Outskirts Press, INC.

Two nights ago, while Arthur L was in a dream, I heard him say, “I can do this,” and when I asked about it the next day, according to him as he looked as if he was hemorrhaging, “I dreamt that I lived in a shadow from which every day, I watched Lala from dawn to dusk, play basketball with some fella I couldn’t make out. After watching ‘em forever, in the dusk of day, after La had gone, I left my lurch to see just who this fella was and he was me, and I thought ‘I could do this,’ and right now, I suspect La’s in the dusk, waiting for the dawn, to play me some ball.”

I knew Arthur L before I knew my mom’s name. I grew up with him; went to school with him; served in the military with him. I was in the stockade with him; caged in a European dungeon with him; put in penitentiaries from Tennessee to California with him. I’ve traveled western Europe, the United States and Mexico with him. I’ve fought him, for him and beside him; his bread is mine. He never had a thing he wouldn’t share with me, including the lunch that he stole from Rupert when we were in kindergarten. He’s the biggest thing in my life and how to betray him is all I think about.