Title 446

Solidarity is in the Soul

Solidarity is in the soul

I looked up from my seat. Although it really wasn't a seat at all, simply a spot on the raggedy old carpet which my massive mound of flesh had taken up residence on a short interval in time. My eyes met hers, they always did, my god awful sister. She was seated on a couch adjacent to me, laughing vicariously as her boyfriend caressed that thin, fragile frame. I rolled my eyes at her, and she replied with a smirk which hid her obvious pleasure. I had been abandoned, left for dead, like an old car laying to rest in a junkyard, and the owner of that junkyard was my sister.

My sister was 21 at the time and my mom would have been 39, my dad 44. Both of my parent's lives had been extinguished in the same incidence of time and place, dead on a ferry sinking from Australia to New Zealand during their 25th anniversary. I had oddly not been shocked by the news when it first reached the chambers of my inner ear. Both my parents were journalists, (odd I know), but it's also how they met. during their brief jaunt of covering the first Persian gulf war, although the term "war" could be laid down loosely in this case. It was more like a slaughter, U.N coalition marched steadfast with superior discipline, training technology and objective, The Iraqis practically ran away to their mama Saddam. The U.N stopped short of actually invading Iraq and ousting the regime, although the first Bush wanted to pursue. That first bush had some good sense; you should never fight a war alone.

All that though, just like my parents didn't matter anymore. They were just drops in the ocean of time, forever diluted from importance by everyone else's own drops. My sister took this too heart in an extreme way though. The following night of my parent's demise, I received a phone call from her. Angelic and light hearted as ever, her breath puffed out "It's so sad isn't it Jeremy, so very very sad". I knew she was being sarcastic, I could feel the steaminess of her voice through the phone. I simply said "ok" with a heavy sigh. Then my sister Vanessa said something I'll never forget, that dragon breathed out "well umm, you know how I'm the oldest right? And I suppose you know your basics of what happens with money when a parent dies." Then silence casted its spell around us, she wanted me to say it but I would rather hang up the damn receiver than satisfy her lust for age related dominance. After a full minute she said timidly, as if afraid of my response, "ALL of our parents money, every cent that they have tirelessly saved will now go to me." She let the word "me" roll out of her tongue like a drag from those cigarettes she so very much revered. I think I recall hearing her say hello after that but it was hard to hear a thing when you're slamming your cell phone down in a torrent of emotion.

I couldn't believe how someone could be so numb, so self central to the point that wealth sufficed their needs, but that was her that was Vanessa. After the funeral it seemed only natural that I would live with my sister, her boyfriend had a steady job, a manager of a WaWa gas station. I probably could've stayed with one of my parent's sisters or brothers but all of them had their own kids to look after, their own worries. It's not like I didn't try, but each time I did I would get handed the same classic response "well Jeremy don't you know that since you and your sister went through the same thing, it will be better for you two to bond and be stronger for each other?". Their logic was sound except for the fact that my parent's death was a stark positive, something as innocent as winning the lottery, for my sister and for me it was simply something as traumatic as losing my parents.

That day was the same as all the others, Jeremy wash the dishes, Jeremy the clothes, vacuum, go out and buy some food. The only thing I wanted at that time in my life was to have sex and my sister's selfishness pervaded my pubescent 17 year old hormonal sequences. Another problem being I had tasted what I would come to obsess over, girls. The feeling of soft skin pressing against the rough of mine, their body's slow rise and fall, a constant reminder of how they were real and not dead like my parents were. I had always been good with girls, but this revelation of my parents had shocked people around me. I always felt their pity, there caterwauling cries of "I'm so sorry" and "I'll be here if you need me". I learned to hate them for it too, the way they felt for me, they way they tried to empathize. The irony in it is that I would've hated them even if they didn't care which proved to the greatest quandary of my social life.

Anyway, I was home that day and sitting on that carpet, staring at my sister and her boyfriend feeling each other's body's finally bored me enough to get up and collapse in the bed of my room. I lay there with my phone in my hand texting josh about our plans for 4th of July, "oh there's going to be some girls, and alcohol, good fireworks, you know mortars, fucking awesome night it's going to be" that's what he preached to me through his little flip phone. I liked josh (and no I'm not gay) but I liked him because he was predictable. He wasn't very smart, he played football and was a bit full of himself but the one thing I could count on from him was consistency, a vapid average mess of consistency. It mattered that the kid was always there; maybe it was because I lived about 900 centimeters away from him but there was never a time when he surprised me and I was thankful for that. His dad was a salesman, his mom a stay at home; he had a brother and a sister, typical American. Hunted, watched the super ball, patriotic as can be. When he found out my parents died he did the smart thing, he didn't mention it. He made sure that he hung out with me extra times and that was the end of that.

...

Eventually the earth winded its way around the sun the correct amount of times and Independence Day was upon us. My street was adorned with people shuffling around; relatives arriving from distant towns, friends swooping in from far away cities. These people constricted the streets with their automobiles parked on each side of the road, cutting the usual two way street into a meager one way alley.

I had put on a fresh t shirt, plain gray with khaki shorts and a pair of vans shoes to finish of the look. I combed my hair up into its familiar wispy poof from which I was known for and scampered off to joshes house. When I arrived I was received by josh who gave me an overly enthusiastic "bro hug" (as he dubbed them) and led me inside. I expected to see his father or mother but I found the house empty, lest for me and josh. Josh looked up at me in a cock eyed grin and said "my parents are at the 4th of July get together thing a couple of blocks down, we will have the house to ourselves." He finished off his remarks with a savoring purse of the lips "I've invited some girls over; you know Sydney and riley right?" I nodded in agreement forcing a smile. Of course I knew them, just a couple weeks ago me and riley had had quite the entanglement at a similar event and situation.

It wasn't a party, more of a get together, 6 people, 3 guys and 3 girls, one huge bottle of vodka, cherry flavor to be exact. So and so's parents were gone and we had an opportunity so we seized it. Josh had his eyes set on Sidney while I was simply going to be a mediator of sorts, making sure people could handle themselves, and that nothing would break. Soon enough though the girls became roaring drunk, one of which was Sydney who became unaware of the situation and josh took this as a sign to slide in for the kill. I didn't see them until morning, but I knew they had gone to a room, door locked. I'll leave the rest of what they did to your imagination. I continued my watch until riley crept up behind me and sat on the couch next to me. For a while we sat, our eyes fixed on a re run of its always sunny in Philadelphia. Then she made her move; her leg raised up then plopped down diagonally across my thighs. She then spoke to me in a half slurred ensemble of desire "my foot hurts, could you massage it" so I did and she groaned in pleasure, then she nestled her head onto my chest and wrapped her arms across my stomach, knotting her hand tightly like she was afraid id vanish into thin air. She then drew my lips to hers and stole a complacent kiss, then another and soon we were a tangle of body parts, legs, arms and torsos all desperately trying to solidify our bodies into one. Eventually I followed joshes example, as we went into a room and left the rest to the imagination

I thought of all of this with the mention of that girl's name, riley. My mind had backtracked through time and josh was looking at me with a puzzled face, I seemed lost in a sea of thought. The doorbell ringing drew me back to reality, and as if on cue there was riley standing at the door smiling at me with that childish smile, full of mistaken innocence.

And so it began as it always does, kids who want a new feeling, the alcohol ran through our veins that night, the lust entrenched itself in our youth, we danced we sang we fucked, we did what we had to do to hold on to the youth that we knew was going to fade eventually. There were many who judged us, our group, they said we were immature we were not virtuous, or immoral. We didn't say anything though instead we DID things and I think that was when the difference occurred, that is when it became more than just a party, more than my sister and my parents death, when it became who we really are. We longed for an extra hour of carefree, of jubilance; my mind was clear only in this time. Time, it was time that we should've been fighting, yet everyone that I saw was wanting it to go faster and faster, they wanted the earth to roll off its axis and be engulfed in a fiery ball into the sun and lose the only thing all of us shared, time.