A Reoccurrence at Shit Creek Bridge

     Our mother used to call my twin brother Marshall a stinker, a derogatory word used to describe a contemptable person. As it turns out Mars was a stinker to the bitter end. And due to his stinkiness we are no longer talking and writing together. We are dead twins talking no more!

     I kept telling him I wanted to visit him one last time.

     "I'm comin' to see you," I repeatedly promised. "I'm gonna buy plane tickets as soon as I can. I wanna spent some time with you again before it's too late."

     Two summers before, Mars and his Cambodian wife, Eang, had visited me and my Vietnamese wife and stepdaughter in Da Nang. We'd had ourselves a lovely time. Ten mostly terrific days. When we saw them off at the airport I got choked up and nearly cried saying goodbye.

     Mostly terrific means the voices inside my head never completely go away. A lashing tongue of pent-up bad blood and bees in the bonnet for who and god knows what. Mars had promised to buy some weed in Da Nang for us to slow cook into cannabis oil, but then changed his mind.

     "Eang doesn't like it when I get high," he explained. "No weed on this trip. Sorry, bro, no can do."

     No can do? came the thoughts. But you promised! I was so looking forward to getting majorly baked with you on the beach and swimming and chilling and zoning out with that no-care-in-the-world feeling of recklessly tranquilized abandon.

     My inner child, hurt and bent out of shape, wanted to give him a piece of my Mrs. Cratchit mind, but the adult in me had to let it go. His money, his choice, the voice reasoned.