Tag: youth

The thing about stockings is, they remind me of the girls in high school, and I don’t know what the high school kids might wear these days, but back in my day, they all wore these thigh-length stockings, white or blue or purple or whatever, and it was cute as fuck because these girls, how else’re they going to show off their stockings but by wearing skirts high enough to show that the damn things cut off at mid-thigh, and I’ve got to wonder if it was ever a conscious thing, like playing to the school girl ideal that a lot of old fucks cling to, but I wasn’t an old fuck then, I was some kid who thought this is just what girls do, wear their stockings like that, and I think I might’ve thrown the stocking thing right out the window along with the attraction to lip gloss and girls who jump rope, except Lorena, she went and wore the damn things when she gave me my first blowjob, and granted I wasn’t anywhere near her stockings during this, during the blowjob, but I sort of burned it into my head, right the fuck into the core place where all of the basest desires come from, and Lorena, she was a pretty girl, but I don’t exactly have her etched into my mind, it’s just that image, of the girl with stockings, so now it’s a thing I have and what’s an old fuck supposed to do except tell you to wear them when we fuck, any kind, preferably striped, with the most serious face you’ve ever seen in your life, and expect you to do the thing, the stockings and whole song and dance, or the thing where we’re in the forest, or whatever, because the thing is, whatever you have etched into your brain, whatever little thing got burned in there, whether you like it or not, it’s there, and it could be the strangest thing to you, might make you sick, but to me, this old fuck with the thing for stockings, it’s the most beautiful thing in the goddamn world, because it’s what you got burned into your brain, and here’s my point: your brain’s like that field in heaven where there’s no right and no wrong and everything makes complete sense because it makes you feel good, makes you feel like happiness was there all along and all you needed to do was die to find it.

The thing about stockings is, they remind me of the girls in high school, and I don’t know what the high school kids might wear these days, but back in my day, they all wore these thigh-length stockings, white or blue or purple or whatever, and it was cute as fuck because these girls, how else’re they going to show off their stockings but by wearing skirts high enough to show that the damn things cut off at mid-thigh, and I’ve got to wonder if it was ever a conscious thing, like playing to the school girl ideal that a lot of old fucks cling to, but I wasn’t an old fuck then, I was some kid who thought this is just what girls do, wear their stockings like that, and I think I might’ve thrown the stocking thing right out the window along with the attraction to lip gloss and girls who jump rope, except Lorena, she went and wore the damn things when she gave me my first blowjob, and granted I wasn’t anywhere near her stockings during this, during the blowjob, but I sort of burned it into my head, right the fuck into the core place where all of the basest desires come from, and Lorena, she was a pretty girl, but I don’t exactly have her etched into my mind, it’s just that image, of the girl with stockings, so now it’s a thing I have and what’s an old fuck supposed to do except tell you to wear them when we fuck, any kind, preferably striped, with the most serious face you’ve ever seen in your life, and expect you to do the thing, the stockings and whole song and dance, or the thing where we’re in the forest, or whatever, because the thing is, whatever you have etched into your brain, whatever little thing got burned in there, whether you like it or not, it’s there, and it could be the strangest thing to you, might make you sick, but to me, this old fuck with the thing for stockings, it’s the most beautiful thing in the goddamn world, because it’s what you got burned into your brain, and here’s my point: your brain’s like that field in heaven where there’s no right and no wrong and everything makes complete sense because it makes you feel good, makes you feel like happiness was there all along and all you needed to do was die to find it.

Once, when we were children, we were fucking around in one of the bedrooms, and Abe and Cris broke something. The object is not important. When wind of this reached the living room our father promptly entered our room, removed his belt, and asked what happened. We didn’t say a word, of course, because the broken object said it all. It’s interesting that the belt could be so feared after all the times he’d used it, but it wasn’t the belt that frightened us. The object is not important.

He asked me who should receive punishment for the indiscretion. I told him, “Nobody.”

He laughed, and told us, “You have a good brother.”

I never got his meaning.

Once, when we were children, we were fucking around in one of the bedrooms, and Abe and Cris broke something. The object is not important. When wind of this reached the living room our father promptly entered our room, removed his belt, and asked what happened. We didn’t say a word, of course, because the broken object said it all. It’s interesting that the belt could be so feared after all the times he’d used it, but it wasn’t the belt that frightened us. The object is not important.

He asked me who should receive punishment for the indiscretion. I told him, “Nobody.”

He laughed, and told us, “You have a good brother.”

I never got his meaning.

A thousand years as measured by human beings is so miniscule as to be insignificant. The grand spiral of existence begins at a point neither of us could have imagined. We listened, but we didn’t care. Life was simple, a slice of time, little meaning, if any, behind it. It meant nothing.

There were leaves on the ground. Do you remember? The old eucalyptus, the years of confusion. The ice cream fell to the ground because you allowed it to. I bought you another, we walked the path to the space between the tennis court and the pink stucco walls. Years of rigid pine needles poked at you. Your brother was getting in trouble all the time. We talked about that for a while. I kissed you, we opened our mouths. You kept your hair back with a blue barrette, I touched it. We weren’t in love. I forget if I cared.

1997. Your eyes fell to his hand. We were walking home, past La Brea by that point, back before the crab shack was there. He never let it go. He should have tossed it in the bushes. A bloody shank. He’s still in prison. I never bothered to keep in touch because I learned to stop caring. I’m trying to forget the lesson.

On the Baldwin Hills, in the middle of Los Angeles, we saw the entire world in all directions. To the west: the derricks, the dry and dusty hills, the slow descent into the ocean, visible as a glare in the wind on a clear day in the winter, after the rains. At the very edge, in Venice, Mar Vista, Marina Del Rey, we found anyone we ever hoped to be, the one love, the boys and girls we wished we could fuck. It was drunken magic, high off the fumes. South was the lower half of the sprawl, some rough neighborhoods by some accounts, never by ours. Our homes were there in the suburban mass, like a beast we could never name, holding us chained to the broken asphalt, liquor stores, and small inner city dreams that we dared to strive for. Beyond them, beyond our imagination, the likes of Palos Verdes, the mall at Del Amo, so far away it seemed. The parking lot was the oasis, the mall a grand sad kingdom. Smoke stacks spewing their filth along the shore where our walks showed us places we would would fall into in a haze. North was Los Angeles in its entirety, the industries of fame and fortune, decaying mansions and the faint outline of a hope for a metropolis gone horribly wrong. There was land to be had and unlike the cities to the east they held nothing back. Cover it all, pave it over, give us sidewalks to stumble across and neon to admire. The red brick tiles of every other home gave it all the air of the fatherland that raped the motherland. Beyond that, beyond the glow of the girls and the droop of the homeless, the Hollywood statement of ownership, the mountains, and the sweltering sex valley, all places we visited but never found much use for. And the east, the land of the palms. We found the broken bottle there on Normandy that still had a third left, I gave it all to you. We walked by the hallowed halls of the home for spoiled children and wondered what it would be like to be there, so foreign a concept. An education, books, reading, mathematics… was that what they did? We never found out. Our life ended before any of that, before scores placed us and the world came to an end.

Your child now sits beside you somewhere, your husband working hard, earning enough. You don’t wonder about me, but I sit and think back on everything, the history of what the world was, and I consider that perhaps I never left.

A thousand years as measured by human beings is so miniscule as to be insignificant. The grand spiral of existence begins at a point neither of us could have imagined. We listened, but we didn’t care. Life was simple, a slice of time, little meaning, if any, behind it. It meant nothing.

There were leaves on the ground. Do you remember? The old eucalyptus, the years of confusion. The ice cream fell to the ground because you allowed it to. I bought you another, we walked the path to the space between the tennis court and the pink stucco walls. Years of rigid pine needles poked at you. Your brother was getting in trouble all the time. We talked about that for a while. I kissed you, we opened our mouths. You kept your hair back with a blue barrette, I touched it. We weren’t in love. I forget if I cared.

1997. Your eyes fell to his hand. We were walking home, past La Brea by that point, back before the crab shack was there. He never let it go. He should have tossed it in the bushes. A bloody shank. He’s still in prison. I never bothered to keep in touch because I learned to stop caring. I’m trying to forget the lesson.

On the Baldwin Hills, in the middle of Los Angeles, we saw the entire world in all directions. To the west: the derricks, the dry and dusty hills, the slow descent into the ocean, visible as a glare in the wind on a clear day in the winter, after the rains. At the very edge, in Venice, Mar Vista, Marina Del Rey, we found anyone we ever hoped to be, the one love, the boys and girls we wished we could fuck. It was drunken magic, high off the fumes. South was the lower half of the sprawl, some rough neighborhoods by some accounts, never by ours. Our homes were there in the suburban mass, like a beast we could never name, holding us chained to the broken asphalt, liquor stores, and small inner city dreams that we dared to strive for. Beyond them, beyond our imagination, the likes of Palos Verdes, the mall at Del Amo, so far away it seemed. The parking lot was the oasis, the mall a grand sad kingdom. Smoke stacks spewing their filth along the shore where our walks showed us places we would would fall into in a haze. North was Los Angeles in its entirety, the industries of fame and fortune, decaying mansions and the faint outline of a hope for a metropolis gone horribly wrong. There was land to be had and unlike the cities to the east they held nothing back. Cover it all, pave it over, give us sidewalks to stumble across and neon to admire. The red brick tiles of every other home gave it all the air of the fatherland that raped the motherland. Beyond that, beyond the glow of the girls and the droop of the homeless, the Hollywood statement of ownership, the mountains, and the sweltering sex valley, all places we visited but never found much use for. And the east, the land of the palms. We found the broken bottle there on Normandy that still had a third left, I gave it all to you. We walked by the hallowed halls of the home for spoiled children and wondered what it would be like to be there, so foreign a concept. An education, books, reading, mathematics… was that what they did? We never found out. Our life ended before any of that, before scores placed us and the world came to an end.

Your child now sits beside you somewhere, your husband working hard, earning enough. You don’t wonder about me, but I sit and think back on everything, the history of what the world was, and I consider that perhaps I never left.