Didi Wood's Editor's Pick
Crayon Way Outside the Lines
by Justin Herrmann
With an engaging, authentic voice, the narrator probes the complexity of life and relationships. This story stayed with me long after I read it.
This guy I know, Cotton, used to be my step-dad but he's not anymore, he coughs up blood and pisses himself. He's a drunk. He's going to die soon. Doctors told him so. I paid him a visit the other day. Seemed like the right thing to do. This guy he lives with, another drunk, a hide-the whiskey-in-the-grill-so-the-wife-and-kids-don't-know-I'm-drinking kind of drunk, kept telling me how soon Cotton was going to die. "Son of a bitch won't make it till Christmas," he'd say, "just want you to know the truth," and he'd be sure to look me right in the eye, because we're both men, and give me that kind of stern nod like so I know he's not just telling me some shit, so I know Cotton is really at the end, so I can see evidence up close for myself that a life of drinking really will make you die young. So I thanked the guy for telling me that, and he must think I appreciated his no-bullshit approach, but I think I thanked him because what else can you say? And I guess maybe it's just habit to say thank you when someone thinks they're doing you a favor, or maybe that's just how I was brought up. I had a dog that got ran over once, a beagle-lab mix, the first pet that was actually mine. An old man ran him over. Guy looked about eighty or so, maybe shouldn't have been driving. I was getting a handjob from a girl who would never be my girlfriend because I thought she was too fat, when the guy brought my dead dog to my door. It was uncomfortable. I was sad. I thanked him for bringing my dog back.
Cotton, this other drunk and I sat around a table littered with children's schoolwork and empty cigarette packs. There was a coloring book opened to a picture of Jesus holding a loaf of bread in one hand and a fish in the other. Jesus was smiling. It was colored poorly. Crayon way outside the lines. I wanted to take Cotton somewhere, to get a good meal or something, but he didn't want to go. Didn't want to leave the comfort of his Budweiser tall boy. I wanted to remember good advice he may have given me, or remember instances where he and I did something special together, like building sandcastles or something, something I could tell him about and make him feel proud, but I kept thinking of the time he called me a pussy for not wanting to keep trying to learn to ride my bike and how he told me to cut off my hands because they weren't good for anything. I thought about how I would write about him later, and turn it in for a class writing assignment, and I imagined anything I wrote about him would make him sound pathetic, and I felt sorry for him. We mostly sat in silence and drank our whiskey and tall boys. When I left, he told me he loved me, I said I loved him too.
Justin Herrmann currently is an overnight janitor. He enjoys tacos and beer, he likes them fine individually, but thinks they are better together.