Our Friend
Here they are joyriding into infinity, Dina & Darlene and all of their friends, spending the day plastering homemade Missing Person posters on every telephone pole in town, in the window of the pharmacy, flyering every car at the grocery store, at the library, at the feed store, at the gas station, at the antique store, at the bank, at the post office, at the A&W/Long John Silvers, at the ice cream shop, at the hardware store, at the Subway, at Big Leo’s Pizza and Pasta, at Simple Shears salon, at the Radio Shack, at the Anchor Inn motel. They staple and duct tape and glue.
On a two-track dirt road, we snort things up our noses in an attempt to forget the day. A pick-up truck pulls up alongside us, smelling like open ass. The driver flicks his tongue between his fingers at us in a disgusting way. He throws a beer can on the ground. “Come on y’all, I wanna show you somethin’” he says. No one moves. We are high and contemplating. Everyone is searching for him, our sweet friend. Instead, we carve his name on a dogwood tree, on the inside of an ankle, the sky. We say his name out loud back and forth to each other, a joke with no punchline. Where else? On a piece of rice in a charm on a necklace on the bedroom floor of the driver of the truck. Tattooed on a neck, above an eyebrow.
And then we enter the forest.