“Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous / to be understood . . . How two hands touch and the bonds will / never be broken.” —Mary Oliver
Kelly and me, July 1974.
When the phone rang at 2:30 in the morning, jarring me out of a pleasant dream, I had no idea how dramatically my life was about to change. It was Kelly—a troubled young woman with a drug habit, a criminal record, and a metal plate in her skull from the storefront window through which her boyfriend had pitched her at the tender age of 15. We had dated, sort of, about two years earlier.
She was calling from a rat-infested motel room somewhere in Montana, two states away, a .38 caliber revolver clenched in her hand. She had one thing left to do before she planned to press the barrel against her temple and pull the trigger: to thank me.
She was calling from a rat-infested motel room somewhere in Montana, two states away, a .38 caliber revolver clenched in her hand. She had one thing left to do before she planned to press the barrel against her temple and pull the trigger: to thank me.
RSS Feed