Recess

Fuck it, I’m gonna open this thing up. I was reminded that if you’re going to bother to say it, then you might as well shout it. Shout it out loud. Okay, Kiss was the original, but I heard it said in relation to writing, recently—and it wasn't about coming out, either (although I suppose it would encompass that, too, but alas not here). And since I like to consider my self a poly-aesthete, then I’ll put my output where my mouth is—er, make that creativity, or something, where my mouth is.

Yeah, so, in this spirit, here’s a short story I wrote recently about a little boy who can’t sleep.

Recess

Ben’s tired, but not his brain. Head hums like the big, old computers at school, used only when newer, better ones weren’t working; the pushing, pulling spin of warm air through ancient-dust caked vents: cobwebbed dartboards forgotten in basements. Inside closed eyes glare TV screens. Eyes opened again. Better just to look into the dark. Spastic legs kick-off sheets, soon wrapped again, as Egyptian mummies. Ben saw a museum exhibit of a pharaoh in his tomb, hidden deep in a pyramid, surrounded by a lot of stuff. Food, water and even pets were buried in the tomb with the pharaoh. Why would he need these things when he’s dead? All is uncomfortable and nothing seems to work right.

Earlier, Ben escaped from recess. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to go outside with the rest of the kids. It was just—well, his stomach hurt. He hadn’t felt like eating breakfast or much lunch. What he was able to shove down was barely warm and unrecognizable. Just before the end of lunch, he went to the bathroom. When he was done, instead of making a left and going back to the cafeteria, he took a right, and walked towards the double-doors at the end of the hall—flat, cold black cheeks below a pair of thin glass eyes crisscrossed with wire, each a lower eyelid: sets of curved, hanging arms holding dull metal bars. Above the doorway a light-box never lit read “Emergency Exit Only, Alarm Will Sound.” Ben had never heard it go off before. He opened one of the doors, waited a couple of seconds, and walked out onto the loading dock behind the cafeteria. Ben could hear the school janitor talking on the other side of the big garbage cans.

Ben likes the janitor. He has a small hoop earring in each ear, a jerry-curl and cool tattoos. The janitor, or School Superintendent, like it’s painted on the parking space filled by his sparkly-blue van, is the coolest adult at school. He gets to wear a uniform with his name on it: “Mean” Joe Green. That’s what all the kids call him, and, just like the jolly-green giant, he towers over them.

The janitor was talking to one of the lunch-ladies about things Ben was used to hearing grownups talk about: their jobs, their kids, and money. But he was cussing, too, which Ben wasn’t used to hearing from adults, at least not in real life—they cussed all the time on cable. “Mean” Joe was talking about a “big mess” that “poor folk” had to “clean up.” What big mess? Was the janitor poor? Ben heard him say Wall Street. Wasn’t that where his dad works? Recently, Ben’s dad had been picking him up from school, something his mom had usually done. He thought he heard the lunch-lady say, “stalks.” Like beanstalks? Hopefully they were having beans for lunch tomorrow. No, she said “stocks,” like socks. Ben didn’t know what stocks were, but they sounded familiar too. His heart beat loudly in his ears. The janitor wasn’t being nice at all. Sick and hungry at the same time, his stomach still hurt. Making sure the door didn’t slam shut behind him, Ben went back inside. He ran down the hallway towards the playground, the blacktop, and recess.