Thursday Flash: Catch Scott Garson’s Front Yard Flash

Scott Garson's "Front Yard on the East Side of Forty-Second" originally appeared in Quick Fiction #12, and it appears here with the permission of Mr. Garson. Commentary follows.

Front Yard on the East Side of Forty-Second

The receiver connects to a coiled yellow cord I sometimes double up and put in my mouth and bite. The voice of my friend Troy's mother comes through the holes in the circular earpiece. She says that Troy's father, who nobody knows--they're divorced and he lives far away--has committed suicide. She says this precisely, as if reading the words off a card.

I'm thirteen. "Oh," I say.

"Do you think you could come over?"

"Sure," I say. "Definitely."

"Todd?"

"Yeah?"

"If you could bring your glove."

My glove is a Davey Concepcion-autograph Rawlings, oil browned and flat as a fish. I have it pinned to a handlebar as I bike up Grand Avenue, and clamped to my ribs as I coast, sidesaddle, into the grass of the yard of the small brown house on the east side of Forty-Second.

I'm let in by Troy's mother. She doesn't say anything, and I realize I have no idea what it would be to act normal. On a usual day, coming in with my glove, would I look at him, there on the yellowish couch with his back to the light in the window?

I don't, at first. Then I do, and Troy stands, and his mom says, "You guys be out front?" and we file on by in a docile way she accepts as response to her question.

Forty-Second is a wide and busy street, the one leading to our future high school. Troy stands at one side of his yard and I stand at the other. We hear the lazy, ceaseless wind and grit of passing traffic. Across the street, beyond the telephone wires, we see the place in the vaporous sky where the sun would probably be.

I throw. Troy throws. A rhythm establishes itself. Catch. Regroup. Plant. Turn. Pivot. Throw.

Before I'm warmed up, I worry about making a bad toss. A while later, I wonder about what I'm going to say when we stop. Then I wonder if we ever will stop. Then I don't.

Plant. Turn. Pivot. Throw.

The sun has gone down. The light has pulled into the sky. In the yard, my friend Troy is a shape of a kid with spread legs and a glove on one arm. The ball is a shape, too--and then not. Then moony and spinning and fast. It pops in the fold of my glove. It twists as it leaves my fingers. All of this is elemental. For that reason I'm startled, confused, when I hook one--not bad, but enough at this hour; Troy can't possibly close on it by the time he sees its glow. It skips back to the hedges. I watch as he turns in pursuit, and I move from foot to foot. I put my fist in my glove. With my other hand, the gloved one, I squeeze. I whisper, "Sorry."

©2010 Scott Garson, reprinted with the permission of the author

It begins with that coiled yellow cord connected to a mother and ends with the whispered sorry. In between, there's the oil browned glove, flat as a fish; the handlebars and sidesaddle; the wide and busy street leading to the future; the rhythm of catch; that shape of a kid with spread legs and a glove on one arm.

It becomes a question of what to say when what is elemental goes awry. The ball is a shape, too: moony and spinning and fast. There is the faraway father who committed to suicide; there is the ceaseless wind, the vaporous sky where the sun would probably be. And what of these sons, the light pulled into the sky? What of this childhood: plant, turn, pivot, throw.

That's the rhythm established here, between the specific and  universal, between this catch and all the others in the all the other front yards along all the other wide and and busy streets.

With my other hand, the gloved one, I squeeze. Sorry. Sorry for the hooked one, not badly, but enough at this hour. Troy can't possibly close on it. 

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