David Alan Graham, Cigar Box

He doesn’t have his heart in him anymore. You can see it around his eyes, and in the tucks and lines that dig into his cheeks that play around his lips that run to the slope of his nose. His face is on television a lot these days, more than before, when he still had his heart to swing around and use at his discretion.  He loses his heart and they put him on TV, but they don’t know he’s lost it. If anyone was paying any real attention, they would notice it’s not there.

Someone must have constructed a substitute, some metal contraption that pumps blood in his heart’s place. For some reason I picture it to be steam-powered. I would say he was full of hot air to justify this, but I know better, I’ve seen what’s really in him, or at least was in him. He’s on TV and no one seems to have noticed that he is a man missing a heart.

I have it. I have it in a cigar box that sits in my passenger seat while I drive to LA. I’m going to give it back to him.  

…

Bolivar looks up at me from the passenger seat, a smaller, dwarfed version of him.  The heart in the box seems to give Bolivar a certain life.  Without it he would be a box.

“I don’t suppose I could get you to reconsider?” he says.

“No,” I reply.

He rubs his hand up and down his face feeling his sideburn. They look enormous, though he is miniature, perhaps because he is miniature. I wish I could grow sideburns like that. A person can get a lot of respect with sideburns like that, it’s no wonder he had so many followers. People pay attention to facial hair.

“I can give you some reasons, if you would like.”

“I’d prefer it if you didn’t.” His voice is high, not quite fitting to the image people give him, like Abe Lincoln.  “I don’t really need to know; I’d still be against it.”

“Of course you would be, makes sense.”

We sit for a while, listening to the heart.  Bolivar starts to count the beats, puts his hand over his chest and counts the heart beats.  

One

Two

Three

Four

He only ever counts to four. This goes on for some time. 

…

“I’m sorry officer; I didn’t realize the limit had changed.” 

He’s not tall really, just appears to be. I try not to look at him; his crotch is at eye level.  I also refuse to look at Bolivar. He would only make the situation worse. I attach my eyes to the road through the windshield.

“You should pay more attention,” the cop says.

“Fascist,” mumbles Bolivar and my eyes betray me and look over at him. My head snaps back and I smile at the crotch.  

“I’m sorry sir.” His crotch disappears and my car is allowed to slowly pull forward and back onto the highway. My speed is greatly reduced.  

…

Bolivar should grow a moustache; his sideburns would look better.

We sit in silence for a great while. Silence is underrated and is truly essential for long journeys. When there is noise, when people are talking, or music is playing it is easy to forget that you are moving. Silence makes you pay attention to your journey. You see scenery, the images of the world being thrown by you as you ride along at great speeds. If you’re the one driving you have little time to take it all in. You have to keep your eyes forward, hazy and staring far away.  Sometimes something far off catches your eye and you stare it down, play a sort of game of chicken with it. A billboard, a barn, anything big enough to take notice of, standing there and staring you down. Which will give first?  Which will swerve? Neither of course, you were never going to collide. I still get a great sense of achievement whenever I pass these foes, however.  Sometimes there are those things on the side of the road that are hidden until you pass them and you are left trying to look back in the rearview mirror, but you never see what it was. If there is noise, all these things are missed or forgotten.

It would seem that I am the only one observing the silence, Bolivar is tapping his toe and rocking his head to a beat that only he can hear.  

One 

Two 

Three

Four.    

I turn on the radio.

“Hm,” he says and stops tapping in time to the music in his head and starts tapping to the music we both can hear.

“You’re off time,” I say, “I mean you are doing it wrong.  It’s a waltz, it’s not in four-four.”

“Hm?” he replies.

“It goes one, two, three, one, two, three.  You can feel it.”

He stops tapping for a few seconds and tries to feel the music. He closes his eyes and really starts to concentrate before he resumes tapping. 

One 

Two

Three

Four

“You’re still not right, there is no four, only three,” I say.

“But four works too.”

“No it doesn’t, you can’t feel the fourth beat.”

“I guess I just feel the music differently than you.”

“There is nothing to feel differently about. I mean that makes no sense. There is no different way to feel the music.”

“Of course there is.  Look: One, two, three four, one, two, three, four,” he counts off. 

“You’re just forcing that fourth beat in.  It doesn’t belong there,” I say.

“I like it there.”

“Fine,” and I turn the radio off.  

…

“We are not discussing this again,” I pause, “Were cars even invented when you were alive?”

“I bet I’m a good driver,” he says, “I bet it’s in my blood.”

“It’s not your blood,” I pause again, I hurt his feelings. “Look, we’re almost to LA and I don’t have time to give you a fucking driving lesson.”

“So I’m never going to get to drive?  Ever?”   

“No, it doesn’t look like it.”

“Come, just for a bit, a couple of miles? I’m never going to get to do it ever.”

“Can you even see over the wheel?”

I let him drive. He had no idea what did what, so I had to teach. The lesson didn’t go well. We are crawling along at 40 miles per hour while cars zoom by at 80; he says he’s afraid of going faster than God intended man to go.  “It’s not natural,” he says.

I keep asking him to pull over so I can get back behind the wheel and he just keeps saying a little more, a little more. I let him drive a little more.  

I look out the window; Bolivar has sped up to 60 miles per hour, so I can’t really complain about him going to slow anymore. He’s getting better and we are getting closer. I think back on where this started, images haunt my mind. I see my past-self stumble, I see scalpels pierce and I see skin and bone pulled apart. I see these images and find myself back there, drunk again, barely able to walk. I fall asleep.

One

Two

Three

  Four

…

I wake up; Bolivar going faster than before, 80 or more.

“Where are we? How long was I out?”

“We’re still on the road; I didn’t even notice you were asleep.” 

There is a new facet to his voice, something I can’t quite finger, something manic. 

“Ok, fine, pull over.”

“No.”

“You’ve driven enough.”

He speeds up.

“Slow down,” I say.

He speeds up.

“Slow the fuck down.”

There is silence, he speeds up, the motor growls and purrs with the new speed. No one speaks, I just stare at him.

“It’s my heart now, it’s in me, and it’s mine.”

“We have to give it back,” I say.

“That’s not going to happen.”

He speeds up.