River Teeth

Being a Man Isn't Everything

June 10, 2015

The squealing of rusty swings was too much. Smells of chlorine and sunscreen, clouds slowly shifting, blanketing all of it, made him queasy. Stan left the picnic table with his bike, wheels tick-tick-ticking through the wet grass. People stared at him. Family clusters surrounding barbeques, blowing bubbles and playing 80s rock on their Bluetooth speakers. His shorts were too short, he knew. And his baggy, sleeveless tee-shirt with slits down the sides showed more than they probably cared to see. Maybe they thought his sunglasses were queer- he lost his own and borrowed Sharon's. Maybe they thought it was weird to see a 16-year-old with a gold Walkman. What a way to detach yourself from reality, they might think, they might whisper to their sisters, their cousins.

For Stan, he felt it brought him closer to realness. His phone was at home, stashed in a desk drawer with old notes that Kyle would pass to him during class. They would say things like Are you following this shit? Or you're really cute and it's unfair that we have to behave in public and Stop being homophobic and pay attention to me damn it. He watched the way puddles swallowed his shoes as he walked, studied the sizes and shapes of bug-bitten leaves, children eating frozen yogurt on the sidewalk.

(im a part of all of this)

He smiled to himself. That is such a hippie thing to think.

Even as his tires slipped in a puddle and he fell sideways, nearly splitting his hip, he still felt a part of things. Propping himself up and looking down at his bloody knee and muddied thighs.

(this is real. im real. yes. i dont feel real but i must be)

He couldn't call anyone and he didn't need to.

He was fine. He felt fine.

When Kyle opened his front door to the dirt and blood baptized Stan, his eyes widened with concern, then his eyelids lowered when he saw Stan's face, grinning, arms open like a Cabbage Patch doll.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked, grinning a little himself.

"What hasn't?" Stan wrapped his bare arms Kyle's neck and kissed him, covering both of them in mud.

"Hi, my name is Kyle Marsh."

He would cut the daisy from his throat if he could.

He stood in a bare, well-lit room with black paneling and a whiteboard. "I don't have a major role in mind. I'd actually prefer to be a background person if you don't mind. I brought a sonnet-" he reached into his pocket.

"Actually, we'd like you to read from this," the director, Brandi, pushed a packet across the table with highlighted dialogue.

"Oh, yeah. Of course. That makes way more sense." He took it with clammy hands.

"You seem a little fidgety. It's okay if you're nervous," the assistant director, Sabina, spoke with a thick Russian accent, "It's just Shakespeare. It's not like he'll hear you if you mess up."

"But you guys will," Kyle smiled. "I'm a little nervous, yeah. Actually, I was wondering, do I need to stay for the whole three hours? It's not that I don't want to be here, it's just that... my friend is in the hospital. But I know he'd kick my ass if I didn't try this out."

"I'm sorry, what happened?" Brandi leaned in closer with his pencil across his lips. Spare no details around theatre people.

"He had a stress-induced heart attack. He's going to be okay though."