THREE FROM KIP

in the world of SIX SENTENCES

BECAUSE

I’m going to quit drinking. I’ll do it because I want to stop waking to the bruises on my wife’s arms, the black–eyes, and wonder how they got there. I’ll do it because my boy started to cry when I came home the other night, and when I tried to comfort him he pulled away like a hand–shy dog. I’ll do it because I don’t want to hang myself from the rafters in the garage, like my Dad. I’ll do it because I don’t want to end up like my sister, found bled out on the apartment floor, lying in a pool of her own shit. I’ll do it next weekend, right after the bowling tournament, because I don’t want the guys to think I’m a pussy if I don’t drink with them at the game.

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BINKY

Binky the Clown loved children – he loved their smell, their laughter, their limitless potential. As the act wound down to the unicycle routine, he stared out into the crowd, looking for the little boy he’d seen out there, the one who looked like Timmy. At the end of the performance, he walked alone back to his trailer, poured himself three fingers of Knob Creek and sat on his creaky couch in the dark, waiting for the lights of the carnival to go dim outside. From beneath the floor came a vague whimper, and he shouted, “Shut up, down there.” Later, he would have to go out and look for that little boy, so Timmy had someone to keep him company. Binky knew about loneliness.

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FREE

After two weeks at the plant in Dallas , sent to fix yet another problem that was not his fault, Tim walked out of the conference room, red–faced and trembling. Despite his best efforts – the 14-hour days, the endless meetings, the asking, pleading, and then shouting, the Kaizen projects and color flowcharts and thinking–outside–the–box, countless Powerpoints and spreadsheets, emails and phone calls – nothing had changed, it would never change, and Tim’s grinning, glad-handing asshole of a boss had once again thrown him under the bus and made the whole damn mess Tim’s fault. Without a word to anyone at the factory, he walked out the front door, drove back to the hotel, packed his bags, flung the key card at the receptionist, and drove to DFW. At the street corner, idling at the traffic light, he reached into his back pocket, extracted every bit of cash in his wallet and handed it to the bum staring at Tim’s red face through his window, his cardboard sign held up like a shield against Tim’s rage. Three beers and four hours later, Tim sat in Seat 9A,

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watching the ground pull away and wondering about the mortgage, the car payment, his wife and kids; but what was strange to Tim was that he did not worry about these things as he had when he was still able to pay for them all. Tim closed his eyes, and dreamed.

KIP HANSON writes to keep the flying monkeys away. Check him out HERE and HERE.

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6S