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Next Time, I Hope She Uses a Rock and a Lake |
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by Greg Boose
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1:22 |
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On the west side of Hogan Park where the tennis courts are, tiny Beth Wexton tied a white piece of fabric to the top branch of a tree. I like the boy whose name I wrote on it, she said. I’ve finally decided, she said.
Richard and I slammed ourselves against the trunk, cutting our faces on the peeling bark, and we climbed for our answer. Richard claimed the bottom branch first, but I had eyed the best path – the one Beth certainly must have used an hour before in her green shirt and corduroy jeans – and soon my armpits hooked themselves over several branches.
Up I went like a toddler’s toy.
Richard was fast, and as I tried to keep up, naked wood pulled my hair and ripped at my eyelids. Dirt chips fell into my upturned nostrils. Reaching for branches that seemed out of reach, I let out short yells to God. And when I found myself just seconds behind and just yards from the white flag, I slipped, tipping back onto a dozen crumbling and bending spears. Shaking and crying, I hugged the trunk in time to stop from falling to the September ground. Unable to breathe, using muscles never used before, I looked up in defeat to see Richard untie the message, the answer. But without reading it, he tossed the fabric into the wind, freeing the both of us.
On my slow and calculated way down, I stopped only once to call him an asshole.
Greg Boose grew up in northeast Ohio, got his MFA degree in Moorhead, MN, and now lives in Chicago. Boose has appeared in many print and online publications. His favorite toe resides on his left foot.
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