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| (visual by nukeit1 via this license) |
dispatch eleven
Oikos by Adam Moorad
debuted 1 September 2009 | kept 1124 times | click to keep
behind-the-scenes footage 
Lamb pulls into the parking lot of his apartment building, turns off the ignition. The pistons stop. For fifteen minutes he sits behind the wheel, not wanting to move. He looks at his building. Bricks. Balconies. Telephone wires. Home. He lives here with his girlfriend and Donny, their roommate. Lamb thinks about the word “home.” He says it out loud, looks at his arms, feels weak. Rubs his hands together furiously. The friction in his fingertips makes him nauseous. “Home,” he repeats. He wishes he were happier. Wonders what happy people do to feel happy. He thinks: his mother looking down from heaven, Michael riding a buffalo, ultraviolet radiation, burning, a grazing cow, a steeple, pointing, a waving flag, asking his father the questions, his father disappearing, exhaustion, the roadside, the bombs,a bow-tie and a speedo, a dreaming zygote.
Inside the apartment, Donny is unemployed, playing video games in his boxer shorts. He has no career. Lamb envisions his own career. Donny nods in his glasses. Lamb nods back, moves through the apartment, steps out on the balcony. Looks at Amy’s dying plants. The dried leaves look tired. He feels tired. He walks into his bedroom to change. Sees himself in the mirror. He stares. Feels skinny. Tells himself he will do a better job of feeding himself. He will become stronger, happier, better nourished, and more attractive.
“Your father called,” Donny says. “He wants you to go to dinner with him sometime this week.”
“That’s all he said?” Lamb says. He imagines his father thinking about him. Calling him. Wanting to see him. Asking Donny to take a message for him. Lamb’s father was a preacher once. His father was a revered man in the community. Lamb pictures his father sitting across a dinner table from him, arms folded, condemnatory, and Lamb not wanting to be alone with his father or with anyone.
“I think,” Donny says. “He sounded sad. I felt sorry for him.”
“Do you want to come with?” Lamb says. “When I go?”
Donny looks at the television. His face. Red. Sweaty. He throws the video game controller against a couch cushion. He says, “Goddammit.” He leans backward. Folds his hands behind his head. Looks at the television. At the controller. Shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t really have the money for eating out right now.”
“You don’t need any,” Lamb says. “My dad will pay for both of us.”
Lamb looks at Donny. Sits. Looks at the television. An alien dances across the screen. Its arms and jaws dangle in a computerized wind. Its mouth and claws are laced with the blood of something. Everything moves in slow motion.
“I’m intimidated by church people,” Donny says. “They make me nervous.” He snatches the video game controller from the cushion. Restarts the game. Lamb watches. Laughs.
“You’re always nervous,” Lamb says. “Besides, he isn’t a preacher anymore.”