This is the fourth part of A Story in Several Parts, by Matthew de Kersaint Giradeau, the previous parts can be further down the page. (The painting is by George Shaw and is taken from here;http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk/online_shop/ikon_catalogues/artists_monographs/item/what_i_did_this_summer/image/806/ )
After school Alex wants to go back to the woods but he doesn't know why. It is dry on the cement but the air smells wet. It feels louder than it did then. It was quiet then. He heads off the path into the woods, treading on the damp newspapers, dumped by the older children who are meant to deliver them to all the houses on the estate. Chris delivers the free papers for a while, and Alex does it for him one week because Chris goes away with his family. It is the Christmas edition of the paper and Alex has to put twenty different leaflets into it, along with a sample of washing powder. By the time he begins delivering the papers it is getting dark and his parents end up helping him finish it.
When he is fourteen Chris begins working for JJB sports for £2.75 an hour. Alex doesn't have a job until he is sixteen, and gets paid a better wage than that. While Alex is working in his first job, he sleeps with Chris' girlfriend and the two never speak again. While they are both still at the local college, Alex and Chris make sure they don't drink in the same pubs. Then Chris joins the RAF and Alex leaves for university.
Alex stands next to the two trees laid on top of each other. He wonders if they are dead. They are not dead. Their roots are still in the ground, just like the big tree, which carries on growing for years after it falls down. Alex climbs up on the bottom tree. Its branches are stuck in the mud and the moss on the trunk comes away easily on Alex's shoes. He kicks at the bark and that comes away easily too. Alex pushes the top tree with has hands. His hands are cold now, he doesn't have any gloves. He does have gloves but they are too big and they make his hands look funny so he doesn't wear them. His mum asks him why he doesn't wear his gloves and he says he doesn't need to.
The top tree is a bit unsteady, but seems like it might hold Alex's weight. He puts one foot on the trunk and it immediately slides away which makes Alex jump like when you are trying to go to sleep and everything is warm and your eyes are closed but then you wake up like some giant hand has bounced you and all your muscles made you fly for a second. It is the moss, it comes away too easily. Alex tells the moss to fuck itself and starts kicking it away. The bark on this tree is stronger, it must be older, or the bottom tree must have been rotting before it fell. Maybe that is why it fell. Or maybe the top tree brought it down. Or they both fell perfectly together like soft bodies with too many arms.
He kicks down with his heel and it seems sturdier. Alex clambers up. He is careful, but he knows he won't fall. He is on the top tree. It is not high off the ground, but Alex is methodical as he pulls himself up, rising from the trunk in slow motion. Alex stands on the tree and it is quiet like it was this morning when he was pissing and all he could hear was piss. Now all he can hear is his own breath, which is beginning to mist. It is beginning to get dark.
Alex whisks some spit around the front of his mouth with his tongue. He pushes it through his teeth and turns his head down. The spit comes out slowly, like orange juice spit, or toothpaste spat as you ride bike in the morning when you haven't rinsed your mouth out. It hits one of the lower branches and makes a satisfying splat noise. It is not solid but it could be. It sounds like it is.
Alex brings his penis out and starts to wank it. His penis isn't really hard and he isn't really that excited so it doesn't work. His fingers just pull at the flaccid penis. He lets it fall down on to his trousers, then he turns his hips backwards and forwards and it flops from one side to the other, straight out. He starts to get an erection and just as he is thinking about using his hands again, the tree makes a huge cracking noise that goes on forever, but also in that forever Alex loses his footing and slips from the top tree. He falls shoulder first through the branches, which hit him in the face and whip his arms and spin his body round so that he lands on the trunk of the bottom tree. His coccyx takes the entire weight of his fall but he doesn't cry out. He gets up straight away, slipping on the leaves and mud but then his vision goes black and he sits down, unconscious by the time he leans his head back on the tree. Parallel visions spin in his head. A steam roller that pushes everything down into a gap that won't fit. A ball of rubber so heavy and red.
Alex wakes up with his flaccid penis laying on his leg and a headache and cuts. He doesn't even have to look to know that he is bleeding everywhere, he can feel his clothes sticking to his blood. He is so cold, but a bead of sweat drips into his eye. He brings his heavy arm up and wipes his forehead which is covered in sweat. He blinks hard and sees that he has semen on his trousers. This panics him but he cannot move yet.
Alex manages to get a tissue out of his pocket and wipes away the semen. He folds up the tissue and keeps it. He doesn't know why. He supposes if someone found it and knew he had been here then they might know that he had wiped semen from his trousers. Alex gets up and walks home with a limp. He forgets about the trees and the cuts are not as bad as all that. His headache is bad though, it is still there when he goes to bed and he feels sick the next morning.
No comments:
Post a Comment