by Herocious
tightens his grip on the reins and shuts his eyes. The four-cylinder engine is off. He left the blue towel on the roof.
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
He’s listening over and over again to the tonic. He feels tiny explosions ripple along his spine and spread into his appendages. He’s covered in goosebumps, gazing into infinity. No phone call is worth the destruction of this moment.
1
Sometimes you really can’t control what comes into your mind, or, for that matter, what goes out. The mind does what it wants.
I have a feeling that Michael either already wrote about what happened last night or else will write about it very soon even though he didn’t actually see any of it at all.
I, however, saw everything. The splashes didn’t wake me up so much as the girls. I thought something was really wrong because of the screaming, but when I got out of bed to check, nothing was wrong with any of the people at the pool. They weren’t only naked, like I told Michael, and there weren’t only the people in the pool. No, while two guys and two girls were swimming, another couple was busy on the grass.
I didn’t lie about the four in the pool. Both guys were naked, and the girl was in her panties. The other girl was swimming, but in her clothes. I’m not sure why she of all people decided to stay dressed, especially since she didn’t stay that way for long.
It doesn’t bother me that I didn’t tell Michael more details. If he wanted to see what I saw, he could’ve gotten out of bed. I wasn’t stopping him from seeing what became a full out hedonistic orgy, and because of the underwater pool lights I saw every body part clearly.
What does bother me a little is that I recognized one of the guys. The one who didn’t swim but stayed on the grass doing it with the third girl. I knew right away who this guy was because of his Mohawk. I’m not sure why I didn’t tell Michael. Why? It’s not like I think he’s attractive or anything. But once I saw it was our neighbor who lives under us I felt a shudder run through me and went straight to bed.
I couldn’t watch any longer.
4
“Leave me alone!” shrieks the bastard child for all of The Oaks to hear.
I’m washing the dishes when I hear this boy’s plea for solitude. He’s screaming at his parent. I hear him through the closed window that sits above the kitchen sink. That’s how loudly he screams. An unreserved scream that doesn’t care about what other people will think.
“Leave me alone!” he howls. “I don’t want you moving me across the country! I don’t fucking like it here! Leave me alone!”
I can’t see this boy. He sounds like a teenager, like a displaced soul. I’m capable of empathy when it comes to displaced souls. At his age, I felt the same way. To move to a new place where no one is familiar is like a crime against young souls they can’t do anything about no matter how hard they try, or how meanly they act out. For young souls there’s no excitement in relocating. Learning a new place isn’t such a great thing like it is for Bridget and me. For young souls, being a transplant in the city of Austin is nothing to write home about.
“No, I don’t like them,” he retaliates. “I don’t fucking like it here!”
His mother – I hear her voice now, like a duet – takes her son’s verbal assault calmly at first. She’s worried the tenants in Building Nine will eavesdrop on their talk. But her son is more than she can handle. He has no respect for her.
After she drops a litany of no, no, no, no, each no increasing in intensity until she’s screaming through bloodshot eyes, her displaced son puts her into tears with, You’re a cunt! His mother chokes, sniffles, and breaks down into nothing.
He consoles her, Mom, mom, I didn’t mean it, but she’s a mess, broken.
8
At Barton Springs Rd, the stoplight turns red. I glance at my stopwatch. I’ve been running a little over fifteen minutes at around 80 percent. I’ve worked up a healthy sheen. It’s good I didn’t wear a shirt.
The run down the hills of South 5th St has blistered my toes. I feel the balls of my feet smart. It’s not the greatest feeling in the world, but I figure if I’m going to be living in Austin for at least the next five years, the sooner I callus my feet the better.
Almost as if the civic engineers were in tune with my degree of exhaustion, when I’m ready to run again – not a second sooner or later – the cobalt pedestrian invites me to cross. I give myself a little pep talk:
“C’mon, Michael.”
North of Barton Springs Rd is a manicured patch of grass. Although I have the option to run on the tortuous concrete trail meant for pedestrians, the spongy terrain of sod lures my smitten feet.
I better watch for dog shit, I think, I have to be mindful of dog shit. Ernest Pipe wasn’t, and he suffered the consequences.
As I run, my eyes follow the trail. It winds up a small hill in the center of the park. Its wind reminds me of a barber’s pole. I decide to run up this hill in the spirit of Rocky Balboa. Again, I don’t take the engineered trail. I run straight up the southern side. At the peak I have a sweeping panorama of downtown. The Colorado River languishes at the feet of Austin’s skyscrapers. The setting sun smashes into the reflective windowpanes as if into a prism. I victoriously raise my arms toward the pastel sky and think, I am a skyscraper. My palms meet directly above my head, fingertips reaching for the heavens, and I think, I am a skyscraper. The wind rustles my tussocks of armpit hair. My sheen dries, cooling me. A choo choo train blows over the graffitied bridge that stretches between South 1st St and Lamar Blvd.
Have we really come so far?
I spin on my feet to see everything there is to be seen. Austin, you seem to have it all. The Stevie Ray Vaughn Memorial is being worshipped with cameras and girls clinging to the guitar hero’s bronze thigh. Dogs as varied as Austinites plunge into the Colorado River and pad their way toward floating tennis balls. Runners break a sweat along the picturesque Town Lake Trail. Hippies throw Frisbee. I sniff the air a bit when I think I smell the aroma of weed. Yes, I think, that’s weed.
At the end of the barber’s pole, on the pinnacle of this hill deep in the heart of Texas, there’s a young bride and groom taking their wedding day pictures with the Austin skyline in the backdrop. They gaze at each other, they hug and kiss and smile for the photographer.
Yeah, I think, that’s some good weed.
I start my stopwatch and resume my run.
0
Cody smiles. We were close friends back in my Houston days. We went to school for two years together, our junior and senior years of high school. It’s funny seeing each other grow. We’re still the same people, but now we’re older and have bank accounts and serious jobs, or at least Cody does.
I find that when we meet every couple years, we reminisce about the golden days. It isn’t that new memories aren’t budding, but we make a point to keep the old alive as new ones are made. I haven’t had many chances to create new memories with Cody. Meeting every couple years tends to put too much weight on the occasion, and when we do meet it’s only for a few days. By the time we get the reminiscing over with it’s already time to say goodbye.
“You can eat mulberry?” I ask, remembering Cody said something about that fruit.
“Oh yeah,” says Cody, “and it’s pretty good.”
“You’ve eaten off this tree?”
“Not straight off this tree, but one I saw fall.” He shows us through the wrought-iron gate and up his wooden patio steps. “It’s good you guys came in the back way because everyone who comes through the front drags mulberry juice in with them.”
We wipe our feet on a straw mat, and Carla welcomes us into their home with open arms.
“How was your drive?” she asks, already standing.
“It was pretty quick,” says Bridget.
“For you marathon drivers,” says Cody, “that drive must’ve been cake.”
We laugh. Bridget and I look at each other. In our eyes: the road, the avocado.
“You guys want anything to drink?” asks
Carla. “We have several choices of beer.”
We adjourn to the kitchen, sit on some barstools, and toast cold beer to our reunion. The appraiser in me observes their kitchen: granite countertop, stainless steel appliances, custom cabinetry, travertine tile backsplash, and recessed lighting.
“It’s so good to see you guys!” says Carla.
“I know,” says Bridget. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get here earlier. We got a late start.”
“Oh,” says Carla, “don’t worry about it. You’re here now.”
We stay up until the wee hours talking about things that have made us laugh for time immemorial as well as things more contemporary and relevant to our adult lives, like Cody’s fundraising role in Public Artwalk Dallas, Carla’s recent career change into the non-profit sector, where she plans events for a local children’s abuse center, and Bridget’s graduate school horizons and new job at the Children’s Autism Center in Round Rock.
“What about you, Bum” asks Cody, “are you still working for Google?”
“No,” I say. “Google was only a year-long gig. I got back to appraising after my stint with Google terminated. I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”
I finish my second beer and stare at the granite countertop. The edges are rough. My fingers trace the ridges as I wait for further inquiry. I’m such a factotum. But that’s the extent of probing into my professional life, or lack thereof. Cody does make it clear, however, that
