Lengths Of Understanding

I woke up bouncing down a dirt road in the back seat of a hatch back. I don’t open my eyes. I can hear the trunk not fully shut, trying to fly open, clacking when the latch stops it. You forget how hard a bumpy road can throw you.

We hit a big dip and I barf on the floor.

“Did you puke?”

“I don’t think so.”

He reached his hand back and touch the floor.

“Yeah. You did.” He wiped his hand on my muddy pant leg. “We’re almost there”

A minute later we stop and try to sit up. The first time I fail and lay back down. The spinning is hard. He helps me out of the car and leans me against the hood.

I open my eyes and barf again. Mostly on the grass, some on my shoes. It’s sunny which for a second makes things better, then worse.

“Are you back?” He asks.

I shake my head and barf again. I gag and then gag within that gag and the bile runs around my mouth, snapped open like a bear trap and finally I pull a stomach full of air and cough violently. “Not yet.” I say and repeat.

I heave. Hopefully for the last time today. I push the cuffs of my hoodie into my eyes and dry forced tears.

“Shit” I say with nothing in mind, just the escape from sickness, relieved for a solid place to stand. “Hot mama cranberry sausage”

It’s Bee Wee standing next to me and his buddy with the round head who doesn't say much.

“What you guys up to?” I ask.

Bee Wee laughs and licks the side of a joint he just finished rolling. He lights it and hands it to me.

“We we’re headed out here and we saw you running through the field next to the Taco Bell.”

I didn't recall that but had blacked out before. I was covered with mud. I pulled my hair back and fastened it with a rubber band around my wrist. I took a drag handed it off and barfed. This time I felt much better.

We made some jokes and eventually i was fit enough to drink a beer. They were in the hatch back with a variety of snacks and sodas. Bee Wee worked at the college dining hall and had been stealing shit for years. Snack theft.

I ate some cheese popcorn and could see straight again.

It wasn't our land but we did a lot of partying on it. There was a long rocky path that lead from County H behind a long line of trees to a meadow overlooking a unkempt corn field. It belong to the Rami family. They were albanian or Iranian or something. I had gone to school with one of the boys though I never knew his name. Busted out trucks and snowmobiles were choked together with long thorny weeds along the paths. Lawnmowers with filed serial numbers sat halfway under the shelter of rotting, termite riddled sheds.

We crushed some cans to make way for more. I pulled the rug out of the back seat of the hatch back and throw it down the hill by the corn field.

Bee Wee walks between two trucks and pisses.

I ask the round faced guy for a cigarette and he gives me one.

“What?!” Bee Wee screams. Which seems odd, for someone to scream a question like that. We walk over next to him and he motions towards the front seat of a white Bronco. There is a body in the passenger seat and it is dead.

I barf. “knock on the window” I say.

Bee Wee does. Still dead.

We run back to the car and start humping back to the country road and Bee Wee keeps muttering “I don’t get it, I just don’t get it”

The round faced guy speaks up.

“Well I don’t understand rugby and like this, I never will”