cont.

“It’s funy because it’s true,” Nate said, then drank from a pint of whiskey. He loomed large over Brie.
A laugh escaped from Fred as he hurled his Frisbee at the distant target. The Frisbee arced sharply to the right, landed on its side and rolled into a bush.
Irene stood in front of Fred. In her left arm she held the large box of wine. Akwardly with her right, she hurled her Firsbee. It sailed high into the air, then seemed to boomerang back towards her. She stared it down as it landed nearly at her feet.
Nate took his Frisbee, held it at arms length, ran two giant steps and punted it like a football. It made it the closest to the target yet.
With all eyes on her, Brie looked at the distant target. She looked down at her Frisbee. She looked at Nate. She looked at Irene who glared back at her. She looked at Brian glancing at Irene. She did vuagely wondered where Emily was. She drew the Frisbee across her body to throw it, then stopped. She looked down at her feet and said in a level tone, “Fuck you guys,” and walked to her car, started the motor and drove off.
“Your turn, Brian,” Nate said. He drank from his bottle, but the liquid disagreed with him causing him to gag. He sprayed whiskey and began to cough. Brian threw his frisbee. It sailed high and straight, landing ten feet from the target. Fred walked over to his frisbee and as he leaned over it to pick it up, he felt a sharp pain on his forehead. Looking up he realized Irene had thrown her frisbee at his face. Fred rubbed his wound and took aim at the target. Again his tragetory angled off. He looked back at Irene and shrugged.
Irene glared at Fred and ignored Nate as he again punted his Frisbee. Fred though nothing of it when Irene began to walk towards him. Her Frisbee was at his feet. He stepped a few paces to the side to geive her room to throw. She passed her Frisbee and raised the box of wine over her head. She brough it down ontop of Freds head with all her might. Fred briefly saw a white light. His next sensation was that of the cold mud on the ground against his cheek. He rolled on his back in time to see Irene bring the box again down on his head. Instintively he protected his face with his hands. The force of the blow glanced off his forearm. He could feel the wet mud soak the back of his shirt. Irene kicked him in the side and he curled up on his side. Fred percieved somone pulling Irene away and them arguing, but Fred couldnt hear them. He just laid on his side and looked at the beads of rain on the grass.

After some time Nate knelt next to Fred. “They’re gone,” Nate said. His pint of whiskey gurgled in his grasp. “Can you sit up?” Nate helped Fred up onto his elbows. After a few silent seconds he then helped Fred onto his feet. They limped out of the park and onto the road.
“This is more like it,” Nate began. “I mean we have to let it out, right? The rage?”
Fred was in a daze and couldnt think of an anser.
“This is who we are. Look at you. Right now, you are as much of your self as you can ever be. You have black eye, blood dripping down your arm, your covered in mud and dog shit. This is who you are. This is your primal scream. Do you regret it?”
Nate continued on for a while like this. A light rain began. Soon they came to a bar. Nate instictively went in. The bartender looked up at Fred and said,” You can’t come in here like that.” Nate nodded and put Fred out on theside walk.
“This will just take a minute,” Nate said, helping Fred down to sit on the curb. He then went back in the bar. Fred liked the silence. He took a tiny sip of cough syrup.

It was a mild concusion. Fred had piece meal memories of a bus ride, a diagnosis, another bus ride then sleep. He woke up in the mornign with a pounding head ache and to the hellish sound of Nate’s snoring. Realizing he was fully dressed, he wandered the apartment looking for Irene, he had the vuage desire to apologize. In the mirror hanging in th ehall he peeked uder a bandage on his head. Seeing only a bruise, he took off the bandage and let it fall to the floor. Sensing the absence of the cat, Fred felt the need to feed it. He openned some disgusting organic salmon and shook it out onto a dirty plate, then placed the mess on the floor. On the kitchen counter was a perscription for vicodin and an out pactient release form with recomended concusion care. Fred didn’t hesitate, he called in sick to work.
“This is Fred Moyer. I have a concusion,” Fred said, hearing his own breating repeated backl to him through the receiver.
“Ok Fred,” his boss said.
“I have a note from the Dr.”
“Ok Fred. Don’t worry about it.”
“I fell down,” Fred said.
“I’m sure you did.”
“I went to the Dr.”
“To get a note.”
“Because I have a concusion,” Fred said
“That’s what the note says.”
“It does.”
“I know.”
“How do you know,” Fred asked.
“Because you told me so.”
Fred was quiet for a moment. He tried to conjure a picture of his bosses emotional responce to this news. But he couldn’t. “I’ll be back to work on Thursday,” Fred finaly said.
“Ok Fred. Bye bye.”
Fred folded his perscription and put it into his pocket. Back in the living room he saw Nate was awake. He was staring at the floor with an empty tired gaze. It had the look of pure grief to it. “Do you think there is the same discomfort, anxiety... um. The same depression in people no matter what’s happening to them? Because there is no war, we take meth and die at the same rate?”
Nate didn’t look up.
“Thanks for taking care of me yesterday.” Fred fingered his perscription in his pocket. “Can I get you anything?” Nate chuckled, but didn’t look up. “I’m going to the store. If Irene comes back tell her I’m not mad at her.”

“I’d like to know your name,” Fred spoke at the girl in the parking lot.
“Darci. Hi. What’s yours.”
“Fred,” Fred said. “I am named after the store.”
“Which store is that?”
“It’s Fred Meyers, it’s Portlands chain big box retail.”
“Why are you named after the store?”
“No real reason. Maybe a lack of imagination on the part of my parents. We all like Fred Meyers,” Fred said. Darci was folding her easel and putting it in the trunk of her car. The idea that Darci might be leaving prompted him to speak to her. For currage, he got his perscription filled first.
“Who are we?” Darci asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You said, ‘we al llike Fred Meyers,’ I wondered who we are.”
“My parents and I. My mom is a checker there and my father delivers produce to them sometimes for his company. I mean it’s not his company, but he works for it.”
“Huh,” Darci said with an interested air. Fred felt like an incomprehensible scysophrenic. They were silent for a while, then Darci closed the trunk of her car.
“What are you doing?” Fred asked.
“I am painting. I guess that’s obvious. I am painting pictures. It made sence when I started. But now it doesn’t,” Darci said.
“How so?”
“I mean, traveling and painting is what you are supposed to do if you want to be a painter, at least that’s what I thought. Maybe I don’t get it.”
“Are you leaving?” Fred asked.
“I am going to drive around. I am just not feeling it anymore, I’m just not feeling it.”
“Are you just going to drive around Portland? I mean I could show you around. I have places I used to like to look at, I mean I used to take pictures and things.”
“Sure,” Darci said. “The car is fucking disgusting.”
“I don’t care,” Fred said.

Fred directed them towards the old produce row section of town which he walked through daily to work. The drive there was quiet. The affect of the vicodin was seeping in. He felt partly excited, partly sad.
“What happened to your face?” Darci asked as she extended the legs of her painting easel. Fred lit a cigarette and looked up at the freeway towering over them.
“My girlfriend hit it with a box of wine.”
“Why did she do that?” Darci asked.
Fred chuckled. “It seemed like the logical thing to do at the time.”
“How so?”
“I guess I really fucking pissed her off. I don’t know how, or how to stop, but my presence makes her murderous.”
“Why doesn’t she leave you?” Darci tacked a piece of linen to a flat piece of plywood, then put it on the easel. She then dunked a narrow house painting brush into a pot of gray oil enamel paint. She made wide swaths with the gray.
“Maybe she has. I feel bad for her. I really do.”
“Why?” Darci tucked some of her dirty blond hair behind one of her ears. She seemed to be looking at a fenced off parking lot.
“Because. I know how she feels. I know there’s nothing to do or feel and it’s agravating.”
“Couldn’t your mutual understanding of agravation be something you get along about?” Darci took a tube of paint out from a pocket in her coat. She squezed the tube directly onto the canvas and drew with the tube.
“I don’t know. I mean talking about frustraition might be a way to feel beter about things. Or it can be more frustraiting. I don’t think finding other people would make us feel beter. Nor do I think talking about frustraition will make us feel beter. It’s frustraiting.”
“I am in love with Mark Rothko. He’s a painter. He was a painter. I mean I think I used to be in love with him. He lived in Portland for a while so I thought I’d spend a few weeks painting in Portland. I am from Montana. You know what? Painting is looking, and there isn’t much I want to see. Painting is looking. It’s a quiet activity. And doing it gets you no where. Talking, getting stonned, maybe fucking someone would get you somewhere. I mean, the journey should be within my own work, I know. But the further I get in my own work, the more I am training myself to look. The more clearly I look, the closer I get to seeing and understanding something really ugly.” Darci produced another tube from her pocket and painted a diferent color. The layers of paint were slowly mixing on the canvas. She was making large different collored squares.
Fred thought for a while. “It’s ridiculous. It’s just life. I don’t want to live, but this is a waste. But then again what isn’t. I wish I were suicidal. Then I could fight my own desire to die. Hey, I’m going to get a cup of tea. Do you want me to bring you anything.
“Sure, bring me some tea,” Darci said.

There was a coffee shop in the side of one of the old warehosues. A man with elaborate glasses peered into his laptop screen. The man’s legs were crossed and he leaned far forward. The glasses, the peering, the posture, it all looked very uncomfortable. Fred ordered two hot teas. As he walked back to Darci, he realized he had ignored everything she had said during their conversation.
“So what is it that you don’t want to see?” Fred said handing the paper cup to Darci. She stopped painting and cupped her hands around the vessel. As the morning drew on, it failed to get much warmer.
“I guess I don’t want to see anything. I look at people, and no one is looking at anything. You can catch their glance if you are thinking about sex or pot. If you look around, theres nothing going on. There’s the weather and the trees and shit, but looking at them is the loneliest thing there is to do,” Darci glanced up at Fred. Fred cleared his mind of sex and pot.
“I guess since I have no desire to paint, I don’t see things. But I do have a conversation with myself... on going. And it’s ridiculous.” Fred said. Fred leaned against the trunk of the car and Darci painted.

“Do you ever paint people?” Fred asked. Darci had set her first painting of the parking lot to the side to dry. She was looking up now and drawing with charcol. The freeway loomed above.
“Yes,” Darci said.
“Do you think people who shape and guide their lives through their their work, families and relationships are artists?” Fred asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I only ask because I envy them.”