Hallmark Memories of the Distant Past

When my brother and I cried in the theatre
watching E.T. for the first time. That vacation
when I threw a wailing fit over the taste
of the spaghetti. That vacation when I threw up
seven times in the front seat of Dad’s new Buick
Century. That vacation with me in an ankle boot,
on the beach, after Dad died. I saw a movie
late at night at a sleepover. A man’s head exploded.
No one else was up. When we became a trio, and so
my bully and I began to bully, together, our smaller
friend. When gum was smeared into my hair at
a basketball game and I ripped out the affected locks
at the root. Then my bully made me show the guys
at lunch. God, I hated middle school. School
was crap til college. Then life was crap, sure
enough. Then the freefall, then the slow recovery.
Once, in college, my friends and I got blitzed
on date rape drugs and one guy ordered
a pizza from a campus emergency phone.
For kicks and shits. For giggles. Because
we could. Days later I took more by myself
but it wasn’t as fun as I thought it would be.

Steve Henn wrote Indiana Noble Sad Man of the Year (Wolfson 2017) and two previous collections from NYQBooks. He resides ambivalently in Indiana.