Robert Herring » Blog

Said/Meant

robert — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:14:58 +0000

In Honduras, beer is cheaper than water,

They would boast to the green arrivals. These men didn’t care about beer or water.

But they couldn’t say,

In Honduras, life is cheaper than money.

We were all still pretending.

3-29-10

robert — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:07:21 +0000

He loves the city when it’s sleeping, when all the lights are off and if you listen you can hear the Pacific wearing the continent away. He hears the bus coming. It sounds like a ghost moving towards him. He closes his eyes, breathes in the fog.

One night, way back in Honduras, ghosts had moved past him. A whole pack of them, children, moaning and banging empty plates on locked doors.

“What’s that?” he asked. His girlfriend shivered next to him, pulled herself closer to him.

“Shh,” she said. “Ghosts. If they hear us, they’ll never leave us alone.”

With a hiss the bus doors open and he gets on. The driver slumps over the wheel like he’s asleep, but when Dave sits, the doors close and the bus lurches forward.

3-23-10

robert — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:08:31 +0000

“I need you to organize the shelves tonight,” my boss says an hour before the end of my shift.

“All of them?” I say.

“As many as you can.”

I think of the immensity of the project. Payroll keeps getting cut. Some of the sections haven’t been organized since before Christmas—Literature bleeds into Romance, the Atheist and Catholics infiltrate Islam/Sufism. “Why?” I ask.

“Because we’re having a corporate visit tomorrow and the boss wants the store looking good.”

“Really? Are you serious?”

“Yup,” she says, and she’s gone.

I wander onto the sales floor, head towards Psychology. Face out one or two books, then think, Fuck this, let corporate see what a store looks like when hours get cut to nothing and you put all your managers out on the street. I spend the next hour pretending to shelve fiction, wondering why everyone likes David Sedaris so much, and then go home.

I spent eight years in the army and six so far out of it. There ain’t much difference between the army and Frontiers (you’ve never heard of Frontiers because it’s a made-up name for a real place). Except that Frontiers can’t throw me in jail when I don’t do what they tell me to. They probably wish they could, but they’re going to have to feed me three-squares a day and give me full medical/dental before I let them do that.

3.16.10

robert — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 09:34:09 +0000

I was down in the basement, in the room where I grew up. My father stood silently at the top of the stairs watching me pack dirty laundry neatly into my duffel bag. We were going on a trip. He wanted to say something. I finished packing and went up the stairs, went quickly around him, walked outside hoping he wouldn’t talk, hoping he wouldn’t follow me. He didn’t follow me, but he did speak. And I can’t remember what he said, can’t remember anymore what his voice sounded like.

It’s getting late and I should go to the store. Get some soap and some cookies and milk. Some frozen thing for lunch tomorrow too. I don’t eat right. I know I don’t eat right. Maybe my father was trying to warn me.

colorado

robert — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 12:56:43 +0000

denver. i was in that square state for four days and didn’t see a single fucking mountain. it looked like kansas in the middle of winter with all the clouds and fog and flat dead grass. and me and a friend got kicked out of a bar in boulder for smoking weed. fuck that state.

A Jar

robert — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 06:59:28 +0000

I put everything you gave me into a jar. I emptied it into the ocean today. Except the quarter. I dropped the quarter into a bus and rode down to Market Street.

8-16-09

robert — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 05:57:43 +0000

A cable car was blocking the intersection and all I could think was, “Come on, Muni, get that fucking tourist trap moving so I can bike through.”

San Francisco doesn’t charm me the way it used to.

8-14-09

robert — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 10:51:23 +0000

“This is the autumn, it will break your heart.” –Hans Fallada

The Drinker

Part One: Bondsteel

robert — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:32:48 +0000

Private Richard Henry watched a formation of birds flying overhead in the clear blue sky. They flew high, towards the heavy mountains covered with snow and fog, and he couldn’t hear them talking to each other. He wondered how cold it was up there, wondered how the birds kept going. Because it was very cold on the ground and all he wanted to do was quit, go back to bed, wrap himself up in the still warm sleeping bag. He stamped his feet together and breathed into his gloved hands. The day was mockingly bright and a cold wind blew from the north straight down Henry’s neck. He stood in the turret of the Humvee making sure all the pins holding his machine gun in place were there. In a few minutes they’d be moving and Henry would stuff his hands as far under his armpits as he could and it would be very bad if the weapon fell from the roof and onto the highway. Matson sat behind the steering wheel of the idling truck. She picked dirt from under her fingernails while Nick slept in the seat behind her. Sergeants Rivera and Jackson were inside the long green tent next to the two trucks. The company operations sergeant was giving them their briefing. When it was finished, they would drive past the concertina wire and sleepy guards of the main gate and into Kosovo. But this didn’t thrill the squad the way it used to.

Jesus, it’s already April?

robert — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 09:51:04 +0000

Henry and Woods drove Martin’s truck through a thick fog to the motor pool. They were the lowest ranking soldiers in the squad, so while Martin and Matson got to watch movies in the large white tent at the bottom of the hill, they had to change the oil or clean the bathroom or spend hours in a guard tower staring out into the cold night. Henry seethed in the passenger seat. Fuck Martin. He should change his own fucking oil. But Woods bobbed his head, whistled “Free Bird,” was happy to be finally driving the truck.