We are merely lucky if we see the whole: the pattern that has anything to do with our always moving, choosing, risking against the total probabilities; the roll of the dice that is easy on the house, but never to the player. Still we play. We play against the total absolute probability, always; for, we are alive. Maybe the house is dead… eventually, right? Then, there is simply life and death and only risk stands between us and the ultimate outcome. We choose to play or not.

Those occasions when it happens are both rare and amazing. If you get most men in a room alone after managing such a feat, most would modestly tell you that they had no idea how it happened, and hence the term, “getting lucky.” Strangely enough, most young women would explain to you that it happened because they decided it would. So much for “getting lucky.”

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve been a slacker about it. I’m still really interested in pursuing it, but I’ve been distracted by some other things.”

“Really? Like what?”

“Well, my art, I guess. It’s nice to get away from the word now and then, if you know what I mean. That, and I’ve been kind of enamored with writing letters—like, hand-written letters.”

“Wow. I haven’t gotten one of those in a while.”

“Right!? I thought it was important in a couple of cases. But, anyway, I’ve gotten over that stuff—I mean, I’ve finished that stuff. Back to work.”

“Good!”

“Shit,” Collin says, “he found us.”

Sitting on the couch next to Steve, Nick says, “It’s not that—it’s just, like, I went to get a drink, and there’s some guy passed out on the stairs, and then I come back and you guys are gone.” Nick laughs, a little exasperated.

“Where you been?” asks Travis. “It couldn’t've taken you that long to find us here.”

“Oh, no, I was hangin’ out with… uh—you know—Beetlejuice.”

“Jackson,” says Ian.

“Yeah. Jackson,” Nick agrees.

“Ian, le’me have a beer,” Collin says.

Ian just gives Collin a look like, “What’re you gonna’ do about it?”

Getting up to go to the refrigerator, Collin asks, “Anybody else?”

“Yeah,” John says, and Collin tosses him one.

“I’m actually feelin’ just fine,” Travis says, dragging out “fine”.

“I tol’ ya’, right?” Steve says.

“Shit, man, this stuff is righteous,” Nick adds. “You should bottle it and sell it.”

“I still wanna’ know what the hell’s in this,” Travis says, but Steve just shakes his head, smiling flatly.

“We should do somethin’ stupid,” Collin says, sitting down again.

“Stoopid,” Nick adds in a Brooklyn accent.

“Stoopid,” Travis echoes, and they both laugh.

Collin looks at them for a moment, and then says, “What?” He doesn’t get the joke, but it’s just an old joke between Nick and Travis, a cartoon they adored, and they give no hint of explanation.

“What do you mean?” Ian asks Collin.

“I don’ know. Stupid. You can’t think of shit, you jus’ always end up doin’ it.”

“Stoopid,” Nick says again.

“Stoopid,” Travis repeats.

“What the fuck?” Collin asks, get a little irritated.

“Were you out with us for my birthday, when it snowed?” Nick asked seriously.

“No.”

“That was hilarious. Everybody was sledding on Clayton and making snow angels in the middle of the road. It started around one and there was inches on the ground when everybody came out after last call.”

“I remember that. Me and John were watchin’ people wreck their cars on Baxter.”

John starts laughing at the memory.

“Hey, yeah!” Nick says, “Why the hell weren’t you out with us on my birthday?”

Travis shrugs. “Didn’t have the magic card then.”

“Oh, right.”

“You remember that, though?” Travis asks John, who just rubs his eyes and smiles. “You know that hill, right by the dorms?” Travis asks Collin.

“Yeah.”

“Me and John were on the Blue Monkey’s porch, just standin’ there watchin’ while people came over that hill at, like, what?—forty-five miles an hour? There were, like, five cars in a row smashed into each other right there in front of us. And the owners were just standin’ there on the sidewalk screamin’ at whoever came over the hill and smashed into their cars. People on the porch would applaud them when they got out of their cars. Humiliating.”

“Shit,” Collin snorts.

“It was ridiculous,” Travis agreed.

“People here don’t know how to drive in the snow,” Ian says.

“Ya’ll don’t know how to drive, period,” replies Collin—insinuating politely that Ian’s a Yankee. Everyone in the room seems to agree with these two points. People down South drove obliviously, and people up North drove rudely. Big difference, of course.

“See, that’s what I mean, though,” Collin says, shaking his head.

“What?” Ian asks.

“Jus’ stupid shit.”

“Stoopid,” Nick says.

“Stoopid,” Travis repeats.

“Stoopid,” Collin says.

He cracks his neck, bends it around a few times and then lets his head fall completely backwards. The din causes him to push his heels lightly so that the wrought-iron bench upon which he sits will sway in some rhythm likely lent to his subconscious by the forest around him. And it was then, in that moment, that he thought of her. It was as though she were sitting next to him. He thought about writing her a letter—yes, a letter that could be complete and spell out all his thoughts and carry sincerity. Something to explain all the years that had gone by, all the long years in which they had both changed.

BANG!

The cedar deck above him echoes out down to the lake and out around the hills. He sits up straight, his heart bouncing, but to do what? To confront what? Was he under attack? Had one of these wild night-players come up close? Minutes pass and he slowly sits back in his seat. There are no follow-up sounds. No growls, no scuffling, no howls or hoots. There was just the bang and then nothing.

And he thinks that it is as if the Universe has asked him to pay attention.

And then, underneath the meanderings down by the shoreline, underneath the now tired whippoorwill, underneath the chirps and calls, he can hear more of these occasional and punctuated slaps or crashes. A nut? It was June. There were babies abounding. But he wondered, when do trees give birth? Is there a season? There must be—on Earth there is a season for everything. And so he decides that he had been witness to the late night birth of a tree that would now remain silent for fifty years until it dropped its own heavy seed on a deck that still remained or that had been gone for a long time.

Humans have adapted their diets many ways over the centuries and learned many things about nutrition and what we can consume and everything that we have learned abou tthe human diet points the way toward a deeper understanding and love of the environment, our mother. We should not take from our mother Earth! With patience and practice it is possible to learn to subsist on only air. You will save so many souls!

He wrote:

You know what goes good with air? Bacon.

He didn’t think about it again for a while after that. And he didn’t know it, but bacon would come to haunt him.

Three quarter clouded moon over ocean’s persistent crystal light dances a path to walk alone in a night time myopia silence that stills the heady dialogue of bright day and moon’s wide and fuzzy halo is a quiet amphitheater for the performance of ocean waves their dark body, bright foam, an inverted tide come to take all your should’ves away. and lap deep thunderous. At the First far falling star overhead, you sit in awe alone wide-eyes peeled to bay of light Her communique She to you alone, who walks this late who came to worship the temple of the architect of accident when all the voices insisted hitch hiked on you to this quiet place you came alone to, the fall silent one by on until left are none and the second falling star is a real thing. And the ocean, not something to fathom but a place to land— as all falling stardust must and you are cold and you are shivering sitting on a wide beach of white sand the wind with its job to do your vigil is aside the three quarter and clouded moon looking down on you shines white light that is a secret from the sun bounced —round the solar system and there is no one else watching but you’ve who’ve come this late at night for the show that goes on for almost forever