On The Fence

There is a town, not unlike any town. And there is a street, light and lofty in manner, with a slightly noble disposition, often called, by all the handsome and pretty folk, anyway, Main Street, that weaves along through the center square, complete and lively, providing simple amusements for a place such as this. It was late August. All that sharp and ripe exuberance of earlier months was replaced by slow and heavy palpitations of the soul. You would see it in the children first, sad drunken faces recognizing the end of something great. You could find them at the ball-field late into the night yelling beneath the pockets of celestial things . And on days when the summer storms lay dormant, tucked into the valley, at the river, leaping from big old oak limbs into the blissful, cool water below, trying to save the thing they knew was lost.

So, at the far end of town, the bald and dying sun approaches from the West, beating its final breath across the blossom of tall golden hills, torching the feathery crowds of wildflowers that creep along and away toward the towering hordes of mystic mountains, illuminating, near the farm stand, a little ragged barn owned once by Mr. Jones, a house with a long iron fence that began on the street. This house, fashioned with regal blue shutters, a proud red door, even one of those grand wraparound porches, full of a perfect few rocking chairs, plush with velvet cushions, that you might find in photographs of plantation sprawls, was a beautiful thing in this kind of place.

It had been six years. The fence had been forgotten and needed a fresh wash of paint. On a morning not unlike any morning in late summer, the father sat in an open, but again forgotton kitchen, alone with all the shadows of poor lighting. The shadows slid along the warm cherry wood floor, up the curved back of a craftsman chair, into the dark trenches of his face. Pressing his fingers against the warm ink pretending to read the newspaper, drinking a now cool cup of coffee, he looked out the porthole window, poised above a tin sink trying to balance a tower of dirty things, as the sun began to birth again over the far-away mountains. There was never much 'home-cooking' anymore. But as the sun came up and through the window, further warming the room, he folded the paper neatly and placed it into a small pile on the corner of the kitchen table. At the door, on top of yesterday's paper were a pair of leather shoes. The shoes were old and worn and had a smell of use. He would often take walks in the morning, usually without a purpose, wandering across the field of the farmhouse, into the valley, never reaching the mysterious shouts he would hear barking from the mountains. But this day he had the thought of buying a nice cut of pork for dinner. Maybe some summer corn and a few potatoes too.

...this doesn't have a place yet. I am still working on the story..I will keep revising and writing over this post. (There is a young painter in town who does mighty fine work, at quite the price, hired by the boy's father, who was recommended to him when buying some pork at the market, lived on the same block, across the slow and quiet street, neighboring the nervous widow, once married to Old Man Jones, who stood, each night at her kitchen window with her husband's war binoculars, watching the boy, and the friends he had, get all dirty before dinner. Sometimes, she would storm out of the house, frail and skinny arms flailing about crazily in the air, yelling at them to 'clean up and get home for some supper!' All the children would laugh and blow wet tongues still running madly around the yard, some with there hands cupped over little mouths, others with cap guns strapped to tiny leather belts, playing Cowboys and Indians.)