Big Dump

This is a rather long and boring piece that has nothing exciting, but was fun to write, maybe because it's long and boring.

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“So where are we going then?”

“Does it matter?”

“‘Course it does, I’d like to know how long this endeavor will take,” Thom checked his watch, “I want to get home to sleep.”

“You’ve got a whole of Sunday after this, we are going to be home before midday I reckon.”

“Midday…that’s twelve. What are we going to do for the next four hours? In the middle of the freeway?”

“You must’ve noticed, we are walking.”

“That I did,” Thom kicked a rock, “You know, you could’ve mentioned we were going to walk. I could’ve put on my trainers. These are – I only got them last week,” his polished shoes were now covered with dust.

“People change their clothes from one day to another,” Jonny glanced back quickly, “Most are eager to get out of suits.”

“Well it was the first thing I found after you woke me up. ‘Scuse me for not checking my closet for a proper dress,” Thom tried to smile, but Jonny was still walking some distance away and so he resorted to stuffing his hands in his pockets and glancing around. Apart from the meadow, some trees on the far east and a couple of houses along the freeway, there was nothing. A car passed with a whoosh now and then, but apart from that – even birds were still asleep.

“So,” Thom started again, “Where are we going?”

“The old church? You remember it? I thought we’d pay a visit. We haven’t been there since we were boys. It’s a nice walk.”

“The old church,” Thom scratched his head, thinking. Sure, he remembered the dreadful thing, but apart from rather drab swastika graffiti and broken windows from the thrown beer bottles, there was nothing special about the place. It was usually half-flooded after heavy rains in the summer, dirty and full of stench – some kind of special mortar, they said, egg yolks and all, but surely those were just talks.

“How far off is it, anyway?” Thom asked Jonny’s spine.

“Four miles?”

“Four miles,” Thom sighed, and tried to sound warm, but really, this whole thing was getting to him. The sun had begun to rise and it was wet all around, and he already felt the onset of another hot day, and the first rays, magnified in the little dew drops suspended in the air, hit his face with an unpleasant surge of heat.

He took off his jacket and threw it over his shoulder, and a car passed by with a drunken girl hanging from the backseat’s window, and, to Thom’s incredible shame, she shouted something close to “Hey, pretty boy!” and instantly he felt so stupid that he put the jacket back on. Now there was a bead of sweat sliding down his temple, and with every quarter of an inch he became more annoyed. And it seemed like Jonny was walking faster.

“Is this daft or what,” Thom murmured, or thought that he murmured, he really didn’t mean it. Maybe he was checking Jonny, or just horsing with him. It was a nice walk, Jonny was right, if it weren’t for the sun, and yesterday’s late evening, and today’s – Thom rubbed his face – if it weren’t for all that. But now it was turning rotten on one end, his end, and slowly making its way across.

“You can turn back,” Jonny noticed, “It’s just a mile from here to your place.”

Thom cringed. Now he would never turn back, of course, because it would mean a proper fight. And proper fights with Jonny had become especially weird somehow. Intimate. They were not just generic stupid power fights, or who-knows-more fights, or who-should-stop-being-so-fucking-selfish fights – normal men fights, Thom thought, - those were, more and more, fights about nothing. Fights about a non-existent conflict that surface only upon the appearance of its side effects. Like the light sucked up in the black hole, which may not exist. Something like that – the heat was getting to him, he felt an onset of a headache. He’d had two bottles of wine yesterday. Some vodka, too.

And so Thom did what he usually did in order to avoid a proper fight – he murmured something of a defeat. And to settle the matter more, he decided to start a proper men talk – because he could do that with Ed, and why not Jonny, too, so he cleared his throat and almost adopted a cockney accent – tripping himself before he actually did, of course. He didn’t know where that came from.

“So, d’you see the girl I talked with last night?” he said, and it felt good.

“The one you left with,” Jonny answered looking sideways at the meadow. Thom studied his nose for a bit before answering.

“Yeah, well, she’s…she’s rather nice,” he continued, thinking desperately what to say. What do people say? They some something about complexion. Chest. Would Jonny appreciate a comment like that? Thom gazed at him – randomly dressed and not caring. He looked nice. He looked – and Thom thought this without any poison – refined. And since he’d been silent for a while now – Thom decided to continue shut up.

“She’s a shopkeeper, Colin knows her, remotely,” Jonny said, without interest.

“Ah,” Thom said, and then, rather foolishly, “Christ, I left her back at my flat, do you think she might steal something?”

“Again, Colin knows her, it would be rather stupid to steal something from your acquaintance’s friend.”

So Thom shut up. Soon he was lagging behind quite badly, while Jonny kept at his steady pace, and the several hours’ walk turned into the sound of his heart in his ears, and his breaths, and sweat running down his spine.

The church showed up as a small dot first, the same size as Jonny, and then it started growing, looming on the horizon, standing there for centuries and Thom felt overwhelmed. Even though it was brilliant around – the church itself was dark, several gaping black holes where the windows used to be. Thom could see the oily dirt and the water at the entrance, and Jonny was turning around, and waving his hand, and from far away the wind blew his shout, a sort of plea to Thom, to hurry up.

And Thom – his heart pounding painfully – turned around and ran, limping a bit from where one of his shoe soles had caught on a rock and ripped.