Kyle Muntz: Voices

If walls

could speak, then maybe the world would

still be full of conversation.

I remember

once, back in a place that wasn’t quite like this, I thought maybe I wasn’t doing

everything right. I’ve always been like that, saying strange things to myself. My

friends say I’m not the same anymore, but that’s not true. They just don’t know

what it means to hear at an angle.

If a clown tosses a ball into the air, sometime soon it has to fall. The world is

a theater of gravitation. In school they teach us to believe what we hear. Then they tell us to speak clearly.

::::::::::::::::::::

I found Jacob hiding in that place he always hung out. He had dirt on his hands and more dirt on his hair. His shoulders shook, and he pressed deeper into the corner, back here where it smelled like shit, where the spiders were. He told me to be quiet and get down, it isn’t safe. I got down.

"What’s going on?"

He shook. Getting down. I didn’t care to know. From the distance came pounding feet, wind and breath, sweat, dust, eyes and hands. He shook, fearing. I asked if he was okay, but he didn’t know how to answer. A cardboard box rolled over: stained, covered in creases. It made a sound and he jumped, hugging the dumpster.

"How many are there?"

He made fingers. Five. Wouldn’t tell me what he'd done, but I already knew. I asked if he could stand. He couldn’t, but I forced him. I handed him a pipe. The pipe didn’t look quite right when he held it (shaking, knobby, he wasn’t breathing well), but that was fine too.

"Okay," I said, "here’s what we’re going to do." But I didn’t need to tell him. He already knew.

They came quick around the corner. We did it.

We ran.

::::::::::::::::::::

We jumped over a gray wall. There was tall grass on the other side. Tall grass doesn’t belong in the city. It grew in ugly clumps, moldy green, patching up, five fingers of nature, budding through. I told him to quit making sounds. He obviously couldn't.

Earlier that week I’d seen Jacob getting thrown out. He was always too liberal with his hands. They don’t like liberals in the city. In the city you keep your own space, you prioritize, you draw lines to keep the world away. Jacob didn’t understand that, but neither did I. It isn’t about understanding here. I understood that already.

::::::::::::::::::::

We came out somewhere by neither of our houses. We’d never been here before. This place didn’t have any right to exist: a suburban sprawl, houses and tender lines, old men, old lives. We beat three mailboxes before we left.

That’s not true.

We talked about it, but I wrote a poem instead, in bright colors. The next day I saw my poem on the news. Some guy kept saying kids were so bad these days, those horrible kids. I smiled. He was old, he was fat, and his house was a temple of language. I wonder if he understood what I wrote. I’m sure he didn’t.

::::::::::::::::::::

When a beam of light shines, it catches the dust and makes it alive. No, the dust was always there, it just needs the light make it glow.

:::::::::::::::::::: We found Travis playing basketball. He wasn’t doing well, but he never did well, and that had never bothered him before. Bouncing, he made the court his own. Or he thought he did. That was enough for him; it would always be enough for him. One day, he said, he’d be the best in the world. He wouldn’t, but I think he already knew. We played for a while. Jacob was better. I was better too. We planted roots at Travis's house. Jacob did liberal things with Travis’s sister. They hadn’t thought to tell him.

I stayed for half an hour. Travis wanted to have a conversation about politics. None of us knew what we were talking about, but that was part of the idea. Jacob left a few minutes in to take a piss. He’d been gone fifteen minutes. I was sure he’d be gone fifteen more. Travis had basketball posters on his walls, and he never stopped wanting to fly. His room bled bright color. I set my camera on the bed.

Ten lights

on

to crush dreams

that aren’t quite dreams.

If I were playing games with words, I would say Travis wanted to play poker. I didn’t have the money. Jacob was in the next room with Travis’s sister, poking her. Travis still didn’t know. Sometimes I’m not a very good friend. I thought of telling him. I didn’t.

::::::::::::::::::::

Travis and I have poignant conversations sometimes. This was not one of them. As teenagers, we aren't any good at being poignant. It clashes with our oldest, most profound traditions.

::::::::::::::::::::

That night I went to lie alone looking at the sky, on a hill outside the city. Geysers of light shot up, subtle, a dim electricity. On a corner a couple walked by holding hands. They were probably in love, if you put faith in vision. There was a prostitute on this street I’d always wanted to meet. People paid her to be an object. I wonder if it kept her from being real.

When I was young I’d come here sometimes to paint pictures. They were never any good. Now sometimes I come here to write poems. I got a shot of the sky, made a sweep of the skyline. A bistro closed for the night. There was a place I wanted to be. I got there too late.

I guess I fell asleep. Perception became a wave of falling, then I was watching streams of pure light, shower of stars, white as transcendence, still falling. I’d been having this dream for years. Whenever I woke I’d try to write about it, but I never did a good job.

I’ve been hearing voices.

I met her again, and meeting her was

beautiful. She made the world

beautiful. I ran my hands through her hair, and it felt beautiful. When she laughed, it was

beautiful. She walked and it was beautiful. She made me think

beautiful thoughts, and when she spoke, it was

beautiful too.

::::::::::::::::::::

… no, I’ve been exaggerating. I do that a lot.

::::::::::::::::::::

We sat and talked for a while on the veranda. Before that night I had no idea: the immensity of what it meant to be a veranda. I remember. It was just a place, boarded, where the flatness was. But she changed it into an element of herself, with chairs.

She asked my name again. But it wasn't part of me anymore.

"But that’s ridiculous," she said, of course I knew. Her skin shone in the light.

She leaned against me, obtusely real, not quite playing in her element. "It's not fair," she said. "I already told you my name."

"I’ll forget yours if you promise to forget mine."

"Why?"

"It’s a secret."

We kissed for a while. I whispered my name in her ear. I'm not any good at keeping secrets. She had her hand around my back, her leg against my thigh. We kissed some more. I wrote a poem for her. We tried to count prime numbers. The grasshoppers watched. A star fell out of the sky.

::::::::::::::::::::

I mentioned her to my friend the next day. He didn’t understand who she was. I could only tell him she was beautiful. He said that didn’t do any good, you can’t describe a person like that. I said I know, people are body and soul and compound, but it would have to do.

::::::::::::::::::::

I am a hypocrite and a liar.

Somebody broke off a piece of glass in my heart.

::::::::::::::::::::

I visited Jacob in his corner again. He was smoking. I turned a cigarette down and kicked over the cardboard box.

"Why do you come back here?"

He shrugged. "Why not?"

"Are they chasing you again?"