skunk rises and walks unsteadily back to the edge of the stream, locating an eddy with depth enough in which to fully immerse his head, which he does, emerging with a gasp at the cold, his black hair flattened to his skull, the water pouring down across his Levi’s shirt, causing his whole upper body to shudder.
ache1 (shaking her head, laughing): Hey Skunk? Two words for anyone who chooses to put their head in any stream, anywhere: sheep shit.
He comes back to lower himself alongside,
Skunk: I still dream about her the way she was, the...
pause
Skunk: ..before.
but the words carry only their surface detail, his any understanding of them limited by the very proximity to their speaking, which will itself dissipate in these coming years.
They sit within the unceasing sound of water, complemented by the arrhythmic drip of that same water displaced, dropping from his hair and face into the dampness of itself gathering upon the checkered cloth.
Eventually
ache1: Okay, so when can I meet her?
