[For Toye]
I know this feelin'. I know it, and I hate it, hate it with an intensity that burns low in my stomach, useless. Uncertainty, helplessness. It drives me crazy, like that tickle in the back of your throat nothin' can quench. Waitin', hopin' for the best but prepared for the worst. With as confused as I've been feelin' lately, I should probably welcome this feelin' like an old friend. At least it's familiar.
I fuckin' hate it.
Nobody ever said to me -- Nobody'd ever dare -- that I'm as bad as somebody's momma, but that's how I feel. Sittin' up, waitin', mind conjurin' up all sorts of scenarios, variations on the classic "dead on the side of the road."
People leave, Shari said. Gone, as inexplicably as they arrive. Some come back, some don't. It's like death but worse, she said, because you don't know anythin' about what happened to 'em. Death, she said, isn't so bad. Death's got perks. But this ain't death.
There's a wall carved in the mountainside, about fifteen minutes from the Compound. Rows of names etched into it, the letters becoming tidier, more legible with each as the carvers better learned their craft. All gone. Who knows where. I'll be damned if I end up havin' to put Joe Toye's name up on a wall, like he's not still livin' and breathin' and being a stubborn ass out there somewhere, but that's where my mind keeps going. What ifs.
I've paced the length of the house I don't know how many times, lookin' for an occupation, somethin' to take my mind off the myriad possibilities. My ear's always bent, though, listenin' for an alteration to the sounds of the jungle as it settles in for the night.
I meet him at the door.
"Where you been?" I demand, hands braced against both sides of the door frame, glarin' out at Toye's familiar face in the darkness, soundin' like a nanny and wishin' I didn't.
I fuckin' hate it.
Nobody ever said to me -- Nobody'd ever dare -- that I'm as bad as somebody's momma, but that's how I feel. Sittin' up, waitin', mind conjurin' up all sorts of scenarios, variations on the classic "dead on the side of the road."
People leave, Shari said. Gone, as inexplicably as they arrive. Some come back, some don't. It's like death but worse, she said, because you don't know anythin' about what happened to 'em. Death, she said, isn't so bad. Death's got perks. But this ain't death.
There's a wall carved in the mountainside, about fifteen minutes from the Compound. Rows of names etched into it, the letters becoming tidier, more legible with each as the carvers better learned their craft. All gone. Who knows where. I'll be damned if I end up havin' to put Joe Toye's name up on a wall, like he's not still livin' and breathin' and being a stubborn ass out there somewhere, but that's where my mind keeps going. What ifs.
I've paced the length of the house I don't know how many times, lookin' for an occupation, somethin' to take my mind off the myriad possibilities. My ear's always bent, though, listenin' for an alteration to the sounds of the jungle as it settles in for the night.
I meet him at the door.
"Where you been?" I demand, hands braced against both sides of the door frame, glarin' out at Toye's familiar face in the darkness, soundin' like a nanny and wishin' I didn't.