Revision
This is a revised version of something I posted earlier.
On the far side of town, dressed in dying light and moving quickly, Ted Landsome dances through the street. Headphones cover his ears, and he spins and slides and turns, a pale vision in tattered denim and sneakers. He’s glad the day is ending, glad that soon the Wednesday night church service will open its stone doors, releasing Sara, his steady girl, his love. His. Drums rumble like thunder, and he pivots on his heel, smooth and graceful, his long hair whipping back and back again. If any cars passed he pays them no mind. Why should he, he doesn’t owe them a thing. He’s paid his dues, is on his own time now. Work had been a bitch, with the manager screaming for faster service and the old ladies with their scribbled-on skin complaining about everything possible and then some, all the demands filling his head like a hollow anthem. The day had moved clumsily, like the hands of children fumbling with building blocks. Or even worse, it had moved like a corpse, wrapped in plastic and dragged towards the chopping block. It had sucked at him like a leech, but now free he dances his fevered dance, a sweating and glorious teen angel celebrating the oncoming dark. Night: ah, velvet night—the sounds of his feet trumpet its arrival.
“Hey babe,” he says as she is leaning into his arms. The cream of her skin is glowing and orange under the streetlamps, and her pale, almost translucent hair hangs in the air like floating static. She doesn’t answer, but just buries her face in his neck like she’s looking for home. Her breath trickles underneath his collar, feeling cool against his chest. Nineteen is a glow, tarnished on the edges but still starlit, full of sweating nakedness and stoned afternoons. But details come creeping in, and jobs and responsibility hang like ballasts of iron in the background. She smells like saffron and incense, and Ted sighs into her hair, feeling her curves against him. She is thin but soft, and the angles of her hips are marked with shadow. He thinks of the way her bare skin blushes under his touch, and how he loves it when he draws back and his handprint remains, lingering like a hidden flower. A generator crackles, and the smell of packed, wet dirt is rising, thick and poignant. Behind the parking lot sit the skeletal forms of jungle gym and swing set—graceful and innocent minarets, full of ghosts and forgotten exuberance. Small footprints mark the ground in looping and endless impressions that lead nowhere before vanishing into the asphalt. Only some places remember passing bodies, he thinks, and feels the knowledge closing around him, panic filling his chest like concrete fire, thick and painful. His hand abandons her waist, moving towards the gentle, slight slope of her chest. Her ribs dance beneath the fabric of her shirt. A hand grabs his wrist, stopping its ascent, and suddenly the night seemed too humid, too muggy; he hates it when the world turns jarring, turns against him. Her fingers are strong but feel barely there. Her nose wrinkles and her eyes dull. “Ted, not right now.” Rolling his eyes, he pulls her closer. The clasp of her belt digs into his thigh. “Not what right now?” “You know what I mean,” she says, resting her cheek and right hand against his chest. The steeple looms through the fog, bringing visions of broken orations and blood and panic. “Okay babe, sorry,” he says, and with a sinking feeling he feels the night fragment into the dust of forever. “It’s okay.” “I love you.” “I love you too.” Words wander aimlessly like fume and steam.
He really does love her, he thinks. But she won’t try to keep him from drifting away, almost as if he means nothing. He wouldn’t treat himself this way, that’s for sure. Brick smokestacks rise in the distance, smearing the sky with smoke like smudged tears falling upwards. All that pollution, it must seep into everything. He can even start to taste it—it tastes like ash, like disease—and he bets other places feel cleaner, less sullied and more open to sunlight.
“I love you, baby. I really mean it.”
He does. He doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter, the way out is open and inviting. Beckoning. He can hear it calling, and his mind fills with images of the highway thrusting into the horizon like a potent lover.
Morning promises to rise with honeyed light: the landscape will ebb like strokes of itinerate oil, and he will march with vim and verve into the waiting sky.
Nineteen is a glow.
On the far side of town, dressed in dying light and moving quickly, Ted Landsome dances through the street. Headphones cover his ears, and he spins and slides and turns, a pale vision in tattered denim and sneakers. He’s glad the day is ending, glad that soon the Wednesday night church service will open its stone doors, releasing Sara, his steady girl, his love. His. Drums rumble like thunder, and he pivots on his heel, smooth and graceful, his long hair whipping back and back again. If any cars passed he pays them no mind. Why should he, he doesn’t owe them a thing. He’s paid his dues, is on his own time now. Work had been a bitch, with the manager screaming for faster service and the old ladies with their scribbled-on skin complaining about everything possible and then some, all the demands filling his head like a hollow anthem. The day had moved clumsily, like the hands of children fumbling with building blocks. Or even worse, it had moved like a corpse, wrapped in plastic and dragged towards the chopping block. It had sucked at him like a leech, but now free he dances his fevered dance, a sweating and glorious teen angel celebrating the oncoming dark. Night: ah, velvet night—the sounds of his feet trumpet its arrival.
“Hey babe,” he says as she is leaning into his arms. The cream of her skin is glowing and orange under the streetlamps, and her pale, almost translucent hair hangs in the air like floating static. She doesn’t answer, but just buries her face in his neck like she’s looking for home. Her breath trickles underneath his collar, feeling cool against his chest. Nineteen is a glow, tarnished on the edges but still starlit, full of sweating nakedness and stoned afternoons. But details come creeping in, and jobs and responsibility hang like ballasts of iron in the background. She smells like saffron and incense, and Ted sighs into her hair, feeling her curves against him. She is thin but soft, and the angles of her hips are marked with shadow. He thinks of the way her bare skin blushes under his touch, and how he loves it when he draws back and his handprint remains, lingering like a hidden flower. A generator crackles, and the smell of packed, wet dirt is rising, thick and poignant. Behind the parking lot sit the skeletal forms of jungle gym and swing set—graceful and innocent minarets, full of ghosts and forgotten exuberance. Small footprints mark the ground in looping and endless impressions that lead nowhere before vanishing into the asphalt. Only some places remember passing bodies, he thinks, and feels the knowledge closing around him, panic filling his chest like concrete fire, thick and painful. His hand abandons her waist, moving towards the gentle, slight slope of her chest. Her ribs dance beneath the fabric of her shirt. A hand grabs his wrist, stopping its ascent, and suddenly the night seemed too humid, too muggy; he hates it when the world turns jarring, turns against him. Her fingers are strong but feel barely there. Her nose wrinkles and her eyes dull. “Ted, not right now.” Rolling his eyes, he pulls her closer. The clasp of her belt digs into his thigh. “Not what right now?” “You know what I mean,” she says, resting her cheek and right hand against his chest. The steeple looms through the fog, bringing visions of broken orations and blood and panic. “Okay babe, sorry,” he says, and with a sinking feeling he feels the night fragment into the dust of forever. “It’s okay.” “I love you.” “I love you too.” Words wander aimlessly like fume and steam.
He really does love her, he thinks. But she won’t try to keep him from drifting away, almost as if he means nothing. He wouldn’t treat himself this way, that’s for sure. Brick smokestacks rise in the distance, smearing the sky with smoke like smudged tears falling upwards. All that pollution, it must seep into everything. He can even start to taste it—it tastes like ash, like disease—and he bets other places feel cleaner, less sullied and more open to sunlight.
“I love you, baby. I really mean it.”
He does. He doesn’t. It doesn’t really matter, the way out is open and inviting. Beckoning. He can hear it calling, and his mind fills with images of the highway thrusting into the horizon like a potent lover.
Morning promises to rise with honeyed light: the landscape will ebb like strokes of itinerate oil, and he will march with vim and verve into the waiting sky.
Nineteen is a glow.
posted by David at 4:13 PM
2 Comments:
This may be a bit long.
"Headphones cover his ears, and he spins and slides and turns, a pale vision in tattered denim and sneakers" - something strikes me a bit wrong here, perhaps remove the first and?
"...old ladies with their scribbled-on skin complaining about everything possible and then some, all the demands filling his head like a hollow anthem" - maybe remove "all", or even "all the"? Description of old ladies fucking awesome, as always
"The day had moved clumsily, like the hands of children fumbling with building blocks" - maybe a difference in style thing, but I get the feeling this passage begs for additional description, maybe "the hands of [cool word choice] children..."
End of paragraph one is really cool, combined with the hair and movement description, really cements the image.
"'Hey babe,' he says as she is leaning into his arms" - why do you use "she is leaning" instead of "she leans"?
"ballasts of iron" - wtf mate? A more organic thingy maybe? I dunno, seems weird, because the descriptions around it have an organic, sensual quality. ex "sweating nakedness", "saffron and incense", "feeling her curves".
"A generator crackles..." - new paragraph?
"...and the smell of packed, wet dirt is rising, thick and poignant" - ...the smell of packed and wet dirt is rising, thick and poignant - ...the smell of packed and wet and silent dirt rises - sentence ideas I played with, o' course, I probably write a bit differently...
"graceful and innocent minarets" - good shit
"Only some places remember passing bodies, he thinks, and feels the knowledge closing around him, panic filling his chest like concrete fire, thick and painful" - a sudden and probably awesome change. Do semi colons belong in there? I've got no idea.
That whole smokestack paragraph is cool and sinister and ugly and scrabbling around my brainstem.
"...highway thrusting into the horizon like a potent lover" - hilarious
"...the landscape will ebb like strokes of itinerate oil" - I'm not really feeling it - my brains wandering between images of city streets after rain, the slicks beneath parked cars, and chemistry experiments
Thanks Ben, I really appreciate the feedback. Good suggestions, I'll try them out.
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