A story I wrote: My Name Ain't Lazarus

              I was cold as ice the way Desmond shot her down. She had no chance that Sarah Betty. Twenty years have come and gone since 1981 and then some and our old boy Desmond got no time. It is a new century and look at how things have changed. For our man Desmond he got no time.   

             Desmond was from the old school of thought. For him, a drink with a friend and a smoke and we could say goodbye today forever. But Desmond was not as simple as it’s been implied. He had his dark side and his darker side.

 So what if he preferred to drink alone? It reminded him of his days in the pen. At the core of his being, Desmond was a loner. Even a woman as healthy as Sarah Betty could not steal his heart.

The question I am asking myself is and I mean damn I am looking at myself under a magnifying glass, is who are we to judge Mr. Desmond? What if we are twice as soulless as he? What if we are already dead and we just don’t know it?

Desmond’s mind is grumbling like the roar of an angry engine. His thoughts are sunken deep into his subconscious. His mind is sunken deep into his skull. The suction from his gut is sucking and groping for his soul. His neck aches and has caused him considerable unhappiness for quite some time now.  Desmond is at his breaking point though and I will tell you what I know.

It’s Sarah Betty. There’s never been a girl more welcoming than she. One hour with this magical woman can tame any man, for a year or longer. She is like an inoculation for a deadly disease. She is a prescription drug that has been banned. She is worth getting locked up for, and Desmond knows it. She is in his heart, and he wants her gone.

Once when I was a boy I went fishing. It was not ordinary fishing and ordinarily I would have never done such a thing. I sometimes wonder how I survived that nightmare. Is it one mans nightmare or is it another mans dream, and who are we to take a stab, to make a judgment.

 In Desmond’s mind he was a vicious and gnarly seafarer. He told me they called him Harpoon Johnny and he said something about nailing seventeen whales in one week. Maybe this is true yet even our own Desmond is not sure of much of anything these days and he certainly would never had used the word gnarly.

Desmond will do whatever it is Desmond wants do. This man was stubborn in more ways than one. Thank goodness for that good old, stubborn Mr. Desmond.

Once Mr. Desmond was telling me about his days as a boy. He called me Lazarus. My name is Carson Bukowski Carnegie. He called me Lazarus and he told me I was lucky he would speak to me at all.  Lazarus ain’t even my damn name.  It’s not even close.

Mr. Desmond told me about this one time he learned a lesson about women.  Every story Desmond told me was this one time or that one time. Well this one was about someone he called the dragon lady.  He was getting more and more descriptive about this dragon lady. I think drinking pint after pint will do that to a person.

Sometimes I wonder if Mr. Desmond is ok in the head. Sometimes I wonder if one day on my usual route home that I’ll come to find that my old friend Desmond has breathed his last breath. I wonder if anyone would have cared though I don’t think he would care if they did.

He would say my dear boy Lazarus, let me tell you this story about this one time except it would now be silent.

Now it’s just the sun battling the clouds today my boy Lazarus.

 Damnit, my name ain’t Lazarus.