SAM

This is Sam. He likes girls with tattoos, the soft hum and tumble of an active dryer, and going on vacations to Iowa.

//

            At the age of sixteen Sam kissed a girl for the first time. It was wet and clumsy. He hadn’t learned how to control his tongue yet. She had, and like all things, their brief affair ended. She wasn’t perfect, but he never claimed to want perfect. She was all long legs and hidden tattoos and slightly yellowed teeth. Even now, twelve years later, lying on the thawing ground at the park, his thoughts drifted back to her. He didn’t miss her exactly, but sometimes when he closed his eyes and forced his mind to go white, her eyes swam and diffused in the whitness like droplets of ink in water. What did it mean?

            Sam was a cashier at a PacSun. A friend of a friend got him the job. After so many years playing shows in churches and various high school Battles of the Bands with his own band, Skunk Bicep, the lead singer, Melon called it quits. It wasn’t a surprise to Sam, who played drums about as well as Nixon told the truth. Still, he missed the camaraderie of his band mates and the meaningless sex with the “local band” groupies.

His shifts at PacSun were long, but he didn’t mind. It got his mom off his back. He lived with her, and though she still did his laundry, he somehow took pride in residing in the basement apartment. “It’s completely separate from my mom,” he’d defend. “No really. It’s a pretty sweet deal. Free rent and everything.” His band mates nodded their heads, not minding the parasitic relationship. They all still lived with their moms too. It’s the price you pay for your art.

After his shift at the mall, Sam always liked to stop at the park. He drove around behind the Parks and Recreation building to a little private spot before the chained gate. It was secluded and surrounded by trees. No one ever saw him smoking his weed there. Not even the cops on their nightly rounds. His mom, a reformed hippie, had lost all tolerance for the drug and was stalwart in her intention to kick him out next time that sickly sweet smell, that soon turned rancid, wafted up through the vents. He once tried to convince her it was incense. She hit him over the head so hard his ears rang for an hour. That’s when he started driving to the park to get lit.

Sam didn’t mind being alone. Over the years he had come to find that aloneness recharged his batteries. After days at the mall with teenage girls who never re-folded the shirts they looked at, he needed to get away. Sam started coming to the park on his half hour lunch breaks. It was barely enough time to get high, but he somehow accomplished it. If he dared to extend his lunch break, he would occasionally lie in the grass by the rusted gazebo and let the sun beat down on him. Sometimes he felt like a solar panel.

//

Today I just needed some alone time. While Jon slept I walked to the park and sat, looking at the gazebo where we had our wedding. Some daylight passed and I saw a guy with a beard sit down directly to my right. After a few minutes he laid down in the grass. I don’t like when people invade my personal space, especially men. My skin crawled. I tugged at my shirt. I felt the familiar dripping of panic, like a leaky faucet, down my throat and into the middle of my chest. Simultaneously I started to feel anger toward the audacious bearded man that had to sit so close to me despite the ample space in the park. I moved a foot to my left. The man never moved. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe he just needed to be next to someone. Maybe he was dead. I did the only thing I could think of to calm the panic and anger. I took a deep, controlled breath, pulled out my sketchbook, and thought to myself, “I think I’ll call him Sam.”