Luke Goebel - Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours

If I can get each dot off I will do this right. I'm getting each dot. If I can get in there and get each dot off, then I am not skipping up and screwing-off like I always do. I'm getting tired and a little crabby in my forearm. I call the dog. Jewely. I call her. The car is long gone with the girl in it. I call the dog. I get her to come back. I turn the hose on and rinse off the plastic parts of the truck and get the whole truck wet again. I listen to the music. The man is singing the same things he was singing before. You don't deserve this. Really, you deserve silver lamps, oysters, cocktails, and cigarettes in a room at the Plaza Hotel. A big one! Your name in lights. Another highway to ride. The next big thing. Adventure. Here is music. There is no end. You don't even die when you die. There are girls and boys. There is so much truck to wash. Baby, when it's gone it is gone. Or is it? There are chores. So many little balls of tar to clean and show how much you care, bent over, humping it out in the sun. You give it your all. You keep going. You have more and more power to handle it all. You get the post card and it doesn't mean anything. You dunk the washcloth into the bucket and pull the soaped towel into the day and you keep at it. You got to show someone who isn't here anymore that you love him… you have got to show the whole world you have what it takes to love them. You have done chores. I've done peyote. I've been crazy since bananas. You know that you are inside yourself with all that has happened and all you have seen and you have got to get a move on anyhow. There are palm trees out there. There is the whole wide world of the past. It's noonday — and there's a whole lot more to come. Here's the last story: Books are over. Don't read a book, don't read any book. Don't read this book.