Excerpt From: Only You Can Prevent Forrest Fires

Forrest was out of sorts that day. Not the same. Her smile wasn’t there. That’s a big deal when even her cry held a semblance of smiling and laughter.

“What’s up man?” I’m not good with compassion.

“Nothing.” She walked to the back of the house and continued packing some black plates and bowls.

“Are you moving?”

“Nah man....”

The tension was thick.

“What’s up with the dishes?”

Forrest stopped packing briefly. She shrugged and said they belonged to someone who used to live there. She was going to throw them away.

“Why not keep them?”

Her revulsion was visible.

****

In the car, with the windows down, we drove down the country roads near Walters, Oklahoma and threw each dish with significant force at fence posts and electric poles and train tracks. I brought empty liquor bottles and we threw them recklessly into the parking lot of the high school as I cursed my angsty years with the punctuation of shattered glass.

Half-way through the box of emotional ammo, Forrest told me why she had been so willing to join with me in destroying something.

“That guy. He raped me.”

The smile was back and I was unsure how to respond. I’m not sure I did. I may have said an incredulous, “What?!” but the memory has faded under years of smoke.

“We were sleeping... I... was sleeping. I woke up and I knew he had...”

There was silence until I saw the train tracks ahead.

“This one’s you man.”

There are no words, even as a spectator, that can fully describe the glory in that vision: her dark skin in the moon on an empty country road, her arm raised with muscle taught and expectant, and the smile, huge and unwavering even as the thick ceramic-like plate crashed into the track and flew in all directions. Destruction becoming release, healing. It was like seeing the weight lift, even for that moment, from her shoulders.