Flash Fiction- Back Then

Back Then

People always say that it was such a simpler time before. But as I lay here like I always do, alone, I wonder what that means again. When was before? In the seven days God made the Earth, made man then made woman; was it simpler? I think back to the time I asked Mom that question. “If it was so easy back then, then how come Eve ate that apple? Why didn’t she just listen to God?” Mom fixed my church tie around my neck, letting it coil like a serpent, and answered without a beat, “That’s because everybody’s a sinner.” I wanted to ask why we still had go to church then but we were already walking out the front door. I think back to the summer after that when the girls didn’t want to hold our hands and when we didn’t want them to either. We only wanted to play with sticks and ride our bikes through town. A few summers after that, Benny had his first kiss. All the other boys patted him on the back and wanted to hear stories of his conquest. Me? I stuck to my sticks. When my friends met up with the Riley sisters from a couple streets over, I rode my bike through town alone that day. I think back to spring when I was 15, when we got our first new kid. He was the mechanics bastard son from Georgia, a 16 year old high school dropout, but he knew a lot about cars. Tom fixed my dad’s Buick that spring break. And when we shook hands to say hello when I came to pick it up, he said my hands were too soft for a working man’s hands. That following summer I didn’t play with sticks. I spent more time at the autoshop, picking up a few things about cars. My dad was happy to hear about me learning how to change tires, that I knew how to do tuneups and check the oil. It meant he didn’t have to pay for those things anymore. But when those times came I brought Tom over anyways.

Instead of bike rides, I took to walking. And the days that Tom was free, I brought him along too. He didn’t like walking through town though so we stuck to the woods on the westside where the houses were more spread out. I think back to the day along the stream where I proudly brought up the calluses on my hands. I showed Tom how I had a working man’s hands now. I think back to when he grabbed a hold of one to see and how he didn’t let it go even when we started along the stream again. That summer at the fair, Suzanne confessed that she loved me. I think back to the time that I broke her heart under the ferris wheel. How I didn’t feel all that bad because later that night Tom and I were going to meet at the stream again. His dad didn’t let him go to the fair this time because Mr Samuel’s Mustang was acting up again and he needed it by the next morning. I think back to how long I waited by the water and when I went to the auto shop the next day Tom had a busted lip and black eye. I think back to how he looked at me once, told me I should leave, then his dad came and chased me out. Tom wouldn’t see me for a week. Or the week after that, or after that. I think about the rumors of the mechanic’s son being a queer. About how I found out Tom got shipped back to his mom’s a couple days after I last saw him. I think about how my parents never brought Tom up again but when I got a package from him a few months later, mom ripped up the letter and threw it out. Dad told me I can’t talk to that boy anymore and we went to church the next morning. I came back home early on Sunday with excuses that I wasn’t feeling good. They didn’t know that Tom had sent me a cassette tape with his note and when I got home, I took it out from under my mattress. It was my first time listening to the song but I sat in the living room with it turned up quietly, just enough for me to listen. I still hear the song from my father’s speaker. “Looks like nothing’s gonna change. Everything still remains the same. I can’t do what ten people tell me to do. So I guess I’ll remain the same.”  As I lay here, alone, I think about how times really were simpler back then.