The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2018

of “Yippie-ki-yays.” Before asking Melissa to the Snowflake Semiformal I stood in front of the boys’ bathroom mirror and attempted a somewhat cocky, almost manly “Yippie-ki-ya.” The greyness of the town, the men barely older than me walking to factory jobs, the liquor stores open until one all demanded your carefree toughness. The beat-up shit-kicker Bob Young drove in twelfth grade might have backfired each time he shifted into second gear but still he revved the engine at traffic lights with a “Yippie-ki-yay” confidence. And when some drunk piss-ant stumbling back to lane twelve spills beer on your girl—when he stands there in his drunk idiocy laughing— well, that’s when you had no choice but to drop a “Mother Fucker” into your “Yippie-ki-yay.” The world was cold, Bruce. Those February mornings walking to school, the raw wind making my lungs ache. Yes, I had on headphones. Yes, I listened to Springsteen’s well-crafted Darkness album. But in a town of abandoned houses and factory smoke, in a neighborhood of used car lots and dark barrooms where no one ever looked up, how could I not turn to you in your bloodied t-shirt, your wry grin, Hans Gruber never your equal—how could I not hope, Bruce, your words, so often on my lips, would somehow get me through? 16 The Meadow