Dina and Dan Take The Road Home

            “Charlie you aren’t sleeping. I can’t let you sleep. If you sleep,” said Bill.

            “I have to sleep,” said Charlie, “I feel crooked.”

            “But,” said Bill, “you crooked your head.”

            “You did it,” said Charlie.

            “I’m trying to help you,” said Bill.

            “You’re trying to help me by crooking me you mean,” said Charlie.

            “Charlie, a lot of me right now wants to crook you again. You know damn well I didn’t mean to. But this time if I do I mean to,” said Bill.

            “Bill, for goodness sake,” said Charlie.

            “It’s for the better,” said Bill.

            “Whereas your life is spent bossing everyone around,” said Charlie.

            “Admit you started with the stuff about how I am no good at sports. Admit you started in on me again,” said Bill.

            Charlie looked down sheepishly, at his big hands, and turned them over. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps he had been bullying Bill. Bill had never played sports. In fact, Bill was sort of feminine. But old Charlie liked that about Bill. You have to like something about someone to like them. It made them get along so well together. But maybe he didn’t like it. Maybe after all these years he had hated it. Then he had made that clear. He couldn’t remember. It could have been Bill who had started it, affronted by Charlie’s masculinity. Perhaps all these years Bill had resented that Charlie could palm a basketball.  

“I see,” said Charlie.

            “The brain is made of soft tissue,” said Bill, “and it floats somewhat within the skull in a bath of spinal fluid.”

            “Spinal fluid,” said Charlie, “is there salt in spinal fluid?"

            “I don’t know Charlie maybe. There’s salt in everything isn’t there?” said Bill. “The fact is, a hard enough crook, you knock the brain against the skull, against itself, and that’s not good.”

            “You crooked me pretty good,” said Charlie.

            “But admit you deserved it, starting in on me,” said Bill, “about me not playing sports.”

            “If you say so, Bill, I don’t like fighting,” said Charlie.

            “Which is why you’re my friend,” said Bill.

            "I suppose," said Charlie.

            He turned a little to his right and started practicing his German. He read from a pink flashcard, "Wir laufen durch den Park. Die Menschen sind dumm."

"What is that Charlie?"

"It's my German," said Charlie, putting the card aside.

"Your German," said Bill

"My German," said Charlie.

"There you go again," said Bill, "with your German."

"You're right, Bill. You crooked me pretty good," said Charlie.

"You'd started in," said Bill, trailing off.

"There is only the one thing you can say," said Charlie.

"What's that?" said Bill.

"This," said Charlie, pointing to the knot on his head.

Bill scoffed. "I don't see anything," he said.

"Okay," said Charlie, "but what's that mean? That I don't feel like you crooked me?"

"So you admit what you like," said Bill, "is what that means."

"I'm not admitting anything," said Charlie, "I'm just saying I feel crooked is all."

"But I'm certainly going to admit prior to my admitting anything else you started in on me," said Bill. "Besides, it doesn't matter what you think. My sense of it gets in the way of your sense of it and then there's nothing doing."

"What if I don't have a sense of it?" said Charlie.

"You have to have a sense of it," said Bill, "but that doesn't make it anymore true."

Charlie laughed. "Sure. You started in on me. I started in on you."

"So we're just back at the start," said Bill.

He looked down to hide his face as he started to cry. It was true there was no single truth. He looked up at Charlie and Charlie looked at Bill. Bill had blue eyes and he was soft and quiet as his eyes. Bill was experiencing his senses just as Charlie was experiencing his. Charlie felt pain. Bill despaired. At the end of the day, it was all he had to deal with. These little parts at hand were all he was ever going to have at hand. They were alone in a room in a house that stood by itself on a quiet street.

"Do you hear that?" asked Charlie.

"Hear what?" replied Bill.

It was a strange, smoking quiet, smoking green, then smoking blue. Bill had had this conversation before with Charlie. He looked at Charlie and Charlie looked at Bill. It had hurt like it was hurting now. Bill looked away and then back at Charlie. Bill had never played with his hair but now he was, twirling it around his fingers. In fact, Bill was sort of twirling his hair. Charlie looked Bill in the eyes and Bill looked Charlie back in the eyes.

It was after that they both felt like they had been crooked, but that it was the worst and strangest crooking. The walls were the whitest and emptiest they had ever been. The superlative had made them get along so well together. But maybe they hadn't liked it. Maybe after all these years they had hated it. And the windows were the darkest they had ever been. They hadn't remembered anything. It could have been Charlie who had started it, affronted by Bill's distinctions.