Anyway, the farmer lets the dog out.  Dog charges across the road and is barking barking barking at us.  I let go of Joe (my big dog) and notice that he, and this tail-waggin’ brown Labrador Retriever have the exact same collar and make instant friends.  We wonder for a minute or two if Farmer John is gonna come charging across the road in the same fashion as his dog, but nothing.  And the dog follows us, tail wagging like mad, she and Joe bounding through the forest like old pals.

We shrug.  We smile at the strange friendly dog, happily running at our sides, tongue lolling. 

So, we had a new dog for an hour.  No farmer hollering for her, she not taking one second to look back.  For an hour she was a part of our pack, she was Joe’s best friend and a partner in trespassing that turned out to feel not like trespassing at all.  She knew the way, had obviously been to the old house many times before.  I said to Jen, “I think she’s the keeper of this house.”

Once we got back up the old winding driveway, the dog trotted back into the farmhouse yard.

“See ya..”

But she come back around the house and I said, “Go on, dog, Get!”

The chocolate dog retreated home, faded into the darkness just like everything else, and was gone.  I hope next time I make the treck down the hill to the house with no people to love it, that old dog comes along again, to be a member of our family for another hour and share that magic thing that dogs got and people don’t.

Love you random dog.

AK

Walking the burnt prairie,

Dogs in toe,

And a backpack to carry stray bones.

Bone sticks out like shinning mirrors against the black earth

One animal, usually a deer,

But sometimes a coon,

Scattered over great distances,

After the coyotes had their way with ‘em.

I’m hunting antlers

The true relic of whitetail

The part the coyote refuses to eat

But rodents jump on if you don’t find ‘em soon enough

A buck taken down before he dropped his rack

Will always have a tuft of hair left on his brow

Between the strange bones that grow out of his forehead in late spring or early summer

The bone begins to grow back almost immediately

Without hesitation, without pause.

Living tissue, rich in blood, skin and bone

Sprouts from his head

I remember my brother’s growing pains, as momma called it.

His tiny legs stretching out, making him a man

Soaking his legs in Epsom salt so he’d stop crying

But the buck must stomach this pain, which makes him a bigger male each year

Renewed each season to win hearts and battles

To win trophies for men with guns

To make men with guns bigger men each year

And high-five at the Moose Lodge

The antlers I find dropped on the burnt earth,

Un-attached to any skull,

Are the ones that made it,

The ones that will be bigger next year

The ones the hunters will seek out with scopes and scent and trickery

And I find myself praying they make it again

Too elusive and cunning for men with guns or arrows

Carrying the burden of being male again, seeing through the thin winter

Dodging cars, dodging bullets.

To find the true trophy, a showing of a good season with the ladies

Without putting a hole into the buck’s lungs,

Is to me, the only way to go hunting.

Except it wasn’t sleep

It was more like moaning disjointed half-dreams

Tearing me in and out of consciousness

Throwing me into the flame and then,

Dousing me with cool water.

And then, as if nothing had happened,

He’d call

Say, “I love you, babe,”

“It’s ok, babe,”

“I’m gonna make it right, babe.”

We’re gonna have babies some day, he says

Maybe we should get married, again, he says

Don’t ask me anytime soon, I say,

I’ll say no.

But he’s still here

And I’m smart enough to know it’s the honeymoon,

But not smart enough to walk away or kick him out

I’ve tried a dozen times

I’ve failed a dozen times.

And I’ll wake up tomorrow and go back to sleep

And it’ll be two days since everything broke

And I’ll just wait till it breaks again,

Maybe my fault this time,

And wake up again and again,

And go back to sleep again and again.

Love is a fickle thing

It can’t ever make up its mind

To love you back,

Or silently hate you,

Or stick, for days and weeks, in the middle

Waiting for everything to break

And send you to one side or the other.

And then to send you to bed,

Sick tummy in toe,

And wait again till morning

When I open my eyes, close them again,

And wait for everything to break.

© A.K. Thompson 2008

The earth

Serious,

Like when yr best friend died in that horrible accident a few years back.

It belongs to you.

Yours to keep,

forever and ever and ever.

It’s your truck that you drove,

for days and days,

and months and months,

to that same fucking spot.

And now,

There’s a tire mark

In the dirt,

the muck,

the clay.

Driven to death, baby;

The mud,

the dust,

the earth.

© A.K. Thompson 2008

I received a B.S. in Journalism from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 2004.  Working in the fast-paced newsroom environment forced me to learn the simple in’s and out’s of words real quick and laid the foundation for my career as a writer, although I’ve stepped away from journalism.  My experience at the Daily Egyptian has proved invaluable countless times throughout my career as a writer.  For instance, as a short fiction writer I have the drive to hook the reader from the first sentence and that skill was learned by writing leads, not fiction.  Pretty neat, eh?

 From SIUC I went to Ireland and studied film and literature at Dublin City University.  What a trip that was!  Not only was I immersed in a different culture, I was able to study Joyce and Wilde in their native country, not to mention watch incredible films at the Independent Film Institute http://www.irishfilm.ie  in downtown Dublin.  Imagine having to watch movies in a private theater as a class requirement!  Not bad work if you can get.

 From Ireland I moved to San Francisco and completed a Master’s degree in creative writing at the New College of California.  Here is where I really started to work.  I wrote a 140-page novella, “So You’re Gonna Die, Now What?” as my thesis, and in addition to that I wrote a collection of short stories entitled “Dogwater.”  Dogwater was recorded onto CD and played on the College’s independent radio station.

From California I moved back to Illinois and began work on my current project.  I am a contract writer for Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital here in Dixon, Il.  For the past two years I have been researching and writing the biography of Kathereine and her husband, Solomon Hicks Bethea.  Solomon left his estate to the hospital, which was his vision, in remembrance of his wife, who suffered like so many in the 1800′s from Tuberculosis.  The project has taken me from the local genealogy society here in town to a family reunion in Woodberry, Arkansas and Marion, South Carolina for research on the Bethea clan.  It’s been an interesting ride for sure.  Most days I’m stuck way in the past with folks long-dead.  I’ve come to really care about these people so long forgotten, and the book is very dear to me.  The project was conceived by the hospital’s president, Darryl Vandervort.  A genealogy buff himself, he felt it was important to tell the story of the people behind the hospital that is such an integral part of our community.

 I am also currently trying my hand at copy-writing for local tourism attractions.  My first article is the Valentine’s Day Feature, you can check out the website at www.bwcvb.com

I also work with juvenile offenders at the Lee County Probation Office.  We have designed an innovative mural program in place of typical community service.  I’ll let the website speak for itself. www.themuralproject.wordpress.com

Any project ideas?  Send them my way. 

“Will write for food.” 

Wish me luck.

 Amen.

It reminds me of the old Lady Lee boxes for cereal, rice, oats

They don’t make shit like that anymore

Even the generic folks have a graphic design department now

Spending money on fonts and photographs that jack up the cost for poor folks

Not Tennessee tobacco

Not that sweet twist chew

From down there in Gallatin,

Where they earnestly declare,

May cause tooth loss,

And biting off the rope tastes so good you don’t give a flip if all yr teeth fall out

So every now and again, between spits, I get up to flip the record

The Kentucky Mountain Boys sing

“Oh bury me beneath the willow…”

And love is so hopeless in a bluegrass song

And it makes perfect sense that way

Down in the hollers and up in the hills love is real

Something that drives you straight to the mad house,

Or the bar house,

But yr a sucker every time

Ting! sings the spittoon,

And the heavy ba-dang-dang-dang of the banjo

Kicks up something in yr soul so real,

You don’t mind if yr heart’s broke

© A.K. Thompson 2007

 Contact A.K. at junkyardfiction@gmail.com