PARENTHETICAL #6

 

He stands on their balcony and smokes. He is sitting in a chair and his legs are crossed. He can see blue sky. 

(in the bright being of a midday he can see the rolling gasses and churning seas of the sun. He sees them as if he is on a fishing boat pulling molten light from the ocean of the sun. He sees himself running a crew of five or six or seven all burned to brown or black and pulling pushing grinding rails and levers and gears pulling sun from sun. They jump and yell as the nets come up rich. They pat each other on the back and high five. They give a thumbs up sign to their captain in his precious captain’s chair. He is the captain. And he gives them a thumbs up back and steers the boat on. Through the midday sun. Watching the nets strain with the weight of heat and light. Watching fire eat his boat and its crew and its precious captain in his captain’s chair). 

There are no clouds. And the stretch is blue and impervious to his looks. 

(behind his eyes he sees the movie of his life playing. There is the sound of a violin and the look of violence. He thinks about connecting the two. And there is the trickle of piano and the subtle whine of the strings. Blood splashes. A woman sings. Her voice is stunning and ripe and he hears no words. It is the sound of his crying. Weeping like rain. The door opens and blood rains. Slow motion tides of red upend chairs and tables. His life in a movie. He keeps his eyes closed to the reel. Flickering light. The thought of stained carpets and how blood is gone gone gone). 

Time drags on as it does and he sleeps. His head bows as he sleeps. 

(he sees himself sleeping in the arms of a tree. The tree is tall and green and there is a wind that rocks the branches. There is cotton in the air floating and drifting. And he feels the echo of bark on his shoulders and down his legs as the tree shifts. And while he sleeps the tree grows. The tree expands. The tree pulls towards the sun and dwarfs the earth. And the tree wraps him in a blanket of rough hewn bark and light filtering leaves. He feels the oil of green on his arms. He smells the wooden and root sense of it all. So when he drops from its arms, plummeting to the darkness below, he is still smiling in the green and brown of the tree). 

He startles himself awake from a dream fall but nods quickly back. 

(now he is a turtle. Now he is a spike of skin. Now he is a clod of dirt and a stick of dynamite and a skein of yarn. Now he is a rope of longing and a scream of dissent and a marshmallow burning in the blue light gas flame of a burner on a stove. Now he is the longing protection of shield. Now he is a gun and its bullet. Now he is a subway car. Now he is speeding. Now he is slow. Now he is lopping and dragging and barely moving. Now he is time. Now he is the turtle again. Cycling again. Going again. Moving again. Moving again but rarely). 

The cigarette burns down to his fingers. 

(he sees the colors of flaming rivers of lava. He sees it like a volcano. Like the inside of a molten existence and he is burning with it. He is the fire and the flame. He is the force of wind shattering windows. He is the blast of heat. Like opening an oven door. He is an oven and god is opening the door. God has opened the door and all he can muster is the burn and singe of a few hundred degrees. But god is wearing pot-holders for gloves so god is unhurt. God is laughing at his attempt. Like always laughing as he burns with fear and regret and loathing). 

It just takes a touch and he is awake stamping out the cherry like a spider sprawling. His legs uncrossed now. The sky still blue. 

(underneath him there is a world bucking like a bronco. It is a world that never wanted him and now is kicking him out. But the world is laughing like god laughs and so it has to be a game. He is a pinball in a pinball machine. He is trucked around by flippers and the pushing of buttons. He has so many buttons. He is a wall of buttons. And a wave of kids come running around a sidewalk corner and begin touching him. They want to push them all. They want to see results. But nothing happens. They push all the buttons and not one of them does anything. He is just a wall of uselessness. And the kids leave throwing rocks over their shoulders. Denting him with fistfuls of slang). 

Below him in the pool teens hang on wet edges and littler ones splash and whip and toss. He leans on the splintered balcony railing and half watches them almost drown. 

(the pool is wet but it smells like lawnmowers. It smells like tiny motorcycles revving and running over the bumped tracks of his frontal lobe. The pool is wet but it isn’t water. It isn’t water because it’s gasoline. It is gasoline or jet fuel and either way when the match tumbles from somewhere in the cloudless sky the thing goes a light. The match manages its flame into the pool of kids and the whole thing goes up in a whoosh and a plume of black and a tail of skyrocketing fire. The people burn as he leans on a splintered railing half watching them burn). 

On the side a woman lays laid back on a lounge chair. Her suit is two piece and red. 

(he sees that he has cut her in half. There was never any need for it. He can feel that in his insides. But there she is on the floor in one and two halves. And her tongue is out like wagging only motionless. And her hair is flipped to the side but no longer flippant. Her toes are painted and he sees the hearts sketched on each nail. She is one or two halves of love now. One or two halves of loving hearts. One or two halves or him. And there he is in a button-down shirt dressed for a funeral and exhausting his hands in their red and sticky mess). 

The woman can’t see him as he stares on and on. So when she adjusts her suit and her nipples are clearly visible he is the only one who gets the privilege. And he enjoys every moment of it. 

(he sees the woman stripteasing him in her red bathing suit. Then in lingerie. Then in nothing. Naked. He sees her groping and grinding at herself. He sees her spilling out of various tops. He sees her moving in slithers and yawns. And he hears music that is hip hop or rhythmic. And she hears it too and makes her body match the beats. But her hair changes and she changes from anonymous to the ones he knows. She becomes the women he knew. She is challenging red and blonde and brunette. She goes from a to b to c to d. She morphs until she is a rounded belly protruding from between the two-piece. Until she is bursting with a child instead of sex). 

The afternoon moves on and he smokes again and again and people come and go. But the sky stays blue. And the sounds of shaking leaves and burbling water remain. 

(in a fall later on he can tell there will be leaves in the pool. There will be tones of blackened yellow and browning orange and the whole thing will look as it does. Sad and pitiful. And the sun will wane and burn his skin. Even as the snow falls and the world tumbles in white his skin will burn in the sun. It is a friend that stands too close. It is an enemy. It is his mother and father. It is his family tree. It is the thing he seeks to escape. It is the thing he is hoping for. To burn in snow and heat. To melt himself like snow when the winter drains away). 

The blue bruises into purple and burnt orange. The wind is a treble clef. 

(he sees a child face down in the water. The child is motionless until the water stirs. And when the pool moves in ripples and the slow movements of surface air the child and the body drift. He watches it from their balcony. He watches the child’s body bump the smooth and concrete ledge. He watches until the hair on the back of the child’s head dries and moves too in the breeze. He watches the arms hung low and turning even whiter and more wrinkled in the shallows. He sees the swimsuit wave under the water. He watches until the child is his child. He watches until the child is him. He watches until he is face down in growing darkness). 

The hot tub clicks on and off as darkness paints itself out. 

(he sees himself boiling down the foaming waves of an avalanche. There is summer heat and fall darkness and spring leaves and winter snow. He has no board or skis beneath him but his feet stretch the white and he rides. There is speed and trackless motions. He glides. He runs. He attempts escape. But the avalanche continues. Even when he thinks he has made it he hasn’t. Even when he thinks he is gone he isn’t. Even when he thinks he is free and clear he isn’t. The avalanche is a rolling hill of children all facedown and drowning. Children tumbling arms and legs. Spindling. Chiding him as he tries to run. As he tries to escape. Children who understand that he will not make it).



J. A. Tyler has recent work in Pindeldyboz, Feathertale Review, Thieves Jargon, Underground Voices, & Word Riot. His debut novella is forthcoming from Ghost Road Press in 2009. He is also founding editor of the online literary review Mud Luscious. Read more at www.aboutjatyler.com.