Sorry, I went over time a bit -- I just couldn't stop!
Juan wished he had a fishing pole. He was at a lake he had always seen the sign for while driving on the freeway. Today he had time stop and a reason to take the exit, follow more signs, park his car in small dirt lot, and walk down to the water.
He stuck one hand in his pocket as he walked, feeling around for the small baggie. It was still there.
He didn't know where he was going, but Juan walked the path that curved around the lake. When he got to the first straightaway, he saw a small pier, like a tongue at the edge of the water. The green water around the pier rippled outward toward the center of the lake as far as his eye could see.
Juan walked down the steps of the pier, one hand hovering over the handrail, careful not to stick his skin with splinters from the old wood. He stopped when he saw a red-winged blackbird, balanced on a cattail rising up out of the water just off the pier. Juan watched the cattail sway under the weight of the bird,and he imagined he could see the bird's tiny talons tightening around the tip of the brown shoot. Then the bird saw Juan, made a series of of severe squawks and flew away.
At the tip of the pier, Juan reached into his pocked and pulled out the baggie, and holding it in the fist of his hand, he sat down crossed-legged and looked out across the water. His primo had given him the baggie to give to one of other bakers at work. He had thought nothing of it, that he was just doing them both a favor, for the baggie was in an envelope when his primo had handed it to him at their apartment the night before. Curious, he had opened the envelope and realized what he'd been asked to do and what he had already done a number of times. He looked down at the white powder in the baggie, opened it, and lifted it to his nose. It smelled like poison. He was going to dump it into the water and move out. That's what he was going to, and he held the baggie over the water.
Then he thought about the fish, swimming alone in the murky waters, and he closed the baggie and put it back in his pocket.
Ah, Juan has the best stories! This has such great sense of atmosphere, with the cawing bird (good use of the bird and the trees! I had birds in mine but forgot the trees and shit). Like all these vignettes, it shows so much about Juan in such a short space. I love how he wants to be fishing, how he thinks the drugs smell like poison, how he thinks of the poor fish and can't bring himself to dump the drugs in the lake. It's a really interesting combination of city and nature, too, and of Juan's rural past and urban present.
ReplyDeleteI thought you could say more quickly right around here that he had just gotten an envelop at first, not an obvious baggie:
He had thought nothing of it, that he was just doing them both a favor, for the baggie was in an envelope when his primo had handed it to him at their apartment the night before.
Maybe change to:
He had thought nothing of it when his primo had handed him the envelope at their apartment the night before, thought that he was just doing them both a favor, until he got curious and opened it and found the baggie.
Wonderful descriptions in this piece. I especially like the paragraph that begins "Juan walked down the steps of the pier." The whole paragraph put me in his shoes, the cattail, the talons...but the splinters on the handrail...I could just feel this as I read it...got the nails-on-the-chalkboard sensation. Great detail.
ReplyDeleteThe sentence "He didn't know where he was going, but Juan walked the path" works great on a deeper symbolic level, reminding us ever-so-subtly of the sense of Juan's uncertainty about things that we saw in "The Cockroach."
I liked the suspense one felt in the beginning when you alluded to "a reason to take the exit." - it drew me in, made me curious what he was doing there.
ReplyDeleteYour descriptions of the pier and choice of descriptions are wonderfully detailed. My favorite line:
"Juan walked down the steps of the pier, one hand hovering over the handrail, careful not to stick his skin with splinters from the old wood."- so visceral. oooh, splinters!
Loved the twist in the end when Juan decided not to dump the baggie because of the fish. It showed the depth of his character.