Over Breakfast

I suppose I had no business saying those things to Julie.

She was just doing her breakfast thing, same as any other day

reading the back of my paper aloud over eggs, tomatoes, and sausage

knowin' full well I wasn't halfway through Landers and dead set on gettin into Marmaduke before Daryl show'd up

But as ma says, 

Eggs ain't eggs without somethin gettin broke

and that front page article on the Carter Parking Garage Killer had worn Julie paper thin.

She puffed out a tearful monologue

punctuated by toast shrapnel, 

I just don't… I don't… I can't understand how a person can just… KILL nine people… for no REASON. It's, it's… it's SENSELESS. You just NEVER know wha---

Well, I understand how a person could do that, I shot back from behind my paper. 

Wasn't more than four seconds of silence before I knew she'd never forgive it

I shoulda tipped the paper but I just couldn't look at that face she was surely makin

lookin like a rich walrus on tax day

Damnit, playin out these tired routines was enough to turn a man sterile

What I mean is… I can see---

Her chair bit into the floor as she clinked our dishes into a pile.

I can't believe you can just sit there… JUSTIFYIN… the killin of innocent folks, Wayne, she sputtered downward into the sink

like I was lookin up from the gunk.

I didn't say it was right, Julie Rae, I said I can understand it.

Well, I just don't know what to think about that. I suppose you think that's typical behavior, do you?

It was an awkward way to stick it to me, but I knew what she was gettin at

(when you've earned this much interest on a relationship, 

ain't no conversation you're gonna have that isn't colored by something you said while under some sort of influence - be it love or whiskey)

that, right there, was her thinkin back on that time we was at Billy and Michelle's 

and I was tellin them about how I'd found that sheep's skeleton up in the canyon when I was 12

kept it in a sack under my bed for months

'til ma'd found it and made me throw out the whole damned sack cause of the ticks

and I was really gettin into that story cause Billy was laughing and callin me Wayne Dahmer

and suddenly Julie was tearing towards the bathroom ballin her eyes out and wailin bout 

THAT AIN'T NORMAL WAYNE. AIN'T NO KIND OF WAY FOR A KID TO BEHAVE

Michelle chased her in there, no doubt stokin the fire like a woman does when she's tryin to put one out

THAS TYPICAL BEHAVIOR FOR ANY BOY SCOUT, JULIE RAE, I hollered after her, 

rollin my eyes at Billy 

and Billy rollin em right back 

Come the next mornin she was all kinds of sorry

made a big hash even though her head was poundin

but after that she watched me different

Like before I was a sheepdog

now I was a malamute.

What I'm sayin' is I can see how a man can end up in that place... 

where something senseless... makes sense. 

Ain't you never stared at somethin till it blurred? 

Er said a word so many times you stopped believin it was a real word? 

She didn't answer, but I knew she had

Ain't you never done that same thing with livin? Where you… 

where you and the world stop speaking the same language for a little while?
Like everything you done up to this point don't bring you any closer to understanding the next point yer supposed to shoot fer?

Like you stop believin in all that buddhist shit 

momentarily… momentarily, Julie

and you realize that maybe you ain't One with anything, 

ain't attached or related to nothin: 

not yer daddy, yer momma, yer fellow man

not the one you love

not the law

not even the ground.

You just a bunch of cells that got lost out there

and everything else is a bad dream.

Ain't you never been so lonely that you stopped believin the word "lonely" even exists…

cause ain't no one coulda understood it rightly before you?

She was frozen at the sink, 

hands on my dirty plate, 

water spillin over the basin

like I had my .38 to her head

Daryl blasted his stupid horn in the driveway in his stupid regular way

I walked over and turned off the water,

tried to kiss her forehead like usual

but now there was no usual

she'd be askin me to move on soon, I s'pose.

Got me wondering if maybe that's just a place the female mind can't ever go

Like maybe a man's heart has a drawer in it that women just don't have

and shouldn't never open.