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Date Posted: 19:07:46 04/22/02 Mon
Author: Porthos
Subject: Casual Redemption

Casual Redemption

“What the fuck are we doing here, Sammy?”
John’s words echoed off the stone walls.
Sammy’s reply came like the chime of a tuning fork:
“We’re here to change the world.”
His syllables hung in the air, keeping shape
until the August wind took them West.
They both stood in the dark,
two silhouettes against the glowing
white walls. Figures long and thin,
like oars from a great Viking ship.
The concrete warehouse had been lifeless for more years then they cared to remember. It sat like a stone Buddha, an ancient gatekeeper out on county line. John’s nose twitched a bit as it discovered traces of cornhusks in the air. Sammy was squatting in the dirt in front of the creaking aluminum doors, listening intently just as he had to his grandfather’s death rattle.
“How the fuck are we going to change the world in this place? Nobody even remembers its here.”
John was always impatient but Sammy didn’t take notice. He lingered in the dust for a few more seconds as if to let the swaying door finish its sentence, then arose slowly under the weight of his bulging book bag. John was busy trying to catch a moth now, clapping at it with his big course hands.
Sammy spoke as if the air were delicate:
“Follow me Johnny.”
They went inside, penetrating
the musty air. “Stop here,”
and John obeyed, “Now sit.”
The two faced each other like chess
pieces: opposing bishops. Sammy unzipped his bag and took out a couple of logs.
“Have you ever done something that completely redefined you?
Something that went against who you thought you were?”
Sammy’s words glimmered on John’s face and prompted
silence. A knife came out of the black cloth beast and lay
obedient in its owner’s hand.
“What’s that for?”
“For redemption, Johnny,” and he made the blade dance across
his forearm. He then pulled a gasoline can from the belly
of his bag and emptied it on the logs.
“I don’t like this Sammy, come on, that’s enough.”
A match flew across the edge of its box like
a motorcycle accident and the warehouse became
a great war between light and shadow, commanded
by two great silhouettes stretching enormous across
the floor. The fire spit sparks up at the ceiling
and they made love in the air.
The two friends sat still in the glow
of battle, watching the yellow ashes
escape the flames and tumble blissfully
upward. Sammy’s arm was dropping
pebbles of blood into the red lake forming
below. John looked at his friend
and saw tears careening down his face,
stroking his tanned visage like a mother.

Sammy let the circus of colored
light paint his eyes and he remembered
the day he let them become like rocks.
She had sat right across from him
and he had told her how he’d been using
her, told her how she was the old couch
that he wouldn’t sell just because
he had slept on it so many times.

John lay sleeping in the red
glow of the embers. Sammy hadn’t
moved since he lit the fire, his eyes
still fixed on the coals. The cut
on his arm had clotted, blood
dried in the heat of the dance.
“It’s time Johnny, wake up,”
his sentence stirring his counterpart.
Sammy gripped the knife again
and traced his wound. The blood came
angry this time: a snake moving
fast down his forearm, racing towards
his elbow.
“Sammy…god Sammy…what are you doing?”
John’s voice traveled slow in the arms
of a yawn.
Sammy poured out his water bottle over
the remaining flames. A menagerie
of smoke twirled around Sammy’s face.
The ash was paste now, gray oil paint
that Sammy scooped up with his fingers
and fed to the writhing red serpent.

The two friends walked out of the great
warehouse and into the night.
The sky sprawled enormous over
the swaying grass, grass that danced
a little different.

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