R.F.D.

I'm sitting in the pitch black dark. Have been for a long time now. Nightmares. The worst kind, those that are not made up. Just sleeping reflections, really, seeing your life through a new lens that doesn't distort, just selects. You can see your life and the lives of others you know, have known, won't know, and the comparison is not favorable. And then the weight of it comes down on you as you try to get back to some peaceful place. But the peace won't come, only the jitters and the jags. And then you're up. Little fish in a big pond.

And yet, sitting here in the ghostly light of this screen, I still can't figure out if I over or under-reached. I only know that I am poised for failure. Not so good when you've yet to achieve.

That is what the darkness tells me now.

* * * * *

Mike and I got along like champs and life was swell. The days took on a liberal rhythm which we rode like long, beautiful waves. Everything seemed like an open secret, rich and fertile. The country in which we lived was filled with farms. Many of the corn and tobacco farmers were also harvesting pot which they planted in the middle of fields mixed in between the other plants making it hard to spot from the air. Our town grew some of the finest pot in the country. And even though neither of us were smoking, it was a thrill just knowing we were there. It seemed like a movie. Anything could happen.

One day, I was driving through the countryside with a girl I hardly knew. She asked me to pull over to the side of the road. "Come on," she said, opening the car door. I had no idea what we were doing, but I followed her on a little dirt path through a stand of trees. In less than a minute, we stood looking down at a natural spring, a sinkhole lined with boulders that formed a small cove. A naked couple sat on the rocks and was smoking a joint. They waved and we waved. "You want to go swimming?" my newish friend asked. "When?" She laughed and bumped down the rock wall and took off her sun dress and jumped into the water. I sat above acting like I wasn't watching her, like I was a botanist there to survey the fauna. Quickly, she slithered over to the couple, and she said something and they said something and then they handed her the joint. I felt stupid sitting up above with my long pants and work boots, a spectator to life, but I was excited, too. I was certain this had never happened to my father.

In a little bit, she came back up to where I sat. "How'd you know about this place," I asked her? "Oh," she said, "I come here sometimes. There are a lot of little springs like this around, but I like this one best. The owner doesn't care if people come here." She was standing above me, not quite dry, slipping her sun dress back over her head. "C'mon, let's pick some blackberries," she said pulling me along the fence line that separated the prairie from the highway. The wild, prickly bushes were heavy and full.

One night, Mike and I went to eat two-for-one-pizzas-and-beer with J.R. and Sandy. J.R. and Mike had been friends since elementary school and so the conversation always fell to them. I would comment on something from time to time, but I'd always get the feeling from J.R. that I was crashing a party to which I hadn't been invited. I didn't like him, really, nor the way Mike's voice would take on J.R.'s exaggerated southern drawl, the vowels flattening out and lengthening like he'd been raised in Mayberry, every time the two of them got together. But that is how it was and that was how it was that night, me sitting a little awkwardly eating and looking around like a kid trying to entertain himself while the adults conversed.

And as they talked and I looked around, I felt something bump my leg. It was Sandy's foot, and I thought I wasn't giving her enough room. But that wasn't it. She looked at me for a moment, her eyes telling me to be quiet, and then began moving her foot until it was in my lap. Sort of. I was paralyzed with excitement and with fear. I sat listening to the certain tones as J.R. talked thinking. And after a while, my heart began to slow a bit. I was trying not to look at Sandy too much. She was going to get us in trouble, I thought. She was smiling. Fuck J.R. Goddamn. Sandy was beautiful.