Greg Mulcahy
1.
Lumber Bob and Dutch drinking in the parking lot beside the graveyard.
Hey Dutch, remember all those great data-driven decisions we were going to make?
Dutch insisted his name or sobriquet was Dutch Shultz.
Lumber knew it was really Ditch Sliener.
Or Dieter. Something.
We needn't, Dutch said, share our secret shame.
And wake, Lumber said, from our dream collective?
Vodka plastic and not a brandy in years.
Difference between fog and mist.
Degree?
Sure. Fire. Or its lack.
A cracked bell fell from the sky.
2.
Some imploring talk of life.
Dutch would have none of it.
No enthusiasm, please, yet enthusiasm was the business.
The sign said so.
How about a dream sequence, Lumber Bob said.
I thought, Dutch said, our dream was dead.
Who could remember?
They put up a flag.
3.
Felt like he had been demoted though he had not.
What was he supposed to do, put a flag up over his garage?
Find a forum and declaim his demoted feeling?
It was not as though he could go drink malt liquor in the parking lot beside the cemetery with whatever Lumber Bob or Dutch Schultz he might meet there.
At one time, yes.
Now his status prohibited it.
As status had its price.
The price of him.
Eagle flew overhead.