The edge of Greenleaf was like a great, flat sheet of mossy green; yellow patches patterned the fields during autumn, the dead blades grouped together in patches the size of cars, almost like something from the sky had fallen and killed them – a meteor, extraterrestrials, bombs, planes, birds. It could have been anything.
At the edge of the horizon, like old, jagged teeth stood the uneven lines of snowy mountains. They always seemed too distant to be inside the state – you could drive for miles and they’d still be there, way out there, at some impossible distance only cattle farmers and birds could reach.
The homes in the park weren’t mobile. Not in the strictest sense. They’d been there for years – they had porches, they had vines growing up their weather-worn, panelled sides, they were, in every way, family heirlooms. Grandparents, their kids, and their kid’s kids, all lived under one tiny roof. And it would go on and on and on, until one of them was smart enough to break free. It never happened, but sometimes, when the young ones were alone, they liked to think that they would be the first. The one that got away.
**
“Hey, jerkoff.”
Scott swivelled round on his heel, his sneaker’s sole squeaking against the shiny linoleum floor.
“Yeah, I’m talking to you, fag.” The other boy – Tucker, they called him – was a round-faced, snub-nosed sports junkie with a penchant for staring at female teachers’ asses and torturing kids that got picked last for gym. Nerds, the rich kids, the poor kids, Goths, punks and emos, gay kids. They were all under his meat-fisted target. Scott just wished that his ammunition was a little less primitive.
“Yeah?” He was unable to remove the weakness from his voice. Being told the same things every day got old fast.
“So, you’re like, gay.” Tucker laughed, but with no one around him to nudge elbows with, the sound of it echoed down the hallway alone. It was kind of sad.
**
He thought of those jagged hills in the horizon whenever his grandpa opened his mouth. Behind the yellow-stained teeth was a hollow hole of black, diseased and putrid, and it always smelled of tobacco, butter-flavoured sucking candy and month-old pickle juice. A dry, old tongue would lash out whenever he spoke with that crooked voice of his, loud and heavily accented; grandpa Feld never failed to remind Scott that when he was a boy in Texas, he ain’t never missed a day of working on God’s hard land.
Scott’s fingers ached from yanking out the weeds around the front porch. They were dusty and red around the tips, grass and grain pushing under the whites and ripping free new hangnails that stung and begged to be torn away with sharp, clean teeth. There was a gap between the flimsy front door and its frame – his grandpa’s shotgun sat propped against the living room couch, shining black against the faded, teabag-coloured material. The boy averted his eyes and ran his elbow over his forehead, knocking away his bandana and smearing sweat into dark hair. He picked up the red-and-white material from the porch’s ledge – it had been something he’d stolen from another kid at school – and turned to sit down on the first step. There was no point in pulling up weeds around here – they would grow and grow, infesting the ground around the porch and crawling up between the wooden slats. If anything, they’d turn the trailer green and Scott could imagine it was part of the field. Something natural.
Twisting the bandana between stinging fingers, he closed his eyes, thankful for the shade, and got lost in his mind for as long as the afternoon would allow it.
**
A Greyhound bus ticket was the most expensive thing he’d ever bought.
After hitchhiking to the station and rubbing his knees against the dirty tiles of the restroom while his driver fucked the inside of his bubblegum-stained mouth, Scott clutched hold of that tiny slip of paper that had been exchanged for a handful of fresh green notes, and curled up on a seat by a window, eyes fixed on the road.
His fingers were still bloody and aching from the work his grandfather had set him two days before, and his mouth ached worse still, but he was smiling. He wasn’t on a porch, lost in guilty, helpless thoughts. He was sitting on a bus, watching the world whirl past like spilled paint on canvas. The mountains weren’t getting closer – they were getting further away.
Scarlett Johansson is doing some sort of signing thing at Selfridges on Friday afternoon. To go or not to go, that is the question. I like her a lot – during the initial stages of all the hype surrounding her, I sort of had a love-hate relationship, but then I reminded myself that’s she’s been in a lot of films that I love – Ghost World, primarily. Oh, and she’s Woody’s current Golden Girl (has been, for a few years now). I bought Anywhere I Lay My Head when it came out, intrigued and a little frightened by it, but despite its mixed press, I actually thought it was pretty damn good.
I don’t really know what this is all about other than the fact it’s going to collate all of my interests and squash them into one place. Blogs to me don’t really work as magazines, because every update is a single article, and every update of a magazine is a series of articles. I’m striving to achieve zine-like status but who knows, this could just be another blog. What will you find here? All sorts. Painfully awkward short stories, even worse poems, tea reviews, cake recipies, music reviews and band interviews, book & film reviews (but it’s not like I have time to go to the cinema anymore unless it has something to do with Chloe or Zooey or Emile or Joey). If you want to write for Paperdresses, please do, I’m a tiny little person, I can’t do this all on my own. Email the apple twee at gmail dot com and we’ll discuss.
