Work Text:
verse one
FP vrooms his plastic truck across the teacher’s desk. He sees a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes, and he tells her, “You look like a princess.” She nods, imperious, lifting a jar full of twinkling lights.
The girls scream, and the boys laugh. They call her “Bedbug Alice!” The lace hem of her pink cotton dress wrinkles in her little fist, so FP opens the jar to let the twinkles out. The other girls climb onto their desks, and his plastic truck falls and cracks.
On the playground, Alice kisses his cheek. The older boys smirk when they see it, handing him a cigarette and lighting it for him. He breathes in, coughs, laughs, and cracks his neck. He hands the cigarette to Alice.
His father, the first Forsythe Pendleton Jones, scolds and scowls. “That boy’s trouble,” he warns FP’s mother.“The ringleader, the teacher says.” She wipes the sugar off her hands with the ruffled hem of her green apron, then kisses her son’s cheek, laughing. “Oh, boys will be boys, won’t they, my little rascal?”
verse two
Boys in letterman jackets are trouble, but nobody minds. FP is a football star. The older boys watch him from the stands, frowning. The girls watch him, smiling, as they lick their cherry popsicles. They watch him even as they share milkshakes with other boys. Good ol’ Fred, with his gentle eyes, slaps FP’s back, laughs, and tosses him a bandage for the scrape on his hand. Alice scoffs, “It’s just a little blood.”
His father meets him outside the locker room. He says, “Your mother is gone. Her heart wasn’t working.” Alice kisses FP’s cheek and assures him, “We’ll find a new family.”
Boys in leather jackets are trouble, and everybody minds. His princess is now an Acid Queen, and he will be an outlaw king. Springsteen sings, “You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re alright,” and Alice scoffs. She knows that she’s the prettiest. She scratches his back with her red painted nails, just how he likes it, and her moans echo in the empty pipe.
On the playground, FP flexes hands that smell like cigarettes, and his knuckles crack and bleed. Good ol’ Fred tosses him a bandage, and he shrugs, “It’s just a little blood.”
FP springs open his brand-new silver switchblade, and his pockets fill with damp and crumpled tens and twenties. FP learns facts about serpents.
verse three
His Acid Queen wears a letterman jacket over a pink silk dress with a lace hem. She shares a milkshake with another boy, who has blonde hair, blue eyes, and soft hands. She doesn’t see FP watching. She doesn’t know.
Good ol’ Fred is the one who tells him, “Alice is gone,” bandaging his knuckles while he sweats out the rum. Fred’s going to be a college boy.
FP is no outlaw king, and he’s tired of trouble. He wants to be a college boy, so he’ll have to join the army.
He will be a hero. He springs open his brand-new silver lighter, engraved with his initials and the American flag, and watches a cigarette burn.
verse four
FP flies to the desert with the army. He spends three days in the desert. There is a lot of blood.
There’s a shrapnel scar in his shoulder, and the world rings and rings. The doctor shines twinkling lights into FP’s eyes and ears. “They don’t work right,” the doctor says. “You can’t balance. Go back to your hometown.”
But he’s not a hero, nor an outlaw king, nor a football star. He asks himself, Who am I? What is there to return to? Fred is a college boy, and FP is the only Forsythe Pendleton Jones.
He’ll buy a brand-new motorcycle and drive up the highway. He will be an easy rider.
verse five
There’s a girl standing alone on the side of the highway, clutching a book like contraband. The ruffled hem of her green dress wrinkles in her fist. When FP parks his bike beside her, she looks at him like he’s a football star, an outlaw king, a hero, and an easy rider. With one palm over the scar on his shoulder, and the other over the ink on his chest, she kisses him, gentle.
FP thinks she is an angel. She will be the making of him. “I’m no angel,” she warns him with an angel-laugh, hopping on his motorcycle. “I used to be a pretty little pixie—or so my mother always said. Now I’ll be an outlaw queen.” He lets the vrooming motorcycle answer. They speed down the highway to his hometown, and her black hair floats around her face.
verse six
His angel’s face is round, and her belly is round. FP leads the black-haired girl to the quarry, where they sway under the moonbeams, no space between their bodies. Springsteen sings, “You ain’t a beauty, but hey, you’re alright,” and FP closes his eyes, wishing the hands on his back were not so gentle.
Later, he stares at a bottle of rum and thinks, I don’t want to be Forsythe Pendleton Jones. He puts on a leather jacket and walks through the neon light. He springs open his old switchblade.
Meanwhile, his wife bears him a son. He names him Forsythe Pendleton Jones and orders his son to love him more than his father did. He tells the boy stories of serpents. He hands him a crown hat, explaining “You are a prince because I am a king.” FP leaves and comes back and leaves and comes back.
His son watches him, quiet, frowning, clutching books like contraband.
verse seven
His angel’s face is round, and her belly is round. Her black hair is tied back. FP wraps his Sherpa jacket around her shoulders and takes her to the diner, where they sip one milkshake with two straws. Lifting a cherry to her mouth, he murmurs, “Your lips are the same red,” but he is thinking of a blonde girl’s red nails.
At the lumberyard, good ol’ Fred tosses him a bandage for the scrape on his hand. His hands smell like wood dust; he has thrown out his cigarettes and lost his old silver lighter. He chews gum now. FP is an everyman, a washed-up football star following the orders of a college boy.
FP twists open a bottle of rum and springs open his old switchblade. His angel’s not an angel but a pixie, after all; her wings are too small to hold him in. She flies away with his jellybean. The letter she leaves behind is a scold in country club cursive: “Get your head out of the clouds, out of the bottle, out of those songs. Be an honest man, a husband, a father.” She implores him, “Look in the mirror. You’re FP Jones. Make that enough.”
He makes the rum carry him into the clouds. When he looks into the bar mirror—cloudy, decorated with scribbles of serpents—he sees his clean-shaven face through the blur of graying stubble. He smiles his crooked rascal smile, handsome as any movie star’s, the one the girls admire even as they share milkshakes with other boys. He flexes rough, wrinkled hands and sees soft skin, no blood. He hears the vrooming motorcycle. He thinks, This is better.
When he staggers into the trailer, singing Springsteen, his son frowns over top of the book in his hand. His son leaves and comes back and leaves and comes back.
verse eight
When a red-haired man walks through the neon light and matches FP’s stories of serpents with stories of maples, explaining what he will do for his maples, FP tells himself, It’s just a little blood. He will be a hero for his son.
When his son rides down the highway on a motorcycle, a switchblade in one pocket, the other full of crisp and folded tens and twenties, FP marvels, Forsythe Pendleton Jones will be an outlaw king, after all.
When the blonde girl with the blue eyes comes back to him, FP tells himself, It’s just a little blood. He will be a hero for his son, for his princess-turned-Acid Queen-turned another man’s wife. He spits out his gum, and she scratches his back with her red nails, just how he likes it.