Fresh Fades
by Jesse Binger
Author's Note: This is a manual for that aching kind of love you only feel once, when you're young and stupid enough to believe bad decisions are destiny.
Jill and I make out under the stars at Brooktown Park, a lukewarm OE forty in my lap. She’s pretty, blond hair, curvy in all the right places. I get stopped rounding second base. “I’m leaving in a few weeks, y’know,” she says. Maryland or some shit. By the ocean.
It shouldn’t stop us but it does.
I’m seventeen when I meet them. Sly is the matchmaker. He and Brenda dating for three months. If you wanna call it that. Jill’s her best friend. They’re both juniors at Southside. Sly’s a knucklehead, new to our school. We pal around, drink beers sometimes outside the Stop and Shop. He’s from a rough area and it shows. Picking fights with suburban kids during lunch. “You a herb,” tough words emanating from his mouth as he flexes wiry biceps and grunts.
Sly’s barking like a dog and I hear Brenda scream out a wild siren-like call and on a night like this it feels like nothing can stop us.
Two weeks later, I’m in the car driving. Brenda’s my shotgun. We head to Jill’s but she stops me. “She can’t. Sick or something.” I shrug. Keep driving. We pick up a six pack of something cheap at the Citgo, head to, what else, another park. This time in the heat of the day. Broad sunlight, air hazy and fuzzy, people out walking their dogs, doing what normal people do on days like this.
She hops out of the car. Finds a bench somewhere and sprawls across it. Guess it’s my cue. I join her. We toast from warm bubbly beer and she smacks me on my arm. Not hard or anything. Flirting. “So whatta you and Sly do when you go out,” she asks. “Pick up chicks?” She’s laughing but it’s far from her eyes. She lifts strands of long stringy hair off her face. She’s cute. Not pretty like Jill but has that look of a girl that wants more in life but knows the cards she’s been dealt. She’s in a halter top with a faded picture of a sun that ties around her neck. Tan skin glistening from all angles.
She stares at me and as much as I try to avoid it, I know what comes next. We lean in and go at it. She straddles me right there on the bench, senior citizens walking by averting eyes. We kiss, fast and sloppy. Taking pauses to drink that warm-piss beer. The brightness of the day turns into gold and orange hues that makes me wonder if this is all life has to offer.
*
Two days later. Danny’s garage. Our makeshift barber shop. Danny and Brett are cutting heads. Fresh fades with a straight razor. Nas bumping from tinny speakers on shelves his Dad built. Sly’s there too. Hovering off to the side. Mumbling and laughing a little but to no one in particular. He sees me and just nods. Like he knows but he doesn’t.
I’m in a fleece zipped up to the neck and jeans. Summer, don’t mind you. 90 plus in that garage. Door’s open but it don’t help. Danny’s busting my balls. “You sick or somethin’.” Fuck it, I take off the fleece. Just a wife-beater under. But that’s not the problem. Neck is oozing sex, blackberry sized bruises all over it. Three in all. Brenda. Lips like she’s sucking a lemon. The boys bust on me. Sly looks over but says nothing. Just puts his head down and lets it bob to hard beats.
It's funny how I know Sly but I don’t really know him. None of us do. Some kid told us he’d been in four schools in three years. And shit, that don’t happen by accident.
*
I pick Brenda up at the place she works in the mall. All undercover and shit. Pull up the car real smooth and she slips in. Hoodie over her head. I peel out like we’re running from the cops. But it ain’t them I’m scared of. Her hair’s down real nice. Curly. And she smells like that cheap perfume the girls get from CVS. All flash, sunflowers, bold citrus, summer haze but it feels alright. She grabs my hand and I squeeze. Then pull hers up, kiss it, smile.
Late now. Well past last call. We sit outside a duck pond. Nice area. Two other cars with windows fogged. One wild-haired dude wobbling around the edge, holds out a bag of combos and tosses the little pretzels to the birds. Only two of them come out. The others are deep, hiding or sleeping. Don’t blame them.
We put on something soft. Maxwell. New CD is fire. Smooth voice, guitar, words that matter. She hovers for a bit against the window, then lets it out. That smile, not with teeth but it brightens up the night. I put my arm around her, bring her close. We let the night take us to places we never expected. Though it’s all been inevitable since Saturday.
*
I get the call on Tuesday.
“He knows.”
“What??”
“He knows.”
“I heard you the first time. But what the fuck you mean? How?”
“Don’t matter. But it’s over. It has to be.”
She clicks off, receiver now burning a hole in my head. I slam it down. Mom’s outside gardening. Picking daisies or something. I put on my suit, jump in the pool. The cool water feels nice. Cleansing. I dunk my hair, lean back so the sun’s hitting my face. Get a nice tan or something. Always lifts the mood.
Mom’s inside then back out. “Tommy,” she calls out but I can barely hear her. Head’s underwater, brain’s someplace totally different. I’m thinking of Brenda. The way she did that thing with her fingers against the palm of my hands. How her hair smelled totally different than expected. Like the wind on a fall night. How we fit together like two broken sides of a dish. How the world seemed better this week.
“Your beeper. It keeps going off.”
Shit. I know already. Fucked.
*
The words come fast. I sit in my room, one of those rainbow pens on green—the only color that still has ink. I’m tearing into a sheet of looseleaf paper with everything flooding my mind. How she deserves better. The best really (though am I it?). But a good guy, yeah. Sly cheating on her every chance he gets. Three other chicks in three other schools and still doesn’t keep him from clawing at every one we see. At the teen club off of Rosedale. Coffee shop with wall-to-wall people waiting for glow-in-the-dark cappuccinos as Nine Inch Nails bounce off the ceilings. Everywhere.
I pour my heart out. Hope it’s enough. Jump in my beater (hand me down with 200k miles). Head to a payphone outside a diner where cars race each other, not for papers, just for bullshit bravado and taunts.
She picks up right away. Voice is quiet, like a soft purr, barely giving enough for me to get false hope. But I recite. Go down the list like I’m one of those fuckers in Mock Trial. Gotta prove a point. She’s silent through it all. Until I finally get to the end and wait. A long pause but still nothing.
“I gotta go,” she says and she does.
*
“He knows everything,” Danny trying to play both sides, “He was listening. You know you fucked up man. Don’t do that to your boys.”
Guy code, right. But I don’t say it.
Fuck Danny so clean and chivalrous, though he clocks every one of his boys’ girlfriends, watching them bounce away in tight jeans like he’s some type of ass inspector.
“Oh well,” I say. But I don’t mean it. Oh well would have cut it for most cases. Most situations. But this was different. Sly is fucked up. Runs with a gang from his old neighborhood. They carry sharp little knives, stick up liquor stores for kicks.
Memories flashing through my brain. Sly pulling it from under his bed. Showing me the dark chrome like it was comic book or something. Lets me hold it but it’s just for a second. I feel like I’m breaking some type of rule. Gone too far, too fast, so I hand it back, end up in the bathroom washing my hands ‘til they’re raw.
*
Mike’s 22. One of those skater kids that got older but never left town. Lives in a little ranch house that I assume he rents. Not sure how he gets the money, but I have a guess. I show up and knock on the door since he never answers the phone.
He strolls up, opens it, “Dude,” all he says. He’s in a skull hoodie, JNCO jeans, pumas with thick laces. He turns and walks towards the kitchen so I just go in. Follow him because fuck, I’m not gonna just stand there.
“Tommy?” he asks like he’s remembering. We haven’t talked much. Just one of those guys you see around town. At the pizza place or Carvel. He’s usually hanging around a payphone. Big dude with a shaved head and thick chains often by his side.
The place inside looks nothing like the outside. A facade is the word. Outside it’s just another little ranch with a green yard and polished mailbox. Inside, well, shit is the word. It smells. Like garbage, sour milk, weed. And there’s crap all over the place. Boxes. Those bags you got from the mall filled with stuff. Papers, old mail, granola bar wrappers. You name it.
“I gotta ask you a favor, Mike,” I say though I’m already regretting it. Mike is grinning now. He beckons me with his hand. I follow him through a dingy door and down old rickety steps. The basement. Just my luck.
Though surprisingly it’s clean. And smells better. Like the maid just ran through it with Clorox and those watermelon scent sprays. There’s a dresser. Just like the one I have in my bedroom. Brown wood. Polished nickel.
Mike opens it and pulls something out. Looks just like what Sly had under his bed. Feels the same too. He asks if I know how to use it and I shrug. Funniest thing in the world to Mike. He laughs one of those clown-like laughs that some old man would always pull at the movie theatre. The one that takes everyone’s attention off the film and to the guy in the audience.
Mike takes it back. Flips it like an old gunslinger. Opens it up. I see the clip, I hear it cock. I regret every moment but take it in my hand, pass him the cash, then stuff it in my waistband because that’s what those guys in the rap videos always do.
“Don’t shoot yourself by accident,” Mike says. Laughing again. Fucker finds everything funny.
I’m up in a flash and out but I don’t know where I’m going.
*
Pull up at the payphone in front of Stop and Shop. Same one we spend late nights chatting up girls, trying to arrange meetups. The receiver as always stinks like beer, bad aftershave, so I hold it a foot from my mouth, talk loud.
Sly picks right up. He’s been waiting for this.
“Yo.”
“Been a bit.”
“Yeah you know, busy and shit,” I say.
“So I hear.”
He’s calm. Calmer than he should be but there’s that same menace in his voice. Like when he’s stepping to some kid in the parking lot of another school. You’d expect yells and loud threats. His always hit hardest because they’re quiet. Like he’s telling you a secret, but one you don’t want to hear.
“Meet me tonight?”
The words hang. It’s getting dark already. Past eight, one of the benefits of summer. Standing outside in a short sleeve shirt, cool breeze coating your skin. There’s a million things I want to say but I know only one matters.
“Okay.”
*
So I’m standing by the bench at the park. Same park me and Jill got acquainted. Same park that started all this shit. It’s dark enough, late enough, that the playground’s empty. Type of park, type of place, kids don’t come late. Beer cans line up against the chain link. The swings’ fabric torn and loose. Slide so rough you come home with bruises and torn skin.
My pager’s been blowing up but I don’t even look at it. It’s sitting right next to that other thing. It’s heavier than I expect tucked into my belt. Every time I move I worry I’m gonna blow my nuts off but Mike gave me the MO.
Out on the distance, I see him. Always on foot. Old enough to, but never got a license, never needed it. I can picture Sly at twenty-five, still riding shotgun, still chasing neighborhood punks, still mumbling under his breath. Still playing out Brenda.
He’s in a tight black shirt that blends into the night. Biceps bulging from an otherwise lanky frame. Jeans so big they skid along the dirt, bottoms all grass-stained. He’s twenty feet from me now but expression hasn’t changed. Hard. Eyes looking straight ahead but past me.
I hold out my hand to wave but it feels forced. He don’t even seem to notice. Ten feet away now, he stops. I see him shake his head like he’s disappointed. Like maybe I’m his little brother that blew up his spot to Moms. Again I want to say something but words can’t do this justice.
The wind blows hard but it don’t feel comforting anymore. More like it’s all about to sweep me away.
Then he reaches. To his pocket. Hand coming out with something metal.
I freeze. Is this it? My waistband. Pull it out. Cock it like Mike showed me.
Then I see it. Sly’s hand. His pager. His face. What the fuck.
My hand shakes.
I drop the gun.
Jesse Binger is a fiction writer from New Jersey whose work explores broken people, moral compromise, and quiet acts of redemption. His debut novel The Penitent Hours is currently on submission. His short stories are published or forthcoming at Bending Genres, Bristol Noir, Close to the Bone, Revolution John, Pistol Jim Press, Underbelly Press, Yellow Mama, Villain Era and Literary Garage
by Jesse Binger
Author's Note: This is a manual for that aching kind of love you only feel once, when you're young and stupid enough to believe bad decisions are destiny.
Jill and I make out under the stars at Brooktown Park, a lukewarm OE forty in my lap. She’s pretty, blond hair, curvy in all the right places. I get stopped rounding second base. “I’m leaving in a few weeks, y’know,” she says. Maryland or some shit. By the ocean.
It shouldn’t stop us but it does.
I’m seventeen when I meet them. Sly is the matchmaker. He and Brenda dating for three months. If you wanna call it that. Jill’s her best friend. They’re both juniors at Southside. Sly’s a knucklehead, new to our school. We pal around, drink beers sometimes outside the Stop and Shop. He’s from a rough area and it shows. Picking fights with suburban kids during lunch. “You a herb,” tough words emanating from his mouth as he flexes wiry biceps and grunts.
Sly’s barking like a dog and I hear Brenda scream out a wild siren-like call and on a night like this it feels like nothing can stop us.
Two weeks later, I’m in the car driving. Brenda’s my shotgun. We head to Jill’s but she stops me. “She can’t. Sick or something.” I shrug. Keep driving. We pick up a six pack of something cheap at the Citgo, head to, what else, another park. This time in the heat of the day. Broad sunlight, air hazy and fuzzy, people out walking their dogs, doing what normal people do on days like this.
She hops out of the car. Finds a bench somewhere and sprawls across it. Guess it’s my cue. I join her. We toast from warm bubbly beer and she smacks me on my arm. Not hard or anything. Flirting. “So whatta you and Sly do when you go out,” she asks. “Pick up chicks?” She’s laughing but it’s far from her eyes. She lifts strands of long stringy hair off her face. She’s cute. Not pretty like Jill but has that look of a girl that wants more in life but knows the cards she’s been dealt. She’s in a halter top with a faded picture of a sun that ties around her neck. Tan skin glistening from all angles.
She stares at me and as much as I try to avoid it, I know what comes next. We lean in and go at it. She straddles me right there on the bench, senior citizens walking by averting eyes. We kiss, fast and sloppy. Taking pauses to drink that warm-piss beer. The brightness of the day turns into gold and orange hues that makes me wonder if this is all life has to offer.
*
Two days later. Danny’s garage. Our makeshift barber shop. Danny and Brett are cutting heads. Fresh fades with a straight razor. Nas bumping from tinny speakers on shelves his Dad built. Sly’s there too. Hovering off to the side. Mumbling and laughing a little but to no one in particular. He sees me and just nods. Like he knows but he doesn’t.
I’m in a fleece zipped up to the neck and jeans. Summer, don’t mind you. 90 plus in that garage. Door’s open but it don’t help. Danny’s busting my balls. “You sick or somethin’.” Fuck it, I take off the fleece. Just a wife-beater under. But that’s not the problem. Neck is oozing sex, blackberry sized bruises all over it. Three in all. Brenda. Lips like she’s sucking a lemon. The boys bust on me. Sly looks over but says nothing. Just puts his head down and lets it bob to hard beats.
It's funny how I know Sly but I don’t really know him. None of us do. Some kid told us he’d been in four schools in three years. And shit, that don’t happen by accident.
*
I pick Brenda up at the place she works in the mall. All undercover and shit. Pull up the car real smooth and she slips in. Hoodie over her head. I peel out like we’re running from the cops. But it ain’t them I’m scared of. Her hair’s down real nice. Curly. And she smells like that cheap perfume the girls get from CVS. All flash, sunflowers, bold citrus, summer haze but it feels alright. She grabs my hand and I squeeze. Then pull hers up, kiss it, smile.
Late now. Well past last call. We sit outside a duck pond. Nice area. Two other cars with windows fogged. One wild-haired dude wobbling around the edge, holds out a bag of combos and tosses the little pretzels to the birds. Only two of them come out. The others are deep, hiding or sleeping. Don’t blame them.
We put on something soft. Maxwell. New CD is fire. Smooth voice, guitar, words that matter. She hovers for a bit against the window, then lets it out. That smile, not with teeth but it brightens up the night. I put my arm around her, bring her close. We let the night take us to places we never expected. Though it’s all been inevitable since Saturday.
*
I get the call on Tuesday.
“He knows.”
“What??”
“He knows.”
“I heard you the first time. But what the fuck you mean? How?”
“Don’t matter. But it’s over. It has to be.”
She clicks off, receiver now burning a hole in my head. I slam it down. Mom’s outside gardening. Picking daisies or something. I put on my suit, jump in the pool. The cool water feels nice. Cleansing. I dunk my hair, lean back so the sun’s hitting my face. Get a nice tan or something. Always lifts the mood.
Mom’s inside then back out. “Tommy,” she calls out but I can barely hear her. Head’s underwater, brain’s someplace totally different. I’m thinking of Brenda. The way she did that thing with her fingers against the palm of my hands. How her hair smelled totally different than expected. Like the wind on a fall night. How we fit together like two broken sides of a dish. How the world seemed better this week.
“Your beeper. It keeps going off.”
Shit. I know already. Fucked.
*
The words come fast. I sit in my room, one of those rainbow pens on green—the only color that still has ink. I’m tearing into a sheet of looseleaf paper with everything flooding my mind. How she deserves better. The best really (though am I it?). But a good guy, yeah. Sly cheating on her every chance he gets. Three other chicks in three other schools and still doesn’t keep him from clawing at every one we see. At the teen club off of Rosedale. Coffee shop with wall-to-wall people waiting for glow-in-the-dark cappuccinos as Nine Inch Nails bounce off the ceilings. Everywhere.
I pour my heart out. Hope it’s enough. Jump in my beater (hand me down with 200k miles). Head to a payphone outside a diner where cars race each other, not for papers, just for bullshit bravado and taunts.
She picks up right away. Voice is quiet, like a soft purr, barely giving enough for me to get false hope. But I recite. Go down the list like I’m one of those fuckers in Mock Trial. Gotta prove a point. She’s silent through it all. Until I finally get to the end and wait. A long pause but still nothing.
“I gotta go,” she says and she does.
*
“He knows everything,” Danny trying to play both sides, “He was listening. You know you fucked up man. Don’t do that to your boys.”
Guy code, right. But I don’t say it.
Fuck Danny so clean and chivalrous, though he clocks every one of his boys’ girlfriends, watching them bounce away in tight jeans like he’s some type of ass inspector.
“Oh well,” I say. But I don’t mean it. Oh well would have cut it for most cases. Most situations. But this was different. Sly is fucked up. Runs with a gang from his old neighborhood. They carry sharp little knives, stick up liquor stores for kicks.
Memories flashing through my brain. Sly pulling it from under his bed. Showing me the dark chrome like it was comic book or something. Lets me hold it but it’s just for a second. I feel like I’m breaking some type of rule. Gone too far, too fast, so I hand it back, end up in the bathroom washing my hands ‘til they’re raw.
*
Mike’s 22. One of those skater kids that got older but never left town. Lives in a little ranch house that I assume he rents. Not sure how he gets the money, but I have a guess. I show up and knock on the door since he never answers the phone.
He strolls up, opens it, “Dude,” all he says. He’s in a skull hoodie, JNCO jeans, pumas with thick laces. He turns and walks towards the kitchen so I just go in. Follow him because fuck, I’m not gonna just stand there.
“Tommy?” he asks like he’s remembering. We haven’t talked much. Just one of those guys you see around town. At the pizza place or Carvel. He’s usually hanging around a payphone. Big dude with a shaved head and thick chains often by his side.
The place inside looks nothing like the outside. A facade is the word. Outside it’s just another little ranch with a green yard and polished mailbox. Inside, well, shit is the word. It smells. Like garbage, sour milk, weed. And there’s crap all over the place. Boxes. Those bags you got from the mall filled with stuff. Papers, old mail, granola bar wrappers. You name it.
“I gotta ask you a favor, Mike,” I say though I’m already regretting it. Mike is grinning now. He beckons me with his hand. I follow him through a dingy door and down old rickety steps. The basement. Just my luck.
Though surprisingly it’s clean. And smells better. Like the maid just ran through it with Clorox and those watermelon scent sprays. There’s a dresser. Just like the one I have in my bedroom. Brown wood. Polished nickel.
Mike opens it and pulls something out. Looks just like what Sly had under his bed. Feels the same too. He asks if I know how to use it and I shrug. Funniest thing in the world to Mike. He laughs one of those clown-like laughs that some old man would always pull at the movie theatre. The one that takes everyone’s attention off the film and to the guy in the audience.
Mike takes it back. Flips it like an old gunslinger. Opens it up. I see the clip, I hear it cock. I regret every moment but take it in my hand, pass him the cash, then stuff it in my waistband because that’s what those guys in the rap videos always do.
“Don’t shoot yourself by accident,” Mike says. Laughing again. Fucker finds everything funny.
I’m up in a flash and out but I don’t know where I’m going.
*
Pull up at the payphone in front of Stop and Shop. Same one we spend late nights chatting up girls, trying to arrange meetups. The receiver as always stinks like beer, bad aftershave, so I hold it a foot from my mouth, talk loud.
Sly picks right up. He’s been waiting for this.
“Yo.”
“Been a bit.”
“Yeah you know, busy and shit,” I say.
“So I hear.”
He’s calm. Calmer than he should be but there’s that same menace in his voice. Like when he’s stepping to some kid in the parking lot of another school. You’d expect yells and loud threats. His always hit hardest because they’re quiet. Like he’s telling you a secret, but one you don’t want to hear.
“Meet me tonight?”
The words hang. It’s getting dark already. Past eight, one of the benefits of summer. Standing outside in a short sleeve shirt, cool breeze coating your skin. There’s a million things I want to say but I know only one matters.
“Okay.”
*
So I’m standing by the bench at the park. Same park me and Jill got acquainted. Same park that started all this shit. It’s dark enough, late enough, that the playground’s empty. Type of park, type of place, kids don’t come late. Beer cans line up against the chain link. The swings’ fabric torn and loose. Slide so rough you come home with bruises and torn skin.
My pager’s been blowing up but I don’t even look at it. It’s sitting right next to that other thing. It’s heavier than I expect tucked into my belt. Every time I move I worry I’m gonna blow my nuts off but Mike gave me the MO.
Out on the distance, I see him. Always on foot. Old enough to, but never got a license, never needed it. I can picture Sly at twenty-five, still riding shotgun, still chasing neighborhood punks, still mumbling under his breath. Still playing out Brenda.
He’s in a tight black shirt that blends into the night. Biceps bulging from an otherwise lanky frame. Jeans so big they skid along the dirt, bottoms all grass-stained. He’s twenty feet from me now but expression hasn’t changed. Hard. Eyes looking straight ahead but past me.
I hold out my hand to wave but it feels forced. He don’t even seem to notice. Ten feet away now, he stops. I see him shake his head like he’s disappointed. Like maybe I’m his little brother that blew up his spot to Moms. Again I want to say something but words can’t do this justice.
The wind blows hard but it don’t feel comforting anymore. More like it’s all about to sweep me away.
Then he reaches. To his pocket. Hand coming out with something metal.
I freeze. Is this it? My waistband. Pull it out. Cock it like Mike showed me.
Then I see it. Sly’s hand. His pager. His face. What the fuck.
My hand shakes.
I drop the gun.
Jesse Binger is a fiction writer from New Jersey whose work explores broken people, moral compromise, and quiet acts of redemption. His debut novel The Penitent Hours is currently on submission. His short stories are published or forthcoming at Bending Genres, Bristol Noir, Close to the Bone, Revolution John, Pistol Jim Press, Underbelly Press, Yellow Mama, Villain Era and Literary Garage