Login   Sign Up 



 

The Boys of Summer

by LMJT 

Posted: 19 October 2014
Word Count: 697
Summary: Sorry I'm late uploading for this week's challenge. Thanks in advance for reading.


Font Size
 


Printable Version
Print Double spaced


Content Warning
This piece and/or subsequent comments may contain strong language.


It was the last thing I ever expected to happen.

As I had every year, I spent the summer of 1994 with Aaron Hockridge.

It was the last Saturday of the holidays and we were sitting in the treehouse that his dad had built for him when he was a kid and which, at 15, we were getting too big for.

The floor was a mismatch of jagged carpet offcuts and the walls were covered with posters of Manchester United.

There was a small Perspex window which gave a view to the Hockridge’s expansive garden and we had spent much of the summer watching Aaron’s older sister, Elise, sunbathing with her friend, Shelley.

Elise never took off her baggy Guns ‘n’ Roses t-shirt, but Shelley favoured a baby-blue bikini. I felt no attraction toward her at all, but there was a thrill in observing her actions.

Aaron and I were flicking through back issues of GamesMaster and Match of the Day magazines when he said, ‘Do you ever think about just moving away and starting again somewhere?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Like Claire Tucker,’ he said. ‘Just pack your bags and go.’

Claire Tucker was a girl we’d known in Year Seven. Her parents had divorced and when her mum was killed in a car crash, Claire moved to Australia to live with her dad.

‘I don’t think it was that simple for Claire Tucker,’ I said. ‘Why are you even thinking about that?’

Aaron sighed. ‘My parents are driving me fucking nuts, Chris.’

He lay back on the floor and rested his hands behind his head; his t-shirt rode up to show a flash of fine hair and a golden tan line above the waistline of his jeans.

‘What are they doing now?’ I asked.

Aaron’s parents had the strangest relationship I’d ever witnessed, on or off TV. They could be all over one another, glass of wine in one hand, each other’s faces in the other; or they could be screaming so loudly you could hear them at the end of the drive and wonder if calling for your best friend is a good idea (which you always decide it is).

‘She locked him out again last night,’ he said, staring at the ceiling. ‘He’d been at some work thing and she’d been drinking since I got back from yours. She kept shaking her head when she talked. So I went up to bed, just to get out of the way, and I must have fallen asleep ‘cos the next thing I knew, he was banging on the door..’

He paused and looked at me, as if waiting for approval to continue. I nodded and he went on.

‘I went out to the landing and Elise was at the front door. The key was in the lock so Dad couldn’t get in and mum was shouting at Elise, ‘’Don’t you dare let that bastard in. Don’t you fucking dare let him in.’’ And I-,’

He went silent again, covered his eyes with his hands and began to sob.

I didn’t know what to do. The only time I’d seen him cry before was when he’d gone over the handlebars of his BMX in the Safeway car park and the skin on his elbow went bloody and flappy.

Now, I reached out and rested my hand on his shoulder, half-expecting him to recoil from my touch, compose himself and start winding me up about my monumental losing streak in Mortal Kombat.

But he didn’t. He just lay there, crying with my hand on his shoulder until there was nothing left to cry and he sat up again, his eyes red and puffy and his face sallow and strange.

He held my gaze for a moment before I suddenly felt his lips on mine. I tasted the salt of his tears and felt the warmth of his hand on the back of my neck.

I didn’t resist and the kiss lasted for a few seconds until he pulled away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, then went back to reading Match of the Day as if nothing had happened.






Favourite this work Favourite This Author


Comments by other Members



euclid at 09:59 on 19 October 2014  Report this post
typo: seveb [seven]

And there's a change of tense here:

They could be all over one another, glass of wine in one hand, each other’s faces in the other; or they could be screaming so loudly you could hear them at the end of the drive and wonder if calling for your best friend [is] a good idea (which you always decide it [is]). 

words in square brackets should both be "was", I think.

It reads like the beginning of a much longer story. The reader will want to know what happened to these two boys.
You seem to imply that nothing else happened between them, but that's hard to believe.

I think it would work much better if the narrator was lusting after the girls (and not noticing fine hairs etc.) while Aaron showed no interest in  the opposite sex. Maybe. 

JJ 

<Added>

re tense change: I think the bit in brackets should read:

(which you always decide[d] it [was])




TassieDevil at 10:19 on 19 October 2014  Report this post
Nice one Liam,
The setting had a touch of Ray Bradbury to begin with but quickly became much more contemporary. I thought it was well paced and moved along well but the title kinda telegraphed the ending for me. Even so you portayed the kiss delicately and tastefully.. I felt the ending made sense by itself without any hint of a deeper further relationship.
Despite its laid back pace you packed a lot of themes into this, varying the emotions well.
Alan

LMJT at 10:27 on 19 October 2014  Report this post
Thank you both for your comments,

JJ - Thanks for the typo spot! I've now corrected. Yes, I know what you mean about the tenses. Still not sure what works best with that, so will have a think.

Also, great suggestion about the narrator being more interested in the girls. I hadn't even thought of that!

Alan - Good point about the title. It's a little blatant, isn't it?! Might change as and when this becomes a longer piece. 

Thanks again. 

Liam

Desormais at 12:06 on 19 October 2014  Report this post
I liked the hint of mutual attraction before the kiss, the bit about 'flash of fine hair and a golden tan line' which was very graphic, and also a good scene-setter.  An interesting moment in a friendship, and nicely captured.  I have a thing about sentences ending in prepositions so I hauled up short at:

"It was the last Saturday of the holidays and we were sitting in the treehouse that his dad had built for him when he was a kid and which, at 15, we were getting too big for."


I'd change to "and for which, at 15, we were growing too big."

Minor point though.  Good read.

Sandra


 

Bazz at 12:42 on 19 October 2014  Report this post
Hi Liam, this is a very tender coming of age piece, it leads you one way, expecting a violent anecdote, or something bawdy between the boys as they watch the girls, then takes you in a completely different direction. The tone is spot on, and the kiss, when it comes, feels very real. As JJ said, though, I think the reader knows this is the tip of the iceberg, and the violent homelife might overshadow this moment, as we were expecting more. Maybe the story needs to be longer, or perhaps you should trim the detail about the father, give us less a sense of impending violence, so the story belongs more to Aaron?

Bunbry at 16:19 on 19 October 2014  Report this post
Hi Liam, a nice understated story about growing up.  It reminded me a little of Stand By Me which is no bad thing.
I think you could perhaps leave out the paragraph starting 'Aaron's Parent's' without harming the story.

Nicely done.

euclid at 09:19 on 20 October 2014  Report this post
Hi Liam,

I agree totally with Nick about leaving out that paragraph.
It's unnecessary exposition in my view.

And on the sentence that ends in a preposition that
Sandra pointed out, I would rewrite it completely,
make it into 2 sentences, and say something like
At 15 it was a tight fit. in the second sentence (or something).


JJ


To post comments you need to become a member. If you are already a member, please log in .