Kunz - Tap out: poems

Copyright 2019 by Edgar Kunz All rights reserved For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016. hmhbooks.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Kunz, Edgar, author. Title: Tap out : poems / Edgar Kunz. Description: Boston : Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019. | A Mariner Original. Identifiers: LCCN 2018033158 (print) | LCCN 2018033745 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328518132 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328518125 (hardcover) Classification: LCC PS3611.U59 (ebook) | LCC PS3611.U59 A6 2019 (print) | DDC 811/.6dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018033158 Cover photograph Paul Anthony / Getty Images Cover design by Mark R.

Robinson Author photograph Hieu Minh Nguyen v1.0219 For Noah and Luke,
my brothers

Three hundred miles north, my father beds down in a van by the Connecticut River. Snow tires rim-deep in the silt. He has a wool horse blanket tacked inside the windshield. A pair of extra pants bunched into a pillow. He has a paper bag of partially smoked butts. A Zippo. A Zippo.

He has state-sponsored cell phone minutes and a camo jacket hung on the sideview to dry. He can see the Costco parking lot through the trees. Swelling and emptying out. He wants to fix things with his wife. He wants a couch to crash on. He wants a drink.

He wants sex. He has a few cans of kidney beans and a tin of ShopRite tuna. Wrinkled plastic piss bottles line the dash. Sometimes he walks out to the river and lets the wind sift his lank and matted hair. Sometimes he peels his socks and stands in the murky current and thinks about his wife. The birthmark on her neck.

Her one toe longer than the others. Her freckled hands. He tries to hold her hands in his mind. He tries to remember the birth years of his sons. He tries to make sense of the papers he signed. The icy water wetting the hem of his pants.

The river stones sharp underfoot. The wind. I hold him like this in my mind all afternoon.

---

Mike pins me to the sink, forearm levered against my throat, flexing the needle-nose pliers in one hand. He and Ant examine the hole in my head where the pencil lead snapped off, blood leaking down my temple and pooling in my ear. Hold still.I know how to do this. I know what he means: our fathers used to salvage wrecks in Mikes sideyard. Hold still.I know how to do this. I know what he means: our fathers used to salvage wrecks in Mikes sideyard.

Hammer out the paneling, clean the fouled spark plugs with spit. Flip them for cash or drive them until the transmission seized. If they didnt know where one came from, they pulled it into the garage, sold it off quick. Now, Ant stands lookout in the doorway. Half-watching for teachers and half-watching Mike, who rinses my hair with floor cleaner thick as motor oil. Eases my head toward the weak light of the pull-chain bulb.

Presses the pliers to my skull, and starts to dig.

He pinches the j between his first two fingers squints an eye against the ribbon of smoke sliding up and over his cheekbone. Its me my buddy Ant and Ants stepdad Randy a half-ass house painter whos always trying to hit us up for weed or pills even though were thirteen and dont do pills or have any idea how to get them. Were driving Randys work van into Worcester to pick up a recliner he found in the free section of the Globe. Ant hates his guts and I dont like him much either but Ants always doing stuff for me like asking his mom if I can stay the night or sneaking me empanadas when my dad doesnt come home so I go along Ant up front me in the back bracing myself against the wheelwells trying not to get knocked around too bad. Randy pulls up in front of the house and we try stuffing the armchair in the back but the arms are too wide.

We flip it on one end heave it onto the roof. Lash it down with a tangle of rope from the glovebox and step back. Its not a bad-looking chair. Fabric ratty at the edges but sturdy. Mostly clean. Randy twists another j to celebrate and buys us sandwiches.

We post up in an Arbys parking lot the three of us cracking jokes Randy belting folk songs in Spanish. Recliner strapped to the van like a prize buck. He flicks the roach into the weeds says but you skinny-asses you little faggots you could barely lift it and we stop laughing. I look over at Ant and hes sort of picking at his jeans face tight like he got caught doing something dumb like hes ashamed or something and for a second its like whats gonna happen has already happened. Like the ropes already snapped the armchair gone headlong into the road behind us. Like were pulled off on the shoulder Randy punching the wheel calling us dumbfucks fuckheads sons-of-bitches sending us out to wait for a lull in traffic and drag the wreckage to the median.

Like weve already started to say what well say over and over: We knew the whole time. Chair was too heavy. Rope too frayed. Too thin. Nah we knew. No shit we knew.

You think were stupid?

Me and Ant shirtless at the corner of Sanford and St. Paul, straddling our bikes, watching Daryl pace bowlegged in the gutterYeah man, I mean,you wouldnt believe this chick, manscuffing at the No Dumping plate epoxied to the curb with the toe of his high-topIt was like nothingI ever feltAnt and me following the jut of the older boys chin to what looks like a popped balloon lying slack at the bottom of the storm drain. Nineteen ninety-nine and the most brutal summer on record, the water ban parching every ball field statewide. The old men who play rummy in the shade of a stunted maple have folded up their lawn chairs and gone inside. The street is mostly emptyjust stillness and heat and Daryl going on about this girl who just moved to town and has tits like thisa girl who doesnt know about Daryl yet, his conquest complex and his big moutha girl who doesnt know yet about this town, the legless vets hanging around the Army-Navy catcalling public school girls, the True Gospel Pentecostal women handing out pamphlets in denim skirts and turtlenecks, the fake fifties diner on Middle Turnpike where kids get blitzed in the parking lot and fistfight until the cops show up. I mean it when I say Im thirteen and already sick to death of this place, sick of Daryl, his acned swagger, the scuff of his hand-me-down Nikes on the curb.

But when Ant taps my shoulder and turns to go, I dont move. I stand here at the corner, a quick ride from home, the still-slick condom catching light in the storm drain, the blacktop radiating heat. I lay my bike on its side. I step closer to get a good look.

Windshield smeared with dust. Sun bedded down in the hills.

Drum of my fathers hand on the dash startling the box-nails in the ashtray. Stub he held delicately in his teeth. Silence we passed back and forth between us, like a joke. Knowing one day we would stop speaking for good. Knowing it when the freeway cut ahead of us and Natick fell away on either side. When he held up his hand to mine, palm to palm.

Nail beds packed with grease. Knuckles more scar than skin. When he said I had piano hands, and I was ashamed, and hid them in the pockets of my coat.

Tell me how she left that morning early left & you two towns over hoisting the brush rod all day leaning ladder to brick & me rapt in the crib quiet as anything quiet as something said almost out loud how you cupped my skull in refrigerator light groped for the whole milk jar of tomato how for years after youd startle awake and hover your hand to feel for the small fact of my breathing though I wont pick up for you anymore though whats left is mostly shame & damaged light tell me lean your head into your shoulder whisper into your hands