My Soft Spot

“If walls could talk.” Yeah. People say that all the time. But do they ever listen? We rumble and fall, creak and groan. We crack and ache, listening to the mundane and the weird, the exciting, the pitiful, without any choice in the matter.

I once had a family. Three other walls that looked like me. Random parts cement, brick, drywall, and plaster. It’s been so long I don’t remember what it was like to actually have them to talk to. Eventually, I found someone new to be my family.

It was a brisk night and the trees were gossiping louder than usual. Some shushing, some creaking the same way walls can. Ground broke from something moving. It was small, but bigger than a rabbit. Maybe a dog.

A small face glimmered in the moonlight. A child. A small duffel bag hung from one shoulder and he clenched a skateboard under the armpit of his other arm. He stopped when he saw me, and he looked relieved. He broke into a run and dropped his bag at my base before leaning against me. It was only when he stopped that I noticed he’d been shaking.

I felt important for this little stranger, I felt strong and wanted to be there to hold him up. So I did. He unzipped his duffel and fumbled around before producing a candy bar. It was a 3 Musketeers.

He was tearing open the wrapper when we heard something rustle. He pulled his knees close, dirty converse leaving drag marks in the dirt. “Hello?” His voice was small. “Is anyone there? Mom? Joey?” We waited and the only response came from the wind. It whipped through me and my hollow parts groaned.

The kid pressed further into me and pushed his head into his jacket when he began to cry. “I don’t want to go home!” I think he was saying this more to himself, but neither of us believed him. I let him curl up against me while I kept guard for the night, and in the morning he was gone. All that was left of him was some shoe prints in the dirt and the 3 Musketeers wrapper.

I didn’t see him again for a few years but when I did, he looked different. This time he came marching through the woods and it was daytime. He was bigger, and stronger. He carried a knife and wore a hat with a racoon tail hanging from the back of it. He saw me and paused, a wry smile creeping onto his face. He stepped over the crumblings of my fallen family and looked at the spot on the ground where once was his bed. I’m not sure if he noticed the faded candy wrapper that stayed stuck under the rock all these years. He started to tickle me with his knife and carved “LAWRENCE” into the hollow part of my skin, the centerpiece to my mismatching parts. It’s nice to meet you Lawrence.

He sat down and pulled a candy bar from his pocket. Another 3 Musketeers. He ripped it open with his teeth and bit into chocolate, sighing like he could finally relax from a long work day. “This is my spot,” he said out loud and gave me a pat.

Sunlight split between the trees and baked his upturned face as he closed his eyes and chewed slowly, as if dreaming. There was small movement but he felt it right away. Lawrence stabbed the snake before I even noticed it. So much for being on guard. He didn’t continue any mutilation of the snake, just kind of flung it off of his knife and continued his bath in the sun.

The next time I saw Lawrence, he had a shovel. When he started to dig where my roots met the earth, I got nervous, thinking he was here to destroy me like he did that snake. Instead, he created a nice hole for himself to settle into. I teetered over him like a Jenga stack who’s got enough of a base left to stay standing, for now. As always, he settled in and broke the chocolate shell to the soft mousse inside.

Once, I’d say he was about fourteen, he brought somebody with him. Matthew. “I know a spot,” he’d said. I watched him and this scruffy boy I didn’t particularly care for smoke weed out of a ceramic bowl they'd had Joey buy for them at the gas station. Lawrence pulled out two 3 Musketeers bars but Matthew made a face and said, “that's the worst candy ever, who even eats that?” Lawrence pocketed both bars, though he had the munchies and really wanted to eat his. They stayed a little bit longer than the sun, until Matthew got paranoid and said they needed to leave.

I didn’t see Lawrence for almost another year. I got angry. This Matthew took him away from me. I remember how Lawrence looked up to that kid even though he was the same age. I was alone again. I don’t know if the winds got stronger or if I was getting weaker, but I felt my foundation shake more with each storm.

Finally came the day when I heard someone tramping through the woods. It was two sets of feet. I was excited, albeit annoyed by the second pair, and then infuriated when I saw Matthew hop over the rubble across from me then hold out a hand for a beautiful young woman. “I told you I knew a spot,” he said.

She was nervous, and kept looking over her shoulder. She rubbed her arms despite the warmth of the day. “It’s…” she looked at me, “nice.”

He led her over to me and pulled out a knife, much smaller than the one Lawrence used as a child, but it was sharper. He tattooed the concrete side of me with a simple question. "Prom?" Matthew then offered her a grin that even I could admit was charming and pulled her in for a kiss. She accepted and kissed back, but he immediately took advantage of her interest and began to kiss her harder. She let him for a moment, but when his hands started to wander she pulled away. “Let’s just sit for a while.” Her laugh shook like bits of my exoskeleton on a windy day.

“Come on. We came all the way out here. I’m taking you to the dance like you wanted. We like each other, right?” His smile was gentle but his eyes flashed. She took a step away and he took one forward.

She looked over her shoulder again, planning her route. It started to drizzle. “I’ve gotta go. I don’t want my mom to worry and it looks like it’s going to storm.” She walked backwards and carefully stepped over piles of brick and cement.

“It’s not going to rain for a while. Don’t be such a bitch.” He took a half step toward her, almost pleading, when lightening cracked across the light sky.

“I'll see you at school, Matthew.” She turned and ran.

He watched her go for a second, wind tousling his light hair, and then he leaned against me, propping a dirty boot on my soft spot. He clenched his fist and set his jaw. I watched him pull out his phone and dial somebody. “Ren,” he said, the horrendous nickname he gave my child, “I’m at our spot." Our spot? I am Lawrence's spot. "She hoofed it on me. I’ll just take Lindy to prom instead. Come meet me, grab the bottle of Captain from my Dad’s cabinet. Nobody is home.”

I have no way to know if it was a voicemail or if Matthew barked these orders and then hung up the phone. I watched him chuck his phone and it landed amongst broken cement, parts of my family. Even from my position I could see the new cracks in his phone.

He let out a scream and kicked backwards like a horse. I shuddered and braced myself, then he kicked me again. He gave me a small dent. He yelled out again and spun around easily in the mud as rain pelted down on us. Mathew reared up his leg and delivered a front kick, breaking into my soft spot. The wind howled and his leg was stuck up to the middle of his quad, tangled on uneven bits of plaster. He hopped on one foot trying to pull it out, but my insides were a mess.

Thunder boomed and I relaxed into the wind, succumbing to my calm anger. Blocks of cement started to fall and it took a beat for me to realize they were my top parts coming down. A large piece of me rotated once in the air and hammered Matthew into the ground. I leaned into it, more chunks falling until I was only half my height with a big hole in the middle. I was huddled over Matthew, and I would have suffocated him if he wasn’t already dead.

Over the years, Lawrence still came to visit me. He mourned the fallen parts of me, and I'm sure he mourned Matthew, climbing over two bodies and stretching out on top of the mess of us on more than one occasion. Once an adventurous little boy, now a solemn young man with a gaunt face but determination in his eyes. Every so often I release a 3 Musketeers wrapper into the wind. Sometimes he finds them and smiles.

If walls could talk, I think I’d still keep this secret, even from him.