Pallets

I sat and watched as the pallets burned to a crisp. There was no reason why I was there on the beach other than to kill time. Any opportunity I had to get away from home I took it. It so happened that on that day when there was nothing to do (which was pretty much most days), […] told me he was going to scoop me up. In the car, the tape deck played a mix of sad indie tracks, the kind that made you feel as if you were a mod kid living in the U.K. I didn’t know what to like at 16 years old. Most of my influences came from growing up in household that either played gospel music or golden age hip hop. Even if I would have liked to believe there was some brownie points I had been earning by being different or alternative, I wasn’t cool. At the end of the day, I was still a brown kid living up in the hills cleaning city hall after school. I sat wondering if the future looked anything different from what I was looking at. The embers were inevitable. The assemblage of wood that was stacked in front of me, all from different places around town. Safeway. Tatsudas. A&P. I winced as the smoke from the flame blew my way. I had wished the tightness in my chest could have burned and withered away.

“What are you thinking about, man?” […] asked.

If I had been honest then, I would have told him that I wished it didn’t have to be this way. I wished that we didn’t have to grow up and deal with the inevitability of what would happen next. If I could, I would have dropped out. What was it to anyone that someone like me would make it out of that God forsaken town? I might have even told him about how I didn’t even want to be there out at the beach. I would have preferred to be eating a burger out north. But I didn’t have money. All of that had went to helping with things we had needed around the apartment. Plus, I didn’t drive, so what control did I have in the first place?

“Nothing.”

I don’t recall any ships in the distance that day. The sun had made its way below the horizon, attempting to paint the day a different shade. While things had felt the same, the colors in the sky indicated that Earth had its way. Instead of the golden rays that brought out the alpenglow, the clouds covered up any sign of the light. Gray scattered atop the water, as if the world had become but smoke and mirrors. Soon the pallets would burn out, and I would have to go home.