G2
A (very) short story originally published in Blue Moon magazine.
This story originally appeared in Issue 7 of Blue Moon magazine in 2023.
This one is crazy. This one is pint glasses under the passenger seat. This one is a 20-year-old kid named Enzo everyone calls Benzo. This one is dehydration. This one is jumping out of the car at a four-way stop. This one is getting hit in the eye by your best friend’s fist inside the bar. This one is getting hit in the eye by your best friend’s fist outside the bar. This one is talking way too much until the age of 22. This one is stealing each other’s underwear while wearing them. This one is don’t take me home. This one is all partying, no parties. This one is a bye week in New Orleans without telling the coach or coaching staff and lighting a fire in the street in the Quarter and watching the Dollar Store velvet crown burn chemical green while regular people walk by without a second thought. This one is videos of everything sent to everyone. This one is missing a flight and then class and then practice and then showing early only to be benched but never told for how long, just, you’re both benched, until when? until I say so, until I say you can play, because you do what I say, I’m here, you’re there, I tell you what to do, and you do it, no, you try, because a coach is in the business of being let down. This one is credit card roulette and paying for the rest of the season. This one is the pleasure of pushing on a muscle strain, bruise, cut. This one is being used to northern lights twisting in the night. This one is no-reason, three-a-day sessions, starting at 6AM, legs barely moving, water wings in the pool, the onset of tears, failing again. This one is a quitter. This one is a funeral. This one is never eating. This one is not a public service announcement. This one is the backseat of a Toyota Tercel holding 26 ounces of vodka but not having the words to express feeling born again. This one is a car crash on a different day. This one is playing anyway. This one is a family meeting. This one is the first and last time ever crying together. This one is seeing the sports psychologist. This one is learning what paranoia is. This one is alone in the basement. This one is juice boxes on the bus and knowing a little something like joy. This one is orange, raspberry, grape. This one is watching confidence leave the body. This one is writing in the journal assigned by the SP and having it stolen and read aloud in the locker room. This one actually happened. This one is a lead pipe. This one is a lead pipe in a boot bag. This one is nudes of someone’s sister. This one is finding out she’s 15. This one is not knowing it was the team’s journal all along. This one is coming to every morning hoping they cancel practice, the week, the season, etc. This one is getting tired. This one is white snow on the grass, webs of steam rising from our bodies, the ball skipping on the surface, blue toes even bluer. This one is trying to find a word better than bender. This one is trying to find worse. This one is living every day in the shame palace. This one is touch line to touch line. This one is drinking half of a red Gatorade G2 and refilling it with Smirnoff. This one is obvious.
