I don’t rightly know what’s going on but it might be I need some real sleep. Like sleep that I know is sleep, like knock myself out with something and wake up and then I’ll know I’m awake for real and I can start fresh like wiping off a blackboard. I need to get myself shit drunk. I quick walk to the cupboard beside the sink and dig around inside for my coffee can stash and I snag that Folgers and pry off the top and dig around a bit until I feel that cold hard cash and I snags it all up like a fisherman what with my graspin’ fingers and I count it out. I count $18, then $23, then $19 and I give up because that’s good enough I expect and I shove the bills into my boot and head on out the door.

Maybe I leave the door open and maybe I lock it tight but it doesn’t matter. I hustle down the street right the fuck by the shed and I’m proud because I don’t even glance in its direction at all, even when I thought I heard the shed door open. Just walked on by is what I did because I don’t have a care in the world. I walk for what seems like a really good long while but that could be on account of me only walking from my kitchen to my chair from time to time so I kind of lost how far things are supposed to be from each other.

I get to catching’ the sights and pretty soon I get to the store that I remember having liquor at and I go inside the whooshing doors that kind of startle me because I forgot they can do that, you know, go sideways open and I go up big as Billy be damned to what looks to be the person in charge and I take off my boot and grasp the sweaty coffee bills and thrust them all into his hand and I put my boot back on and tramp over to what looks like some bottles and I look at the man in charge and I point to one and he looks at the bills and shakes his head. So, I point at another one and he shakes his head again and I point at another one and he nods this time and I take the bottle and he takes one of the cashes off of the wad and I think he wanted me to take it, but why would he be paying me? Did he want to buy the bottle back?

I fast walked out of there quick before he could get it back and change his mind because I needed this brain restarter fluid. I need the whole thing. Not just a little. So, I get out of there and mosey back the way I thought I came since there was only two ways to go outside of the store and I walk and walk and skip sometimes because I saw someone do that once and it was a little faster than walking I guess but it gave me an upset stomach so I stopped pretty soon. I got to looking all around to catch the sights a little bit and I saw a black bird fly away with a baby rabbit in its beak, squealing, and I didn’t know they could do that and I saw the momma rabbit in the bushes probably waiting for the bird to bring back her baby. I saw some cracks in the sidewalk that looked like broken glass and a grey dog ran into an alleyway and didn’t come back out.

I keep walking and I still don’t recognize where I am but I don’t know how long I’ve been walking for and I don’t remember how long it took me to get the booze so I keep on walking and I get tired. I take a seat on an old tire behind an abandoned building for a little rest and I figure now’s a good a time as any to start swiggin’ on this bottle since I’m not walking anymore and I’m probably pretty close to getting home anyway so this’ll give me a head start so I can get home and pass out straightaway.

I get to swigging and passing the time and resting real good and I start to get warmed up all right to the point that the tire I’m sitting in starts to feel pretty damn comfortable and I start to get into the rhythm of the thing and pretty soon I look up and it’s dark and I look down and the bottle is drank up and a big tired gets on me and I slump some into the tire and my eyes get all droopy and I close one and the other over again to see the different views and I kind of lose track doing seeing that way and I feel pretty warm and good in this time.

I wake up and my heart is thumping and my eyes feel all dry like someone put sawdust in them and my back is all sore and I look around and I don’t know where I am any more but I know it’s still dark and I cough a bit and the cough doesn’t sound like it should because it kind of bounces back at me. Not like it does inside my place or outside or anything because it doesn’t just go out and not come back or stay right with me the way it does outside or in my place with carpets. It bounces right back at me like I’m in a little place without anything to take the sound. I cough a little more to test it out like and I’m like a bat I guess ‘cause I can tell I’m in something small without no carpet ‘cause the sound comes back all sharp and I can almost feel how sharp it comes back to me. I reach out and touch a wall, and I reach out and touch another wall and I’m on my side so I lay on my back and I look around a little bit and close to me but upward I see a faint blue light, like the light does when the sun is far down but is thinking about coming up and I gaze at this light for a bit and I heave myself to sitting and I see that the light is square. I heave up some more and I get closer and see that the square blue light is some kind of a window and I get up all the way and put my fingers on the sill and gaze out and see my apartment and the bushes outside of it and the street in front. Why I ain’t looking at everything from inside it. I belong looking from inside it and I keep looking and see that my swooshing curtains are open. MY swooshing curtains and a light is on inside. MY light. I see the shadows of my sittin’ chair and my sittin’ chair looks bigger somehow. Like bulkier than it oughta. My chair is like a kitchen chair with a wood seat and has the boards in the back for leaning on but I can’t see through the boards like I should be able to, and the light is blocked by something sos I can’t get a proper look at the chair. So, I watch and now I can see something blocking the light and It’s moving now and then the light inside winks out and my place goes dark.

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I’m in the shed now.

It’s too early. I’m not ready for this shed. I been watching it too too long and I never wanted in. I never wanted to see the man in the shed close and oh Lord was that man in my place right now? Was that man headed to the shed now? He catch sight of my fingers and eyes peeping out the shed window like I seen him do before and he going to come to the shed now? I can’t do this. I can’t do that now, am I the man in the shed now? He watchin’ me and the T.V. work out show on for him now? He packing the lunch to go out tomorrow now to almost check out the shed? I get feeling like I'm trapped, like covered in wet pillows and blankets, soft and trapped in this shed on a fake lot with someone watching me and oh Jesus I need to go, I need to get out.

I stumble around in a panic looking for something I can latch my fingers on and open this world into the place I’m supposed to be. Outside in a tire. Outside here and inside my place where there’s peanut butter and water out of the tap and some pillows. I drag my nails on the rough walls looking for a metal piece I can jiggle with my fingers so I can get on out and I feel around and around and remember when my Daddy took me out camping in a big ‘ol green canvas tent with a big zipper on the front and me waking in the middle of the night needing to pee but my hand went round and round the place and I never found a way out and I never found it. I never did. My Daddy did hit on me good when he found the puddle next to the backpacks and me sleeping in the middle of the floor for lack of finding my way back to my sleeping place, and after the whuppin’ he packed it in silence and we went home after that.

I sobbed and reached everywhere I knew how to and I ain’t find nothing to grab. No way out. I stumbled round and round real fast even. I tripped on my boots and landed on the floor and my face touched it and on my cheek something was metal and cold. Round and cold. I lay still for a while caressing that round cold metal and it kind of clanked around loose like and I grasp’d it and it lifted some. Oh but I shore don’t want it to go this way. I don’t want out this way deeper. I ain’t want in this shed nohow and I ain’t want further in. I lay sniffing in the dark, running my finger over the metal and breathing from time to time and I hear something stepping outside and oh Daddy, don’t make me go in there. Don’t make me get in there. I don’t care if there ain’t no spiders like what you say or like Momma needs those can tomatoes to make the dinner. I can’t go. Can’t go inside and Daddy is hitting on me with his belt and the stepping gets closer from outside and I fumble a bit and pull a bit at the metal and I feel it coming up and I pull is up and I don’t want to. I don’t want it to work but the steps get closer and I do it anyway. Up it goes and a sweet smell blows out from it and I see dark on dark and it’s all the way up now and the clacking comes from a wall that’s the door and I go down into the dark and I close the hatch and it’s more dark. So dark I can hear the ringing in my ears and see bright flashes of light around my eyes.

Daddy tells me now to watch well as I’m in this hole inside the shed and I watch but it’s like the deer again this time only I’m the deer but I stay still and I hear a clank and a door shutting and the light comes on from around the rectangle around the door I’m inside and I hear clomping and sitting and wandering and I am quiet like what Daddy is showing me. I want to get away further inside like the deer in the bramble and I want to fly like the cat under our house but I hunker instead and I can’t help but listen to what’s above me and I hear creaking and crouching right above me and I hold my breath like what Daddy showed me how once.

Showin' Him How

“Hold your fukkin’ breath by fuck! This ain’t nothing I’m fooling around about and you go the fuck down there and dig up that mess inside that fukkin’ pipe! We ain’t paying for no one to comes out here to clean it for us and how we know we can trust them?" Daddy rubs his hands through his sweaty hair and over his scratchy face and we’s doing the outside school today only this time, it’s inside a big round tube under the ground what we dug up over two days. Daddy says “we can’t flush without this here” and “someone plugged up the pipes” and “God fuck it!”

He drinks from his brown bottle and sloshes it around and aims a kick at my head for not unplugging fast enough with my little enough hand and it’s going to have to be me to do it or nobody else and he heaves a kick at a rock nearby and shouts “get yore fuckin’ hand in that hole, boy! Get it right in! Hold your breath for like a good long while and you should be able to for longer than ten seconds! I seen divers go for at least 20 minutes or probably longer! You're younger and have more lungs or something! Get you down there for longer elsewise I’ll have to dunk you with my foot! I’m not waiting around for longer!" And I hold my breath...

And I hold my breath and the creaking stops above and holds for a good long while and I know I can hold for longer because I’m OK with going away after holding for so long. Daddy can always pull me out in time, and I start to go over like I done before and I don’t mind so much since after the black feeling comes the good feeling and I want to stay in it like always, but the creaking shifts and moves to a corner I expect and above me goes quiet and I breath, although I don’t want to or need to.