An excerpt from A Gentle Choke

I am in a tree house. It is late to a child of twelve, so not really late at all. But the sun has set and with the setting of the sun little urchins of small town suburbia take off their daytime masks of obedience and reveal to the lucent moon the true pagan heart of the young. Spiders weave in the shadows then wait with tireless patience for their next meal…I see a furrisome leggy beast of the night zip across the rotted boards and try not to look concerned. If I look concerned the others will notice and no doubt pick the thing up and try to put it down my shirt in a laughing torture. It’s tiny really, in comparison, but alighted in my innocent blue eyes it is gargantuan enough to raze Tokyo…and it bites…what if it carries a deadly poison? I don’t want to die so young in a rotting spider-infested tree house.

My degenerate companions are flipping through some Hustler magazines. Dave smiles and laughs, pointing to a young girl that looks as old as sin itself to us and says something derogatory to give effect that he knows all about what is happening in the picture. We laugh evilly in response, as if to say ‘oh yeah, I know what you mean, man…I totally know’ but of course none of us did. As far as we were concerned, when it came to sex, we had lost our virginity soon after punching our way out of the womb, cigarette dangling from blue lips and a bottle of Molson Export in hand, the other tiny wrinkled paw slapping the nurses a*s…similar to the way we will die too I’m guessing.

We have a six-pack between the three of us, Dave, Shawn, and myself, and by the time we’re done we will be quite drunk. Shawn’s legs are pulled up close to his chest. He’s only fourteen but already over six-feet tall. Dave’s Mohawk shakes as he twists his head at the sound of voices from below. Shawn and I peer out of a hole in the wall. It’s Dave’s older brother and a few of his friends, including a short but sleek girl with large breasts and sexy crooked teeth. I am instantly obsessed. My mind is filled with juvenile romanticism. As a dying man sees his life repeated a young boy will see his life laid out ahead of him. Chance and still unknown intrusions and obstacles, hidden paths revealed and the chaotic whim of nature are the only things that keep us from possessing a true psychic ability. But I believe that an obsession is the mind manifesting biologic connection through desirous pictures of what could be. In an instant I see our wedding, children, special moments that were ethereal before the muse takes its form in my reality. Where do these messages come from, these movie clips that spur us into action or debilitating self-conscious inaction? Inherent? Learned? Whatever it is I praise and laud it for its symphonic prose that can leave life itself stale as a soggy cracker if it is not followed and redeemed, held to be real…we must follow the dream or be wrung of existence like an old shirt in the wash…our minds bless us with possibilities. It’s much too easy to sleep on your dreams than to live them awake…

Reviews

[Shannon]

This was lively and descriptive. I this some paragraph breaks might be helpful to the reader.

A few words don't make sense to me, short, with large breasts, but sleek? Do these boys say breasts? Since it is present tense, it's important the words be true to his young self. Would he say 'juvenile romanticism'?

The set up though feels authentic and the birth made me laugh. This young man goes with the crowd, but is aware of how ridiculous that makes them all at times, a great characteristic for a narrator.

[Matching Socks]

This was incredibly good, I loved it.
I've had similar experiences, minus the beer.
Girls were maybe a bit tamer but we had a fort and mags too.
It's natural to be curious. I thought I'd be married with 3 kids at 21. Because that just seemed so old...

[JC]

Really, thank you Ana, I'm stoked you like it and you could relate. I remember wandering the late night streets as a boy, hoping there would be a girl wandering too, if I could go back in time I'd sit outside your Fort listening and absorbing all the hidden wonders. And man...it seemed like there was porn mags everywhere when I was a kid.

[Matching Socks]

Yeah I don't about you but I grew up an inner city child so all you had to do (if you didn't have older brothers) was get one of the boys to swipe one from the old school barber shops the old Greek/Italian men hung out at. We looked for different reasons though, curiosity about developing female figures, and the odd educational bits that 'slipped in'. I bet the Internet really takes the mystery and thrill out of it for those teens today.

[JC]

I grew up in the sooty streets of Hamilton then into the hay fields and junkyards of Fort erie, so had an urban rural upbringing. I don't know what is better, now or then, I'm nostalgic for our era

[Heather N]

I am in love with your use of diction. The rhythm of your words and sentence structure is wonderful. After reading your work silently, I read it aloud. Each line has a wonderful flow to it I could not help but feel that each sentence was weighed with the depth of the ocean, forever caught in the ebb and flow of time. The image painted in this piece is timeless, one of the many painful struggles of being human.

I am very impressed by your work, thank you for sharing it

[JC]

Dam...thank you, I really appreciate your kind words...dam...speechless.