CHARLIE ZACKS

I put down our dog today. Took her behind the house and held her face in the water bucket.

You, in your sundress on the lawn. The center of the quad. That college was made for you, baby. I watched from afar. We didn’t meet on the lawn. We met at Gary’s. Under the Christmas lights in his backyard. He inherited that house I think. Syracuse looked so good on you, baby. Everything was so new. I guess that’s what it’s like being 18. I only remember you. Everyone was smoking cigs but you. The red and green lights flickered in your eyes. Maybe it was the beer haze, but I remember you smiling at the sky, turning your head, and smiling at me. You, me, the sky. That’s where it started. And it was just like that. Like remembering a dream.

CHARLIE ZACKS

When I got my driver’s license my mom gave me her old Cadillac Escalade, the extended size version. Black. The thing looked like the car a president would be shot in and it drove like a school bus.

CHARLIE ZACKS

I remember watching the life drained from her eyes and then crying probably because I was maybe a year from LiveLeak, a few months from Reddit, and just a couple weeks from ISIS beheadings.

CHARLIE ZACKS

You know the place. You walk in and the weird guy who runs the store asks you what you’re looking for because of course you look confused. “Something new”, you say. “I’ve got something real fucking new for you…” he says and he’s like licking his lips and shit and you’re like what the fuck man but also curious. He starts to tell you about this one guy Dennis Cooper who used to write these fucked up books about child porn and gay dudes killing each other.