"The Boy on the Box"

Jamey's world is simple enough—as long as he keeps smiling.
Read "The Boy on the Box" at  http://www.akashicbooks.com/the-boy-on-the-box-by-gg-burrows/

2. Damn Gender

Another broken vow gets swept away

What happens now

I wanted you to see me today

Like I was ten somehow

I wanted to be with you

but they say that’s not allowed.

Time begins inside these thin walls

Another Sunday smothered

“Sunday Smothered” ©1985 D Gender

As recorded by The English Mixx

Hollywood, 1985

He is too tired to bother with the bugs crawling over his face. He tucks himself deeper into his grubby sleeping bag, a familiar flannel cocoon of faded cowboys, cacti and bucking broncos, hugs them tightly to his chest, tugs them over his head, shields himself from the sunrise.

Others scattered on the floor around him begin to awake. They stir in ragged blankets discolored with use and the filth of a hundred hidden floors. They rise like human refuse infused in human smells, shivering night chill from unrested bones, warmed by the first welcome slivers of daylight seeping through cracks in the boarded-up windows. There is the odor of urine, of sulfur and smoke from matches and the first cigarettes of the day, the sounds of their waking, their soft conversation, their gentle laughter. The squat squad.

They gather in a back boiler room, unseen from the Boulevard. Their head count today has grown by one. Excitement reels their faces, adds bounce to their steps and hope to their eyes. He has come back. Word of his return rushes through the condemned tenement. He is among them again, their conquering hero, their hope, their prodigal son. They tend to him like adoring parents. They flick the bugs off his face.

He dreams he is surfing a crowd of 5,000 Parisian punk rockers who carry him offstage at L’Arène de Musique. He dreams they deliver him home.

souvenirs

He has carried the envelope in his pocket for weeks. Nobody bothers opening it now, not him, nor any of the squat squad who clean out his pockets. They joke at the Union Jack matchbooks they find, German condoms, Bazooka Joe comics in Hebrew. And as expected, the numerous sugar packets, azucar, sucre, zucker, zucchero, they laugh. He lets them choose their souvenirs: Extra guitar picks, funny European currency, scribbled foreign phone numbers, empty English candy wrappers, exotic French cigarettes. Until he is left with less than two dollars American. Squinting into the bright Hollywood afternoon, he scratches his dirty hair, stomach growling. Time for some eats, man, he says. Heading toward McDonald’s, dragging the ragged cowboy bedroll. Truman, Loser, and Dinosaur join the squat squad at the corner traffic light. Of course he is happy to see them all. They hi-five each other, quickly hug how good it is to see they have survived another night. Together they cross the Boulevard with camera-necked tourists and the green light.

They chat excitedly. Nobody mentions Europe.

He makes a sour face. They have entered McDonald’s and more of the squat squad surround him, gather at his feet, eyes looking up to him, true believers, though he knows he is no taller, better, wiser. He realizes he is wearing the mask of a hero and wants to rip it away. A mask and foreign costume not of his design into which they have dressed him. Underneath it, beneath his skin, somewhere deep inside, he wonders if he still exits. Moving, living, breathing now in the ill-fitting shell of a distant stranger. Not who he ever was. He shuffles uncomfortably, tries to maintain but nausea fills his chest. He is no longer hungry and wants to leave before he is sick. Around him they think is the best place to be. He knows they would ask for autographs but no one has a pen.

his name

They’ve left him in peace. Only Anne Doll in leather and ripped fishnet stockings sits beside him now against the alley wall. She is honored to be alone with him, to be the one he always comes back to. She holds his arm, slips her hand to his wrist, and further down, into his trench coat pocket where her fingers interlock his. He grabs on tightly. The rough edges of his calloused fingertips scratch the soft flesh of her palm. His chin is tucked into his chest, his unkempt hair hides his face. He might be sleeping. She feels the envelope, a #10 business-sized one, crushed into thirds, the paper gone soft from anxious fingering.

“I have been carrying that around for weeks,” he confesses.

Anne Doll slips it from his hand, his pocket. She hears him sigh with relief.

The logo is printed up the envelope’s left edge, above it, the return address. Corporate, refined, in lines of quiet italic type. Between each line, a thin rule of color. MCA Records. 70 Universal City Plaza. Universal City CA.

He is crying when she opens it and removes the record company check, dated nearly three months before. March 1, 1985. Made payable to his name. Damn Gender. Anne Doll’s smile cannot be contained as she reads the amount, amazed.

$250,000.00

1. James Daniel Ross

His voice like an angel plays games with my head, 

go over the wall, he whispers. 

nobody’s looking or would ever expect a good boy like you to just split 

So I do, in the dark with my heart gearing up, sneak out of the white room in silent white sneakers. Down the sanitized hall, passing open doorways like animal dens, that’s what I’m thinking, all the creatures here caged in their nightmares. 

go jamey go 

To the fire door exit. 

shortest distance between two points

Straight line, here there inside out, across manicured grass and dormant flower beds through thick trimmed hedges hiding the brick wall. Then jumping to grip the concrete ledge so high above and pull myself up, a foot then a knee to the top and fall over. Like a thrill ride almost, my stomach drops out in a floating moment not knowing which way the ground is. Just, it’s too late to turn back.

* * * * *

Ruffling sand out of my hair, my fingers like a comb untangle sleepknots and debris, smoothing it down, hooking it so tidy behind my ears. Like that makes me look all polite and presentable and not like a mental case who’d sleep on a beach, or someone who can’t go home.

But I can’t sleep here either. Heading down the beach instead, wandering south I think along the gray shoreline. Moonlight makes the shadows silver, makes the scattered shafts of driftwood eerie like skeletal limbs jutting out of the sand pointing you out with a finger. So I’m trembling, wanting the warmth of the morning to melt away these midnight chills and wrap me instead in the arms of daylight. My clothes all like dewy and damp from the sleepless beach so I’m walking faster, wishing the sunrise would hurry and finish. Touches of color waking up now to what gets green and what gets blue, the rocky headland, the forested ravine, the cliffs high above me lined with lakefront estates, all exclusive and gated like private kingdoms or country clubs. Or adolescent psychiatric facilities. 

residents only

I’m guessing it’s just been an hour so far, that’s maybe five miles away and the day hardly started. Follow the sidewalk through aging neighborhoods, crack after crack these white canvas Keds like ghost feet light my way. Not stepping on any, not even the natural cracks where the concrete’s buckled from the roots of ancient trees with big sturdy branches they hang tire swings on, well, the dad does. There’s screened porches with wooden steps that need painting and doors that slam in their frames so loud the moms yell from the kitchens not to. They have dogs that dig up the yards and live in the houses with dirt on their paws, even upstairs. And delinquent kids, who you wouldn’t think your kids would hang out with but they do.

Akashic Books has published my short story, "The Boy on the Box" as their Thursdaze selection of Thursday, December 5. Want to read more? Just let me know.