Other Obit

by Dean Young

Dean Young

Night, what more do you want? Why this second per second
scream? My friend Nick used to sit all night in the same
booth all night with a pile of quarters for pinball and
jukebox. He loved the one where the balls disappeared
up the bonus-lit chute. He loved the song where the wife
smelled shirts, all tilt and jilt and sometimes he’d
bring back a waitress who’d play the records we never
played. You know the ones, everyone has those records. It
was the age of Aquarius and once we wanted to remember
the comedy, movies, the primitive flutes. I’d come down
and there they’d be, nearly glamorous with smoke and wine,
all the shades pulled. Night, even then you couldn’t give
up, there was your lariat in the corner, your ashes
everywhere. It might have been the drugs we kept zip-
locked in the cranial cavity of, a pig, a skull Nick
found where a pig had died or at least a pig’s head had
died. Aren’t I cute? Don’t you like my legs? Night, what
pleases you? From the beginning, the body’s full of
holes. Night, these are the facts and the philosophy of
facts. See how they grin back fast faces like the 23
windows he fell past. Jumped past. When does a jump
become a fall? There were a few more floors but 23 was
enough, enough climbing he must have thought then opened
the window by the stairs. I thought at least there’d be
a note. Help or a simple declarative sentence. They
seemed to take forever with the organ, the hot-house
arrangements and how his parents hated me that open-holed
day. Adios, au revoir, good night. You want me on my
knees? I’m on my knees. When I was a child I’d listen to
the owls rouse their fiefdoms. Say the little prayer.
When I was a child. When I was a cantaloupe. When I was
an enemy spacecraft hovering over the Pentagon. Tick
tock and such a puddle. Tick tock my soul to keep. Tick
tock and such deep wagons on so many panged wheels.





Last updated August 26, 2022