The long and short of it (1371 hits)
Category: NoneLabels: crap:fiction
Rating: 1.92 on 48 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe <fickle.muse.at.gmail.com> (View user info) at 2005-01-23 07:53:09 EST
It was never one of those relationships. Not once, not ever. We never walked amid fallen leaves or danced at the school formal. It wasn't the kind of first love bullshit cliche collection I wish I could tell you about.
"Oh, I remember our first kiss. We were at my house and my parents were inside and I was saying goodbye to him at the front door and we kissed then and it was so sweet and nice..." Fuck no. Our fist kiss was in a Sandman panel van, up at the lookout, with the taste of Jim Beam and the smell of pot and his black jeans under my palms. Our first kiss was hot and wet and messy, and followed by our first fuck... I screwed my first love in the back of a panel van, with Metallica pouring out through the open driver's side door and the ragged mattress under my hands and knees and oh fuck, ain't life grand when you're sixteen?
He taught me to smoke pot, taught me to drink from the bottle without wincing. He licked salt off the small of my back and offered it to me on his tongue the first time we did tequila shots at his brother's birthday party, right before we started playing dirty girl games in the back bedroom.
For one dizzy summer I was his girl. Cutting bog laps of the town in his Holden Commodore and baby, believe me when I say it doesn't get any finer than that, not when you're sixteen, not when you're in love, not when you're cool and running with the big boys.
My friends somehow drifted away, one by one. I didn't notice them going; I had new friends, new hobbies. They were children, and I was growing up, getting noticed. If I ever did think of them, it was with pity.. It never really occurred to me then that they saw me the same way.
I was at his house when it got raided for drugs. They came in with their warrant, cut open the mattress, turned the place upside down. I sat on the couch the whole time, watching, until they asked me to move. I knew the Sarge; everyone in town knew the Sarge. He was big and friendly and harmless... but not that day. That day he was Authority, and when he beckoned to me to follow him outside, it never occurred to me to refuse.
"What are you doing here, darlin'?"
"I'm Robbie's girlfriend. I'm sixteen, I can do what I want."
Stupid. I was so stupid, and so blind, and so stubborn.. and so fucking in love.
"This is a bad mob you've gotten in with. You can do better."
But he knew, just looking at my face, that it wasn't sinking into the place behind my eyes. He sighed at the set of my jaw and walked to the paddy wagon, shaking his big head.
After that day, shit got a little darker. All the things I'd not noticed were right there in front of my face; the mates that came over, stayed five minutes, and left; the long trips we took in the Kingswood when I thought we were just driving around and that we were just pulling into those backwater pubs for a drink and a piss.
I was drawing away from my family, and didn't notice that, either. Seems now like I didn't notice a lot of things.
After a few months, the love burned itself out. Love, or lust or hormones, whatever it was... it fizzled and died like a campfire does at about 5 am.
I went back to my life, but it was too late; I was known, I was Robbie's moll, I was that girl that hangs around the pub with the scum of the town. Too late for school, too late for success, too late for much. So I left... sailed to the city on a river of my mother's tears, guided by the wind of my father's sigh of relief. And I fell apart, and I rebuilt, and in the end - which is now, I guess - in the end I made out okay. I repaired most of the damage.
He died last week. Went swimming in the dam, doped to the gills, with all his clothes on. The word 'suicide' is being thrown around in that town I escaped from, the town he never left.
An old boyfriend died last week.
Yeah.. it's a lot easier to say it that way, right?
Right.
User Reviews
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-04-20 15:22:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Rawrg (user info) at 2005-02-25 11:43:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
*Swoops in* Take this you foul, arbitrary -2!
*Flies away*
Submitted by Dustbrother (user info) at 2005-02-25 10:07:46 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
risk free
Submitted by nrduncan (user info) at 2005-02-22 11:02:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by GodLovesALittleLovin (user info) at 2005-01-26 01:02:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
really good stuff. That's huge since I am president. So that makes this like....yeah I give it a nobel prize. Hell, make it four, you earned it.
Submitted by LadyPlural (user info) at 2005-01-25 18:47:26 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was pretty, evocative, touching, and made me whimper just the tiniest bit.
Where's the dirty talk and the funniness, damnit?
I joke. Write whatever the hell you want to write, as long as its even half as good as this.
Submitted by Awko (user info) at 2005-01-25 05:49:56 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2005-01-24 21:41:59 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
In the end you rose above it because you ARE above it. You are amazing in more more ways of the word than I could possibly explain.
In the end he's dead and you're you.You're you and something to behold, regardless of the journey that brought you here.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2005-01-24 15:47:30 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
too fluffy - needs more depressing stuff in it...OR DOES IT????
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-01-24 06:22:21 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
MrWolf - thank you so much... that was a really nice thing to say.
Submitted by mrwolf (user info) at 2005-01-24 06:10:43 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Funny your email address is fickle muse, because you really do inspire me to write stuff. I love your posts dear lady and I will keep coming back to read them everytime I see your name elsewhere on this site.
Submitted by CookieLass (user info) at 2005-01-24 04:25:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I don't know why, but this made me think of Janis Joplin.
Submitted by Kent_Weirdo (user info) at 2005-01-24 04:13:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Now I don't know what I'm sounding like here, but this is probably my most favorite post on all of Uber now.
Thank you for writing it.
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2005-01-24 03:54:48 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I found this really evocative and poignant.
Maybe I'm just melancholy because it's Monday morning,
but I can't even bring myself to leave a wiseass comment.
Submitted by MyNameIsTim (user info) at 2005-01-23 23:28:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
well that is the best title/story combo i've seen in a long time. you are really an excellent writer.
Submitted by lojope (user info) at 2005-01-23 21:52:15 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
For so eloquently describing such an uncommon situation. I have no idea what this feels like, and yet, after reading this, I do somewhat...
Submitted by Impassive-Digressive (user info) at 2005-01-23 21:43:08 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
+2.
Not just because that was awesome, but mostly because my girlfriend drives a '76 sandman panelvan and nothing beats drinking, smoking pot or having sex in the back of it.
Submitted by MandaPanda (user info) at 2005-01-23 21:30:39 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
...Wow.
Submitted by CATHAIL (user info) at 2005-01-23 20:46:18 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This is a little to familiar
Submitted by Saxon (user info) at 2005-01-23 20:35:37 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Lets dance to love and life!
Beautiful Circ just beautiful and well written. I am sorry for the loss. i didnt realise your another Aussie Uber user, that has made my day.
Submitted by AshK (user info) at 2005-01-23 19:45:07 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No words.
Submitted by Durae (user info) at 2005-01-23 19:24:34 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Bickerstaff (user info) at 2005-01-23 18:58:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
So I'm hittin the bag and I'm shakin and sweatin and the bag is lookin
back at me, forever and completely unimpressed; but that's what ya
do to a bag, sister, you hit the motherfucker.
And then my knuckles, already raw with years of abuse, start
to crack and bleed and I know that the Girl is gonna give me
grief cause I got my blood everywhere so I lay off hittin the damn
thing with my fists, and let's be honest, it's not like I was getting
anywhere anyhow; and I dig my heels in and headbutt the motherfucker
for all I'm worth; cause that's what you do to a bag, you hit the motherfucker.
And then my nose goes, like it always does, and leaves a gruesome
discovery across the canvass, and I stop cause I have to, and look around.
I look around for something else to hit the bag with;
cause that's what you do.
Submitted by Demolocke (user info) at 2005-01-23 14:57:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by shitfuck (user info) at 2005-01-23 14:52:25 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Im more on the long of it.
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2005-01-23 14:44:33 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
wow
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2005-01-23 14:02:53 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by corn_nugget (user info) at 2005-01-23 13:57:09 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was written beautifully. I felt like I was right there, experiencing this with you.
The only line I didn't like was "sailed to the city on a river of my mother's tears, guided by the wind of my father's sigh of relief.". It seems to flowery or... poetic or something. It doesn't fit in with the tone of this story.
Isn't it odd- the pace at which we all change? The flow of life is amazing.
Submitted by Bizdorph (user info) at 2005-01-23 12:33:28 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
If you're looking to replace him, there's a boy for sale:
http://www.ubersite.com/m/57468
Sorry for the hitwhore. This was exceptional.
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2005-01-23 12:21:16 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
so that's what happened to ole' Robbie
what a tard.
excellent writing Circe dear.
-B
Submitted by Pentameter (user info) at 2005-01-23 11:49:24 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
So sorry.
You're an awesome writer. I love your stuff.
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-01-23 11:30:06 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
"sailed to the city on a river of my mother's tears, guided by the wind of my father's sigh of relief."
-----------
That was a great line also...good and seamless.
The first girl I ever had sex with is dead too. She died years ago in an oil tank explosion...I think she was like 16 or 17. My friend were having this party out by an old oil tank - apparently on top of it, and someone decided to play a joke and throw a match in... I lost a few friends that day, and some others were hurt pretty bad.
I was supposed to have been there, but I couldn't get a ride... That still fucks with me to this day.
Submitted by shandythedog (user info) at 2005-01-23 11:26:11 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
you lost your virginity in the DOGGIE POSITION??????
that IS heavy
Submitted by electrictoothsyndrome (user info) at 2005-01-23 11:21:01 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Our fist kiss was in a Sandman panel van, up at the lookout, with the taste of Jim Beam and the smell of pot and his black jeans under my palms. Our first kiss was hot and wet and messy, and followed by our first fuck... I screwed my first love in the back of a panel van, with Metallica pouring out through the open driver's side door and the ragged mattress under my hands and knees and oh fuck, ain't life grand when you're sixteen?
---------------------
DUDE! Get out of my LIFE!!!!
Submitted by johnnyclubmasterson (user info) at 2005-01-23 10:15:17 EST (#)
Ranking: -1
I would give you one point for writing coherently, but -2 for being a slut.
Submitted by FilthyAssistant (user info) at 2005-01-23 09:53:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Sans comment.
Submitted by spedmonkey (user info) at 2005-01-23 09:38:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Circe (user info) at 2005-01-23 09:23:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Mike - That would kick SO much ass. You're on.
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2005-01-23 09:22:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Can we have a drink sometime?
You're awesome.
Submitted by earth_collapse (user info) at 2005-01-23 09:09:51 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
This was great.
Submitted by Ainkara (user info) at 2005-01-23 08:45:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TigerLilly (user info) at 2005-01-23 08:44:46 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Sad. I am sorry!
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2005-01-23 08:26:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Wonderfully written, good use of the title.
Submitted by Kazzerax (user info) at 2005-01-23 08:25:20 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
I am too sleep deprived for this.
Submitted by creep_firebombing (user info) at 2005-01-23 08:11:42 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Love.
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2005-01-23 08:10:03 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Kopesh (user info) at 2005-01-23 08:04:27 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
... as always...
Submitted by Avals (user info) at 2005-01-23 07:57:57 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Oh ... crap.
Now you've gone and made me all depressed. Shame on you.