The Proverbial Unrest || Perriado

Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I will not be putting very much effort into this, nor taking it very seriously. This is the designated area for where I go when I don't want to stress too much about what I'm writing, so if the quality is lacking, I don't care. This will not have an update schedule. Chapters will likely be relatively short. Don't bug me about it.

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There are things I like about suburbia and there are things I don't. When you grow up here, you don't really know anything else, so maybe that's why I don't detest the street after street of cookie-cutter houses and posses of preteens heading home with scrapes and bruises from trying to ride their bikes sans handlebars. Then again, maybe that's also why I lie awake some nights, yearning to escape to somewhere where the families are made from something other than three generic molds and there are things to do besides sneak to the playground after sunset to smoke cigarettes.

It's not all bad. It's not all good. When you're driving down the hill in the summer, assuming it's late enough in the day, you can look out and see the big, empty, stained glass sky and you feel okay because you're reminded that the universe is infinitely bigger than this one little neighborhood and this one monotonous routine. You could get away if you wanted to. You really could. It can get tough to bear, though, that everyone is packed into a little can of sardines. A bunch of sardines who smile and pretend they don't know that the man across the street beats his wife or that the house on the corner is almost definitely a meth lab.

I imagine it'd be different in the city. I've never actually been, let alone lived it, but from what I know, you're supposed to be fucked up there. I assume it's a lot less judgy. Oh, you get off on being whipped? Cool, I shoplift eighty percent of my groceries. The separation of four feet of grass between houses here is an illusion. It makes people feel safe acting like they aren't horrible people. If you live in an apartment building wedged between a tall bank and a taller office complex, it's too cramped for anyone to even try to hide their vices. Besides, even if someone gives a damn about your cocaine problem, they're too busy to do something about it anyway.

I'm known on my street as a sort of a hooligan. I skateboard to school, I have snakebites on my face, and I wear pants baggy enough to hide a body in them. Mothers cross the street when they see me. Dealing with judgmental clones every day isn't fun, but at least no one asks me to watch their cat while they're on vacation or mow their lawn at fifty cents a pop like they do with Jonny next door. Besides, I'm not alone. My best friend lives at the other street corner, the one that isn't infested with tweakers. He has a job now, so we don't see each other as much, but we still borrow each others' CDs and hang out at the skate park when we can. Plus, the Fuentes brothers live a couple of streets down, and they're in my boat too. Vic and I play guitar together sometimes. Never with amps, since last time we tried that, Mr. O'Conner threatened to call the cops. Vic tried saying, "This isn't the fifties anymore, Larry." Mr. O'Conner was not amused. Especially because he was barely in grade school in the fifties, and I guess somehow Vic was implying that he's an old geezer. Which he is. We unplugged the amps anyway.

I'm sitting on top of the jungle gym, sucking on my last cigarette when my Walkman CD player batteries die. It's too hot tonight to be inside. Our air conditioner broke last week and we haven't gotten it fixed yet since it's late August by now and the weather will cool off soon. To make matters worse, we only have two fans in the house and they were auctioned off to my parents and sister. In all fairness, she's eight. It's more important that she sleeps through the night than me, and there are two people in my parents' bed, so they may as well kill two birds with one stone.

With the added noise of the rotating blades, it's less risky to slide my window open and drop down to the grass, so I'm not all that bothered. I don't smoke a lot. Just when I'm bored, or when I'm hanging out with Jaxin or Mike or Vic. There's just something so relaxing about sitting at the top of the playground with headphones and a Midtown CD that makes cigarettes irresistible.

I'm nervous, because tomorrow is the first day of school. It's not that I actually have anything to be afraid of. Everyone just worries that they'll be late or say something embarrassing and that's what they'll be known for all year. It hasn't even happened to me, but that doesn't stop me from harboring a moderate seed of dread in the pit of my stomach. In seventh grade, Jaxin came to school with his shirt inside out. Everyone called him 'tag boy' until spring break. It wasn't the most hurtful of insults, but still-kids are obnoxious and they can't let things go. I plan to be three minutes early to every class to make sure I don't get any more attention than what's necessary.

I remove the batteries from my Walkman and chuck them into a bush, pulling out my earbuds and winding them around the CD player. A bat flits around overhead while I lay the device on my stomach. I can faintly hear what seems to be either frogs croaking or crickets chirping. There's a pond a half a mile down the road, but there's also a cricket infestation at the construction area on Park Street. Could be both. To some people, the sounds of the night are calming. Not to me. It's a reminder that the clock is ticking, that the world is turning, and I'll have to go back home before the sun comes up. I don't hate being home. It's just quiet. Passing the time is tedious when your mom needs absolute silence from noon to six so she can sleep off headaches. There's something wrong with her, I know. I try not to think about it.

When I grow up, I'm moving out. Out, out. I don't know if I'll choose the city or the desert. I've always wanted to head back east and visit Boston. I hear it's chaotic and busy and loud. The ceaseless lull here gets on my nerves. It's like people are hibernating; like they're done trying to live their lives and have instead chosen to just exist in a house only distinguishable from the ones around it by color.

Then again, I want to be able to see the stars. Really see them. From my viewpoint, I can only catch faint pinpricks of light with the overpowering street lights and porch lights and everything else. My family and I went hiking up in the mountains two summers ago, and that was the first time I saw the stars the way they should look. Bright and twinkling and peppered generously across the clear sky. It really makes you think about how arrogant humans are to drown that out in city lights and smog for the sake of convenience. Not that I'm a tree hugger or anything, but the stars really are pretty.

It's kind of funny how you only have three options in life, right? It's either mass-production, isolation, or monotony.

I guess I'm also nervous because I'm going into my junior year, and that's when you're supposed to figure your life out. I don't have a semblance of an idea what I want to do. I don't even know where I want to go. I've always thought it was stupid that they have you make all these vital decisions when you're sixteen. Don't they say that your brain isn't done growing until you're twenty-five? If we're so dumb, why are you making us sign off on our futures?

When my cigarette is gone, I throw it, too, into the bush after hopping off of the jungle gym. Since I now have nothing to do, I figure there's no harm in going home. While I reach for my skateboard, which is leaning up against the only real tree around for miles, I cram my Walkman into my pocket. I'm wearing flannel pajama pants, so there's an obvious bulge by my left hip, but no one's around so I let it be. By my estimates, it's probably about an hour past midnight. I don't want any crabby white dads yelling at me for waking them up with the sound of wheels rolling on the street, so I elect to walk.

With plenty of time to kill, I head home slowly. I don't know if I should feel wasteful for spending my time in limbo, listening to CDs instead of doing something useful. Skateboard resting against my hip, suburbia disappears into more suburbia behind me.