Soundless

Soundless

It was so much easier to be loved than to have to do any of the desperate work of loving.

Patrick Ness — Release (a novel)

Soundless

I whispered

And you whispered back

I think it was morning

Wrongly, perhaps

And the light filtered through windows

They weren’t mine

Demands and flames

Hot memories of you

Quick pressure, you knew it would work

On me, at least

Such weakness

Such submission; only ever yours

You were on top from word go

Just what I wanted

Marks burnt

Remnants of our mess

The fire that we started with fever

So quick to appear

All of it ruined

Fast and dark

Extinguished before the light returned

Perhaps it was morning

I whispered 

And you whispered back.

Black Mamba: Part IV

Black Mamba: Part IV

Part I

Part II

Part III

        In a strange twist I ended up liking Bucky the most...



Maybe it was boredom, or maybe it was avoidance. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t heard from Lola in four months, or maybe it was something else that had drawn Buck out to that particular patch of dirt down at the back of his parents property. Bob and Rita Mason were still in Europe and to be fair, Buck had thought more than twice about starting to dig where he had. So maybe this time he wasn’t being completely irresponsible.

For at least a week he’d gone back and forth, toying with the idea. There was something down there and he was sure of it. He was sure it was down there. Something. Instead of working on his final exam studies or the immense history assignment that would soon be due — the things he should have been doing, and he knew it — he found himself kicking up dust and walking to where the space between the trees called to him.

Most of the properties in Coster Park were sprawling and Buck had heard about the Dupont twins finding a half-pound lump of gold out near their dam. He wanted something like that to happen to him. Shit, he wanted something to happen to him and he was sure there was something down there, under the dirt.

So once school had let out on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of days before the party that he and Stacey were planning, Buck took a large shovel from his father’s tool shed next to the stables. The dirt was hard and compacted, dry on the top, but darker and easier to move the deeper he got. He couldn’t tell you how long he was down there because it was morning by the time he woke up in his bed, dirt and mud caked on his skin and bed sheets. He was late for school.

Eating a peanut butter toast and using his cell phone to take photos of the hole, Buck managed to get later and later for school. He was impressed by how deep he had gone. He found it almost hard to believe that he’d done it by himself. He quickly texted one of the pictures to Stacey and then jumped on his push bike.

At school he promptly got detention.

“Bucky,” Stacey said as they sat down to an early lunch and the cog continued to turn inside Buck’s head. “Buck, what is this man? Are you missing her or something?”

Buck shook his head. He knew that Lola was a distant memory. A very fucking close distant memory, but still, that wasn’t what was bothering him. “I found something.”

“You found something?”

“Yeah man. It’s this big, flat, stone thing. It’s like ancient, something. Egyptian maybe.” He shrugged, “I dunno. It’s big and flat and it’s at the bottom of the hole that I dug last night.”

 Buck saw Stacey roll his eyes in frustration. “You dug a hole?”

“Yeah man. I mean, I had this feeling, and I’ve been thinking about it and —”

“You had a feeling?” Stacey unwrapped his lunch burrito.

“Yeah man. It’s like —”

“And it’s Egyptian or something?”

“Yeah. Man, it’s fucking incredible. Wait until you —”

Stacey looked up sharply and Buck knew he was in trouble.

“What about your history essay?” Stacey asked accusingly.

Buck was silent. Stacey took a bite of his burrito. Buck knew the point his best friend was trying to make but that didn’t really matter. What he needed to do right now was go to the library.

“Look man, this Lola business is no good for you,” Stacey said with a mouthful of burrito. “Focus on Robbie. She’s happy — Jesus, she’s nice — she’s good for you.” With a shrug and a look of forfeit, Stacey remained at the lunch table while Buck continued turned away and continued on with avoiding his detention.

The library wasn’t unknown to him, but it was definitely not a place he frequented unless he wanted to spy on Lola. She was usually in the corner of one of the couches in the fiction section with her legs tucked underneath herself and her mind somewhere far away. Buck liked to watch her facial expressions as she leafed through paperbacks or scrolled in her phone or stared off into space. She wasn’t there today.

He made his way to the history section and felt a stab of guilt that he wasn’t working on his essay. He brushed it away. Robbie would text him about it later anyways, after a prompt from Stacey, and the guilt would stab again. No need for Buck to worry about it now.

Ancient Egyptian history encompassed a large amount of books, but he didn’t have to spend too much time looking. There were quite a number on hieroglyphics and translating them.

Buck flicked through his photos trying to find one that was clear enough to make out the inscriptions on the flat piece of stone at the bottom of his excavation hole. There was one that was fairly decent but some of the markings were still too hard to make out. At the end of a half hour, and with his ignored detention probably earning him another, all Buck had deciphered was — The Snake Leader something something again lift.

It seemed wrong and he knew he’d fucked it up, but his mind had stopped lingering on the hole he had dug. It was wandering now and it was wandering to Lola. He flushed with guilt, feeling as if someone had been watching him. His phone buzzed. It was Robin.

Hey baby. So, Safety Stacey is telling me you’ve dug a fucking hole and are avoiding your essay.
Buck like Robin. He liked how crass she was, he liked her bright painted nails, he liked her unbreakable happy smile, he liked how eagerly she had gone down on him on multiple occasions.

Bucky knew he was a dick.

He hesitated and then flicked off the message without responding. Maybe he could convince Lola to come to the party instead of Robin.

Black Mamba: Part II

Black Mamba (Part I)

And now, Part II...


 

Stacey was jittery with nerves as he set up the tables of snacks and drinks and ice.

Buck watched him from a chair out on the lawn. “We better get that fire started soon.”

Stacey balked. “Bucky, you should get the fire started. I’ve been doing everything else while you’ve been lounging there going on and on about your ridiculous ‘excavation site’.”

“Fucking Safety Stacey. Man, sometimes I think you have little to no faith in me.”

“That is exactly what I have Bucky — little to no faith.”

Buck grinned at him and Stacey couldn’t help but roll his eyes in amusement. The two of them were on the very cusp of graduating and with Buck’s folks away in Europe for the month, they decided it was the perfect time to throw a preemptive celebratory bash. More so, and Stacey had thought it to himself as they had quietly discussed it at the back of algebra, he knew Buck would invite Robin because of their current far-too-obvious tango, and that was good. Robin would definitely bring along her cute friend Min. Those two were hardly seen apart at school.

Stacey’s mind was on Min as he set out plastic cups and emptied bags of corn chips into Buck’s mothers’ serving bowls. The poem had been what had first stuck to him. The girl was pretty, of course she was, but he didn’t want to be that kind of guy, even though he knew he was. He was just like everyone else who would be at the party tonight, but Min — there was something about her. Something else. She was so quiet, and yet so close to Robin, as if the two of them were bound by blood instead of friendship. Sometimes Stacey couldn’t really understand it, the girls just seemed like such opposites.

Stacey!

Buck was calling from where he still slouched in his chair.

Stacey shrugged and gave up. He scuffed through the dirt and over to the crude fire pit they had dug earlier that day. As he started tossing in chunks of wood from the pile and scrunched up newspaper pages, Buck similarly started his inevitable interrogation.

“So, this Asian bird.”

“Don’t say Asian bird, Bucky. She’s Chinese and her name is Min.”

“Oh my god, Safety Stacey, why are you being so precious about this?”

“I’m no being precious, you dick. I just like her. And you should know her name, she’s Robbie’s best friend.”

Buck hauled himself out of the chair to grab another beer from the table. “I only need to know Robbie’s name, she’s the one I’m banging and she’s the one I want to continue banging. Speaking of, please tell me you’re gonna bang Mindy tonight?”

Stacey was on the edge of angry, but he bit his tongue on what he really wanted to say. “It’s Min, not Mindy, and no, we’ve barely even spoken.”

Buck cracked open the beer and it fizzed up out of the can. “Woah!” he said, shaking his hand over the dirt. “Anyways, what was I saying?”

“Something about being an impolite, racist oaf?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Buck crossed his eyes idiotically. “No, what I’m saying is that is perfect. If you don’t know her that well, you can bang her and not have to worry about anything else. You made it nice with that Latino chick for like weeks without having to bother with the back and forth bullshit that I get from Robbie.”

“Jesus Bucky, don’t say Latina chick. Her name was Cindy and she was Portuguese. We dated, casually, and it just didn’t work out. I wasn’t using her.”

Buck picked up the matches from the table and came over to the fire pit next to Stacey. “Cindy,” he repeated, “sounds very fucking close to Mindy, doesn’t it old boy?”

Stacey didn’t bother with a response this time. He crouched down and started rifling through the pile of wood for the larger pieces.

Buck seemed to feel the tension. “Look buddy, I’m sorry. I’m only having a go because you seem to really like her, yeah?”

Stacey shrugged. “I guess I probably do. I don’t know…” Stacey paused, remembering that day in english class. “Did we have eleventh grade English together?”

Buck scoffed. “The fuck would I remember?”

“Nothing, I just…”

“Go on, spit it out Safety Stacey. I know you’re tryin’ to tell me something right now. May as well go ahead.”

Stacey worried he was about to blush, but he stood up and willed himself to be the Stacey that most people knew him as. “There was that day that we had to read out our poems.  You didn’t even write one, remember? Anyways, that was the first day that I really noticed her, Min. She read out her poem and it was called ‘From The Trees’ and it was not at all what I was expecting.”

Buck was poised with his beer just an inch from his face, his eyes narrowed; the cogs were turning; he was remembering. “Wait — wait wait wait. I do fucking remember that day.”

Stacey was almost taken aback. “You remember her poem?”

“No, not the poem, the day. It was free ice cream day at the caf.”

“What?” Stacey was pretending he didn’t remember that fact, but of course he did.

The devilish expression on Buck’s face was not a good sign. “Oh. My. God.” He took a step back, feigning shock. “You salty dog! Here I am, thinking Safety Stacey is a reformed man. Thinking that he likes girls because of poems and rainbows and unicorns.”

Stacey shot Buck the bird but at the same time he was gritting his teeth, bracing for what he knew was about to come.

Buck paused again, savoured the moment before he took the kill shot. “I know you know what I’m talking about. Free ice cream day?”

Stacey said nothing.

“At the caf?”

Stacey stayed silent.

“We sat outside on the green, and it was like a million degrees out, and we were on that bench opposite Robbie and her little Asian chick friend, and the ice cream was melting down onto their hands and they were licking it up, and I said, damn I wish Robbie was licking my —”

“Don’t even fucking say it.” Stacey was standing up and his tone was mush angrier than he had meant it to be.

Buck held up his hands in forfeit. “Dude, I was only gonna say that you were thinking the same thing. I know you would never say it out loud, like me, but there’s nothing wrong with thinking it.”

Stacey looked off into the trees. He wasn’t really angry, he was more embarrassed. Of course the ice cream thing had stuck in his mind. He had watched Min as she carefully — delicately — licked melted pink ice cream from her fingers and wrist. He had been almost hard just at that. But that wasn’t it.

It had been the poem. He hardly paid attention in English class, let alone for stuff like poetry, but something about Min’s quiet voice and measured pace had pulled him in. He couldn’t remember the words. He remembered the poem — it was aggressive, violent in a way, and she used swear words, which Mrs Heller had said was okay but shouldn’t stand as an opening for everyone else to include cussing in their work.

Stacey remembered the ice cream as well, and he wondered what her tongue felt like. Was it sweet like melted ice cream? Was it wet? Was it warm?

He knew he wanted Min, but he knew they were from different places. Not that she was Chinese. It was that he was a big idiot and she was intellectual and withdrawn. He was a jock in most ways — he had a reputation that she had no doubt heard about — but he hoped he was more than that. He wanted to be more than what most people thought about him. He wanted to write poetry as good as Min’s. He wanted Min.

Buck’s face was serious when Stacey finally looked up. “Safety Stacey. I'm sorry I was a dick. It’s been a while since you liked a girl — actually I’m not sure I’ve ever seen you like a girl before — so let’s leave this baby to burn a little,” he said, looking at the growing fire, “and go check out my awesome excavation site where we are gonna find some stuff that’s gonna make us so uber rich.”

Stacey gave in. “Fine. Just please promise me that there won’t be any goddamn snakes out there. I hate snakes.”

Untitled

Untitled

And they both went down into the water
         — Acts 8:38

How quietly and slowly it is, that
You waste me away
How surely it is, that
You waste me down to nothing
You grind me down to dust

Dig up what you’ve buried and it will only stink of earth and rot

Dig up what you’ve hidden and it will ruin you

How entirely it is, that
You use me up and take all of my love
I am emptied out; cavernous, now.
And how slowly it is, that
You fail to fill me up again.
How slowly it is, that
You

Dig right down into the heart of me

Dig up what you’ve tucked away and it will be your end

How surely it is, that
I am not the means to your end
And so you dig

You and dig
And dig
And your hole
It fills
With water
Me; I fill with water

I fill with water and how slowly it is, that
I fill with water and yet it is not you
Who fills me

I can’t breathe
And you can’t tell
How surely it is, that
I fill
How slowly it is, that
I drown

Dig up things you’ve stolen and they will burn you

Dig into your luck and it crumbles

How quietly and surely you waste my time
And waste my body
And waste
My soul

How slowly it is, that
You lean back
Fall back
Into the water

And you take me with you.

The Maker of Bad Decisions

The Maker of Bad Decisions



    for Billy










Sylvia heard him dump his boots in the hall only just a moment before she could smell the cigarette.

“I need a snack!”

Her husband was drunk. Again.

Sylvia wiped her hands on her apron and attempted to ignore the banging and the cussing that always followed him home from the pub. It wasn’t every day, but it was most days. She had noticed that the closer it got to Christmas, the more days it had been.

“A twelve hour day!” he hollered from the living room, where Sylvia knew he was already slumped in his chair in front of the box.

He shouted at her when he wanted sympathy, love, and everything else, and she hated herself knowing she’d give all of it to him. Despite the shouting. And despite the fact that he was mean — a mean guy who happened to be her husband and the father of her only son.

Sylvia dumped a packet of salted peanuts into a small festive ceramic bowl and filled her lungs with air — trying to float above it. Her life. It, the air, tasted of tobacco. She walked quietly, out of habit, from the kitchen, careful not to disturb the unseen demons. It didn’t matter if they were real or not.

There he sat — Scott, her husband — in his chair and his dirty socks, plump and sweating and reeking of stale beer. He never failed to fill a room, but it was always in an insidious kind of way. As if he was a disease that spread out as soon as he was given the chance.

Sylvia carefully placed the bowl of nuts on the the small table next to his chair and tried to smile. “I thought you were going to pick up Scotty Jr from school today?”

Her husband picked his nose with a fat finger and scoffed at her. “Did you just hear me, woman?”

Sylvia stayed quiet, calm, holding his eyes with her own.

“A twelve-hour-fucking-day and you want me to put my boots back on and go and pick up your son from school, before I even have a fucking snack?!”

“He’s our son,” Sylvia noted, quietly.

Scott burst into a fit of laughter, his jelly-like stomach jiggly grossly, and stuff a handful of peanuts into his mouth.  “Our son?” he shouted. “You get pregnant and squeeze one out and now he’s our son?”

It took all that Sylvia had to resist the urge to bite her lip until it bled — until it hurt and she could dissolve into that pain as opposed to this pain. Her husband continued without prompt.

“A twelve-hour-day. Can he not catch the fucking bus?”

“His leg is broken.”

Sylvia’s husband — Scott — stuffed another handful of peanuts into his wide, greasy mouth, and called her a word that she could never, and will never, repeat.


~~~


Scott was tired. Macmillan had given him an earful over the whole Calthorpe fuck up from last week, and then, he’d copped a speeding ticket on the way back to the warehouse in the afternoon. The last thing he had need was back-chat from the woman.

All he wanted to do was relax in his chair and pretend like this day had never happened.

Scott put his boots back on an stomped (loudly) down the front stairs. The bitch was probably already crying herself hoarse in the bathroom anyway.

He turned the keys in the ignition, but if he was going anywhere, it wasn’t to Sylvia’s son’s school.

Scotty Jr’s school.

Oh no. He wasn't going there.

He knew of a place out behind the local department store that seemed to be open all the time and let pretty much anyone in. Scott parked his truck in the lot behind the store, and checked his cell phone. Two missed calls from Scotty Jr and a short text from Syl.

    Please don’t make him catch the bus. I know you’ve had a long day, but please.

Even her text messages had fucking punctuation. Scott needed another cigarette, so he got out and lit one.

It was cold out but the fresh air on his face was nice and for a moment Scott thought of Scotty Jr, who was probably…

Oh whatever…

The kid was grown; he could fend for himself.

“Hey buddy, I’m afraid you can’t smoke here.”

Scott looked up (well, up…a little bit) to see a midget sitting on the stairs that were bolted to the back of the store. Flanking the little guy, Scott counted five other midgets and no word of a lie, they were all dressed in matching red and green elf costumes, gold bells dangling from the tips of their pointed shoes and hats.

Scott couldn’t help himself — he burst into laughter. It was the laughter of a man who’d had a long day and a few too many beers.

The group of midgets were not impressed but Scott didn’t notice, he was still laughing and lighting another cigarette.

“Seriously though,” continued the first midget who was holding a half-eaten salad sandwich. “If you want to smoke there’s a designated area over there, away from the building, man.” The midget pointed beyond where Scott stood.

“If it’s okay with you, little man, I think I’ll stay right here and finish my Marlborough.”

A midget behind the first one stood up on his step, a similar salad sandwich in his hand. “I think Franklin made it pretty clear that we’re not okay with you smoking anywhere other than the designated area.”

Scott barked out another laugh and in the back of his mind, noticed that his eyes felt heavy and sleepy — perhaps he should have stayed home after all. Or gone to pick up Scotty Jr. Oh well, once he finished his cigarette he was going to get shit-faced at the bar and then maybe sleep in his car.

If only he could get these midgets off —

THWACK!

The blow to the right side of his face seemed to come out of nowhere, but Scott was verging on all-together drunk so it was only really a surprise to him. He didn’t see the second one coming either.

POW!

Scott stumbled back and felt himself unable to stay upright. His butt and lower back hit the ground, hard, and the world spun, as if reality was orbiting his head. On the edge of his vision he could see the midgets were surrounding him. Down on the ground now, where he was, he couldn’t help but think they seemed a lot bigger.

A lot more intimidating.

FWAP!

One of them slapped the back of his head, like you would a naughty child.

“Hey!” Scott was starting to get pissed off. “I’m just going over to the bar across the lot. I didn’t ask for trouble.”

“Mister,” said the first midget, the one who’d told him he couldn’t smoke, “if you came here…you came looking for trouble.”

Scott coughed and there was blood on his hand. He stood up. His cigarettes were strewn across the ground.

A midget with holly embroidered on his buttoned vest stepped forward. “This is our territory, you big oaf.”

Scott coughed again, and laughed again. “This ain’t the North Pole, sonny," he said. Then he laughed once more — at his own joke.

FFFFFSSSHHAK-BLOD!

One of the midgets had launched himself off the ground, tumbled in the air, and landed a punch right to his gut. Scott’s gut. Scott’s soft lower belly.

He crumpled, and even with his eyes closed, he felt the presence of the little guys all around him.

“We asked you nicely.” The voice was behind him.

“We were polite.” This voice was to his left.

The next was right in front of him. “Are you always such a dick, guy?”

Scott did his best to speak over the pain he was holding behind his hands. “If you’re done with this, Fun-Size, I think I’ll go over to the bar now.”

“Oh,” the fist midget laughed, “is that what you think?”

And all Scott knew was a dull THUNK! under his jaw and a strong urge to lean back off the proverbial cliff.

~~~


“Dude, you’re dad’s not coming.”

Scotty shuffled, trying to find a more comfortable position. His cast was itching like crazy today. “Mum said she’d ask him to pick me up today. He’s coming.”

“Dude, no he’s not.”

Scotty knew Gavin would be right in the end, and that there was no point in arguing. Still…

“Dude. Seriously. This is getting old.”

“What?”

Gavin swung his backpack up onto his shoulders. “This. This whole thing where you try to convince yourself that your dad isn’t an absolute cunt.”

Scotty stayed quiet. He hated that word. He also knew Gavin didn’t say that word unless he deemed it necessary; unless he was trying to make a clear point.

The point was made.

Gavin shrugged at Scotty’s silence. “I can give you a lift, dude. If you want?”

Scotty stared down the empty road behind their school and knew that he had never expected to see his father’s car. He had wanted to see it, but he had never really expected it. He sighed and turned awkwardly — he was still getting used to the crutches. “Okay man. I guess you were right. But can we stop and grab a burger?”

“Dude! It’s like you’re in my head sometimes.”

Scotty laughed but it was with half a heart. Maybe food would distract him.

The two boys started their journey to the student lot where Gavin’s second-hand Prius was parked. Scotty hobbled and Gavin walked (considerately slowly) and texted on his phone.

“Love messages to Liz?” Scotty asked.

Gavin paled. “Uh, actually, just letting my dad know I’ll be late.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Sorry. I mean, you can totally share him.”

Scotty laughed. “Thanks man. Your dad is the best. Hey! Remember that time he tried to teach us how to fly fish in the stream when we went camping.”

“Dude! That was such a fail. We are clearly not fishermen in any sense of the word.”

They both laughed. Scotty tripped forwards and almost lost his balance but Gavin was right there with a steady hand pulling him back up by his school shirt.

“I have no idea what made you think you could land that triple without ruining yourself in the first place.”

Scotty fell back into step with his friend. “I dunno man. I guess I just wanted to do something impressive for once.”

Gavin rolled his eyes. “Dude, all of your gymnastics shit is impressive. Trust me. Liz can’t shut the fuck up about how impressive you are.”

Scotty felt a dull blush come to his cheeks.

Gavin quickly changed the subject. “So, burgers and then I drop you home yeah?”

“Uhhh, burgers and then you drop me a street away from my house.”

Gavin made a dramatic sigh. “You still haven’t told your folks that I got my license?!”

Scotty pretended to be sorry. “Hey man, I’m an invalid right now. All I wanted was for them, I mean, for dad, to maybe give half a shit.”

“That’s manipulative, dude. And I fucking love it!”

They fell silent again and the gravel crunched beneath their feet and the ends of Scotty’s crutches.

Gavin eventually broke the silence. “Ok. Burgers and then I drop you a block from you house.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I say something?”

Scotty stopped and looked up. “Of course. But this seems serious.”

“Oh,” said Gavin, “this is deadly serious.” He paused for effect and brushed the hair out of his face. “I bet, right now, that your dad is getting beat up by a bunch of Christmas-clad midgets.”

“What?”

Gavin burst into laughter. “Yeah. Like they’re totally dressed in elf costumes and they’re just beating the shit out of your stupid dad. That’s what I think.”

Scotty laughed as well and wondered if there was any justice in this life. “Gav, you’re a freaking nutbag sometimes.”