Sorry for the lack of updates. I still plan on using this page more — hopefully a lot more in the near future. This semester has me fairly well bogged down and I’m actively trying to substitute teach, too.

I’m going to spend more time writing, though. I have a creative itch that I can only scratch by putting words down on paper. Well, computer. Whatever. Anyways, I’m sure most of that will find its way here in time.

In short, thanks for stopping by and stay tuned!

Hi Everyone,

I’d like to share a poem I wrote in a workshop this semester but haven’t shared with anyone. It’s called “Changeling.”

Changeling

This is the second where times change,

The moment of clarity before sleep’s rapture,

The pinnacle of a dream before dawn,

The peace before the fire

Of dry wild tides.

This is a time for believing,

For fighting up,

For knowing in your heart

That faith will hold,

That life will breathe,

The night will never, ever, come

Until it’s what we want to see.

This is the second wind

For the winded,

Breath for the breathless,

Love for the loveless,

Friend for the friendless,

And a country for

All the country’s men.

We are a beginning,

The birth without end.

And, we have hope.

This story follows Bradley, a young middle-schooler over four days. His home life is troubled and, past the orchard behind the town park, something happens that changes him forever. This story is set in Lyndonville. Every place is based on where I used to spend time as a kid. The events are all fiction though, don’t worry

Past the Orchard

By Chris Coke

Years later, I still find myself thinking back to that year with Bradley McQuaid. He was a good kid, and strong. I know that more now than ever. It’s been so long, I find myself wondering whether I remember everything the way it actually happened. And I think I do. I remember what happened to him, and the things he told me, anyways. Like when he first told me, “Simon, you’re my only friend, you know that? My only real friend anyways.” I’ll remember that forever, I think. Maybe it’s better that I wonder about myself back then. Hindsight is 20/20, right? It all began in our 4^th period science class.

***

“Do you think you’re standing still? What would you say if I told you that you were actually traveling at over a thousand miles per hour, spinning around and around the entire time?” Such were the words of Mr. Robinson as he spoke to our eighth grade science class. He was a young teacher, and full of enthusiasm, but my attention was mainly on Bradley, two rows ahead of me to the left.

He was playing with his pens, pretending they were airplanes by the looks of it. It was just an act while he stole sidelong glances at Savalie, the girl sitting two rows to his right. She was taking notes, studious as we knew she was, but when she’d look up, he’d look down to keep from being seen, his curly brown hair falling to hide his face. He’d told me he liked her a good two weeks beforehand but I couldn’t convince him to talk to her. Bradley was nothing if he wasn’t quiet. As I look back now, I don’t think it was Savalie that made him nervous. I think it’s what she meant to him.

The bell rang and I shut my notebook where I’d been trying to see how many times I could fit my name onto a single page. Bradley was packing his books into his backpack, too slowly, as he glanced up to watch her leave; the logo of her pink plaid backpack was partly obscured by her long dark pony tail. Sometimes I could see what he liked about her. She was pretty and nice but sometimes I thought she cared more about being a part of her group of friends than about being herself. Her bright clothes stood out in contrast to Brad’s faded green shirt and blue jeans. Like so many of his things, they were second hand and I knew that embarrassed him.

“We’re gonna be late man, let’s go.” I told him. “It’s sub day and I want to get there before they run out of turkey.”

“Do you always think with your stomach?” he replied, grinning his rare grin.

“I don’t know. Do you always play with your pen when you watch girls?”

He shoved me playfully and we walked to lunch. We sat at the same table, as we had since he’d moved here two years ago. When he came, he stood at the front of the cafeteria looking around for a safe place to sit where he wouldn’t be rejected. In the end, he’d found an empty table and sat by himself. I felt bad for him, so I went and sat down with him. He was shy, but when we discovered a shared love for comic books, a friendship grew and had thrived ever since. It turned out we had a lot in common, like our love for classic guitars and computer games. Most of the kids thought he was weird, though, because he kept to himself so much. I knew he wasn’t and I guess felt a little responsible for him, so we spent a lot of time together.

“Are you still coming over today?” I asked, after swallowing my last bite. “I saved us some shells so we can take the .22 out to the Boy Scout camp with us.”

We did a lot of things when we got together outside of school but our favorite was to go out to the Boy Scout camp behind the orchard. We’d pretend to be explorers, and other kid stuff, but we also liked to build fires in the old pit and cook out like we were wild. Brad liked to write poems out there. He said it was a good spot to write about nature and life. He let me read some of them. I wasn’t into poetry, though, and he knew it, so he mostly kept them to himself.

“Yeah, I’m good to go. The gun thing is all you, though. I’m not into shooting much.”

“More like not at all, you mean. Have you ever even shot a gun?”

“Yes!” he lied. “I just don’t want to today. You take it. Have fun.”

“Yeah, it’ll be a blast.” I chuckled at my own joke. Bradley didn’t find it funny, however. He just sat pushing around his peas with his plastic fork. “Come on man. What’s the matter, you still tore up about that girl?”

“Her name’s Savalie, and… no.”

“I saw you looking at her. You’ve got to just talk to her. What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

“She could laugh. And, I don’t have a chance with her. She’s one of the popular girls, even though I know she’s different.” He seemed to be talking to himself as his eyes went back to her table. “She’s just so… perfect, Simon; funny, and smart, and pretty. Listen, don’t mess with me about her, okay?”

I looked over at her table too. She didn’t look that different, not when she was with her friends. They were the girls boys their own age were afraid to talk to. They went for older guys, jocks mostly. Savalie was single but I’d be lying if I said she didn’t look like the rest of them right then, laughing at some picture in Teen Girl magazine. I imagined it was one of those horror stories about wearing the wrong top or a having an especially bad hair day.

“Yeah, all right. It’s not as bad as you think, though. How about home, things going any better with your dad?” He’d been looking across the room at her table but when I asked his eyes met mine. The hurt of the thought furrowed his brow and he looked down again.

“No. My mom is gone more than ever now. She cries a lot when she’s home and says she can’t take it, that she doesn’t know why my dad is doing this to us. She says she loves me and then she goes and leaves me there.” A pause. “What is that, Simon?” I saw pain in his wide brown eyes, pleading, and I didn’t want it to go there. Not here, where everyone could see.

“It’s not right.” I said. “Listen man, we’ll talk about it later, alright? I wanna hear what’s going on. Really.”

“Yeah. I’ve got to get to class anyways. I’ll meet you by the orchard after school. I’ve just got to stop at my house and drop my bag off first.” I agreed and he turned to leave. I stopped him before he could go.

“Hey Brad, just come out quick, alright? No waiting around at the house or anything. ‘Kay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, and he walked off. We didn’t have any other classes that day, so I finished my lunch and made my way to sixth period.

We lived in a small town. The entire population was only 1,800 people and the orchard where we’d planned to meet wasn’t far from the school. I waited at its corner nearest to town. The scent of ripe apples floated on the air; their skins were a deep shade of crimson that stood out against the green of their leaves. I was looking out over the empty field that bordered it. At the end of the lane where I stood, the orchard turned into a small wood made up of maples and oaks, with the occasional sad looking hemlock.

Where is he, I thought, twisting the small rifle in my hands. I’d brought it for myself. Bradley was the kid who wouldn’t take archery in gym because he promised he’d never hunt. He was twenty minutes late by the time I saw him running across the field from the direction of town. He never ran, especially when he carried a backpack. When he reached me, I could see the red of a fresh bruise on the side of his face. His eyes were red and swollen, his cheeks wet.

“Holy shit, dude. What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said roughly, pushing past me. “Come on. Let’s go.”

We walked the rest of the lane hurriedly and in silence. The Boy Scout camp wasn’t far into the woods. In truth, it was an abandoned boy scout camp and a poor one at that. All that remained was a shallow fire pit circled with stones and two old logs for benches. My dad’s shovel was still propped against a tree from when we’d dug the pit out again. When we got to the camp he threw down his backpack and threw himself onto one of the logs.

“I’m so sick of it, man. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t fucking take it!” He buried his face in his hands and choked back a sob.

“Bradley, what happened? Tell me.”

“I went home. Mom was gone, but that’s nothing new. When I got there, he was sprawled out on the couch. Like, he was sitting, but his hands and legs were all hanging wide around him. His fucking crack pipe was laying on the floor like he dropped it. I ran up to him and shook him and called his name; I thought he OD’d. His eyes fluttered and he came around. He stood up and was swaying a lot. He couldn’t walk straight, stumbling-like, you know? I was scared, I wanted to call an ambulance but he said no. When he saw me grab the phone, he came at me. I was able to get around him but he grabbed my shirt and pulled me down. He… was on top of me and hit me. I only got away because I was able to kick him where it really hurt him.” He broke into sobs again.

“Oh my god, man. You’ve got to tell somebody.”

“I can’t, Simon.”

“Why the hell not?”

He looked at me, puzzled, the torment of his troubled family showing plainly in the red of his eyes. “He’s my dad.”

“Brad, that doesn’t matter. Your mom should—“

My words were cut off. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

A deep groan echoed through the woods, light, sounding far off. It was a wonder he didn’t miss it but I think he was looking for an excuse. The sound was short but drawn, lower than a cat’s meow but higher than the greeting of a cow.

“What the hell?” I began but he got up and walked off, deeper into the woods. The groan was different now that we were getting closer; it had become more of a bleat like a sheep’s and was shorter, more intense, coming again and again. We approached another field that separated our half of the wood from the next.

“It’s coming from over here,” he said, stepping out onto its edge.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” The way he said that, the intentness of it, made me feel like he just wanted something else to focus on. I was worried. The sound was probably an animal, and Bradley had once convinced his mother to take an injured squirrel to the vet. It couldn’t climb up the tree, so he’d cornered it and trapped it in a pillowcase for the trip. He nursed that thing in a cage in his room for a week.

We walked on, following the noise to the middle of the back edge of the field. Whatever it was was close now, right in front of us. I gripped my father’s gun. Bradley stood, unmoving, staring down as if afraid to see what animal cried out in the bushes ahead. I went forward and used the barrel of the gun to move them aside.

A deer lay in the undergrowth, blood mottling its brown fur from a wound in its neck. Its head rose and fell as it let out its short, anguished cries. It didn’t try to stand; that was behind it now. Here, it would only die.

“Damn it,” I said. “One of Fargus’s dogs must have got him. They run the bastards to death all the time. Couldn’t even kill the damn thing; he must’ve called ‘em back before he could finish the job.” I looked at the bleeding animal then back at Brad. He stood, staring at the blood weeping from its neck; tears again welled behind his eyes and I know now that he was able to see more in that deer than I ever could.

“We can’t leave him like this,” he said. “He’s hurting.”

The animal called out in fear and pain. Brad’s eyes clenched shut at the sound; a tear had escaped then and ran down his cheek.

“Make him stop,” he said, forcing the words.

“What would you have me do?” I asked. “I can’t kill a deer.”

“You have a gun, Simon. Do it.”

“Dude, I can’t. It’s not deer –“

BLEAT.

“Do something, Simon!”

“I can’t!”

The deer twisted its head and let out a low grunt.

He grabbed the gun from my hands and shot, one, two, three times in its side, the animal’s fur tufting up in gray white craters before turning red from the fresh punctures. It laid its head down as its final breath escaped through its chest. I couldn’t believe what had just happened; I’d never seen anything like it. Turning, I looked at him, the quiet boy who’d never hurt a thing in his life; the boy who refused to shoot a gun, even in the woods where no adults could see.

He stood with his mouth hanging open, as if he wanted to speak but no words would come. Slowly, he turned his eyes to me. In an instant, the spell was broken. He dropped the gun on the ground as if it were something forbidden.

“I… I…” He began to back up and fell over a root. “Oh my god.”

“Bradley…” I started, but he scrambled to his feet and, before I could stop him, ran. I called his name. I don’t know if he heard me or not but he never looked back. And I knew that he was weeping, and that he would weep, long and hard.

He wouldn’t so much as look at me for the next three days. I tried, time and again, but he’d turn his head and rush away. I don’t think he talked to anyone in that time, even when his bruise had darkened to a sickly brownish-yellow and the kids began asking him what had happened. Some people picked on him but I just worried. I knew he felt guilty, ashamed of what had happened and what he’d done. Bradley would never have hurt a fly, and he’d killed something.

As those days went on, I watched him. He seemed increasingly tense. He wouldn’t eat at lunch. He was the last person into class and the first person out, so no one would catch him and try to make him talk. He even stopped watching Savalie. He’d sit, every class, with his head down, writing in his notebook, his hair shadowing his face.

Except, on that third day, he went to his locker before Science class and stayed there. I saw him and walked to his side. He looked rigid, the way he held his books, and I saw he was staring at her as she stood talking with a group of her friends. The air around him was static and ice, like a pane of glass riddled with tiny cracks.

“Brad,” I began, but he walked away from me, heading towards Savalie. The way he walked then was like man heading towards war. Or maybe it was away from war towards the hand that would save him. I followed, weaving through the masses of people making their way to classes, talking and laughing, worried about what he might do. I’d always wanted him to talk to her, but not now, and not like this.

He walked right up to the group and stood there, looking downwards and glancing up with his head lowered. I’d never heard a voice so laden restrained sorrow as his was then but the words came out in a rush, like a dam freshly broken.

“Savalie,” he said. “I know you don’t know me real well but I really like you and I hope you like me too and I wanted to know if… I.. I was hoping you’d be my girlfriend.”

I waited, my own heart lodged in my throat. I didn’t know what to think but I know that I was afraid for him.

Then one of them laughed. Then they all laughed, except for Savalie. She just looked sad.

“I’m sorry, Bradley,” she said and put her hand on his shoulder before her friends pulled her away down the hallway, still giggling.

“Did you buy that shirt at Walmart?” One of them called back. Another one called out, “You wore those pants yesterday!” and they laughed anew.

He stood, straight as a board with his head down, his eyes clenched shut. I reached out a hand to comfort him but before I could touch him, he ran. I called his name again and ran after him, not wanting him to be alone. Mr. Robinson saw us running through the hall and leaned out of his room to tell us to stop but neither of us did. When he reached the front door, he burst through. Even though every part of me wanted to, I couldn’t follow him. Ditching meant suspension. Through the window, I saw Bradley leave the school grounds and keep on running.

I was called to the office during the next period to tell the principal what had happened. I didn’t have much to tell; he hadn’t told me where he was going. She thanked me and sent me back to class ten minutes later as she prepared to call his parents. Apparently, they’d found some way to explain away his bruise; he’d never been hurt before. Guilt racked me as I walked. I stopped in front of the door he’d run through and looked out.

All of the sudden, I knew where he was going. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I also knew the right thing to do, even if it meant trouble. I was Bradley’s friend, his only friend, and I couldn’t let him be alone, not with his family, not with his shame, and not with that damn deer weighing on his shoulders. I ran out the door after him.

When I got to the Boy Scout camp, he was nowhere to be found. I called his name but no one answered. I knew, and continued walking. At the edge of the field, I could hear the sound of a shovel scraping against the earth. I jogged the rest of the way to where we’d found the deer.

I pulled the bushes to the side. Bradley was covered in dirt next to the body of the deer, sweaty, and tear streaked. He looked up when he saw me but looked down again quickly.

“I’ve got to bury it, Simon. I can’t leave it here.”

“Bradley…”

“No Simon! I shouldn’t have killed it! I shouldn’t…” He choked back a sob. “It was in pain. I couldn’t listen to it scream, Simon. I couldn’t and I can’t let it lay here. I killed it and I need to bury it. It needs a grave.”

I went up to him and put my hand on his shoulder and he stopped, breathing heavily, his face a shiny mask of dirt and wetness. And at that, his face crumpled and he stood there and cried. I pulled him into a hug.

“It’s going to be okay, Brad. It’ll be alright. It will.”

In a moment, he pulled back from me and nodded. We finished the grave together, him, with my father’s shovel, and me, with my hands. We pulled the terrible body of the deer into the grave and buried it.

As we stood look over it, he told me.

“Mom’s actually going to leave him. She told me so. I have a bag hidden in the closet with my stuff but I don’t know when. You know the really messed up part? I hate my life here but I don’t want to go. The only good things in my life were you and Savalie and I don’t even have her anymore – or what I thought of her. My family is shit but at least I had it.” He looked up at me. “Now what do I have?”

“You have me, Bradley. Even if you move, it’s not the end of the world. You know that, man.”

“You’re a good friend, Simon,” he said, looking me right in the eye. “I’m glad I have you.”

“Me too,” I said. “Me too.”

And, true to his word, they moved away at the end of that week. It happened abruptly. There was no word, no warning, he was just gone and I was alone. I rode my bike past his house and for a while his Dad’s car was still there but even that was gone within a year, replaced with a “3 Bedroom – For Sale” sign.

Two months later, I got a post card from him. There was no return address on it, just a picture of some paradise beach at sunset. Maybe that was where he was, at a beach, living the high life. I didn’t know but I wished he’d left me some way to get in contact with him. I was left wishing but I believe there was a reason. I just don’t know what.

If Bradley taught me one thing, however, it’s that you have to be strong for the people around you. I can’t imagine what life was like for him through everything that happened. He wasn’t a killer, he was a saver. I didn’t realize it then, but when I look back at it now, I think Savalie was all he had to hold on to. When she was gone, he fell.

I went up to her and that group of friends after he was gone and told them all what I thought of them. They didn’t get it. They looked at me with their dumb, affronted stares, without saying a word. He was a good kid, I told them, and they’d broken his heart simply because they could. Maybe one day they’ll know the same kind of humiliation they put him through.

Today, I’m graduated and have a family of my own. I talk to my kids and tell them I love them. I do the same for my wife and even my dog, Sheppie. I never want them to feel alone or lost the way he did. Bradley taught me about what’s important, and that’s the people you love in life. I still think of him when my son pretends his crayons are airplanes. I can only hope he found his way in life, somewhere far away on a sandy beach, days and nights away from the nearest deer.

THE END

I have to take two tests, both next Wednesday. The first one is at 8AM for British Lit. Okay, good. I’ve done well in that class, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem. The second one, however, is Critical Approaches to Literature (CA for short). Both tests are going to have passage ID and short answer segments.

Now, again, usually I wouldn’t be too stressed, except for the fact that CA features some of the most dense, monotonous reading every to grace the pages of an overpriced book. I’ve got by so far because I do the reading, then take notes in class to make sure I understand it. God help me if I can remember half of the stuff in certain of those essays though. It’s rough and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried about how it’ll turn out. Thankfully, I’m running with an A- right now, so I have some room for play with that grade before I’ll be in the danger zone for my major.

I’m not the kind of student where big blocks of lecture do a whole lot for my learning *cough* CA *cough*, so, before Wednesday, I need to get in memorization mode. I find the best way for me to engrain things into my memory is to write them down, by hand, as many times as it takes for me to repeat them without looking. Between doing that and reviewing my notes (and listening to the audio book version of Gulliver’s Travels, thank you Libravox!), I should be okay. The stress this time of the semester is a pain though.

Anyways, that’s the thought on that particular topic. Finishing out this week, though, I submitted my short story Past the Orchard and the poem The New Labor into the college Jigsaw. It’s a college published book, but still counts for resume purposes. Hopefully, I make the cut. Both went over very well in their workshop sessions, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

That’s it for now,  until next time!

Hello Everyone,

Welcome to my blog! I’ve been writing online for some time, through a gaming blog called Game by Night. As an aspiring teacher and writer, I thought it was about time to create an outlet for my personal updates and creative stuff works, so here I am.

If you’re here, you probably know who I am but, just in case, here’s the rundown. I’m a 23 year old college student and happily married since this past June of 2009. My wife is a pediatric nurse and we have two cats together. I finished the Childhood Education program last year and am currently nine short credit hours away from getting my Bachelor’s Degree in English – Creative Writing. Once that’s done, I’ll be picking up my teaching certificate and, hopefully, finding a nice school to start at.

I love to read and write. In my spare time, I maintain the blog I mentioned before but I also write poetry about every day. Most of it’s bad but I like to think something decent comes out every now and then. My real love is prose, though, and really enjoy developing short stories. Since they take so much longer to write, however, I find myself writing more poems than stories.

I also really enjoy playing guitar and writing my own songs. I don’t have time to play in a band, so when inspiration strikes, I multi-track songs on my computer. I’ll probably post some of that here sometime.

That’s about it though. I hope you enjoy stopping by and taking a peek into my life.

Until next time!

PS: You’ll have the option to subscribe soon, setting up the RSS feed tomorrow.