Fucking Righteous
i gravitated to him because he was tousled and wiry and bad, cruel. he had a reputation for being mean, but i never noticed. i would get off the bus after school, and run home to check in. inevitably, i’d be sitting in my driveway shortly after changing out of school clothes, and he’d appear around the corner on his bicycle, black t-shirt pressing against his slight frame as he pushed up the slope. every day.
we used to go out walking through the neighborhood at dusk, sometimes each with our own set of headphones, letting other kids’ parents wonder what we were up to.
in those days, letting your kids wander around the streets unsupervised wasn’t frowned upon.
i was self-involved, even as a young girl, so i never wondered what he was listening to as we walked, dirty, like two pairs of worn-thin boots.
we’d break from walking at the bright green park bench, our skinned knees grinning around bent joints like rubber hearts.
slouching over our headsets, collapsing onto each other like blades of cut grass in a sidewalk’s pile, one giant mass of legs and arms, whatever we were playing was the soundtrack to that moment, and it was different for each of us.
i imagine a lot of those moments i reflect on now aren’t at all like what he might remember, seeing as how i’d listen to 60 minutes of “gigantic”, and seeing as how his back pocket carried a crumpled and crushed casing for “back in black”;
and seeing as how i loved him.
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