Piecemeal: Six

          Just before 11:00 the next morning Seamus and I set out in search of Ewepie. I think we were headed west but all I know was that we drove past a few cattle ranches and wound up in garlic and onion country. The air was thick with their smell for 10 or 15 minutes ‘til it wasn’t. Then all I could see for miles was hay fields.

            “Where’re we goin’?” Seamus looked at me out of the corner of his eye.

            “Don’t worry about it,” he said.

            “I’m not worried,” I said. “It’s just that I can’t figure how you aim to find someone out in the middle of a hay field.”

            He didn’t bother to look at me again, instead powering on the Buick’s stereo. Led Zeppelin’s “Tangerine” had just begun. I guess he thought the music would prevent me from further questioning, and I decided the noise was better than trying to get information out of him. Before the short number ended we approached what appeared to be a hub of the local irrigation system. Seamus pulled the car onto a dirt road, exhibiting a carelessness for the vehicle. I shook my head in frustration as I felt the suspension and steering shoulder the caution necessary for such terrain, an element for which the operator should take responsibility.

            A ways down the road stood a shake-shingled shelter with a horse corral behind it. Seamus pulled over and shifted the Buick into park.

            “Wait here,” he said.

Piecemeal: Five

Thomas started stealing sleep at age nine. By 13 he was a master. No parents, teachers, or family members could catch him; only the occasional friend. The thing had a sort of organic development. What began as a struggle to rise for school and a need for a nap after it had dismissed became a quasi-chronic exhaustion that garnered too much -- Thomas was quick to realize -- attention.

            “I was fortunate,” he said, “to recognize that they were similar to snacks and meals. I’d get them, but had to wait for privacy to indulge, or else I’d have a caravan of adults monitoring my every move.”

            By virtue of accident Thomas shared his story with me and Abel one day -- about a year or so after that Led Zeppelin afternoon -- as part of a point he’d been trying to make; by the time he realized his once-clothed secret stood naked before us it was too late to abandon his tale.

            “Whether I had to shit or not,” he said, I could knock out a seven-minute snooze in the stall at school. Easy. And when your parents maintain a schedule unflappable in its predictability, it’s like schooling a fat kid in one-on-one: a single head fake and you can drive the paint every time.”

Piecemeal: Four

When we got back to Seamus’ place I unloaded the contents of my pockets on the coffee table and paced, waiting for him to retire. Hearty, relaxed breaths were hard to come by and every time I stood still, whichever knee I placed weight on trembled a touch. My guts kept pinching themselves, leaving me in a spot where I didn’t know if I oughtta double over to counter it or hustle to the toilet. His couch begged for me in such a loud whisper that -- for a second -- I wondered if it was audible outside my head. One second I’d strain an ear listening for the sounds of his bedroom television to come to life; the next I rubbed my face and checked my watch.

            At last I heard the murmurings of voices -- perhaps from an episode of Law and Order -- and flopped onto the sofa as though it were my Battle Royal opponent laid out on the mat. I pried my shoes off with my toes and sunk my face in the throw pillow, fantasizing about the huge piece of sleep that lay before me.

            But a moment passed; then another. Before long it was five, 10, then 25. It’s possible I dozed between the 25- and 30-minute marks, but a full-body twitch launched me right back awake.

            “Fuck,” I said, rolling onto my back. Seamus’ ceiling was that weird white, textured surface, and in it I could find no patterns. When I’d had no success seeking shapes, I switched to symbols and drifted into that cosmic window where I remained dazed for so long that -- when I looked at the clock -- I couldn’t remember what time it had been the last time I checked the time, or even at what hour I’d laid down on the couch. When I went back to the bumps and splotches of the ceiling, I remembered the summer of ’73, which had been when I got to know Abel.

            We were 10 going on 11. Or at least I was.

Piecemeal: Three

          At seven past eight the next evening we got in the Buick. I was pissed that Seamus wouldn’t let me drive but too tired and weak to argue. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, and it made for an uneasiness that made me think of leaving his place and him. I didn’t have much money but the gas tank was pretty full, so I knew I could make a start.

            “Who’re we lookin’ for?” It seemed like if he thought me well enough to join him on this mission that he ought to share a detail or two with me. “That cowboy?”

            “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You just make sure we ain’t bein’ followed.”

            We pulled in to the Black Bear Diner parking lot on Main in Fernley and Seamus chose an isolated spot. There were only three or four cars in the parking lot and when he shifted the Buick into park, I felt like his selection drew attention to us. From whom I wasn’t sure, but I could feel my nerves binding a touch.

            “Wait here,” he said.

Piecemeal: Two

Light poured through my closed eyelids and my skull rang like a council-fire drum. I could hear Seamus’ voice asking if I was okay but I hadn’t figured out how to answer. The muscles in my face pulled the strings to make my lips move but the pounding harshened. Ten or 12 thoughts swum in my head but none of them spoke as loud as the one that wanted to darken the room. A handful of ice cubes clanked in a glass just before some liquid was poured. The image of the cowboy flickered in my mind and I hoped the Buick was parked outside of wherever we were. Seamus sipped his beverage and let out an exhale gasp of satisfaction. Some plastic crinkled and a light rapping of one surface upon another preceded the dragging sounds of a scrape. Seamus snorted.

            “Where’s Abel?”

            Seamus mimicked the sound he’d made after sipping, then snorted again. I managed to open an eye and see him hunched over a table. He clutched something cylindrical between his thumb and forefinger and one end of it was inside his nostril. The idea of a whiskey-and-cocaine combination saturated me with nausea.

Piecemeal: Pilot

The strange feeling of a sunny, cold afternoon (with mosquitoes) floated through the windows of the ’61 Buick LeSabre. For a moment we forgot about the fact that we couldn’t put the top down; the pile of toasted bologna sandwiches was that good. I bit into my fourth and stuffed some kettle chips into my mouth at the same time. When Bill passed me the half gallon of milk, I gulped from it, leaving a dirty-finger, kettle-oil residue on the carton. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten while sitting, not looking over my shoulder at flight-sacrificed crumbs. In one fleeting second I a) imagined what Ally Sheedy felt like when she ate that Cap’n Crunch/Pixy Sticks sandwich in The Breakfast Club, b) remained unbothered by the cow-juice-saturated white bread as shingled its wet self to the roof of my mouth, c) enjoyed the sensation of breathing slow while chewing, and d) pondered the spring board meeting in which taupe was deemed a fit shade for the new LeSabre.

            “Think we should try to get the top down again?”

            Abel squeezed the question from his lips while pinching once, twice, a third time at a fresh chaw.

            “Why?” I eyed the last bit of my sandwich and wrestled with whether I wanted it or the final handful of chips to be my last bite. “S’broken”

            “It ain’t broken, dipstick,” he said. “Needs a fuse.”

            “’Kay,” I said. “You got a stash o’ fuses in your shorts?” I hid a satisfactory smile; finishing with the chips had been the right call. There’d been a time I would’ve shared the thought with the long-time acquaintance. Many months had passed since I’d called him friend.