Note: Hey, we're still alive. Well I've been super busy at work and Snake welcomed in another offspring. I thought I'd pound out a free writing to get things back on track. I plan on posting my review of Snake's CDs in the next couple of days and probably getting back to the albums next week. The following is some random thing that popped into my head and I wrote as it came. That's free writing for ya.
"Be happy with nothing" – Check Your Head, BuckCherry
Karl's shoulders tensed, squeezing against his neck trying to pop his head with the pressure. What was that damned rhyme, he thought? The one he sang with Judy and Nancy and Suggs before shooting a dandelion off its stem with his thumb when they was all kids playing at Howards Park across from the processing plant that had broken windows and the smell of three-day old farts.
"Grandpa, why are you doing that?" The girl pulled on his arm. They were standing next to a busy street where cars sped and dodged indolent pedestrians. He looked down at the girl thinking she resembled her mother. He wiped at his mouth never acknowledging the layer of mucus and blood that lathered his skin. If he could only roll his shoulders, maybe get a massage. Yes, a massage would be heaven. A spiral of tension swirled in his shoulder blades. He was sure his face had to be turning blue.
Like Nancy's had that time she stayed too long under the water at the creek that ran below the old mill. They would swim – him and Nancy. Sometimes Suggs would come too, but never Judy. She claimed to fear the water on account she could not swim. Suggs told him that Judy dared not show her legs. They was bruised, Suggs said, all the way up to the hips and probably farther. Judy's papa was a nasty man.
"Grandpa! Grandpa!" The girl was screaming now. Why won't she stop screaming? He was on the ground now. When did that happen?
The damn rhyme though. Somewhere in it was a 'queen.' They had sang it in the field next to the creek. No, that's not right it was the park. With Judy, who was crying and crying with the yellow pedals pinched between her fingers.
That's not right. Damn old memories mixing themselves up. What the hell was he thinking about Judy anyhow? She'd been gone for 70 years. He couldn't even see her face. Stupid old men and their minds, he thought.
The girl was sobbing now. He didn't hear her.
Posts
2 comments:
I feel like there are a few layers to this story. I think I get the first few but the deeper one is sort of boiling my brain over. Like I have to figure out exactly what is happening.
He wiped at his mouth never acknowledging the layer of mucus and blood that lathered his skin
That line is giving me some fits. I can't quite understand the mucus part. I totally missed it the first time I read this even.
Then I come back to the lyric and feel like I should just enjoy the story and be happy with the nothing (or very little) you have given us to decipher. It really intrigues me.
I maybe should have used the word "hand" instead of "skin." Maybe.
I am going to resist the urge to peel this apart for you. For one thing, I don't really understand all of it or how it all fits. It was a very stream conscious piece.
I've really been fixed on the lyric myself since writing it. One – in how it relates to what I wrote. I think there are a couple of ways to look at that. Second – it's a lyric that until I pulled it out of the context of the song I had never thought about. Now, I keep coming up with different ways of interpreting those four words when put together. It's really a line that could mean a lot of different things.
Post a Comment