Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:18:13 +0000 From: Timothy Stillman Subject: "The End of Summer" The End of Summer By Timothy Stillman (For Richie, fine writer, explorer of the human condition--you will be hearing from him more and more, mark me) It was the end of summer. It was the end of heat and chiggers and mosquitoes and bugs and hazy sun and TV reruns and hot houses and cold movie theatres. There was a commonality to the boys who sat on the hill under the going down sun. The last night before hazel hair shavings underneath the pencil sharpener to the left of all the classroom doors, the lockers lined up in the hall, also symmetrical, gray lockers, gray ceiling with still the old fashioned light bulbs in this school where the student' parents had gone. There was a devolvement to the boys there on that hill that was still in too warm air, the grass still tall too much so, and too green. It would be hot for some time. But the official-ness of it was over. The reality of Fall was breathing down their necks, if only theoretically--yet. There were four boys. Five, if you count the other boy. They talked and they reminisced about all the worlds of squirrels killed and acorns tossed down by the streams where the boys had stripped and had dazzled themselves in the bright green sun, not yellow; adults always said summer was yellow--they were wrong--it was beautiful green and vaulted high blue skies with white billowy clouds, for sky is important to children, it is their roof, it is the ceiling of their dreams, and in winter it brings snow, much needed friend, never go away from me friend, oh God make Christmas last forever--said boys naked in the stream, memories here on a hill top, something cantilevered, like a jar of lightning bugs tipped to the side slightly and jar open and they and their spears of lights rush to the hot nights, taking boys' dreams and wishes and sadnesses and joys with them--remember me, the boys said in their silence now and then and round the bend--and they were older now---this hill, this final summer night---open close summer heat summer out--it did not matter which--- Just two afternoons ago, they had all been at the stream and naked and bronzed and red headed and dark and golden and brown and somewhere in-between, and sitting round in a circle, measuring their penises flaccid and then hard and feeling them and each others'--not that there was any sexuality involved, not that there was anything but boys being big shots, boys being grown older, and more pubic hair there, and more stretch here, and one brown circle here compared to two over on that penis there--deal, mate, what be your pleasure? And they had jacked off fast or slow or not at all and some came and some didn't and there were dares to taste cum and there were no takers on that--no, god, that's gross--and the five boys were always together. They were Mohawk and Blackfoot and Leatherstocking and Bat Masterson and Jim Bowie, and they were four, they were five, for they let the little kid--hey I'm not so little--tag along too if he didn't make too much noise or embarrassing sounds---and that was long ago, that was three hundred wet slabby cement sack centuries ago--now was time for going home, now was time for going home that said there was Autumn coming, in their hearts Autumn right now, clicks of the clock hands away, moving on, moving on... They were bare chested and wore summer shorts and were bare footed. Yet their skin seemed deeper and their voices were more hidden in their throats and they didn't feel the hunger for the first taste of a delicious cold apple washed down by a great Cold Chocolate Soldier and god, somebody now said, on that hill, in that little encampment of boys--god, I wish we could be here forever, god, I wish things didn't happen--and another boy knocked him in the arm and said oh shut it things happen we grow up, ain't got no book big enough to put on your head to keep you from growing taller. Ceptin' the little runt, somebody else said and most everybody laughed, most so, but not a good laugh, not a happy carefree laugh. One of them wondered if they would ever do that again. Mostly they moved, without moving, a little closer to one another, and they felt there were wilds around them and cougars about and things worse than cougars. And there was an unspoken communal wish that they could see a bright summer day sky just one more time, when there would be many more to come, and that was where the deep down sadness started from--the days hadn't changed, hadn't betrayed them yet, it was the boys who had betrayed the days--had biked down its hills and drank its stream and walked its country lanes and this year the little kid, the squirt, had finally squirted-well, it hadn't been much--a little liquid-and the boys circled round him had laughed and said way to go tiger and the boy had smiled such a great big smile--and it was just this Poe-esque night, not like the Roger Corman films, but something darkness tried to keep a secret, because it scared even the darkness. There were filters on cigarettes and there were Crisco in cans and there were seasons in their windows and boys look through windows, and for a penny they will break windows and not run too fast away from them after they do break them. This was darkness of a bitter side. This was darkness of a sadness that sat on a boy's shoulder and said you can ride your bike forever, out all the way to Forest Grove and back, near ten miles, pull your ligaments, tear your leg joints, burst your veins as hard as you can and it wouldn't work, it wouldn't matter, there was nothing left for you but, and here God help you, there was nothing left for you but you. And if that doesn't kill you, nothing will. Somebody had struck a sulfur match and lit a Camel he had stolen from his grandfather who had let his grandson light his cigarettes for him with a beautiful ivory cigarette lighter got from some expensive over seas city in a story book kingdom long ago when the old man had been young, and how, thus? and the boys passed the cigarette about. And they pulled up grass and twirled it in their hands and soaked it with spit, and spat, and puffed on the cigarette, and it was a certain precise almost comic book precision here, and it seemed at worst wrong and at best blasphemous. The little kid, Packy, Squirt, whatever, watched them and thought its going to be good for them, cause this year, this tomorrow they were in high school and Packy was still left behind. He had been left behind a lot in his life but he had never felt it so keenly as this and it scared him. One boy tossed the cigarette his way, and Packy tried smoking it, first time, just a butt really, and coughed something awful and threw it from him and learned gradually how to breathe again. How long do you think it'll be--for what?--well, will you you know---jack off?--well hell sure, sure--I mean will you tonight?--well--course he will and I will too if we feel like it--now?--well--no he means that the time's not right, we got too much on our minds, tomorrow's soon, we should get on home--well, would you like to meet by the stream and you know this weekend, you know--hey, what?, you getting' queer on us?--no, no I mean--that's old hat, man, they got girls now with titties in high school and we'll be sittin' by them, let them jerk us off then, man--in school?--haahaha--wonder if Packy would be there? And they thought for a time. No, someone said, he won't and maybe he will never come back again, his parents moving, just the next town over, but come on, he was just a shrimp, he was a little kid with a tiny prick that had some pee on it or something and thought it was the greatest thing since pussy pie--and everybody laughed--the laugh said goodbye. My parents will skin me if I'm much later. And the others started desultorily moving about, getting ready, and Packy in time honored fashion had not said a word, would not move from his spot till the others told him okay Gracie you can say goodnight to the nice people, and then he would get on his bike and go home too. The boys picked up their bikes that looked like bones in the expanding moon light and the hot night and the crickets played their harps and the sky was closing in because it was dying itself and didn't know it, no one ever knew it, find someone one sometime, find a trick, find a magician, find an old oil can somewhere behind a filling station that reeked of turpentine and gas and oil and smoke and dust and miles traveled and miles to go and thin young me in beige colored uniforms as desolate and as dusty as they were. Just an oil can. You forget, well, you just do is all. And two days is two weeks or maybe a whole month and you get used to things, you get scared sure, anybody would get scared, even the toughest grease monkey's like one of the boy's older brother, but hell, it doesn't matter, it's of those old time mysteries. They didn't tell him to go home. So Packy sat there and watched the boys and their bikes head off in different directions or the same directions that turned into different ones later on, a sea of summer and the boys on the wings of kites of bicycles, think sometimes a boy would drown in the sea of summer, just jump right in, or laughed in or tormented in or pushed in and all that foul guffawing above and then the water over his head and his hearing nothing and wanting to hear the guffawing again, and wanting to turn round so he could see the sky up there, one more summer minute, and oh God, the summer really is green and the stream and life and hopes and tomorrow and he wanted to be around, he just wanted to be around, he had been so happy, and he had smiled such a great big smile at them and they were kidding, sure, they were kidding, at first, and at second, and oh come on, just a little arm twisting, don't cry, they won't do more than,. And then no one telling him to, there would be no one telling him to do anything ever again, and what a long expanse of loneliness that seemed to swirl around him like he was a leaf in a huge diesel exhaust tank, and he stood up fast, trying to see the boys who were already out of sight, and he said, soft soft, hey remember me, guys, promise you will remember me for a little, just a little while, it might help me. And so saying, Packy, growing more and more insubstantial, growing vague, growing downward, inside-ward into mist and then into nothing else, not ever again. After the parents sat their sons down to a late supper or some lime sherbet, or just a good talking to, a mother here or there, a father here or there, would be thinking in the nighttime after their sons were ostensibly sleeping, of coming cold, and nailed shut windows, and doors locked good and covering over windows especially to keep the harsh winter winds and shivers out, but they could not shut out the death feel, the death feel the whole town shivered in, that could take this boy or that, my son or yours. For it had been a murderer. Everybody knew it in his or her hearts. They talked about it endlessly. Adults searched endlessly. Fathers kept watch on a certain hill till their sons got back home. And at other places, just to be sure their kids were safe. No body. Murder. No safety. None for the innocent children.. And soon and soon someone would open that old oil drum and see what they would see.