I haven't done anything...

I didn't seem too shocked to be back in school. Even the elementary configuration wasn't too startling and those old, rickety desks from the years of times tables and spelling contests were less than impressive. Someone resembling Mrs. Lilquist from my Washington Elementary days was presiding and a semblance of Maggie Bates sat somewhere near me. I sat in a desk, enormous chalkboard ahead and vast, blindless windows to my left, as the announcement of an exam came. It was no surprise to my classmates, most of whom I had been oblivious to until the news came, that we would be taking an exam about a Jane Austen novel, which we had had the entire vacation to get to know. I began to worry when I saw the stack of paper placed somewhat neatly atop an empty desk in the center of the room. The exams were alternately neon blue, pink and yellow, and I excused myself from the classroom after confessing to a classmate that I had "not done anything."

I made my way through the distorted streets of Fayetteville near the university.

In what was my bedroom for many years, Sara Miller waited on me as I gathered my things, mostly clothes, for our journey to her house. It was important what I chose to take with me because I was eventually to participate in a boxing match. At Caitlin Briggs' house down the street we discussed whether or not we would walk the couple of blocks up the hill to her mother's house. I was in favor, she opposed because it was raining. My persuasion almost brought her to tears. A few shadowy figures appeared outside of the glass pane, which constituted the entirety of the home's facade. One of them was Chris Byrne and I joyfully called out his name: "Gangster!" He entered the house, gliding in without using any door or breaking any glass. We shook hands the informal way and reveled in the fact that we were seeing each other for the first time in ages. I gleaned the dark corner across the street.

A Moment Pale And Frozen In Time

In that jungle, which is anything but sublunary I follow a family from Italy along that river that leads to either Rome or hell. I am greeted first by Father's penis, a moment pale and frozen in time.

Mother and Father come from different sides of the river which rushes through Rome and shares its name - she from the bank of hardliners, he from the compassionate. This distinction all made sense once we reached the waterfall, a thing nothing if not vast and vertical, as Mother suggested they throw Son - about my age or older - down it as if he were some action figure one lets slip joyful down summertime backyard water slides.

Father refused, though without the anger one might expect. It was never made clear to me just what happened to Son about my age or older.

We made our way through that jungle on that narrow path. All was rainy save the sky, which seemed to have given nothing for quite some time, but remained grey as grey can be. And then at last, just as the path had become most narrow, perhaps too narrow, we reached a cottage, something like a cottage, with small screened-in porch whose coziness I knew all along from the blankets and rocking chairs and overall air of dryness.

But before I could decide that it was there that I should stay, the Italians insisted I take the impressive path which led below, the path vertical just like that waterfall I'd seen before. It was arduous to say the least and murky despite a mostly non-liquid consistency, but the descent flew by (as I remember nothing of it).

Next thing I know I am at the bottom, part of some army preparing itself, ourselves, for some rope course drill, which I handle with ease as it was more like a soft and swinging non-metallic set of monkey bars from youth. The reward for this entire journey is my arrival in the locker room, a sepia place less masculine than I expected.

I have a dark memory of floating at night some satanic river through Rome. The red, judging statue is ablaze and glowing from the inside. The sentiment is mostly blood.