He Drives

He drives his Mom

To the doctor

Twice a week

Watches her smoke cigarettes

While she bitches

That doctors don’t know shit

But she goes to keep his father happy

Because he wants her to live forever

Not just longer than him

But forever

He wants to leave the world knowing

She’s eternal

A chain-smoking redwood

Sitting on a couch

In the middle

Of Brayton Heights

He drives his girlfriend to her job

At the Palace Shack

Where they make her wear the shirt

That comes down almost to her belly button

She says he exaggerates

But, she concedes, not by much

He drives her to the bar

Then opens the door for her

He wants it to look like he’s a gentleman

When really he just wants to get a good look

At all the drunks

Standing outside

He wants to dig some looks into them

So they feel a pang

Whenever they see his girlfriend

Walking by them

He drives home

And on the way back

He stops at McDonald’s

And orders some fries

Just fries

He used to weigh almost three hundred pounds

Back then, going through the drive-thru

Carried all the shame of confessing to a murder

Then he fell at his job

At the warehouse

And needing three guys to get him back up

Was enough of an embarrassment

To get him to the gym

Now he just gets fries

But he still breaks a sweat

Pulling up to the speaker

And giving his order

He drives to the bluffs

To eat his fries

And play music on the radio

That his girlfriend doesn’t like

His Dad’ll get his wish and die before his Mom

He doesn’t know how he knows this

He just does

He needs two new front tires

And a new windshield

There’s a crack going up the left-hand side

And even though it’s small

He knows that if you let shit like that go long enough

You end up paying for it

When you can least afford it

He drives to the old house

And sees his kid playing in the window

His ex says he can come by whenever

They don’t mind each other

They don’t love each other

But they don’t mind each other either

There was a symbiosis between them

That allowed for mutual existence

But also a shared resentment

They were the poster kids for a successful divorce

He should visit his kid

More than he does

But he doesn’t

When he picks him up

They just go driving around

And when his kid asks him

If they can go to McDonald’s for lunch

He gets short with him

And tells him

That shit’s no good for him

And does he want to wind up

Being a fatass like his Dad was?

Then he ends up going there anyway

And they both get fries

And Cokes

And nuggets

And one of those cheap plastic toys

That get made in Taiwan

When he drives the kid back home

He looks around at store signs

Trying to find inspiration

For a conversation

He can have with the kid

His father used to do the same thing

And now he felt bad for the old guy

Now that he was wading

Through the same discomfort

He drives to his apartment

And lets the engine keep running

Even though it wastes gas

There’s a song he likes on the radio

And he wants to hear it to the end

He’s heard the song a thousand times

And he’s sick of it

But part of him feels loyal to it

Like it’s a friend with a problem

He needs to listen to

So he sits

And listens

And the engine hums

And the car smells like fries

And the crack in the windshield

Grows

Just a little bit

Bigger