Is there a term for spiraling so slowly that it just looks like dancing? Only when the detective has the photos of the event up on the white board and they’re sipping their coffee and they look down then up then they realize. Their brow furrows, they should have seen it all along.  That’s the abyss in the center of the room not a throw rug! (though it does really pull the room together as they say)

I’m the detective in my own life. I’m the mastermind setting fires on the South Side. I’m the thug in the box sweating it out. I’m going to get to the bottom of this. I’m waiting at the bottom of this.

I am emotionally dishonest, but not without flair.

All writers are detectives, all writers are defectives. Typing out our confessions that we got from ourselves, but tidying them up for the brass downtown. I file mine in the trash can and go back in for more, this perp knows the answer, this time I’ll crack it, even if I have to break a few eggs, break a few legs, break this kid against the side of the table.

The detective sits in bars late at night and drinks and talks to anyone who will listen about the case. The detective has a tab that is never brought current. The detective stares out at headlights as he drives, across the bar, across the room. Something burns in his gut that isn’t bourbon, something animal that knows he got it wrong, got it wrong again.

I flip through old work, I keep forgetting but there’s so much of it. Scribbles in pages and stages and rages of kings, my own words sound like someone else, sometimes they catch me by surprise, almost unravel the knot, like that was the purpose. I keep singing the same songs, changing the key – pushing the shapes and toys I have into battle with the throw rug in the center of the room. I understand but I don’t believe, the detective stares out at headlights and knows he got it wrong again.

Is pain a riddle to solve? I hide secrets and stories and swords made of silver in the air, in the wire, in the bath water. Hoping to find them when needed like December coat money, tossing them downstream in time.

The detective sleeps alone even when there is company.

I understand but I don’t believe. At least not enough.

There is some resentment. Do I really need to say it again? I say it over and over but no one puts the clues together. Never mind that I don’t really know what I’m saying and would resent more any attempt at vigilante justice. This is my town, let the police do their job. It’s too bad that they’re on the take. This is a city of law and the first law is: I choose what I see. The second law is: Let it burn.

The mastermind laughs in the streets and doesn’t even bother wearing his mask anymore.

I’m sweating in the box, my wrist handcuffed to the table. The detective comes in and folds his coat over the chair but doesn’t sit. The detective leans over and says, “Say it again.”

And I stutter. I moan. “Please don’t make me, you don’t understand. I’m in danger.”

The detective rolls up his sleeves and locks the door.

Start small.

Build a tree, and a chair beneath, and then wind, and then night. The wind is cold.

An actor enters, sits on the chair. They are waiting.

Start small.

The actor is a man with red hair. His clothes are old, cut for a larger person, perhaps stolen. The man sits in the chair and leans back. His head almost brushes the bark of the tree. He shivers. He is waiting.

Already the lines form in the dark, already the roots spread.

Tempting to leave him here. Tempting to leave the man to his moment. Is he waiting for a lover, waiting for a rival, waiting for the sun to rise? Ask but the answer is already clawing against your teeth.

He is not a young man, nor old. He has a knife tucked in his belt. He once loved to sing, but now does not remember the way of it. He is waiting in the chair under the tree on the edge of the town (a town! of course, this moment requires it). He is waiting for another traveler, one that can lead him home. He has promised gold to the traveler but he has none. He has no particular plan beyond waiting and the knife and the roll of the dice.

Does he have a name? He does, but not one you can claim. He has two, but they did not travel with him. Why him, why this shadow and not one of your own? The question is sharp and heavy but you feel the moment passing.

The man in the chair looks up, almost as if he can hear you pondering.

You are close, you are tempted to speak – but the moment is passing.

The wind is cold. The man waits and hopes to have more than a knife to offer. The tree and the chair and the town wait. The wind is cold.