| T E R R Y S P O H N | the postcard |
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In the only postcard we have from Dos Hermanas there is a blue sky, a parking lot, an adobe trading post somewhere in a high desert. There is a beer sign in the window. Inside, in the dark, later that night, sad music from the juke box, and someone who wants to take back everything he ever said-to her, to the boy, even to the bosses, every last one of them. Later, a new woman comes in off the highway with a bruised wrist, a hundred cigarettes.
Still later, cowboy boots, a torn shirt. Always, the bartender's cloth running on the bar, circling. Eyes like ruined luggage, hands cracked. Someone who wants to take it all back sucks it through cigarettes, holds it, keeps it near where it waits in that moist forest inside for whoever else will come down the path. Behind the trading post, on the back of the card, written in pencil: "Halfway there. Murphy got sick in Nagadoches, threw up all over the back seat. Had to sell the car. I'll call soon. Pack your things." | |
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