Deer Will Graze

This is my first post on the site. I'm an amateur and hope to get some useful feedback from the community.

Deer Will Graze Tom Howell

            I drove my Dad’s Beemer along the turning suburban streets of Dundas toward Alex’s house on Pleasant Valley Court. The spring afternoon was sunny and ripe and I drove with music playing and the driver’s window open to the cool whipping air. God that felt good. Earlier that day Alex had phoned me and asked whether I wanted to come over.

            “Sure, so are you done exams now?”

            “Yeah man.”

            “You just want to chill in your backyard or something?”

            “Yeah, I think so. I had engineering early this morning and I just want to kick back and smoke a cigarette for a while, know what I mean?”

            “Oh yeah. I’ll ask my dad if I can take his car over.”

            “Don’t you dare pull up to my house in a BMW Adam, my poor baba might have a heart attack.”

            I took a right onto Pleasant Valley Court which curved left and sloped up the valley, and at the top I turned into Alex’s driveway and parked beside his step dad’s truck. Stepping out of the low car and standing up I waved to Alex who opened the black screen door and stepped out onto his bleached porch.

            Alex had an unlit cigarette hanging from between his lips and that jagged smile showing his uneven teeth that I always felt could be sincere or mocking at the same time.

            “Well, If it isn’t my long lost friend Adam,” he said from the porch as I walked over.

            “How’s everything been in the ‘burbs man?”

            “S****y. I can’t sleep either but I like to focus on the positives. Here, come in and I’ll get you a drink.”

            We entered the small bungalow and I kicked off my shoes and followed him to the dark kitchen. His mom sat at the kitchen table with a coffee and the paper under dim yellow light, and looked up as I entered.

            “Oh Adam, how are you?”

            “Hi July I’m doing well.”

             “How did school go?”

            “It went well. I switched into English.”

            “Oh! Interesting, And you got good grades?”

            I laughed, “I’m content.”

            “Well that’s good. How’s your mom?”

            “She’s well, she’s subbing at a school in stoney creek I think"“

            “Adam you don’t have to talk to my mom,” Alex said as he was looking in the fridge, “do you want a whiskey and coke or a Canadian?”

            I looked at Mrs. Potichnyj and laughed.

            “I’ll have a Canadian, thanks.”

            He handed me a cold and wet bottle and a bottle opener. I cracked the top and tossed it in the trash under the table. Alex walked to the sliding back door and pushed it open to his backyard. We went outside and sat on the patio chairs, still with the cigarette between his lips Alex took a lighter from his jeans pocket and lit it. He took a slow concentrated pull and blew over his shoulder and I took a long sip from the beer, the cold fluid ran down my dry throat cooling me. A little breeze pushed the grass about and the sun fell directly over us.

            “You said you still couldn’t sleep?”

            Alex smoked and looked across his backyard for a moment, “Adam, I can’t remember the last night I slept before five a.m.,” he stretched in the chair, “But that’s ok.”

            “Are you still smoking that weed the doctor prescribed you?”

            “Nah, that stuff was s**t. I buy from this guy downtown.”

            He looked at me for a second in question and I shook my head,

            “Adam, you’re too up tight man,” he said with that smile again, “What happened to the pretentious kid who got high with me and wrote lyrics to my folk songs?”

            I laughed and looked at him as I drank my beer, “I don’t think that ever happened.”

            “Well maybe you weren’t high but you wrote some off the f*****g wall lyrics man.”

            “Am I not pretentious anymore then?” I said looking at him.

            “I’m not sure,” he seemed to look me up and down for a moment, “You did show up to my modest lower middle class home in a space grey BMW so your not doing yourself any favors.”

            “That’s true,” I laughed.

            “But on the other hand you haven’t bored me yet with the great thought provoking literature you’re reading at school,” Alex took another drag, “Adam, why you too?”

            “Me too what.”           

            “Wasting your dad’s money on a useless degree like Alexia is. How do you expect to get a job with a god damn English degree? Useless.”

            I smiled to myself examining the beads of condensation sliding down the label of my beer, “you damn communist,” I said and smiled at him.

            “You’re a socialist Adam, you should agree with me.”

            “But I’m no communist. I’m selfish if you haven’t figured it out, my sister tells me it everyday.”

            “Bullshit, you’re a sweetheart, If you were truly selfish you’d vote Harper.”

            “Not true. I have my own political beliefs, but why should I let my views on politics affect my views on how I want to live my life? I’ve read Steinbeck and I’ve read Rand and appreciated both, and taken what I like from both and used that to try and make the ideal blend.”

            “Yes Adam, you are still pretentious, and your brother’s probably still a tool and your sister’s probably still a b***h.”

            “That hurts man. I know you like to see the worst version of people sometimes but these are my siblings here,” I smiled and drank some beer, watching the clouds as I talked, “You focus too much on trying to be that working class you idolize so much. Utilitarianism sucks man.”

            Alex killed the cigarette and put it on the ash tray at his feet, “What the f**k Adam. You come in here with your personal philosophy and preach like it’s a god damn sermon, where I just wanted to smoke a cigarette with a friend I haven’t seen in eight months. Let’s talk about something that nineteen year old university kids are supposed to talk about.”

            “Well then how’s Annie?”

            Alex deflated and looked at me, pulling another cigarette from the packet and lighting it, and like me, he turned to the clouds with smoke curling around him, “I love her, she’s my girl. But she’s breaking my heart man, she’s breaking my god damn heart.”

            “I know you guys were fooling around but did things ever get serious?”

            He paused again, “No. She’s the type of girl who gets all close with you and maybe lets herself go a couple times but keeps you at a distance because she’s not in it for the full marathon yet.”

            “Huh. What’s she up to now?”

            “She went to travel Europe with my Ex, you know, cut out at the thirteen mile mark. Go see Ukraine and all that, I think she’s getting religious on me though. Kept talking about going to see all the spiritual places in who knows where,”

            “That’d be a shame.”

            “Yeah, it really would Adam. She’s a great girl. You need another beer?”

            “I’d love one. Hey you don’t mind if I stay for a while eh, If I’m drinking then I’m drinking.”

            “Adam, I was counting on it.”

            Alex went back into the house and I got up from the chair and walked to the grass that still moved a little to the wind. Alex’s backyard ended in a chain-link fence and beyond that was the ravine where a path lead through the brush and trees that sometimes people rode along on horses. Now two deer grazed on the other side of the fence. I whistled at them and they looked at me dead like I were a coyote. I think they had some conception of the barrier because they turned away after a moment and continued grazing. Maybe I wasn’t as scary as I thought though.

            “Hey that was the last beer, can I mix you a drink?” Alex yelled from the house.

            “Yeah, please,” I shouted from the backyard.

            And so we sat out in Alex’s backyard and as we watched the clouds roll across the clear sky the whiskey started to affect. And as the drink buzzed behind my eyes the sun was falling down from it’s pedestal overhead and began to set red, bleeding out over the trees and the milky clouds soaking up the blood. Our conversation loosened and dangled about relative to the sober talk, which seemed now to lose relevancy.

            And then Alex’s step dad Buck yelled at us from inside that he needed some help taking furniture and heavy things to the dump in the truck. So we left the two muskoka chairs that were not separated by a table to go help Buck with the dump.