08.27.25

everything was crazy and affected. with certain people you can't tell if they're a certain type of messed up or just trying to be, but either way they're messed up, the only thing in question is which way because why would you put that much effort into trying to be messed up in the first place. it was in the corner of the house, at the very end of the corridor and across from the other bedroom which was empty save for the queen bed that dwarfed the other. a lot of the time there was shit on the ground and shit on the bed. tacky patterned wallpaper managed to take up more space than you would think possible on those walls, meeting in the dark corners. albums and albums sat cramped between the bluetooth turntable and the wallpaper. some of it was good but most of it not. the walls could like they were closing in and none of your words had any echo, especially when the dirty white carpet underneath swallowed them up. art more offensive than anything i couldve come across in a nightmare lined what little remaining space bore itself. wardrobes bursting full of clothing only a gay pirate would consider and shoes that looked like they'd seen some shit. a japanese scroll. distressed geishas

the first time i met her i thought she suffered from a mental handicap. we had just entered the ranch. who knows what we were doing there, r would always find a way for us to make it out to the ranch. at first it was that riley always wanted to go to the ranch, and then i started seeing her, and then it was that i wanted to go to the ranch. in the end r wanted nobody to go to the ranch.

the ranch was a compound. without necessary context, the unitiated could easily have made the mistake of believing that the owner of such a property would have a very good reason for doing so. like there was an aspect of the ranch that filled a need, there was utility and purpose in the ranch for the person presiding over the land.

first, the field. you could take the truck out and slide it around in the weeds, in the dirt, and in the snow when it snowed. it was big and heavy enough to not flip even or especially when you had people in the back. n and r_a would put on their cowboy hats when they did it and probably some ugly but skimpy denim to boot. 'eclectic' didn't do their style, or more notably n's style, any justice; at some point i made the decision that 'gay pirate' was the closest i could come to approxmiating the way she dressed and gay pirate it remained until the day we said our last goodbyes.

by the field there was the auxiliary house, where a deadbeat possibly lived. the only trace we ever saw of him was the beaten old camry he would pull into the lot, pull out of the lot every so often. i never clocked his face and all we could see from the main building in the ranch were the fat calves sandwiched in between his basketball shorts and his basketball shoes, his body balanced in a perfect equilibrium between the two heaping plastic grocery bags at each side. during the winter we shot arrows from the field and bore holes in the side of his house. it might've been deserted by then.

the wide pavement led next to the stable. it was a grand facility, surely it would have been big enough for a flock of any sort of animal, stable animals, maybe something that could bear food, but food unmodified or underengineered was something nobody in the compound took interest in. instead there was jack the donkey and a smaller, vicious miniature pony. r's uncle proudly informed us that jack earned him a tax writeoff on the property. despite nothing productive happening on ranch grounds, stabling a farm animal was enough to earn the ranch a designation as some type of farm, and as a result jack would be enjoying an extended stay in the facilities. he scared easily and wouldn't let you near but he was good. the pony had a permanent foul temper and would've killed us if given the chance. feeding them was terrifying and we were let down by every trip to the barn.

finally there was the main event. the asphalt by the entrance separated the gravel parking lot from the house. n drove an equally shitty old pontiac grand am. white. it was the perfect car to blend in with the surrounding counties. until she put ironic babe silhouettes on either side of the license plate. most things about the grand am were broken, and most things about my car were broken as well.