“Summer is Coming.”
As he leaned against the fence, he turned his face toward the setting sun and felt its heat on his skin. After sweating all day in its unrelenting presence, he now welcomed its touch. The sensation made him feel alive. Squinting, he looked past the sun and clouds to another time, another space, another world.
“Yea”, came the slow reply from his partner. He was squating next to him. His black, flat rimmed, bullrider’s hat hiding his head and most of his shoulders. His jeans, dusty from the day’s work, tucked into his boots.
“What are you going to do?”
“Get a drink.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“Are you talkin’ ta me or to you?”
“Don’t know.” His face was still turned toward the sun as if the answers lied beyond the rays. “You should go. You could make it.”
“Yea…right. I never had it; I know that…besides *I’m* happy here”, the partner replied, still squating in the dirt, implying that only one of them were happy, “and that’s probably why I was never good enough. You talking to me or you.” It came as a statement, not a question. The partner stretched to his full height, knocking the dust from his gloves, looked at the sun, and shook his head. Tipped his hat against the setting sun and walked to the back of the pickup.
“I hate this place…ever think our lives got switched?”
“No. My life’s fine.”
“Summer’s coming.”
“Again.”
—
(April 1997)
A Conversation Between Two Good Friends is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Dubious Goals 