The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2018

Burrough’s Ghosts Nathan Gaziano Another week stretched like a hamstring. I’m waiting in the Rite Aid parking lot for the Dealer’s black car. At one time, my ex-wife would wait for me in our home, on our couch, with a bowl of popcorn. She would want to binge- watch a television series, to snuggle beside me dropping a single kernel of popcorn in her mouth, one at a time. At one time, we went on proper dates, found a babysitter for the twins, and tried to pretend we were the people we were when we fell in love, when the resentment and bitterness wasn’t as real as a pinch. And she waits, knowing that I’m lost, drifting through the bad streets with the ghosts of old junkies, all of whom resembled William S. Burroughs, bone-thin with their dentures in. Blue veins bulging like crowded turnpikes. But my ex-wife could only wait so long; her patience had a shelf life. Me and the Ghosts of Burroughs, tonight we’re trying to cop, huddled around the Rite-Aid dumpster and blowing in our hands, waiting for the black car. “I’m coming,” I howl into the stupid cold of February—or maybe it’s March—hoping she’ll hear me. “I need you,” I say as the Ghosts of Burroughs blow away, scatter like scraps of paper, and the black car pulls up, the window rolling down. “We have your ex-wife in the trunk,” the Dealer says. “Forty bucks.” I reach into my wallet and out come my teeth. The Meadow 87