He remembers that last game he ever played. It was his junior year of high school, just before the Christmas break. He scored eighteen points and pulled down nine boards, both team highs that night. He was pissed he hadn't put up twenty and ten. He fouled out with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, heard the whistle, turned and headed for the bench. No sense getting upset, he knew this was his finale. Might as well bow out gracefully.

He had already failed three of his five final exams for the semester, he'd be officially ineligible by the time the next game rolled around. He'd play this game, then go home, that was his plan all week. He'd pack up his shit, or at least the shit he couldn't leave behind, for his Moms to trash, and go figure out which one of his boys he could stay with for a while.

He didn't plan on going back to school, what was the point. He also knew he wasn't gonna be allowed to stay in his mother's house if he wasn't taking classes, she wouldn't have that. He was pretty sure that she knew he had started dealing, and if she thought that was all he'd do all day she'd throw a fucking fit and yell him right out of the house and down the driveway.

He watched from the bench as his team lost that last game; by three points, they didn't shoot free throws well at all that night, gotta capitalize from the line if you're gonna win ball games, this 16 for 28 shit isn't gonna cut it boys, the coach said afterwards. He didn't shower that night after coach’s talk, just grabbed his shit, left his uniform on a bench in the locker room, and walked out into the cold ass night air.

He went first to his girlfriend's house, she hadn't been at the game, and he didn't want to talk about it. How many points did he score at least; twenty-four he lied, he didn't know why. He fucked her, 'cause he needed to, laid there in the dark for a while, then did it again, again because he needed to. Then he had to go he told her, he had shit to do tomorrow. He was home by two o'clock.

His Moms was laid out on the couch when he got home, with all the lights on and the TV too. She looked asleep, but her cigarette was still lit, hanging from her lip, and she'd inhale occasionally. She didn't open her eyes as he walked past her, but she did blow smoke in his direction. "We lost" he mentioned on his way by. No response, and into his bedroom he trudged.

He shuts the door, opens a drawer or two, throws the contents onto the bed, gets a bag from the closet, not quite a suitcase but a good sized bag, puts the shit on the bed into it. He hasn't packed clothes yet, so he gets a trash bag from the kitchen, under the sink, and throws some clothes into it. He ties the top of the bag into a knot, throws it out the window into the yard, grabs the other bag and heads out the front door. His Moms has gone to bed. It's 4am, and it’s fucking cold outside.

He remembers the first time he made love to her, though neither of them called it that. It was late one night, in her parents’ house, an empty house for the weekend, and he seems to remember that they were both drunk. Maybe that's why he did it.

It wasn't supposed to go the way it did, but alcohol and adrenaline had gotten the best of him before. It started with a kiss, she kissed back. Then hands, four of them, exploring, same as usual. Then his hands stopped for a moment, decided that clothes got in the way, and went to work removing obstacles. Now they were two naked drunk kids in the dark, running hands over parts of each other they'd never seen in the light.

Then he went to work on her, he enjoyed making her happy, and he knew his way around. She had said to him the first time, "Let's find my G-spot". It had shocked him a bit then, but proved helpful in the long run. But now that he was drunk he had to admit that he was getting sick of this one way street all the time. Maybe that's why he did it.

She was a virgin, he knew that for sure, and even he wasn't as experienced as he led his boys to believe. So maybe it was frustration, youthful exuberance, or just too much fucking alcohol. At any rate, he let his hand stop and he climbed on top of her. She said no, but he was a don't-take-no-for-an-answer type of guy. Plus, she didn't really know what she was talking about, how could she reject anything if she didn't even know what she was turning down. He knew; blank happiness, rivaled only by that almost deadly dose of heroin he let himself be talked into once.

It wasn't too hard, she almost didn't even resist that much. She was saying no, but…. The nos and stops got less frequent as he continued, then faded into moans, and he faded too, lost in what he was doing. When he finished he laid there on his back in the dark, thought he heard her crying once quietly, leaned over and kissed her on the forehead, thought "fuck that bitch," rolled over and went to sleep, still naked, sweaty on top of the covers that she had bound herself up in.

He'd wake up with a killer hangover, but all these years later he didn't remember that.

Ode to a Schoolgirl

I loved a schoolgirl once
When it was appropriate to do so.
She drank Cokes, with a straw,
Always a straw,
And wore socks
That ended just below her knee.
She was beautiful, to me,
And I was nothing to her.

Schoolgirls never went for me,
Even in my better days.
I’d wear my jacket
With the collar turned up
And drop dead cigarettes
In the gutter.

Now I watch schoolgirls
From this bench across the road.
I’ve got a bottle in one hand,
Something with a kick.
I stare every now and then.
I can’t help but stare.

I see a box
with hinges
theres a shelf on the syrup
spinning around
with a tree in the pocket
of my pants
WONDERING what is
poking out
I SEE IT
spinning
poking
wondering

I see you
walking from a distance
syrup hanging out
all sticky
I see you walking
(the last line is optional, and i think i like it better without it)

He remembered back when he was younger, that time he had to swallow a bag, trying to keep himself out of jail. He had way too much on him that time, and once they ID'd him as a swallower he was headed straight to jail anyway. The lawyers counselled him the way they do, and he got really fucking sick in that cell before he eventually gave in and went to the hospital. Confessing kept him locked up for a while, but he got out one Thursday afternoon, with nobody out front to pick him up.

He got back his Zippo lighter, gold with his initials on it, and his money clip too, also gold, just his first initial. They kept all the money he had when they took him in, but he had credit on these streets. Back to his supplier, a little older, a little wiser, but with only one way to get back on his feet. He slept in parks those first couple nights back out, before he made back eight hundred. A new apartment, one that didn’t know his face, but back to the old neighborhood to make sales, and business stayed strong.

For two years he stayed out of the way of those damn cold blooded bastard cops that put him away the last time. By that time he had a new car, another new apartment, evicted after a fight with the landlord from the last one, and a new daughter, who had his eyes. He still swore to straighten up one day, but even he couldn’t argue with numbers, and he was making good ones, selling to some of his old boys from high school, and even one of his old bosses, from way back when he had an "honest" job. Then in November, one night when it was too cold to pay as much attention to all the shit around him that he needed to keep an eye on, they caught him in the spotlight, the one that rotates around on top of the driver's side mirror.

He ran, as fast as he could in the cold, dropping little twist-tied baggies in the bushes as he cut around corners, staying close to the apartment buildings, in the shadows the best he could, eventually tripping, in a spot where the ground apparently dipped down a bit in the dark. They were on him then. He felt a knee in the middle of his back, a cold baton on the back of his neck. He tried resisting, but it meant nothing. Handcuffs next, and they said they had found all those little baggies. The read him his rights; he knew them already, by heart. Then they pulled him up, in a way that hurt his shoulders, hands behind his back. They threw him in the back of that car, lights flashing, and the only thing he could think was how good it felt to be in out of the cold. His eyes were glazed, he was out of breath, and he could feel where his knees still hurt from his fall.

He remembered back to when he was younger, that time when he had swallowed a bag, and how bleak shit looked once they had pumped his stomach. He got through it all that time, maybe he'd get through this. Then he remembered his daughter, and prayed for her all the way to jail.