His finger man tripped through rainbow carwash bubbles up to the second knees. Tyler bridged his other hand across his eyes and squinted at cul-de-sac baseball. He felt safer on the moss-cracked curb. The fresh stripe was tacky dry but water wet. Finger man swerved from a folded band-aid shark and climbed the slick red wall.
Tyler dug his thumbnail into the paint, peeling unjust summers year by year until he found the crackle of eight. Eight was a good summer. Girls were boys and boys were kings and fair was getting to pick the first popsicle next time. Ponytails begged pulling, not broken promise. That was before the arms and legs and whispers.
Barefoot pipe cleaner legs splayed beyond the rushing gutter and he rubbed his colty knees. He was the fastest runner back then and his decent swing always got him an early pick. A silent pact now kept his early-in but always placed him on Austin’s team. Balance.
Finger man plunged into the receding flood, headless, alone, arms behind in contemplation. A miniature maple leaf spun and dipped and emerged modestly plastered to the web between Tyler’s fingers. He sloughed it free and sat on his hand, ashamed at his childish puppetry.
A Frisbee base skidded into his bubble, followed by Austin flicking pebbles from scraped palms. Both nodded their dance, eyes averted. Summoning courage, Tyler stood. He lifted a curious grin at flecks in Austin’s eyes. Crushed with Tyler’s truth, Austin tracked denial backwards to the game. Eight was a good summer. When Tyler was eight, he still had a mother.
4 Responses to “Spoke”
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Jen,
I love how you enter Tyler’s world, through the small details of the moment, slowly “peeling unjust summers year by year” for us, through Finger Man & Austin, how you also keep us distanced from him through the narrator’s language and ability to explain, which moves us to remember eight in our own lives, the small injustices, and the large, our helplessness against loss. Lovely.
At first I wasn’t sure about the abruptness of the final line–it felt a little like an exclamation point at the end of a sad sentence, but on second reading, I changed my mind, for that kind of tumbling out of the real source of his isolation seems real, as it would happen in his head. as it would happen to him.
You make me want to drop the manual I have to write and return to fiction.
Barbara, thank you for giving me a bit of your precious quiet time. I know how much you value the disconnection. I did wrestle with that last sentence. I could have added another paragraph and wrapped things up comfortably. It was a fight between narrator and Tyler, and the kid won. I realized his challenge is that he’s blaming his tragedy for the normal pains of growing up. The issue has blocked his logic, so I decided I would let it stand for the reader as well. Thank you for rereading and feeling for Tyler.
“Eight was a good summer. Girls were boys and boys were kings and fair was getting to pick the first popsicle next time.”
And nothing is fair anymore. It’s not fair to lose your Mother, and that makes everything else different from then on. And you learn nothing is fair (even if it is).
Wonderfully compact and very nicely focused through Tyler’s eyes.
Thank you for such a good read.
You evoke great empathy for Tyler in this piece. Poor kid. Will he spiral downward or find the strength to rebuild? It leaves much for the reader to think about. Good job.
~jon