time keeps dragging on
May. 24th, 2006 08:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_f_twistJack measures out the passage of the years in Bobby's birthdays and in trips up north.
The year Bobby turned seven, Jack brought him to a rodeo, watched Bobby watching the riders, saw how small and neat his boy was and worried when he set Bobby on the fencetop to see the bulls pit and fight and stomp, listened with a smile how Bobby talked all the way home, avoided Lureen's eyes at dinner while Bobby told her about the man who hung on to one scrappy bull for the full eight seconds and how he still had the presence of mind to wave his hat at the crowd as he leaped off.
When Bobby was ten, he came home from school with red eyes and a face pale from humiliation and anger, and locked himself in his room, wouldn't come out for dinner, wouldn't come out when his momma cajoled or when his daddy knocked on the door, and hid his head under his pillow from his grandfather's burning comments. Jack stayed up that night, waiting in the darkened kitchen till a small shape slipped down the hallway in stocking feet, intent on gaining the skipped dinner.
Jack didn't ask questions, only poured the boy a glass of milk and gave him the plate that had been saved, sat on the couch with him later while they watched a late-night movie, and ended up watching the cheesy thing by himself with Bobby dozing against his shoulder.
At twelve, Bobby found his daddy's old harmonica, and Jack let him keep it, told Bobby he'd gotten it on a suggestion from a friend in his younger years. "A girl?" Bobby asked, laughing at the thought of his daddy--thirty-six now and far beyond the days of skirt-chasing--knowing a girl, and Jack, smiling crooked at the foggy memory of shy smiles, and long straggling hair, and a sundress like petals, said sure. A little girl he'd once known.
That was a long time ago, time that keeps getting farther and farther away. And now there are still the trips up north, few and far between though they might be.
And now Bobby is fourteen, and he brings his friends back to the house where they watch football games and play video games and Jack stays out of their way, for the most part, except when he drives Bobby to the dances at the high school or when he teases Bobby about the cute sophomore girl who comes over to tutor sometimes, which makes Bobby blush and Lureen smile, a little, and almost without his notice, time keeps dragging on.
The year Bobby turned seven, Jack brought him to a rodeo, watched Bobby watching the riders, saw how small and neat his boy was and worried when he set Bobby on the fencetop to see the bulls pit and fight and stomp, listened with a smile how Bobby talked all the way home, avoided Lureen's eyes at dinner while Bobby told her about the man who hung on to one scrappy bull for the full eight seconds and how he still had the presence of mind to wave his hat at the crowd as he leaped off.
When Bobby was ten, he came home from school with red eyes and a face pale from humiliation and anger, and locked himself in his room, wouldn't come out for dinner, wouldn't come out when his momma cajoled or when his daddy knocked on the door, and hid his head under his pillow from his grandfather's burning comments. Jack stayed up that night, waiting in the darkened kitchen till a small shape slipped down the hallway in stocking feet, intent on gaining the skipped dinner.
Jack didn't ask questions, only poured the boy a glass of milk and gave him the plate that had been saved, sat on the couch with him later while they watched a late-night movie, and ended up watching the cheesy thing by himself with Bobby dozing against his shoulder.
At twelve, Bobby found his daddy's old harmonica, and Jack let him keep it, told Bobby he'd gotten it on a suggestion from a friend in his younger years. "A girl?" Bobby asked, laughing at the thought of his daddy--thirty-six now and far beyond the days of skirt-chasing--knowing a girl, and Jack, smiling crooked at the foggy memory of shy smiles, and long straggling hair, and a sundress like petals, said sure. A little girl he'd once known.
That was a long time ago, time that keeps getting farther and farther away. And now there are still the trips up north, few and far between though they might be.
And now Bobby is fourteen, and he brings his friends back to the house where they watch football games and play video games and Jack stays out of their way, for the most part, except when he drives Bobby to the dances at the high school or when he teases Bobby about the cute sophomore girl who comes over to tutor sometimes, which makes Bobby blush and Lureen smile, a little, and almost without his notice, time keeps dragging on.
