Daily writing exercise, 750words.com
fiction by Jason Edwards
Sits on chair in his hawaiian shirt and his cargo shorts and his birkenstocks. Got the shirt on a trip to miami and the shorts in a department store and the birkenstocks are actual keens but he calls them birkenstocks. The wind moves some of what’s left of his hair around on his head and the sun is threatening one of his toes where its sneaking past the shade of the porch. His clothes are too big for him. His nose is too big for his face. People think he frowns too much but that’s just the way he looks. He’s old, older than the kids on the beach over there, some of them just about ready to not be kids anymore, to make the kind of mistakes that lock you in until everything’s used up and you’re left to sit on a chair in a shirt and shorts and sandals and sun and wind.
He tries to think about things but he doesn’t try very hard. There’s a gin and tonic melting next to him. That wife. An honest to god mumu. Go way back, to wars and barracks and kids who can get ready at reveille before the others because they don’t shave yet, tell one of them they’d be on a porch on a chair in mexico and an old broad in a mumu would give them a weak gin and tonic, and all but one of them would laugh and start talking about movie stars and their bosoms. One of them might sort of smile and go back to cleaning his gun. Guess what. Dead on the shore the next day, too bad.
His names is carl or peter or maybe jackson. He’s not sure. He tries to remember but he doesn’t try very hard. There’s a taste on his lips, salt, and tonic, and weak gin. He looks at the glass. It’s half empty. It used to be half full but he’s not too worried about it.
There’s a screech and a laugh and one of the kids is running after one of the other kids. One of them’s holding a brassiere and the other one’s holding her bosoms. That’s what it looks like from here. They’ll go to school and learn why that’s not okay to do that, get degree and jobs and have kids of their own and teach them why that’s not okay to do that, and then their kids will do it too. Carl or peter or jackson doesn’t have any kids. If he did, he’d teach them something else. Fishing, maybe. He’s never gone fishing.
Grew up in the city, in a building, went to school in a building, joined the military, and there was so much outdoors to deal with, no wonder people lost their minds and shot guns at each other. Explosions and other loud noises, waiting for the next artillery barrage because at least it would drown out the sound of tomlinson over there, screaming his guts out. There’s a joke there, since tomlinson’s guts where all over his lap and the more he screamed, the more guts there were.
Nothing to it put to ignore the smell of your own shit, wait for enough people to die that it was safe to crawl over to a CO, get on a boat, try not to look at clocks. Because then you’re squinting at sunlight bouncing off of buildings again, a bunch of buildings all gathered around a patch of grass, a pretty girl with gaps between her teeth in a skirt and a sweater, a beer in the student union, some fun in the back of a borrowed car, a cap n gown, a suit n tie, a trip to Vegas, a job looking at pieces of paper.
And then a hawaiin shirt and a pair of cargo shorts and birkenstocks. A mumu and a weak gin and tonic. A bunch of kids in the distance. A sunburned toe. Carl or peter or jackson tries to think of something to tell them if they decide to put their brassieres back on and respectfully approach the old man with the wispy hair and the giant nose and the more or less permanent frown on his face. But he doesn’t try too hard.
There’s another gin and tonic next to him, or maybe it’s the same one, or it might have been the one from before. When he was 17, he knew, someday, he’d be sipping G n Ts by the beach and living the good life. Somehow it happened anyway.