A funeraldeath of absentfamily, a feudopen, a casketcase, but before that, a young man, pleased in his strength, called talented by some, blinked, no longer young, self-shoved west from Baltimore to Bakersfield, a wife, a second wife, a child by her who hated him, the second gone soon enough too, roistered there for nearly twenty years, kept thinking of a third, hoping, fumfering when not, presenting the case to whoever he met, in bars, in church, in the yellow-fronted brick that was the city bus, never got a buy-in, grew lonelier, weaker, louder and then quieter, climbed to a hilltop a block from his house, expired bathed in northern light.
©2020 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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