Front Yard

The Alley…

Behind the house, old dead leafs created the alley. Back porches were now front doors, for the young renters.

In the alley, kids were yelled at by twenty year old parents, to stay out of the street.

The alley:

This was the main road for the new Americans  The alley was the highway, the exit ramp, the graveyard for crickets and rounded metal training bullets. 

And she got a full scholarship to go back to school. She didn’t know how she would afford it, especially since Kurt was only six. He was a hard child to deal with, at-least, that’s what they always said.

They yelled at her with whispers when she sent him to public schools. They gossiped about her when she home-schooled him. They said, what does she know, she’s only a teenager, and she’s only, a mother. 

She trims or leaves the fat, depending on the preference of the carnivore. She slices prime-rib up with a delicate knife. After everything, she serves dinner to the middle class.

Kurt goes back to public schools. They always talk about her when he shows up without gloves, without more food, without the proper amount of sleep that they say, a growing boy needs.

Never questions, well not really, and Kurt doesn’t talk much; they told him that he has a learning disability and no chance to see the doctor,  and he always says, “no”, when they ask him where those bruises and scratches came from.

No. I don’t. Know. Playing. Where. In The street. With who. Nigel.

An interrogation without due-process. American; they don’t believe him. She has to beat him. She’s only our cook, our only suspect. She’s only, a mother.

They don’t believe her, and that poor boy, that lost little Kurt, and they  shake their heads when after school they have to wait one more day. The bell rings, shaking heads, taking notes, and there goes Kurt. He get’s on the yellow bus, smiling.

They don’t know yet, but they know, that something’s going on. Kurt can’t be happy. He’s poor. He’s only, her son. He’s only, a child. He’s only, a number. He’s only, more news; the realization, of their insanity. 

And some things are the same no matter where you are, and like it is in most towns, blood mixes with the water. Fluoride. Don’t worry. You get used to it. Takes. Time. Don’t worry. You actually start to enjoy the taste,  because it makes you feel like you belong somewhere, that you are, home.

The Street:

One way out of the alley, there’s a closed down school. The other, a gas-station, and for decades the dead leafs have fallen from the trees, pollinating the senses with the feeling of a constant Autumn.

The Alley:

The dirt road with dry veins. The Tracks of dead spider legs pointing up. The church bell clockwork on the hour of the trucks with dragging muffler and stumps for old willows used for Kurt’s lookout tower.

Main street:

The alley, and the night, no school. CLICK-PUFF-SHIT; children clicking back the B.B Gun shooting poor toad who falls…THUMP.

The Cemetery: 

Poor brother. He was his best pal, and in the alley in-front lawns transforming into grave-yards; the crying once-a-week, after another pet dog has died, of a spontaneous kidney failure.

Another sad day. It’s the morning and silently walking without a parade, and growing somewhere in the dead leafs like wild mushrooms down south, such little sad crosses made out of the lake’s driftwood or whatever could be found in the landlord’s basement, and this, this is the street, and this is, life. This is, the future. This is, science fiction. This is, the United States.  

The Street.