The Meadow Annual Literary Arts Journal 2018

Pick Up Nathan Graziano I pick up at a duplex on Somerville Street, fifty yards from the convenience store that has started closing at twilight. At the duplex, a Rottweiler growls in the window as I get out of my car, my head swiveling, looking for cops in unmarked cruisers. I pick up from the Dealer’s Girl. The Dealer found temporary work framing houses so he’s not around during the day. Toby, Tom and I all agree that this is a good thing. The Dealer’s Girl—a kind but broken woman who speaks in a soft voice and avoids eye contact—sells fatter folds and doesn’t cut The China White with sugar to make it weigh. You never know what you’re going to get with the Dealer but the Dealer’s Girl is fair and consistent, and if she touches your arm, you’ll believe in ghosts. I pick up while the twins are still at school, twenty min- utes before I’m supposed to pick them up at the schoolyard. I pick up inside the duplex where the window to the foyer is covered with a red towel, stifling the sunlight and separating the foyer from a world where there are people who aren’t copping, people who buy milk and help their kids with their homework and buy flowers for the people they love. It’s a world where people laugh, sometimes. I pick up then park across from the schoolyard where the twins are waiting for me. I snort a line on the console in my car then stare at the chain-linked fence that separates my children from a world where guys like me draw our daily breaths. 88 The Meadow