by Micol Ostow
i am not alone, of course.
my folds and fissures are not the only hollows, the only fault lines that Henry knows.
i am never alone with Henry, not since He first found me, first came upon me, crumpled, crouched, pulling back. first saw me cringing, collapsing inward. since He first recognized that i was
little more than antimatter, a supernova amidst disintegration, imploding, unfurling, giving way to an ever-deepening black hole.
giving way to despair.
there is no alone on the ranch.
on the ranch, life is full to bursting. life on the ranch overflows.
life on the ranch is everyone, always, now.
we may all have been ignored, abandoned, rejected by the
blank, important visitor,
but we still have our
truth.
our love.
our center.
our rudder.
our
Henry.
we are
conjoined,
ephemeral,
infinite.
gathered.
waiting, awaiting:
more message,
more truth.
more love.
His love.
we are
family.
patient
we are patient.
gathered.
we awaken,
we await.
we are quiet, clustered.
bathed in shadow and smoke.
swathed in starlight.
biding our time.
expectant.
Henry has a message,
a truth.
a measure of love to dole out,
to deliver.
and we
are
open.
ego
the visitor has not arrived.
the
important music man
that Henry hopes will spread
our message—
the family’s message—
he has not been by to tour our tattered, winding wonderland. to take in, to drink down our collective, fractured fantasy
in our ersatz-everything ranch.
no one has come
to see us.
to hear us.
to hear Him.
to listen
to Henry’s
word.
to revel in His
love.
on the first day, Henry awaits, ever hopeful, ever aware. perches on the stoop of the general store, drums graceful fingers against worn-in jeans.
smiles.
knows.
everything.
every secret tucked within every hollow space.
on the first day, the ranch is still immaculate.
pristine.
gleaming with promise and anticipation.
Henry says:
there is no i, no ego.
Henry teaches that all we need is us:
our family.
but by the third day of waiting, His grin falters at the corners.
by the third day without our visitor,
without a promise of a higher calling,
a platform, Henry’s forehead
is a road map of worry.
Henry’s lips purse together with an expression so foreign to Him that at first, i hardly recognize the emotion:
concern.
and by the third day, high desert winds have kicked a fine coating of dust over the surface of our surroundings
so that we are no longer
clean.
whispers
cocooned within a threadbare sheet
flanked by family
i inhale
breathe in starlight,
charged particles,
antimatter
and choke back
doubt.
through the thin layer of fabric that
swaddles me,
shelly’s ribs expand
and contract,
press against my own.
she sleeps soundly,
her rhythms,
her pulse, smooth,
safe.
all of our sisters—
tucked tightly into warm, worn nests—
sleep soundly.
smooth.
safe.
while i:
inhale.
breathe in dusk,
studs of starlight
antimatter
and choke back
doubt.
alone
amidst my family,
breathing my own ragged staccato,
i listen for sounds.
whispers.
they come to me,
unbidden.
once the campfire has been snuffed,
once Henry has chosen
and our family—
all of our fractured, shrieking bodies—
have been tucked tightly,
nestled into
worn, warm linens—
that is the hour
when the sounds come to me,
unbidden.
when the truth
seeps.
slithers.
wraps itself around my ankles
like seaweed,
rotted,
washed up at the water’s edge
by the force of the roiling tide.
as i skate the knife-edge
between conscious and sleep,
between wake and trance,
between
worry and
safety,
a truth floats to the surface.
it dances like a whisper.
like a secret.
like a code.
at night,
when our barn is shadowed
in lace patterns of moonlight,
junior and leila
speak in code.
they perch on the covered porch
just outside our sleeping quarters.
they think
we are—
all of us—
asleep.
but
i can hear
the
whispers.
streaked,
split open
by the empty creak
of a shaky, spindly rocker—
i can hear the whispers,
their whispers,
all too well.
the secret goes:
leila and junior:
they worry.
about Henry’s message,
His word.
they fear the music man
has forsaken us,
leaving us precious few ways
to peddle, to spread
to deliver
our word,
our prayer,
our gospel,
into the world.
leila sighs.
the squeak of her chair is a protest.
she says,
“Henry’s getting restless.”
restless.
the word sizzles on her tongue.
“wouldn’t you be?” junior asks. “that man was supposed to come. supposed to listen. to make a recording of Henry’s music.”
a beat, a pause, in which i imagine tented fingers, a reflective gaze into the inky, empty darkness.
(so familiar are the outlines of junior’s body, his boundaries, to me by now.)
“money from the music would’ve gone a long way.”
the tapping of a work boot against a buckled, softened wooden slat. the sound of force and friction, of solid things, set to spoil.
“money would’ve meant we could stop dealing. or maybe, that we could stay here at the ranch forever.”
i can’t see leila’s face, of course,
> beyond the image unspooling
in my mind’s eye
but the hitch,
the moment, is
deadly.
potent.
“it’s not about the money,” she says, and her voice is tight.
“it’s about Henry’s message.”
junior chuckles, a rattling sound.
“yeah, and you think that’s gonna pay our way around here? you think emmett’s just gonna give us a free ride forever?”
his laugh is the cranking of a windup toy.
“fine,” leila says. her voice is clipped. “fair enough.
but:
Henry is as close to god
as anything i’ve ever known.
He is.
so:
it’s not about money;
it’s about the message.
the word.
the truth.”
“it’s about making all those people take notice,” junior says, his windup-toy laugh turning over in the midnight air.
it sounds like maybe he is agreeing with leila.
but maybe he is saying something else entirely.
something more.
something different.
something dangerous.
maybe it is—
money.
maybe it is,
truly,
music.
or maybe it is,
even—
still,
yet,
love.
pure
and
bright:
love.
maybe.
but whatever
the cause
the catalyst
Henry cannot be
cast
aside.
whispers leak and trickle,
creeping toward me.
there is a tidal shift
slowly gathering force.
swift, almost imperceptible.
it rides,
it weaves,
it stings and burrows,
salt water, seaweed,
and other sunken things.
i hear the rush, the shower
within the parentheses—
the negative spaces—
of junior’s and leila’s
whispers.
there is no such thing as
free love.
there is no denying Henry.
and when we gather force,
knit together—
fuse—
there will be no
ignoring
our
family.
helter-skelter
a week passes.
another dust storm, another campfire.
whispers, creeping.
engines kicking on,
turning over.
arrivals, exchanges
secrets and dealings and fury and tides.
but still
no
important
visitor.
another night with my sisters,
my father,
my family:
more smoke,
more medicine.
more chemical summoning
of the high tide.
Henry exhales slowly, leans forward.
presses His palms firmly to His knees.
it is time for more truth,
fireside wisdom.
time for us all—
for our family—
to
arise.
Henry has something to say.
a message to deliver.
some truth,
love,
wisdom
to impart.
He starts:
“the man has tried
to keep me
down.”
flame leaps,
laps at his ankles;
smoke drapes,
snakes,
swoons.
swaddles him in murky gray
haze.
a veil has dropped;
i see the outside world in fragments,
through spools of cotton batting
that muffle,
that cloak.
the man?
no, it’s more than that.
more than the one visitor.
it is all of the
blank,
nameless,
faceless
men.
all of the uncles
creeping,
lurking
late at night.
filling up any open spaces
they can
find.
i hear Henry’s message.
His word.
His truth.
i can relate.
men are:
sharp teeth,
slick canines.
bloodlust,
anger,
hunger.
empty spaces.
hollowed-out husks.
i can relate. i have been there.
i have been
but.
Henry was meant to erase all of that.
the premise of Henry—
His promise, His power—
was to wave a wand,
to wiggle a finger, to grant a wish
and make the before vanish,
dissolve,
desist.
to make me whole again.
instead,
there is the creep,
the seeping sting
of salt water
droplets, like tears,
clinging to the whispered words
passed between my family
in secret.
and the smoke
can only do
so much.
i breathe in what i can.
swallow it down
like a
whisper.
Henry catches my eye.
notes the heavy rise of my chest.
sees me.
sees through me.
knows.
everything.
He can taste the doubt i carry,
i think.
can cut through the cotton wool
to where
the worry
lives.
can sense my fear
of the building
undertow.
i breathe quickly, my heartbeat catching in my throat,
to think that Henry so easily reads every secret space of mine.
breathing brings the cloud-shifts back,
the lazy haze,
erases all traces of
drowns me.
again.
i think:
Henry, too—
Henry, Himself—
has been suppressed.
has been swallowed,
consumed,
devoured.
considered and rejected
by this so-called
this blank, important person
who is somehow more,
somehow infinite.
somehow never.
to think that Henry has bled.
guilt and anger wash over me, a sheen of indignation,
as the medicine takes hold.
Henry.
has been left. out.
by this person, this
visitor, who did not visit.
who is little more than an unfulfilled premise.
a broken promise. an execution of a plot.
>
sinister. chaotic.
potent
and poised to strike.
“the man didn’t want me—didn’t want any of you.”
the man. Henry means
something larger than merely the stranger,
the connections He thought were finally, fully fusing.
He means everyone,
everything,
infinity.
we nod,
collectively,
contemplatively.
we are rapt,
captive pupils.
we are devout disciples.
we are deadly intent.
no one can hurt
Henry.
a mumble, a moan, a barely contained squeal of agreement escapes from leila’s lips.
she senses what must be done.
the rest of us remain in silent agreement. we know, too:
Henry must not be kept down, suppressed, silenced.
Henry’s love must not be restrained.
Henry’s word is truth.
we will deliver the message. His message.
His word. His never.
His now.
He says:
“the man has tried. to keep me down.
“but after armageddon—
after helter-skelter?
we’re gonna show the man—
we’re gonna show him how it’s done.
“we are going to
“rise.”
arise
i do not know what helter-skelter is, what it is that Henry means when He exhorts us to
but.
i do know:
that Henry—
my father, my lover, my shadow-self—
has been made to bleed.
and i know:
that my family protects one another.
i know:
another promise,
however unspoken, has been forged.
among us.
in His name.
among my family:
we will
clean
i have discovered:
i like things clean.
like the tidy/tidal order of the either/or.
i like things neat,
contained,
filled in.
so.
i like to do the washing.
of all the chores, the tasks—
the banal, mundane,
day-to-day delirium
of my newfound, eternal now,
of all the ways i’m given
to pass the endless, always-time
here in ersatz-everything—
washing is the simplest.
the most satisfying.
soothing.
we don’t have a machine on the ranch,
but i don’t mind.
i have discovered:
i like things clean.
we don’t have a machine,
so instead, i wash by hand.
i use a low, wide aluminum tub that is kept out behind the barn;
once a week, i fill it from a thick, waxy tangle
of green garden hose
and chalky, lumpy soap
