seventeen

#ninetyeight

Jinnings and I had two options.

That’s not a metaphor. That’s Catawba County, nineteen-and-ninety-eight—

the way the ol’ timers used to say it,

like the year had weight enough to need a rest in the middle.

NAFTA took the mills and left the buildings standing

just to make sure we understood what gone looked like.

Two options remained:

bars with iron doors

or following the shell of a man in a pressed uniform with a pen and smile.

Educated devils, blue and red.

Even at seventeen, the math wasn’t hard.

the lapis Dodge,

engine knocking like it owed somebody an apology

an apology, it would never get around to.

I’d never been to a Cracker Barrel.

The rocking chairs, the porch, before you even get to the door—

like the building itself was trying to convince you

it already knew you,

had been waiting,

had saved you a seat.

Inside smelled like syrup and cedar and something else

I didn’t have a name for then.

Dark brown table.

Laminated menu with photographs of food I had seen advertised but never ordered.

Try the hashbrowns, Sarge suggested.

I kept hoping Jinnings would walk in.

But he couldn’t. The river runs through it.

I tried the hashbrowns.

He called me son pretending to know (me)

The specific freedom of a boy with no options

being handed the illusion of one.

and told not to look it in the mouth.

I signed before my plate was cleared.

The ghosts didn’t come later.

They arrived in the ink.

Red clay in the knees of work pants—

wash it, wear it again,

comes back stained, darker.

Chico made it through the fire.

Before he didn’t.

I carry his name the way you carry a stone

from the place a thing happened.

Be all you can be.

I should’ve said: I already am.

I know it now the way you know cold

once it’s been inside of your bones—

not as reality

but climate.

The empty mills.

The lapis Dodge.

The rocking chairs.

The knocking block.

The hashbrowns.

A table. A pen.

Nineteen-and-ninety-eight.

Two doors.

Two boys.

Seventeen.

Ink on Bone · jackstallings.com