The Creak

by Brendyn Schneider

I was talking to Steve the other night. His family owns Village House of Pizza in Brookline (best pizza in the Boston area, hands down).

“Hey Steve. What’s happening?”

“Oh bro,” he said, leaning across the counter, “I’m dyin’. My back’s been killin’ me all day.”

“Really? Out jammin’ till the break of dawn again?”

“Nah. I dunno how I got it. I just woke up with it.”

“Oh, that’s the creak.”

“The wha?”

I woke up one Saturday morning at one-thirty in the afternoon. I was 18. A bunch of us were over Jen’s the night before watching X-Files reruns and listening to The Stone Roses. I hadn’t gotten home until about four-thirty. Even then, you’re not going to bed right away. There’s Raisin Bran, the newspaper, the records you bought earlier that day…

By the time I walked into the dining room, all bleary-eyed, my dad had been to Finest for milk, Island Recreational for chlorine, and Roberto’s Deli to talk trash with the other Knights of Columbus. He’d also mowed the lawn, which had ultimately woken me up.

He sat there at the table, a lagoon of sweat and grass clippings. The Copiague Youth League t-shirt clinging defiantly to his back, his shorts lightly sprinkled with the ash of his cigarette and his shoes reminding me of Dr. David Banner being driven once more over the edge. And there on the table…I’ll never understand a steaming cup of coffee in the middle of summer.

“Just look at’cha.”

“Hey Dad. Up so early?”

“You got it so easy now, don’tcha?”

“I’ll fill out some more applications today, I promise.”

“You roll in just before dawn, sleep till five.”

My head flew out of the fridge, peered at the kitchen clock then returned to the crumb cake on the second shelf.

“I don’t blame ya,” he said, chuckling. “I was the same way.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, we’d leave Elmont on a Friday afternoon, drive down to Philly, bowl a bunch of games, take everyone’s money, drive back up to New York. Grandma once found $500 in my jeans when she was doing laundry.”

“Get the hell outta here,” I said with a mouthful of Entenmann’s.

“Yeah! I’m tellin’ ya! Y’think I’m kiddin’. But I got news for you, buddy. Enjoy it now because one day…you’re gonna feel it.”

I shuffled into the dining room, tossed the cake onto the table and shlumped into the chair opposite.
“Feel what?”

He took a philosophical drag from his cigarette. “The creak.”

“The creak? What’s the creak?”

“Wait about 10 – how old are you now?”

“Are you kidding me? Weren’t you there when I was born?”

He laughed, clippings fell to the floor. “Fifteen?”

“Fifteen?! I’m going to college in two months! You never know how old I am.”

“Seventeen? Eighteen? Regardless, give it about 10 years and y’gonna feel the creak. Y’gonna wake up and think, ‘the hell’s that?’ Y’gonna feel it in y’back and when you do, y’better get used to it, buddy. Because that’s it. It’s all over. No more gettin’ up at one in the afternoon. No more stayin’ up all hours playin’ grab ass with y’friends. You’re gonna be an adult and the creak’ll let you know.”

“All over?”

He swept the air with his cigarette. “All over.”

I woke up one morning when I was twenty-six, got out of bed and thought a hanger had somehow gotten stuck to my back in the night.

“What the hell?”

I looked in the mirror. No hanger. My face turned white. I lunged for the phone.

“You bastard.”

“What?” he said.

“The creak! The god-damned creak! I have it. In the back, right? The lower back?”

He laughed.

“But it’s only been eight years! You said ten! I got two more years, don’t I?”

“Sorry,” he sighed. “That’s it.”

I imagined the cigarette.

“Shit.”

Back at Village House of Pizza, Steve gave a knowing nod. “The creak. I never knew they had a name for it. Shit.”

“Shit.”

“To think,” he said, ringing me up, “we used to be out all night partyin’ then sleep here in the shop, get up the next day and be fine.”

“I know,” I sighed, lamenting.

We looked at the eight teenagers playing tag in the 4-person booth.

“All over?” Steve asked.

I smiled, sweeping the air with my slice of pizza.

***
More stories by Brendyn Schneider can be found at www.brendynschneider.com © 2011-2012, Brendyn Schneider, reprinted by Dadity.com with permission. Use or reprint not authorized without permission of the author.