Trip to Joshua Tree, Life Drawing, & Engagement

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Merridawn Duckler

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Trip to Joshua Tree

Rocks pile up like slabs of clay in a beginner pottery class. We cut them with a wire, my favorite
part. I didn’t care about vessels then. I just wanted to part clay. Humming the U2 album. “Where the Streets have No Name” “I Can’t Always Find what I’m Looking For” men make whole careers from lacking any sense of direction. Wade into the empty ocean. At that juniper bush the size of a food truck, what looks like shade but is really ten thousand dark berries fork either left or right. Trudge under a rare pure silent blue sky scanning the still formations; ice cold in the crevices, nothing will warm that. Or maybe tea will. Go ahead. Buy the world a porcelain cup. Wire vein thin could divide your heart at any moment. Get a place here. Get a place anywhere.

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Life Drawing

He waits outside and then comes in and you want a drink? Would you feel more comfortable with someone else here? Cause ordinarily it’s a whole class. Maybe he’d feel more comfortable with someone else here. I could care less. That means just the opposite Mon says. She knows about the gig. She’s in the D’s below in case it goes crunchy. I sent her a pic. Empty room and a bowl of fruit. Big windows. Brown on the banana. He said I look intelligent. Cool. Paint my face then wouldya. Yeah, right. Robe drops and me in all my glory. I couldn’t care less. First, I sit on the chair. Couch. Then two chairs. Rug. I get it—he needs to move me around like furniture. Finally, we find something. He says sorry no talk. Now I figure out where my eyes go. Pretend he’s my mutt, embarrassed by my looks of love. Time marches on. There’s a heater but my cheeks are freezing. He throws a blanket over the easel (not me) and lights up. He’s younger than he looks. Got sweat marks underarm. I pull off the blanket and it’s a line of what I might become. Wow. How long you take? Six months sometimes. Nine. A year. I barely had a relationship last that long. Yeah, he says, me either. What do you like marry them? Sometimes. First time he ever smiles. I’m not spending a year on this like this, I say. He says do tell. I mean, I gotta have a say. That’s me. I hear Moni’s texts coming fast and furious. I gotta be all in or I’m out. I could tell that about you he says. That’s the part I fear. That’s why I do this at all.

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Engagement

Every night my brothers fight each other. It starts at that time after evening closes the curtains of the sky but before the unconscious takes the stage. They put their plates in the dishwasher, and hoist themselves up into the attic, large and long with stacked boxes of old costumes. Our parents are actors who leave most nights for rehearsals. I sit down on the floor, cold as a pop. I think of a word like crawlspace and concentrate on it to keep quiet so I’m almost invisible. They haul out lights and put up the ring. One brother, Gordon secures the ropes while the other brother, Eric makes sure the spacing is correct. I put my money down on the saucer with the G or the saucer with the E. This is lunch money I save by skipping lunch one day a week. I’m silent about what factors go into my decision but I never change it. Gordon pulls off his shirt, a knit stiped one. He’s nerdy but his body has strong muscles and he’s trim. Eric wears a white or pale blue button-down. He has a white tee underneath and leaves that on. He is also pretty nerdy and softer around the belly but his moves are fast. Gordon makes warrior faces, his teeth bared. Eric rises up and down on the balls of his feet, forming fists and letting them go. They take their stance and either Eric or Gordon sounds the bell. The battle begins. They punch the air around each other’s head, they sweep kick and the dust makes devils. They grunt with effort. Sometimes they’ll stop, hands at parry, and listen to see if our parents have come home early. The air smells of sweat and klieg. Three rounds, no ties. The winner is by mutual decision. If I called the bout the defeated brother doubles my money. If I picked a bad beat, the other one scoops my coin. I mostly win. At the end they bow briefly and shake hands. Everything packed away, my brothers let themselves down from the ceiling opening, landing lightly on their feet. I go through the crawlspace. When father and mother come home they turn off my light, kiss me on the forehead or rustle my hair and call me by an old name from when I was a baby. I stare at the ceiling, going over the details of the fight, my brothers circling, looking for a sign of weakness, trying out a new skill. The shadows from branches outside my bedroom window tap in code. The year I become engaged I take my fiancée into my childhood bedroom and make him lay down next to me. I turn my head and say: teach me to fight.

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Merridawn Duckler is a writer and visual artist from Oregon. She won the CNF flash contest at Invisible City, judged by Heather Christle. Flash in Hobart, Gone Lawn, Painted Bride Quarterly, Pembroke. Author of INTERSTATE (dancing girl press) IDIOM (Harbor Review) MISSPENT YOUTH (rinky dink press) and the flash fiction collection ARRANGEMENT (Southernmost Books).

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