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Nutshell Kingdom: Just Beyond the Porchlight
2007
There's a time of year where I get loud and I get wild, where the hair stands up on the back of my neck and my pupils darken widely from the shadows of my front porch. I'm a dog fit to be tied, drinking long pulls of beer from big bottles. In the back, the grass has grown long and I've worn a trail circling round where I pace the twilight hours that last, literally, hours. I play music from a boombox that sits on a sick-green, pollen-colored table.
Holy shit, when its mid-May and the day lasts so long and clear that the rooftop of my consciousness opens cathedral-wide and I feel twelve feet tall. If I could wait till dark, and just stay sober, I could summon you to life by merely staring into the gloom at the end of the driveway.
Things didn't work out like they were supposed to. There was supposed to be parties on my lawn every weekend like this. There were bonfires and musicians and Indian food in aluminum containers. I was drinking whiskey from a hollowed gourd dipper. You dragged me into the bathroom just to lick the sweat off of your breastbone. There was a lot of nudity. No one had jobs.
By midnight, there were whip-poor-wills calling and the grass smelled like rum. Somebody was having sex in the shed and more than a few people listening in. Some guy's car ended up in the ditch, but he shouldn't have been driving anyhow. You could always tell the pretty girls by what the firelight did to their eyes.
When I get like this, I have to hide the cellphone. It's the best I can do, saving the world from the likes of me. The first sweat of the year is on the back of my neck and I'm knee deep in honeysuckle. I've been eating rose petals from the bushes just beyond the porchlight. I've been seeing your face in the moon, should it rise and hover over me for hours - I'm on my back in grass like I was a silly kid again, waiting for the rain to come and run down my throat in great gulps, to wet my hair down that has seemed so dry for so long.
It's a clear sky, though, no rain for days. It's too early for the heat lightning. It isn't summer yet, but the waiting can drive a man crazy, like waiting for traffic to move on your way to the beach, like waiting for a nightmare to fade so you can get back safely to sleep.
Safely to sleep. Now, that's an idea.
