It Must Taste Like a Gusher Josh Stadelman • Nonfiction
My brother, twenty-two years old, leans against the rotting wood railing of our beach-house porch in Holden Beach, North Carolina, red Solo cup in a surf-tanned hand, the salty night breeze ruffling the short curly black hair on his head and face. I lean as well, twenty years old, staring at the patch of overgrown thorn bushes, sandburs, and brambles in the lot beside us, lit by the light of the moon. The beach-house company that owns the land tried clearing and selling it a few years back; now the thorns dominate the lot again, a weathered plastic FOR SALE sign still perched by the road. “Are you sure you don’t want to try it?” he says. “Just a sip. It won’t do anything.” My eyes move from the thistle to the night sky above. Dozens of stars polka-dot the night, their reds and blues outshining the lights of the beach vacationers up late enough to see them. The other stars, thousands of them, along with the Milky Way’s line of crisp apricot and tangerine, remain hidden in sight, invisible but still there. I could probably see its wispy traces if I walk out to the beach, I think.
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