More Than Gears Shift

Selfish of me. But despair and grief flow like blood. They flow through my veins and spill out onto the floor.

It’s local. Should that matter? He went to my kids’ high school. The names would probably be familiar if I knew more high school kids. An indifferent student, popular enough, goofy no doubt. Same wry smile as my son’s. If you cut my son’s hair and put him in that hat and told me it was him, I’d almost buy it.

He called his mother on Mother’s Day. He sent her a present, and he died.

My son turns eighteen in fifteen days. He plans to go to college and pursue music and general ed. But he also wants to get the hell out of town and keeps saying an Army recruiter will be calling. I keep saying, hey, go down to San Francisco, hang out a few days; or go to junior college down there, what the hell. Yes, move or stay, whatever works for you. Army? You’ll hate it.

I think he hears me. He wants to learn Italian and how to sing. For his senior project review yesterday, he sang an aria from Don Giovanni.

I don’t know what Alejandro did for his. My wife is on the review panel today. Maybe she will meet people who remember.

Out across the floor, red and dark, it seeps into the carpet, and it probably won’t come out.