June-October Time Reform

This feels inexcusable, the amount of time you’re wasting. You lie on the couch and re-read Percy Jackson books. Yesterday was eleven years since your grandfather died. You went to mass with your mom, older sister, younger brother and younger sister. All of you filed in and stood in the back. It was nice to be back, really. The church was as you’d left it -- imperfect, empty, full of words, and yet hesitantly beautiful. You thought of your grandfather and tried to see him next to you, standing in the back of that church. You wanted to see him there in his flannel shirt, but couldn’t because you didn’t know how your heights would relate to each other anymore. You would be taller than he was. You all walked out of mass and the sidewalk reflected the bright greyed light. You went down the sloping lawn towards your car. The breeze caught your shirt, your hair. It blew fully in your face and you could have stayed there for a while. It felt like the beach.  

Because its June now, mid-June, the time of birthdays and anniversaries and funerals. June and October are the months with the most birthdays and funerals. A bit of listing for proof – June: Nana, Megan, Annabelle, Devin, Deirdre’s wedding, funerals of your childhood – October: Alexander, it’s always Alexander’s birthday, Dennis, Dylan, Tom, both grandfathers on Halloween, Katlyn’s wedding, funerals of high school and friend’s fathers. Do you see this? June is the beginning of summer. It’s the October of summer. October is the June of Fall. They extend towards each other like God and Adam and swallow what is in between. The in-between is scratchy throat lethargy and mismanaged relationships.

You want more examples? Case one – Clara, always Clara. You’re on the Clara topic right now because you are back in the Clara topic for now. You talk to McCabe about it a fair amount because he thinks it’s funny. The funny part you think is that Clara and you have never been friends and never will be friends. This sounds cruel but you think it might just be life. Clara falls perfectly into the body line contours of June- October time. She and you are swallowed by its mendacious enormity, doomed by the alluring lie of unlimited time. At the end of the summer after high school you had given up thoughts of a relationship. You were going to college and were of course to be in a relationship soon. Why? Because you were gorgeous with youth, imprisoned by dark soul searing eyes, irresistible to the average woman. You were at your friend Grace’s house in the basement as high schoolers do. Clara sat next to you and it took about three seconds to realize what was going to happen – it was a tik tok, an anachronistic miracle… I think, you know, where this about to Go. 

This all happened three years ago, which is a long time in dog years. You never liked Clara’s parents and you and Clara existed too close to each other for about two burning weeks. You would drive your sister’s Volvo over to her house and you would sit in her basement or in her room. Once you and Clara climbed out her parents’ window and sat on the papery tarred roof. It was bright and in-between June and October and there was supposedly a solar eclipse occurring. You now miss when a solar eclipse was the news story of the week. The moon ate its way through the sun and the birds sang bloody murder. Clara sat on your hand on that boiling hot roof. Your hair felt dry and vinegar-y and everything was too bright and hot. This is your weakness. It made you tired in a sad way and you didn’t want to be there on that roof with Clara. Her face was flushed red in the white sunlight. Her eyes were blue and still are. 

This is turning into a story about Clara, which is fine, because maybe she represents what it means to lose yourself while in the doldrums of adolescence. She is a cycle you don’t know how to feel about. It is now present day, three years after the solar eclipse -- which in hindsight was a very clear omen of things to come, yes? You are at Tom’s house for Annabelle’s birthday; you know this is getting confusing but if the reader could please refer to aforementioned listings they would see where Tom and Annabelle exist as distinct entities in June-October time. So you walk into Tom’s house, your sister dropped you off in her Volvo, and you go to the back porch where everyone is sitting around a table. Clara is there and you haven’t seen her since New Years, and you think that she is looking pretty good. Her blond hair hangs shapely, and her eyes look blue. You walk in late as usual with everything and you didn’t bring the wine you were supposed to bring or chips or salad or anything, but you feel pretty good. John shows up a little after you – he’s a member of January-March time -- and you sit on the porch with your beautiful friends. 

The funny thing is you know exactly what is going to happen. The script has been written; you are but walking shadows. Clara comes over and sits on the porch next to you. It’s getting later and you have been drinking for a couple hours. “Hey” she says. “Hey” you say. “Do you want a ride home?” “Yeah, that would be great” you say. So she gives you a ride home, you and two other people from Tom’s house you don’t really know. You’re sitting in the front seat and this girl with black hair is in the backseat making horribly repressed retching noises. You’re placid, underwater. The girl rolls down the window and the air beats angrily against the open space. Clara drives like she wants to die. The roads are dark and you don’t know for sure how sober she is, especially when she takes the turns at seventy. You follow the white line appearing out of the darkness with your eyes. She can’t possibly know where the line will go next. Has she memorized the road? You think how fucking stupid it would be to die here with Clara and the goddamn girl in the backseat trying not to throw up. You get to Georgetown and Clara stops the car to let the girl and the other wordless backseat companion out into the night.

              So you and her drive to your neighborhood and pull up in front of your house. You look over at her. “Thanks” you say. “Goodnight” she says, but she is still looking at you. So you lean over and do what you both have been planning on doing all night. She gets on your side of the car and you try to recline your seat. You are trying to smoothly accomplish this when the seat jerks back with a ripping sound and you both fall back on it. The headlights cut into your quiet street. And it’s June-October time again all at once. 

You look in the rearview mirror and you’re ten years old and you’re twenty-one and telling Grace that you hit your sister’s Volvo on the curb but tis but a scratch, tis but a scratch, tis but a scratch. Because maybe it is all happening at once still and again. You remember your high school religion teacher telling you that the Kingdom of God was already, but not yet. You can’t think of a more appropriate description of what June-October wormholes feel like because you’ve fallen backwards and landed in your present life yet again.

Maybe this is what Scott Fitzgerald meant – borne back ceaselessly into the past. You and your brother visited his grave before the most recent iteration of June-October time unfolded. It was a non-descript cemetery with tall trees leaning over the graves. You don’t mind walking around cemeteries; they are full of stillness. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s grave was at the edge of what seemed to be a Fitzgerald compound. His headstone had his and Zelda’s names. A sheet of rock stretched out from the headstone with the famous last words from the Gatsby. Your brother stood and watched. He loves Fitzgerald, Waugh, Salinger, all the damned heroes for all those in, but not of this world.  In that grey moment looking at the grave of two people tied in love and hate and infamy was that cyclical message. 

You were in Clara’s car and your phone rang in your pocket. It was your brother asking when you were coming home.