Golden Hour Portion of "Hypocorism" (ROUND 1)
SCENT OF THE DAY: Nose Rest Day
*Let’s workshop this portion of a story about an adult-minor romance I have been working on behind the scenes--this portion describing one of the evenings he picks her up from her after-school activity
*Still quite rough but it is coming along!
Golden Hour Portion of “Hypocorism”
She had band practice the day after her return. He waited in the car. Parked onto the grass curb of a narrow side street, birdsong brightened the pages of his taped and torn Cormac. She would exit from the supply entrance, the cigarette-butt underbelly of her school, where trucks brought cafeteria supplies. To the door and the objects around it (milk crates stacked for tomorrow, graffitied dumpsters leaking upon older stains) his eyes rose from his book the normal number of times, at least for a human in an oxytocin halo: enough, however, to seem insane—and this, he felt, somehow held the secret to the anger his own writing triggered—if a running log of every lapse were to scroll by on a look-at-your-damn-self ticker tape. He did track every school girl that passed by the car. Of course he did. But this was out of habit, the habit men even in hospice do not break, rather than care. One could merely look at his own eyes to see that, whatever they followed (in this case ass and thighs), he looked through them into some an exclusive beyond.
Kinetic blue yawned into lazy pink as the Earth twirled toward night. He took a long inhale and held it like everything else seemed to, a paused feeling of synchronicity with squirrels and plants and even the busses of Baltimore Avenue—machine and life alike, not so much enlightened as simply too tired to keep clenched any longer, stretching free from the choppy staccato of noon. Checks on such a bold read could not help but at least whisper to a mind like his. Creatures scammed and ate one another even now, of course. A pink sky did not stop the stranglehold of husband or vine. But he did not let these whispers, nor his native unease with any association to the anthropomorphic lies of Hallmark and Disney, spoil his peace. Deep intuition said, in fact, that the clouds—even if not framed in the human way, as cotton candy—did exert enough of a pull to something beyond the me-me-me that somewhere cat siblings stopped hissing in their endless rivalry and groomed one another in the windowsill light of longer wavelengths.
Cherry blossoms that same color, coupled with the bright white petals of pear trees, would spring the meat beyond smartphones into a hyper-saturated anime. He hoped to hit Fairmount Park with her before sunset to see them, which was already a stretch since that was a twenty minute drive out. He wanted her to taste that fleeting fire. But he accepted the crumbling of his design and felt good that he could, a change from too many decades prior.
He felt appreciative for what he had right now. The shade oaks around her school had no blooms. But the indolic funk of her, on the muggy towel left in the back all night and soaked into everything as it was, insisted to the nose that the nastiest white florals mated with bacchanalian intensity in the open air. Vision had more relatable reason to delight. All the foliage became thick and waxy. The oblique angle of light, highlighting peaks and sharpening veins, conjured cinematic shadows that plumped each leaf into juicy life from the washout of a higher sun. Even the powerlines, dusted with gold just like the bricks and signs, cut across the sky like an intentional part of the painting.
She exited just at the close of that magic window. The ball spinning away from the last rays of side-lit warmth, the bombast of greenery had deflated more than halfway toward gray. Her shirt, against the growing coolness of ambient blue, glowed the same dirty orange of the “No Dumping” sign. Two janitors, the heads of their cigarettes coloring that orange significant with deep drags, ogled her motions down the steps. As if they had been forced out of their baseline denial to face that they had dropped the ball on their dreams, they shook their heads in the direction of her ass. Yet as if they had surrendered to some intergenerational talk that it would be too late to change, they remained leaning on the rubber dock bumpers of the loading ledge. She paid no mind to what he imagined were vocalizations
Stepping to the curb, she looked both ways and sighed. Her saxophone case looked even bigger for her than usual. He had know her to scurry across every street that separated them, doing so not in the manner of a child neurotic enough—like he had been—to worry that a car would appear speeding out of thin air (even after the overkill triple check) but rather in the manner of a child full of pure—almost uncoordinated—energy at the promise of seeing their favorite person. But tonight there was no smiley bounce, no disregard for dorky imbalance. She plodded at the glum rate of sagged shoulders, aging gestures that made her seem more like a child than ever.
“Hey Sweetheart.”
“Hi.”
“Practice good?”
“I don’t know.”
“The mouthpiece not working?”
“No. It’s great. My teacher says it looks like it was fixed at a shop.”
“Nice. But so, what’s wrong then?”
“I’m just stressed with everything.”
“Girl. None of this should stress you.”
“Nigga, not everything about you.”
“I know. I just—.”
“I’m just frustrated with people.”
“I feel that.”
“And I’m horny. My shit barkin. Dead.”
“We can take care of that.”
“And then—. Tch. Let me tell you about this bitch.”
“Who? Your teacher?”
“Oh my God, yes. She like literally doesn’t hear you. She just go with what she think.”
“The Persona Project lady, right?”
“Yes. She acting like I’m doing this nigga old. ‘No bitch.’”
“We hate old Quincy.”
“I’m like ‘How many times?’ So I just let the bitch talk.”
“What’s she saying?”
“It’s aint even bout what the bitch say.”
“I feel that.”
“It’s like bitch think just cuz everyone else dumb I’m dumb. Like ‘Open your eyes bitch! See me for me!’”
“I mean—.”
“And see here you go, bout to defend the bitch.”
“I’m just saying. That is how people navigate. It’s like profiling. It gets a bad rap but—.”
“I know. It’s natural and all that.”
“It’s literally healthy. You just—.”
“And I get that. We poor. No one cares. Fine. Profile me. Tch. I’d profile me.”
“Exactly.”
“But it’s when a bitch aint get a chance to break outta that box—. Now that shit—. Tch.”
“That’s what sucks. You nailed it.”
“Cuz I’m good in school. I care about the shit. Like “Don’t judge me on them and think I’m dumb.’”
“I just pictured you as the girl in Lean on Me. She was smart but in this fucked up environment. Tch. We’ll watch it. Morgan Freeman. Sorry. Anyway.”
“That’s it. I’m just saying “Don’t put me in a box.”
“Or, like I say—.”
“Tch. You know what I mean. Give a bitch a chance to get outta whatever damn box you feel the need to put her in. That better?”
“You’re highly intuitive. You’d make a good psychic.”
“Dead.”
“One thing to keep in mind—and I’m not justifying it or anything—.”
“You intuitive too. So why even say what you bout to say?”
“It’s my nature.”
“I know. I’m fuckin with you.”
“Just keep in mind that—. I don’t know. I’m just trying to say this’s good practice. Because that’s how the world works: the boxing, the rigidity, the not listening.”
“Yes. I know. It’s just frustrating.”
“So your teacher, though—. What exactly—?”
“Bitch stay on the Amistad shit. Like telling me where to look up this nigga’s court argument. I’m like ‘Listen . . . to . . . my . . . words. I’m doing him when he was young. But here she go: ‘The full closing argument is long. But there are abridged versions online.’ I’m like ‘The fuck? You even hear me?’”
“That’s crazy.
“People ain’t seeing each other. They seeing stereotypes. Like what? A bitch can’t be an exception?”
“Also baby—. I mean, maybe she’s thinking—.”
“I swear with you!”
“All I was gonna say was if the assignment warrants that.”
“Tch. What you mean?”
“The class has a slavery bend, right? And—.”
“No nigga. It fit.”
“I’m on your side, girl.”
“The shit about overcoming obstacles.”
“. . . .”
“Here the shit go. Look. Tell me what I’m missing.
“‘Students will select one historical figure and create a Persona Portfolio. You must step into the shoes of this individual and demonstrate how they achieved Triumph over Adversity. Triumph, remember, is not just about winning. It is about the internal and external process of overcoming obstacles.’”
“See? I’m good.”
“Maybe you’re expected—. I mean, I guess that slavery angle is like an unspoken rule.”
“And?”
“Well—.”
“Then say the shit then. The fuck?”
“I agree.”
“And the shit will connect automatically cuz triumph is triumph.”
“I feel you.”
“That translates, feel me?”
“I just want you to be smart in how you go about it.”
“Nothing smart about this bitch.”
“Ahahaha.”
“I swear, you’d hate this bitch. She look just like them white bitches you hate.”
“She got the scarf?”
“Nigga yes! You would literally strangle this bitch.”
“Like on some sex shit? She into that?”
“Tch.”
“I mean, I’ll step in there if that’s what I gotta do.”
“Stop.”
“Just trying to help.”
“Bitch literally go: white kids can’t go into the voice if the person’s not white.”
“You’re pulling my leg.”
“If the historical figure isn’t white the white kids can’t write like on some ‘I, Harriet Tubman,’ shit. That’s what the shit say.”
“You fucking with me. I can dish it out but—.”
“Nigga I aint lyin. Like instead of writing in the voice, you write as an observer.”
“An observer. The whole—. Girl, don’t tell me this shit. You know I have a problem right?”
“It’s called stay in your lane nigga. Dead.”
“Okay stop with the games.”
“Tch. Look give me the shit. Here it go. ‘Non-BIPOC students who plan to write about a BIPOC figure are discouraged from inhabiting that figure’s own voice. To respect lived experiences and traumas spoken over and misrepresented for too long, you are encouraged instead to adopt a more removed perspective: bystander, journalist, even analyst.”
“This some Candid Camera shit.”
“What nigga?”
“You typed this out to fuck with me.”
“Dead. I swear on you.”
“She really gonna cut off kids—white kids, only white kids—from stepping into the shoes of lives not their own?”
“I told you.”
“That’s the fucking point of the assignment: to step into another person’s shoes!”
“She do say it’s optional, to be fair.”
“That’s the whole point of the humanities!”
“‘This is a guideline. It is not a formal rule.’”
“Okay but—.”
“‘That said, any student who decides to take a different approach must meet with me no later than two weeks in advance to discuss the risks.’”
“What?! That’s the damn darkest part! Kafka shit.”
“Here we go.”
“Do you not see how dark this is?”
“Dead.”
“What student wants the friction? This kills the spirit. This is some snake shit. The discouragement—. It’s sneaky. You see?”
“Shit so soft it hard.”
“It’s harder than if the fucking prohibition was said outright. It’s like if I go: ‘Technically you don’t have to kiss me, your dear sick mother. But it would be so sad if I were to die tonight and you never got another chance.’”
“Guilt trip. This a guilt-trippin-ass white bitch. Told you. Nigga this that same privilege walk bitch.”
“Any white kid who wants to go into Harriet Tubman’s head is violating her. That’s the fucking—. And add to this all the friction: time, paperwork, even implied danger—this ‘risk’ shit.”
“I knew that would piss you off.”
“And how’s the damn meeting gonna go? Jesus. You know what, don’t—. If you tell me she has some video, some fucking ‘sensitivity module’—. I’ll fuckin—. Fuck!”
“I love that you care so much.”
“Care? I got PTSD! These are the same motherfuckers who came after me. You know how close I am to shooting up places—still?”
“You stupid.”
“Fuck it. I’ll be the stereotype. It’s like they want me to be the damn stereotype.”
“Nigga on that ‘they’ shit. Night’s a wrap.”
“Here I am fired, right?”
“Dead.”
“And I walk into the damn parent-teacher conference—because at least I have that aspect of my life away from all the fuckin nonsense. And the damn fucking teacher—.”
“White-ass bitch, let me guess.”
“Bitch goes on and on—all this soothing-tone shit. How she’ll never assign a book where a white author writes a black character—like its a brag. It’s like when I was buying my first car and the salesperson was like ‘We have a no-haggle guarantee.’ Huh? A no-fuckin-haggle guarantee? I’m not allowed to haggle? That’s a fuckin brag? Talk about gaslighting!”
“Crying.”
“The bitch has all the calming sounds in the background. “‘We just have so much to learn and unlearn about the terrible disease of whiteness.’”
“You need to do comedy.”
“I need to buy guns is what I need to do.”
“Nigga wild.”
“You know how much I pray that this whitey-stay in your lane shit is just a phase? I try to hypnotize myself. ‘Maybe it is all just social-media trend.’ I’m dead-ass. “Maybe this is passing phenomenon and it’s not in the real world.’ And then here you go. Don’t tell me this shit!”
“I’m literally deceased.”
“I’m being silly. But yeah. It really bothers me.”
“I know. I gotta protect your peace better.”
“Nah, that’s my job baby.”
“I’m sorry, though.”
“It’s like I try to let time heal but it stays in my face.”
“But thank you for cheering me up.”
“I love you.”
“I love you more. But you know I gotta go.”
“I know.”
“So you gon put something else in your face.”
“Like what?”
“Like this.”
“You nasty, huh?”
“Turnt a bitch out and now nigga can’t deal with the shit?”
“Girl.”
“Yes.”
“How you glistening like that?”
“Cuz you.”
“Can I whisper something in your ear?”
“Yes.”
“It’s dirty, though. That okay?”
“Yes.”
“All that fucking goo.”
“. . . .”
“Put it in my hand.”
“. . . .”
“Good girl. Mmm.”
“. . . .”
“Look how slick that shit is.”
“I love it. That’s where I belong.”
“Never put anything that slippery on my cock. You gonna be the best thing I ever fuck.”
“Can I play with myself too? Please?”
“Put a little in my mouth first.”
“. . . .”
“Mmm. Little in your mouth too Sweetheart.”
“Now should we soft with ourselves or rough? You decide.”
“Mmm.”
“You can tell me.”
“I’m shy.”
“It’s okay.”
“Rough.”
“Let me see that shit better, then.”
“. . . .”
“My God.”
“You like this little pussy?”
“Of course I do. You know I do.”
“Mmmh.”
“You look here. I look there. Okay?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see that asshole too.”
“. . . .”
“Spread it. Spread it good for me.”
“I love when you look at me.”
“Mmm.”
“Your dick is so big.”
“Spit on it then.”
“. . . .”
“Put your mouth on me.”
“I can’t baby girl.”
“I’ve been good.”
“I know.”
“Hnnn. Hmmmm.”
“. . . .”
“I’ve been so good.”
“I know, Sweeetheart.”
“. . . .”
“. . . .”
“. . . .”
“Get that shit baby.”
“Okay. Hnnn. Okay.”
“Smack it up.”
“Ohhhh. Hnnn. Hnnn.”
“You the nastiest little girl I’ve ever met.”
“Yeah? Yeah?”
“That’s why I need to smell it.”
“Hnnn. Oooh.”
“Faster. Don’t be shy Sweetheart.”
“Oh fuck.”
“That shit smells like mine huh?”
“It’s all yours.”
“. . . .”
“. . . .”
“Make that fuckin mess then.”
“Okay.”
“You gonna make a mess?”
“Mhmm.”
“There you go.”
“Mhmm.”
“Good girl. You got me fuckin going now.”
“Hnn. Hnn. Hnn.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Smack that pussy up. Smack it up.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes.”
“Oh I’m about to shoot all over that shit.”
“Oh my God. Oh God. Fuuuuuck.”
“Mmmmm. Mm.”
“I need you.”
“Nnngaaahh. Yeah bitch.”
“Fuck. Hnn. Hnn. Ha. Hn. Ha.”
“Yessss.”
“Hnnnnnn. Fuuuuck.”
“. . . .”
“Mmmmhm. Hm.”
“You’re such a bad girl.”
“Yes. Yes.”
“I love my bad girl.”
“. . . .”
“. . . .”
“Huhhhhhh. I love you so much.”
“. . . .”
“Oh my God. Haaah. You got a bitch crazy.”
“I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Haaah.”
“Whew.”
“. . . .”
“. . . .”
“It’s late. It’s so late.”
“I know.”
“Niggas aint even fed. I just—. Tch.”
“Want me grab something for you guys?”
“Actually. . . .”
“Where you want to go?
“Don’t think I—. But it would be easier.”
“Baby, you ain’t gotta say anything.”
“My mom gotta get her stank as up.”
“. . . .”
“I just wanna run away.”
“. . . .”
“I feel like—. Tch. If I come live with you, it would be good for her. Cuz I do everything.”
“. . . .”
“Nigga, you got that just-bust-a-nut silence. You want me out now, huh?”
“And you say I overthink!”
“Tch.”
“. . . .”
“. . . .”
“Because you know I’ll never stop smooching my little stinkbug.”
“I guess.”
“Oh no. Oh no. Miss ’Tude’s gonna get it.”
“Boy what you doing?”
“Let me see that belly. Pssspt. Oh we have a struggler! Psssspt.”
“Gggi gi gffed—stop!”
“And I can tickle you to death too. Want that?”
“No. You play too much.”
“I love to see that smile.”
“I know.”
“Hey though.”
“Yes?”
“For real. I’m never pushing you away.”
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)
