Why My Brother Walked into Traffic on his 30th Birthday, and Dracula Critiques The Big Sleep, 1946, New York City

by C.G. Thompson

WHY MY BROTHER WALKED INTO TRAFFIC ON HIS 30th BIRTHDAY


On his birthdays in particular, I wake up through the night,
How does a mind break so unexpectedly, blindside everyone?

imagine what he saw on the field that pristine evening.
Spring practice 2000, Kenny became obsessed with zeros,

Surely green grass stretched into the soft distance with belief,
worried they’d bring bad luck, kept counting three in a row.

beckoning as he nabbed a fumble from the opposing team,   
Bruce Canton dropped two quarters in the locker-room,

nestled the leathered ellipse under his muscled arm. 
and Kenny’s logic snapped, received a garbled message: 

In the stands with our parents, I watched him dart and zigzag,
the guys thought number 50 should have completed the play.

linebackers clearing the way. Did he notice the obstacles
Graffiti in the boys’ bathroom, first floor, was directed at him,

or just the growing gaps as yards stirred beneath his cleats? 
he claimed, lyrics from John Mayer: “But something’s better 

The goalpost was an H of hope in three shining dimensions.
on the other side.” Proof his team judged him unworthy,

He reached it, no one near, crowd on its feet, cheering,
replaceable. He began refusing dinner, remained huddled

Mom waving her seat cushion, Dad pumping his program.
in his room, mumbled about “no such thing as the real world,”

Teammates tumbled over Kenny, his six points sealing 
predicted the touchdown he’d scored would be erased.  

the game. Night of phone calls, congrats, November 1999.
Two weeks later, he discovered a yellow sock in his drawer,

Kenny had finally found his place, or invented it.    
static-stuck to a T-shirt, tossed it on the kitchen table,

Girls rushed up to him at school, giggling and flirting.
yelled that Mom had planted it, a taunting penalty flag.

Next year, he’d be a senior, buoyed by achievement,
The following Saturday he punched in Dad’s dashboard,

sprinting into the stadium with a dapper strength.   
convinced the DJ’s morning banter was targeting him,  

For a few months post-victory his grades improved, 
drove to Jeff Mobley’s house, destroyed a project on fiber optics, 

his face and posture conveying an energized confidence,  
accused Jeff of transmitting ideas through his brain. 

until something sacked his mind, no timeouts left.

DRACULA CRITIQUES THE BIG SLEEP, 1946, NEW YORK CITY


So many murders, wasted.
No one drinks blood from the bodies.      
Pornographer Geiger remains on his bed for days,
neatly laid out, ripe for the taking,
and Joe Brody, grafter, buys it on the floor
of the Randall Arms, two bullets pumped into him.

I revel in the pleasant dark of the theater, 
relax and enjoy other delicious deaths:
coward Canino, no match for Marlowe’s wits,
(or aim), bumped off after using a woman as a shield,
and gangster Eddie Mars, machine-gunned 
by his own men.

There should be blood,  
but the camera pans away, squeamish,
or ignores the science of the matter,
victims oddly spotless.
I wait for nourishment, see none,
wince at the stains at Geiger’s house,
squandered,
his fluids mingled with carpet fibers, 
dust, shoe prints. A shame.

This movie is a tease.

I’d make a better Marlowe,
would look dashing emerging from that ’38 coupé
(Plymouth DeLuxe) sporting his trench coat and fedora.
I’ve lived (and died) the Marlowe attitude,
wouldn’t let all those lovely necks
go unnoticed, untouched:
unlikely sisters Vivian and Carmen, morally agile Agnes,
the unnamed brunette at the bookshop, 
a chatty female cabbie, the leggy hat-check girl.
   
I’d dispatch them in no time,
silky flesh giving way to a network
of warm arteries.
No. One exception: 
Carmen would become my bride, 
beautiful, sensual, enigmatic— 
immune like me to the devastation in her wake.
We’d understand each other, stalk prey
in night, rain, fog, 
low visibility a plus.
Our unforgiving fangs would tinge 
with red points,
she the femme fatale,
blood our mutual, shadowing lover.
No filmmaker would edit our lust.
No censor would cut
the open, liquid rush.