new clothes

I have to buy all new clothes. These shirts I’ve been wearing, they just won’t do. Even if they didn’t have holes or stains under the armpits. Even if they didn’t smell weird, even then I’d still have to get rid of them. Those kind of shirts won’t fly there. What I need is something with a collar, with buttons. I need something that a tie could fit on. A shirt that people wear to their jobs or on dates. That’s the sort of shirt I need.

maps

Maps all look the same. There are green spots and brown spots and he doesn’t know what any of it means. Freeways, highways, state routes, back roads, front roads, none of them are easily to follow. If you take this freeway across this state and catch this state route in this city, he couldn’t tell you any of it. You’d better give him landmarks, give him restaurants. You’d better tell him to take a sharp left at Shoney’s, better tell him to take the exit after the flea market. He could count all the signs leading up to the amusement park. You could tell him that there are six billboards for the park before you actually see it. You could tell him that at the fifth billboard, the one that says “You’ll be tickled pink,” at that one he’ll get off. Take the highway with the too tall grass in the middle all the way there. Turn right at Super America.

holiday break

This town is bursting at the seams. Every I-77, I-70, every Route 22, Route 7, every road into Steubenville is jammed with people coming home for the holiday. Every bar is crowded with these kids doing things they never used to do when they were in high school. These kids are flashing their new driver’s licenses. All those shiny new rectangles and all those shiny new holograms, they’re letting these kids into these places that they’ve only seen the outsides of before. This town can’t handle all of these people. You can hear it ripping already.

thanksgiving

Outside it’s windy and snowing and the grass is covered with dead leaves but it doesn’t matter. This happens every year. After the turkey dinner, after the dessert, the kids put on their gloves and their hats and their ski masks and grab the football. Outside they rake up the leaves, they put them in separate piles. The snow and the wind, that makes for better commentary inside their heads. This way, when they narrate their diving touchdown catch into the pile of leaves, they can say how much harder it is to catch in the snow. In their heads, they can praise their heroics. And after they clean the leaves out from their shirts, inside their heads, they can ask for an instant replay of that spectacular catch

ghost 6

There’s a ghost in my house that turns down the thermostat and hides the blankets.

front page 2

On the front page, the high school team lost and a teenager is crying.

front page

Every story on the front page reminds you how small this place is. There’s a picture of a three year old coloring, waiting for her grandmother. The daughter of friends of the editor, putting their baby on the front page. Her big break.

There’s the story of the town’s light up, an old volunteer shown hanging lights on a fence. There will be free pizza and juice and a performance by the winners of Ohio Valley Idol. The County Commissioner will sing a Christmas carol. A dance team will do a routine to Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. The Homecoming Queen is invited. It’s a big event. If your name has ever been on a campaign sign, you better be there. Shake everybody’s hand. Smile and cheer when the tree turns on.

local hero

Now this guy is a celebrity. Everyone in town knows about him. The headline “Local Man Pulls Pair from Wreckage,” he’s the local man. He’s on the 6 o’clock news telling that guy with the fake tan how he was just in the right place at the right time. How he just did what anybody else would if they were in the same situation. He doesn’t deserve all the attention. How he still prays for that couple and hopes to one day to meet them over a couple pulled pork sandwiches. The guy with the orange face, he tells him that he hopes News at 6 cameras will be there for what’s sure to be an emotional reunion. The hero, he brushes the hair from his face and looks directly in the camera, in to my living room, and says, “you bet they will.”

blimp

Outside the sky is rumbling and it could be thunder or it could be a plane so the boy runs out to see and in the air over his house is the Goodyear blimp flying so low that the driver or the pilot or whatever he’s called is clearly in the cockpit so the boy waves and watches it pass and thinks about what field or dome it will hover over.

storm again

For the second straight night, it’s raining. I’d be worried if my house wasn’t built on a hill, if all the water didn’t run down the street, toward the bottom. I’d be worried if I lived next to a river, a creek, a lake. If my house wasn’t safe from the rain. If it were a tornado or an earthquake, maybe then. But outside, the rain is yelling and that’s fine with me.

storm

Outside the rain’s falling hard and it sounds like Summer. The wind’s pushing it into my window and keeping me awake. These storms, they’re supposed to be over with in August. There’s already been snow, already been frost. This storm should know better.

ghost 5

There’s a ghost in my house and my mom thinks he’s real. It’s a he. She knows. She went to the library and looked up who used to live here and if they had kids, how old they would be now. The ghost, he’s about eighteen years old. He grew up here and is dead now and decided to spend the rest of his time as a child in his childhood home.

He stays in the old sections of the house. The family room, my parent’s room, he doesn’t go back there. It didn’t exist when he lived here. When he’s here, most of the time, he’s in the basement. His room used to be down there, before we moved in. Before the fire inspector told us that it was a hazard to have rooms in a basement without a door leading directly outside. Downstairs, he’ll slide past while Mom does laundry. She’ll feel him on her shoulders. Upstairs, he’ll sleep on the couch. His head sunk into the pillow. Nothing else there but an old couch and a pillow with a dip where a head used to be.

There’s a ghost in my house and his name is David. That’s what Mom calls him.

season

Inside, the heat is turned on for the first time. The air blowing in is dusty and stale and smells like a hair dryer. Outside, the weather is finally winter and snow is trying to fall. It’s November and all the thoughts about global warming and Indian summers are gone and now Christmas seems closer than it did yesterday.

tired

For the fourth straight day, my eyes are baggy. Under both of my eyes, under the pinpoint pupils, there’s black. Where the skin is usually tight against my skin, there’s puff. My eyes are packed for a weekend get away. For the fourth straight day, their bags are ready.

drive home

The boy sits in the passenger seat and watches the snow shine in the headlights and fly past like stars and his mom smiles and the boy laughs and tells her to punch it, Chewie.

shorts

She’s one of those girls that wear shorts with words on the butt. Princess, Angel, Pink, she has them all. Today, her ass says Ohio University. But she’s not in college yet. The braces and the tiny fuzzy purse give her away.

fire

Out West, everything is burning. Local news, National news, everyday, something new is canceled because of the fire. Football stadiums are making every Sunday “Food Drive Sunday.” They’re encouraging every fan to just bring one canned food. They’re telling them this is how they help. And to not forget to check out the merchandise table. On TV, after the game, an athlete is sending his prayers to those families affected by all of this. He’s thanking God the fire didn’t reach his summer cabin.