by trentm32 » 3/12/2005, 12:02 am
It's pushing midnight here, and I need to get some sleep. I've only gotten as far as th rewrites go, so check it...
FALLEN LEAVES// NEXT CHUNK// RE-WRITTEN-ish//
“What can I help you with?” he cheerily asked. “We’re looking for an apartment,” I maturely replied—trying my best to act like I had the slightest clue as to how all of this real-world stuff was done. “We have a couple of openings; a one bedroom and a two.” “Can we see the one?” Jules chimed, gripping my arm tightly between her sweet, delicate hands. The old man lifted to his feet; “Right this way, miss,” he gave me a polite smile as he walked past me to lead the way.
We went up the stairs to the second floor, to a tiny apartment in the middle of the building. It had beaten down hardwood floors, and the walls were a sterile type of beige. The view from the small window in the living room was of nothing more than the adjoining building; but that didn’t matter. The place was small but airy—similar to a loft, but somehow not. The kitchen and living room ran together like one awkward room; separated by nothing more than the hardwood floor of the living space slowly fading into teal tile. We walked around the empty little abode for what seemed like forever. It all seemed to be in slow-motion. Like I was watching a movie, like there was an up-beat, montage soundtrack playing in the background for the duration. The single, small bedroom in the place was barely large enough to fit a full-size bed and dresser. “We’ll take it!” Jules exclaimed.
I threw her a shocked glance. “It’s alright; Aunt Wanda gave me some money to get us on our feet.” “Ohh…” was all I could say. Of all the things I expected in that day, the most I ever imagined was the slim possibility that we may find a place. The thought of actually getting one had never really hit me. As we walked back to the office, I was in such a daze that I didn’t come back to reality until we were seated in that small office, and the elderly landlord adopted a serious tone to gain my attention. “Now, y’all seem like good kids. Newlyweds?” “Yes, sir,” Jules quickly shot back. “High-school sweethearts,” I slowly added. “Well, good for y’all. Anyways, that apartment’s been empty for a while now, and I just hate to leave the thing sitting there, empty. That’s why I’m gonna let you guys take this deal a month at a time—no lease.” I solemnly nodded. “Thank you, sir; we really appreciate it.” He just nodded back to me. “All I need from you guys in this and next months rent, and a hundred and fifty dollar security deposit.” Jules pulled open a little wallet from her purse. “Got it.” She covered the deposit and rent with the money Wanda had given her. We signed the papers, and shook hands with the old man. As he handed Jules the keys, he leaned over and shook my hand. “You can move in tomorrow, have a good day, kids.” I had a house. We had a house. I was renting a house of my own, living with a beautiful girl. Young and in love—in that moment I was invincible.
…everyone here's just trying,
and looking now I finally see
that that the best that I can do,
is the best I'll ever be…
As we walked out, I looked to the face of my old watch. “My God, it’s only two ‘o clock.” “Let’s go pack!” Jules exclaimed. “Right now?” I jokingly asked. “Of course, right now! I say we arrive in the morning at the crack of dawn; no later than eight…” she cheerily rambled on like that for a few more minutes, happily dangling two copies of the front door key in the air. She took one off, and put it in her pocket; then handed me the other copy. She grabbed my arm, “Come on; let’s go get our stuff together!” “Do we even have any stuff?” I chimed, as I chased after her.
We skipped all the way back to Wanda’s apartment, and once we got there we grabbed some old suitcases from the closet and loaded up the few things we had accumulated. I had my duffel bag I’d brought with me from home, as well as a small luggage back with whatever new clothes and things I had picked up on the way. It was kind of strange looking at those two bags. My old duffel, the one I’d gotten for my fifteenth birthday (it seemed like a million lifetimes ago, now) was filled with my old toothbrush, half a stick of deodorant; things like that. Things of necessity, the things you need no matter what. The things that are always true. It also housed my old discman, some CDs I’d had since last summer: the things that once made me who I was. Out of reflex, I rubbed my fingers across the small necklace I’d been wearing for years.
One bag filled with everything I’d been, everything I could ever remember being. The other stuffed to the brim with new things. New revelations, new ideas; new clothes. A book of poetry I’d picked up along the way, keepsakes from New York. A beaten journal filled with all the things I’d figured out since I left home. I put it in the bag with the new things—it seemed to be the only thing worthy of making the transition. Which bag was really me? Everything I’d ever been, or all the things I was becoming? I suppose I must fall somewhere in-between the two. Like a huge suitcase with both bags stuffed inside.
Jules had about twice as much luggage as I had. We stacked our things together, side-by-side, at the door. Everything sat there on edge, just waiting for whatever would come next. I clapped my hands together as a sign of completion. “Hungry?” she cheerily asked me? I just smiled. “Me? I’m famished.” The day was still shining bright, so we decided to walk to the diner a few blocks down. Once there, our conversation turned to back and forth storytelling, and somehow drifted to the details of my leave from my old home. My leave from my old life. “…it broke my heart to tell Cassie I was leaving, you know? Did you ever have a friend like that, Jules? Someone you trusted entirely, knew everything about them. Absolutely everything. Anyways, her birthday was coming up a few days after I took off. I’d already gotten her a present, this really pretty watch. She was always a meticulous person, you know, and we always joked about how she needed a good watch so she could keep up with everything; so she could know when everything was going down. Anyways, when I was leaving for the bus station, I snuck back into her room and left her this watch on her bed. I still felt terrible, though. I just…I just left her. It absolutely killed me getting out of that car and onto that bus…”
I could feel a tear beginning to form behind my eye. “And, when I got out, she asked me a question. ‘Alex, what is it you actually think you’re going to find out there?’” I tried to jokingly sigh. “I still haven’t figured that one quite out, yet.” When I looked up to meet Jules eyes, the shining blue seemed to cut straight through me. They didn’t even seem to notice the small tear creeping down my cheek. It was as if she were seeing me for the first time. As if all the other looks, all the other times she’d ever smiled at me were a precursor to this moment. This real, true smile. “You found me,” she meekly added, as she held my eyes for as long as I could possibly keep them open before I had to blink. All I could do was smile. We stayed there at that restaurant talking for hours. We stayed there until the darkness, and the doors, closed in around us.
The next morning, I woke up to Jules leaning over me. “I love you,” was her greeting to my awakening; that and a sweet little kiss on the nose. I beamed. That’s a great way to wake up. I bounced off the couch, and caught her on the lips, “Ditto.” Once we were dressed and ready to go, I asked “How are we going to get all this stuff over there?” “Easy—we’ll take Aunt Wanda’s car. She’s out of town for a few days, and she left me the keys,” Jules replied, jangling the large, hoop key ring in the air. As we walked out of the building, I felt this strange since of longing. Wanda’s house had almost become a home to me. I was actually beginning to feel comfortable there.
We stumbled down the stairs with all our bags, and made our way out toward the parking area. With all our things piled into the trunk and backseat of Wanda’s old car, we pulled out to drive, for the first time, to our very own home. It only took a few minutes to get there by car, and within a matter of moments we were parked at the front of the building. We sat there for a long while, just taking in the scene. The sun seemed to be shining even brighter that day than it had the preceding one. The rays scorched the old brick housing our new home. I finally climbed out of the low passenger seat, and felt the warm sunlight bathe me over as I shut the door. I pulled out my trooper sunglasses and put them on, to keep the burning light from my eyes.
We both loaded our shoulders up as heavy as they could hold, and made our way upstairs to our apartment. It only took one short trip, and after a few minutes we were in. We stacked our things neatly in the corner of the living room, and that was it. We were in. As I stood there looking at this empty space, I began to wonder how we would ever fill it. How could we ever fill all of this emptiness, all of this space? After a few minutes we carried Wanda’s bags back to her house. While we were there, Jules picked up some old blankets and pillows that had been stacked in the hall closet. “I don’t think she’ll miss these,” Jules chimed, as she pulled them down off of the shelf. As she was digging through the closet, she found an old black and white TV in its bottom. “Yay!” she yelped. “Alright!—we’re living in the nineteen fifties,” I jokingly added. With the beat-up little TV under my arm, and Jules’ arms filled with blankets, we made our way back toward the car.
Once we dropped the blankets and TV off at the house, at our house, we drove back to Wanda’s apartment building to drop her car back off. We took our time walking back to our place. Once we walked out of Wanda’s building, I started counting the steps to our house. When I got to a hundred and thirty-two, I looked up to the sky and spotted a single white wisp of cloud. As I watched it drift slowly across the ocean of blue, I lost count. We arrived at the door to our building just as I lost the fading cloud to the sun.
While I fiddled with the bunny ear antenna (actually a bent clothes hanger) on the old black and white television, Jules spread a few layers of blankets out in the floor of the bedroom, to pad the hardness of the wood. As a signal began to break through the static, I could see the sunlight bouncing from the building across from ours begin to fade. “We did a lot today,” Jules said, as she walked up and put her hand on my shoulder.
"When looking up there, I just felt whole, like I belonged. Like one day I too would shine my most brilliant. Sitting there also made me think about sitting through services at my little country church back home. About that never-changing congregation of the same sixty-seven people and everyone has known you since before you were born. Now, out here in the real world, everything just seemed more vivid than when I used to sit in that little pew. That pew that was now so, so far away from where I was. I feared I had somehow left God behind there, too. I feared he was somehow just sitting there, saving my seat on the fifth pew from the front row, just waiting on me to come back. I left so quickly, I worried that he may not have noticed I was gone. And, now, I’m just too far away to find. So he’s just sitting there, patiently waiting on me to come back. I closed my eyes and prayed a moment. I hoped more than anything that he could still hear me." -an excerpt from my novella,
A Sea of Fallen Leaves.
<a href="http://www.soundthesirens.com">SoundTheSirens.com</a>
