The Two on The Curb

03/18/2025 - Puerto Escondido

Look.

Load the truck.

Look at them.

At who?

Those two.

Where?

The two there, sittin on the curb.

Oh, lord.

What’s wrong with them?

They ain’t botherin nobody. Help me load the damn truck.

They been sitting there for a while. Just starin out like that.

They’re probably drunk or somethin.

They look sick.

Yeah.

They look unwell.

Yeah.

Should we say somethin?

Say what?

I don’t know. Are you okay?

They’re fine. They’re just sittin there.

She’s got cankles.

She’s got what?

Cankles. When your calves and your angles are the same size.

Jesus.

Happens when your feet get swollen.

That’s disgustin.

Yeah.

Why the hell is he wearing that hat?

I don’t know.

He looks like the Monopoly man.

Yeah.

Askin to get robbed lookin like that.

He looks like Colonel Sanders.

The fried chicken guy?

Yeah.

Yeah he does. They ain’t moved an inch. And they’re sweatin.

That’s what I’m telling you.

Just sittin there starin off.

I think somethings wrong with em.

Somethings definitely wrong with them I’ll tell you that much. The girl has them… what are they?

Cankles.

Cankles. And the guy looks the guy from Jurassic Park.

Yeah.

And he’s got that look in his eyes I’ve seen that look that look like he’s gone and he might not come back.

Like he’s dead?

No he ain’t dead. Seen it happen to our Reverend back home. Reverend Deakins was a small man. Ain’t but 5 feet tall damn gust of wind would probably knock him over but to us he was a giant. Biggest man in the room cause you could tell that it wasn’t just him in there. Him and someone else. Someone larger. His God, or a Holy Spirit or whatever you want to call it. He always said that God spoke to him. That he could sit down and have a conversation with him no different than me and you right here. Said that he spoke to him every day. Said that He talked to him and told him the higher path in which to walk. Most folks said he was a con man. Said he was full of shit. I thought so too. Until he lost it.

Lost it?

One day just like any other just as sure as the sun rose Reverend Deakins woke up and that voice that spoke to him went silent. Said he figured His silence was a message in its own right I suppose. Went and started trying different things trying to hear that voice again. Shaved his head, prayed for days at a time, fasted, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t so much as drink a sip of water. He started hallucinating seeing things all that but that voice still never did come back. His sermons got shorter. He kept at em best he could but when he went up there and he said them words you could tell that that fire inside him had died out. You could tell he was at a loss. Then one day he went up into that pulpit and he was teary eyed and he said “I can’t hear him no more. I can’t hear him. I’ve lost my way. I’ve gone blind.” And he stepped down and that there was the last time he ever did step into that pulpit again. We went in to check on him and he just sat there in the pew just like them two with that same blind stare. Just sat there waiting to hear his voice again I suppose. Waiting for his master call. Figured he was mad all those years preaching. Figured he was a snake oil salesman of sorts. Til I saw him when he lost it. Seen him a giant shrink down to the size of man no different than you and I. That’s when I believed his word. Knew everything he told us there was the truth cause he never did take credit for it. Always said it wasn’t his word but the word of God. When it stopped speaking to him he didn’t have nothin left to say to us. Wasn’t no charade I guess.

Did he ever get it back?

Not sure. Last I heard he was sittin there waitin. We’re 10 minutes behind schedule. Finish loadin these logs.

Okay. You think they’ll be okay?

I don’t know. Let’s roll.

Okay.