The Back Yard - A fiction exercise
I look back at this relationship, and I can’t remember how it started. It wasn’t that candle-lit dinner that we watched from the back yard of that house in Sherman Oaks. It’s somehow so poetic to be watching strangers enjoy some intimate moment from their own back yard. That was the moment our relationship got serious, as we clamored over one another to get out of the back yard, falling over a yellow spinning sprinkler. We were already into something by then. You and I got the idea hanging out at the pharmacy. I was behind the counter, and you were there taking forever to buy a case of pastilles. That’s when you stopped being just another face and drooping body that school dragged in front of me every day. I can remember how you used to look. You were pretty new to school, so you hadn’t developed a persona yet. Just in from Canada, you were wearing jeans and a t-shirt. You had a nasty looking cast on your arm, with pins coming out of it and what looked like an intricate pulley system. Of course you weren’t as gaunt as you are now.
So I guess it was a good thing that you didn’t fall on that arm when we were in those peoples’ back yard. You hadn’t been the one who had wanted to do this thing. It was really me pushing you. But, you know it was worth it, because we just sat out there in the darkness, with no real risk of getting caught. You were just getting into one of your Xanax moods. I think that it was when you pulled out the paper bag from your jacket pocket that we had worn out our welcome. The reason, I know you didn’t fall on the arm that was broken at the beginning of the schoolyear was because that was the arm you were using to gingerly hold the bag to your lips as you wheezed into the thing. The crinkling that came with the bag inflating was a lot to deal with. It got me nervous. I was surprised how calm I had been until then.
I remember, you started to wheeze when the people were getting done with their romantic dinner. They had been holding hands across the table, and the man in his red sweater leaned in, slowly, and kissed the woman on the cheek. I remember it looked like he took a bite out of her, because his lips were so drawn and tense at the sides. And the woman, doing her best to look elegant had her hair bobbed in the front and long in the back. She couldn’t hide the sunken cheeks and severe forehead creases of someone who had spent too many hours contemplating spreadsheets and pocketbooks and calendars. The man got up and moved towards the back yard, and you wheezing in my ear was the last thing that I needed, and I decided it was time to go, and I turned and walked right into you in the darkness.
All I can say is thank god for soundproofing. I often think that people like those have soundproofed heads. So we just went out after that. Driving around in your parents’ SUV, we hit up Norms on the West side. It was a long, winding drive, and I sunk into the seat with cold, sweaty palms against my thighs in my pockets. It was a long drive, but that’s why you have a multi-disc changer. It wasn’t so bad, listening to the Rolling Stones live show in the mid-eighties. It was kind of a sad experience actually. Speaking as a Stones nerd, Charlie Watts sounded like he was still in rehab and drumming from inside of an iron lung. But that was just it, we were drumming through our own lives in the iron lung of an absent culture. I think that’s when we pulled over to take a hit from your little plastic bong.
So that’s where it became us relying upon one another. When I needed you to feel like I could do whatever I wanted, even though I never got much farther than sitting in peoples’ back yards. I think that you needed me to remind you that you can take a lead role in a story. All you had to do was be a host to my whimsy. It was so much harder back then to get any traction on the world. When you went home, your house smelled like the same sour disinfectant that it smelled like when your parents bought the place. And you just accompanied them to dinners in front of the television or trips to fine dining in strip malls where your Dad would explain why he picked an Australian wine, and your mother was letting her lazy eye fall all over the room as she chewed through the bottle before dinner arrived.
I was sitting at home at about the same time, just sort of digging my ass into the sofa, slowly growing to be more and more like the dogs, who were in the process of unlearning their training. Since my older brother had graduated and gone off to college in the east, I was pretty well on my own. At this point, things were really starting to unwind and my parents were exploring their personalities, so I was just watching their lives unfold in front of me.
Give me another hit. Now lets go get some food.
So I guess it was a good thing that you didn’t fall on that arm when we were in those peoples’ back yard. You hadn’t been the one who had wanted to do this thing. It was really me pushing you. But, you know it was worth it, because we just sat out there in the darkness, with no real risk of getting caught. You were just getting into one of your Xanax moods. I think that it was when you pulled out the paper bag from your jacket pocket that we had worn out our welcome. The reason, I know you didn’t fall on the arm that was broken at the beginning of the schoolyear was because that was the arm you were using to gingerly hold the bag to your lips as you wheezed into the thing. The crinkling that came with the bag inflating was a lot to deal with. It got me nervous. I was surprised how calm I had been until then.
I remember, you started to wheeze when the people were getting done with their romantic dinner. They had been holding hands across the table, and the man in his red sweater leaned in, slowly, and kissed the woman on the cheek. I remember it looked like he took a bite out of her, because his lips were so drawn and tense at the sides. And the woman, doing her best to look elegant had her hair bobbed in the front and long in the back. She couldn’t hide the sunken cheeks and severe forehead creases of someone who had spent too many hours contemplating spreadsheets and pocketbooks and calendars. The man got up and moved towards the back yard, and you wheezing in my ear was the last thing that I needed, and I decided it was time to go, and I turned and walked right into you in the darkness.
All I can say is thank god for soundproofing. I often think that people like those have soundproofed heads. So we just went out after that. Driving around in your parents’ SUV, we hit up Norms on the West side. It was a long, winding drive, and I sunk into the seat with cold, sweaty palms against my thighs in my pockets. It was a long drive, but that’s why you have a multi-disc changer. It wasn’t so bad, listening to the Rolling Stones live show in the mid-eighties. It was kind of a sad experience actually. Speaking as a Stones nerd, Charlie Watts sounded like he was still in rehab and drumming from inside of an iron lung. But that was just it, we were drumming through our own lives in the iron lung of an absent culture. I think that’s when we pulled over to take a hit from your little plastic bong.
So that’s where it became us relying upon one another. When I needed you to feel like I could do whatever I wanted, even though I never got much farther than sitting in peoples’ back yards. I think that you needed me to remind you that you can take a lead role in a story. All you had to do was be a host to my whimsy. It was so much harder back then to get any traction on the world. When you went home, your house smelled like the same sour disinfectant that it smelled like when your parents bought the place. And you just accompanied them to dinners in front of the television or trips to fine dining in strip malls where your Dad would explain why he picked an Australian wine, and your mother was letting her lazy eye fall all over the room as she chewed through the bottle before dinner arrived.
I was sitting at home at about the same time, just sort of digging my ass into the sofa, slowly growing to be more and more like the dogs, who were in the process of unlearning their training. Since my older brother had graduated and gone off to college in the east, I was pretty well on my own. At this point, things were really starting to unwind and my parents were exploring their personalities, so I was just watching their lives unfold in front of me.
Give me another hit. Now lets go get some food.
posted by J. Benjamin Franklin | 1:20 AM
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