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2 friends

C.W. Bryan

I can’t exactly remember
how it all started. Red
was smoking outside of
a bike shop.
One with so much rust on the sign
you’d think the place was closed
for good.

Red had a leg
half an inch longer
than the other.
I thought a stiff breeze
could knock him over,
or a bowling ball
but they never did.

It all started when a homeless man
approached us.
He had wine breath
and a proposition.
“I could trade y’all for something. I don’t want
a handout.”

His name was Jim,
or Big Jim, or something. I wasn’t
listening. Big Jim handed Sam a cupful
of glass marbles, pink
and teal and rust-red.
There was dust all over
the marbles like ol’ Big Jim had
been saving them his whole
damn life.

Red handed Jim three dollars
and seventy-six cents.

A fair trade in an unfair market.

Later, sitting on a stool to give his
fucked up leg a chance to
rest, Sam washed those marbles
in the kitchen sink
until they shone like god-damn gold.

I remember the way they clinked
against the colander. I never saw
Sam eat spaghetti.

When he had the pink
and teal and rust-red things shining,
perfectly al-dente,
he took them one by one, so small
in his hands I thought for sure
he’d break
their necks—
He sat them on the windowsill.

They glitter something fierce around
six o’clock and the sun is setting.

I don’t think Jim, or Big Jim,
or whoever knew what he had. I don’t
think Red does either.

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