Read Online The Slide: A Novel by Kyle Beachy - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Kyle Beachy
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of taps, taps.
“You don’t want to stay up here all night so I guess I could give you the advice now if you want but really I mean it’s not very good don’t get your hopes up.”
“I need advice badly,” I said. “Please give me advice.”
“Okay.” He threw the rest of the dinner roll to the squirrels. “First don’t smoke because it will kill you quicker than you could ever imagine.”
I watched the squirrels watching him and felt him watching me.
“Alright,” I said. “Good.”
“Second don’t take Richard or Carla for granted because they are amazing parents and before you know it they will be dead.”
“But I don’t take them for granted,” I said.
“You’re lying you don’t appreciate all you do is watch. One of the things that happens when you die is you can tell who’s lying and who’s not or maybe it’s not like this for everyone who dies but it is for me so stop lying and stop watching and start appreciating. Love alright listen love is the issue with them Potter because they love you so much they ache and tremble sometimes because all they’ve ever wanted was to make this love real to you.”
I nodded and looked at Freddy’s wet feet.
“Also you I mean you Potter should love whomever you can love and love them with your whole complete body throw everything you have into it because there is nothing else that matters.”
How was it so simple when he said it? Words layered like scripture over the rhythm of falling water. The older brother from beyond the grave explains the fantastically contrived cult of human emotion in fifty words or less. Simplicity, the tap tap of falling water, Freddy sitting in utter, if damp, peace. While I was sick at heart.
I realized that despite his warnings and despite my attempts to honor his wishes, I was staring. First I was staring at him, at the ghostly shiny droplets of water that covered his body. As I stared, the drops began to dry, and I found myself staring more and more through him, past him, at the cardboard boxes of who knew what part of our family history. Freddy, offended by my staring, was gone, gone away with his water wings and advice, leaving behind only a small puddle.
“Shit,” I said.
Silence like a cinder block in the middle of a square room. The squirrels watched me, up on their haunches, beady little eyes and mouths aimed into my chest before skittering off into their dark corners.
june
five
c hildhood. My mother’s fingernails would brush against my back, light as cork. Break the news of a new day. She scratched long soft lines and my eyes would open and she was there, beaming. Morning, sonny boy . How many mornings did she open the shades and then leave, and minutes later call up the stairs to make sure I was getting ready for school? Thousands, more.
Standing in a great green expanse of city park, my father, our dedication to the pursuit of Catch. His glove from high school, supremely brown, mitt, he called it, ancient term, stained with years of oil and use. These memories are percussive and wordless. Catch. An occasional apology when my throw sailed out of reach. A knuckleball that defied physics and expectation, unimaginable fatherhood hands. I remember the first halves of car rides home, then the garage door crawling open as I woke with seat belt pressed into my cheek.
Someone must already have noted: memory weighs more at night.
I woke to my mother standing by my bed, clutching the phone.
I sat up quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Oh.”
What followed was a loaded moment of her looking down at me, either baffled by the question or torn whether or not to answer.
“Is Dad okay?”
She nodded. There was mud packed beneath her fingernails and beads of sweat lining the top of her forehead. The alarm clock said 6:30 in the morning and she had been gardening. I could hear my father in the kitchen. She glanced at the phone to confirm that her hand was covering the
“You don’t want to stay up here all night so I guess I could give you the advice now if you want but really I mean it’s not very good don’t get your hopes up.”
“I need advice badly,” I said. “Please give me advice.”
“Okay.” He threw the rest of the dinner roll to the squirrels. “First don’t smoke because it will kill you quicker than you could ever imagine.”
I watched the squirrels watching him and felt him watching me.
“Alright,” I said. “Good.”
“Second don’t take Richard or Carla for granted because they are amazing parents and before you know it they will be dead.”
“But I don’t take them for granted,” I said.
“You’re lying you don’t appreciate all you do is watch. One of the things that happens when you die is you can tell who’s lying and who’s not or maybe it’s not like this for everyone who dies but it is for me so stop lying and stop watching and start appreciating. Love alright listen love is the issue with them Potter because they love you so much they ache and tremble sometimes because all they’ve ever wanted was to make this love real to you.”
I nodded and looked at Freddy’s wet feet.
“Also you I mean you Potter should love whomever you can love and love them with your whole complete body throw everything you have into it because there is nothing else that matters.”
How was it so simple when he said it? Words layered like scripture over the rhythm of falling water. The older brother from beyond the grave explains the fantastically contrived cult of human emotion in fifty words or less. Simplicity, the tap tap of falling water, Freddy sitting in utter, if damp, peace. While I was sick at heart.
I realized that despite his warnings and despite my attempts to honor his wishes, I was staring. First I was staring at him, at the ghostly shiny droplets of water that covered his body. As I stared, the drops began to dry, and I found myself staring more and more through him, past him, at the cardboard boxes of who knew what part of our family history. Freddy, offended by my staring, was gone, gone away with his water wings and advice, leaving behind only a small puddle.
“Shit,” I said.
Silence like a cinder block in the middle of a square room. The squirrels watched me, up on their haunches, beady little eyes and mouths aimed into my chest before skittering off into their dark corners.
june
five
c hildhood. My mother’s fingernails would brush against my back, light as cork. Break the news of a new day. She scratched long soft lines and my eyes would open and she was there, beaming. Morning, sonny boy . How many mornings did she open the shades and then leave, and minutes later call up the stairs to make sure I was getting ready for school? Thousands, more.
Standing in a great green expanse of city park, my father, our dedication to the pursuit of Catch. His glove from high school, supremely brown, mitt, he called it, ancient term, stained with years of oil and use. These memories are percussive and wordless. Catch. An occasional apology when my throw sailed out of reach. A knuckleball that defied physics and expectation, unimaginable fatherhood hands. I remember the first halves of car rides home, then the garage door crawling open as I woke with seat belt pressed into my cheek.
Someone must already have noted: memory weighs more at night.
I woke to my mother standing by my bed, clutching the phone.
I sat up quickly. “What’s wrong?”
“Wrong? Oh.”
What followed was a loaded moment of her looking down at me, either baffled by the question or torn whether or not to answer.
“Is Dad okay?”
She nodded. There was mud packed beneath her fingernails and beads of sweat lining the top of her forehead. The alarm clock said 6:30 in the morning and she had been gardening. I could hear my father in the kitchen. She glanced at the phone to confirm that her hand was covering the
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