Swinging Tire

1

Book 1 chapter 1

Lafayette, Indiana, 1980

"The last one to hit the tree is a fag!"

I started running, and did not even bother to look back to know that Jeff wasn't running after me. He was walking, no, swaying that strange sway kind of walk of his, cigarette dangling from his lips, his hair getting so long now it brushes his shoulders.

I climb the swinging tire and begin to rock it, up I go, weeee, like I don't have a fucking care in the world, but it's always like that when I'm with him. I feel safe, no monsters, real or imaginary, can get me when I'm with him. I suppose it's a dumb fantasy, and he probably would run a mile if something approached us, but that fake sense of security is what makes me come to him every time.

Because it's always me that goes to him. If I don't appear in a month, he does not come to check on me. He is smart like that. He knows better than to knock on the hell I call home.

"You gonna break your fucking neck Billy."

He is looking up at me, so matter of fact, that sometimes I wonder what's inside him. If I open him up, what would come out of it? Blood and guts? Or a white, pasty thing like the cockroaches have inside?

I push the though away and sit by his side. He fires the joint and takes a long drag before he passes on to me. I hold the smoke for as long as I can before I feel my lungs about to explode, and then I release it.

Laying on the ratty blanket, I let the sweet moke slowly flow from my lungs and watch the leaves swing on the branches above, the filtering sunshine, the bickering little birds, close my eyes and listen to the water flowing in the river, listen to the wind in the branches, and the voices in my head go silent for a moment.

The air, dry and hot  is sticking on my naked shoulders and I feel the sweat dripping from my brow.

I open my eyes and he is looking at me. That insistent, prolonged look he sometimes gives me, only when we are alone, only when we are drunk or high or both.

It's a look of a thousand promises. Of desert winds and starry skies. Of fame and riches, of songs and records.

Somehow I believe in his dreams, and let them be mine. Other times I wonder if is only my own dreams I see reflected on his eyes, and his own are not there, they are empty, because they are full of mine.

Maybe if I pull away, his eyes would fill with his own dreams. Then the thought of it makes me sick, and I convince myself that his dreams are there.

His, mine. To take. To take the world together.

I prop myself on my elbows and he passes the joint back to me. I inhale again, and when, again my lungs are about to burst, I pull his lips to mine and blow on them.

We lay together, shoulder to shoulder, not speaking.

Tomorrow he will leave.

And someday, someday I will follow.

Tbc.