Dissent
Jonny Baltazar Lipshin
After receiving the summons, the one wanting your daughter, I poured the Stanley to the brim and put our shit in the Bronco. Masha snoozin’, I mean my daughter dreamin’ in the next seat, bangs hanging like the slip of a sleep mask. Me? My thoughts keep time with the drone of the motor. Sweet Revenge on the stereo, a can of Kodiak on the center console. Dipping below the panhandle, I’m reminded that I was once one-to-watch. A big-hearted boy with a Texas twang. Blonde and blue. A gracile face that gave my ‘Merican frame a hint of humility. A halfback that led the way to State. Did I know it then, when Uncle Sam asked me to sign?
Minus Masha now, I’m nothing. Nada. Zilch. Negligible to the point of obscurity. Two tours in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne will do that. When our eyes met in the mess hall, you holding court over a dinner of baked beans and stale cornbread, I lost my breath. The battalion in stitches after your Pacino: Scent of a Woman. I was blinded by desire. Your cocksure gaze made me drop my tray on the first pair of Army boots I was ever issued. The second pair flew a chopper over the Persian Gulf, beads of ammonium nitrate making dust from sand. Boom! I remember the third time we made it, our heads a hair below the pitch of your canvas tent, the springs of your mattress thrusting against the rubble. I can still smell the tart bright scent of a lime lingering on your fingers, your hand concealing my mouth as noise escaped me. Your piquant sweat dripping onto my nose, your thick thighs crashing into me. I exploded into the sky, left my body on the mesh of wire, a twisted skeleton of light.
What happened to us? When did it change? It should have been easier here, across the ocean, where gays like us can be guys like us. But no. It wasn’t. You returned withdrawn, altered, against the grain we should’ve been grating together. A wonder we lasted as long as we did. The contents of our stolen decade: the clipped and rectangular lawn, Sunday mornings marbled in joy, our bodies joined in irreligious matrimony. You runnin’ with Masha when she ditched her training wheels. When did it happen? It had to happen before that.
Nights back at home, I braced in bed for the impact of your arrival. The density of your movements. The hitch in your lungs. The booze on your breath. Me knowing where you were but unsure of how to find you. You never touched me nicely after. Never asked me how my day was, never told me about yours. So all I know now is where you weren’t. Masha’s small freckled hands playing piano at her first recital. Her toes pointing inward, even now, while she rests next to me. Rather: she is rising, her puppy-dog eyes heavy with sleep, the crook of her nose reminding me of yours.
