Every moment that you're here, I feel ashes on my ear.

I still remember him, standing contrapposto against my grandfather's fence, the one which always left a parting sliver lodged in your fingers. There was never a way to resist touching the jagged wood; they crisscrossed along the road, out of my field of vision and further out of my life. The horses always stayed away from that part of the fence, so we stood imitating David, replacing Connell Reds with Marlboro Reds. Two boys, 15 and in love with the world, in faded jeans waving to passing high school girls.

Of course I remember him. The room around, mostly, and his face and body moved like long-exposure photography. There are no likenesses of him anywhere; simply the faded Wranglers and a tucked-in tartan print button-up shirt, short sleeves no less. We ran off cackling after stealing a couple of his dad's Bud Lights and drunkenly slapped the floor mat trying to cheat at Nintendo Track & Field.

Sometimes I wish I could remember more. He was proud to show off the cuts on his face, but shied away from answers about the bruise on his arm. There was a welt on his jaw that turned the conversation to country music; not the new stuff, but the old time country, the kind on those local access cable channels, where the guitars were slicked with Brylcreem and the basses stood up. I never saw him again after that, and when I asked my grandfather what had happened, he guffawed and changed the subject.