for Tom Van Bragt
What if we're in love with the same girl? I ask. Like Lysa Hammond. He says, I would walk away. Into the coolest sunset. This is a ridiculous hypothetical anyway because Lysa Hammond lives at the lake. We're each other's beautiful loser as in the Bob Seger song, always taking turns taking a backseat. Though we never say it, I'm sure we're trying to out beautiful loser one another.
In art class, when we discover The Creation of Adam, that becomes our thing. If we run into each other between classes, our hands go up, reaching. Whoever's fastest makes God hand; whoever's slower on the draw, limp Adam hand. Secretly, I grant myself beautiful loser points for always letting him have God hand. To bully-proof our bodies, we try practice fighting. Neither of us knows how. When he gives me a bloody nose we call it quits. Because my family's poor, the Haves at school call me Baltic after the shitty Monopoly property no one wants. That makes me Mediterranean, he says.
Blissfully ignorant and high on summer, we'd been hitchhiking before hitchhikers began disappearing. Except for the drunk shirtless guy, it had always felt safe. As he skidded to a stop, he urgently waved us into the front seat and we crammed in beside him. Right away, we noticed the car smelled like vomit and wanted out but he gunned the car and sped off, swerving all the way into Jackson which made our bodies knock against each other like bowling pins.. We didn’t know there was a woman in the backseat until she popped up like a spook house prop behind us and, wiping her mouth, slurred, I'm done puking, you can do me now.
According to the six o'clock news, a girl named Ronnie ... last seen hitchhiking along 127 ... is missing. That's where we catch rides. When police find her body, we hear rumors her braces had been pried off. Our parents, who've never had much to say about what we do, suddenly have much to say. After that, I can rarely get him to leave his house. Out of the blue he'll say you know we probably rode with killers and never knew it, you know? I push. Let’s do something, let's go somewhere. Usually, somewhere ends up being his basement where we play foosball, stomp and clap to We Are the Champions and chug Cap'n Crunch. Last bite? he asks, flashing prime beautiful loser as he hands me the box.
What I like about his parents is they're not my parents. They're more like big kids with real jobs. They joke with each other, shove each other, call each other asshole, dumb fuck, and kiss in front of us all the time. I like thinking marriage can look like this and tell myself it's how I want to be with my wife, Mrs. Baltic. Like I'm making a joke I say you guys should adopt me. I'm here all the time anyway. He laughs, raises God hand, and pokes my forehead. Done. You're in.
One day, as if defusing a bomb, he slowly opens his mom's X-rated drawer for me and lifts out a blue rubber dick. For when she says I'm going to bed to read he says, and wags it in the air. As he's pawing through her panties, I want to bend down, to bring handfuls of them to my face like suds. Annnd here we go! He pulls out a plastic package that reads Eat Me. Inside, a pair of red, paper-thin panties with licorice whip ties. They look like candy. I wonder if they taste good, I say. On the label, little red apples with devilish smiles and horns.
I don't think that's the point, he says.
Well they should taste good, right?
Well, we're not eating my mom's sex underwear so we'll never know, he says.
As summer is winding down, it all falls apart. His family moves and drags our friendship three thousand miles away to Half Moon Bay, California. As he stands there, car door open, he raises God hand. I just nod. I would’ve thought they'd need an extra U-Haul to pack our friendship, but he fits right in the backseat next to a slab of folded winter coats still on hangers.
Years later, during COVID, I wonder if he's OK, as in alive. I buy a pair of edible candy apple panties from Spencer's, stuff them in a padded envelope, and mail them to the last address I have for him. Weeks later, when they come back undelivered, I sit at the table and tear open the bag with my teeth; the panties feel like a fruit roll-up, tacky. I rip off a strip. Pop it in my mouth. Hey, if you're out there, they taste like shit. I take a second bite anyway. Points.
Keith Woodruff lives in San Antonio, TX with a backyard full of moody tomato plants. His poetry has appeared in Sundog Lit, Bear Review, Rawhead and New World Writing Quarterly. His flash/micro appeared in lovely places like Wigleaf, HAD, Pithead Chapel, Reckon Review, and Your Impossible Voice. Read him in Best Small Fictions 2017 and 2019. He is a 2027 Best of the Net and Best Small Fictions nominee and was awarded a 2018 Pushcart prize.
