Trailer
Samson clenched his fingers. He drew in a deep breath. The wet Texas heat burned his nostrils and the back of his throat. When he next opened his mouth, he hacked. His fingers twitched then slowly unclenched. He dragged his sweaty palms down his suit jacket, leaving behind smears of brown-black soil from the grave site.
Samson bounced on his heels, shook out his tense shoulders, and reached into his pants pocket. He pulled out Dawson’s trailer key, then rubbed his thumb against the ridged edge before pushing it into the keyhole. With a snap,the trailer door unlocked and creaked open with a press of his hand.
Samson had never been inside Dawson’s trailer. To be honest, Samson had never even known that Dawson had a trailer. Last he heard, Dawson had met up with a buddy in Nebraska and the two were heading south to Kansas. Pretty Prairie had a four-night rodeo that the two were competing in. But that was three years ago. It was obvious to Samson that much had changed since then.
Sunlight shone through the slits of the window blinds to illuminate his surroundings. Dust particles floated in the light, angered at Samson’s disturbance, yet graceful in their suspension. Samson was not surprised with the military-like organization of the space. At least Dawson had remained the same in that sense. A stack of Hustler magazines was placed in the corner of the room near the door and next to a small wardrobe. The left door of the wardrobe was broken off, revealing a narrow row of neatly hung shirts. A twin-size bed was pressed against two other corners of the room. Though stained with rust-colored splotches, the sheets were tucked under the mattress. There was no kitchen. Instead, an individual stove top burner sat on top of a mini fridge in the last corner of the trailer. The air smelt of stale cigarettes and sour milk.
Samson was exhausted, but he didn’t dare sit on the bed. Dawson wouldn’t like it if he did. Instead, he stood statue-still and allowed his eyes to touch the space the way his fingers wished to. He desperately searched for something – anything – to help him understand the ache in the pit of his stomach. Samson already knew that the searing pain in his chest was sorrow. That was a given. But what of the ache in his stomach?
Suddenly, Samson saw a flash of silver. His eyes trailed back to the corner of the bed. There, pressed between the mattress and the bed frame, he saw the edge of a framed photo. The picture would be of Dawson at age six and Samson at age four, sitting together in the purple plastic pool that their mother had purchased from old Mary Keats’s yard sale. Dawson would be holding Samson’s head tight against his wet chest, one sun burnt arm wrapped around Samson’s neck and the other around his belly. Dawson’s eyes would be squeezed shut and his mouth open wide in an animated grin.
Samson walked the two steps toward the bed and reached a trembling hand down toward the framed photo. But before he could touch it, he hesitated. What if it wasn’t that photo after all? What if the sliver of silver wasn’t even a frame? What if it was something else entirely, something, that in the end, was more meaningful to Dawson?
Samson dropped his hand and took two rapid steps back. Breathing hard, he turned around and walked the rest of the way to the trailer door. He opened it and stepped outside.
He was now no closer to understanding the ache in the pit of his stomach than he was before.
