Sunday, January 24, 2010

Fort



---For David Benjamin Piery---


“Honey!” Said Mrs. Jones from the top of the stairs. She used to be a jovial sort with jade green eyes and always wore a matching jade green jacket. Her jellying chins jutted out from below her jaw and her jet black hair jogged down and framed her face. The thick mascara on her eyelashes gave them an appearance of jagging something, perhaps the air. Perhaps her eyelashes were javelins. Her joints were getting stiff and she was always jonseing for something- a new life or maybe just a new car to jounce and jaunt through countryside roads on. Joy was leaking out of her face and you could tell if you looked at photographs from the past decade. The jubilation that was fading fast, judging by the jumble of stress wrinkles that had jumped up on and junked her complexion, was almost gone. The jury is still out on this, though, for she juxtaposes herself in moments of jocosity. She was no jackleg, mind you, just ‘losing it’. This journey to ‘losing it’ all started, she said in a jangling voice, when she got married. Her least favorite letter, she told her workout partner Jill whilst jiggling in a jazzercising class, was the letter ‘J’. Because that’s the first letter of my damned last name, she said from her janky jalopy of a body, now that I’m married. This life is a damned jail cell, she said to Jill who appeared to be suffering from jaundice. After class she clambered into her Jeep and drove home to her ‘jerry-built’ house that her husband built to prepare Jenni-o turkey and jello to Janet Jackson songs while her husband Jerry munched on turkey jerky. Jesus, she would say, some people are so annoying! That would be me right now, I jest, I jest. I will jettison this act starting now.

“Honey!” Mrs. Jones said a little louder. Her first name was Sally. She bent over the stairs a little bit for this second attempt.
“What?” Carried up a voice in response.
“What are you boys doing down there?”
“Hangin’ out.”
Hangin’ out, Sally said to herself. She sighed and turned away and headed back to the kitchen. An orange light spilled in through a small rectangular window that was built to stare out of while plodding around the kitchen. It was just the right height- you only had to look ahead. Sally opened a cupboard and took out a mug. The outside said ‘World’s Greatest Lover…’ and the bottom on the inside said ‘…Sometimes”. The white porcelain cup warmed up instantly as she poured some aging coffee onto the punch line resting on the bottom of the cup. She sat down in the dining room at the corner of the table and wrapped her small hands around the small mug. After the tingling sensation went away she picked up the phone.
“Jill?”

After a solid hour of building and crawling, the two were finally worn down enough to stop for a second of rest. Sweating and breathing a slight heavier than normal, they exited the labyrinth that they created and climbed up on the only functional pieces of furniture left in the basement.They sat on the two chairs looking out over a mass assembly of blankets, couches, chairs, pool sticks and whatever usable item imaginable for the completed purpose.
            “Water?”
            “Yes.”
            The two rose and headed up the stairs, making for the kitchen.

            Sally twirled the cup in a circle slowly on the dining room table with a finger on her free hand. A phone was smushed between her hair, ear, cheek and her left hand.
            “They’re downstairs again.” She sighed.
            “No, it’s not a problem, they just always make a mess, you know? And I like to keep a clean house.” Sally said into the phone sandwich.
            “I just don’t like having to keep after them like this, you know? They should know by now.”
            “Boys will be boys.” Said a voice through the phone.
            “And they are boys.”
            “Can you send mine home before it gets too late? He needs to be up in the morning. I can’t have him getting all razzed up and staying up until God knows when after I fall asleep.” Said the voice.
            Two children came tearing into the dining room, yelling indiscriminately.
            “Is that who I think it is?” Asked the voice through the phone, speaking up to catch Sallys ear.

            In the kitchen two fathers and two sons were drinking water. The sons, who made it to the kitchen first, finished their water and bolted out of the kitchen as quickly as they came.
“Brett, getting laid off was the best idea you’ve ever had.” Said Jerry.
“It wasn’t my idea, man, but I agree. Freedom never felt so… so government funded.”
“Lucky man, lucky man.” Said Jerry.
“Well,” Said Brett in a high toned reply. “not really. I got paid more when I was actually working but the, uh, paid time off and what have you is pretty nice.”
“That’s what I meant. You’re lucky for that.” Said Jerry, making for the basement.

            “We’re going to have to put this all back.” Said Brett once they got to the bottom.
            “This is the family room.” Said Jerry, knowing what Brett was getting at. “And she’s never down here. So as far as the rest of us are concerned, it’s not her room. It’s everybody else's. She says it’s like you’re part of the family so it’s part your room too, Brett. You, me, the kids, everyone that comes down here. Not her, though, she just likes to mope around the kitchen these days and talk on the phone with her jazzbo friend Jill.”
            “She just needs something to do. That’s what Jill tells me.”
            “Yeah? She has that class.” Said Jerry.
            “I mean you should take her out sometime for once. I guess Sally complains about how you don’t do that anymore. I don’t know, I’m just going off of what Jill says.”
            “That won’t make her stop overreacting about stuff like the basement being a fort.” Said Jerry.
            “Yeah, Jerry, but you know Sally.” Said Brett.
            “Uh huh. She’s a fistful, alright.”
            “Mmhm.” Said Brett.
            “Well I suppose the kids won’t wanna do it.” Started Jerry after a pause.
            “You couldn’t expect them to put this all back anyway.”
            “Mmhm.”
            “They’ll be happy if we leave it up.” Said Jerry.
            “Mmhm.” Said Brett.

            “Jerry needs to shape up, Jill. You know what I mean. He can’t keep acting like this.” Said Sally.
            “He acts like a child, Jill.” Said Sally as two sets of feet tromped into the room loudly and stopped. Sally looked up.
            “Mom can we go play in the fort?” Said Will, nine years old and two feet in front of his best friend, Marc. Marc was Brett’s son. Brett and Jerry were best friends, too. Like father like son.
            “The fort?” Said Sally, leaning forward.
            “Yeah…Marc and me wanna go play in it. Can we mom?”
            “When did you guys make a fort?” Said Sally, neglecting the phone that was making Charlie Brown noises at her.
            “Dad n’ Brett made it.” Said Will.
            “And we wanna go play in it.” Chipped in Marc.
            “What in the name of Christ Jesus of Nazareth?” Said Sally and she set the phone down on the table. The phone sounded like it was saying ‘wah wah wah waa-waa.’
            Sally stormed down the stairs and looked at everything her and Jills husbands had done to the family room. Brett and Jerry looked over at her. Brett gave a sideways glance to Jerry, a sort of ‘I told you so’ look.
            “What did you do to this room?” Sally barked.
            “I, uh, is this a trick question?” Asked Jerry in return, giving a sideways grin to Brett. Brett hit Jerry in the side.
            “It’s a fort.” Said Jerry.
            “You’re grown men. You’re forty-three. You don’t need to be tearing apart my family room and turning it into a fort.” Said Sally, heatedly.
            “Sally, you’re a grown woman. You can settle down about this.” Said Jerry, coolly.
            “You will be staying with Brett tonight.”
            “Sally.” Said Jerry.
            “I mean it!” Screamed Sally.
            “Let’s talk about this upstairs.” Said Jerry. Sally expressed an ambiguous level of odium when she gave out a loud ‘Ugh’ and headed up the stairs with quick and heavy feet. Jerry followed and so did Brett. Will and Marc waited for them to disappear up the stairs and shot straight into the gigantic fort.

            With Marc fighting off sleep in the backseat, Brett and Jerry drove away from the Joneses residence.
            “I’ll bring you back in the morning. You know I don’t have anything better to do.” Said Brett. “Jill is making me wake up early to go job hunting, so you’ll be my first and probably most important stop of the day.”
            “Can you believe it?” Said Jerry. “Unbelievable. I just can’t believe it.”
            “Give her time to cool down and you guys will be fine.” Said Brett. “Just fine.”

            “Unbelievable.” Said Sally into the phone. “Men. You just can’t change em’, can you, Jill? How do you put up with Brett?” The voice on the other end of the phone said something but Sally wasn’t really listening.

            “Unbelievable.” Said Jerry in the car. “Women. You just can’t change em’, can you, Brett? How do you put up with Jill?” Brett said something from the drivers seat but Jerry wasn’t really listening.

2 comments:

  1. I should be sleeping, but I'm not. I read this instead.
    Which was interesting. Friendly people you've got bouncing around in your mind there... haha.
    でも、いいよ。 もっと書いて、がんばってください。^_^

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  2. hmmmmm,, its really descriptive, and theres alot of compare and contrast in the 1st paragraph which is cool.. I like it :)

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