Sam Says Hop In

and meaning to be a man, i oblige.  he shows me the 124-odd beers he stole after a run from every publix in town.  we speed along federal hwy in his old alero, skid into the sign of a gated neighborhood and laugh like we have done something worth our weight in foamy gold.  it is wet and morning, as florida often is, and we are drunk, or young, or both.  come daybreak, a trooper drives by chris’ house slow. we hide in the bushes and return home. the alero, two months from now, will die on the ride home from an absent fifth period, when the city bus stops letting you on at whole foods, and critter has to tow us home using a ratchet strap;  you battle a stranger at palazzo’s, brandish a two by four and pass out in the bushes under another howling moon.  we bury a keg in a manhole behind dogpatch, shoot lizards with a red ryder and fashion crude blowdarts out of the hardware in our father’s garages.  i step up, show a steady hand, kill a breathing thing in the name of sport or status or conservation.  how we justify the weathered breath of another end.   at 2 am, the alarms go off; we explain to the officers: ecology, invasiveness, brandish a stringer of cold toads. the dark plaza is no effect, rambunctious garden, a horde of boys armed with mouths and sharp objects.  in the end:  a stern warning, soft knock on our parents’ doors.