Kevin

Yours

Look at him, the fucking asshole.

He’s just sitting there with Lance, Steve and Paulie like nothing every happened. He’s laughing his ass off, slapping his knees and pushing Steve in the shoulder saying “Yo!” What a fucking asshole.

I still couldn’t believe the beginning stages even happened, especially the way the chance meeting happened. I knew what was going to happen next, but unfortunately, I wasn’t around to give fair warning.

Now I have to watch the plight of the unconvinced and know what could have been if I had been there to intervene.

His toothy grin makes him look even more menacing than we knew him to be beforehand. The fact that he can sit there and laugh without a care in the world is enough to turn my stomach again.

It’s all his fault. He’s the one that made special preference for what was to become of the evening. He’s the one who used his power of persuasion. He’s the one who decided to risk it. He’s the one who then decided to risk it again.

I clench my fingers into a fist and just stare. I grind one foot into the ground. I sweat from my forehead.

He laughs again. He puts his can of Grape Crush onto the armrest after he takes a sip and he laughs again. Why does he get to laugh?

There was nothing I could have done to stop it, but I still feel guilty. There was no way I could have truly gotten my message across without seeming like a dick.

Now look at what happened.

As he laughs, I begin to seethe. The water is over my head and beginning to bubble.

I fight back the gut-wrenching feeling of sickness as my eyebrows instinctively arch inwardly, letting my hatred of everything about this person finally come to surface.

I stand in place going unnoticed.

I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m not me right now. Something is working me over to where he sits. Something propels me to do, well, something.

I walk right up and knock the Grape Crush all over his lap. He stand up out of shock as Lance and Paulie move away, trying to avoid spilled soda.

He brushes himself off and has turned beat red. He looks up at me with an absolutely furious stare. I do all I can to stand there and look my toughest, waiting, praying, for something to happen.

Heat Exhaustion

 

There’s no turning back now.

I breathe heavily as I continue running. Sweat stains my shirt and my forehead and I grab the bandana out of my back pocket and wipe my forehead off as I run. No turning back now.

               I don’t know how long we’ve been running. It feels like it’s been awhile. My decision to wear sandals will leave my feet blistered and bruised. In the middle of the street we run, in the middle of a neighborhood, in the middle of everything, in the middle of the day, and there’s no one to see us run.

I pant. I sound like a parched Golden Retriever. I feel like a race horse. My leg is about to give in and the overseer of ceremonies will shoot me so I don’t die suffering, and my owner and trainer and jockey will all shake their heads in synchronicity and talk about what a shame and pity the whole sordid matter is.

Another turn and I think I have a plan. I look down at the ground and almost trip on a loose piece of gravel on the side of the road. I start to stumble. I shuffle my feet and nearly hit the ground. I hunch for a second and pause. I heave a deep breath through my nose. I realize it’s stupid to stop now. Any rest I take will only leave time for the hurt to catch up to me.

This is my first chance in the longest time. I run for that chance. I run to finally get to that sweet release. I run, we run, to, finally, after waiting so long, be able to…

I look to my left and see that Markus is not running. He is not walking. He is not standing. He is not sitting. He is nowhere near me.

I turn around to look and continue running, only backward, trying to get a glimpse of where he is and what happened to him. I’m still running. I see him on the ground a ways back. How long had I been running and his absence gone unnoticed?

I see him huddled on the ground, clutching his leg, a face full of agony. This is a sign. I must, I need, I NEED to run and run, for Markus’ sake.

I can almost hear that sweet music. And I turn again and this time I do have a plan

I cut between two houses and run into the woods in the back of their backyards. I pick my pace up among the rocks and large branches I run through.

I trip first on a protruding main branch of a tree cracked in half, possibly by lightning or wind or heavy rainfall, but I can’t remember when those happened.

I pick myself up and feel the pain all over me. The sweat on my arms married the loose dirt on the ground I fell upon and I resemble a bruised Pigpen. My heart hammers and I nearly trip as I regain my composure and begin running prematurely.

I trip secondly on a branch that caught my sandal. I fall on a large rock and banged my knee. It takes me a minute but im up and going again and it makes me wonder how badly Markus got hurt to be out of commission from the meager fall he took.

I continue to run. My adrenal glands feel empty and my feet are aching like beasts. I’m praying silently to myself, between huffs. Praying, so subtly, that I make it in time, before I lose my chance, and am doomed to repeat tomorrow the hell I’ve felt for so long now.

I trip thirdly into what was a mud puddle at some point but is now a dried mess in the shape of a puddle. It is still deep and I lose my right sandal emerging. I keep on running, well if you could call it running, but more like walking with a limp, and I can see the beautiful light of the sun and the signs of life right as the trees above me break open a hundred yards ahead.

Sweat stings my eyes and I go to rub it off and I’m still filthy and I get dirt all over my face and kind of in my eyes and I’m in searing pain as I shake my head feverishly thinking this will loosen whatever has collected between my eyelids.

I approach the outside and can hear that sweet music and I know I’m almost there, after all this time, after all this pain, it’s finally here and worth it and I know that everything will be better now.

I breathe the largest sigh of relief I think has ever emitted from my lungs. I nearly keel over and go to sleep here in the sweet sunlight and rest from my god-awful excursion.

“What’ll it be?”

“I’ll take two Mickey Mouse pops and two Screwballs. And a bottle of water.”

He charges me and puts everything on the truck’s counter window and I chug half the bottle of water and save the last half for Markus.

“Can you do me a favor?” I ask as he hands me my change.

“Sure.”

“Can you drive down Peterson St. next time you’re around here? You don’t know how far I had to run to catch you when I heard your sirens.”

“Yeah, we usually don’t drive through this area, didn’t really think there were any kids left around here anymore, but if you think there’s kids who will come buy ice cream, I’ll drive through every day. “

I pay and thank him and begin to walk back to find Markus who will be so relieved that I got pops for him, too, and that I saved him half of the water. I’m feeling noble about my deed and know he’ll truly appreciate it. I’m sure he’d kill for some water right now. Then we’ll get him bandaged up.

I walk slowly through the woods so I don’t hurt myself again.

I walk toward where I believe I remember Markus to be and I think about how great I am to remember my suffering friend in my time of celebration and how thankful he’ll be for water and ice cream.

I walk and I think I see him on the side of the road still huddled over but it’s far out in front of me and so I’m only speculating. I ate my Mickey Mouse pop in the woods and ate my Screwball as I emerged from the woods and now I’m blowing bubbles with the gum it came with but I’m beginning to get hot and thirsty again.

I stop for a minute. I turn to my left and look at Cranstyn Lane and look as far as I can and I think I see someone running.

I walk down Cranstyn Lane eating the Mickey Mouse pop and try and hear the music again.

I turn at Forsythe Street and force myself to eat the music from the environment but I can’t and I know I’m in trouble.

I eat the Screwball on the side of someone’s house and toss the container on the ground and chew the gum for under a minute before spitting it onto their deck.

I take the last of the water from the water bottle in one hefty swig and throw the bottle onto the tennis court of the park and I walk through the baseball field to cut over to get back to my house easier.

One night when I was younger and I was up a few hours later than I should have been, my brother told me a story about a great noble prince who needed to fulfill his dynasty and when the opportunity to meet a noble princess, well, she said she was a noble princess, came to him, he set up a test for her to see how noble she was and she felt something through a lot of things and this meant she was a noble princess. Then he paused and asked me the lesson I learned from his story. When I didn’t respond, he told me, “Nobles are idiots.”

 

Boy in the Box (The Fever is All Day)

When I awaken, it is 9:47 and I’m about ready to lose it when my mind is able to wrap itself around this fact. I immediately get that panicky surge through my body and jump out of bed to try and make it as quickly as I can. There’s no way I’m going to be able to now, though.

I launch myself out of bed and onto my feet and step on a fork I had left on a paper plate the night before while eating waffles before bed. The pain rings through my body. I am hoping this is not an indicator of what my entire day will be like.

Half-asleep still, my panic sets in and I rush toward the bathroom to try and shower to wake myself up for the 25 minute drive to school. I bump into my desk and knock over a bottle of Dr. Pepper that I had taken one sip of and left the cap off of the night before. Perfect, I think.

I reach for paper towels, finding out we’re out of them in the process. I grab some older towels out of my linen closet and hate the fact that I’m using them to clean, but I do anyway, and in my still-sleepy state, it takes a minute to soak up all of the soda in the dark spot left on my carpet.

The floor doesn’t look too clean and it will probably stain and get moldy. I’m kind of mad I didn’t but that Shamwow now. I guess I’ll have to rent a carpet cleaner from the grocery store.

I start the shower and while the water is running, I notice the level rising rather quickly and realize that the drain has to be clogged, as this would be the only explanation of what was happening. Unfortunately, we are out of Draino and I don’t have the time to do much but rinse myself off quickly anyway.

I get to the kitchen. There’s no juice in the fridge. James left the empty container on the counter, and the Brita filter is empty. I know I finished the waffles last night, too, so I realize I have to run this thing on an empty stomach.

I need to study quickly. My test is coming up at 10:30 and I wanted to be awake at 8 so I’d have some time to study. All of these little annoyances are working their way into my skull, as I haven’t even been up for fifteen minutes yet.

I sit down and cram last bits of information as quickly as I can. I’m not really taking in much information, just trying to get through it. This never ends up working for me. When I close the book, not much is retained, and I feel like I’m fucked.

I go to grab my keys off of the key hook and they’re not there. James took my car last night and he’s still sleeping, but I bet they’re in his room and I knock and knock and keep knocking. I try just opening the door, but it fails as he has his door locked. He responds angrily for waking him up and when I yell that I need my keys, he says he put them on the kitchen counter when he got home last night.

I go to look again and, fifteen minutes later, I find them in the tiny space between the counter and the fridge. I’m guessing the cat knocked them down.

I’m already eating into my hour I have to take the final, but I’m almost out of the door. The cat runs out and darts over to the laundry building. With James sleeping, I know I have to get the cat back in.

Lo and behold, it takes me something like another 15 minutes to work that magic and get Beans back inside.

There is no way to describe how awful things were next.

My car is low on gas and I go to the station. There is a pileup of cars waiting for pumps, but what can I do? I wait and finally get my gas. I’m heading to school and get caught in accident traffic.

I get to the room my final was in and notice that no one’s left and there is a note on the door saying that if you missed it, email the professor before noon to reschedule. I check my watch and see that it’s 11:49 and I run to the library.

I get there to find every computer taken up. Some people are typing and doing work, but the majority are watching TV shows, playing games or on Facebook while I need the computer to email my professor.

I sit waiting and let out a defeated sigh as the clock turns to 12, and I decide to get something to eat really quickly and try to email him again after that, hoping he’ll understand.

I walk into the cafeteria and get a sandwich and a coffee, but in putting the lid on my coffee, I spill it all over myself. Now I am not only wet and uncomfortable, but my skin is probably all red from the heat of the coffee. I go to my car hoping I have a change of clothes, but find nothing.

I get into the library and finally find a computer on which I send an email, explaining all of the bullshit that went down today, hoping the professor understands. It is then that I notice that the kid next to me is yelling jokingly at someone in a row back a ways. They keep yelling and then the softcover book hits me in the back of the head. I’m guessing it was intended for the kid next to me, but either way I don’t care to find out. I just stand up and scream and I don’t stop until I’ve let it all out.