Free Sorrow Floats by Tim Sandlin

compared to opening my locker in GroVont Junior High to find Shannon smothered on my math book or lifting the toilet lid on Auburn with open eyes staring up from under the water.
    Time after time I came awake choking, sweating like a stuck pig. Nightmares based on true fear must unleash a reaction in the sweat glands. Being in a coma was easy thrills compared to that night in my own yard.
    The mid-morning sunlight caught me curled up against the far panel with the sleeping bag wrapped around my neck. My fist clutched the empty Milk Duds box.
    When I crawled from the tent Mrs. Barnett was standing on the sidewalk holding a cut-glass bowl of candy. She wore a synthetic dress, and her tongue made those little click sounds you think of when you think disapproval from an old woman. She stepped past me and went up the sidewalk to where Sugar Cannelioski waited in her matching slacks and top outfit looking like the Barbie doll from hell.
    “How thoughtful of you,” Sugar said in this drippy southern accent she must have picked up overnight. “I just love pralines.” Sugar held the door so Mrs. Barnett could totter inside, then she looked at me on my hands and knees in the corner of the yard.
    “Don’t even think about asking to use my bathroom,” she called. I flipped her off, but she was already inside hostessing and missed it.
    “My bathroom, you flat-chested slut,” I said to the ground. Memories of that bathroom left a bad taste in my mouth, anyway. Every time Dothan went righteous the first place he looked for a bottle was the tank on the back of the can. What an insult. I may have been drunk, but I wasn’t stupid.
    I didn’t even want Yukon Jack right then, which I took as a sign I wasn’t an alcoholic but a regular person temporarily thrown off by her father’s death. Or something. Something had thrown me off.
    What I wanted was black coffee followed by a hot shower and more black coffee. What I had to do was get my butt upright and down the road.
    Except for the Teton Mountains, the Killdeer Cafe had been about the only consistency in my young life. The dump had gone through maybe six name changes, but for me the cafe had always been Max in back slinging grease and Dot out front taking care of people who didn’t eat at home. She’d quit for a couple years about the time Shannon was born, and I don’t think I ever had my bearings the whole time she was gone.
    Dot has all this curly black hair that goes with her rounded cheeks and chin. I wouldn’t say she’s fat, but fat is such a subjective deal. If I was shaped like Dot, I’d say I was fat. Half the single men in Teton County were in love with her. Single men will fall in love with any woman who brings them food.
    When I came through the door she was sitting at the counter, eating a sweet roll and staring at a paperback book propped against a napkin dispenser. The first instant Dot saw me shock flashed in her eyes, but she hid it quickly. I appreciated the effort.
    “Coffee, hon?” Without waiting for an answer she grabbed the pot and brought it to my normal booth by the window. Dot talked to fill in that uncomfortable space when you first see a friend who has screwed up.
    “Have you read this Teachings of Don Juan book? Jacob picked it up somewhere and now he has his heart set on becoming a sorcerer. People turn into crows and fly over the ocean. They eat hummingbird hearts. I think it endorses drugs.”
    Booths, tables, and cracked-plastic-covered stools, the Farmer Brothers stainless-steel coffee urn, the pyramid made from single-serving cereal boxes, a calendar with the months framing a University of Wyoming football schedule—the name might change, but the restaurant had achieved a glacial kind of pace that gave me comfort. The newest decor addition was three years old. That came about when Max changed the name to the Louis L’Amour Room and the real Louis L’Amour threatened a lawsuit. Max framed the personally signed threat letter and hung it