| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
|---|
at about six-twenty every evening the tall boy walks by. he has soft fur on his jaw, more "i've never shaved" than "i've stopped shaving." sometimes he wears a black hoodie with a zipper up the front, sometimes he doesn't. i've decided that every day after school he walks with his girlfriend to her house. she lives somewhere to my right, in a neighborhood where the houses are much bigger than they are here. she has short curly hair and huge breasts. she's short and slightly plump. she has brown eyes and a little mouth with cupid's bow lips. he likes her lips and her breasts, and honestly doesn't think of her as plump. she is an only child. her parents are accountants, dual incomes, both large. her dad is always out of town on business. her mom works for a firm in the south bay. her commute is over two hours each way. they are never home when school lets out. the only time they think of their daughter during the day is when they are heading home. they always call when they think of her. she always has at least an hour's warning that the house is about to be chaperoned. when tall boy and the curly haired girl get to her house, he sets his cell phone alarm. then they do whatever they want. some days they listen to her dad's cd collection. he collected a lot of cds in the early nineties, and then, without apparent reason, stopped. the tall boy really likes "the crash test dummies," a band he'd never heard of before he met the curly haired girl. he took her virginity without realizing it. before they started dating she had talked a good talk. he had been under the impression that she'd been with a handful of guys. that never mattered to him, but he held it in the back of his mind. "i thought you'd bleed, or something," he had said when he found out it had been her first time. "i thought it would hurt." "i'd, uhm," she had said. she had blushed then. she blushed high in her cheeks, just two red half-dollar circles. like doll blush. "i'd practiced with a toy." it took a few seconds for him to figure out what that meant. "where'd you get a toy?" he had asked. "i'm not going to tell you," she had said. and that was that. after the first time, the tall boy discovered that she has a ravenous libido. when she sucks him off she spits his come into the trash can. this bothers him slightly. he wants her to swallow it, or at least treat it with respect. he thinks about this at night sometimes, when he is trying to sleep. he cannot figure out why he feels this way. when he puts her on her hands and knees and fucks her from behind she always tries to throw the comforter up over her ass. she hates to think of him looking at her fat ass. she is very conscious of the way her breasts and belly hang under her. it is all she can think about. he wants to tell her how beautiful he thinks she is, but he can never gather the words and push them out his mouth. instead he flips her over and snuggles her under the covers. she relaxes and enjoys herself again, pulling him into her with her legs. when his cell phone alarm goes off he gathers his things and heads for home. his mom has dinner ready every day at six-thirty, and that is when she expects him home. they live in a small house near the high school. tall boy, his mom, and his two sisters. he is the only one who has his own bedroom. his sisters share the other bedroom, and his mom sleeps on the couch. his mom is an ER nurse. she works a late shift, starting at the hospital at nine-pm, and often working until nine-am or later. the responsibility and stress of work exhausts her, but she tries to leave that at the hospital. dinner is the only time she sees her family together. she insists that everyone be home for dinner. none of the kids have ever had a problem with this. she is grateful for how easy her kids are. everyone of them is mature and responsible. tall boy lives somewhere to my left. every day he walks from the curly girl's home to his home, passing my house at about six-twenty. when he arrives home his mom is usually putting the finishing touches on dinner. one of his sisters is usually setting the table. the other sister is usually reading or doing her homework on coffee table in the living room. he goes to the kitchen and gives his mom a hug. his mom started smelling the girl’s musk on him about a month ago, but she has not said anything to him. she wants to talk to him, but she worries about causing conflict. she worries about upending the easy flow of the household. she relies on the machine operating smoothly. and she worries about him leaving. he is almost out of high school. he will not stick it out with mom forever. she just hopes he is being safe. she does not regret her children, but she regrets not living a little before she had him. she just wants him to live a little. to go to college, to get a job, to get married. to plan his family. she really does not think about it often, only when the smell of the girl on his face reminds her. he is a good boy, smart and responsible. nothing like his father. tall boy and curly haired girl will not last forever. one day they will head for her house after school, hand in hand. when they get there she puts the black crowes “shake your money maker” into the cd player and cranks it up so “twice as hard” fills the house. tall boy is working on the edge of a headache, and goes straight to the bathroom for aspirin. when he finds her she is in the kitchen, putting a pot of water on the stove. he stands silently, hands in the pockets of his hoodie, watching her make macaroni and cheese from a box. “i was just thinking,” she says, “in forty years i will still be making you mac and cheese. just like this.” tall boy says nothing. after they eat he tells her he does not feel good, and walks home early. i will know, because he will pass by my house at three-fortyfive or four-twelve. after that day, he will stop seeking her out during the day. he will start wandering alone downtown instead of going to her house after school. he will stop answering her phone calls. eventually she will corner him in the hall at school and force him to tell her it is over. |
i kinda do that, too. make up stories for the regular passersby in front of my house, although never with such granularity or attention to subplot. for me, it's a really quick flash of an idea that, whenever i've tried to write or type it down, i lose the best parts of the core idea by the very process of drawing it all out into a linear record. it's similar to trying to tell someone about a dream i had. the story that they hear rarely resembles the actual dream i had. not only that, the memory of the dream changes by the very act of recalling it. it's a gift, nate, to be able to express your ideas so clearly. |
this started as a list of the regulars who walk by my window. i wrote "at about six-twenty every evening the tall boy walks by." and then the rest wrote itself. i appreciate you encouragement. this is the second time in recent times that you've been so nice. maybe kelsey should be worried? i started writing again after the last thing you said. something about how i know i write well. i'm not sure anyone knows that. it's a fucking struggle. you write well, too, dave. i think you should write more. |
|
unless spunky shows up with his nazi-esque nonsense. y'know who else villainized liberals? hitler. nuff said, trace. nate, i don't doubt that it's a struggle, but you win that struggle. you win it because your narrative is bigger than any excuse to give up. my narrative doesn't have that much torque and stalls out. this isn't as sad to me as it might sound to others. it is what it is. |
i guess that's my point, dave. i don't push on because i think what i'm writing is any good. or because i have any clues from what is happening at the time. i push on and write because people have encouraged me. and sometimes i look back at what i've written months or years prior and see good things. but so rarely in the moment. usually when i'm writing everything sounds clumsy and frail and thin. for me it's fifty percent getting over myself and just spitting the shit out, and fifty percent having the discipline to sit down and write. that latter half helps you be writing when the spark comes and things start flowing. without making this into anymore of a handjob fest than it already is, your encouragement has really been helpful. so has breaking up with S_. so has people responding to me saying i'm happy with my job with stuff like "you want to be a writer and you're not" and i don't know, maybe you don't want to write. but i think you write well. and i enjoy your autobiographies. fuck, i don't know why i want to write. it's hard. it pays shit. no one reads anymore. the people who do read don't read real books. i think the most lucrative thing for a guy like me to write is poems to use as moody college girl bait at open mics. and droop, i'm not going to leave you out. you write great stories as well. and you're absolutely right about when it is better here. |
you're exactly right, nate. i really don't want to be a "writer". but when i do write, i want it to be awesome. and it seldom is. i can edit on the fly for hours, and yet i still find errors in syntax, grammar and logic after i post it. on this thread alone, i see at least a dozen grammatical errors in my posts. in addition, there are several logical errors, some obvious to the reader and some others perhaps only known to me, because i know what i was trying to say and yet i left out a phrase or clause or sentence or paragraph that would have properly completed the idea. |
|
Old age, Nate. Which is why I'll never stop, you sperm burping mother fuckers. |
|
it's good advice, karla. maybe this is old age as well, but i've become a lot more interested in the advice of strangers. |
|
|
|
i've been reading "norwegian wood." i think that is where the matter-of-factness comes from. not that i write anything like murakami, but his voice is infectious. and his goddamn, self-assured, effortless clarity is daunting. you son of a bitch, haruki. thanks for the comments. |
Yeah, I know Jill wasn't a choice, but she's always been my fav. |
Murakami, that is. Nate's pretty good, too. |
Nate, I think about you sometimes, at random and uncorrelated moments. You have left an impression in my brain. |
spider, your extended leave from sorabji.com seems to have fostered in you the illusion that something has passed or changed. as if this were all reduced to elusive memories of past lives, abandoned selves. in this, you couldn't be more wrong unless you tried. don't try. like the young amish kids on their wanderjahr (slightly mixed metaphors, i know) you will eventually return to us. in fact, you never left. you are in our hearts and minds and we are in yours. no, i mean it. literally. tap tap tap. hear that? that's me. in your mind. tapping. tap. tap. and that smell of dogshit? that's nate taking another growler. he's just down the hall. light a fucking match, dude. (he thinks it smells like bread baking. so proud.) it's not an impression in your brain. we are in your fucking brain right fucking now. and you are in ours. and it's beautiful. |
|
|
|
when my posts have timestamps of 3 or 4 am est, you can be pretty sure i've been "hitting the bottle". and the bottle's hitting back. |
Just......dude. |
|
|
|
droop, i'm your personal dick cheney. |
and i'll be your dick armey, and we'll be so happy together la-la la-la la. |
|
Someone summon Lucy. |