(no subject)
i got bored/lonely, so i wrote It is new years. Spoon and I have plans to join Elephant and Durante at the train tracks in Greencastle for a party. We get there early, and it is just us.
“Spoon,” I ask.
“Yes?” he looks at me.
“When you and your mother went to Greencastle Moore, did you see a guard there?”
“Uhm...” spoon shuffles his feet. He is preparing for a big lie.
“Don’t lie.” I say quickly. He stops shuffling his feet.
“Yes I did. It was your dad wasn’t it?” says spoon thoughtfully after a few seconds pause.
I look at him, right in the eyes. Then I slowly part my lips as if to speak, but nothing comes out but a small “nnnh” of air struggling in my throat. I twirl my shiny black Mohawk between my fingers. He smiles at me, widely.
“So it is Jacob.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly elephant and Durante are beside us, with Candy Phillips on one side and Georgia O’ Moonie on the other. Elephante and Durante are dressed in all black and white. Black sweater, white shoes, black pants, white hat, black nails, white boxers, black eyeliner, white shirt. Candy and Georgia are dressed as each other. Spoon and I are dressed as us when we were in kindergarten.
The moon is bright and there are few trees by Greencastle’s west side, where we have chosen to picnic. I have a large bucket full of coins. We set to our task, carefully separating each coin into its own subgroup, nickels, dimes, quarters and pennies in their own area. When that is finished, we break open the baguette.
“To a new year!” says candy. She is tall and blonde. Most people get the impression that she is a slut when they see her, but in truth she is tragically shy and quiet unless she knows she can trust you.
“To old friends!” shouts Georgia. She is queer looking redhead with long lanky limbs and bright green eyes against pale freckled skin.
Then we bend down, one after the other, and laboriously line up the coins on the train tracks by size. Each one after the other. It takes us an hour. When we are done, the line on each side of the tracks is about 30 feet long. Durante crawls over the fence into the back yard nearest us and grabs a little child’s pink ball. We toss it back and forth, silent. Elephant lets the ball thud against his chest when he catches it. We listen patiently to the crickets until we hear the 12 oclock train rumbling in the distance. Georgia checks her watch. It is 11:58.
I sit in Spoon’s lap. He lies down. I can hear his heart beating. I concentrate on this until I cannot hear anything else. The train passes and I can feel it, a low, drumming from my feet to my ears and the pebbles on the ground by me bounce. Spoon wraps his arms around me. We get up, and dust ourselves off. Candy and Durante have just finished flirting. I hear her high giggle in the distance and catch the contrast to his deep voice. Elephante and Georgia walk up behind us. They return the pink ball to the yard.
Candy, Durante, Elephant, Georgia, Spoon and I all line up, alphabetically. Then I look at my watch, count to three, and nod to Georgia. She whistles. It is exactly eleven o three. I grab Spoon’s hand and we run, as fast as we can, to the other side of the tracks and down to where we earlier had set our pennies. They are squashed now, broken and flat. I hold one, feel the heat. All of us place them in our pockets, one by one, as if they are the sins we have committed in the year. Candy and I are Jewish, Georgia is Atheist, Elephant is Buddhist, and Durante and Spoon are Agnostic. Our random tradition has nothing to do with religion, but it is our way of forgiving ourselves for what we have done to others or ourselves in the past year. We flatten the lumps in our throats, we kill the things we regret saying to others, we take back the offenses we have made on society, and we let ourselves go. Elephante got really involved in drugs in the beginning of the year and we couldn’t get him to stop. Eventually he did, but he couldn’t forgive himself. Now he is clean, fresh, angelic. You can become a baby, wet and sticky and crying and new. You can be what you thought you could never go back to, the state of innocence that everyone wishes to grasp but no one can remember anything from that stage of life. There is no documentation of this feeling, but on new year’s in Greencastle, we lay the coins and wait for the train.
We all run, fast, into the blue corn field. It is vast, and when we feel that we have gone on forever we stop, hold on to each other, breathe. Finally we reach the edge, where the wheat starts. We walk through this field, slower now. When outrunning one’s faults, one cannot run forever. The wheat field slopes into the ocean, where we all strip off our clothes and splash our way in. Candy smiles at me, her soaking her is covering her face but I can still see. I smile back, and we swim out farther and talk for a while. New year’s is everyone’s favorite holiday in Greencastle because gives us so much to look forward to.
When we are all too tired to speak we wrap ourselves in towels and head to the wood tower that Candy, Georgia, and I made when we were young. It is large enough to shelter all of us and we huddle together and talk and laugh and sing and fall asleep.
. hope you like it y'all.
“Spoon,” I ask.
“Yes?” he looks at me.
“When you and your mother went to Greencastle Moore, did you see a guard there?”
“Uhm...” spoon shuffles his feet. He is preparing for a big lie.
“Don’t lie.” I say quickly. He stops shuffling his feet.
“Yes I did. It was your dad wasn’t it?” says spoon thoughtfully after a few seconds pause.
I look at him, right in the eyes. Then I slowly part my lips as if to speak, but nothing comes out but a small “nnnh” of air struggling in my throat. I twirl my shiny black Mohawk between my fingers. He smiles at me, widely.
“So it is Jacob.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly elephant and Durante are beside us, with Candy Phillips on one side and Georgia O’ Moonie on the other. Elephante and Durante are dressed in all black and white. Black sweater, white shoes, black pants, white hat, black nails, white boxers, black eyeliner, white shirt. Candy and Georgia are dressed as each other. Spoon and I are dressed as us when we were in kindergarten.
The moon is bright and there are few trees by Greencastle’s west side, where we have chosen to picnic. I have a large bucket full of coins. We set to our task, carefully separating each coin into its own subgroup, nickels, dimes, quarters and pennies in their own area. When that is finished, we break open the baguette.
“To a new year!” says candy. She is tall and blonde. Most people get the impression that she is a slut when they see her, but in truth she is tragically shy and quiet unless she knows she can trust you.
“To old friends!” shouts Georgia. She is queer looking redhead with long lanky limbs and bright green eyes against pale freckled skin.
Then we bend down, one after the other, and laboriously line up the coins on the train tracks by size. Each one after the other. It takes us an hour. When we are done, the line on each side of the tracks is about 30 feet long. Durante crawls over the fence into the back yard nearest us and grabs a little child’s pink ball. We toss it back and forth, silent. Elephant lets the ball thud against his chest when he catches it. We listen patiently to the crickets until we hear the 12 oclock train rumbling in the distance. Georgia checks her watch. It is 11:58.
I sit in Spoon’s lap. He lies down. I can hear his heart beating. I concentrate on this until I cannot hear anything else. The train passes and I can feel it, a low, drumming from my feet to my ears and the pebbles on the ground by me bounce. Spoon wraps his arms around me. We get up, and dust ourselves off. Candy and Durante have just finished flirting. I hear her high giggle in the distance and catch the contrast to his deep voice. Elephante and Georgia walk up behind us. They return the pink ball to the yard.
Candy, Durante, Elephant, Georgia, Spoon and I all line up, alphabetically. Then I look at my watch, count to three, and nod to Georgia. She whistles. It is exactly eleven o three. I grab Spoon’s hand and we run, as fast as we can, to the other side of the tracks and down to where we earlier had set our pennies. They are squashed now, broken and flat. I hold one, feel the heat. All of us place them in our pockets, one by one, as if they are the sins we have committed in the year. Candy and I are Jewish, Georgia is Atheist, Elephant is Buddhist, and Durante and Spoon are Agnostic. Our random tradition has nothing to do with religion, but it is our way of forgiving ourselves for what we have done to others or ourselves in the past year. We flatten the lumps in our throats, we kill the things we regret saying to others, we take back the offenses we have made on society, and we let ourselves go. Elephante got really involved in drugs in the beginning of the year and we couldn’t get him to stop. Eventually he did, but he couldn’t forgive himself. Now he is clean, fresh, angelic. You can become a baby, wet and sticky and crying and new. You can be what you thought you could never go back to, the state of innocence that everyone wishes to grasp but no one can remember anything from that stage of life. There is no documentation of this feeling, but on new year’s in Greencastle, we lay the coins and wait for the train.
We all run, fast, into the blue corn field. It is vast, and when we feel that we have gone on forever we stop, hold on to each other, breathe. Finally we reach the edge, where the wheat starts. We walk through this field, slower now. When outrunning one’s faults, one cannot run forever. The wheat field slopes into the ocean, where we all strip off our clothes and splash our way in. Candy smiles at me, her soaking her is covering her face but I can still see. I smile back, and we swim out farther and talk for a while. New year’s is everyone’s favorite holiday in Greencastle because gives us so much to look forward to.
When we are all too tired to speak we wrap ourselves in towels and head to the wood tower that Candy, Georgia, and I made when we were young. It is large enough to shelter all of us and we huddle together and talk and laugh and sing and fall asleep.
. hope you like it y'all.