Cicadian Rhythm II
A personal essay in three parts
13, 2007
If it's so, well, let me know
If it's no, well, I can go13, Elliott Smith (Big Star Cover)
Up out of their burrows, cicadas shake the dirt off their shells—a slow creaking stretch after a 17 year slumber. Their exit routes freckle a field, spooking the cattle back to their pens. They crack out of their carapaces to reveal a shiny set of wings. Within a few hours, they take off to higher ground riding a big gust of wind.
From the backseat of the large grey SUV, a boy sees them flying like rain in reverse. Up, and up, and up. Pangs of jealousy course through his folded body, strapped down by the seat belt digging into his neck. The car veers left, away from the bugs and his eyes can’t reach over the headrest behind him.
He has sat in this seat his entire life, or so it seems; this journey has happened every second weekend for as long as he can remember. At 13, it’s impossible to understand this drive is shorter than most of his favourite movies. Time and time again, time stretches like the highways between home and the place he gets taken by this car. The physical distance doesn’t equate to how distant it feels.
The conversation in the front seat is not his to have, and he knows it. Silence is survival.
“Alright, we’re here,” the man in the front seat says, screeching into a gravelled parking lot. The boy jerks forward, following the car’s kinesis. The seat belt rubs a piece of skin from his neck leaving eraser fragments behind like when his brother draws. He’ll later remark that the scrape reminds him of a day-old sunburn, but is shaped like a thumb print.
The pizza restaurant welcomes them with a red neon glowing in the window. “Her name is Sherry, and you better be on your best fucking behaviour,” the man tells the boy and his brother. He knows the warning is his alone—his brother is allowed in the front seat and that distinction means they are treated differently.
The boy can’t understand why someone would be named Cherry, but he doesn’t dare ask his father.
Cherry has long hair, which he likes, but is wearing yellow, which he doesn’t like. Her hug feels rushed and he’s not sure if that’s his fault or hers. She tries to be nice to the boy. He has met so many Cherries up to that point he can’t help but keep his investment in this one to a minimum.
Cherry is quickly regaled with the father’s tales of adventures with the boys. The activities he makes the boys do, the games he makes the boys play, the ways he disciplines the boy, all told with a gleeful pride. The boy smiles and nods. He smiles and nods, even when Cherry makes the father repeat the way he extracted the boy’s baby teeth. Cherry stares at the boy’s railroad smile with an open mouth.
The boy wonders what face Cherry would make if she knew about the times he was painted in red, purple and green constellations.
The waiter arrives and the father orders for the table: Meat Lovers for him and the boys, and Cherry tells him she’d like plain cheese, which he repeats back to the waiter.
The father glances down at the boy. He didn’t realize he had made a sound, but now all eyes were on him. His father makes a motion with his hand, spinning his wrist over on itself. Come on, spit it out, it says.
The boy tells the table he wants to try the Hawaiian pizza.
His father breathes out quickly. “You won’t like it,” he says. Cherry pats the father’s arm and says there’s no harm in letting him try. She gives the boy a wide grin meant to comfort him. It doesn’t work because she has unsettlingly crooked front teeth that remind him of his braces.
Cherry excuses herself to go to the restroom. The father cranes his neck, leaning his chair back until she disappears behind a door. He grabs the boy’s wrist and pins it to the table. Through gritted teeth, and under the cover of restaurant chatter, the boy gets told: “You better watch your fucking attitude kid, and I’m not gonna tell you again.”
The boy’s wrist stays clamped until he nods. When the tether, the leash, the hand holding him down releases, the boy takes off running.
He runs and runs and never looks back. Out of the strip mall, he makes it to a highway and keeps going until he makes it to a field stretching out as far as the eye can see. Stepping through the crops, he’s surrounded by flying creatures who flutter around, disturbed by the boy-shaped intruder. They dive upwards, sideways, all around him. Their song lulls the boy to a halt.
Their freedom takes shape around him, lifting the boy off the ground. He closes his eyes, and he too feels free.
“Alright, we’ve got a Meat Lovers, Cheese, and a small Hawaiian,” the waiter says, placing pizzas on the table.
To this day, the boy loves pineapple on pizza.
Read the full trilogy:
Stunning.
Beautiful <3