Mojo Pin Live at Sin-è

He lives

less than a mile

from my house,

the house I share

with my brother

and good friend,

the only house

on the left side of the road.

He walks

to our house

in the afternoon,

except when he rides his bike,

which he

throws into the bushes

to keep people

from stealing it.

The days he walks

he wears

the same boots

and fatigues

he's worn

marching through

blood

and

sand

in Iraq.

The days he rides his bike

he wears jeans

and red chucks.

I once asked him if he had a system

down

for

what he wears each day.

He looks angry.

“What system?

This is a conspiracy!”

He shouts

snatching the plastic lighter

out of my hand

and

lighting a cigarette.

He gets high

in our music room,

banging away on the drum-kit

questioning everything

and anything.

Smoke building up

so heavy

we can barely see each other

from feet away

until

someone

cracks the door

and

it pours out

like syrup

into the

warm summer night.

I fumble

carelessly

with the four-track

Tascam

I gave him for Christmas

show him how to record

how to work the

damn thing

but his fingers

twist, winding the little

white wheel

inside the cassette

as he lights

another cigarette

shoves it into the

recorder,

giving up,

making me

unwitting

producer.

“Recognize this one?”

He smirks

thumb thudding along the bass line

to

an

Alice in Chains song.

“Of course you do, Clint.”

Falling off the kit

drunk on cheap beer

he staggers

across the room

to me,

to love, insisting

we go outside.

My brother

my roommates,

too drunk to follow

retreating

to their own rooms

to the peacefulness of sleep.

A peace that

he and I

fight perilously

for

night

after night,

but never find.

Shuffling outside

to the asphalt

to the night

he leans hard on me

so that he doesn't fall down.

We both know

he won’t make it home tonight

just like every other time

he has come over

since

the first night

he fell asleep

in my room, in my

arms.

Against my beat-up

silver

Buick

I light

two cigarettes

and

hand him one.

He motions for me

to place it

in his mouth for him.

I slip it,

delicately,

between his parted lips.

“Clint?” He whispers,

cigarette dangling

from his mouth

on a wire.

Yeah?

“Promise not to get mad

if I ask you something

about your past?”

I promise, brushing ashes

from his dark, soft hair.

“Why do you try to remember?”

I don't try, I say,

feeling all of their hands on me

crawling, slithering, dark

angry

unforgiving

I close my eyes

they are there

my Guardian Evil, the past.

I don't try to remember

Memories try me.

“I would have to really try. But I won't.”

He lies.

Promise not to get mad?

“What’s heroin like?”

He asks quietly, staring down

at his boots,

dark smoke blooming up into the sky

from both of us.

Get in the car, I say,

opening the passenger side door.

He knows better than to question me.

His body slams

into the driver’s seat

wheel in his

hands

wrapped tightly

knuckles turning white

from the tension in his arms.

I pick up the thick, black

leather case

sitting on the dash

flip through

page after page,

until I finally

find

Live at Sin-è.

The key turns

the song begins

Let go

and

close your eyes, my love.

His death grip

on the world

releases

he falls back

into the seat,

flicking a cigarette

out of the open

moon

roof.

This is what heroin

feels like, I whisper, kissing him

on the neck.

The moon runs

like milk

across his twenty two

year old

face

he closes his eyes. And

he's

completely

enveloped by the song, by

the night.

When all goes

quiet

he opens his

eyes,

looking through everything and

anything and

into the stars

his hand reaching into

my pocket

for the pack of Camels that

we share, not looking at me

as he lights one and

inhales sharply,

his back once again leaning hard

into the driver’s seat.

Clearing his throat,

he

whispers

gently

“Clint?”

Yeah?

“Don’t ever let me do it.”

(2008)