creative writing – a young writer from the lone star state

Too Much Life [poem]

My heart worked up and down to figure this out

all weekend waking up in the same bed but in garland now

I need to say to mother Sorry I am leaving You again but there is too much life to see outside my new big bedroom window and the courtyard tree that does its best to hide me when I’m in bed

is it mesquite?

Last week my brother with all his muscles and children helping carry the boxes and boxes and boxes of books up to the second floor

My father is dying but I could not stop time to think of how our sickness will catch me one day too

and that I need to say I still can’t forgive You for choosing work over me when I cried that summer many times ago when

I still had no good long place to call home like I think I’ve got now

I saved a bumble bee drowning at the pool yesterday and let my back burn in the sun to watch it rub its tiny face and antennae dry

a neighbor black cat saw me swim back in forth from its windows across the pool like I did when I was a kid living again with You mom and sister many apartments ago

In the sunlight my body was crying because it knows the world is ending and I don’t know if the children I want could bear it

and after all this was always part of a longer love letter back to You. I guess only god has the power to hide this sort of thing. I will look for you from my balcony tomorrow morning anyway in the simmering shade of juliano-tejano-verano morning before my way to work with the other half’s eyes.

“I almost had an anxiety attack this sunset because I couldn’t believe my life has gone so well. Like I‘m not used to this sort of stability. I feel something should be horribly wrong and that I should be in jeopardy and danger. Like I need something to be worried about. How could I drive in a beautiful sunset this evening, listening to my favorite music and just believe everything is okay?” I am driving the air in my lungs get heavy and thick and I wonder about how really everything should be wrong with this

You ever figure everyone who reads this will love you for the way I love you in million years after these silly anxieties are gone?

Goodnight, Judith

The first few pages of a short story about a man whose wife has recently passed away. The man confronts her estranged father and reflects on her memory.

Vince reads over a letter he’s finished writing for Mr. Esperanza.

Dear Anthony Esperanza,

I am writing to let you know that your daughter, Judith, is no longer. She passed peacefully. Her son, Hank, and I stood next to her.

I don’t understand how you are still here in this world and she is not. I don’t understand how you’ve outlasted her. It’s not fair.

Judith didn’t want a funeral, but she wouldn’t have expected you to show up in any case.

But I want you to know that your ignorance, your carelessness and your distance made Judith into the strongest woman I will have ever known. I know that for a fact, and Hank knows that, too.

Yet, Judith never once said she hated you. Perhaps that’s how you are still alive. She never wished you ill—she kept it to herself.

And she lived.

She didn’t live longer than you, but she lived better than you.

Regards,

Vincent

Vince knows little about Mr. Esperanza. The only thing he was sure of was that the old man still lives on Longshadow Lane.

After a short drive across town, Vince finds the place—a sad little house with fading, peeling white paint and sprawling crabgrass stretching out onto the sidewalk. Vince parks his car across the street from Judith’s childhood home and lifts the letter sitting patiently on the passenger’s seat. He checks to see if it’s still sealed, then slides it into his back pocket. After Vince shuts the car door, he hears the rumble of an engine and spots his old friend and Judith’s old neighbor, Chaz Sierra, mowing the lawn next door. Vince checks for traffic twice, then crosses the street over to Chaz. The lawnmower’s roar dies down before Vince reaches the sidewalk and says hello.

“Does Mr. Esperanza still live here, Chaz?” Vince asks. “It looks vacant.”

“That old bastard hardly ever leaves,” Chaz says. “And his grass gets so damn tall that I have to cut it myself sometimes.”

“Have you heard anything about Judith’s mother? Johanna?”

Chaz pivots his head from side to side.

Vince sighs. To Chaz, its sounds like Vince has been the one mowing lawns all day under the unrelenting sun of Texas.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you there much, Vince,” Chaz says. “But—”

Vince perks up.

“I have heard my mother say, once, that Mrs. Esperanza might have a whole new family somewhere out in Grand Prairie—”

“Grand Prairie? Vince asks. “That’s practically a million miles away from Thornton! Grand Prairie. . . .” He lets the city’s name roll off his tongue and disappear in the warm wind.

Vince looks at the little blades of green grass scattered across the concrete sidewalk, then shifts his legs to take another look at Judith’s old home. “Well, I’m gonna leave this letter next door for Mr. Esperanza,” he says before removing the small white envelope resting in his back pocket.

Chaz notices Vince’s eyes searching for Mr. Esperanza’s mailbox. He points it out for him.

“Thanks, Chaz,” Vince says. “I’m sorry there won’t be a normal funeral.”

Chaz nods. “It’s alright, Vince. The whole fireworks thing sounds like a better idea anyway. Sounds just like Judith.”

“But we’ll still have a eulogy, though. I’ll send you the info once me and Hank figure it all out,” he says, treading the sidewalk over to the house fading in both the sun and time. “And you should be able to see the fireworks from here.”

“Let me know before you light them,” Chaz says, grabbing the handle of his mower.

Vince gives him a thumbs-up. “Thanks,” he says again to Chaz, but the lawn mower’s engine fires up before the word reaches him.

Vince steps up onto porch and stands between the mailbox and front door. He doesn’t knock. The mailbox isn’t one set on a post. Instead, it’s one of those boxes that’s stuck up on the wall, nailed right into the siding. But when Vince raises the metal cover of the black mailbox, the front door next to him carefully cracks open. Vince turns and looks into the small opening.

A thin hand with shaky, gray knuckles grips—hangs—on a beaten brass knob. Resting against the inside of the door is the sunken eye and side of a scruffy, skinny face. . . .

My next story will be a reworking of the very first short story I ever wrote. It’ll be called:

Bad Juju

The first three pages of my latest story about a hard luck girl looking for her dog.

Judith stepped out of a bush that I’m sure was full of poison ivy. “He’s not here,” she said, scanning the dark shrubbery behind me with her bright LED flashlight. The sun had set hours ago, but Judith’s determination took no rest.

“Juju,” I said to her, trying to calm her down. “I’m sure he’s back at your house now. Dogs are like that. One time, my old dog Rocket ran out the gate.” I made a motion with my hand to imitate a dog running. “The next day, I found him sleeping outside right below my window.”

“I hope he’s okay,” Judith said. She looked down at her dirty Converse, her long brown hair hiding her face. “I need Lucky. He’s gonna be hungry. He’s scared—I feel it.”

I never felt so much worry in her voice before. I turned away from her because I thought she might start to cry, but instead she took a few steps and passed me—she was heading back to our neighborhood, now. I thought I should hug her or something—to try and console her, you know? But I didn’t want to get any poison ivy on me—I get a terrible reaction from the stuff. So I stayed a few feet behind her and followed her back to Longshadow Lane.

Surrounded by an intimate darkness, we flowed over the sidewalk like a pair of tired ghosts. We walked through a path of orange street lamps for about ten minutes, and it was silent—you could only hear our footsteps and a chirping buzz from crickets hidden in the dark grass, humming us all the way back to our houses.

I stopped when we reached the part of the sidewalk that led towards her front porch, but Judith rounded the turn and made a quick inspection all around the outside of her house and backyard. I lost sight of her for a few moments and I sorta hoped that she’d come running back carrying a happy little yapping Beagle safely in her arms. With that image of Judith and Lucky in my mind, I started to yawn and wanted to lie down in my bed waiting for me next door. Then Judith walked back to the spot where she had left me. Her slim arms were sad and empty and I saw no sign of relief in her worried look. She said nothing.

“Lucky’ll be here in the morning,” I told her. “Trust me.”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. Then she finally looked me in the eyes again, “I need you here again—tomorrow morning—if he still hasn’t come home.”

“Okay,” I said. I nodded at Judith to show my support.

“We gotta find him,” she said. “It’ll be hell without Lucky.”

It didn’t really feel right to say goodnight at that moment, so I turned around and crossed the cracked sidewalk back over to my house without saying anything. I pictured Judith slipping passed her drunken dad, snoring in their living room, when I heard her big front door open and shut in the warm dark air behind me.

I managed to slide myself under the garage door and snuck quietly into my bedroom without waking up my parents. I got into my pajamas, lied down in bed and thought about Judith and her luck. I think the girl’s cursed or something. She’s always had bad luck. Everyone calls her Bad Juju, or Juju, for short. But I remembered that the worst of her luck didn’t actually happen to her.

It happened to her little brother, Henry.

When Judith was about thirteen and Henry twelve, he went out with some of his friends to play football down by the creek next to Esterfeld Community College. Halfway through their game, Henry threw the ball far into an ugly thicket. They all probably would have just left it there, lost in the shrubs, except for the fact that the ball belonged to Henry’s dad. You see, Judith and Henry’s dad used to play QB for Thornton High School—he led the Thornton Tigers to their first and only UIL championship title. So Henry had to find the ball or else he’d probably get his ass beat harder than Tigers had over the last decade because that ball was a game ball from the championship match at old Texas Stadium.

They all searched through that thicket until the sun had set, but Henry was lucky enough to find it. Henry also found an old rifle there, too. . .