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This writing was accepted for publication in the 96 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “Home at Last” Down in the Dirt (v123) (the May/June 2014 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book the Beaten Path (a Down in the Dirt Jan. - June 2014 collection book)		get the 372 page Jan. - June 2014 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

The Meek Shall Inherit the Asphalt

Robert Crowl

    The black asphalt scorched beneath us as the man atop the marching tower thundered through a megaphone. A football field painted the parking lot, hash marks and yard lines brightening our destinations. Pimply preteens and puffed chests surrounded me. To my right, a young man stood, thumb hooked just above the crotch of his soccer shorts, a white t-shirt draped over his manicured chest. He half listened to the marching god’s booming speech and half examined his muscular chest and stomach for hairs he’d missed. His auburn hair was short and pushed back, a modern day James Dean. He smirked at a girl several rows up with hair the color of the hash marks. Her head tilted to the left, irises scanning their edges for the hairless boy’s attention. Her white top hung off one shoulder revealing a brown curve of skin. My eyes could have lived in that curve. Her blue eyes resembled the veins that showed through my skin; her soft brown cheeks begged to be danced next to. Other awkward emaciated boys and girls in front of me eyed that shoulder, the girls longing to be her, the boys longing to know her.
    My attention returned to the optimistic tones descending from the tower. Upperclassmen placed us in successive rows, a few yards separating new recruits and old. The marching god’s tone changed.
    ““BAND,” means at ease, your chin falling to your chest, hands and arms flat against your side.” The taller and less pimpled youth snaked through the rows, demonstrating the god’s directives, molding recruits like malleable statues. Most of those being shaped resembled me, frail and translucent, eyes retreating from the eyes of the tanner, shapelier molders.
    I kept my face glued to the asphalt; sweat moistening the blonde mop of hair on my forehead. My hands clung to my side like someone mimicking a fish. Everyone was silent except for the upperclassmen correcting freshman form. The director looked down on his creatures, our heads bowed in service.
    God wore black cotton shorts and a white polo. His tucked shirt revealed pleats and a braided belt. Hands gripped the metal railing of the marching bunker, as he looked through lenses and frames at the chess pieces bending below. His cheeks were chubby as if he stored his next directive. His socks crept up his ankles from sneakers reflecting the sun, a deity walking on clouds. When he looked at us, he saw geometry, like the choreography of clouds above him. His computer bent our numbers across yard lines, expanding and condensing us into forms that pleased him.
    We learned several other directives, beneath the unforgiving star, the sun climbing higher than our new god, preteen flowers wilting as they tried to maintain attention and pantomime themselves holding imaginary horns, fearing the choreographer’s judgment.
    My arches pressed tightly together, spine straight as a yard line, hands overlapped a foot in front of my lips, as I waited for the tan molders. God wanted our hands to be the tip of the triangle, forearms the sides, elbows the points of the base. Our triceps paralleled the asphalt.
    We held our imaginary brass and woodwinds as the heat reminded us we could glisten. The freshmen revealed themselves, eyes widening, hands drooping and shaking from fatigue. The boy on my right sputtered, bending at the waist. If his horn had been real, his notes would have been hitting the blistering asphalt. I started to hear groans from his direction of varying lengths and degrees. Then, out of the corner of my frozen position, I saw my pale neighbor’s hands fall to his stomach and his head bend toward the black sea. The vomit was a chunky white consistency like cottage cheese. One of the molders ushered the frail boy to the shade beside the school, his face as pale as his skin. There were murmurings of the cardinal sin of freshman dairy consumption. I’d been too nervous to eat anything.
    God held us at attention for what felt like a sweltering, wet eternity. I was starting to hallucinate. I swore I saw an angel appear in front of my imaginary horn, her wingless shoulder exposed. Her ponytail was precise, not a single hair askew, her light eyes contrasting the hellish floor. Her lace blouse reminded me of the clouds on which the director was walking, and I thought heaven must be in those clouds. I wanted to sleep on those clouds, far from this giant hotbed of acne and the sour stench of cottage cheese.
    “Pull your elbows further apart. It will feel more comfortable.” Her soft hands took me, gently widening the base of the triangle my arms were creating. I breathed easier, my chest less constricted.
    “Thank you,” my voice cracking like the split pavement beneath my feet.
    “GLIDE STEP SECTIONALS!” My arms went limp at my side. The chess pieces scattered into groups of those who imagined similar instruments as themselves. I played the trombone, my previous three years spent immobile on carpeted risers, my god beneath me at a podium covered in music notes and staff paper, not hash marks and geometry.
    I found my group and fell in my new line. My new god was James Dean’s clone, soccer shorts pulsating as he barked at the underclassmen. He began demonstrating the way we were to move on his father’s chessboard. Like the felt bottomed pieces of ivory, we were forbidden to walk. Instead, he taught us to glide, assuming attention, extending his heel to the asphalt in front of him and rolling to his toe. I was amazed at the fluidity of his stride, the gravel hardly disturbed beneath him like he walked above it.
    “It’s like driving a stick. You ease the gas with your front foot, your back foot letting off the clutch.” His analogy fell on felt-green ears, brows furrowing at his foreign analogy, hairless lips curving into grins.
    He told us the god demanded our upper body remain still above our traversing hips and feet to prevent the sound from being disturbed. I felt clumsy taking those first steps, like relearning to walk. We practiced the directive until our feet rolled like clouds, two sets of clouds rolling above us.
    The chess pieces were summoned back to the board; our final directive of day one was to aggregate our training. The Director stood on his tower, the megaphone pinned to his lips. The afternoon sun blistered the skin of the green recruits, enriching the skin of the seasoned.
    “BAND!” Heads fell and feet spread, a choir of shame. God smiled.
    “DETAIL ATTEN-TION!” The arches of sneakers snapped together, heads shooting up like morning glories at dawn.
    “BAND HORNS UP!!”
    “TSSS!” The pieces responding to their director in aspirated praise, hands being married in military unison by each recruit. Every piece was a carbon copy of his neighbor, hands folded before faces, arms descending like the sides of mountains to parallel arms, an invisible line connecting elbows.
    They’d trained us well, most of us. I looked around without moving my head. With each order from the tower, there were recruits stumbling, forgetting their training. Heads would snap up, instead of tending to chests or arms would fling up prematurely. The molders had returned, ridiculing the miscopied carbon. I feared their scorn, my ears tuned to the director’s words.
    The curve of skin winded the crowd, her jean shorts hugging shapely hips, her blouse almost too short, yielding her tan stomach to the lesser recruits. I swallowed her with my eyes. I wanted to digest her, absorbing the nutrients of her. My ears lost the tune of my marching god, plunging themselves wholeheartedly into that curve of skin. Unconsciously, my head had turned toward her, dissonance in the ranks. Her eyes were scanning her master’s subjects. Her eyes found mine. She acknowledged me, her hand rising then tracing the lace neckline above her breasts.
    “RECRUIT!” My face misted with spit as I woke to the manicured chest and dimpled chin of my section leader screaming in my face. Our faces were nearly touching as he attempted to shame me with his smooth, puffed chest.
    “WHY AREN’T YOU FOLLOWING YOUR DIRECTOR’S ORDERS?” I started to remember where I was, the angel retreating from my mind. The other chess pieces were quiet and still, but I knew they were searching the edges of their eyes for me. I sensed the marching god’s eyes burning my scalp like the midday sun.
    “I GOT DISTRACTED, SIR, BY THE BEAUTIFUL GIRL AT 3 O’CLOCK! IT WON’T HAPPEN AGAIN, SIR!” The light refracted off his nylon shorts as he stumbled over the audacity of my comment. I heard the angel laugh, other chess pieces joining her chorus. James Dean sucked in air, preparing to unleash more spit into my irritated pores.
    “WHO THE HELL DO YOU THI-“
    “JOSH! LEAVE THE KID ALONE!” The megaphone squeaked as the Director’s finger released the amplifier. Josh snapped his head toward the tower, his fists as tight as the fresh shave on his chest. He looked back at me, my body held at full attention, arms in instrumental pantomime, and then stormed toward the shade of the school. The chess pieces were chattering over James Dean’s taking. I looked ahead, my stomach holding the queen as tight as the denim held her hips.
    “FORWARD MARCH!” The musical army stepped forward, heels rolling to toe to heel. The gravel crunched beneath us as we glided. My upper body floated as still as some unquantifiable cloud, where merciful gods destined angels to sleep with pale princes.
    My chest puffed beneath the proud eyes of my maker. The black asphalt had cooled in the early evening fade and cars were gathering near the concrete field to take home recruits. There was a slight breeze meeting my face as I marched heel to toe to heel... Meanwhile, a bare shouldered woman stood on the fringes of the marching crowd, her light eyes fixed on the elbows she’d set right, his stomach still absorbing her in long deep draws.

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