Stoked: Our tractor trail meandered through the maples like it had been there forever. My grandfather made the tractor trail, the tractor trail. We never called it a road because it was the tractor trail. I would climb on and hold tight. Hold tight. We swerved into the apple orchard. They would be ripe enough to pick in August.
August summers were the work of an arrant sun. Soaking in sweat. In August, I meet up with Killian and Eavan. Three autistics going to Beach Baby Babylon Buys a surfboard at the Sugar Shack. I loved the farm. But I gotta find that fix of Sugar Shack. Everyone had a surfboard because this tiny strip of land we call the beach, was California kruising, hits the crests of waves, bailing, aerial and flies across the rip currents of the impacted zone.
On the beach again. Killian wants to know how they do it. He brings this up every year. Not unlike a windswell tidal bore of conscience catches a ride pushed by the sun.
How Do They Do It is code for how do normal guys hook up with women. I did and didn’t share their interest. You went for the impact zone, Sport. What is the impact zone. The impact zone is your mama. Every year we crack up at the same jokes. It dates them. Not me. My biggest secret is that I am still seventeen, and very, very stupid.
The last time my dad beat the shit of me was the day I turned fifteen. We are all windswell rip currents. Caught inside the impact zone. The apples will be ripe enough to pick in August. It’s backbreaking work and filthy sweat. The three of us are good at the apple picking, and when the day was glowing past us. Together to smoke weed and drink the apple cider beer that Killian makes in the shed.
Killian gave everyone a flashlight. Then, he took a picture of us twirling the flashlights around and around. Any artist I ever met was mad. They are all quit mad. It’s just you, and a bunch of stuff like horizons. We went into the dark shed. Three new boards. We took them out and pretended, we were currents turned away. “The Indifferent Children of the earth.”