Town, Fading

TW: death, substance abuse

“They ever figure it out?”

“Did who figure what out?”

“The Gods, about why we live in a society.”

“We kinda do, I don’t know. Why do we stare up at stars? Why do people betray other people? Why is it easier to stay poor than get rich?”

“Oh, that’s more class-“

“That’s not the point, Alder. The true point is that we live here trying to figure all these things out and some deities or whatever lightyears from here probably know as much as we do.”

“You figure?”

“Look over the rooftop but don’t lean over it.”

“You know how I am with heights, Leon.”

“If you look, I got you.”

“You swear?”

“On every family grave I can think. What do you see?”

“Us being too high up.”

“Come on, Alder. I told you I got you. Now, what do you see?”

“Usual stuff; stores, people, cars, parking meters, etc.”

“Look past that.”

“Woods, lot of woods, not much else.”

“Do you know that we know what the stores, cars, people, etc are made of and same with what the trees in those woods are called? You think any huge figures in the sky no more than that?”

“Don’t know. Mama said there’s more to know than what we do though.”

“And who does all that knowing? Not your mom, that’s for sure.”

“She knew plenty, thank you very much but yeah, it isn’t, I mean, wasn’t her.”

“Who is it then? Who’s out there knowing more than what us little people can manage, huh?”

“God or something else we don’t understand.”

“Somehow you think “God or something else” understands any more than we do?”

“Can’t say. Don’t know who knows more than we do or don’t know.”

“Then why is God or something else the first thought on that coming to your mind?”

“Leon, I don’t think, I don’t know, I mix concrete, and when there’s none to mix, I don’t do much of anything.”

“That’s your problem right there.”

“What is?”

“Your life is all concrete, no more, no less.”

“Pays lunch, electric, this and that. Why’s it have to be more?”

“People such as you and I should strive for more than some basic human understanding of what a life looks like.”

“Was born with basic human understanding of anything and everything anyone told me ever.”

“That makes all the sense in the world then.”

“What does?”

“You don’t know an acorn from an airplane since you absorb whatever someone crams into that tiny brain of yours.”

“Didn’t say my head was tiny or my brain.”

“It’s gotta be if all you have is whatever somebody tells you. Here’s something. The woods out there.”

“What about them?”

“What do you think about them?”

“What’s to think about trees and animals?”

“Holy crap in a shoebox. Alder, don’t you think if we could understand the gravity of what trees and animals thought of us, we’d be better people who want to know more beyond what we already do?”

“Thought doing good made us better people.”

“Yeah but we could stand to learn much more about other things and people to do any more good than we can manage.”

“Alder, 32, love ham and cheese on rye, drug-free fifteen years, I mix concrete. All anyone should know about me.”

“You’re way too simple, man. Way too simple for a more fulfilling life. You’re destined to mix concrete and nothing else for an eternity at this rate.”

“Better that than rich and dead like my dad.”

“Your dad was rich?”

“Hmm. Owned the next four towns over and half this one. Had a library in his head. Drank himself dead before I turned double digits.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know that.”

“Most don’t and don’t need to either. Like me with what I give or not, I wake up and live honest. Would have followed him off Candridge Bluff if I kept snorting and all that.”

“You said he drank himself dead though. How did he fall over Candridge Bluff?”

“Mama found him, bottle of wine, smoking jacket, said some “I love you and that boy in a way I won’t ever deserve”, fell over while she screamed for him.”

“Hell, Alder, that’s serious as serious could ever hope to be. No wonder you turned to what you turned to for so long.”

“Mama saw my backside the time I house-hopped, cocaine nose, slept on friends’ floors, dazed to hell, heart stopped my seventeenth birthday, adrenaline saved me, cried back to Mama, friend of hers got me the concrete gig, steered straight with her until I found her face down on her favorite rug at twenty-two. Buried her in the backyard, I slept at her bedside since.”

“Damn, sorry for the sudden tears. I’m also sorry about how I came at you earlier.”

“Nothing but water off my back. I had a quarter for all the pity I got from that story, I’d be half as rich as my old man except I don’t want that road. Too dark, too long, too lonely.”

“I mean, have you ever thought about leaving this town behind? The memories here have to chomp at you to a degree no sane person could begin to ignore.”

“Where’d I go?”

“Maybe north until you hit somewhere unfamiliar, foreign to a fault, at least to you.”

“Could I mix concrete up north?”

“Alder, you- yeah, I’m sure you could mix concrete up north.”

“Guess I could tell what’s-his-face I’m headed way up north. Know what’s up there, Leon?”

“More woods if I had to hazard a guess.”

“Like here, then? Rolling Hills?”

“I’m positive you could find Rolling Hills farther up north.”

“Leon, you don’t know how excited I am for this. Rolling Hills without Mama and my old man over my head all the time.”

“It’s really nothing at all, man. You deserve as much, a true and honest separation from all of the madness in this fading town.”