Bastante by Guy Biederman

 Edna Winti CC




Bastante
 
 
     A skinhead in denim with a Chekov beard breaks boards with his head in our adobe living room. I usher him out only to find a woman in white fur curled on the couch. This ancient family house, empty for ages, is now crawling with strangers. Careful what phone calls you answer, what detours you take. 
     I see White Fur to the door. Others enter through a Pella window, a curious upgrade to this casa with its fissures in the ceiling and walls, lingering skunk smell, and mounds of generational hoarding detritus. 
     I point at the interlopers. Out they go, joining the garage crowd. More pour through the gate. I think about my boxing friends. Could use a shepherd or two. Think about the wall-hanging antique hunting rifles that I don't know how to use. 
     Chekov's back to breaking plywood with his head. Lifts a surfboard shaped shard with both arms, takes aim. I hold one hand up like a traffic cop, arrow to the door with the other. He weaves around bodies on his way out, pours coffee, hangs ten. 
     Everyone seems to know each other. I'm wishing Maggie was here, glad she's not. Nat King Cole sings Route 66 and its 1946 on the transistor, eight years before it'll be invented. Calendar's gone missing. Strangers keep arriving like mosquitoes after irrigation.  
     I pour a percolated cup in the turquoise kitchen, step outside, join a vigilant tabby on a low rock wall. We blink slowly, soaking in the sun's warmth baked into stones. 
     There's no explaining people. I stroke gato's head. Feel the purr. People laugh on the roof, lean over the edge. A skinny cowboy without a horse plays Santa Claus chimney. What about his hat? I ask. 
     But the cat had seen enough and vanished. 
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Guy Biederman divides his time between a houseboat in Sausalito, an adobe casa caretaking cats in El Paso, New Mexico double-wide, and the road in between. He's the author of seven books of micro fiction, poetry, and lyrical micro prose including Here's Where We Get Off, Blue Light Press, coming out in February 2026. Guy favors strong coffee, scotch on the docks, and the desert’s wabi sabi beauty. It’s all true, especially the fiction.




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