Marshbank the Inquisitor

Adolescence, Returnables, and Ways to Describe Blue

The plane skidded off the runway. 

You’re on the ground, but it’s scary at that speed, that level of noise. There’s a reason that airport runways are smooth like the face of a Marine recruit at his first inspection.

When we finally stopped, before everyone had calmed down, I thought of Marshbank.

Not the loves of my life, or my diplomas or my cockatiel.

Marshbank.

He lived in one of the little ranch-style quad apartments mostly inhabited by meth heads and disabled people.

The window to his apartment reflected the blue neon of the Lawson’s sign, where we got two for one honeybuns and returned non-returnable cans we brought over the Ohio border into Michigan

Marshbank the Inquisitor, we called him.

“Did you know,” he asked once, “that dozens of major cities have rivers buried under concrete.”