Author's Commentary
Revision of the first part of my (pending) novel, Burnt Grass. Combines personal experiences with daydreams, hopes and aspirations of a near perfect afternoon.
Jerry was riding his bike.
Down the street he flew, pumping his legs without any kind of professional precision to them. He whizzed to the left side of the street to avoid a speeding Mustang, and sharply curved back right to narrowly get into the roadway that led to the park.
Jerry was expecting someone there.
He was not expecting the bum that was sleeping under a bench.
That bench was where he was meeting the someone, and he didn’t want a sickly, smelly bum eavesdropping on any conversation.
“Hey, buddy, wake up.”
The bum’s head jerked up and hit on the bottom of the bench.
He groaned in pain, rolled out from under, and slowly got up, swearing at Jerry.
“Damn teenager, thinking he owns the frickin’ park.”
“What was that?”
“Nuthin.”
The bum strolled away, with a very what-are-you-gonna-do-about-it attitude, a smirk fleeting across his thin, rotten face.
Jerry was tempted to flip him the bird, but logically decided the bum was armed with a hidden bottle and passed the opportunity.
He waited for the someone to arrive.
The someone was a girl.
Not just any girl, but the Ashley of his life for the last week.
His friends plotted about how to get Jerry his first date, as 8th grade was hurtling toward them and he still was girlfriendless. Of course, most of his friends were in the same position, struggling for words when Kelly or Gina spoke with elegant, flirtatious tones. (Those two were, by mass consent, hottest in their school; Kelly with her eye addicting poses and ‘sex hair’ and Gina with her large breasts and shocking blue eyes)
This Ashley was contacted by the most popular of the group, and persuaded to meet Jerry at the nearest park, to get to know each other.
Jerry was mildly elated by this exposure and felt as if he were first priority of the group, even though he knew the entire outfit was gunning for Kelly or Gina, and failed to travel past these boundaries at local dances and school events which were attended by other schoolgirls.
So this expedition into another world was quite exciting.
Jerry dropped his bike and pulled out his phone.
Although his parents forbid text messaging, he frequently put himself in danger of being grounded and cared not if he was or wasn’t.
He pounded the keys and sent a quick question of what this Ashley was transporting her ‘hot ass’ on, or if she was walking and would take a few twenty minutes longer to arrive. He waited for the reply, whilst tearing off the top of a pack of Wrigley gum, original flavor. As he placed the gum in between his top and bottom sets of teeth, Jerry laid out a metaphorical mat of words he could say to possibly make a conversational and romantic name for himself in the new market. His friend, who had gotten Ashley to make this trip, texted back in about forty two seconds and told him she was walking there.
Jerry casually flipped off his helmet and let it bounce onto the pavement of the road with the soft, characteristic clang of blue plastic. He then stared at the park entrance, which was just the road with two shoddy fences on each side, and fantasized about how the meeting would turn out;
She would make out with him, ride home on his bike, one thing would lead to…
Unfortunately, it looked like rain, and he had a predictably low success rate from past attempts.
A brigade of three girls passed by Jerry, and he waved with a poker face at the one who laughingly blew a kiss in his direction after he playfully kicked her, since he knew the brigade from school and thought they were all in arms reach for dating. He stayed away from that possibility, because Jerry knew he wanted to have only the high section of the girl pyramid, however much he was warned it was bad for him.
He wanted desserts first, the top notch girls who put out, for when he was a young teen, and would settle for breakfast when he was tired and old at thirty. Something like that.
Jerry spotted movement by the park entrance, a girl walking toward his bench, cell phone pressed up to her face.
Was she Ashley?
He got a text message from his friend that she had finally arrived, and Jerry looked up to see her standing a few feet from the bench.
“Are you Jerry?”
she asked with a delicate curiosity and eyes that looked him over, concluding that he most likely was Jerry, therefore not needing an answer as she sat down with her arms folded on her lap.
Jerry was more than pleasantly surprised by her, and surveyed her body, mentally licking his lips at her luscious frame, her tight jeans, her sexy black hair with a pinkish red tip, her seductive tan skin, her pink blouse fighting out from her blue Aeropostale hoody, her beautiful tan face, and her cute black eyes.
“Yeah. Are you Ashley?”
he replied back, a mirroring curiosity on his face.
She giggled and answered,
“Yeah. I was worried that Brian was just setting me up to look like an idiot.”
They laughed together; Jerry felt a fire inside him.
(Caution; figurative fires are used a lot in this story. If you are worried if your book will catch fire or not because of such, there is no need to worry. Just keep an extinguisher in arms length at all times.)
I hope she likes me, he thought, and he extended his hand in friendly greeting.
“Nice to meet you, Ashley.”
“Nice to meet you, too, Jerry.”
She softly shook his hand, and almost pulled back immediately.
“Your hands are really cold.”
She looked slightly unhappy that his hands had felt that way, putting hers back onto her lap, and then Jerry threw out one of his prepared lines that he thought would make a good impression;
“That’s because nobody’s held them in so long.”
What he really meant to say was ‘Well, I’ve never had a girlfriend, so I’m going to try and say a pitiful line, so you want to tongue me like a deviant later on.’
But the former worked better.
She went “Awwww.” and leaned over to give him a light hug, resting her head on his right shoulder. Jerry, pausing for air after the unexpected embrace, asked
“How are you doing?”
“I’m good. How about you?”
“Just fine, thanks for asking.”
She retracted and sat up again, pulling on her blouse, as if helping it fight out from under her hoody.
She pulled the hood up and started speaking again.
“What isn’t nice is this crappy looking weather. I hope it doesn’t rain.”
“Me too. But Dan on ABC says ‘We are expecting a shitload of rain and clouds.’ Well, he didn’t say shitload, or they’d have to fire him.”
(See, more fire. Don’t fear; if you have good insurance, you’ll get a new house once it burns to the ground.)
She laughed at this and Jerry smiled, impressed by his humor in such a moment where he was scared shitless of blanking out.
But he knew that wouldn’t happen. Because the author wouldn’t have a story then, now would he?
She then asked,
“What school do you go to?”
“Sandburg Public. You?”
“I go to Calder. Calder Cougars, win, win, win!”
She did a little jump in her seat and made a C with her arms.
“Woo, encore, encore!”
Jerry sarcastically clapped, cheering falsely, since Calder was Sandburg Public’s archenemy in the sports department.
“You must be a cheerleader.”
“Yeah, I’m head cheerleader. It’s really fun.”
“You know what we call the Cougars at Sandburg?”
“What?” She turned her head, waiting for the answer that was sure to make her slap him.
“The Calder Condoms.”
“Hey!”
She smacked him on the forehead, smiling with playful anger at his remark.
Jerry wildly brought up his arms to protect his red forehead, sarcastically squealing in pain. She laughed, slapping his arms with girly strength.
He fell off the bench and they both could not keep from bursting out with joy at any minor gesture or facial expression made during the time they started rolling and battling in the turd laden grass to when they situated themselves back onto the bench, still giggling profusely.
“The Calder Cougars, not Condoms!”
“I’m joking, c’mon!”
“Anyway, do you do any sports?”
“Yes, in fact. Were you a cheerleader in 6th grade?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I was the player who shot the winning basket for Calder with seconds remaining. Problem was I played for Sandburg’s team.”
“Oh my god, you were that kid?”
“Yep. I harassed for months; ‘Way to go Jerry. Shoot the winning basket for the Condoms.’”
“I remember you! I couldn’t believe a kid would be that dumb!...”
“Hey!”
“But I now realize you aren’t the retard I thought you were.”
“Again, hey!”
The two simultaneously, but steadily, were inching closer to each other.
Jerry would move whenever Ashley had to text someone back, where she would burrow her head into the deep recesses of her hood and push her face up to the tiny screen; Ashley would move whenever Jerry had to exchange a piece of gum (which only occurred twice) with her, as he had to dig into his pocket with his eyes squeezed to the point of no source of light getting inside.
The scent of her perfume made Jerry quiver with infatuation, wanting to hold her by the breast, to get into those tight jeans.
He could feel her breath on his face, every warm exhalation from her lips colliding with his nose, making it shake and almost upsetting it to a sneeze.
Ashley lowered her zipper and Jerry licked his lips with shaking anticipation.
“I absolutely hate my math class.”
“Math is fun! I love solving equations, estimating is my favorite…”
“Are you serious?”
“No, I hate math too.”
“I’m a reading guy. All the great writers, Longfellow, Twain; I love reading.”
“Books are too boring.”
“Boring?! I don’t know of any book by Mark Twain that could include that description.”
“Well, it could just be me.”
Jerry was a bit surprised at her lowering of the hoody zipper.
Although they both must have known prior to this meeting that the purpose of it was to eventually get together, the utter submission of one or the other was doubtful.
Her interest in him at such an early point in a relationship situation was unusual and unexpected, and Jerry loved it.
His emotions were tantalized by an infusion of someone else’s by any sort of communication.
He was a bit disappointed that she was ignorant of the greatness of literature, but he could look past that for now.
“I write a little too.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’ve written short stories, poems. I’m thinking of getting some of it published, like in the New Yorker or something.”
“That’s cool. Can you recite some of your poems from memory?”
“Uh, I might, just give me a minute.”
He tried not to betray the immense rush of panic and fear that flooded into his thoughts by any facial expression that included frowning or a poker face.
He smiled brightly, with a false look of confidence stretched ear to ear.
Jerry decided to recite the old classic that had made him a famous poet at Sandburg Public; ‘Somebody’, which was so far the masterpiece poem of his entire literary career. With a deep breath, he began, speaking as calmly as he could, and with a carefully calculated measure of each successive word:
Jerry could not have done a better recitation of the poem, even if he practiced thirty times before hand, with five drinks of water in between each. Ashley was stunned by his acute pronunciations and intonations on the ‘somebodys’ and ‘everybodys’, and the overall effect upon her was enjoyment.
“Wow!”
“Not that great of a poem…”
“No, I loved it! It was really good.”
“It doesn’t even rhyme…”
“No, it was great! One of the best poems I’ve ever read, heard.”
They both laughed at her mistake, then gazed into each others eyes for about ten seconds. Jerry’s heart almost burst into pieces from pumping so hard; sadly, a huge roar of thunder erupted from the bowels of the stark grey clouds.
“We better get out of here.”
“Yeah, you think.”
The two quickly jumped on Jerry’s bike and determined where they were heading.
“Your house or mine?”
“Mine, because my parents are gonna be home soon.”
“Alright. Can you direct me there from the backseat?”
“Ha, sure.”
Jerry slammed on the pedals and sped off toward Ashley’s house. This was the first day of the rest of his life. And he couldn’t wait for day two.
Digg
del.icio.us
Stumbleupon
Reddit
Furl
Facebook
