Boxes

BoxesAll Night I didn't sleep. My shins were bruised and my throat tasted bloody and I kept picturing Willie holding my mouth open under the faucet, saying I had a week to get his $1700. I lay on the bed sweating from the heat, a baseball bat beside me, afraid he would come back. In the first blue blur of day I could see the calendar tacked to my wall: the months crossed off in different colors, the days I'd exercised boxed in black. For nearly a year I'd been straight, and then Willie showed up...