For Cynthia

This is old. On Facebook, I was challenged to write "a romance between a crazy person and a particularly good looking shrub." I delivered. It's a little odd in structure. The disjointed dialogue was my exploration in understatement.

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FOR CYNTHIA

Coming-of-age, an adolescent tragedy. Bike pedals and seasonal shrubs. How do we move on.

It takes me forty-eight minutes to bike from school to our new house. Dad says he's sorry, says he wishes he could do something about it, says we won't get the car back for another week or so, but I tell him that it's okay. I tell him I need the exercise and the fresh air. I tell him these things only because I don't know where the tissues are.

We're technically moved in, I guess. Since Dad doesn't have anyone to say where he should put stuff anymore, our things are still kinda stacked everywhere, randomly, on the floor. I see the unopened boxes in his room, though. They're unmarked. I don't ask, but I know exactly what?s in them.

School is okay. People kinda stare, but that?s alright. I?d stare at me, too.

I?m staring right now, but down Mabel Street. They?re doing construction. The pavement is all torn up. There are massive orange machines stuck everywhere. They?re big and loud and they smell bad. Things change, I guess.

I can see workers. Are they staring at me? Dunno why, but I try not to look too close at them, to find out.

Dad says there?s a shortcut through the cemetery by such-and-such street. I tell him I?ll take it, but I don?t. Instead, I found another street that curves where Mabel used to jut so sharply. It goes away from home a little, but it returns eventually. At least it has sidewalks. It now takes me an hour and eighteen minutes to bike from school to our new house.

I have to squeeze past a fence and a garage to change streets and complete this getaway, though. The grass is worn down in a tire-shaped tread.

Whoever lives here hasn?t cared about their garden in a long time. It?s just a mess of colors and branches. There are lots of vines and stuff clinging really hard to the fence. It?s annoying. It?s all overgrown. Normally, there?d be tons of room to ride past and not hit anything, but not anymore.

I decide I?d rather hit the shrubs than the garage, so sometimes the yellow branches catch on my shirt, sometimes they catch in the spokes of my wheels, sometimes they whip at my arms, and sometimes that hurts, but if I go really fast and don?t think about it, then I?m past it in a second and back out on the other street.

It doesn?t hurt very much, though. Not too bad.

Two days before Dad says we?re getting the car back, I?m riding home on my secret but-not-secret path, and as I?m rattling across the gravel past the garage, I see someone standing in my way.

He?s old. Not very big, but he?s in that narrow pass, and there?s no way past him. I slow down, but then he doesn?t move so I stop.

He looks at me, and I look at him.

?Why aren?t you wearing a helmet??

?Why??

?You wouldn?t ride in a car without a seatbelt, would you??

?No.?

?Then you outta have a helmet. Do you have one??

?Yes.?

?Then why aren?t you wearing it??

?Dunno where it is.?

?You come by here every day??

?Yes.?

?From where? From school??

?Yes.?

?So you?ve been tearing at my forsythias!?

?Huh??

He jerks a thumb at the shrubs.

?Oh,? I say.

?What?s wrong with the sidewalk??

?It?s all ripped up.?

?So you rip up my forsythias??

?Didn?t mean to.?

?Don?t let it happen again. Or I?ll tell your mother that you?ve been riding without a helmet.?

?I don?t have one.?

?You just said you did!?

?I have a helmet.?

He?s still looking at me, but then glances at his wild garden. I just want to go home.

That?s when he shuffles to the side so that I might possibly, barely be able to make it past him.

I get off my bike and walk.

?Find that helmet,? he says to me as I am next to him, but I have already mounted my bike again, and I am gone.

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It took me an hour and twenty-six minutes to make it home from school to our new house that day. Dad says hello, says he just ordered us pizza, says we need to find something to cut the slices, says we should get a place to sit and eat on that isn't the floor, and I tell him to just use scissors, and maybe we could use those unopened boxes in his room as a table.

I don't mention the old man by the shrubs. I don't think I'll go back there. I think I'll take the path through the cemetery, though. That should cut me down to under an hour again, from school, to our new house.

If I ever do go back, though, I want to ask that old man who "Cynthia" was.

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