17.

"Something's gotta give. Something's gotta give."

With her coffee in the morning and downstairs, Peg sat across from Sam. She smelled marijuana smoke. He was staring at several framed photographs of
her family. She thought his position on the couch looked irregular and uncomfortable, with his neck stretched taut and his elbow behind it. After
a silence he asked, "Why was your father such a prick?"
She laughed. She didn't answer. She sipped her coffee.
"You look like such a family."
"Those are his pictures."
"You're kidding."
"They were here when I moved in." She saw Sam's notebook lying open on the table and asked, "Can I read your book?"
"No." He stood and walked to the photographs.
"No? Why no?"
He walked back with a photo of the four of them. It was a picture she looked at quite a lot. "Just no," he said.
"Okay," she said with a whatever tone. She sipped her coffee. "What do you want to do today?"
"Write."
"Write what?"
"Write anything. Write whatever's to be written."
"What's with you?" She was smiling.
"With me?" He ran his fingers through his hair, from his forehead to the back of his neck. "I'm feeling honest, and the all-too-obvious staring in
my face the way it is, it's . . ."
"It's. . ."
"So many words, all people saying things all the time, and never the obvious things. I guess at a time I thought people were afraid of the truth, shivering in their cold lives and some such sophomoric bullshit belief, but it just might be that these people can't see the obvious."
"Such as?"
He smiled and pointed at a white beam above the kitchen area. "Like that outlet, up there, shouldn't be there. I mean what's it doing up there. Nothing can reach it. What're you going to plug in at that height? And it'd look just awful with the wires hanging."
"That's not what you're talking about, but you're right. It's ludicrous. I've thought it a hundred times."
"Well you're a perceptive chick."
She pointed to half a joint in the ashtray. "Mind if I light that up?"
"Not at all. Let's both get as dumb as possible. Society can breathe a collective sigh of relief at our numbing. Education being what it is, mostly
subtractive, or controlling, or confining, or carry on and be a good standardized labeller in the life."
She lit the roach and took three quick hits. Holding her breath she said, "You're in a mood."
"No, not mood. Mood is a possessor of spirit. It comes at you and controls you. It sits in you. It's like a bitch woman wife."
"Jesus Sam, you're too much." Standing with her coffee she said, "I'm going to write too. Upstairs in the sun."
Sam turned back to the photograph, to the family of four.