After he hanged himself at twenty-two, the town got together and planted a tree in his name. It would be stalwart and good in time, this sapling. Today, April Fool's, I visited on my way home, the first small wisps of leaf just bursting the buds, the root-knees straining for purchase in loosening earth. Rain came down on me, stiff, and kept the kids inside the school where Breck himself was a boy.
Nothing let itself be understood, articulated, though everything seemed so common, so plain.
These weren't booze. These weren't crack or horse, nor the cheap leather belt he fashioned into a noose. There's likewise now an art award in his name. I wheeled along and shivered, wet to the core. I told myself, Either way you can't lose.