Unrelated To How I Felt When I Called And No One Answered

New Story! Thoughts?

I’m thinking of where I want to go and how I want to get there when I remember something that Aaron told me at lunch the other day. It was only a comment in passing, something lost between slurped Coke and laughed sentiments, and I don’t know why I remember it now because it wasn’t important, and I’m not doing anything to remind me of that conversation at lunch—I am standing on the sidewalk outside of a record store called The Record Store, and I am thinking about where I want to go and how I want to get there.

“It’d be a piece of cake, like making your own piece of cake,” Aaron had said. “When was the last time you made cake?”

I hadn’t thought of it at all at the time, instead preferring to rib him about something pertaining to his last ad pitch, which, if memory serves, failed because his shirt had a large stain on it and his tie was tied lopsidedly, and that particular combination had made him self-conscious to the point that he forgot his pitch completely. It suddenly occurs to me that, perhaps, oddly, ironically, the stain I ribbed him about was a cake stain. I’m not sure how one would get a cake stain on a dress shirt, and as far as I know, Aaron had not been to any birthday parties, not in a while. We know the same people, Aaron and I.

In my hand I hold a small plastic bag, the sort that electronics stores give you when all you buy is a CD or a DVD or something else small and disc-based. In this bag are two CDs, dutifully paid for, and a pack of gum, dutifully purloined. I make it my mission to walk out of every store in which I purchase something with a pack of gum, if it is available. It doesn’t taste better or anything like that. I don’t do it for any particular reason, other than to know that I can.

I cannot get the arbitrary thought of cake to leave my head, and so I stand outside the door of The Record Store and think about what I could possibly do with a cake. Aaron would tell me to bake it for Hannah. I would tell him no. I haven’t eaten cake since my kid brother’s birthday, and I haven’t seen him in a year and a half. How have I not had cake since then? I rack my brain and try to recall another time, but there is nothing there for me to remember.

A man wants to enter The Record Store. I step out of the doorway. My CDs are begging to be played. My gum is not begging to be chewed, though I will probably do that anyway. I think of cake and music and gum, and I decide that I may as well go home.

Home is not far, and I walk for a few minutes down the street before arriving at my apartment. It is a shithole, though I like to think of it as an endearing shithole. This is because it is my home; anyone else would call it a shithole in a non-endearing way, because, in reality, it is a shithole as the term usually applies. I live on the third floor, and the stairs, immediately inside the front door of the building (there isn’t a hall of any kind, just door and then stairs), are narrow and painted red, though the red is very old and flaking off everywhere. The girl who lives on the second floor leaves her bike in the stairwell most days. It’s not there today, which is nice.

My key sticks in my doorknob, and I am afraid, inside my gut and chest, that I will snap it off and be forced to crawl through a window. This has never happened, though the key gets stuck most every time, so I assume that it will happen sooner rather than later. I leave the window above my sink unlocked because of this. Today is not the day, and my door opens.

I toss my bag of CDs onto the couch next to my table. My table is in my kitchen, which also doubles as a living room, study room, and sometimes bedroom when I don’t want to get off the couch. I consider getting the CDs and putting them in the stereo. I get a glass of water, instead. I sit on my couch and look at my TV (which sits on my kitchen table). I glance at my watch—2:45. My kid brother should be out of school right about now. Or is it 3:45? The six years since high school have passed too quickly.

I call anyway. Two rings, and it cuts to voicemail. He must be in class. “Jake the Snake, it’s Harrison. Guess I caught you in class. Hope your phone was on vibrate or something. Wasn’t sure if you got out at 2:45 or 3:45. Anyway, I’m just calling to say hey, it’s been a while. Got The National’s new CD today. I wish you’d give them a chance, they’re great. Um—” My eyes roam around my kitchen. My trashcan is overflowing with microwave-dinner trays. My sink is filled with wine glasses. There’s a note on my fridge that I try not to look at. “Well, yeah, just calling to say hey. Hope Dad is well. Tell him I’ll try to call later. Talked to Mom lately?” I leave long messages. I rub my forehead. “Well, bud, just give me a call back sometime, whenever, doesn’t matter. You can tell me about that girl, Erica. Prom is soon, right? All right, well, I’ll talk to you later, then. Give Dad my best.”

I lean forward and slide my phone across the table. I want a drink.

I have cleared a space on my counter between the sink and the fridge. One of the CDs I bought yesterday is playing over my stereo. My oven, which I have used twice (give or take) since living here, is on. The corner store hadn’t been crowded when I went down earlier this morning. I now have two unopened packs of gum in my home.

Aaron couldn’t meet for lunch, something about going out with his work friends. He’s always working, up in that ad agency. “The deodorant won’t sell itself, Harrison,” as he tells me. “I have to con the masses into buying it, you know.” He uses deodorant in his example; in actuality, he does ads for many things. It’s a better job than my freelancing. Photography and the occasional article don’t count for shit. Jake didn’t call back last night, which is a shame, though not unexpected. We’re six years apart—I may as well be a stranger. I added another glass to my sink’s collection. Never listened to the CDs, which is why they’re playing now.

I did call Hannah, which surprised me. I stared at the note on my refrigerator for a long time. CALL HANNAH, it said. Says. It still says that. So I stared and thought and drank some wine and thought some more and finally called. Piece of cake. Three rings and I hung up. Finished the wine and went to sleep.

My laptop is open on my table. I haven’t been able to get anywhere on this article I am writing. Researching. Writing and researching, whichever. I’ve written nothing, which is the point. But my oven is on, and I am cooking for once.

I am baking a cake, which isn’t unexpected (though it is unexpected). It isn’t unexpected because after remembering my conversation with Aaron, I could not shake the idea of cake, which is stupid (and perhaps unexpected) because it’s just cake. But somewhere between finishing the bottle of wine, calling Hannah, and drinking something with vodka, I decided that cake was a good idea. If nothing else, it is something to do while I wait for sudden inspiration to write my article for me.

I want to call Hannah again.

This thought is singular and inescapable, like it has its own gravity and has torn a hole through space in my kitchen. I am staring at my oven and all I can think of is Hannah. I am baking a goddamned cake because I want to talk to Hannah. I wonder how Freud would diagnose this. Pent up sexual frustration, probably, which is fairly true.

I take the cake out to cool. I did the toothpick trick to make sure it was done. It’s a chocolate cake. I don’t like chocolate cake, but it is Hannah’s favorite. I have it in my head that I am going to make her a cake and win her back, though every cell in my body is laughing at me because of this. A guy who bakes is sensitive. My cells are crying in hysterics now. But I am calm because this could work. Music still plays on my stereo, though I’m not really hearing it.

I set the cake on the counter and step into my bedroom to grab my phone. No one has called, not even Jake. It’s 3 o’clock. I’ve wasted most of the day, again. My article is unwritten. Aaron said a while ago that he could get me a job with his company because “People who are good with words do well in advertising.” I’m not so sure that I’m good with words anymore. There’s an unopened pack of gum on my cramped desk. I take a piece.

I remember being down in Atlanta a couple years ago, sitting with Hannah on a sidewalk, late at night, because we were tired and lost after seeing some concert, and we couldn’t find where we’d parked her car. It was comical, thinking of it now, the two of us just sitting there beneath a streetlight in a city we didn’t know, wondering where her car was. I remember being worried, though not for myself. That was a good moment, my being worried for her. That was development. I remember her head on my shoulder.

The cake hasn’t finished cooling, but I flip the pan over onto a plate and let it fall. A good majority of it sticks to the pan. Half is on the plate, looking like crags and peaks of chocolate bread. There’s nothing in my sink, because I cleaned the wine glasses earlier today. I’d forgotten about doing that. I look at the crags and peaks of my flat chocolate-cake mountain, and it’s obvious that the thing is ruined. I sigh and set the plate in the sink.

I consider calling Hannah anyway. If she answered, it’d be easy to explain the last few weeks. It’d be easy to explain myself, and she’d listen because she always did. I look at the half-mess of cake sitting in my sink. The note on my fridge tells me to CALL HANNAH. I set my phone on my table. I’m not going to call, and if I did, she wouldn’t answer. She hasn’t answered in weeks.

I turn on the faucet and let the water soak into the cake. I tip the plate vertically, sliding the soggy mess into the sink. I force it into the drain, and it feels like mud.

Things Brought In With The Tide (shortened)

This is the previous post, but shortened to 500 words--the original was 658. I'm thinking of submitting it to a 500 word story place thing, so this is my attempt. I think it holds up well, even missing 25% or so of its original length.

He stood on the beach and watched the waves drag filth onto the shore.

He’d left his sunglasses in the car and had to rely on an old St. Louis cap to shield his eyes. He squinted into the sunset and tried to ignore the waves lapping at his toes and wetting the bottoms of his jeans. He’d been here for some time; everyone else had left. The water was cold and made him shiver.

Seaweed patterned the wet sand, sometimes accented by the smooth, pale limbs of deserted driftwood. He saw trash in places. It was comforting to think that so many things loose and lost at sea could be returned by something as precise and mechanical as the tide. Chance aided by structure--there was still an order to things.

He knelt and lifted a shell out of the sand, felt the grit rough upon his fingers. The shell was almost blue and little patterns ran across it, like waves seen from a plane flying above the ocean. He threw the shell out to sea. After a time, it too would be returned to the shore, perhaps whole, perhaps as grains of fine blue sand.

Standing back from the encroaching waves, he walked up the beach, the sun at his back, his shadow disfigured against the sloping dunes. He found the path again with little effort.

He stopped at the parking lot. She sat Indian style on the hood of his car. The rest of the lot was empty. He sighed, looked around. She was supposed to be gone, too.

“Hey, Harrison,” she said. She extended her legs and slid off before standing by the driver’s door, her left arm at her side, her right one across her stomach to hold the other at the elbow. Her hair was in a ponytail and she was sunburned. She had put her other clothes on over her bathing suit.

He could still hear the waves. If he turned around, it would take only a few moments to run into the water, and then he could swim out until he was loose and lost in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do but be caught in the tugging of a tide that would eventually carry him back to shore.

She shifted on her feet and hugged her chest. He looked at her, still squinting, though he no longer knew whether from the hours spent on the beach or the falling darkness. He realized his hands were in his pockets, and that made him notice the chill in the air. A breeze blew up off the shore and he saw her shiver.

There was nothing to say. He walked to her and put his arms around her, held her close, rested his chin on her head as her arms hooked together around his back. They stood like that as the sun disappeared into the ocean and the waves continued to return the things that had been lost at sea.

Things Brought In With The Tide

Here's something from the old blog; I'd forgotten about it, and I like it. (658 words; see above post for reference/explanation.)

He stood on the beach and watched the waves drag filth onto the shore.


He’d left his sunglasses in the car and had to rely on an old St. Louis baseball cap to shield his eyes. It didn’t work very well. He squinted into the sunset and tried to ignore the waves lapping at his toes and wetting the bottoms of his jeans. He’d been here for some time, long after everyone else had left. He hadn’t yet found a reason to leave. The water was cold and made him shiver.


Seaweed lay in intricate patterns along the wet sand, sometimes accented by the smooth, pale limbs of deserted driftwood. He saw trash in places. It was comforting, to him, to think that so many things loose and lost at sea could be returned by something as precise and mechanical as the tide. It was chance aided by structure. It made sense. It showed him that there was still some kind of order to things.


He turned his head and saw his shadow stretched out long behind him, cast onto the dunes and hardy reeds that grew there. He didn’t see much else. This beach was quiet and very much alone.


He knelt and lifted a shell out of the sand, turned it over in his hands, felt the grit rough upon his fingers. The shell was almost blue and little patterns ran across it, patterns that looked like waves seen from a plane flying above the ocean. He threw the shell out to sea. After a time, it too would be returned to the shore, perhaps whole, perhaps as grains of fine blue sand.


He’d been here long enough. Standing back from the encroaching waves, he walked up the beach, the sun at his back, his shadow now before him and disfigured against the sloping dunes. He found the path again with little effort; it wasn’t too dark, yet.


He stopped when he reached the parking lot. She sat on the hood of his car, Indian style, leaning against the front pane. The rest of the lot was empty. She was the only other person there.


“Hey, Harrison,” she said. She extended her legs and slid off the car before standing by the driver’s door, her left arm at her side, her right one across her stomach to hold the other at the elbow. Her hair was in a ponytail and her face was red from the sun. She had put her other clothes on over her bathing suit.


He didn’t respond, at first, because she wasn’t supposed to be there. He stood where the sandy path met the concrete of the parking lot, running things over in his mind, thinking but not really thinking at all. If he listened closely he could hear waves on the shore. If he turned around, it would take him only a few seconds to run into the water, and then he could swim out as far as he was able, swim until he was loose and lost in the middle of the ocean with nothing to do but be caught in the tugging of a tide that would eventually carry him back to shore.


She shifted on her feet and hugged both arms to her chest. He looked at her, his eyes still squinted, though whether from the hours spent on the shore or the gradually falling darkness he didn’t know. He realized his hands were in his pockets, and that made him notice the chill in the air. A breeze blew up off the shore and he saw her shiver.


There was nothing for him to say. He walked to her and put his arms around her, held her close, rested his chin on her head as her arms hooked together around his back. They stood like that as the sun disappeared into the ocean and the waves continued to return the things that had been lost at sea.

A Poor Attempt at Eliciting Sympathy for Anonymous Deceased Henchmen

(Note: I only placed the small dashes to clarify the extra breaks; the one-line breaks after paragraphs signify a new paragraph, not a change in topic/mood/whatever as the dashes show. Formatting writing that was originally written on a Word doc can be difficult, so bear with the extra space, please.)

Here is the gist of it all, as close as I can get it: Richard June (henchman) has his neck broken by Pierce Slater (hero) on a cold night in February.

--

Expository details: Richard June has a wife, Alyssa, and two daughters, Samantha and Ariel (aged eleven and nine, respectively). They live in the suburbs. (The exact city is unimportant.) Richard drives off to work every day and stands guard at a slate-grey complex located a few miles off the interstate. The complex has a large colored sign out front indicating that “Brantley Corp. Is A Great Place To Work!” This isn’t true. In reality, no one works there except for Richard and the other guards. And Brantley. Richard does not like doing what he does, but he does it because it pays well and he likes his house in the suburbs. (His house has three bathrooms—Richard has never lived in a house with three bathrooms.) Richard and Alyssa argue about his work sometimes, but they know that it is best for him to continue as he does. After all, with three bathrooms there is rarely any waiting for a shower in the morning. All four members of the family like that. It’s hard to consider giving up something that the entire family can agree on.

--

A quick moment of action: To break up the monotony of exposition, here is a brief instance of action. This is not central to the story, nor does it fit anywhere, chronologically or otherwise. It is an example of life on the job.

Night, and there was gunfire. Richard stood over the body, breathing heavily, his gun heavy in his hands, the air weighted with the smell of smoke and blood. Footsteps pounded on the stairs behind him, and Richard turned as a heavy-set guard—Jared Fitzgerald?—entered the hall. He was panting. “What the hell happened?” he said.

Richard’s hands shook. Blood was pooling under the body at his feet. He swallowed, cleared his throat. “I’ll call Brantley. Someone tried to break in.”

The other nodded. “Sure. Good shot.” He left the hall to return to his post. Richard closed his eyes and took a breath. He lit up a cigarette. He took another breath. This would weigh on his thoughts tonight. He hadn’t made a kill in weeks.

Before he took this job, he had assumed that blood would be darker. Against the white floor it looked like strawberry syrup.

--

Additional exposition: The nature of a henchman is criminal. For this to be a well-rounded story, there needs to be a lawful do-gooder. The one we’ll use is Pierce Slater. He has a history with the aforementioned Brantley, though now there is only bad blood between them. In fact, at this moment Slater is “storming the castle,” so to speak, with the intent to kill Brantley. The reason for his revenge is unimportant—though it probably has something to do with a kidnapped girlfriend/love interest/wife—just know that it is happening. (Side note: Slater is not the intruder that Richard shot in the previous scene. It is Slater who will be doing the rest of the killing—he is the hero, after all.)

To get things moving again, we’ll cut to Slater’s arrival.

--

Slater approaches the corner, hugging the outside wall, his breathing quiet and controlled. There is a breeze on the night air and enough light from the moon for him to see. He has remained unnoticed so far. He tightens his grip on his pistol and peers around the corner. A solitary guard stands near the building’s entrance, smoking a cigarette and leaning against the wall. His rifle rests on the steps. He coughs and sniffs, wipes his nose with his sleeve.

Slater smiles. This will be easy.

The guard turns his back and flicks his cigarette away. Slater sprints forward, the guard turns, and there isn’t even time for surprise to cross his features before Slater is on him.

He delivers a kick to the guard’s torso before smashing his head with the butt of his pistol. The guard groans and tries to stand straight. Slater head butts him, and the man falls, blood streaming from his nose. Slater grabs him from behind and wraps his arms around his neck in a vicious headlock. He squeezes, and the guard kicks his feet out. He tries to grab Slater’s hands.

Slater grits his teeth and squeezes harder. There is a sudden cracking sound. His legs stop kicking, and his arms fall to his sides. Slater drops the body and walks to the door, which is unlocked. He isn’t even winded.

--

There are twenty-six guards positioned in and around Brantley’s complex. Over the course of his assault, Slater will kill them all. He will do this without conscience or thought. (Character insight: Though after everything is over, long after he has exacted whatever petty revenge he is there to exact, Slater will find that he cannot sleep. He wakes in the middle of the night in a sweat, neither hot nor cold, just a sweat, his hands clenched and his legs wrapped up in the sheets. He takes to sleeping on the couch so as not to disturb his girlfriend/love interest/wife, though even there he rarely sleeps. He won’t talk to her about his insomnia. He finds his thoughts wandering into the realms of death, and killing, and they begin to dwell there for much of his waking hours. Throughout all of this he does not dream at night, except for a recurring sensation of being suffocated. No images are attached to it. There is only a feeling, forced out during the final moments of the dreams that he does not see, of having no air, and the feeling becomes so unbearable that he wakes, only to find that he has been sweating and that he cannot recall any specific image or nightmare.)

Of course, it is a long-established fact that the hero can (and will and should) do everything in his power to complete whatever his goal happens to be—revenge, rescue, retaliation, whichever—without regard for the rules of right or wrong. It always ends with casualties, though we tend to gloss over these as “collateral damage,” as “excusable.”

Speaking of casualties: If you hadn’t already guessed, Richard June is dead, the first of Slater’s victims, splayed out on the steps to the building, complete with cracked spine (near his skull, one of the cervical vertebrae, probably the second because that is the one that rotates) and crushed throat. His eyes are open, and they stare straight ahead at the overhang above the stairs.

Richard had drawn the unlucky straw earlier that day—none of the guards liked the shifts out front, and the fact that it was February and cold only added to that. There was little sense of camaraderie between them, and no one offered to take Richard’s place. Richard didn’t bother to mention the cold he had been nursing for a week—it wouldn’t have mattered. In the big picture, all the guards would die, anyway, though of course Richard did not know this.

Richard had wondered throughout his life how it would feel when he died. The physical sensations didn’t concern him. He wondered what it would feel like. Would there be some flash of light? Would he see his life in a million-fold spray of images? Would there be anything, or would there be the physical sensation alone and then nothing?

Here is the moment of his death: His arms losing sensation and falling to his sides, his legs kicking out their final pathetic kicks, his throat closing and finally tearing, the cartilage and bone and sinew holding his spine together cracking and tearing apart, shredding his nerves and leaving a traffic jam of misfired signals and crashed synapses. Had he been able, Richard would have gone back and told himself, desperately—angrily, even—to stop worrying about what it feels like to die, because there is nothing to feel, nothing to see, not in that sense; there is only the feeling of dying, of losing oxygen and struggling, helplessly, against whatever tide was sucking you out to whichever dark ocean happened to be waiting.

If we were to revisit Richard’s last real thoughts (the thoughts not about choking and breathing and getting away from this man who has my throat, I can’t breathe, God I can’t breathe), the thoughts before he was struck by nothingness, if we were to pull them out of his head before the neurons completely puttered out, they would resemble the following. (Though here they are out of order and lacking definition; I have pieced together the remnants as well as I could, but thoughts come in flashes and flashes are impossible to hold.)

--

He only smoked when he was anxious.

Things Alyssa had said the night before had made him anxious. He was afraid the girls could have heard. Yes, they were in bed and it was late, but that didn’t matter.

Sneaking into the hall as a little boy and standing by the large fish tank, casting wavy shadows in its watered-down light, a clear view into the family room where his parents would sit and watch TV, programs he was never allowed to watch—and that was only a part of the fun, watching the TV. The rest came from the thrill of being there, of watching his parents when they didn’t know that he was watching, of outsmarting them in some way. Maybe they had known all along and were just allowing him to have his fun. Maybe he was a failure as a father because he wasn’t aware if his girls were awake or not.

Alyssa was upset about the work again, about Brantley. Brantley needed guards, and Richard was what Brantley needed. It wasn’t always the most honest job, but it wasn’t the mafia (not exactly) and it kept the family secure and

That’s my problem, Alyssa would yell, we’re not secure, we’re never secure, and I hate when you throw that word around. You come home and you’re bleeding and there are guns in our closet, in our closet, Richard, and how long before Samantha or Ariel find them? How long before they start to realize what’s going on? They won’t be children forever, why can’t you remember that?

Samantha turned eleven. Her party was in the park. All her friends and their parents came. The cake was chocolate and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Brantley is yelling about something, about revenge on someone, his old partner. Left him for dead. This is nonsense. I have places to be. Samantha’s birthday is tomorrow and I have to buy the party stuff and order the cake, and Jesus Christ, Brantley, we get it, Slater is an ass. Who is Slater? Alyssa will be worried. I’m not going to be home until late at this rate.

Driving to the mall with all the girls. We’re a happy family again. Samantha and Ariel want toys and clothes, clothes and toys; they’re caught in that age before all they want is clothes and boys. Alyssa wants to compare luggage prices, and I’m here because. Brantley is calling; will I have to turn around? Alyssa is happy, now. I don’t want to take this call.

The first day: Shake Brantley’s hand, firm grip, look him in the eyes. Remember, he’s buying us a house, we’re out of the apartment, we’re out of the city. Firm grip. Look him in the eyes. Long hours Alyssa doesn’t think are worth it. Brantley is younger than I’d expected. Working on the outskirts of town, he says. That isn’t too far. I wonder if I’ll get a new car out of this. Heater’s broken in the Honda. Maybe Brantley would understand if I explained that to him.

It’s cold out here. I wonder if Alyssa smells the smoke on me when I come home. This cold won’t go away. I haven’t been sick like this in months. Brantley asks a lot. How late is it, anyway?

--

The rest is incoherent. That would be the instant immediately before Slater grabbed him and broke his bones. A romantic view of dying holds that when the moment is there, when death is a step away, one’s thoughts return to loved ones. This isn’t true. Just as Richard June saw no white light or pretty collage summarizing his life, neither did his thoughts return to his family. He thought (if it could be called thinking) only of the terrible pain. Then his neck broke and there was nothing else to think. No thoughts, no sights, no feelings, and there would never be any of them ever again.

--

A moment from the past: Here is one more image, something to hold. Richard’s thoughts may have been wild and elusive, as are all thoughts, but this is a construct and I will leave you with something clear. It isn’t false. It isn’t fabricated. It is as much a part of Richard June as everything else already presented. I like to think that it is happy.

--

Richard is by himself on his narrow balcony, his hands resting on the metal railing. It is summer, late afternoon. The city is spread out in front of him. Down, nearly fifteen stories down, he watches people move about, in their cars, on their bikes, on their feet. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. He looks at them, taps the pack absently on the bar. Behind him, in the apartment, his daughters watch TV. The door is open and he can hear the nonsense noise of cartoons.

There is another sound, and he turns his head to see Alyssa stepping through the door. She wears her hair short these days. She stands next to him and leans forward, placing her elbows on the railing.

“What do you think?” he says. Her eyes are very blue today, in this light.

“About what?”

“This time next month, we’ll finally be out of here. No more apartment. No more city.” He turns back to the open air in front of them. “No more view.” He shrugs. He taps the cigarettes against the bar again.

“I think it’s what we need. A change.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I am.”

In a sudden moment of inspiration, Richard throws the pack of cigarettes off the balcony. Inside the house, his daughters shriek with laughter.

Keep your eyes open, keep your lids peeled back

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

We'll see what the weather brings.

UPDATION

Posted the most current version of Not Our House. Technically only my first revision on it; there will be more in the future, to be sure.

Working on a new story. It'll be completely different what I have been writing as of late (Not Our House as an example of what I have been writing as of late). I'm going to try to tell one with no dialogue, with distant characterization. More telling a story, and it's going to break/go around some rules. Not "rules" I suppose, but it's going to be a little different.

I was told recently that the first thing that moves in a story is the focus. That will not be the case with this piece; I'm going to purposely go around that.

It's going to be fun, to say the least. I'm looking forward to writing this one.

Long weekend ahead. This is good.

Not Our House, revision #1

Nighttime wanderings, and we ended up in a house that wasn’t ours.

My eyes were on her all night, this girl named Kat I had met the other day. She had short, dark hair and a ring in her lip, circling the lower left. She smiled a lot, curling her mouth in a slight, knowing way. Her fingers were long and slender, and she danced them along flat surfaces when she thought, shaking a silver bracelet on her left wrist. I’d heard her telling Eric that she’d been wearing it since she was a kid.

Eric, he suggested the house. He knew the Roebucks were out of town because he cut their grass when he wasn’t telemarketing. (That’s what Eric did—he made phone calls from his couch. Dropped out of school to do it because it paid a lot and he could live at home. “Gotta find myself, Harrison,” as he’d told me.) We were in his neighborhood and we were stoned out of our minds—“we” being Eric, Kat, Jamie, and myself. Jamie was the girl with Eric, and she knew Kat somehow from somewhere—I think from college—but I hadn’t been listening during introductions.

Dead quiet, this house. We crept around to the back, quieter than mice, than crickets without wings, quieter than the house. Jamie tripped and we had to stop and breathe hard and deep to keep from laughing out loud, and we stood there for a while because everything was funny, and Jamie nearly falling into a hydrangea bush was almost too much.

Eric shushed us, placed a finger to his lips in a grand gesture before shaking his head. I had to squint my eyes to see everyone clearly.

“Okay, okay,” Kat said. “Shh, yes, okay. Stop making that face, Eric!”

Jamie kicked at the hydrangea. “Piece of shit bush.”

“Don’t do that,” Eric said. He shifted the backpack slung over his shoulder, checked to make sure everything was still inside.

I kicked the bush. “Yeah, fuck Bush.” Kat snorted, held her delicate fingers to her mouth.

“Seriously, let’s go,” Eric said, motioning toward the gate. We followed, and I couldn’t get the Scooby-Doo theme song out of my head.

“What are you smiling about?” Kat said.

I paused, looked around. “Jinkies. Like, wow, Scoob.”

Jamie turned around. “Be quiet,” she said. She seemed nervous. I nodded and waved her on.

Finally at the back door after creeping onto the deck and making a game of dodging birdfeeders in the yard. Eric grabbed the key, though I couldn’t see from where, and he thanked the “security of suburbia,” which meant nothing at all.

Then we were in the door and in the house and standing silently because no one knew what to do. We stood in the kitchen, and I could see everything well. That puzzled me because it was night. But then I saw the light coming from below the microwave, a bright, insistent yellow, and that made sense, because people always left those stove-top lights on. My family always had, at least. The place was clean. Spotless, even. The curtains and the placemats matched, or were of a similar style: little red apples and green stems along some artsy brown background with swirls and splotches of color. Very fall, very autumn, very appropriate. The kitchen had an island and tiled floor. I took my shoes off to feel the cold of the tile, and the others followed suit.

“You sure no one’s here, Eric?” Jamie whispered. She hugged her arms around her waist.

“Of course. They’re gone until Tuesday.” Eric gave her a little hug and kissed her forehead. “Let’s find the TV, shall we? Ed mentioned a couple weeks ago that they’d got a new TV, a plasma. Bastard buys a new TV and only pays me twenty-five to cut his grass. It’s in here.” We followed toward the family room, peering here and there along the way. I opened a door in the kitchen.

“The pantry!” The others turned and looked at me. “I found the mother lode. This pantry is huge.” It was one of those closet pantries, the kind that rested under the stairs and sloped down where the steps sat above it. I flicked on the light switch, was greeted by far too much food.

Eric scratched his head, paused and ran his fingers through his curly hair a few times, savoring the feeling, I guess, like I was doing with my toes on the tile, scrunching them up and relaxing them, shifting my feet and finding new cold spots to stand on. “I’m not hungry yet,” he said.

“Me either,” Jamie said. She grabbed Eric’s hand. “Let’s not eat their food, okay? I want to watch TV.”

I glanced at Kat. She was staring at the pantry as if willing the food to come to life and dance around the room in some bizarre recreation of Beauty and the Beast. She stepped into the pantry and grabbed a small Tupperware container of cookies. “Cookies?” I said. “Good call.”

She gave me a small smile before continuing her examination of the container. She held it lightly, lifting the lid with delicate precision like she was opening a box of grenades. Grenades you could eat. And that wouldn’t kill you. I thought of cookies exploding all over the kitchen.

“Chocolate chip. We’ll save these for later,” Kat said. She stood very close to me, in the cramped space of the pantry, close enough that I could smell her. She smelled good, and I wondered if that was weird, that I noticed. “After you,” I said, motioning to the adjacent family room.

“Thanks,” she said, stepping out. “I’m—” She spread her arms wide and stretched, yawned, shook her head, smiled at me, “—sleepy,” and we joined the others.

Crowded on the couch, the four of us, watching infomercials in high definition and marveling at the glorious uselessness of the products they advertised. Eric was passing around a bottle of vodka, just a small one, enough to keep us buzzing along. There was more in his backpack, and some more weed in there somewhere. Then it was, “Billy Mays, here!” and I didn’t know what he was advertising because all I could think about was how close Kat was and how warm her body felt.

I looked at her through the corner of my eye, saw her fingers twisting and turning in her lap. She seemed engrossed in whatever Billy Mays was saying, but I thought I saw her turn her head ever so slightly to get a look at me. It could have been the flashing television light. I was getting tired of infomercials, although Eric seemed to love watching them, and Jamie loved anything he loved.

Kat turned to me, snapped me out of my thoughts. “I’m hungry,” she said.

“I’m not,” Jamie said, before leaning close to Eric to whisper in his ear. Or maybe she was kissing it. I raised my eyebrows at Kat, who at this point looked like she wanted to go. That was good. I wanted to go. I shrugged. Kat took the cookies off the coffee table and headed out of the room.

“Hey, wait a sec,” I said.

“I’m going upstairs,” she called back.

“Don’t turn any lights on,” Eric said. His arm was around Jamie’s shoulder, and he gave me a thumbs-up. “You kids have fun.” He grinned and pulled Jamie closer. I grabbed the bottle of vodka off the table. The current ad was for The Greatest Vacuum Cleaner In History, if the spokesperson was to be believed. I wondered if Eric would try to order one.

Kat waited for me at the foot of the stairs. I paused, stood next to her, thought of something to say. She took my hand and led us up, and I was conscious of how warm her hand felt, how small it was. At the top, she pulled me into a room and closed the door.

Kat threw herself on the bed and sighed, a heavy, contented sigh, lying on her back and staring at the ceiling. The room was dark, but not too dark. A nightlight was plugged into the wall, casting shadows all around. Kat reached over and turned on the lamp next to the bed. There was apple wallpaper near the ceiling, a strip that ran around the room. This family had some sort of apple or autumnal fetish.

“I hope these are good,” Kat said. She opened the container as I sat on the edge of the bed, thinking very quietly in the back of my head that perhaps Eric was right and we shouldn’t be turning lights on in the house, because weren’t the owners supposed to be out of town? Of course, a lot of houses had those light timers, but who really used those anymore. A lot of houses? I shook my head, tried to clear my thoughts. I remembered the vodka and took a swig.

“Here,” Kat said. “One for you, one for me.” She leaned back on the pillows and took a bite. The pillows had fruit designs on them. Probably apples.

“Why are we even eating these up here?” I asked.

Kat rolled her eyes. “Do you want to be downstairs when Eric and Jamie start going at it? I don’t think so.” She wiped at crumbs on her shirt.

I nodded. “Good call.” I still sat near the edge of the bed. I wanted to lie down next to her, but that would be weird. Wouldn’t it? She seemed to sense my hesitation, and she smiled.

“Lay down next to me,” she said, patting the bed. She turned to her side to look at me, and as she shifted the Tupperware fell off the bed. “Oh, shit,” she said. “The lid was off.” She leaned over to grab it, her chest hanging off the bed. “Hey, Harrison, grab my legs.” She giggled. “I can’t reach them, they fell under the bed. No, wait, under the side table.”

I grabbed her legs at her calves. “Ow, don’t squeeze so hard.”

“Oh, sorry.” I loosened my grip. Her legs were strong, toned. I could tell even through her jeans. I imagined taking the jeans off, sliding them down her athletic legs, those runner or soccer player or lifeguard or something legs. I shook my head, glanced at the vodka and sighed.

“S’okay. Help me up, I got ‘em.” I pulled her back onto the bed and toward me. She turned around onto her back, positioned so that she was looking directly at me, so that I was leaning over her. “You’re cute,” she said. There was a pause as our eyes locked. I noticed that her eyes were blue like mine, only more so, and that her left ear had three piercings while her right ear had only one, just one silver stud.

Then her face froze up, and her eyes widened, and her breath came fast and labored. I backed off toward the edge of the bed, looking down and around. Had I been sitting on her? “Kat, are you—?”

“I can’t. Breathe,” she said. Her face was red and her lips were curled in a grimace, and all I could think was that her smile curled like that, except no, not like that, not pulled back to show all her teeth, straight teeth, pretty teeth.

“Kat? Kat, look at me. Sit up, here, sit up.” I tried to pull her to a sitting position, lean her against the pillows. Her breaths came faster and shorter and her face was red, really red now, and I could have sworn that it was swelling and inflating like a balloon, a red balloon with short dark hair and a lip piercing, though for some reason it wasn’t popping even with a piece of metal puncturing its skin. Her fingers twitched and her hands opened and closed like she had no control of them, and then her arms started to shake, and I saw the bracelet on her arm, shiny and silver, a flat metal rectangle engraved with words connecting the silver strands, and suddenly I realized what it was. I thrust her arm close to my eyes and read the metal tab, and my heart beat faster, too fast: An allergen bracelet. Kat was allergic to peanuts, to fucking peanuts, and she was the worst kind of allergic there was. Was there something in the cookies? Wouldn’t she have known?

I jumped off the bed and backed against the wall, holding my hand to my mouth as my mind raced around. Kat groaned from atop the bed and her face was swollen and red and her neck was splotched with color and her eyes

(blue like mine)

were shaking in their sockets. “Hang on a sec, Kat, just hang on a sec.” I bolted for the door, threw it open and yelled for Eric.

No answer. I raced down the stairs. “Eric, sonofabitch, Eric, answer me!”

“What, Harrison, Jesus Christ keep your voice down, what?” He met me in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs, wearing his boxers. He saw the light from the open room upstairs. “Why is there a light on? No one is here, man, we can’t have fucking lights on!”

“Eric, something’s wrong with Kat, I think she’s having an allergic reaction to something. She’s got a bracelet on and it says she’s allergic to peanuts, to goddamn peanuts and now she’s red and her face is swollen and I don’t think she can breathe, Eric, she can’t fucking breathe.”

“Oh,” Eric whispered, then ran upstairs.

“Eric,” I called. “What do we do? We can’t call the police from here, this isn’t our house, we broke into this place and we’re fucking high and—”

“Harrison?” It was Jamie. “What’s going on? What’s wrong with Kat?” She was only wearing a shirt. The light from the now-muted TV played odd blue shadows on her across the hall.

I stopped halfway up the stairs. “She’s having a reaction to something, I think it’s peanuts. We were eating cookies from the pantry and I guess she didn’t know what was in them and now she’s having a seizure or something and—”

“What? Harrison, she’s really allergic to those, they could kill her.” Jamie ran toward the stairs. I ignored her, ran into the room.

Eric had Kat straddled and was pressing on her chest, putting his ear by her mouth, pressing on her chest. I used to know CPR, years ago in the eighth grade. Took a course because—there was no reason, someone was offering it for free and I took the course because I could. My friend’s mom, that’s who was teaching it, my best friend’s mom, she was a certified nurse or something like that, and she was teaching CPR for free. CPR, I didn’t know how to do CPR. I froze at the door, watching Eric press and listen and breathe.

Jamie, crying behind me. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Call 911,” Eric said. “I don’t think so. Call 911. I don’t have my phone. Harrison, where’s your fucking phone?”

“Eric, we can’t do that, we have to get her out of here.” Jamie tried to interrupt me but I cut her off, talking louder. “This isn’t our house. They can’t come here and find us here, Eric. It’s not our house. We broke in here, Eric.”

“Fuck you, Harrison,” Jamie said. She ran downstairs.

Eric was pushing harder and faster on Kat’s chest. Her arms were loose, her hands still. “Eric,” I said. “Eric, we can’t. We have to get her back to my place, or your place, anywhere but here, Eric. Can’t you see that?” I shook my head and took a breath, closed my eyes and opened them. “Eric, is she okay?”

“Shut up, Harrison, I don’t know if she’s okay, okay?” He breathed into her mouth again. “I can’t tell.” He was talking to himself. “I can’t tell.”

Jamie, downstairs somewhere, crying into her phone. Did she even know our address? Eric, pushing and listening and breathing. Kat was still. God, she was still.

The lamp was bright in the corner of the room. I sat in the doorway and leaned the back of my head against the frame, quiet, my hands shaking and my heart pounding. Eric sat back from Kat. He was breathing hard, and he ran a shaking hand through his hair. He turned and looked at me. His eyes were red and hollow. The house was silent but for the sound of crying, the sound of breathing, the sound of stillness.