Loop

The summer is all wrong for running.  It stifles you.  Chokes you.  The heat gets to you, so you’re sweating before you even finish lacing up your brand new running shoes your parents got just so you could start running.  And you don’t want to run, you want to go back and lie down, listen to music, screw around on youtube, or facebook but not talk to anyone, ’cus you’re not in that type of mood or maybe just hide out in the basement and watch a movie.  But you don’t have any movies you haven’t seen a hundred times, and nothing seems interesting.  And besides, you’ve already gotten your shoes on, those nice new white running shoes, and you don’t wanna go to the trouble of taking them off or tell your parents you just don’t feel like running. 

So you run anyway.  In spite of the air, and in spite of the sweat and in spite of  all the friends you wouldn’t be talking to on facebook or all the movies you couldn’t be less engaged in.  You still go out around the back, since you don’t feel like locking the door behind you, and you don’t want to leave the front door open. 

Out around, down, running fast now, because these are neighbors you know, and now that you’re going you just want to go, to go somewhere and do something.  So you run fast, past their houses and out of their sight and you’re glad.  Glad because you managed to avoid them somehow, and to avoid their calling out hellos and their idle chatter that you are obligated to respond to. 

You go down the hill, because that’s the way you’ve always gone, not toward Rt. 9 and the two Dunkin Donuts but the other way, down past the house where Kate used to live, where you used to go for parties or trade Pokemon cards with, before she got too old for it, towards the pond.  And you’re coasting suddenly, because the hill is carrying you down, you just have to follow, almost rolling, without any need for thought. 

So you think of other things, you think of the time when you fell down the hill into Kate’s yard for a moment and remember the games you had played, back before she decided that you were a little kid and she"at the big old age of thirteen" was too old to play with you, and how you used to come this way with your mom. 

Your feet take you back, to the left now, off away from the pond, still gliding without any real urgency now, no-one here will call out hellos or offer for you to stop and talk.  And you think about the movies, perhaps you should have gone back, and perhaps you know, maybe the Matrix would be worth another re-watch.  At least then you wouldn’t be caught trying to breathe. 

Your feet pound against the wood of a bridge, and at first you see the deer.  There was a deer here, the first time you came this way on your own, a big one, with a full rack of antlers.  But there’s no deer now, and the bridge reminds you more of being lost, because after the deer ran off you got lost, and wandered around for an hour before you found your way home.  And it looks exactly like another bridge, on the other side of town, that you used to run, to her house, before she left for college. You remember that, the ducks, startled at your approach, flying away from you honking.  But none of that’s real, and you continue across. 

Right this time, back on the road and up the hill, toward your old school, Bates.  No real reason, it’s better than the Matrix.  That was a good movie, especially the scene where they brake into the Agents complex, right after they go through the metal detector.  Awesome.  You watched it yesterday, but perhaps its not too soon to see it again.  Perhaps it'd be more interesting this time, and resist the urge to fast forward randomly throughout the whole movie. 

You remember that it was partly at her urging that you watched the Matrix the first time, she told you that she had never seen it, and you said you hadn't either so you decided you would watch it together.  "I'll kidnap you some time" you'd joked, way back then, "and we can watch it together."

Bates was not the same Bates you remember.  The whole school had been remodeled after we left.  You circle around, 'cus theres no where better to go.  You used to play basketball with Matt there in the courts out back, perhaps you should again some time.  Perhaps you should call him, ask him to come but somehow you don't feel like it, your phone never looked less interesting or engaging than it does now, black and lifeless, so you put it back in your pocket without calling.  You were busy anyway, you had stuff to do, college essays you'll say, sorry.  Or maybe you won't give a reason, just shrug and move on.  None of the rooms are the same either, you see where your old class room used to be, even walk in, since the janitor left the door open and you say what the hell?  and go in, but you don't recognize anything, except when you went there to watch the voting last year, but nothing from when you went to school there, 'cus its all changed.  New classes, new walls, new halls, and its all empty now, and silent and you're all alone, but perhaps thats best.  So no one hears your breath echoing around raggedly.  

But there's nothing there for you, so you push the door open and run out, not noticing or caring that the door slammed shut behind you, and its locked so you can't go back there, even if you wanted to.  

Without thinking about it now you're running toward the other end of town, as far as you can, toward her house.  There's no real reason why, but there's really no reason not to, one way is as good as any other, miles of tar and black top.  Whatever.  

So you find yourself crossing town, your breath only slightly ragged now, rough but still smooth like cardboard, just smooth enough to think its fine but still annoying enough that you can't settle into an even jog, just like the little rock in your shoe, which you keep wondering if you should pull it out, but it's never worth it.  It's never actually worth the second to stoop down and pull the rock from your shoe, and besides, if you did you'd lose the flow of running and you might not even find the rock, so you don't stoop down, you just keep running.  

About half way there you stop in at the park, Perrin park, where you used to go when you were a little kid.  Your grandpa used to take you to play soccer or baseball, and to climb on the structures.  And you used to go with friends who would swing from the swings and kick your shoes off, to see who could get them higher, while you waited for the ice cream truck.  

There are kids on the swings now, playing, and you wonder whether you might stop, or just casually walk by and join them, kick your shoes off, and see if you've gotten any better since then, show off your shoe-throwing prowess.  And so for a moment you sit there leaning against the faded, peeling paint of the swing set, watching the silently, feeling the sweat slowly sink into your clothes and you realize: you stink.  You're sweating a lot more than you realized, and when you get home you're going to take a shower.  

It's just like the time, on Valentines day, when you called in sick, 'cus you didn't want to watch everyone else with their girl friends, or boyfriends.  But you ran across town to be there for her party, and then, when you got there, you realized you were all covered in sweat.

So you abandon your run across town--after all, you're more tired than you thought, and besides, perhaps your parents are coming home soon--and just circle around the park.  Through the basketball court you used to play at with your grandma when you were a little kid, and behind the baseball field that they had dug up years ago, and back around.  

Second rotation: a mother comes with her stroller and settles down at a table and pulls out a book--The Mermaid Chair--while stroking her baby's thin, short blond hair.  You smile: adorable, you think.  Simply adorable, perhaps your mother did that too, a different book, a different park, but maybe she did the same thing, came outside into the summer air and just sat outside with you.  

Third rotation: an ice cream truck shows up and all the kids go flocking over to the truck, as if they were afraid it would go away.  Then realize they don't have money they look around, panic stricken, not realizing that the truck won't leave until its sold to each of them.  They yell "mommy mommy!" afraid to stray too far from the truck, or to turn their backs, lest it vanish while they weren't looking.   Then one kid does run, he runs away to his mom and clings to her hand, pulling her up, away from the bench where she's sitting with the other mothers, and pulls her over.  

Behind the child all the other ones are running and the mothers slowly get up with a sigh, and protesting "alright alright, I'm coming I'm coming" in the same sort of weary way that you protest when your cousins pull you around, or want to show you everything in their room, since they haven't seen you in so long.  And you smile, because the children are so happy, and so panicked, like little ants, over the arrival of an ice cream truck.  

Fourth rotation: the kids are all getting their ice cream, chocolate, or vanilla, one little girl can't decide between them and keeps changing her mind, so that her mother--a little woman in a t-shirt and jeans--sighs and apologizes to the ice cream man.  Another mother tries to quiet her son who keeps yelling "I want a soda I wan't a soda" when he sees that the truck sells root beer.  

It's been a long time since you've had root beer, since you were at her house.  Back then in the basement, when you would sit there with her, and for once feel someone cared.  And it wasn't just someone.  Back in the basement with the fish tank that no one ever looked at, on the couch of the basement with her when she made you feel like she knew you and loved you.  That was the last time you had root beer, you suddenly remember, watching anime, or a movie--Ground Hog Day, or Summer Wars or anything in between.  And for a moment you want to get a root beer as if if for a dollar twenty five you can bring those times back.  

Fifth rotation: The little girl finally decided: she want's both, and can't have it any other way, she wants a mix, a swirl of both chocolate and vanilla.  And the little boy finally was pulled away by his mom, screaming and crying.  And another boy drags his father over by the leg, wiping his tears on his sleeve, still holding the sticky remains of his ice cream cone, the rest of it still melting on the play ground.  

You remember when you went to Morses Pond with her, over the summer just before she was gone, before her accident.  When you got ice cream from the truck that always came and pulled up right over the grass and right as you walked away you tripped and the ice cream spilled all over her foot, and she laughed, because you always always managed to spill something.  

On your sixth rotation you think about saying something, or getting an ice cream myself, but you remember that you don't have a job, and don't have any money you think better of it, and decide to go home, its late after all, and you're hungry, and maybe you'll ask your dad to call for pizza, so you can go take your shower and go to sleep.  It's late by now, the day, unlike your memories, is fast fading.  

Author's Note

In progress.

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