Category: Blog

“Some people don’t give you anything at first. They don’t know who you are,”

Daniel Kramer, on his first handshake from Bob Dylan.

“Rainy Day Women #12 & 35”

My old friend Steven makes his money working at a Dominos in Rosemead, California. He tells me he’s attending classes at an acting studio, through the encouragement of Carmen Argenziano—who played a buttonman in The Godfather, Part II. He’s living honestly, recording music at his home, posting videos on Instagram, arguing with Donald Trump supporters on social media.

“Pledging My Time”

“I’ll call you next week,” I tell him. A few months pass by and I don’t dial his number. Sometimes, your brain and your memory are the weakest links in the human body. Too much stress, or piling your schedule up with coursework and bong hits, can cause the electrical impulses in your brain to stop synapsing like they used to, evaporating like sparks in a chimney.

“Visions of Johanna”

Sitting in math class during fourth period, Steven passed me a note. “Listen to this” was written on the outer fold of the paper. Inside, Blonde on Blonde was written in his trademark sloppy script. “This is music,” Steven wrote underneath it. I got home and locked my bedroom door, found the album on Spotify, and pressed play. I was filled with luscious harmonicas and trumpets, and a jagged voice—nasal and worn-down—entered my ear canals and hit the eardrums. The vibrations slithered through my ossicles, ending at the cochleas. The auditory nerve told my brain the vibrations were sounds. Everything felt okay for seventy-three minutes—from the first cymbal crash to the last puff of the harmonica. Five years later, I can still hear Steven’s contagious laugh ringing behind the instrumentals after we snuck out of class and hid in a computer closet. We played the album on my phone at a low volume as a jungle of wires and keyboards hovered over our heads. I can still hear the same amazement and disbelief from him that I heard when we walked up and down the streets of Greenwich Village in New York where Bob Dylan first made a name for himself.

“One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)”

On the cover of a ripped-up yellow notebook, Steven and I took turns writing “Dylan” in different fonts: block letters, cursive, chicken scratch, thin letters, our best attempt at Times New Roman. “You hear the new bootleg series?” Steven asked me. “Yes,” I responded. “I think the demo version of ‘She Belongs to Me’ is better than the album version.” He gave me a scowl look with his jewel-blue eyes. “Don’t ever say that again,” he snapped.

“I Want You”

Steven says he’s been binge-drinking a lot since he got to Los Angeles. “I can’t even tell what days are real anymore,” he insists. In high school, when they told us alcohol would ravage our brains, we pictured them turning into hunks of grape jelly ricocheting off the sides of our skulls. I’ve never had even one sip of alcohol in my life. Studies show that too much alcohol can remove neurons from your brain, maybe the ones storing fits of violent rage from fathers, your reflexes for wanting revenge. Alcohol may treat traumatic incidents from childhood, and let you forget that pain for a while.

“Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again”

He was the first person to know I was bisexual. I’d subtly hinted about it one day at school, and he didn’t stop to ask questions. He just moved on with conversation, asking me what my favorite Bob Dylan song that day was. “Oh,” I said, “probably ‘Wigwam’ or something.” I crossed my ankles under my desk. “That’s a fucking good one, bro,” he replied. Sometime in the future, when a classmate of ours called me a faggot, Steven threatened to beat his ass for it—and that was good enough.

“Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat”

OCD patients tend to follow the same routine, or fixate on one specific thing. Anything outside of the routine can feel foreign, unnatural. We sat in our study hall and listened to Bob Dylan every day. All we ever talked about was Bob Dylan. Some OCD patients ease their symptoms by attempting to arm those around them with the same habits and obsessions. Steven professed Dylan’s greatness to everyone in his path. He even got the star player on the basketball team to dig “Like a Rolling Stone.” Time moves faster when you’ve learned to compartmentalize your life in ways that make sense to you and no one else. “Dylan wouldn’t give a shit if I passed this biology test or not,” Steven said once.

“Just Like a Woman”

“I’ve been having a lot of meaningless sex,” Steven tells me. “I can’t even fathom how it doesn’t make the voices in my head stop. Anyways, my mother wants to know when I’m coming home.” I ask him when he thinks that’ll be. He tells me it could be in 2024 when the total eclipse is over Ohio, or never. I’m not quite sure what the middle ground in that is. One time, when we were in eighth grade, Steven told me he lost his virginity to a girl he met on the internet. He told me all about how they did it bareback, which he most certainly had no clue about back then. It was an entertaining gag, much like how he claimed to be related to Frankie Yankovic—the Polka King of America. This time, though, I could hear the emptiness in his voice—the longing he had for a warmer feeling. In that moment, I could sense there was a part of him that wanted to be back in Ohio in someone’s arms.

“Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine”

I spend a lot of time thinking of synonyms, slang, to define the last time I saw Steven. Ignorance for when he came by my house unexpectedly on his last day in Ohio. “Go on a drive with me,” he said. I told him no, citing that I had to catch up on a television show with my mother, but, really, I just couldn’t go out with him—the actuality of his leaving too much for me to bear. “No, man, I really can’t. I’m sorry,” I said to him, after he tried waring me down with repeated asking. Repentance for when he wrapped his arms around me, hesitantly, and said goodbye in my driveway—a moment I didn’t realize would be the last time I’d see him for nearly three years. He didn’t say “see you later” or “talk to you soon.” Remorse for watching him drive off in his beater car. I remember the way his brakes rattled, how his tires made the asphalt scream when he couldn’t.

“Temporary Like Achilles”

With Steven, Blonde on Blonde is an album that is constantly teaching him how to keep going. We always joked in high school about how Bob Dylan’s music can teach someone how to live. I wish I’d been less naïve back then and realized he was never joking. We used to drive around during our senior year, with slushies and convenience store hot dogs, and listen to the album. Steven would skip through the tracklist in search of the perfect tune for whatever stretch of road we were on. He was a half-a-year older than me, but infinitely wiser. “It’ll be okay,” I told him once, when he was obviously hung up on something I’d never understand. I kept my eyes on the road. “Yeah,” he responded. “I love this album. Sometimes I feel like it was written for me. I don’t know what’d I do without him around.” I nodded and patted him on the shoulder. I fear for the day Bob Dylan passes away—because I worry about my friend.

“Absolutely Sweet Marie”

Steven was known for his constant jokes that weren’t politically-correct, even though he is one of the most compassionate people I know. When we were younger, he’d tell people to kill themselves or constantly joke about suicide—like it was something that deserved ridicule and wit. Our junior year, after I tried killing myself with shards of glass, he found out through a memoir essay I had to write for our creative writing class. He never made another joke about it when I was in the room—until I was out of therapy and doing better. I think he imagined learning that his friend could have been dead, and thought about how he’d probably cry if he’d gotten that news.

“Fourth Time Around”

His zenith was in his journals. He had stacks of them scattered around his shoebox of a bedroom at the house he grew up in. Steven never felt the warmth or vividness in Southington, Ohio that he felt in Bob Dylan’s music. Dylan has a house twenty-five minutes from where Steven currently lives. Once in a bookstore, he found Dylan’s first poetry book Tarantula. He didn’t have the money for it at the time, but told me: “I’ll have this one day.” So, he hid it between two Christian cookbooks and came back for it two weeks later. Within days of reaching California, he told me he was going to go see Dylan’s house. I wonder if he stood beyond the property and told himself he’d one day have all of it—the warmth and the vivid life he couldn’t find in his youth.

“Obviously Five Believers”

I once slept in Steven’s gazebo with him after his graduation party, watching Barbarella and Blow-Up back-to-back on a television and DVD player rigged up to his parents’ outdoor generator. Steven was seven jello shots deep and I was a gram of weed in. It was freezing, but we’d brought out a dozen blankets and propped up our lawn chairs like thrones. Everyone had gone home, or returned to their cars to sleep, and we were alone. It was there that I thought we would have a moment, an instance of honesty, where we both admitted to being scared about the future. But there was only the cosmic sound of the television screen in front of us. Before the last movie was over, I glanced over at him, thinking he’d be asleep and I could adjourn to the house to claim the living room couch for the rest of the morning, but he was wide awake, glaring at the screen with wonder. “Quit fucking looking at me,” he said with his boyish grin. “Don’t be gay.”

“Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands”

For days, Steven is absent from Facebook and Instagram. His arguments with Donald Trump supporters have vanished, for the moment. I’m working on a poem in my dorm room when my cell phone rings. I hear his familiar tenor voice greet me from the other end of the line. I pictured him hearing me respond, offering up his Midwestern smile—closed-mouth and halfway-curled upwards—before going on one of his tangents. My brain told my mouth to say something, but it refused. My tongue quit moving.  “The moment I stop talking about killing myself is when you should be concerned,” Steven says to me, three-thousand miles away.I hear puzzling static coming from his end of the phone, and what sounds like the rustling of papers. My mind convinces me they’re his journals.

The beauty queen walks the stage in her rhinestone encrusted heels, making sure to glide, not clunk. One foot in front of the other. Hips sway, but not too much. Pause here. One hand on hip, wave gently, like she’s slowly wiping at a window, big smile. Glide, glide, glide, pause. Both hands on hips, lift chin gently, smirk. Glide, glide, pause. One hand on hip, soft smile, soft wave.

She’s center stage. All eyes are on her, they can’t look away. Her hair is coiffed her teeth are whitened her lashes are darkened, her lips are red, so red, her skin, is it porcelain? Is it really that perfect? No, only under those lights.

“For my talent, I shall perform a magic trick.” Her words are precise, rehearsed but still natural. That smile, my god, is your heart fluttering like mine is? How is it that everyone wants her yet no one has ever had her? Intimidating, they say. That’s what they say. But back to the talent.

“For my first trick…”

The beauty queen reveals a knife. The audience gasps. She smiles wider, she expected this reaction. She is sharper than the blade, her mind is worth more than her beauty but today only beauty is being judged.

The beauty queen thrusts forward her forearm and digs the knife in, drags it up her skin. The audience is shocked. Some begin to cry.

“Fear not! There shall be no blood. Only ants, go on, take a peek, look at my colony, look at how they fester, how they pull my strings.” The beauty queen walks to the lip of the stage and paces, showing off her insides. Her evening gown, a shade of emerald to match her eyes, glistens in the stage lights, perfectly complements the red of her exposed muscle. The fur scarf that rests around her neck begins to twitch.

The beauty queen steps back to center stage. She licks her finger and traces the line of her slice, sealing up her ants and the skin once more. She tucks the knife back into her ample cleavage. The beauty queen snaps her fingers and the fur scarf comes to life. It is a fox! It wraps its tail around her throat, swallows her breath, her vision, and the audience fades to black.

The beauty queen wakes, sitting up harshly in bed, and the crown almost falls off her head. But the fox stirs and lifts a rough paw to push the jeweled tiara back in place. Her ants whisper a song of joy, it’s all worth it for the crown, and the beauty queen rests once more.

***

When it rained, the beauty queen thought the mountains looked like they were on fire. Mist curled from the trees like smoke, their autumn capped leaves disappearing into the foggy sky. The beauty queen’s gut churned with contempt, her appreciation for color soiled by her disdain for the Appalachian country. She imagined the Blue Ridge as a different type of blue horizon and feasted on pavement, her iron foot burning through the floor of her car, thinking that mountains were a place to get lost, never a place to come home.

Her phone rang, trilling through the speakers in the car. She pushed the button to answer blindly, waiting for the voice on the other end to reveal their identity.

It was her sister calling. She was in a fight with her boyfriend. “He’s such a fucking bastard,” the sister said, “I hate that mother-fucking prick. I’m driving away from his apartment right now. He has four more minutes to call me to apologize or that’s it, we’re over.”

“You’re broken up?” The beauty queen never had a boyfriend. She did not know how these things worked. But like most things, she was excellent at pretending.

“Not exactly. Not yet.” She could hear the sounds of her sister’s own highway. The sister had moved to live in mountains too. The Rockies. The beauty queen asked her if she missed their ocean. The sister said she only missed the sand.

“He’s calling back. Fucking clockwork. Call ya later, bitch!”

The beauty queen continued her trek through the mountains, their rounded and lined faces like long faded pageant queens.



On a Saturday, the beauty queen rose from her white cushioned bed after getting fitful beauty sleep, and fed her designer mutt his breakfast. She did her morning stretches then showered, making sure she used the purple shampoo to maintain the platinum shade of her hair. She shaved her legs, her bikini line, her armpits even though hair did not grow for her there. She shaved her toes. The beauty queen washed the deep conditioning treatment from her hair and turned the water off. She checked the drain for ants. She was naked, cold, dripping. She stood there for awhile until her eyes seemed able to focus again. She stepped out onto her plush bath mat, thinking that it had been a week since she’d last painted her toenails. She combed her hair, slowly, gently, coaxing the knots to untangle back into her golden tresses. She toned and moisturized, used her acid drops to firm her aging twenty-two-year-old flesh. The beauty queen wrapped herself in a silk dressing gown and sat at her vanity. She stared at her reflection until it looked familiar. Then she painted a new one over it.

The beauty queen wasn’t always moving through air layered in melancholia. But she couldn’t recall the days of sunlight and laughter when she got her first two crowns, the days before depression maneuvered through the medicated haze of her mind, sinking its claws into her delicate neck, digging in deep until the pills kicked in and yanked them out again.

The beauty queen carried depression on her shoulders, it sat around her collarbones, curled up like a fat fox, its tail tickling her nose and watering her glittered eyes. It was a cold-blooded fox. It offered no warmth, only an added weight that squelched the beauty queen’s feet through mud, sinking her high-heels deep. The fox’s purrs pervaded her mind, an endless white noise, the only station she was tuned to, telling her it was time. This was it. The beauty queen ignored her fox and lined her lips.

The beauty queen’s sister called her. She had spent the day in bed. Eight hours in conversation with the fox and the wall. She had stroked its fur, whispered a soft mantra in her sweet sing-song voice that everything would be okay. It’s all in my head it’s all in my head

She felt her phone ring. Lifted it, squinted at the screen, her sister’s name and face illuminated. She watched the phone pulsate in her hands, watched her sister’s name scroll over the screen. She pressed speaker. She could not bring the phone to her ear, the fox was snuggled against it.

“Hello?” The beauty queen’s voice did not croak although she could not remember the last time she spoke.

Her sister was engaged. It had been a week since the fight, and now she wore a big blue ring on her finger. Aquamarine. She felt so far from the beauty queen. The beauty queen wanted to drive from her old mountains to her sister’s massive ones just to touch the piece of ocean on her finger. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so lost. The sister would bare her fangs at the fox and scare it away with her own flavor of venom.

 “It’s just as big as I wanted it to be,” the sister said. The beauty queen imagined her sister admiring the ring as she spoke to her.

“Don’t you think this is sudden? It’s only been four months.” The beauty queen’s voice was soft, the gentle hush she was taught to speak in. But sometimes her own personality leaked out of her façade. She tried hard not to be too alarming, too blinding. For her sister, she didn’t have to hide. But the fox’s tail constricted around her neck. She couldn’t muster the energy to fight.

“Five months,” the sister corrected. “I’m not afraid of divorce,” she added. The line went dead and the beauty queen hoped the sister didn’t think she was unsupportive. She ran a finger along the tail, stroking the soft fur. The beauty queen felt tempted to imagine what it would be like to have a ring of her own sitting on a lacquered finger. But she knew that her daydreams only spoiled her stomach, and came up her throat. Poisoned nothings and nevers that the fox lapped up with an eager tongue to feed her again in other moments of darkness. She pulled the covers over her head and whispered that everything would be okay, that everything will work out. It’ll happen it’ll happen it’ll happen.

The ants laughed.

 On a Sunday, the beauty queen plucked away stray eyebrow hairs. She left a tea tree mask on her face for thirty minutes to soothe her undisturbed skin, to ignore the ants that writhed beneath her flesh. She painted her toenails. The beauty queen curled her hair on low heat. Her mother taught her these things. Taught her what it meant to be beautiful, what she could do with it. Her mother resented all the things the beauty queen did not do. The mother could not live through her. The mother was once a pageant queen, once donning bikinis and winning enough money to put herself through cosmetology school. She turned heads when she entered a room. She didn’t bother to pick up the roses at her feet. But the beauty queen’s mother used the earnings of her beauty for different kinds of drugs than the ones taming the madness in her daughter’s brain.

The beauty queen sat at her vanity and coated her lashes until they were dark, until they were dark enough to pull tempted sailors into the green waters of her eyes. The beauty queen did not think of all these things that she did. Did not reflect on her routines. But she wondered what beauty had ever given her besides some crowns.

Ants moved into the beauty queen’s skin sometime after her sixteenth birthday, a year after her last pageant. At first, the ants lingered as nothing but a whisper to the flesh, hardly noticeable, causing an occasional scratch, a slight discomfort. They were manageable these ants, because she didn’t think they would stick around. They would go away and she could reach for a new crown. But the ants decided they liked their new home. They decided they were gonna stick around, stay awhile.

As this teenage beauty queen slept, the ants buried themselves under her skin, better to be underflesh, they thought, less susceptible to the whims of her environment. They made their new home beneath the skin, stretched out their legs, twitched their antennas, and bred, and bred. A new horde of ants was running her show, and when she woke, the beauty queen was at their mercy.

She would stretch her arms and the ants at her fingertips would slide down to her elbows, riding the rollercoasters beneath. The ants had to be smart about this. Before she could move to step out of bed, they were marching, headed toward the head. The ants gripped onto the folds of her brain, settled into the crevices.

The beauty queen began to speak words she never remembered. She had memories of events that never happened, hallucinations put forth by the ants enjoying some TV time. Her brain wasn’t her own anymore. Her body wasn’t her own. The red fire coursing through her blood had dulled to dry ice. Each step felt like she was walking on creaky bones. All the ants in her head dragged her down, her head hung low, the crown barely hanging on, the neck slouched. Her eyelids just wanted to be closed, but her mouth hung open just slightly, the only fight in her, hoping that maybe an ant or two would crawl out and make an escape.

Her body had given itself over to the ants. It wanted to lie in bed, stare at the wall for hours, contemplate ending the ant takeover, taking a gun and firing into their new nest. But the thoughts faded, and her hands didn’t have the strength to curl into a fist, never mind grip a gun.

But sometimes, the depression would change. The dry ice cracked, could melt in an instant, and she would wake with a flood crashing through her. The beauty queen’s mind and body entered a war with the ants. She was shouting, she was laughing, the mental circuit boards glitching, sparking, her arms flailing, her nails scratching at her skin, getting to the blood, trying to draw the ants out. The beauty queen had lost it! She was crazy! Did she deserve her crown? Was she even still beautiful?

The beauty queen was a cackling, crackling, manic fool. She would not be at these insects’ mercy. She tried to speak this to those who would listen. She was bursting at the seams, her intent interrupted by the ants, trying to take back the power, to calm her storm, bring her back to the ice, to the bed, to staring at the wall, while they partied in her veins.

When the beauty queen was still pulling strings, when mania was a magnifying glass on the ants, scaring them away, the beauty queen drove through traffic. Slammed her foot on the accelerator and tore through four lanes of incoming cars. She craved the collision, the crashing, and the demise of the ants, as they cracked and poured out of her, their host crunched.

 But horns blared, brakes were stomped, and traffic lights changed. Not a single car hit the beauty queen. The ants and the beauty queen escaped unscathed.

Mania brought her to the doctor’s door. She showed the doctor her trick. Peeled back her skin, showed the huts where the ants lived. Tried to remove her crown, screw off the top of her head and point to the waste they had laid.

The doctor gave the ants a name, told her she could take something to make them go away. But the pills couldn’t get rid of all the ants. And as the beauty queen slept, her darkness came back, a fox slinking in the window and winding itself around her neck.

The beauty queen drank wine with a friend on her porch. Her doctors always asked if she used substances, and she said no. She had spent most of her life abstaining. But she wondered how much life she had left in her. So she drank.

The beauty queen lived in a star city. From her friend’s porch, she could see the star. It sat on top of a mountain, lit up bright and white, a glowing beacon for the small people of the small city. The beauty queen did not like her city, the city so full of small people who were content and complacent. They didn’t need much. They had their star. The only beauty was in their mountains and in their star. The beauty queen wrapped her arms around herself feeling very temporary. She stared at the star until her eyes crossed. The sweat from her wine glass seeped into her jeans. The fox stretched across her shoulders, causing her lower back to spasm from its weight. Who’s to say you’re not as small as them? Maybe you’re smaller. You’re just nothing, the fox whispered to her, its tongue rough against the shell of her lovely ear.

Her friend was telling a story the beauty queen would not remember but maybe she will if the friend tells it again. The fox yawned. The star blinked out.

The beauty queen gasped and clutched at her chest, the loss so sudden.

“11pm,” the friend said, “It goes off at 11.”

The beauty queen didn’t finish her wine.

The sister called. She was married.

 “We had to do a court house wedding, real quick, to avoid his reassignment,” the sister said. The beauty queen was disappointed, she had hoped for a big wedding, for a fantastic white dress, gliding down the aisle. The beauty queen had her sister on speaker while she sat in the shower, the water turned off long ago, her skin almost dry, the cold puddle beneath her slowly slinking into the drain. Her fox sat in the corner, a blessed moment off her shoulders, licking its crotch in rhythm to her sister’s speech.

“Do you think you’ll have a wedding later?” The beauty queen wanted her father to see at least one of them walk down the aisle. Her sister was his best bet.

“I think so,” the sister said, “we’ll be getting a new place soon too.” The sister ended the call. The beauty queen mourned for a moment the idea of her sister as a blushing bride. She had jumped straight to wife. Her sister would have been a beautiful bride. The beauty queen thought her sister was much more beautiful than she was. But it was the beauty queen that wore the crown. That carried the weight. The fox looked up at her, its eyes deep black pools. They blinked in sync and then the fox crawled out of the tub and she was alone. But she was always alone.

When she woke in the morning she knew the fox was giving her a break. Medication chased it away at last, her chemicals settling down. She stretched, massaged her shoulders, and almost missed the toxic company. The beauty queen swallowed her pills like a good girl and pasted on another pretty face for pretending.

Another night and the star was out and the wine was poured and the friend was smoking. The beauty queen told her friend about the marriage. The sister was nineteen. She had probably lived more than the beauty queen had. The sister had spent a lot of nights in beds that weren’t her own. She had driven and tasted recklessly. She had been free falling and if this man had stepped up to catch her, if she had let this man catch her, maybe it was a good thing.

The friend grunted in discontent. The beauty queen unconsciously reached to adjust her crown.

“Have you decided on a costume?” The friend swirled her wine, changing the subject, lights dancing in the whirlpool of her glass.

The beauty queen loved Halloween. She loved dressing up, she was good at it. But Halloween unsettled her still. She saw her real face on others, not her painted face, not her pretend face. The face that fought foxes and swallowed ants. People saw her real face, they wore her face for Halloween, they just didn’t know it.


On a Tuesday, the beauty queen was barely holding herself together. She tried to write, she tried to make sense of her emotions and her future. She called her father four times. Ants rode the tears down her face. The beauty queen had cried every time she won a pageant and every time she lost. She once had the same dress as another contestant. The beauty queen still won, despite the twin dresses. Her mother said it was because she was better, because she was prettier. Her fox lounged on the sofa, laughing at her, as she fell to pieces on the floor. Just another Tuesday.

On a Thursday, the beauty queen went to the nail salon. Her nails were long but strong. She chose black paint for her claws. Three women in the salon complimented the beauty queen. I love your makeup, I love your outfit, I love your hair

The beauty queen realized she heard these affirmations almost every day. Why didn’t it make her feel better? Was she not trying hard enough? Was she trying too hard? Caring too much? The tongs of the crown dug into her scalp but she resisted the urge to scratch at her head. She didn’t want to ruin her manicure.

On a Monday, the sister called. The beauty queen was at her vanity, almost done with her face. She arched an eyebrow at her reflection. Opened her mouth just slightly, thought that the line of her jaw wasn’t as sharp as it used to be. She brushed color over it to create shadow. The beauty queen took her sister’s call.

“Bitch, guess what.” The sister’s voice was high and funny. She had news. She had a secret about to be spilled. The beauty queen held her breath, knowing she didn’t have to guess.

“I’m pregnant!” The sister was happy. Her voice sounded so happy. The beauty queen wondered when she last sounded like that naturally, without her pretending. What even was happiness? Was a baby happiness? The fox sat up on her shoulder, leaning its neck tall, staring the beauty queen down in the mirror. I know, I know. All I know is you, she said to the fox.

The sister was still talking. Giving all the details, though it was early, there weren’t many details to give. The beauty queen felt her gut drop. She was going to be an aunt. She managed a smile, but felt the tail wind around her neck. The beauty queen knew that when her father died, she would have nothing to live for.

But here it was. A baby to be. New life. The beauty queen would have to live.

“I’m going to be an aunt,” she said to her sister.

“I’m going to be a momma,” the sister said. They ended the call.

The beauty queen painted her lips red and went to bed.

While one sister buys beer and the other uses the restroom, peruse the game selection at your local microbrewery.  Peggy, the sister in the restroom, wants Clue because of her weird savant-like skill (she swears her one loss was a fluke).  Choose Oregon Trail.  Flash back to playing the computer version on your Apple Macintosh with the aforementioned sisters, various cousins, and friends.  Take it to a table.

Open the box.  The game contains two types of cards:  Trail Cards (rocks, flowers, vile diseases) and Supply Cards (water, compass, medicine).  There are also six dice, arrow shaped cardboard pieces that represent bullets, and one of those plastic stands that’s supposed to hold a cartoon person but, this being a place where people drink and play games, the cardboard figure is missing.  Use the plastic stand as the player.

When Peggy asks what you’re supposed to do with the cards, hand her the instructions.  Take them back when she tells you that she doesn’t “do” instructions.  Shuffle the Trail Cards separately from the Supply Cards.

Begin to place the Trail Cards face down in a six-by-six grid.  Thank Erin for your beer when she finds the table.  Hand her additional Trail Cards to place on top of the ones that are already in the grid.  Dare her to place her cards faster than you place yours, then laugh when she gets her “competitive” face. 

Choose four Supply Cards and place them face up on the table.

The three of you are on the same team.  In order to win, at least one of you must survive until you earn 600 pounds of meat.  Ignore Peggy when she complains about being on the same team.  The nonstop Clue-winning is turning her into a monster.

Hand each player a die.  Agree that individual dice would have prevented any number of arguments back in the day.  Explain that the player begins on a card in the middle of the grid.  For each number a person rolls, they can perform a single task like moving the player one card over or flipping an adjacent card–

Fine.  Just start.

Roll a two.  Move the player over one; flip over a card that shows “Rocks”.

Laugh when it’s Erin’s turn and she flips over “Dysentery”.  Assure her that she won’t die unless someone else flips over another dysentery card.  Read the card again and realize that water can cure dysentery and one of your Supply Cards is water.

Consult with Peggy.  Decide that it’ll be okay if Erin fake dies because two people eat less than three, and there’s only so much room for food in a wagon.  Ignore Erin when she says, “That’s not a thing in this game” and also when she says, “You guys suck”.  Remind her that there’s a chance she might not die even though everyone always died of dysentery in the original computer version.

When Peggy also gets dysentery, use the “Water” Supply Card to save her.  Try to convince Erin that it was only strategy and she really should buy you another beer.

On your next turn, flip over a “Bison” card.  Refer back to the instructions.  Realize that you forgot to hand out bullets at the beginning.  Do that now.

Thank Erin for the fresh beer she places in front of you.

In order to shoot, you and Peggy must each give up a bullet.  You must also roll ones or twos in order to win the meat.Discuss the odds of winning the game when you need 600 pounds of meat and each person gets seven bullets and everyone has to roll a certain number and give up bullets each time you try.  Decide that it’s okay to take Erin’s allotment of bullets since she’s dead.  Grip your beer so Erin doesn’t take it back.

Roll the dice.  When you roll a one and Peggy rolls a two, take the “Bison” card off its stack and place it in front of you.  Announce, “Only five hundred pounds to go!”

Flip over another card.  Drown.

Convince Peggy that it’ll be really boring if she is the only one left playing (also because she can’t be good at this game too, but don’t say that out loud).  Pack the game up and return it to the shelf.  Realize that there’s another Oregon Trail and you played the add-on and that’s why it was really hard and the rules were weird.  Don’t mention that to your sisters when you return with Clue.