Patrick and the Love Hand

At a whim I thought I'd peer into those forgotten drafts that began to be written, once, but were set aside, perhaps because they were no good and perhaps because I had something better to do. The titles always take my breath away. This one, "Patrick and the Love Hand", was a dream I wrote down on May 31st of this last year.

I don't have much time. We're getting married in an hour, in a week. My dad's paid for it all; the little altar adorned in lilies, Grecian somehow. A priest. A chaplain. A cheap wedding dress.

I'm ready to walk down the aisle.

No, no, I gesture for him to come near me, wiggling my index finger like it's about to fall off. "Come here, come here." He comes. "This isn't how it's supposed to happen. It isn't in the script."

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Once again I'm in my little apartment. Shells are being fired here and there; I've got my helmet on. A couple of troops are leaning against the brick wall; I'm sitting down for a cigarette. "It's horrible," they say. I nod. "It's not so bad. What's that smell?"

A horse, lying down. Green. Palomino once, I think. Before it died. Before it was killed in all the fighting. I wonder if it served its country well, if it can have any concept of how or why it died. The horse gets up. Flies circle its eyes. It looks at me.

"You have to go back," it says. I wonder how it survived, how it can live like this, puss oozing from every orifice, a saddle still on its back, its dead eyes gazing into mine. Horses have a different perspective. They can't see straight ahead.

"You have to go back," it says. "Sure," I tell it. I know. I find the bridle. Its legs will catch like that, wandering around with the reins hanging down around its ankles. "Hold on." I reach to twist the reins and loop them around the neck so they'll sit still, not wopping around the legs like they want to catch fire. "Not like that," he says. "He's afraid of the reins. Gently." He likes what I do, and I move past him toward the door.

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"There's a ghost in the house." She heads for the closet, ignoring my words, tired of the repetition. "There's a ghost in the house. You don't see it but it's there. Don't be afraid. It doesn't want to get you; it wants to be free. Do you know what that feels like?" I try to throw my cigarette against the ground but it just bounces and I catch it beneath my boot. "Do you know what that feels like?" She pulls back the curtains: the closet, full of all of our clothes. Dresses, hats, a violin. "Do you get it?"

She pulls out a suitcase. A sigh. Brushes a stray curly lock from her forehead. She doesn't care about me anymore. I care, but there's the horse, its ass sticking out from four feet of designer dresses, green and moldy and stinking up the place. I hate it, but I gotta take care of this thing.