hopscotch and lizards • frerard

a • arrival

Frank didn't expect much when moving in. Well, there were those pesky 'American dream' seeds rooted in his head since childhood, but not much else.

His days had molten into a young adult blur. Dinner theater gigs and/or teaching guitar for cash between tours, tours that always took a week too long to settle in. Drinks and weed with his drinking buddies and his roommates respectively, text conversations without a clear start or end. Dates that only talked about work thrown in for good measure. All habits, done with a foot out the door.

And here he was, walking home at five in the morning (no, he wasn't an early riser), close as the bus could get him, Google Maps still in his hand. Yes, he'd been there before to get the month's lease, but he was exhausted and man, Ray Toro should've seen the glow in his face.

Step.

The street lights touched and warmed that same home for his arrival, a one bedroom house at that. With a porch and a few feet of garden up front, a renovated roof and repainted white walls: it was an image of suburbia shattered by the screws thrown around the sidewalk. 'liar liar lick spit!' got scribbled by some kid on the energy panel too, either that or a drunk.

Frank hesitated to step on the porch. The air was dry and cold, without a hint of breeze. His key weighed uncomfortable in his pocket, unsure if it was worth the disappointment.

Just step.

He has never wanted to move to the suburbs. He loved the city. And its busy streets, and it's mountains of people to get lost in (and get lost with), and its ever-beating heart.

Well, he loved the idea of a city anyway. Maybe not Paterson, New Jersey, as a specimen.

Either way he was there, on that uneasy porch, out of spite.

People told him he couldn't. They told him he couldn't play guitar for a living, so he had semi-stable income while his friends were drowning in college debt. They told him he had to dress like a 'young man', so he got a mohawk and cheap-ass tattoos and a lip ring and loved every second of it. They told him he couldn't write songs about being in love with his middle school bully, so he screamed them from the top of his lungs. Now they were telling him he wasn't cut out for life in the suburbs, so he jumped at the chance.

He was, well, he was considered weak. Or overly defiant, or lacking in personal goals, or just an asshole if all he ever did was what people told him not to.

Fuck it, he found happiness that way.

( He had yet to find meaning, but deep self fulfillment was just a lie held against depressed fucks like him. )

How did he find happiness, you may ask?

He befriended people that were 'too good for him', and he went to places that didn't want him on the list. He saw the forbidden side of the city, cemeteries and subway kiosks alike. Going against the grain fueled his sense of control; he was happier than he used to be, now that he lived for himself.

Happier than he'd ever been back home, all pits of despair aside. He didn't regret moving out at eighteen, which proved his point more than anything.

Six years gone by in a second.

And now he stepped inside holding his breath. He was just as alone inside as on the street. He turned the light on, which meant he was home.