John,
John, and Jon
Spanish
Fork, Utah 1997
The quiet one, wait—
they were all quiet, in a way.
The innocent one, then.
His father’s brothers were polygamists;
the whole clan lived way out
on the dusty open plain
beneath the great, jutting rocks
of the La Sal mountains.
He drove over an hour
to reach the edge of civilization
and quietly wash dishes.
Maybe he was quiet because
he was separate, out of place
in the busy, dirty restaurant world.
He was careful with me,
but not with his roller-skate car.
It ended in a ditch,
its stereo still blasting,
roof in the dirt.
His jokes were soft around the edges,
daring me to return to a time more innocent,
only recently cast aside for a wilder life.
Already too wild for him to touch,
he loved me with his eyes.
The creepy one--
With his battered black case,
its clattering contents.
Those knives were
the tools of his trade, but
were they necessary
for flipping pancakes and building burgers?
He was a chef
masquerading as a line cook,
masquerading as one of us -
hiding inside a splattered black duster
and cowboy boots,
even in the heat of summer.
He asked me out.
Once.
He heard me say
we would go as friends, but
his slicked down hair and hopeful eyes
when he picked me up
exposed his intentions.
We drove to the city
to see a ballet -
the sun on our left,
steadily descending
behind the low mountains.
Those mountains meant west,
the others meant east.
East meant…
home…
But I listened as I drove,
to the stories of his pain
and sadness
and anger
and felt myself accepting his need to hide.
Then we watched lithe bodies
move gracefully on a stage
and I hoped he wasn’t picturing
my body,
at all.
There were other boys at the restaurant,
but only one more Jon
in love with me.
The sultry-eyed,
dangerous,
charismatic,
broken one.
He loved me much more lightly
than the other two,
like an afterthought,
or an accident.
His quiet was full of mystery.
That night when he sat on the floor,
leaning against the fryer
his tears were silent,
but the thunderous breaking of his heart
made mine beat in overtime,
surging to encompass him.
He was younger than I thought,
but older than he said.
He was a poet
who had already run out of words.
I called his Camaro vintage;
in truth, it was a piece of junk.
His guitar?
A prop
(but a fruitful one).
I bet him a case of beer;
he lost,
so I got to drive that rusty white car
in the blackest part of night,
and finally found the west’s answer
to New England ’s backroads:
just as empty,
but wide and straight,
so I easily discovered the car could fly.
I challenged him then to strip poker;
next, to Truth or Dare.
I thought I had won each match,
but then,
with winter biting at the single-pane window
in the small bedroom
he rented from our night manager,
he said,
You know that was just
for fun, right?
And I knew that I had lost.
