was spreading through, and when he moved inside me again it was
another warm wave and then another and thev just kept on coming the way water comes bursting up From a spring in the ground and spills
over on top of itselt with no vnd in sight.
We never spoke through the whole thing, which from start to finish must've lasted more than an hour.
B O Y S O F L I F E □
Now this morning I'm remembering other things, better things. 1 still feel sad, but it's clearing—-and just .\ minute ago I was thinking
about this one time when, I don't know why, I was looking through Carlos's wallet and I found his driver's license. On the back was this place to sign so you could donate your organs it you got killed in some car crash, what they called an "anatomical gift." There were these two boxes you could check: one said you'd donate all your organs hut the other box said "only the following body parts." Carlos had checked that one, and then in the space where you were supposed to list wh.it body parts he wrote, "penis, gizzard and testicles," and signed it. Then he got two people whose names I never heard of to sign as witnesses. When I asked him about it, he didn't know wh.it 1 was talking about, so I made him take out his driver's license from his wallet and 1 showed him on the back where it was written. He just looked at it and shook his head, and all he said was, "I must've been really really drunk tor that one."
Maybe things like that aren't interesting to you, but they're what I carry around with me, and I think somehow they have to matter. It they don't matter, then nothing does. And if I'm goin^ to talk about any of this, then I have to talk about all o( it.
For example, this dream I had last night that I'm just remembering now. It's something I don't understand—how writing all this down must be setting off these depth charges in me somewhere, and so all this stuff floats up to the top. It's some other secret story that goes alon^ with the story I think I'm telling.
They always take place in Owen, my dreams. I never dream about New York, or Sammy or Verbena or Seth or Netta. I never dream about Carlos. In last night's dream I'm walking down in the woods behind the trailer, and it's wintertime. I notice somebody's set a brushfire, though it's burned itself out and all that's left is a charred circle about twenty feet wide. In the circle there's a big old stump, some tree some* body cut down years ago. When I look closer I see the brushfire has burned away the side of the stump, and it's hollow inside. The hollow of the stump's filled with skulls and other bones—people's skulk which at first I think are old Indian skulls, but then I know they're not. Where the hole in the side of the stump is, skulls are spilling onto the ground, and beside one of the skulls that's spilled out there's ,i charred paper, a driver's license. When I pick it up and read it, it says "Martie Parr" on it—not a name I ever heard of in real lite, but in the dream
□ PAULRUSSELL
I know who Mattie Parr is, and I look down at the skull and I somehow recognize that it's Mattie Parr's skull.
In the dream I know people have been looking for her—she's somebody who's disappeared, and in fact lots of people have been disappearing and nobody knows where they went to. But now suddenly I know who it is who's been making all these people disappear—it's these three farmers who live down the road. In the dream I know them, I know what they look like. They're these three old black men who wear overalls and they all three live in this farmhouse together. They're killing people and hiding their skulls in the hollow stump.
I know I should call the police and tell them about this, but I'm afraid to because the farmers'll know it's me that found the stump-though I think maybe in the dream I do call the police, or maybe I stick the driver's license in an envelope and mail it to the police telling them where they can find Mattie Parr. It gets sort of
another warm wave and then another and thev just kept on coming the way water comes bursting up From a spring in the ground and spills
over on top of itselt with no vnd in sight.
We never spoke through the whole thing, which from start to finish must've lasted more than an hour.
B O Y S O F L I F E □
Now this morning I'm remembering other things, better things. 1 still feel sad, but it's clearing—-and just .\ minute ago I was thinking
about this one time when, I don't know why, I was looking through Carlos's wallet and I found his driver's license. On the back was this place to sign so you could donate your organs it you got killed in some car crash, what they called an "anatomical gift." There were these two boxes you could check: one said you'd donate all your organs hut the other box said "only the following body parts." Carlos had checked that one, and then in the space where you were supposed to list wh.it body parts he wrote, "penis, gizzard and testicles," and signed it. Then he got two people whose names I never heard of to sign as witnesses. When I asked him about it, he didn't know wh.it 1 was talking about, so I made him take out his driver's license from his wallet and 1 showed him on the back where it was written. He just looked at it and shook his head, and all he said was, "I must've been really really drunk tor that one."
Maybe things like that aren't interesting to you, but they're what I carry around with me, and I think somehow they have to matter. It they don't matter, then nothing does. And if I'm goin^ to talk about any of this, then I have to talk about all o( it.
For example, this dream I had last night that I'm just remembering now. It's something I don't understand—how writing all this down must be setting off these depth charges in me somewhere, and so all this stuff floats up to the top. It's some other secret story that goes alon^ with the story I think I'm telling.
They always take place in Owen, my dreams. I never dream about New York, or Sammy or Verbena or Seth or Netta. I never dream about Carlos. In last night's dream I'm walking down in the woods behind the trailer, and it's wintertime. I notice somebody's set a brushfire, though it's burned itself out and all that's left is a charred circle about twenty feet wide. In the circle there's a big old stump, some tree some* body cut down years ago. When I look closer I see the brushfire has burned away the side of the stump, and it's hollow inside. The hollow of the stump's filled with skulls and other bones—people's skulk which at first I think are old Indian skulls, but then I know they're not. Where the hole in the side of the stump is, skulls are spilling onto the ground, and beside one of the skulls that's spilled out there's ,i charred paper, a driver's license. When I pick it up and read it, it says "Martie Parr" on it—not a name I ever heard of in real lite, but in the dream
□ PAULRUSSELL
I know who Mattie Parr is, and I look down at the skull and I somehow recognize that it's Mattie Parr's skull.
In the dream I know people have been looking for her—she's somebody who's disappeared, and in fact lots of people have been disappearing and nobody knows where they went to. But now suddenly I know who it is who's been making all these people disappear—it's these three farmers who live down the road. In the dream I know them, I know what they look like. They're these three old black men who wear overalls and they all three live in this farmhouse together. They're killing people and hiding their skulls in the hollow stump.
I know I should call the police and tell them about this, but I'm afraid to because the farmers'll know it's me that found the stump-though I think maybe in the dream I do call the police, or maybe I stick the driver's license in an envelope and mail it to the police telling them where they can find Mattie Parr. It gets sort of
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