Saturday, June 28, 2008

Home

FRONT

The boy stands on the sidewalk.  He sees a one story ranch house, blue with white shutters, a white flower box under the windows.  The flower box is filled with geraniums.  Water drips from the box.  The boy's mother has just finished watering and has gone inside.  The boy sees a basketball hoop with backboard, orange and white, where he will one day learn to shoot baskets.  He sees a lawn he will mow when he's old enough.  He sees a dirty window looking into the garage.  Astroturf on the front step catches his attention.  The front door opens and the boy is startled by the sight of his father.

LEFT SIDE

The boy sits on the fence.  He sees the shuffleboard court where he will one day learn to play, slamming the pucks together as hard as possible.  He sees the wooden holder for the pucks and sticks.  He knows it's dirty and filled with cobwebs.  He sees the hammock where he will one day lie down, not realizing one side is unhooked, and crack his head open on the wall. He will go to the hospital and get four stitches.  He will remember how the thread feels going through his scalp.  The boy hears a voice and turns to see his father coming around the corner of the house.

RIGHT SIDE

The boy sits on this fence, too.  He looks down at the dog run, which will be clean for Poojie and Mindy and which will later become dirty and neglected.  It will be a place of filth and embarrassment.  He sees the storage shed where he will one day take off his pants, and so will Billy Bea, and she will sit on his lap.  Billy Bea will later pee into a cardboard box and the boy will watch.  He sees the kitchen window and into the kitchen, where he will one day throw a chair across the room and his father will tackle him.  Through the kitchen window, he sees his father now, grimacing.  

BACK

The boy stands on the lawn he will someday mow, where he will pick up dog turds until he doesn't care anymore.  He sees the homemade play house, two stories with a trap door.  He sees his bedroom window, and his sister's.  He sees the orange tree in front of his window, his mother's rose bushes throughout the yard.  He sees the cherry tree which will one day die.  He sees the patio, the ping pong table, the hot tub.  When he is older the boy will have sex in the hot tub with a girl he doesn't know well and later, when he pees, it will burn.  He sees the sliding glass door and through it, the dining room.  His father is sitting at the table.

TOP

The boy is floating above the house, looking down.  He sees the wood shingles, which will one day catch fire and burn.  He sees the chimney, television antenna anchored to it.  In the dirty rain gutters he sees pieces of Nerf footballs and balsa wood airplanes.   He thinks his toys look wrong in the gutters.  Suddenly everything looks wrong to him, everything looks dirty.  At this height, from this angle, he can't see his father. But the boy knows he is down there, somewhere, hating himself, ready to attack his family.

3 comments:

Eric Puchner said...

Mark,

This is a great little story. I really like the technique of flashing forward, which gives us a sense of this boy's entire childhood as well as contributes to the sadness of his panoramic "vision" of the house. The writing is spare and evocative and has some terrific, revealing details (in particular, I like the post-coital burning when he pees and the dirty and neglected dog run.) The only change I might suggest is switching the "Back" and "Right Side" sections, so that there's a greater sense of escalation in terms of the boy's conflict with his father . . .

LM said...

Hi, Mark. What a fine snapshot of discoveries this is. Your details establish a thick sense of place. I see Eric’s comment about escalation, but I like where you put the dad attack. It makes the next section eerie when he’s sitting there at the table, and it speaks to how, in families, things happen that are just expected to be put away. Really beautiful writing and compelling pace. (The shifting of directions brings R.E.M.’s “Stand” to mind!)

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