January In Minnesota

for John Berryman

Snow enshrouds the Mississippi.
January in Minnesota,
the world is silent and white.
He dreams of Florida.
He dreams deep into the night.
The ocean beckons like a mistress,
he longs for a kiss.
He once had a plan
but he failed as a pilot
and fell as a man.

WHO SHOT JFK?

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A cloud of blood splatter coming from the front of Kennedy's head (see frame 313, in the Zapruder film) clearly indicates the shot came from the rear. So rather than searching for shadows why not begin with what is fact and from there ask questions? Who helped Oswald get the job at the School Book Depository?? Ruth Paine, a woman who spoke Russian & inserted herself in Marina Oswald's life. Why? Who suggested Oswald look for work in Dallas? Who helped Oswald get a job at a photo lab in Dallas? Who gave Oswald the money to buy the rifle? The answer: George de Mohrenschildt. He came from Russia (decades before the assassination) and was involved in oil in Guatemala (where the CIA trained for the Bay of Pigs land invasion led by Rip Robertson, a Dallas native, and known CIA assassin). Rip Robertson’s brother in law often accompanied him to Guatemala where he, like de Mohrenschildt, was involved in oil speculation in Guatemala. When asked about the fatal head shot to JFK, Robertson was quoted by family members as saying “good shot”. Officially, Rip Robertson died of Malaria in 1973 but those close to him say he was assassinated via pinprick with an Asian poison.

It is claimed that George de Mohrenschildt worked with the Nazis and was rejected by the OSS because of those ties. Others say he was a double agent working with the Soviets. Jackie knew him and called him Uncle George (Jackie's step father, Hugh Achincloss, told de Mohrenshildt after the assassination that Jackie never wanted to see him again because of his association with Oswald). George de Mohrenschildt's testimony was extensive in front of the Warren Commission. In 1977, shortly after being contacted by an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, George de Mohrenschildt died by a shotgun blast to the head. It was ruled a suicide. It should be noted that de Mohrenshcildt was conveniently out of the country (in Haiti) at the time of the assassination.

If Oswald was the shooter, there is still room for a massive conspiracy. CIA? Soviets? Oswald, a defector, had returned from the Soviet Union & Oswald was at the School Book Depository with a rifle! He had already attempted an assassination on General Walker, a right wing fanatic, with that same rifle. There is no question that Oswald brought the rifle to the School Book Depository. Why would Oswald set himself up? So why not begin with Oswald? If it was a conspiracy of elements of the CIA (manipulating and using Oswald as the trigger man), there would be a cover up. Who better to hide behind then someone with Oswald's history & Soviet wife? And what about Marina? Is it so far fetched to believe that the KGB would send Oswald back to America with a young, pretty operative? If it was a Soviet conspiracy & the American government knew, would they cover it up fearing nuclear Armageddon???  Or was Oswald just a little man, sick in the head, who wanted to play God?

 
He wasn't like the other boys;
he played with ICBMs instead of tinker toys.
But no one made too much of a fuss.
No, no one made too much of a fuss.
After all, he was one of us.
After all, he was one of us.

When he peddled an unwinnable war
amongst the Joint Chiefs and the Marine Corps,
no one made too much of a fuss.
No, no one made too much of a fuss.
After all, he was one of us.
After all, he was one of us.

When some were heard to say
that he took the head shot that killed JFK,
no one made too much of a fuss.
No, no one made too much of a fuss.
After all, he was one of us.
After all, he was one of us.

THE WOMAN IN DARK CLOTHES

(for Edith Stein)

She adored Husserl  the depths of his thought

But philosophy was not enough for her

She became a student of love

We breathe in the ashes of those burned

In the ovens of Auschwitz

Flowers bloom out of the dust

She walks with us in the darkness

She is familiar with it

She knows the way out

They were not aliens from another planet

They put their human faces on just like us

Before they dropped Zyklon B in a hole

In the roof and waited for the bodies to fall

That they shared in our common humanity

Somehow made monsters of us all

But why should we feel responsible

For their crimes,

When we barely recognize our own?

But the stain remains just the same

It will take all of human history to recover

From that loss.

We breathe in the ashes of those burned

In the ovens of Auschwitz

Flowers bloom out of the dust

She walks with us in the darkness

She is familiar with it

She knows the way out

“As a child of the Jewish people who, by the grace of God, for the past eleven years has also been a child of the Catholic Church, I dare to speak to the Father of Christianity about that which oppresses millions of Germans. For weeks we have seen deeds perpetrated in Germany which mock any sense of justice and humanity, not to mention love of neighbor. For years the leaders of National Socialism have been preaching hatred of the Jews...But the responsibility must fall, after all, on those who brought them to this point and it also falls on those who keep silent in the face of such happenings.

Everything that happened and continues to happen on a daily basis originates with a government that calls itself 'Christian.' For weeks not only Jews but also thousands of faithful Catholics in Germany, and, I believe, all over the world, have been waiting and hoping for the Church of Christ to raise its voice to put a stop to this abuse of Christ's name.” —Edith Stein, Letter to Pope Pius XI (1933)

Letter to her Prioress at Carmel Echt

JM

Drente-Westerbork, Barracks 36, August 6, 1942

Dear Mother,

A Mother Superior from one of the convents arrived last evening with suitcases for her child and now offers to take some short letters along. Early tomorrow a transport leaves (Silesia or Czechoslovakia??).

What is most necessary: woolen stockings, two blankets. For Rosa all the warm underwear and whatever was in the laundry; for us both towels and wash cloths. Rosa also has no toothbrush, no Cross and no rosary. I would like the next volume of the breviary (so far I have been able to pray gloriously). Our identity cards, registration cards (as Jews), and ration cards.

A thousand thanks, greetings to all, Y.R.’s grateful child,

B.

(P.S.) 1 habit and aprons, 1 small veil.

The letter of August 6, 1942, was the final letter. On Friday, August 7, at the railway station in Schifferstadt, Germany, a woman in dark clothing inside a sealed transport hailed the stationmaster who was standing on the platform. She identified herself as Edith Stein and asked him to pass her greetings and a message to friends who lived there. The message was, “We are travelling east.”

The transport carrying Edith and Rosa Stein arrived at Auschwitz on Sunday, August 9. All the women and children as well as most of the men were immediately gassed. They were buried in a mass grave.

“It was Edith Stein’s complete calm and self-possession that marked her out from the rest of the prisoners. There was a spirit of indescribable misery in the camp; the new prisoners, especially, suffered from extreme anxiety. Edith Stein went among the women like an angel, comforting, helping, and consoling them. Many of the mothers were on the brink of insanity and had sat moaning for days, without giving any thought to their children. Edith Stein immediately set about taking care of these little ones. She washed them, combed their hair, and tried to make sure they were fed and cared for.”

LONG AFTER DARK

A train carrying

contraband cargo

passes by farms

and hills

on its way to a depot

hidden

far underground

while men in masks

and biohazard suits

prepare for a disaster

and plot a course

for the stars

but oh the wind blows

hard here

and will not dissipate

until long after dark.

The Blue Poet & Other Stories of Addiction & Recovery

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 The Blue Poet & Other Stories

While I am not a prolific writer of fiction (I consider myself primarily a poet), a few months back, I decided to compile a few stories that I had written over the years in one book, The Blue Poet & Other Stories of Addiction & Recovery (70,000 words). I chose three works: THE BLUE POET, a screenplay, PETER PAN, UFOS & THE MARLBORO MAN, a short story, and FALLING AWAY, a novella. While all three works are different stylistically, they all share a common theme: addiction/alcoholism and ultimately recovery. Not surprisingly, this theme is one that has marked my own life. I began my own journey of recovery in Terrell, Texas in July of 1983. By a miracle of grace, I have been clean and sober since that time. I share similar stories here (stories that depict both that miracle of grace and the journey through hell that inevitably preceded that moment of clarity, that turning point).

THE BLUE POET--Haunted by the ghosts of the past, a young musician turns to drugs. Set in the mid seventies (except for flashbacks from the Kennedy era), and in the spirit of REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and ORDINARY PEOPLE, THE BLUE POET looks into the heart of a young man haunted by both the Kennedy assassination and the death of his own father in a drunken car crash. JESSE SANDSTROM, 17, sings and plays bass for one of the most promising rock bands in the Twin Cities. But Jesse wants to leave the band behind and study art in Paris. Jesse's mother, MARY SANDSTROM, 37, tells Jesse they do not have the money to send Jesse to Paris. However Jesse's musician grandfather, GUS CHRISTIANS, 60s, encourages Jesse to apply. But just as Jesse sends in his application, his sister, ANNIE SANDSTROM, 14, is diagnosed with Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma. As Annie's illness progresses, so does Jesse's addiction to heroin. In the hospital near death Annie gives Jesse a rosary and asks him to pray with her. Jesse says nothing but cannot bring himself to pray. After Annie's funeral Jesse turns, once again, to drugs and overdoses on Annie's leftover morphine. He has visions of his dead father. As he lays unconscious on the floor, Jesse in a dream state converses with THE BLUE POET, a name he gave Robert Frost when as a boy he watched the Kennedy inaugural in a darkened basement and the flickering images on the TV screen turned the room blue…

FALLING AWAY--Strung out and desperate for drugs, Robert Rouan stabs a drug dealer in a scuffle in the North of Paris. He is then locked up in the Santé: a prison located in Paris, France. After rumors spread that Rouan is a spy, he is brutally beaten and falls into a deep coma. He dreams of a white horse and a bridal bouquet and the promise of a future life. Twenty years later, Rouan awakens to an altered and damaged world, marred by wars and the collapse of the U.S. Government. What is left of America is now under quarantine: where life is controlled by monolithic corporations. The United Nations is now headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. Some advocate opening up trade and restrictions on travel for those living in the Q (the Quarantined area stretching across all of North America). Rouan can longer walk, his legs have grown too frail from disuse. His former lawyer, Jean-Marc Frenot, visits frequently. Frenot invites Rouan to the United Nations. Geneva glows with activity and prosperity, there is no sign of the horrors of war and plague that Rouan had heard about. Frenot introduces Rouan to Christophe Tousant (assistant secretary general of the U.N.). Tousant, a Zen Buddhist in his eighties, a hunchback since birth, wears an Indian sari and sandals and in his own way reminds one of Mahatma Gandhi. Tousant advocates opening up trade and restrictions on travel for those living in the Q. Many oppose Tousant, fearing another plague in the free world. 

PETER PAN, UFOS & THE MARLBORO MAN—“The heroin was too much, much too much, Peter Wagner says somewhat despondently to himself. It was like floating into the beautiful, but disabling clouds of a coma—a fabulous flight but a debilitating descent. He thinks, if it wasn't for that they could have stayed together, but now he is being evicted—well, not evicted exactly, but forced to vacate because of non-payment of rent (same difference); while his girlfriend, Wendy, is incarcerated at the Hilltop unit, a branch of the Texas Department of Corrections… It is very dark and Wagner can hear the waves crashing by the shore. Lightning flashes and then shudders, echoing in the dark blue. And then, he remembers what it was his doctor had said in rehab. It wasn't about winning. No, he says to himself, it wasn't about winning at all.”

CONFESSION OF A TV ADDICT

After we saw Lee Harvey Oswald shot on TV,

there was no turning back.
Our old world had faded. Our old world had gone black.

Blue and pink lights flash across the screen.

Reporters pontificate at the scene.

The TV drones on,

we watch as if in a hypnotic trance.

(We do the zombie shuffle and dance.)

Our memories have been digitized, our brains blown away.

What story are we buying today?

The Boston bomber is on the loose.

Another five thousand dead in Syria. There will be no truce.

There are no umpires dressed in black.

There is no turning back.

Blue and pink lights flash across the screen.

Reporters pontificate at the scene.

THE TV

They left the TV on for years. No one ever

seemed to watch it.

Often, I could see it through the open drapes

illuminating the room at night.

Eventually the TV caught fire.

Flames shot out from the walls

and the roof.

Someone called the police.

Neighbors gathered in the street.

They opened their mouths in wonder

but no one spoke. They watched it all

like some kind of ancient sacrifice

as they witnessed clouds of smoke

floating up into the heavens,
sending signals to those
no longer left on the ground.

A LONESOME DWARF IN A HOUSE OF WHORES

He lived in a mythic kingdom.

His house stood in the shadow of a mythic mountain.

He was a small man but one of great vision.

In his dreams, he saw drones in the sky
and robots on horseback.

He saw men fighting wars by remote control.

He saw a hooded figure holding a sword.

He took this as a sign;
he took this as a warning.

He imagined the end of the world

as he lay beneath the shade of a blue tree. 

He imagined it all broadcast on TV.

FOR EIGHT BELLES (EUTHANIZED AT CHURCHILL DOWNS)

There are no dark stalls now to hold her.
There is just the open range and the endless blue.

No one taught her how to run
but oh how she flew,

her eyes ablaze even after the race was done,
before gravity finally took her on and gravity won.

FOR VINCENT VAN GOGH & EDGAR ALLAN POE

Always the blade hovered over his head,
ominous and foreboding,
a shadow that changed the shape of things.
He saw apparitions in the corners of his mind.
In his sleep, he saw the faces of the dead.
There is money in nightmares and pornography 
but not in poetry.

The oldest woman in the world said
she once met Vincent van Gogh
and that he was disagreeable and drunk.
But why talk of that?
His work will not be forgotten.
We walk in a room and there he is, looking back 
at us, more like a ghost than a man.

Carry Me Across the Water

“Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

“I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Teach me how to fly before I die.

Carry me across the water to the other side.”

“Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river and let me be your bride.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.”

“Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.”

*music: Bsus2 Dmaj7 Bm7 Dmaj7 F#m A

*lyric: 

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Teach me how to fly before I die.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

Teach me how to fly before I die.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Gather up the horses and let’s ride.

Carry me across the river to the other side.

Carry me across the river to my bride.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Carry me across the water to the other side.

Carry me across the water to my bride.

Carry me across the water.


*Refrain of Eurydice

Carry me across the river to the other side.
Carry me across the river and let me be your bride.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

I remember the day when the world turned gray.

Carry me across the water to the other side.

Carry me across the water and let me be your bride.

Carry me across the water.

Peter Pan, UFOs & the Marlboro Man (Circa 1995)

For Dolores O'Riordan

The heroin was too much, much too much, Peter Wagner says somewhat despondently to himself. It was like floating into the beautiful but disabling clouds of a coma—a fabulous flight but a debilitating descent. He thinks, if it wasn't for that they could have stayed together, but now he is being evicted—well, not evicted exactly, but forced to vacate because of non-payment of rent (same difference); while his girlfriend, Wendy, is incarcerated at the Hilltop unit, a branch of the Texas Department of Corrections.

Each time before when he passed the exit at I-30 and Broadway, on his trips back and forth to his storage unit, someone in a red and white space suit waved to him. Apparently, the Exxon station (the sponsor of this extraterrestrial well-wisher) was running some kind of promotion. And as he passes under the I-30 Bridge and looks out at the storm clouds hovering like UFOs in the distance, he wonders if the spaceman will be out once again welcoming the passing cars.

And sure enough, as he comes out from under the bridge and looks over at the Exxon station, glistening in the rain, he encounters the spaceman, like some kind of mad hypnotic robot, waving in his general direction—a white gloved hand swaying from side to side, blessing the white Chevrolet pickups, blue Fords, Cavaliers, and surf green Pontiacs—the outline of a set of thin shoulders and clavicles more like small pointed breasts poking out from behind the red and white helmet.

This would be strange enough by itself, he thinks, but it is magnified and topped off by the fact that the spaceman seems to be waving telepathically in sync to the chorus of a song by the Cranberries blasting out of the dashboard of his maroon eighty-eight Buick Skylark:

   In your head

In your head they are crying

In your head

Zombie, Zombie, Zombie...

What’s in your head, in your head

Zombie...

As he passes the American Pawn Superstore, he remembers the winter before when he and Wendy visited her family in San Marcos for Christmas and then spent New Year’s camping along the banks of the Blanco river. The air was cold and pure. They shared a sleeping bag and had sex; he thinks she was happy then.

Shaky and depressed as he passes Bobtown and then Rosehill road, a few blocks from his former home now, Wagner spots a small dilapidated bait shop to his right and comes to a big green sign that says Zion Road in white reflective letters. The rain has begun falling in waves, in wild gusts of water, and as he turns his windshield wipers to maximum speed the road begins to undulate and one of his wheels begins to shake, vibrating through the entire body of the car. He wonders if he has picked up some debris off the road. Then, he realizes he has a flat, and hobbles off the service road to a small park maintained by the City of Garland. Through the rain he can see the long masts on the sailboats in the harbor ahead.

The last time he saw her she was dressed in the uniform of a Dallas County inmate—a white one-piece shirt and pants suit, her waif-like figure culminating in a perfect set of small, round breasts. He was allowed to see her for a maximum of thirty minutes. She had waited for him in the reception area behind a wire mesh partition. Cute with a blond page boy haircut, button nose and pretty lips, and off drugs for more than a month, she looked healthier than he had ever seen her; her skin seemed so luminous—radiant, even the wetness of her eyes glistened, twinkling unexpectedly; her whole being seemed open to him, exposed.

“Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater,” she said that when she was either happy, high or both.

“Well, you’re looking up.”

“Up. Right. God knows I’ve been down. Dr. Hook and all his black phobias,” she waved dramatically with a flourish of her hands.

“You look great.”

“Oh yes, just look at my lovely gown. Miss America here or rather Miss Dallas County. See, right here written in black letters on my back,” she turned her back to show him. “Fucking freak show. I can think of better things.”

“Now, don’t be sarcastic.”

“I definitely wish I was somewhere else. Last week one girl was almost killed. This big fat bitch with dirty blonde hair got on top of this skinny girl and slammed her head against the concrete floor over and over like a basketball. The skinny girl was screaming and crying and no one helped. It was so scary. They took her to Parkland with a fractured skull.”

“All things considered; you seem to be handling it pretty well.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I’m pissed or what. I guess in a strange way, I’m on a kind of pink cloud. I've accepted my situation, but happiness isn’t where I’m at right now. I mean it’s not a goal. Not here. I want out, I just don’t want to drive myself crazy thinking about it.”

“I’ve missed you so much. I wish we were together right now, without the drugs, just us. It could be fantastic.”

“Fantastic, with our track record how would we know?”

“Maybe we could find out.”

“Maybe,” she said carefully taking a neutral position.

“I’m getting better.”

“Better than what?” she asked, incredulously. “And then what’s all this gun business all about?”

“You mean my letter?”

“Yes, that letter really freaked me out.”

“After I mailed it, I couldn't take it back. It was a metaphor. I was speaking poetically. I don’t even have a gun.”

“You call blowing your brains out, fuckin’ poetic? Come on, give me a break.”

“I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?” he said mockingly with a grin, rolling his eyes. “What can I say, my life is nothing without you.” He gestured flamboyantly as if it were all a joke.

“You’re such a DQ—Drama Queen,” she sputtered, emphasizing each syllable.

“It was nothing. I was upset.”

“You send a suicide note. And you say it was nothing.”

“Well, you’ve given me plenty to worry about, too.”

“You mean you’re obsessed with me and want to control every move I make. And to be honest, I’ve had enough of that.”

“I don’t want to control you.”

“That’s what you say. And there’s something else. I want a normal life, maybe even have a family.”

“A family,” he repeated in a soft voice. He knew what that meant, but was afraid of saying it. He was HIV positive and she wasn’t and ultimately a family with him was uncertain at best. “Wendy, are you going to move back in with me?”

She hesitated, her face tightening. “I can’t say. It will be at least a month before I go to Gatesville. And then, they’ll probably assign me a to halfway house. Anyway, it isn’t what I want. It’s what the Texas Department of Corrections wants.”

“What about after that?”

“That’s just too far ahead in the future.”

“But what do you want to do?”

“You just don’t get it. This is another chance for both of us. But just because we've both been given another chance, it doesn't mean we’re going to get back together. Just look at our history, it’s all about using, fighting and fucking up. I want something different.”

“Don’t you see, it can be so different now.”

“How? ”

“Back with me and off the drugs.”

“Back with you—every time we’ve been together we’ve been high.”

“All I want is a happy and wonderful life”

“Stoned out of your mind. Come down to earth, Captain Fantasy. What you want is a fairy tale. You’re such a total dreamer,” she countered.

“What do you want from me?”

“I want someone I can depend on.”

“You know you can depend on me.”

“Depend on you, are you kidding? I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

“Your blaming me for that fat fuck with the lavender Cadillac? That half-assed lawyer. That disbarred attorney. Modeling agent. What a joke.”

“I took those jobs because we needed money.”

“I helped.”

“You mean you helped spend the money that I made and then ran and took handouts from your father. And where did you get the money for your new place? Your father. Have you got a job? No. Are you going to your aftercare? No. What are you doing? Again, nothing.”

“All right. Go back and be a whore, suck dick for a fix.”

“What about you? You’re not above sucking dick for a fix, are you?” Wendy’s mood had grown darker, more hostile.

“I had to do what I had to do. I was sick. But that’s over,” Wagner blushed.

“You’re just like me, you’ll use anyone or anything to get what you want.”

“We’ll see how you do when you get out. You’ll be back out there taking it in the ass.”

“Yeah and how many times did you take it in the ass. Did you like it. Did you just love it?” Wendy asked, coming closer, taunting him.

“Go to hell. Fucking whore. Bitch. I don’t care what you do.”

After being detoxed and hospitalized for chemical dependency and depression, Wagner found his now partially vacated one bedroom condo overlooking Lake Ray Hubbard in the classifieds of The Dallas Morning News. And it was while in the hospital that Wagner was diagnosed HIV positive. His doctor recommended that he move into an Oxford house (a kind of half-way house for alcoholics and addicts, which Wagner refused) and begin a strict regimen of medication. But after his initial prescription for Zoloft and Paxel ran out, he quit taking any medication.

Isolated and anxious, Wagner would stay up all night watching TV or fishing by the white rocks in front of his condo. And while he had seen his neighbor once before in the daylight, that first night, his neighbor was nothing more than a thin ghost wavering in the darkness, a portable oxygen tank by his side.

Later, Wagner discovered that his somewhat eccentric and sickly neighbor received all kinds of promotional stuff from Marlboro (even a yellow inflatable canoe that took up an entire spare bedroom) by turning in the labels from his discarded cigarette packs. So after that, Wagner began calling him the Marlboro man.

The Marlboro man made a wonderful fishing companion, buying boxes and boxes of expensive Texas Gulf shrimp for bait, confessing he was on food stamps and disability and had no other use for the shrimp since he subsisted on vanilla Ensure injected into a feeding tube implanted in his chest.

Mornings, Wagner would wake to find him knocking on his sliding glass door, holding wet catfish hanging helplessly on a stringer. “Do you want them?” he would ask. Wagner would always say yes.

Nights, Wagner and the Marlboro man would sit out on the white rocks and wait for the fish to bite; while out toward the reeds, an egret would wade on stilt-like legs, scooping up minnows in its long bill—the light blue stars glittering, momentarily brightening to white.

“They’re going to put a gambling casino out there on a riverboat right in front of my unit,” the Marlboro man had bragged one night, his bony arm pointing toward the channel where they fished. “A woman came by with a questionnaire. Some kind of poll. It’s going to the City Council and the Texas House of Representatives. There’s going to be a vote,” he said stoically, a subtle glimmer of hope in his eyes. “Hey, I once won fifteen grand in Shreveport.”

“Won it and walked away? Or won it and then lost it?”

“Hell no, I won it. Took it to the bank baby.”

“When? Before you got sick?”

“After by God, I deserved it. At first, I was going to use the money to pay off some court costs with Dallas County. But boy when they found out I was sick; they wouldn’t take me. Cost them too much to keep me. Fuck them. Cocksuckers, they changed their tune. They wouldn’t lock me up if they could,” the Marlboro man said, hushed between puffs on his cigarette.

“Wow. What’s your doctor say about the smoking?”

“I should quit. Fuck. Don’t take no doctor to know that. They wanted to cut my voice-box out, but I said hell no. It wouldn’t fit this boys’ lifestyle.”

“What drinking and fishing all night?”

Wagner laughed and then felt a tug on his line, standing and then stumbling as he began to reel the fish in. Then, the fish jumped, white and luminous in the moonlight. Wagner thought it sounded like a boy doing a belly flop from the high dive of a pool. It was big. But it got away.

Wagner blankly stares out his car window at the harbor. Since changing the flat, he has hardly moved. He thinks, maybe it’s for the best that he’s going back to Iowa. He's already called his father in Davenport and said he was coming home. His father offered to send some travel money, but Wagner sheepishly declined. He reaches up and turns on the overhead interior light and then opens Wendy’s letter, gently taking it out of the original envelope; he has compulsively folded and unfolded it so many times that the paper has begun to tear into its faint blue lines and pink margins, cutting holes in her words.

Enclosed with the letter is a note in bold red capital letters: “GENERAL INMATE CORRESPONDENCE. TEXAS DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE—INSTITUTIONAL DIVISION.”

She's not coming back. Who has he been kidding? He doesn't know what is more pathetic, the stories Wendy used to make up when she was off flying high or his own fabrications: his dreams of Wendy coming up to Iowa and staying with him and starting a new life, clean and free. But he knows, fears even, they would be off to Chicago and it would be just like before—the drug houses, violent arguments, paranoia, sex for money, disappearing acts and all the insanity. He knows they don't have a chance together, that they must each find their own way to freedom; that they are both too fragile to depend on one another; they must find another way; they must find something bigger than the both of them, something strong and secure to hold on to, something not so slippery. 

Wagner remembers trying to revive Wendy after an overdose—her lips were pale blue, cold, cyanotic. He thought she was dead. Fortunately, he called 911 and the paramedics were able to save her. Afterwards, she said she would move back in with him, but not now. Wagner puts the letter back into the envelope and walks out into the darkness toward the harbor. He considers tossing the letter out into the water, but he cannot. And as he begins to turn back, he vaguely recalls something his doctor in rehab said about winning. What was it? What could he win? He imagines the last days of the Marlboro man, wasted, deluded and dreaming of a gambling casino out in the channel. He sees the red glare of the ambulance and the fire truck that follows it. The Marlboro man carried to the waiting ambulance, floating weightlessly beneath the white sheets of the stretcher.

It is very dark, and Wagner can hear the waves crashing by the shore. Lightning flashes and then shudders, echoing in the dark blue. And then, he remembers what it was his doctor had said in rehab. It wasn't about winning. No, he says to himself, it wasn't about winning at all.