The End of the Summer
It was the last of three summers together. In some ways, it was the best summer – gone the uncertainty of that first, halting season, the late nights spent pouring ourselves open amongst the quiet suburban streets, the fragrant yards; lapsed, too, was the passion of the second summer, when tearing our bodies apart seemed akin to primal sin, when whole afternoons and evenings were lost to the confines of my messy bedroom, the mattress on the floor, the books scattered everywhere like dead leaves. The world, that second summer, had narrowed. It was, she said, our bubble.
The third summer, after the long absence, was something moderate, something quieter. Like a humming instead of full blown song – the gentle melody that underlies everything, the cadences of your body, or the insects late on a summer night. It was probably the closest to the real thing we would get – to the shape of a life together, each of us with our separate passions, but our nights devoted, still, to coming together, to reading on the kitchen floor while the eggplant parmesan cooked in the oven; instead of the previous year’s feral, almost religious couplings we held hands, traced fingers over the soft veins on the inside of a forearm. We were, you could say, drifting already – held together by smaller and smaller points of contact.
June
Dinner at a friend’s, a writer. It’s his parent’s house, Victorian, shambly in the best kind of way, a grand front porch that slopes, more and more every year, toward the street. Homemade pizzas on the grill, hot dogs, cold cans of Coors Light, spicy potato salad, blueberries picked from the backyard, ice cream melting, melting and sluicing blue with the juice of the berries.
We eat on the porch while the neighborhood kids ride by on bicycles. There aren’t enough chairs, so we sit on the worn wood, her legs carelessly open, the way only a girl in the comfort of first love can sit, her mottled green and white panties revealed, a bit of razor stubble. She leans back and stretches her toes, dangling them over the edge of the porch.
Later, the writer and I sit in Adirondack chairs and watch a storm shake the big oak in his front yard.
“You know,” he tells me, “I think I’ve written all I can. This is it for me. My body, it’s falling apart. I’m in too much pain to write. And there’s so much left undone, left unsaid.” His face is softly cratered. “I watched a storm like this once with a girl I loved, all those years ago. Back when I was your age, when I had images of great books dancing in my head, when I had the energy to write them, though maybe not the talent. Even if I did, I wasted it, mostly on women, on being scared. Well, there was this woman, very beautiful. We were at the end of things, but we didn’t know it yet – still having a beautiful time, as you often do at the end of things, but looking back, it’s so clear to me we were doomed. But I had no idea then. And we watched a storm just like this, and she was hanging off the porch, long hair down her back. I had a half ounce of grass in my backpack, it was the end of summer, I had all the years ahead of me to write the books I dreamed of writing, the girl I loved was dangling in the rain – life, right? What a thing, I thought. I still think that, sometimes, in different ways. Quieter ways.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” he says, turning to look at me.
Just then, the girls – his daughter; my lover – come bounding out to the porch, long legs in faded shorts, messy hair spilling down their backs, chests freckled with sun.
No, I think. We’re at the beginning. This long quiet: that is the thing.
The third summer, after the long absence, was something moderate, something quieter. Like a humming instead of full blown song – the gentle melody that underlies everything, the cadences of your body, or the insects late on a summer night. It was probably the closest to the real thing we would get – to the shape of a life together, each of us with our separate passions, but our nights devoted, still, to coming together, to reading on the kitchen floor while the eggplant parmesan cooked in the oven; instead of the previous year’s feral, almost religious couplings we held hands, traced fingers over the soft veins on the inside of a forearm. We were, you could say, drifting already – held together by smaller and smaller points of contact.
June
Dinner at a friend’s, a writer. It’s his parent’s house, Victorian, shambly in the best kind of way, a grand front porch that slopes, more and more every year, toward the street. Homemade pizzas on the grill, hot dogs, cold cans of Coors Light, spicy potato salad, blueberries picked from the backyard, ice cream melting, melting and sluicing blue with the juice of the berries.
We eat on the porch while the neighborhood kids ride by on bicycles. There aren’t enough chairs, so we sit on the worn wood, her legs carelessly open, the way only a girl in the comfort of first love can sit, her mottled green and white panties revealed, a bit of razor stubble. She leans back and stretches her toes, dangling them over the edge of the porch.
Later, the writer and I sit in Adirondack chairs and watch a storm shake the big oak in his front yard.
“You know,” he tells me, “I think I’ve written all I can. This is it for me. My body, it’s falling apart. I’m in too much pain to write. And there’s so much left undone, left unsaid.” His face is softly cratered. “I watched a storm like this once with a girl I loved, all those years ago. Back when I was your age, when I had images of great books dancing in my head, when I had the energy to write them, though maybe not the talent. Even if I did, I wasted it, mostly on women, on being scared. Well, there was this woman, very beautiful. We were at the end of things, but we didn’t know it yet – still having a beautiful time, as you often do at the end of things, but looking back, it’s so clear to me we were doomed. But I had no idea then. And we watched a storm just like this, and she was hanging off the porch, long hair down her back. I had a half ounce of grass in my backpack, it was the end of summer, I had all the years ahead of me to write the books I dreamed of writing, the girl I loved was dangling in the rain – life, right? What a thing, I thought. I still think that, sometimes, in different ways. Quieter ways.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?” he says, turning to look at me.
Just then, the girls – his daughter; my lover – come bounding out to the porch, long legs in faded shorts, messy hair spilling down their backs, chests freckled with sun.
No, I think. We’re at the beginning. This long quiet: that is the thing.
July
We park my car on an empty patch of grass. A wide field in front of us, a copse of trees at the far end, monolithic in the dark. Another storm moving through. Summer is the season of storms, late night thunder rattling the house, lightning flashing, and – in those brief moments when I wake – illuminating her silhouette, the whites of her unsleeping eyes.
As we sit, the car slowly fills with our heat, the windows steaming. We listen as the thunder grows deeper, and the lightning moves closer. Then, it happens – the cloud in front of us turns blue on the inside, a fierce icicle descending from the sky.
“Did you see that?” she says, pointing. “Blue lightning. I’ve heard about that. It’s rare. Very rare. I heard most people, not even storm chasers, never see it in their whole lives. And we just did.”
We park my car on an empty patch of grass. A wide field in front of us, a copse of trees at the far end, monolithic in the dark. Another storm moving through. Summer is the season of storms, late night thunder rattling the house, lightning flashing, and – in those brief moments when I wake – illuminating her silhouette, the whites of her unsleeping eyes.
As we sit, the car slowly fills with our heat, the windows steaming. We listen as the thunder grows deeper, and the lightning moves closer. Then, it happens – the cloud in front of us turns blue on the inside, a fierce icicle descending from the sky.
“Did you see that?” she says, pointing. “Blue lightning. I’ve heard about that. It’s rare. Very rare. I heard most people, not even storm chasers, never see it in their whole lives. And we just did.”
August
Before labor day, her parents go away for a weekend and leave us the house. Autumn comes early: frost on the grass, the morning sun clear and fierce. We make fires in the cast iron stove. I work in the study, while she writes in the dining room, the furnace between us, where we meet to warm our hands, our feet.
“Read me something,” she says that night, wrapped in a blanket. I’m at the piano. The first night we met, I played her the one song I knew on the piano. I’ve learned no new ones since. There’s a metaphor there, if I’m looking for it.
On the shelf is her father’s copy of “Dubliners,” a tattered green paperback, decades old – it was probably decades old when he bought it – and on the inside of its front cover, in handwriting I don’t recognize, it says, simply, “Anna dancing.” I smile.
“What?” she asks.
“This,” I say, showing her. She runs her fingers over it, as if some secret of her father’s has been revealed.
“Did your father know any Anna’s?” I ask.
“I didn’t think so. But I don’t know.”
She flops down in front of the fire. “We’re such mysteries, don’t you think? Even those we love most.” She spreads her body to accept more of the fire, its flames on half her body, licking her forearms, her exposed stomach.
“Read me ‘The Dead,’” she says. “Read me the end of ‘The Dead.’”
~
Love, like literature, is performance. The happy couple at the end of summer, autumn descended early, the footfalls of winter in the brisk night wind, the fire flickering in the window from across the street. The boy, shirtless and skinny, standing in front of the piano bench, a worn paperback in his hand, the girl with her eyes closed, body consumed by flame. The quiet beauty of the unknown ending. The secrets of other lives we cannot decipher, only their silhouettes, their faint traces, left behind as evidence.
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
Before labor day, her parents go away for a weekend and leave us the house. Autumn comes early: frost on the grass, the morning sun clear and fierce. We make fires in the cast iron stove. I work in the study, while she writes in the dining room, the furnace between us, where we meet to warm our hands, our feet.
“Read me something,” she says that night, wrapped in a blanket. I’m at the piano. The first night we met, I played her the one song I knew on the piano. I’ve learned no new ones since. There’s a metaphor there, if I’m looking for it.
On the shelf is her father’s copy of “Dubliners,” a tattered green paperback, decades old – it was probably decades old when he bought it – and on the inside of its front cover, in handwriting I don’t recognize, it says, simply, “Anna dancing.” I smile.
“What?” she asks.
“This,” I say, showing her. She runs her fingers over it, as if some secret of her father’s has been revealed.
“Did your father know any Anna’s?” I ask.
“I didn’t think so. But I don’t know.”
She flops down in front of the fire. “We’re such mysteries, don’t you think? Even those we love most.” She spreads her body to accept more of the fire, its flames on half her body, licking her forearms, her exposed stomach.
“Read me ‘The Dead,’” she says. “Read me the end of ‘The Dead.’”
~
Love, like literature, is performance. The happy couple at the end of summer, autumn descended early, the footfalls of winter in the brisk night wind, the fire flickering in the window from across the street. The boy, shirtless and skinny, standing in front of the piano bench, a worn paperback in his hand, the girl with her eyes closed, body consumed by flame. The quiet beauty of the unknown ending. The secrets of other lives we cannot decipher, only their silhouettes, their faint traces, left behind as evidence.
His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
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