Summer

The following is the first short story I wrote for my Fiction Writing 2 class this semester. It's 9 pages long and may be conventional by this blog's standards, but what the hell. Enjoy!


The leather football released itself from my older brother’s hands, spiraling cleanly through the air. I ran backwards to catch it, bring it into your chest, bring it into your chest. My fingers twitched in anticipation. The football hit my hands, harder than I was expecting, and I winced. It fell to the ground. I gamely scooped it up, and without even looking at my brother wound back my arm and threw a wobbly pass that landed a good fifteen feet to his right.

“I wasn’t trying that hard,” I yelled, anticipating a rebuke.

“You suck.”

There it was. Simple, but it got to me. I caught Josh’s next pass, and threw it back as hard as I could. His hands plucked the ball inches from his groin, and with a flick of the wrist, the pigskin hit me straight in the ribs. I fell to the ground, breathing in staccato.

I picked myself up from the grass and immediately ran towards our home, its off-white coat of paint visibly chipping in the glare of sunlight, wailing as I ran. “Mom!”

On our front porch my father was taking a long drag from a thin cigarette. Cigarette butts were scattered around the porch, nestled into the cracks of the decaying wood. He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and crushed the ends between his fingers. With a small flick, the tube landed on the porch and added to the mire of tobacco products.

“What’s going on, son?” said my father, his brown eyes gazing narrowly out at the street.

“Josh hit me in the chest with a football!”

“Then catch it next time.”

Nor that day could I find solace in my mother, a short, brittle-haired woman with Type II diabetes and a hankering for Oreos. For all the medical babble about the dangers of cigarettes, my father had shown no ill effects besides a racking cough when he tried to sleep at night and what I imagined to be coal-black lungs. My mother’s addiction had proved to be far more costly, and each insulin shot was an adventure.

“You know, honey,” she said, not turning from the bacon she was cooking on the griddle, “Maybe you shouldn’t provoke Josh so much.”

“I don’t provoke him,” I cried, my wrists twitching, “he’s just really mean.”

Josh came up behind me and pushed me. I stumbled forward, struggling to maintain my balance.

“Fart,” was all he said to me. It was an injustice.


* * *


That summer I turned eleven. I was a gangly boy who was starting to look more like the beanstalk and less like Jack. Although I had grown large enough that I could defend myself around the neighborhood, I was not equipped to deal with my brother and his friends. Josh was a good kid, maybe, but he had started his freshman year of high school in the fall and suddenly his beautiful wavy brown hair was slicked down like a biker’s. His caramel brown eyes that charmed all the ladies had a glimmer of meanness to them in this, his fifteenth year. His grades fell through the floor and the boys he hung out with morphed from acne-ridden, bespectacled youth to boys in leather jackets and silver necklaces, boys who would sooner hit you than say hi.

On some breezy summer afternoon, the heat of our neighbor’s grill making the air tremble, I felt a rock hit the front wheel of my bike, knocking the cycle out from under me. I felt the scratch of weathered sidewalk on my palms. At least I knew how to land like a cat. Josh shoved me back down.

“Get the fuck out of the way, Bryce,” my brother said.

Josh was accompanied by two older boys, one of whom was carrying a can of Stag beer. He dropped the beer on the ground next to my head. The beer was warm with sunlight.

“Penis breath.”

The three laughed and moseyed on down the sidewalk.

I got on my bicycle and pedaled back to my house. The plan for the afternoon had been to go over to my friend Joey’s and play some checkers, but it seemed to me that going home and telling would be the more prudent action. Yet when I got home, my father was notably absent from his favorite old chair, colored a mixture of faded orange and soot, on the front porch. His truck wasn’t in the driveway. I assumed he had gone on one of his cigarette binges. There was a gas station about twenty-five miles from our house that sold cartons of cigarettes at dirt-cheap prices. He could have gone to the grocery store which wasn’t nearly as far, but this gas station was really the only place he ever drove. He would buy cigarettes like more responsible parents would buy canned food in case of emergencies. I was sure he had more cartons of Camels lying in closets, behind shelves, or in the basement yet he had made something of a ritual of this drive. Later in life, it would occur to me that this was his only real pleasure.

I walked into the house to find the lights off and the blinds in the living room closed. The door to my parents’ bedroom was open just enough that I could imagine sliding a packet of Oreos through the crevice. I heard the heavy sighs of my mother and assumed she was taking a nap. She never wanted to hear about Josh and me when she was sleeping. I poured myself a bowl of cereal without milk and walked out to the back porch. I wanted to eat out in the kitchen, but I was worried I might wake her up. It was the summer I turned eleven, and it was also a summer where I was beginning to realize that my family was held together by proximity more than love, stabilized only by apathy and resignation.


* * *


Six knights galloped across a desolate plain. I was one of their company, outfitted in a silver armored suit, a red plume waving merrily from the top of my helmet. I rode atop a cinnamon-colored stag with a long pointed lance pointing west towards the castle of Transylvania. I was surely a sight to behold. And then, a crash!

My eyes opened. I heard the sounds of collapsing wood, the revving of a car engine, the screams of my mother. I rolled off the top bunk and ran out towards the front of the house. It was three in the morning and my brother was not in our room. Entering my parents’ bedroom, the dream smells of horse dung and damp morning grass lingered in my mind, seeming much more realistic than the disaster scene in front of my eyes. It was easier to imagine myself as a knight in shining armor than to imagine a motor vehicle colliding into the side of our house. And not just any car, but my father’s truck. The grill was clearly visible where my parents’ TV used to be.

“Oh my God, Sharon!” my father shouted. He was standing next to the grill, wearing only tattered red boxer shorts.

My mother put on her pink slippers and ran out to the front yard. I followed her, even as she waved at me, signaling to stay behind. It had never occurred to me, perhaps any of us, that there was a certain risk in living at a T-intersection where a drunk driver could easily run a stop sign and drive into our house. We ran out into the yard, a red moon barely visible through the trees. Some species of bird was chirping away, oblivious to the carnage on our lawn and the fact that it was a good three hours until sunrise. My father’s truck was smashed against the side of the house nestled into the wall. The hood was compressed at comical angles and pieces of loose metal lay strewn about the grass. Immediately my mother ran to the side door and yanked on the handle. Surprisingly, it opened just fine, and out spilled the ragged form of my brother.

He didn’t seem to be bleeding or grievously injured, but he was in some kind of stupor.

“Mom?” he whispered.

“You fucking bastard. You fucking bastard.” A can of Stag beer rolled out of the driver’s seat and nearly hit my mother’s ankles.

“I’m sorry Mom.”

His eyes rolled into his brain as he passed out in her arms.
Our screen door swung open then, and I could hear the thud of my father’s footsteps coming down the stairs from the porch. He was still wearing only underwear, but was now holding two cigarettes in his left hand.

“Where’s my fucking lighter, Sharon?”

“Christ, Richard, look at the house. This isn’t the time to be smoking.”

“Well what the hell else am I supposed to do about it? That truck isn’t going fucking anywhere.”

“Maybe you should start by bringing your son inside!”

My father grimaced as he hoisted Josh’s entire body into his arms. He trudged back up the stairs, his face red with exertion.


* * *


I stood in the half-light in my room, watching my brother sleep. The fluorescent light hanging over our kitchen table was buzzing, its rays shining through the crack of the door onto my brother’s face. His eyes were closed, his lips curled slightly upwards. He looked peaceful. I stepped back out into the kitchen, surprised that my parents had stopped making a commotion. Only ten minutes had passed.

My mother was sitting in a chair at our kitchen table drinking what must have been old coffee.

“I can’t even make myself eat anything, Bryce. Nothing sounds good to me right now.”

“Is Dad out smoking?”

“Yeah.”

I didn’t blame him. Out in the tar pits, not a thing could bother him.

“How’s he going to buy groceries?” I asked.

“How’s he going to fix the wall of our house?” she replied.

My father walked in.

“Fuck!” was all he said.

I had never seen him so angry after smoking. He always had a placid disposition after he inhaled a few cigarettes. It was like his soul needed some black infestation to thrive. Later I would discover that his lighter wasn’t working.

“Good God, I need a smoke,” he said, his arms shaking.

“Oh, quit the acting, Richard,” my mother replied, sipping her coffee, “It hasn’t been more than a couple hours since you last smoked.”

“That truck isn’t going to run again. What did that damn boy think he was doing?”

“He’s your son, Richard.”

“He’s a disgrace. All I ever wanted were two sons and what do I get? A drunk and a mama’s boy.”

I clutched onto my mother’s arm in fear, unaware of the irony.

“Officer,” my father said, now on the phone, “I’d like to report an accident.”

“Mom!” I yelled, hoping she would be the one to come to my brother’s rescue. He had been a jerk to me basically all my life, it was true, but jail wasn’t for jerks. It was for criminals. I stared at her, with her red, puffy eyes and her dried pink lips curled into a frown.

“Daddy knows best,” she mumbled.

“He’ll go to jail!”

“Don’t worry, Bryce. It will work out.”

I was enraged but I didn’t know how to lash out. All I did was kick over the chair I was sitting in as I ran out to the back porch. Neither of them even said anything to me as I went outside. I went out and sat under the oak tree in our backyard, its branches hanging limply against my face. I didn’t intend to get up, but when I heard the low whir of a siren, I found myself compelled to meet this man of the law who had come to take Josh away.

As I walked around to the front yard, I saw the policeman, a gray, bearded, surprisingly svelte man in a blue uniform was lecturing my mother on the virtues of sending her son to spend the night in the slammer. No one paid attention to me as I joined the scene.

“I know you’d prefer to handle this in-house, ma’am, but we’re not just allowed to ignore an accident, especially one of this nature. Minimum, we give out a ticket, but for a DUI by a minor, we’re talking some big fines. I’m not saying extended jail time, but we’ll certainly sober him up a little bit.”

He laughed in a neighborly manner that I found inappropriate. My mother was sobbing, but my father, trying to appear serious and determined, nodded.

“I’ll go wake him up.”

I chased him into the house, determined to end this farce.
“Come on, Dad! He’s only fifteen!”

My father turned and looked me in the eye. It was not a normal gesture for him.
“He picks on you all the time anyways. What do you want him around for?”

I was shocked. Even at eleven, I recognized the callousness of his words.

“At least he still plays catch with me.”

His face turned a vibrant red. I almost thought he was going to hit me then, mark my name down in the long, shameful annals of domestic violence. But when he did nothing, I realized he was not angry, but humiliated. He turned around and marched into Josh’s room.

Josh could barely keep his balance as my father dragged him through the kitchen, through the living room, into the arms of one Officer L. Burnham. He was still drunk and exhausted, but awake enough that there was a distinctly terrified look on his face as Officer Burnham clicked the handcuffs around his wrist and moved him into the back of his car. My mother, at least, may have regretted that moment, but I’ve never cared to ask her for her opinion. As far as I was concerned, they betrayed my brother that day. Call it naïve, but age has done little to change my feelings on the matter.


* * *


I locked up my bicycle right next to the green figure of Abraham Lincoln, who as always, sat in his stone chair, hands clenched on his thighs. Three birds perched atop his head. It was a cool autumn afternoon. The canopy of the trees was painted in broad swaths of red and yellow. The beauty of the day made it more bearable to look at my brother, who was standing with a group of unshaven men in orange jumpsuits, each holding a long wooden rake. A man with a square jaw and dark sunglasses sat on a bench watching them rake, a smirk on his face. The sunglasses concealed what I imagined to be a mean expression in his eyes. You couldn’t even see the sun through all the trees. Nevertheless, I put my hands in my pockets, walked into the man’s field of vision, and asked to help rake.

“We’re out of rakes,” he said.

Josh, a neat pile of leaves at his feet, looked up and glared at me. He shook his hand, as if to suggest I should go away, but I caught a smile on his face. It wasn’t there for long, and I don’t blame him for that. This wasn’t a group of smilers. I walked out of the park, picking up some stray leaves as I left and placing them in a trash can. It was all I could think to do.

A quote from Henry Miller