summernumber74

[summernumber74]

“Summer No. 74″ — Day 3 — 4,922/50,000

Behind the house the sun was making itself known. Still behind the horizon, or maybe just the hills and trees. Judy preferred the hills, the trees. Sitting here on the old sofa staring into the morning night, not hung over but a few inches of center, she remembered the trip she made in high school to see her dying great-grandmother. This was the first time she’d travelled with her mother’s fiancé. The three of them drove through the secretive evil hills of North Georgia, through the softer evil hills of Alabama, the evil flat forests of North Mississippi, then the in the flat evil of Louisiana and finally arrived in the unending plains of North Texas. Judy and her mother hadn’t gone west for at least 5 years, when she was 12 or so, at which time Judy was so spiritually desolated that she never took in anything around her.

 They went back and forth between a now estranged uncle’s home (suburban and unthinkably ugly, an arrangement of blocks with tremendous pitched ceilings) and a hospice center (just typically ugly, like all spaces in the thrall of death). On the last visit to the hospice center, Judy knew she’d be seeing her great-grandmother for the last time. The air on this February day was empty and vicious. Out the window, she saw the barrenness of the plain. On the horizon she saw a few little hills, undeniably just a subdivision, and then it all came together. This was a death. A dry, indifferent, wintry flatness.

 A drop of an adult beverage, “the ol’ glug glug” in Jeremy’s terminology, and Judy was up at 6 on the dot. When she was up this early, Judy came out to sit on the damp couch and through the screen of tree limbs watch the world wake up. Already a pair of laborers had passed by, talked about how bad the bus schedule on this side of town was. Then there were the joggers that always caught their breath sitting on the half rotted log next to the road. Then the cyclist. Now, a break in the activity. Around 7:10, another batch of joggers, then students heading to their 8 AMs, and then and then and then. Sometimes it felt overwhelming, but Judy loved the endless procession of the world, of people’s elaborating on the business of their lives. Judy, for her part, felt most in herself running errands, Making Phone Calls, the kind of silly day-to-day shit that makes it possible to take care of her self. If she could tend to her body, broken and miserable as it was, then everything else was more tolerable.

 Finally awake enough, caffeinated enough, Judy gave some brain space to last night. After drinking and showing each other different playlists on their phones, they played with the BB gun and shot all their bottles apart, the front yard turned over to glass and pellets.  Kathleen got the PS2 she kept in her backpack and showed Judy and Jeremy this thing she found in Final Fantasy XII, then Ken in their sports bra and boxer briefs gave a reading of some choice passages from The Uncollected Dan Brown. Around 2 they all fell asleep cuddling on the futon Judy unfolded in her room. Who could want for more?

Well, more sleep and something to eat. Judy was hungry and feeling sort of queasy from all the coffee. She fried an egg in butter until it was crisp and terrible, then ate it on a dry piece of wheat toast. Even though her hand was a bit shaky from the coffee, she closed her eyes on the loveseat. In a caffeine dream, several dozen read lines expanded and contracted to a song that did not sound like, but that definitely was, “Take My Breath Away.”

 The she gasped away as Kathleen shook her and said loudly, “Judy!” Judy sat up so quickly that her and Kathleen hit foreheads. There was a ‘Klonk.’ Jeremy was rocking back and forth while sitting on the arm of the loveseat, and the arm rocked with him. “What time is it,” Judy asked, her voice half of a groan. Judy reached for her phone and saw that it was 7:30 AM, she’d been asleep only about 20 minutes. “We’re going to go hang out with Marshall at the bakery for a while and then head over to the print shop,” Kathleen said with a sleepy dreaminess, “Do you want to come with us?” Judy smiled slightly at the idea, then, propped on an arm of the loveseat, saw the washing machine. “Ughhhh. I gotta do a few chores, for moving out. I’ll come in around….1? Is that okay?” Jeremy leapt to his feet— “1! You want to come in at…1??” A pause. “Yeah 1 o’clock should be fine.” Kathleen nodded in agreement. “Yeah, come on in at 1. We’ll save you something.” Kathleen hugged Judy and gave her something between a peck and brush on the cheek— sensuous.

 When she heard the door close, Judy sat up and stared at the floor. She stared at it some more. Then she went and ran the load of clothes she’d left in the washer the day before. She played a Match 3 game on her phone for a while then closed herself inside her room. She still couldn’t imagine that she was leaving, and that this room, with its rough wooden floors that slanted at a different angle at every point in the room. She decided to smoke a cigarette in her room as a dumb, minor act of having been here. Paint flakes fell like pollen as Judy opened the old window, lit a cigarette and hunched out into the hot heat. The A/C chugged like a train, nearing it’s fifth death of the summer. Soon, she’d be back at her hometown, bored and belabored. No more waking up at 2 PM, or crying in front of the gas station, or setting off fireworks in the clearing by the tracks. Misery! Her bare torso scraped against the wood of the windowsill, splinter lodged in her rib. “How overloaded. This window is a rotting Longinus,” Judy said aloud to her empty house. Thinking about this summer, she felt the way it’d been a folding and folding of stereotyping, the sadness, the flatness, the seeming meaningless days punctuated by overloaded nights. In spite of that, in spite of the way she could feel herself rubbing against the walls of possibility, she felt good that she knew that, at least— that there could have been more. She wanted to feel the regret raher than not know there was something worth regretting. And she dreaded going home, and being in her old room, and her mother’s ex-husband, and the starchy traffic jams near public schools, and she dreaded being aware from her friends, even if it was only an hour away. An hour in any direction anywhere on the world could mean anything. An hour north or south or earlier or later, it mattered. Judy moved her laundry.

 The book return slot on the exterior of the library had been bolted shut for the last month. Judy walked into the air conditioning— noon and the heat outside was in its full swing— and felt the slight quiet pleasure of being in a pretty public library. This one was late modernist, low ceilings and wide avenues, with a few po-mo touches for new public study rooms. She approached the front desk and the librarian on duty, a soft-faced man with a piece of paper taped to his light jacket saying “He/Him Pronouns.” Judy made sure to give off extremely transgender energies.

 “Hi, how can I help you today?” The librarian was in a brief mood. Judy set the books, close to tumbling, onto the desk. “Hey, I need to return these books.” “Ok. Let’s see here,” and he swiped book after book across a red light scanner. Each book was accompanied by a throaty bark that Judy (shrewd one) figured meant they were overdue. This would be a thing.

“Are you aware that this books are overdue, some of them by several months?” The librarian was bored and a bit acidic.

“I’m not, um, surprised. What’s the fine?”

“Seventy-four dollars and thirty-one cents, exactly.”

“Well. Interesting. Anyway, they’re not mine, so, I’ll, uh try to get in touch with my friend about it. Umm, I’ll try calling him now, actually. Let me step outside.”

The librarian was unconvinced but turned back to his work. Judy rushed back to her car and exhaled from how hot it’d already gotten. She drove back home and stuffed the laundry, mostly dried, into a trash bag. While there, Dani came from her room. “Hey. So, I was at the Little Roll this morning, and saw Jeremy and Kathleen.” “Oh,” Judy asked, trying to get a read on Dani’s ambiguous tone.

“Yeah.”

“Uh, okay,” Judy said, sort of offput. Dani walked back into her room and shut the door. Judy checked her room to make sure there was nothing else to take down to the donation center. She remembered there was a stack of records in her trunk that her old roommates had given. No doubt they were now melted. She brushed aside the thought of looking at them.

Even having done so little in this crusty house, time had gotten away from her. Judy threw her bag into the backseat and drove to the big donation center.

[summernumber74]

I forgot to post today's writing when I finished but I'm already snug in bed so I'll do it in the morning xoxo love y'all

[summernumber74]

“Summer No. 74″ — Day 2 — 3,341/50,000

Judy thought she looked extremely serious and handsome rushing around the loading docks. “Someone mixed up these frat t-shirts with the sorority t-shirts, and then packed all of that underneath Student Life sweatshirts and that order doesn’t even need to be filled until October. Plus there’s the radio station and then a couple of the bars downtown wanted stuff by the time students move in.” Finally she tied up her hair, put her thin long fingers to her temples, hummed The Proud Family theme to herself. Judy, feeling the sweat on her brow beginning to melt again, knew she’d miss this beautifully earnest woman. In spite of the strange, only half-born nature of their mutual affections, Judy felt that over this long miserable summer flew a huge banner that, in gold letters like an Irish manuscript, read KATHLEEN’S SINCERE KINDNESS. And Judy had found shade under that banner, out of the sun that knows everything, every thing in Judy’s loathsome heart. She went over to where Kathleen was cutting through the tape of unlabeled boxes, reached for, and then pulled back from, her sweatshirt sleeve. “Hey, Kathleen, I know there’s a lot going on here and—” Kathleen, brief, turned and said, “What if you stay at my place this weekend? Like, over night? And come in on Sunday? I mean, you can keep your stuff at my place, even if it’s a lot.”

“Well well well, if it isn’t Judge Judy!” Ken was being weird tonight. Judy figured a customer at the Ea-Z Freez had made a scene right as their shift ended, which always got them wound up. Judy shut the door behind her and gathered herself. “Hey Ken,” Judy being singsong hesitant. Ken came from around the corner in a sports bra and pink camo cargo shorts, their forearms dripping wet up to the elbows. “Need a judgment of yours. I’ve been soaping down the kitchen counter for and that’s good to go, though there’s something weird in the cabinets I want you to look at. More the issue is that no one else can figure out what to do with the mold in the shower. I texted Angie and she says try to burn it off. Dani says I shower the most so it’s my issue to figure out. Oh and listen I think Danny-II already left, so we’re stuck with his stuff. I found this pair of corduroy pants of his that I think you might like,” Ken pointed with their toe at a pile of olive brown next to Danny-II’s open door. All that was left was a small pile of books owed to the public library, a few garments, and a wall-to-wall collection of anime posters. Most of the idol posters had already been folded up and, Judy saw, placed right next to Angie’s door. Hmm-ing for a minute, Judy said, “I might take the…Cowboy Bebop posters?” Dani slammed open the door, her hand over her mouth, doing the anime “Incredulous Woman” laugh— “HueHueHueHue! Someone who doesn’t watch anime? Who likes Cowboy Bebop? Perish the thought!” Judy knew there was an immense amount of chaos in the house tonight. “Did you hear me from outside,” Judy asked. Dani shrugged and said, “I am extremely sensitive to sounds.”

Judy started rifling through Danny-II’s library books, said, “Hey Dani maybe you need to flip through this,” and threw a hardbound New Solutions for Soundproofing Your Home: Revised for Wine Rooms & Home Entertaining over Dani’s forehead, grazing her buzzed hair. “Man O Man,” Judy said, “What didn’t this guy read? Listen to this: Weather Systems in the American Southwest, 1981-1995; The Unpublished Dan Brown; Reconsidering the Byzantines: Post-Ottoman Greek Nationalisms; A People’s History of Real Estate Fraud in the Early American Republic; Home Maintenance Volume 2: Patio Maitenance. This guy reads the weirdest shit.” Ken wiped their arms on their pink camo and grabbed the Dan Brown, flipping through it as they walked back towards the kitchen. Dani picked up the book on weather and unfolded weather pattern maps, whistling like they centerfolds. “Wow, New Mexico in ’86 was… bonkers.”  Judy hollered towards the kitchen, “Well, if he’s out of here, I’ll take these back tomorrow.” “Alright, alright, I’ll leave this out,” Ken said. Dani tossed the weather book back on the floor, the map still unfolded.

 Judy and Dani spent some time trying to get the kitchen together. The weird thing in the cabinet, which was indescribable, something like an architectural defect and a distinct object halfway present in space and time, they left to tomorrow. While Judy swept, Dani said, “So, Jeremy texted me a couple minutes ago. He says you might not be around much this weekend?” Ken, extremely relaxed out on their loveseat with their legs on the coffee table around both side of the little LCD television, raised an eyebrow over the Dan Brown. “Well, you know…I went to pick up my check today and Ricki hadn’t come by yet. It’s her mom, I think, or her aunt or something? Well anyway you know that goofy thing Jeremy does when he’s in his zone?” Dani laughed. “You mean that goofy Humphrey Bogart look from the movie posters? Yeah, that kid’s a trip,” and Dani, in imitation, drew her lips tight and made her forehead strained still. With the look still on her face, Dani got right next to Ken and whipped the book up out of their hands. “Hey! I was reading that,” Ken reached behind the loveseat, straining over a bit. Dani turned around, rubbed her thumb on her lower lips, and said in an arch French accent, “B-oooogey.” Judy snorted at this and continued, “Anyway, I think I’m gonna try to work a couple shifts before I leave, just a couple hours, and then I’m gonna keep my stuff at Kathleen’s and, like, stay there Saturday night.” Now Ken was involved, saying, “Oh! So you and Kathleen are talking, huh? Or, I mean, again?” Judy tried to keep the excitement she was feeling out of her voice, saying, “It’s not like we stopped talking. I mean, we’re close and we saw each other every day at work, you know. It’s like, if our landlord’s coming by to take our keys on Saturday, anyway, I’m not going to want to drive back just to make a little money, even if it’s helping out.” Judy felt satisfied with what she felt was a masterful deflection.

 Until Dani added, “Oh, well, Jeremy said you seemed much more enthusiastic about it. You, lemme check my phone, I want to get this right—” and she peaked at her phone in her pocket, “You, and I quote, ‘did that weird hop-step Judy does when she’s really living her life.’ Is that true?” Judy felt her face get hot, but Dani said, “Oh, well you seem very cool about it. Maybe Jeremy was just reading into things. He did say that Kathleen seemed pretty pleased with herself when she told him, though. He said she was especially shoulder pad-y when you left.” Judy and Dani and Ken all simultaneously went “Ah, hmmmmm,” at that. Judy let this sit in the air and groaned. “Y’all…I really liiiiiiike her. She’s very tall.” Ken said, “ Well, be realistic. What could something like this mean except for some kind of, uh, interest? Or something?” “Yeah,” Dani said, “I mean it’s not like y’all had any kind of falling out or anything in the first place. You just, what, she went to see her family for a few weeks, you got kind of,” Dani, searching for a delicate word, making a ‘come on, come on’ hand gesture next to her own head, “weird? I guess? And there was that like, that thing at the party. I dunno. Ken’s got it right, don’t worry about it. Even if she’s not trying to marry you, she must wanna still, what? Keep close after you leave town? And you’re gonna visit, right? What’s the worry, then. You two’ll probably just, what, watch some ABC Family melodrama, make out on her porch and go to sleep. It’ll be cute, enjoy yourself.”

“Huh, that makes me think,” Judy said hesitantly. “Does she only want me over on Saturday, or also, like, earlier? Maybe I should text her.” She rubbed her hands, dusty from having moved on to clean the graveyard of spiders that was the top of the cabinets, and sent Kathleen a text:

           J: Hey! So, i’m just trying to let my mom know what’s up for this weekend

           J: She doesn’t *need* me home urgently per se so like maybe i could come hang out with you all weekend?

                       Sent 10:06 PM

           J: Like when we’re not at work. I know you’re super busy!! But like i can work in the mornings or            

           afternoons or whenever and then when we’re not working… or like…

                       Sent 10:07 PM

           J: Could i stay over friday and saturday too?

           J: Or you could come and hang here too?

                       Sent 10:10 PM

                                   Read 10:53 PM

           K: Hey! Are you still around? We JUST got out. Me and Jerry are going to go get a drink. Are you up?  The two of us would love to see you again:)

                       Sent 12:01 AM

           J: Oooooh

           J: I’m honestly so gross rn i’m actually about to shower real quick y’all go ahead

                       Sent 12:02 AM

                                   Read 12:02 AM

           K: Haha awww I feel that. Hey why don’t we just get something from the gas station and come over. You ��still have that gross couch? Like, it didn’t get torched at the destruction party :p Do you want anything?

                       Sent 12:03 AM

           J: Umm just get me a…            J: bud lite lime lmao

                       Sent 12:05 AM

                                   Read 12:05 AM

           K: You got it! ^___^ See you soon <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

                       Sent 12:05 AM

           J: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

[summernumber74]

also a lot of this story takes place at a print shop which I don't know how that works so if my descriptions are vague or weird.... forgive me

[summernumber74]

“Summer No. 74″ — Day 1 — 1,674/50,000

Summer No. 51

With her unspectacular hands, Judy ran tape over her one large box. She required a second piece of tape to feel good about her box’s security, the first piece being crooked as God’s Own Word. Her room was hot and covered in a film of wrinkled tops. She herself was sweaty and indifferent to this summer’s hovel, the rent being agreeable in proportion to collapse. And she spent many weekends away, the next county over, coaching her mother for a forthcoming divorce. Five nights, two nights, five nights, two nights, three months of that for a cumulative 500 dollars in rent. So, if she was away enough, and the rent was good enough, why worry about being here? The bugs mostly stuck to the kitchen sink, and though the shower was half-eaten by some mystery mold, there was room for a huge bottle of 2-in-1 shampoo/body wash shared by 5 unhygienic hipsters. Judy and her roommates called it the Hot House, humid and life giving as it was.

 And anyway her tenure here was three days away from being over. After hopscotching away a spring semester on couches, Judy found somewhere to move into mid-May. An unscrupulous landlord had rented the house, sight unseen, to a group of sorority girls back last August, each peeling off until the house was all subletters.

 Judy flew open a trash bag that’d been on her bed and began stuffing it with her ugly provocative blouses. She intended to take most of her clothes to a donation center. She noticed they were stiff with sweat. She paused, shifted on her feet, looked out her door to the cluttered kitchen and the washer/dryer. She slid on her house flip-flops and dumped her load of clothes into the washer, which she often called “the warsh,” which was precisely correct. But, it often caused in her roommates a cruel useless delight.

 The washer, reeking now of her clothes, shrieked it’s evil shriek; Judy winced and examined what was left. At this point, the kitchen was mostly stripped of use. What wasn’t discarded at Monday’s destruction party had been taken away for donation. Behold a summer’s remaining culinary treasures: a few plates, a coffeemaker crusted with grounds, a rice maker. The loveseat by the television, over in the corner, was Ken’s claim, and Dani said that the coffee table had always been hers anyway. Roommates at work, clutter uncluttered, Judy saw the house as a procession of junk stretching back several years, year after year a den of flunkies, the occasional Greek Life outpost, and now, soon then, five fools. This bed frame, that mug, this shower curtain. Judy saw them elongated backwards in time, always busted, always in new ways.

 Approaching the front door, Judy threw on the jean jacket she’d taken from her mom’s closet a month ago. She buttoned it over her clump of a stomach (fuzzy), leaving HRT tits free to the world. On the porch she smoked several cigarettes, thought about what could get into her hair if she leaned back against the outside couch, threw a few horseshoes, and listened to the chimes next door. After so much difficulty, this peace, though lonely, was agreeable. She traced with her big toe a heart, and in the heart three lines suggesting a flame, in the dirt still damn from yesterday. Judy sang over and over her tune:

           Shade shade shade            I live in the shade Judy’d been singing it since June. The house got almost no natural light, shadowed as it was by trees. She liked that, she was piedmont all the way, and if she had to have a nervous breakdown this summer, well, she preferred an absence of the judgmental sun. After lunch (4 PM), Judy slept for a few hours. She dreamed often, this time of her mother’s husband with a pair of massive wings. In this one she caved his head in with her own humerus, painfully extracted with a pair of salad tongs. This dream was about as violent as anything else. She was horrified and bored with what her mind, in ugly fragments of sleep, gave her. Occasionally her dreams were suggestions of a beautiful future.

 Through a hole in the limbs the sun illuminated the whole yard and porch. The situation at around 6:40 PM, though before it’d been 7, even 7:15. Judy withdrew to her room after quickly popping her head out. Paint flakes fell like pollen as Judy opened the old window, lit a cigarette and hunched out into the hot heat. The A/C chugged like a train, nearing it’s fifth death of the summer. Soon, she’d be back at her hometown, bored and belabored. No more waking up at noon, or crying in front of the gas station, or setting off fireworks in the clearing by the tracks. Misery! Her bare torso scraped against the wood of the windowsill, splinter lodged in her rib. “How overloaded. This window is a rotting Longinus,” Judy said aloud to her still empty house. She desperately needed her roommates. Or any sort of attention. Or any sort of company. Where was Marshall? She hadn’t heard from her in a few days. She spat outside, missing the dirt and putting a drag of spit on the house. Finally, restless to death, she went to pick up her last check.

 She parked a few feet from the backdoor, barely missing a few plastic chairs reclaimed from the shuttered church’s Sunday School building just across the street. Right up against the building was an upturned metal basin with a flowerpot on top; The pot was filled with packing peanuts and a faux-plant made of faux-leather and parts from a rusted bicycle. Judy pulled on the door a few times. She wasn’t sure if it was stuck or locked. She yanked more until out burst the coziest looking lesbian you’d ever seen. “Hey Jud. It was stuck, so, I rammed it,” Kathleen said. For a while now she’d been sewing in shoulder pads to the floral sweatshirts she wore the whole year; “For the silhouette,” she’d explained. “Come on in. What’s got you around here?” Jeremy was filling boxes with t-shirts for all the Greek Life events next week, his headphones in and lips puckered in concentration. Judy waved at him, to no outcome. “I came to pick up my last check,” Judy said. Kathleen shuffled through a couple envelopes on the manager’s desk. “Yeah, uh, I haven’t seen Ricki since Saturday, I think she’s out of town? I think her mom’s sick. I was actually texting her earlier. She’s not going to be back until this Sunday. It must be serious. She didn’t say that but I figure it is. We could really use her, what with next week being Rush Week. Can you come back Sunday for your check? And, actually, can you work a couple more shifts? I mean I know you’re off the schedule, now, but, it’s not like you wouldn’t get paid. If you’re available. It’s just, with Rush Week, and then we’re getting a bunch of orders from student orgs and stuff, we’ve got at least one or two people here 20 hours a day. Someone from the Gwinnett branch is even coming in this weekend.” Kathleen scratched her jaw.

 Judy pressed her heel into the concrete floor until her ankle was felt like a tight bag of stones. Jeremy throw a full box to the side. “Well, I’m out of here on Saturday morning, but, I can come back next week,” Judy said. “Did Ricki say she’d be back next week?” Judy could feel her face getting hot, the dried sweat making her feel sick. Kathleen, clearly tired, shrugged and said, “That’s what she said, yeah.” Kathleen grabbed a clipboard and said, “I’m gonna go check to see how the stock is. We’ve been printing all day and me and Jeremy will be here to midnight, probably. I haven’t even checked where we’re at with it.” She quick-walked through a heavy sliding door to the outbound garage.

Judy went to the bathroom to cry, more like hyperventilating. Her mind raced to nothing, no solution, nothing. She’d just have to come back. It’s nothing. It’s not a far drive. It’s a nice drive. She hated what it meant. Leaving and coming back. She felt like that was her life, leaving and coming back. If she left, she could submerge herself in her crappy hometown. If she came back, she’d be at someone else’s place, staying over, visiting, practically a tourist. She put the lid down on the toilet and let her legs shake for a few minutes and washed her face. She opened the door and snuck through towers of boxes to get behind Jeremy, still in his thing. She tickled his flanks, getting out of him a hoot that turned into a cackle. His face fell back into a solemn fashion model scowl. “Hey Judy. When’d you get here?” Judy cupped his cheeks and said, “Jeremy, you’re like a brother for me. You’re too pretty to be here. What are you doing?” They launched into a little dialogue they’d been doing for the last year. “You know, I was talking to Kathleen, she’s really stressed about all these orders. I think she’d really appreciate if you could do like, even an extra shift.” Judy rubbed his arm and said, “I’ll think about it. How is it for you? You seem like it’s okay.” Jeremy did this little eyebrow wiggle that meant ‘How could I do anything but make it look like I’m taking it in stride?’ Judy thanked god he didn’t go to college in New York or he’d be modeling now. She wanted more for him. “Okay, well, I’m gonna go say bye to Kat. Text me when y’all get off work, maybe we can do something,” Judy gave him a quick hug.

In the garage, Kathleen clopped around in her boots. “Judy! No one arranged these boxes, it’s a nightmare to check off.”

[summernumber74]

Hi hello <3 excited to post my nanowrimo here