Some unnameable juice.
- joneworlds@mailbox.org

My old  dad knew some  things.  Not so  much about
any one  thing, but he  could take the  measure of
whatever came.   If you brought  something broken,
or someone's  name, or what you  heard, you'd know
he'd have a place for  it.  Not the details, but a
slot.  He'd  move through  this world  grounded in
what he knew.  And enough  bones to hang and carry
whatever he found.   Most of the old  folks I knew
was like that.

And I wonder now, what he'd  make of what I got to
steer through now.

I  have   this  early   memory,  of  when   I  was
small. Back then there was  barely any of the Olds
come in yet, although  they was something he could
reckon with.  But this one  day, I go to fetch dad
to come around.  I'd found one of his dogs dead on
the  lower field,  just laying  there in  the dust
with the  flies, its head  about all gone.   We go
along the fence and  find this jelly lump creature
about two  foot long,  heaving along  and trailing
blood behind.  So my dad puts a boot on it, and it
bursts  out this  blue-colored  bile  as it  dies.
It's  running down  that  wind-parched dirt,  some
unnameable juice,  but it don't run  like blood or
anything, it pulses with  a rhythm.  Like it's its
own thing.  Never saw nothing like it.

And I  looked to  my dad, and  he's staring  at it
too.  But  it's like a  piece of him  was missing,
like  he's  not  firing  right,  like  something's
wrong.  Ain't  saying nothing.  And I'm  small and
scared by  that look, so  I ask him, what  was it,
dad?   Like he'd  be back  okay again,  if I  just
nudged  him  some.   He  turned to  me  with  this
confused look, and what I judge by now to be fear,
but all held down with a kind of sadness I'd never
saw before.   Like he'd been beat,  outclassed, or
like something deep inside him just got brought up
and  put out  in front  of him.  Mumbled something
about having  no name.  Went and  buried it, never
talked about it again.  I'd  never saw my dad like
that, but  he wasn't the same  man afterwards.  Or
maybe that's just the way it seemed, to a child.

He never had  no slot for something  like that, or
of those to come.  Never would. By now I'm so used
to  skating around  not knowing  what's going  on,
just accepting  and shrugging and getting  by.  It
don't barely phase me.  But I don't think dad ever
could do that.   He'd turn away, turn  in.  But it
must've  been hard  for  him.  Or  maybe he's  the
wiser.