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The stolen records down his shirt
at the Walt Whitman Mall,
the women in his bedroom,
the sudden conversion, the youth
group packing our living room
to sing for Christ, the hugeness
of the ’68 Ford Galaxie he bought
for coming down from upstate college
just to play church volleyball
Friday nights with a 16 year-old
Christian girl named Amy.
He had to park it on the street
like a truck, because it had no
reverse. I had my own stories,
but it didn’t seem like it yet.
I blacked out on beer at
the marching band party and
woke up on Diane Demerest’s
mother’s bed. See what I mean?
My brother had maps in his head
of every route through the Catskills
so he could reach that girl faster
in that car so big he felt a lag
between when he turned the wheel
and when it drifted over the line
into the fast lane, its long fenders
nudging the future. I couldn’t
understand how he got away
with never going backwards,
not even when delivering pizza
in Oswego for gas money, while
I was still trying to navigate
high school hallways among
the Fuck Yous. My universe
would widen, but I didn’t
expect it. The future: that’s
where my brother resided,
a year ahead of me, forever.
— Douglas Goetsch
from What's Worse