The Laziest Kind of
Texting +++
by Josh Harper
Georgia, USA -
I was a young sport in my teens. My friend and I were
parked at the edge of my yard, sitting on the tool box in the
back of my truck, smoking cigarettes. We were rather bored
as the sun set, bringing on nightfall. Pearl Jam was playing on
the CD player, and I took a drag, looking into the orange and
pink sky in front of me.
I exhaled.
But this isn’t “Waiting to Exhale” by any means. We
realized years later that it was pure coincidence, chance, or
destiny.
We were talking about how dollhouse that bad girl in
“The Craft” was when we noticed a banging sound. I turned
the radio off. It sounded like somebody kicking their boots
against something to get the mud off of them. I figured my
brother, who was working on his house not too far away, was
cleaning his boots. But why back there?
At the edge of my yard, there is an area that drops off
about six or seven feet with trees and brush along the bottom. I wondered why he was there for a second, then I got
back to where I was in my conversation. It was almost dark,
and I heard that banging again. They aren’t clean yet, bro, I
thought. You’ve been beating them for like five minutes. A couple minutes later, my brother pulled into the yard.
“That’s kinda strange,” I said to my friend. “Why would
he get in his vehicle instead of just walking up here? Whatever. Let me smoke one more cigarette, and I’mma get something to drink and ask him.”
I went inside and poured myself a cream soda. I
walked down the hall and knocked on his bedroom door.