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Nom de Bier – Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter by HP Lovecraft

November 16, 2015 · by Oliver Gray

This is entry #2 in the series “Nom de Bier” – good beer reviewed by famous authors (as emulated by me). I do not claim to speak for these authors, nor am I an expert scholar in their particular style, so please feel free to correct/admonish as you see fit.

Beer Review – Great Lakes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter
Style: American Porter
ABV: 6.0%
IBU: 37

By: HP Lovecraft

They claim to have found me wet, alone, and gibbering nonsense on that lightless southern shore of the Superior. I could not find in my memory a name, nor a station, but my clothes betrayed my identity. It seems that against all odds, I was the lone survivor of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

In relaying the specifics of how I, and only I, got there, I can say little. The official investigation found the freighter had taken on water some seventeen miles from the Michigan shore, and there gone down in the fury of a southward storm. I remember it differently, but my attempts to explain are discounted as the ravings of a man whose mind was broken by stress and loss. The flashes of truth that do return to me in the deep midnight, are admittedly, things so fantastic and terrible they evade common belief.

My name was given back to me on November 29, 1975, after several weeks in a Detroit hospital. I had been John Bailey of Duluth, Minnesota, deckhand of that now great wreck, but the other details of my life seemed vague and otherworldly. A result of a severe knock to the head claimed my doctors, despite no clear wound or laceration to confirm their diagnosis. My records say I was born in 1949 to a Paula and Michael Bailey, just outside the tiny Massachusetts port of Innsmouth. The place feels right, but the age feels wrong, and the mirror shows me not a man of twenty-six, but one of a much, much older countenance.

I’ve been questioned by countless police and government officials, all trying to ascertain exactly what happened that night. What pieces of reality stitch back together coherently tell me our Captain, the affable but quiet Ernest McSorley, had control of the situation despite the severity of the storm. We’d joined with another freighter – the Arthur Anderson I’m told – and the two ships had been working in tandem to navigate and ride out the worst of the crests. The storm surged fiercely, of that there is no question, but not so fiercely I do not think, as to wrestle control away from our captain and sink the ship on those desolate shoals.

To placate the glimpses of madness that routinely overtake my psyche, or perhaps to assuage my guilt of being a lone remainder of the crew, I drink. I hear the slanders upon my intellect slung from those righteous locals, know their callous disregard for my situation, but pints of strong porter have been my only refuge. I find now why the sailors of old London so loved and relied on the brown ale; it fortifies like no other, physically, mentally, and spiritually. My constitution fares poorly with whiskey, and something about the lore and history of this brew calls to me through endless bubbles, muffled but undeniable.

In my sober hours, I have been reading about the ship before the storm. Most authorities seem obsessed with what happened on November 10, 1975. My concern is that the fate of the ship was decided well before that, when it took on its cargo, and me, in Duluth on November 7. But of this, for now, I can say nothing without risking another trip to the resident psychologist, who already questions the strength of my mind.

As typical, we’d been hauling taconite ore from the Minnesota quarries. Normal fare, massive tonnage of quartz and iron, all to fuel the precambrian fossil fuel monstrosity that held sway over the lake-tied cities. Occasionally, our manifest would include sundry other materials from locations generally undisclosed. Questions were rarely asked as ore was ore, boring, heavy rock valued for its mineral content and little more.

One entry on the manifest from November 7 caught my attention and sent me down this path of incredulity and insanity. A single load of wooden crates, otherwise nondescript and banal, had been marked as coming from “Northern Canada/Greenland” making it an anomaly among the other loads of clearly domestic rocks. I’m sure our head of logistics thought nothing of it, and our Captain, so close to his retirement, most likely wanted to be underway as soon as possible.

The information in the ledgers, the wooden crates, their mysterious contents, seemed familiar, and personal. My head reeled from memories lashing out of my unconscious. I felt faint, and sought out drink, hoping to silence my mind for at least one more night.

I awoke sometime later, head pounding and stomach lurching. But when I could not find my feet, I found it was not intoxication, but that the floor was moving beneath me. Undulating with sudden jerks that knocked me back onto a sparsely covered bunk. The wind yowled against the bulkhead and all at once I heard men cry out while thunder broke the black sky. The men on deck shouted that we’d struck something, been run aground by the storm’s power. But I did not look over the rails. My mind pull me down, into the imposing dark of the ship’s hold.

There, in the otherwise pitch black, the wooden crates hummed and hissed, putting off a pale blue glow that just barely made their outline visible. The rocking of the ship had dislodged them from their fastenings, and one had fallen from high to the steel deck below. Using a flashlight from near the doorway, I threw some light over the cargo, but had to grab a railing to stable myself when I saw the now exposed, spilled contents.

A dark ooze seeped from shattered glass bottles, pooling out in all directions unnaturally, defying the flow of any liquid I’d ever seen. I moved closer to inspect and noticed that it seemed warm and pulsating, characteristic of something alive. I passed the beam over the largest pool and looked deep into the shiny viscous mess; it sparkled a dizzying show, millions upon millions of dots of light tearing through space at dazzling speeds, the cosmos contained in a fluid window through which I viewed impossible infinity.

The humming and hissing intensified. Something deep and forgotten in my body pulled at me, commanded my mind and muscles, and told me, in a tongue I’d never heard by somehow understood, to drink. I cupped the horrid stuff between my hands, letting it slip and drip through my fingers, before putting it to my mouth and swallowing voraciously.

I staggered back onto deck to hear the men screaming to abandon the freighter. The sounds from below now sang across the night sky, and in the eye of the great storm, countless stars, more than man could count, pierced any remaining clouds. Below, the liquid had seeped out from a crack in the hull, floating on the water like an oil slick, pulsating harder and more visibly. There was a great rumbling from below and the water churned into a froth, the stars above becoming so bright that the night could have been day.

A huge, misshapen mass rose from the waves. It smashed down across the center of the ship, snapping it cleanly in two. I heard screams for half a second then…quiet. The ship gurgled as it filled with water, while all around me the sinister ooze formed a perfect mirror to the star-stained space above.

That’s the last I remember. The drink has brought me back to that night, dulled my mental protections enough to let that reality of that night come out. The memory was more vivid than a dream, but less attached than waking reality. I dare not tell anyone what I think to be the truth as I know how they’d respond, and what they’d probably do with me.

Every sip I take reminds me of that sip I took. I cannot stay. For some reason I’m pulled from this life to another. I’m headed north and do not plan to return.

Grammarian’s note: Syntactically, Lovecraft’s style was dense and overwrought, with heavy use of adverbs and adjectives. He wrote in the early 1900s, so the high rhetoric of his writing wasn’t totally unusual, even if it seems so in retrospect to modern readers. I tried to mimic his sentence patterns too, as he’d often go from a simple right-branching sentence right into a packed left-branching sentence with numerous adverbial clauses. Thematically, he wrote about dark, cosmic horrors that had lived eons before humankind but still existed as shadows of history and lore in certain parts of the world. He loved to use obtuse foreshadowing where the narrator established himself as unreliable due to personal madness, typically caused by their connection to some ancient, brooding evil. He also had a bit of a gruesome obsession with the ocean, and what secrets it could possibly contain.

Lucky 2.0

March 17, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

A year ago today, I posted the original version of this story. I, and it, have since gone through many things together: publication at Outside In, thesis revision, several glasses of Jameson, several bottles of amber ale, achievement, loss, grief, recuperation. It’s been a hell of a three sixty five.

I’m re-sharing this in part to show how important close editing is to the health of a story and a writer, but also just because I like it and it’s thematically appropriate.

Lucky

When he finally mustered enough courage, he looked up. He stood near the doorway of the old building, taking a moment to remember it. The dirty, butt-stained sidewalk that hosted dozens of drunk denizens who smoked in the Boston air, the flower boxes that sheltered and nurtured his mother’s favorite purple butterworts, the green and red knot work sign that proudly cast the name “Flaherty’s” over the tiny side street, all now burnt and hollowed out, everything ruined by smoke and flame and the power of unattended random chance.

If he hadn’t been late that morning, if he hadn’t been so slow to rise with head fogged by one too many late night whiskeys, if he hadn’t needed drink after drink to quiet his guilty conscience, James thought, maybe, just maybe when the piles of overdue bills in the unkempt kitchen caught those fledgling flames from that gas oven that should have long been replaced, he might have stopped it; not had to watch his father’s dream, an Irish life reborn and infused with Americanism, billow and ascend, smoke colored black by all that carbon and shame.

He imagined his father standing next to him, ginger hair turning grey at the temples. He’d looked almost like a fox in those last few years, still wily in spite of, and now svelte because of the cancer. Not that James had actually seen him outside of the pictures he’d found on the internet; he wasn’t even in the same zip code when that grizzled pater familias left the party early, lymphoma on his arm. He’d gotten the news from his second-cousin, late one night in a craythur haze, that the family name was now his alone. Still, Sean Flaherty hovered there unable to speak, but in his head, James could hear the vitriol his father would be slinging if he’d seen the fate of the bar he’d tended for near forty years.

The claims adjuster was late. James kicked at some fallen wood near the door, careful not to venture too far inside the shell of the building, worried that it was still in the middle of its death throes, still capable of collapsing any minute. The morning air gusted, picked up the scent of charred memories, kegs and coat racks and day-old beer. Inside the doorway he could feel the warmth still radiating off of the remains of the tall tables and long bar, all the stored energy seeping out of the wood like it was bleeding.

James lost focus at the sound of a car clumsily hopping up the curb while trying to park. A fat man, maybe twenty-nine, thirty, struggled to lift himself out of the driver’s seat. His pants were an inch or two too short, his tie a hideous spotted yellow, and his receding hair line barely visible in the stubble of his buzzed blonde hair. James could smell his Old Spice, old school, from five yards away. “James? James Flaggerty?”

“Flair-tee.” The mispronunciation of his name, his father’s name, at this moment, in this place, felt like dirty fingers in a fresh wound.

They stood outside the husk, peering into the darkness just beyond where the door had been. “Oh, sorry.” The adjuster turned to his papers, shuffled them to find a specific line on a legal-sized form, and then looked up. “Oh man. You’re lucky this fire didn’t jump to these neighboring buildings. That would have been an insurance nightmare.”

James kicked a beam of wood that had come loose from the siding and fallen onto the pavement, uncovering a half-burned coaster. A tiny shamrock, the only Irish cliché besides Guinness that his father perpetuated, was still clearly green and alive on the bottom corner of the cardboard. James did not smile. “Heh. Lucky.”

That night it felt wrong to sit in another bar, drink, even kind of enjoy himself. But the whiskey burned nice and the ice melted slow, and red ale chaser was just as his father would have liked: malty, crisp, sneaking hints of hops that lingered on his tongue. It was from his father he learned to drink, so it was to his father he drank the next one. And the next one. And the next one.

Each drink washed away another sin. In the first glass of single-malt he apologized for storming out so rashly, back in those eighteen-year-old days when he thought he knew everything and his father knew nothing. In the second, he cursed his father for leaving the pub to him, making him come back to this place fifteen years later against his better sense of pride. In the third, he found the courage to keep back the tears that had been welling since the police had informed him of the incident, the damage, the loss. In the fourth, he laughed, and ordered a fifth.

James didn’t stumble home, his careening so practiced that it was just one long graceful fall from bar stool to pillow. The whiskey normally stifled his dreams, but tonight they flared and seared, father and fire and failure all whirling together in an inferno of nightmarish scenes. He woke up, head pounding, throat dry, vomit lurching in his stomach, to remember both his father and the bar were, in the waking tangible sunlight of reality, gone.

His phone buzzed. He looked at the clock: 10:49. For a moment, he thought about letting his head sink back down into the pillow. The number was familiar, but not one that he’d stored in his phone. He waited for the third buzz, sighed, and answered.

“Mr. Flaggerty?”

The already horrible headache intensified. “Flair-tee. What can I do for you?”

The adjuster sounded even more nasal over the phone. “I just got the report from the fire marshal. I’ve got the final coverage numbers, but the inspector found something I think you should see.”

The pub looked less dejected now that the fire had completely gone out of her. Most of the debris that had fallen loose had been cleared from the entrance and the street. She looked scarred and damaged but somehow respectable, like she refused to give up so easily.

“Mr. Flag…Flair-tee. Thanks for showing up at such short notice. Most of the worst of the mess has been cleaned up, so if you’ll just step inside for a moment, I’ll show you what I was referencing earlier.” The adjuster did his best to move gracefully through the rubble, trying to avoid getting his ill-fitting khakis stained by any soot. They passed the slumping, massive piece of oak that had been the bar; two patina-pocked tap stems, standing proud, the only things that seemed relatively undamaged by the fire.

Near a large hole between some broken floorboards at the back of the pub stood a walrus of a man, a man whose stature and uniform said authority but whose huge white mustache and kind eyes said grandpa. He looked at James then back down at the hole. “Did you know this room was here?”

Confused, knowing the back of the bar as only a place of refuge from the commotion of the patrons and the trajectory of drunkenly tossed darts, James didn’t know what the man was talking about. He inched closer, pushing past the combined girth of both inspectors, peering down between the broken floor boards. Boxes, clunky filing cabinets, three rows of large wooden shelves, and what looked like several beer casks lolling about in the dusty shadows.

“I’m going to try to climb down there.” The fire marshal huffed and recommended otherwise. Ignoring the man, who probably wouldn’t fit through the hole, James threw his legs over the edge, found his footing on the old wooden framing, and slowly lowered himself into the room below.

James used the screen of his phone as an impromptu flash light, shining it over the oak barrels with iron bands that rested on their ends, unmoving, like a dozen enormously fat men wearing belts too small. The blue light bounced through the surprisingly cavernous space, and the stone walls, all mildew and damp, radiated with eerie fluorescence. Three thin metal pipes came from the walls; forgotten hand-pull tap lines that at some point, years ago, had been connected to the casks that lined the rows of wooden racks.

Against the far wall, dozens of clear glass necks poked out of wooden crates in rows of six, columns of four. He grabbed a bottle and brushed away the dust and the ashes that had fallen from above. Eyes wide, trying to make out the text in the dark, he read the labels on the bottles. Tullamore, Bushmills, Midleton; ninety, ninety-three, a hundred and one years old, some even more ancient. All intact. Perfect, pristine. An army of golden soldiers in glass armor. He held an unspoiled fortune in his hands, felt the weight of years of Irish tradition, salivating over the idea of how much he could charge for even a shot of a vintage this rare.

The digital light made the place seem unnaturally cold, like a ghost had sapped the heat from the air. He imagine a specter of his Grandfather, hiding from the prohibition-crazed police, storing all his precious homeland still-runnings down here, beneath sealed floors, until they weren’t at risk of being poured out on the street as a warning to other bootleggers. He shivered to think even his father didn’t know of this treasure trove, and that he may be the first living Flaherty to stand in this room in nearly half a century.

James moved to the filing cabinet. Years of rust and dust had seized the runners, but with a little force and a lot of curiosity, he slid the middle drawer open. He thumbed through the yellowing paper, tilting the phone to get a better look at the faded writing on each page. The first folder housed records, names and bills and income for years well before James was alive. The second folder was empty, except for an antique wooden-handled bottle opener. The third, packed nearly to the point of bursting, fell from his hands as he lifted it from the cabinet and spilled all over the floor.

At the sound of this, the fire marshal called to him, shining his flashlight down to see if James was injured. This beam of light caught the papers on the floor just long enough for James to read the titles: Flaherty’s Oatmeal Stout, Flaherty’s Pale Ale, Flaherty’s Irish Red Ale. Next to each recipe was a hand drawn green shamrock, perfect mimicry of the one his father so insistently included on anything associated with the bar.

The claims adjuster’s head appeared, upside down, from the hole above. “Are you okay? Looks pretty messy down here. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt.”

James smiled, picking through the rest of papers that had spilled from the ancient brewer’s book, and thought for a second, he felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder. “Yea. Lucky.”

“My heart is quite calm now. I will go back.” – James Joyce

Session #84 – Alternative Reviews – Breckenridge Bridge

February 7, 2014 · by Oliver Gray

This is my entry for the 84th Session, hosted by me, on this here blog. The topic: Alternative Reviews. Warning: this contains lots of words (even more than usual).

David raised his glass quickly but carefully, in one, thoroughly practiced motion. The amber sloshed perilously near spilling, the gyroscope of his wrist and hand the only thing from keeping the bar from a beery bath. “Here’s to life!”

The cry pierced the air above the bar, setting into motion an avalanche of reaction: displeased glares, questioning glances, humorous smirks. Even the drunk karaoke girls stopped to look at David, who by now, was standing on the foot rests of his bar stool like some inebriated half-giant.

Geoff looked at him down the glassy length of his shaker, smiling through his sip.

“It’s good to see you back to your old self.” Geoff said, as he set the glass on the bar. He picked it up again, looking down at the watery ring of condensation kept afloat by the bar’s waxy finish. He set the beer back down halfway on top of the first ring making a tidy two-ring Venn diagram. He turned to David, “Maybe you should slow down. You’ve had a hell of a few weeks.”

David looked back at him, eyes half glazed by the beer that was worming its way through the folds of his brain. “No man, I feel great! Why you gotta be such a cop all the time?” He waved at the bartender, trying to get his attention through the commotion of a Friday night.

“Because I am a cop, idiot.” Geoff had already slipped the car keys from David’s coat pocket into his own. He knew David too well, knew his tiny bladder and even tinier tolerance, and didn’t trust him not to fumble to his truck in three beer’s time, when he was well beyond a reasonable state to be awake, never mind drive. He checked the time on his phone. “Hey, Dave, man, I gotta run. Cathy’s expecting me soon and I’ve got a long shift tomorrow.”

“Aw man! Just one more, come on. COME ON!” David taunted him, holding one fist-defiant index finger near his face, scrunching up his nose and mouth, part demanding, part begging, part unsure he should even have one more himself. Geoff laughed, threw down two twenties, and shook his head. “Not tonight man. Next time. I got your tab though. And your keys. There should be enough there for a cab, too.”

It took another half hour to process that Geoff had meant his car keys; thirty full minutes of crawling around in the stale beer-fog of under bar, looking for any glint of metallic silver of Chevy logo. The beer had done its job, and was still billing hours to the client of insobriety, so David didn’t even entertain being mad at the long-gone Geoff. He smiled at fate, and let the beer decide with infallible drunk wisdom, that the best bet was to walk the eight some miles home, not call a cab.

♦♦♦

The late summer air soothed his sing-along-sore throat, Vicks VapoRub on Colorado wind made of purple poppies, peeling pine, and that undeniable smell of coming thunderstorm. David loved August nights in Breckenridge, and for a while, lost in a alcohol-fueled flood of senses and emotion, he didn’t mind his hour long saunter.

He came upon the bridge, an old parker-style in need of paint with rust pocking its metal like acne on a teenagers oily forehead, and could smell the fishy waft from the river below. The crossing marked the halfway point of his trip home, that moment where he was equidistant between bar stool and bed, between drunkenness and sobriety. He took a moment at the center of the bridge to lean out over the rushing, storm-swollen water. Odd detritus lined the bank near one of the concrete supports: several mismatched tires, probably dumped there by Tom from the auto-shop on Lincoln; a soggy, algae stained futon that looked like a reject from an IKEA as-is section; a shopping cart upturned and abandoned at least a mile from its normal home at City Market.

The river passed by without noticing David noticing it, upstream looking exactly like downstream as if it didn’t matter where water began or ended, only that it flowed. If it hadn’t been so late, if he hadn’t been just one beer past buzzed, David might have dangled his legs down over the edge of the bridge and sat there a while, let summer sink into his soul, let the river wash away the night, let the peace of nature remind him how lucky he was to be alive.

As he turned to finish his journey home, some movement near the water caught his eye. A shape, tall and thin, a man down by the bank, near the access road, swaggering in shadow. Then he saw another man, a bigger man, approach from behind, thinking for a moment he heard shouting and crying on the back of the wind. He watched, too far to help, too close to cry out without jeopardizing himself, as the larger shadow slung something out of his pocket and snapped serenity in two with the crack of a cocked hammer colliding with primer.

Had his mind been clear, he would have immediately called Geoff, had the entire Breckenridge Sheriff’s department on the scene in minutes. But panic closed its powerful grip on his mind, and he could do nothing but run. Across the bridge, down a side street, through bushes and under trees. Muscle memory guided his feet, the world passed by, half buzzed by sprint, half buzzed by the the booze still sloshing in his stomach, and he soon found himself on his own front lawn, lungs grabbing desperately into the night for more air.

♦♦♦

A viper, two green slits on dark grey, stared at him from across the room. His eyes adjusted slowly like auto-focus on a dying camera lens, regret manifesting behind them like two jack hammers of you-should-know-better. 11:03. Not so bad, given how late (or early) he had slipped into the silky caress of his down comforter after his mad dash home.

He knew he should call Geoff, but was worried he hadn’t really seen what he thought he saw, that Geoff would just laugh him off and tell him he needed to go to AA. Even if David had wanted to talk to him, he couldn’t find his phone, and weight of his eyelids and slouching slurch of his stomach suggested it might not be time to get up anyway. He let his head fall back onto the pillow and watched the snake disappear behind a horizontal curtain of black.

When he woke again, the viper was gone, replaced by two turtles rolling on into infinity. His headache had mellowed into a gentle sluggish fog, like his brain was covered with an entire bottle of Elmers. The hangover had cleared enough, enough at least, for him to sit up without worrying that a fault line might open up on the back of his skull. He dug around in his jean pockets for his phone, not surprised to see more than a few missed calls, mainly from his mother and Geoff, both of whom, he was sure, were checking to make sure he’d made it home in as few pieces as possible. He brushed away the notifications and nudged the phone with his thumb to call Geoff.

It rang four times before being deposited, like some lowly letter, in a voice mail box. “Hey man, it’s Dave. I’m fine, just really, really hungover. This is going to sound weird, but I think I saw someone get shot last night. Like seriously. I was pretty plastered, but I’m going to go check it out. Meet me at the old bridge at ten and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

The sun had long since exited stage West by the time he pulled into a spot by the old deserted fish packing warehouse. From here he could see the silhouette of the bridge like a lattice against the night sky, lights from down in the city giving just enough glow to make the sky look eggplant, not ebony. The night was calm except for the wind that swept down from the north in sporadic, energetic bursts.

David was late, but so was Geoff. Another fifteen minutes disappeared into unrecoverable history with eyes glued to the street that ran into pines on the far side of the bridge, waiting to see a squad car come rolling past the treeline. Another twenty passed and still no squad car, still no Geoff. Sick of waiting, David decided to see if he could find any evidence of what he witnessed almost exactly 24 hours before.

The water chilled the air near the bank, enough for David’s arm hairs to unfurl, stand up straight, like a frightened porcupine. He moved to where he thought he’d seen the shadow scuffle, searching the ground for signs of blood or foot prints or shell casings, using all of his best TV crime drama knowledge.

If anything criminal had gone down in the midnight deep, the river had washed away all evidence. David was sort of happy Geoff hadn’t shown up, and hoped he hadn’t even heard his voice mail. He’d obviously embarrassed himself enough the night before; no need to add this little costly piece of police involvement. He turned back, laughing at himself and his drunken hallucinations when he smelled the unique smoke of a clove cigarette. Before he could trail it to a source, he heard a loud pop, and pinch a stab of pain in his left side. Slick, stinking mud stained the knees of his jeans. His hands felt numb, like he’d slept on them for too long. The river and his vision danced red, then white, then dark.

♦♦♦

He heard the beeping first. A whole cacophony of machine generated pings and dings, some high pitched and rhythmic, others low, growly, but random. Despite sending many signals from his brain, his eyelids refused to part, his mouth refused to open, his throat refused to produce sound. He floated, robbed of three of five, only smelling, listening.

David bobbed in the cosmic darkness for what felt like two eternities. He thought he was thinking about things, about philosophy and theology, chatting up Alpha and Omega over a pint of porter, learning all about life before, and after, and now. Voices from across the bar occasionally chimed in with comment, but one stuck in his mind like an echo: “You’re going to be OK.”

Voices outside the bar, muffled voices, some he thought he recognized, others as foreign as a Japanese tourist in Texas, started to become more common. He regained some audibility, mainly in grunts, but enough to signal to the distant disembodied speech that he was there, and should not be ignored.

Eventually Light snuck in, a piercing, awful light, as if he’d just emerged from some dank cave into the brilliance of a Gobi afternoon. Pupils constricted and dappled ceiling tiles formed a landscape, telling David he was lying down, in a building of some kind. A plus. Geoff loomed over him, a huge face hanging like a moon over his bed. “Dave!”

Two weeks later, the grape sized wound near his left kidney had healed sufficiently for David to be discharged. As soon as he was conscious enough to talk, Geoff filled in the hospital-induced blanks. He’d been late to the bridge because the battery on his phone had died, and he hadn’t heard the voice mail. By the time he had arrived, David was already face down near some old tires, blood seeping down into the river like a sanguine tributary. They’d gotten him to the hospital in just enough time to prevent him from bleeding out.

Despite many, many objections from the nurses, doctors, and Geoff himself, despite his near brush with death, David demanded they go out for a celebratory beer. Convincing him like only a best, old friend can, Geoff obliged him. “OK, OK. Just one beer. I guess you deserve it.” At home, David ditched the mint scrubs the doctors had given him since his clothes had been taken as part of the investigation to find the shooter. He threw on a fresh t shirt quickly, already imagining the lager sloshing sultry across his tongue.

He parked his truck and met Geoff by the door. The bar was lively, even for a Friday night, and a group of tipsy college girls were bullying the touch screen on the Karaoke machine. Geoff pulled up a stool, and helped David onto his, worried about disrupting the stitches. David nodded to the bar tender, ordering two ambers, two ruddy wonders poured perfectly into branded shakers. “I think this moment deserves a toast.”

Brew Fiction: Black Friday Rules

November 29, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Unsure of the why but well practiced in the how, Liam pulled the straps on his father’s kevlar vest tight, jostling the back plate to make sure it didn’t move and expose any vulnerable vertebrae near his neck. Reminders of past years nicked and slashed the thick canvas, letting the ballistic plastic below smile through as a dozen plaque-stained grins.

His father shrugged forward to test his gear, twisting and bouncing like a sprinter preparing for the one hundred meter. He pointed to the machete lazing on a stool next to the fire. Liam lifted the blade, watching the flipped images of the flames dance on its polished face, careful not to cut himself on the edge so recently honed to skin slitting sharpness.

It was too much ferocity for a ten-year old, too top heavy, too awkward and inelegant to be an effective weapon. But in his father’s hands, rough steelworker’s hands, it snapped through the air, a cobra striking with steel fangs. After three quick flicks he slid it into the scabbard already mounted on his hip with a satisfying shlink, like a key settling into a lock. “Dad, why do you have to go out?” Liam studied the flames, trying to scry the answer before his father responded.

“We won the tickets this year. I have to go. We’ve been waiting for this chance since your little sister was born.” He sank into the ochre couch as he bent to tie his boots, the tension in the room tightening with each pull of the black laces. Liam swallowed the mix of fear and tears that filled his little body to emotional maximum. “But…last year…”

His father didn’t look up from his boots. “Last year was different. I was just part of the mob. I thought maybe I could…but we don’t have to worry about that this year. I got tickets. I’ll be right up front. I probably won’t even have to use this.” He pet the machete like it was his loyal pet, man’s best metallic friend. The boots tied, he stood up. Where his lanky, underfed father had stood twenty minutes ago, a soldier stood now, a man made for war, ready to face or deal death, whichever came first.

From the window, Brooklyn looked split in two: slowly dying fires twinkled down the shadowy streets of the burrough, while those few who could still afford electricity blared prosperity from the top of the skyline like a decadent halo. Liam thought he could see into those impossibly high windows sometimes, catch a glimpse of the people in colorful clothes watching little men dance across digital screens, look into, however briefly, the life his father promised to bring home for them every November.

“Why can’t you just stay home? Me and Jess don’t need a TV. We’re OK, Dad.” His father stopped adjusting the filter on his gas mask and met the boy’s unblinking stare. “It’s not that easy, Liam. I want to give you the chance you deserve, and to do that, we have to fit in. One scan shows that we have no TV, no computer, and that keeps me from even interviewing for a better job.” He dashed a pile of high gloss ads off the kitchen table, casting a rainbow of sales across the sparsity of the ground-floor apartment.”We need this stuff, and today is the only day I can get it.”

A scream shattered the glass serenity of the night, the last cry of some unlucky soul falling early to the violence in the streets. His father knelt and put a hand on his shoulder. “It won’t be like last year, Liam. I promise. This time I’ll be there right when the meal ends. Right next to all the stuff. I’ve got a plan to get there, my whole route home. We’ve got the gear and I’m more prepared than ever. This year might mean we can move to the tenth floor next year.” He slung the empty sack over his shoulder, trusting the strength of his own bag more than the thin white plastic with the blue and yellow logo.

He moved towards the door, heavy boots marching out a funeral dirge on the wooden floors. “By why, Dad? Why does it have to be this way?”

His father turned around to take one last look at his son before he put his life, and his money, in the hands of the corporate machine. “Because it’s always been this way, son. There isn’t any other way to make it in this life. Those are the Black Friday rules.”

“Thousands they grieve as the Black Friday rule” – Flogging Molly

Brew Fiction: Elysian Dragonstooth Stout

July 19, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Three boys, all dark haired and light hearted, sat cross legged in front of a dwindling fire. Their eyes reflected the glow of the embers like little paper lanterns twice tethered to the earthen floor of the cottage by their still growing bodies. On the stool, a pile of robes and wrinkles and wisdom hunched, shoulders rolled forward, leaning on a piece of gnarled ash as if trying to keep his body from tumbling into the flames.

“Kawakuchi-sensei, tell us another one! Tell us about the dragon!” The smallest boy fidgeted as the other two took turns teasing each other and trying to resurrect the fire.

With much effort, Kawakuchi no Ichiro sat up, coaxing the years out of his spine with several impressive cracks. He tapped his staff on the ground twice. The universal call for silence.

“Many years before you three were born, a dragon lived in the mountains above our village. Naka was his name. He was a runt, some say, an unwanted son of the great seadragon Watatsumi. He was reclusive and few ever saw him, to the point where most locals thought him a myth. He hid in the caves and behind the waterfalls, always fleeing deep into the serpentine caverns of the undermountain when anyone came too near.”

The little lanterns faced forward, wide open, fixated on the storyteller.

“Despite his lack of size he was kind and bold, and wanted nothing more than to make his father proud. He’d watched the great dragon, a torrent of watery power, put out massive forest fires with a flick of his tail, or change the course of rivers to save crops from withering droughts. Naka knew there was greatness in him, and he traveled the land looking to help man like his father before him. But whenever Naka saw a chance to help, witnessed the sad plight of the struggling mortals in the towns and villages, he caused more harm than good.”

Ichiro passed the staff to his other hand and leaned in closer.

“Most men began to fear Naka. He’d accidentally set houses ablaze when trying to help a blacksmith light his forge, or uproot field after field of newly sprouted rice as he beat his scaly wings trying to cool off farmers toiling in the summer sun. His shadow on the ground became a herald for destruction.”

“Eventually he just gave up. Stopped trying to help. Stopped trying to be a dragon who could bring pride to the family. He retreated to the northern mountains and most thought he had died there, forever lost to the snowcaps and drifting mists.”

With both hands on the staff, the old storyteller sighed and sagged, as if the weight of the dragon’s shame was his own.

“Many years passed and Naka faded into legend. The dragons all but disappeared from the land; their majesty forced out by metal and machines, man-made modernity. Men became drunk on their inventions, swollen with hubris, thinking they were better than nature, stronger than the land that had nourished them since the first sunrise.”

“Naka watched from his solitude, watched as the men built and bent the world to their will. A town had grown like a mushroom at the doorstep of his home, and just beyond that a great dam, a wall of stone and wood and steel, stood in the path of the river like a shield in the path of an arrow. It turned the river into a sea; a sea perched atop of mountain.”

The six lanterns bobbed up and down in agreement.

“But one day, Naka noticed commotion in his village. The men ran about and the women cried, holding their babies and praying aloud. Water had begun to spout from the river-wall, and the town was slowly filling like a freshly overturned hourglass. The sea-atop-the-mountain had sat serene long enough; it wanted to be a river again and nothing would stop it, not even the destruction of the town and death of many people.”

“Naka watched as the hole in the grey stone grew bigger. Without thinking of his past, he flew down to the dam, forcing his claws against the hole. The water rushed past his thin fingers. His feet were no better. His flames turned to mist as he tried to seal the hole with heat, drowning the valley in a dense fog.”

The lanterns were now fully alight, flames flickering, betraying their excitement.

“The water would not stop. Out of frustration, refusing to fail again, thinking of his father, Naka sunk his teeth deep into the dam. One tooth, a large curved thing much bigger than a man, slid into the hole. A perfect fit. The mountain-sea stopped its surge and was quiet again.”

“Naka could hear the people cheering below, the reverberations of their shouts an echo of his father’s spirit in the valley. But Naka could not go celebrate with the people. If he removed his tooth, the water would flow again.”

The old story teller trailed off slowly rolling his neck upwards to look at the ceiling. The lanterns blinked and turned to each other. “What happened to Naka?”

“No one really knows. Some say he stayed there, tooth stuck in the dam, until nothing was left but bones. Some say his father saw his sacrifice and turned him into the biggest mountain in the range, a testament to his bravery. Some even say that, with much effort and a roar that could be heard the world over, he sheared the tooth from his mouth and disappeared into the mountains once more.”

The lanterns dimmed, squinting looks of disbelief falling onto the old man. “Well what do you think?”

“We’ll never know.”

He smiled a perfect smile at the boys. Perfect but for the one black spot. A missing tooth.

Brew Fiction: Firestone Walker Double Jack

July 2, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

The flames speak.

Each crack a noun, each snap a verb, each sizzling hiss an adjective. All part of a language no person can comprehend, part of an infinite chain of echoes that has been flaring and dying since that first bolt of lightning kissed the trees in the Earth’s infant years.

Interconnected, but not a hive-mind. Sentient, but not sentimental. Alive, but not quite living.

The flames sing.

They repeat every story ever told to them, mimicking the words and waves that thump out a beat for their endless dance. They absorb and become those stories, fueled by the tales and their troubadours, perpetuating the oral tradition with burning lips.

Every campfire a ghost story. Every grease fire a spitting satire. Every bonfire a Homeric odyssey.

The flames rage.

They’ve seen it all, those eyes in the inferno; the wars of steel, the wars of hearts, the wars of gold and greed. They know our history as it is their own, and lash with red-hot whips against the conflagration of our culture.

Unable to stop us. Unable to tell us. Unable to do anything but burn us if we get too close.

The flames die.

Their energy dissipates, leaving only the light of elder embers and the chants of a slow dirge. The heat leaks, and with it the story, warming the air and ground and soul of the planet, sprouting into new fledgling flames somewhere in the unseen distance.

In every flick then lick of fire or flame a word and idea. In every human eye a reflection of the glow. In us all a burning need to tell.

Brew Fiction: Southern Tier 422 Pale Wheat Ale

June 17, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

The waves never relent. A group of Sanderlings, all grey and brown and white like they are made from the same sand they run on, chase the ebb and flee the flow. Two boys, lathered with lotion and stung with sun, fight over the height of their tiny Tintagel. The high tide washes over my feet, baptizing them in the name of this unchanging summer ritual.

It’s impossible not to notice the surfers, the dots of purple and blue and orange on the horizon appearing and disappearing behind troughs and crests. I watch their practiced patterns: wait, paddle, stand, ride. I admire how they jump up from their knees to their feet, like proud warriors against the waves. I cringe as they fall, face first, into the greenish brine. From the dry safety of my chair I’m with them, balanced as precariously between awake and asleep as they are between surfing and swimming.

As a black wet suit and orange board peaks at the top of a foaming surge, another surfer slides by, thrashing wildly on the stubby East Coast wake, like a shark caught in waters too shallow for comfort. He turns hard, spraying water behind him, before the energy of the wave is spent, and his ride unceremoniously ends. Slapping the water out of frustration, he pulls himself back up onto his board.

I’m sure out there -weightless, bobbing, free – we sand-slugs look silly hunching under umbrellas, sprawling on towels like jerky left to dry in the sun. Out there, in the endless tides, where a dolphin is more than just a fin in the distance, a man can be calm. Out there, where the only focus is feet and wax and waves and wonder.

Out there.

I swear to myself I’ll ride one of these days, feel the spray of salt on my face. I swear I’ll know the freedom and fun of a day on a longboard. I tell myself to just stay positive, to work hard, to take it one day at a time. I tell myself that practice makes perfect and without pain there is no gain.

I call to my assistant. The thin wheels of my chair are stuck in the wet sand. This happens every summer, when I demand time at the beach, and then demand I wheel myself to a ramp, off the boardwalk, into the sand, down to the water.

I tell myself that soon I’ll be unstuck. I won’t need an assistant to wheel me back to the van. Soon I’ll be able to feel that water washing over my feet, feel the sand burn my soles. Soon I’ll have an orange board and a black wet suit of my own. Soon it will be the power of the wave carrying me forward, not the power of my arms.

Soon I’ll be out there.

Brew Fiction: Victory Golden Monkey Tripel

May 31, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

Down a lamp-light powdered side street, behind a few green dumpsters that inter the remains of the day’s business, in the biggest city that is nearest to you, there exists a door.

This door, sometimes red, sometimes blue, often black, a wooden masterwork planed and scraped to make a perfect portal, opens into a store.

And in this store, this no-named emporium packed to wooden-beamed ceiling with otherworldly junk, with its exposed, spiderwebbed brickwork and sweet smell of lingering sandalwood, there hunches a man.

This man will have no decipherable name but will be Ukrainian or Brazilian or British or Taiwanese, bubbling with the eccentricity of a soul that has been long fermenting, an accent painting his every foreign word as he points you towards the monkey.

The golden statue will be tucked away, as if trying to hide, in a cluttered corner where it sits regally on a throne of worm-eaten Plutarch, Ovid, and Plato, three arms preventing seeing, speaking, and hearing, and a fourth beckoning you closer.

The precious metal of the thing will glisten in the candlelight dancing from the mismatched chandeliers, as if pulsating with temptation, fat belly growing large and then deflating as the light deflects and reflects off the polished sphere. And then, without knowing why, without conscious choice, you’ll place your hand on that belly, like a mother communing with her unborn child, hand to womb, creator to creation.

In a flash you’ll be ripped from that store and blasted into worlds unknown, bounced around unimaginably distant cosmos, slammed soul-first into infinity. In that single, transcendent moment you’ll see all you were and all you are and all you will be. The world you knew will seem impossibly simple, your thinking impossibly thin. The moment will flood your mind like a Nile of possibility and potential during inundation, and you will drown in the swirling sinkhole of nothing and everything.

You’ll re-enter back in the store, your hand peeled back from the statue in panic as wisps of steam waft heavenward from your trembling fingers. The man’s pleasure will echo through and haunt the store, deep belly-laughs coming for everywhere at once, his words finally congealing into something understandable: “Take it. Take it now.”

And the statue will want to be taken, tipping forward from its librarian perch, falling against your chest in an awkward lover’s embrace.

But no, the memory of your future will still be too new, still be a squirming idea-grub in your brain, and in fear of knowing too much, you’ll shove the statue back, hard, into the mess of old goblets and chairs and assorted obscura. As you run and stumble past the antique furniture, past the man, through the door, out of the store, into the alley, back to your home, laughter, part man, part monkey, will resound through the squishy innards of your skull.

You’ll sleep well that night, but you’ll dream.

And you’ll awaken to pounding regret, a headache of what-ifs, body and spirit wracked with a deep mourning of what could have been. In a flurry you’ll scurry through the urban blocks, trying to find that door, that store, that metallic god whose gift you turned down. But your footsteps will find no alley to turn down, no lamp-light powdered side street, no connection to that moment of glory that was so close to being yours.

And you’ll spend your life searching for that place, that time, that chance, sometimes hearing the echo of laughter or seeing a glint of gold. Sometimes hoping you’ll turn and see a red or blue or black door slightly ajar, hoping to catch a subtle whiff of Nag Champa, hoping to this time to run towards the opportunity with joy, not away from it in fear.

“One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.” -Benjamin Disraeli

Brew Fiction: Dogfish Head Sixty-One

May 22, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

The cheer rose to crescendo, hovering in the rarefied air just below the mineralized fibers of the dropped-ceiling tiles, and held there, floating in the blueish glow of muted florescence for a single, glorious second before falling back down to polished wood of the twelve parallel lanes. The other eleven had fallen idle as all attention crowded on Lane 9, where Costello had just sent his purple and green swirled 15-pounder sliding towards the brave pins standing like a perfect set of post-orthodontic teeth, sixty feet away.

The ball hooked hard right then scurried left, spinning in a way that seemed to give the middle finger to the laws of physics, crashing into the gap in the front teeth, sending them scattering into the gutters and each other. The ten-pin, a stubborn molar, wobbled drunkenly, unsure whether he’d fall or stand, collapse or correct. The echo of that last tooth dropping filled every bit of free space in Waterford Lanes. Rumor had it you could even hear the sound of the plastic-on-wood clattering and reverberating in the stalls of the men’s bathroom.

And as soon as it was officially down, and the judges deemed no toe had crossed fault line, and no other bowling etiquette or technicalities stood in the way, the screens flashed like two dozen malfunctioning robots, displaying over and over and over again: 300! The same cheer that had collectively burst from Costello’s fans as he hit that eleventh strike, exploded anew, part scream, part yell, part singing celebration of something that is as statistically unlikely as a rookie golfer sinking a hole-in-one on a par 3.

He stood and stared at the robotic arm sweeping away the corpses of the pins, aware but unbelieving, having courted the high 200s for years and years, thinking perfection was impossible. He cracked his knuckles and turned around to face the little boy in an over-sized shirt that matched his. The boy looked at him like a mortal upon a god, eyes glistening with pride, ears covered by his tiny hands to muffle the deafening exuberation all around him. He threw his eight-year old arms as high around Costello’s legs as they’d go, hugging him with the same zeal as a he’d squeeze a new stuffed bear just to show how much he loves it.

Whistles shot from the back of the crowd and a slow chant started, Costello’s surname rhythmically pumping with the pulse of the alley, like his legend, his perfect game, were now part of the beams and dirt and concrete that gave the alley a form. Old Arkansas, the portly and pleasant owner, came and dropped a tall domestic in his hand. “Ya finally did it you son of a bitch!”

Costello winced and then smiled. “Hey, hey now. Not in front of the kid.” He rustled the mop of blonde hair that was still firmly attached to his legs. He’d done a good job, he reassured himself. The boy, despite his lack of understanding about anything parental, was doing alright. Sure he was a load or four of laundry and a trip to Hair Cuttery away from being truly presentable. But overall, given the emotional toll of the unexpected and unwelcomed, he was growing up strong and smart.

It took a solid hour for the line of congratulants to clear out, each one wanting to shake the hand of the first man to toss a 300 in this place since Chuck Werner did it in ’66. The mob of after-party had dwindled into a few stragglers too drunk to drive, but the energy still buzzed in the air, as real as the Alan Jackson tunes that floated lazily from the dated speakers mounted in the walls. Costello sat with the boy, slowly drinking his beer, letting the silky bubbles roll around his tongue and slide between his teeth before finally swallowing. It was late, even for him, and the little eyes on the little face next to him kept popping open and then slowly closing, defiantly trying to stay awake and hang with the grow-ups.

Midnight chimed it’s inevitable arrival. Costello knew the days of hanging in the alley with Jessica or Cathy or Angela until 3:00 A.M. were over, so he finished his beer and tried to pay Arkansas, who promptly refused. “You kiddin’? That game of yours made me a bundle tonight. Least I can do is give you a beer or two on the house.” He picked up the empties and nodded toward the boy, now curled in the fetal position on the orange plastic chair. “Best get him home and in bed.” Costello scooped up the crumbled sleeping mess of boy, slinging him over his shoulder like an human-shaped sack, careful not to hit his head on the door frame as he carried him out to the parking lot.

As Costello settled the boy into the back seat of the black and rust colored Silverado, he whispered, sleep blanketing his tiny voice, eyes still closed, “Luke, will you teach me how to be a bowling hero?”

♦♦♦♦♦

The bowling alley was as old as the town hall, and featured just as prominently; the thirty-foot Art Deco sign could be seen from almost anywhere in the town. One advantage for advertisers and billboard enthusiasts on Maryland’s east coast: no hills. In the low, stinging sun of morning the alley’s age showed in wrinkles of peeling mint-green paint and growing gaps in the grain of the wooden siding. He stood for a moment in the shadow of the massive sign before looking down at his nephew. “OK Kyle; bowling time! Let’s find you a good, 8 pound ball.”

It took Arkansas nearly fifteen minutes to dig up a pair of kids size 3 bowling shoes, but the lack of wear and scuffs made them perfect for Kyle, like they’d been on reserve for him alone, waiting for him to discover his tokens of destiny and take up shoe and ball like Theseus took up sandals and sword.

Kyle demanded to tie the shoes himself. While he fumbled with the laces and tied about a dozen knots in each, Arkansas pointed behind them both to the new, shiny addition on the wood paneled wall near the entrance. There, next to Werner’s huge sixties mustache and amber tinted glasses, hung a little picture of Costello, right arm up in the air, a candid shot of him as he released the ball for the final strike. The little gold plaque read simply, ‘Luke Costello – Perfect Game – June 1, 1998.’ Arkansas had wasted no time getting that award engraved and mounted, as proud of the achievement and the man as he was happy that it happened in his alley.

“You ready?” Kyle was already on his feet, awkwardly stomping around with the wooden heels of the shoes, showing off how well he’d adhered them to his feet. He wore his over-sized bowling shirt again, nearly refusing to take it off since the victory three nights ago, and looked equal parts absurd and adorable with the line of buttons on the front hanging just below his knees. Costello made him tuck it in; the last thing he needed was for the kid to trip and bust his lip on the slippery wood and carpet. God knows what kind of stuff was growing between the gums stains.

In his typical fashion, Kyle refused to have the bumpers raised and refused to use the chrome-plated ramp-assist, arguing with Costello that he could easily get the ball to the end of the lane, easily get a strike, if he really wanted to and tried. When Kyle became so defiant, so self-empowered and bold, he could see in the boy some of his father, the father before the accident, before the diminishing power of a motionless year in a hospital bed, before his youth and energy had all but drained into the dozens of bags of fluid and blood that collected and dripped in perpetuity.

And when he ran up to that foul-line, stopping just short to let the ball glide out of his hands with inborn grace, short arms guiding the ball skillfully even though no one taught him how, overly long blond hair twirling like the bottom of a loose summer skirt, he could see in the boy some of his mother. The ballerina, the prom queen, the girl so much better than this nothing town, the one going places, so in love with life that even her failures were enviable. The girl he’d loved just as much as his brother had, whose hand he’d held as her soul left that broken body, unable to take anymore of this world.

The ball moved well, but the slick of the polish got under it at the last minute, and Kyle’s attempt only managed to clip the seven pin. He slammed one foot down angrily. “What did I do wrong!?” Costello stepped up behind him, showing him how he’d released the ball too soon, and how that had caused the trajectory of the ball to change dramatically. He held his arm, one hand on his elbow, the other on his wrist, and swung it for him, stopping it in the air where he should release the ball. Kyle’s next throw knocked down eight pins.

Costello let him practice using his frames, not counting those towards his total, knowing Arkansas would give them as many free games as they wanted until the buzz of the perfect game and minor celebrity wore off. He sat and watched Kyle, throw after throw after throw, thinking about how he’d never expected to have this much responsibility. Thinking about how in the vast cosmic swirl of unfair circumstance, he’d become a father because of a rainstorm, had his life injected with sudden parenthood because of a poorly maintained patch of country road and a violent collision of tree and steel.

Kyle threw the last frame, finishing in a huff of disappointment, his ball hitting two pins before disappearing into the black abyss behind the lane. He looked straight forward, and cracked his knuckles, or tried to, like he’d seen Costello do at the end of a game. His confidence morphed into a huge frown as he looked up at the monitor to see his score. “I didn’t even get 100.”

“Well would you look at that” Luke playfully poked Kyle in his side, trying to elicit a laugh and a smile. “The first game I ever bowled was a 61, too.”

Beer Review: Dogfish Head Noble Rot

April 19, 2013 · by Oliver Gray

The Earth’s breath swept through the stones as long interred guests howled in disapproval of our gathering. It was a late winter 8 A.M., everything floating in lifeless grey, nothing bragging about the joy of life except for a few bouquets of violet anemones that were propped up next to a sign that read, plainly, “Matthew Leonard Cole.” Leafless skeletal hands reached into the ashen cloud-cover, like some mischievous undertaker had come in the night and flipped all the trees upside down.

Roots above, blossoms below.

The priest, a stranger to us but not this town, stood stoically in his freshly dry-cleaned robes, performing his never ending duty with that bible like Sisyphus with that rock. A red silk bookmark hung from the pages of the holy text, tongue wagging in the winter wind, holding a place of reminder, of memory, of last rites.

Well practiced but unfamiliar, the priest stumbled through an exaltation of Matthew’s life: his myriad but inconsistent successes, his tragically short but intense relationships, the nothing and something and everything he left behind. He did the best he could, having received the scribbled pages of notes from friends and family only hours before, to make Matthew seem like a person who would be missed after this small crowd dispersed.

The priest read and read – those canon phrases buried in Pslam; valleys and walking and shadows and death – monotone to match the grey, somber to match the cold.

My mind wandered, drunk on loss and beer from the night before, and I had a hard time understanding the religion that filled my ears. His words seemed familiar, like I’d heard them before, like I knew their shape and structure, but it felt like I was listening to someone try to explain a complex idea in a language I didn’t know. Or at the very least couldn’t remember.

The few people who had shown I knew through Matt or Matt knew through me – a conclave of our combined social lives. Some had come far unexpectedly, others had come short, full well expecting. They hunched, coats like clerical robes covering sadness, the morning mist gathering on then rolling off waterproof fabric like tears. I counted nine. Nine to remember twenty seven. One for every three years.

Finally, the priest stopped communing and looked at me.

“I believe Katherine has a few words to say.”

I had hoped he’d forgotten, that the idea of this eulogy had slipped away in the midst of the verses, had been carried off by the holy spirit. I fumbled in my pocket for a square of white, my memories of Matt condensed into eight point five by eleven. I unfolded it carefully, reminding myself that he would be doing this for me were roles opposite; were I horizontal and he vertical.

I stared down at the crease in the sheet, one line a little longer than the other, meeting perfectly in the middle.

“Matt asked me to speak for him, but I’m worried that I can’t. I only knew him as a sister and a poor one at that. Many of you – his friends, cell-mates, fellow-trouble makers – might have known him better. But because I share blood, the responsibility falls to me to remember how he was and who he was, when he was.”

The Times New Roman on the paper blurred, deformed and refracted through the water in my eyes. I said I wouldn’t. Didn’t think I could. I folded the paper along the cross and put it away.

“I had prepared something, but it won’t do. It’s too sterile, too formal. Matt isn’t an anecdote, isn’t a punch line to some bad gallows humor. Well he wasn’t, at least.”

Several that had been staring down at the coffin looked up to me now.

“Death baffles me. What does it mean to go away? To disappear from the places you used to be? To leave a house, a car, a life that is full of your things but is empty of you? If our words still appear on paper, if our voices still echo in memory, do we ever really leave? I think Matt is still with me, still in the spaces around me, in all that air that we think is nothing, in the poems and photographs, still lingering like an eternal radio transmission.”

The wind threw a left hook, a massive gust that toppled the sign with Matt’s name, blew the purple blossoms across the graveyard’s tombstone teeth. A few errant strands of blond whipped across and stung my face, self-flagellation for a sister who’d in recent years misplaced her piety.

“And when we go, does our dignity flee? Does it run from this life, this planet, like a scared child in the face of a pillaging army? Or does it persist, angry that it has been dethroned by something as inevitable as death? The Egyptians buried their dead with gold and jewels and all those beautiful things that defined worth and value. I’d like to think we bury Matt today with all the love and spirit he brought to the world. I’d like to think we bury him beautifully, bury him with all kinds of otherworldly riches…

…but I wonder. Death equalizes and strips. The body decays even when encased in gold. Is it possible for a corpse to be regal? Is it possible to nobly rot?”

“Western funerals: black hearses, and black horses, and fast-fading flowers. Why should black be the colour of death? Why not the colours of a sunset?”
― Daniele Varè

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