They met on the side of a road not knowing who to look for, only having talked on the phone once or twice. They shook hands and talked about a certain car and one of them introduced the other to yet another man whom he did not know but thought he looked like girl. We made noises together and ten years passed.  

Through time the guy that looked, and sang, like a female left.

More came and went.

There was the one who had accomplished more than any of us. There was another who might have been a face in the ‘industry’. There was the brilliant and caring guy who built a tree so massive and beautiful it had to be cut down. And there was the kid, who, remained a kid. After all these men, after long drives, bright lights, cigarette smoke, and the stench of beer and burnt piss, the sour frost-bitten story of a cold heart starts here.  

Now two men lay flat on an over-used surface of granite and fiberglass and metal gazing at the same blackness above wondering if it truly is a ceiling or if you could go higher. Did anyone win? Who is Cain and who is Abel? Know these men are not related if only by words. Once the best of friends, sure, but not now. An army exists though it is only one man. The betrayer against the betrayed. An arsenal of electronic words.

‘Were going to die here, son’.

Pause.

‘Okay father, I am ready’.

Fucking Thermopylae.

The one who stands alone is the encumbered. The one who stands with others here is the hopeless, helpless. Dim the lights and the brightest of all greens illuminate this long-haired, heavily bearded man and he could have a heart made of pure gold though aging has turned it platinum, titanium. He would beg if he were a begging man. He would cry if he were a crying man. In his eyes, you can see the world he suffered through, much like your own, that is, if you lived like we did, or came from where we came from. 

This is where we die.

Where human hair becomes fire, the very breath stolen to a single nostril hair. I show what I think. He tells me what he thinks. Once so very close, maybe not close enough. Goodbye, I say as I take the rusted 40 year-old knife in my right hand, cut a small incision in the same artery EMT’s use to check your pulse. That artery, I slice just enough that death is slow because I know that what he would want it that way. Just like me. I take my seat, I watch. He gurgles saliva and blood and I drink from the twelve-pack I brought with, occasionally dousing his injuries. More pain. I do the same thing I did to him to myself.

And we are off.

I should have never said you need a drink.

Die cow, die. 

The Cold War or Oil and Water: Die cow, die

Will Carpenter lives in Houston. His blog is The Sunken Treasure.