beyond

   I had this dream that I found heaven.
    It was right across the street, at the Taylors house. I don't even talk to Al Taylor anymore. He got too good for Gene and me, and hasn't spoken a word to us since the seventh grade. Edie had said that it was probably because the girls started to notice him. Gene says that means he's got a killer ego, and Edie was just being nice. I don't really mind either way, I haven't thought much about him until last night.
     See, I had this dream I found myself across the street, at Al's place ...except it wasn't, really. I mean, I knew I was across the street and everything, only in place of the gray raised ranch was an infinite stretch of white fluff. I turned back at my house, and there it sat, in its cluster of generic grass and trees grasping a lightly dangling hammock. But when I turned back around, I was faced with a stretch of cloud spanning my vision, and I heard a deafening voice. Apparently, God was pretty annoyed that I found out his secret. Nobody's supposed to find out that heaven isn't really up above until they're good and dead. The booming voice warned me that I had discovered something forbidden, but he seemed to be at a complete loss as to how to punish me. So I just shouted back at the clouds that I would pretend it was a dream and it'd be a secret between me and God. I woke up in a cloud of bewilderment. The weird part is I don't even believe in God.
     And that's where Gene starts laughing at me. We're lying on my pathetically sagging hammock, letting the grass scratch at our bare feet, warily eyeing the Taylors house. It doesn't look like heaven. It looks just like every house on the street, only the color lets us differentiate one home from another. Our street is pretty pathetic, now that I think about it. If I didn't have Gene's sarcasm, I think I might be tempted to stick a knife through the monotony.
     As if I wasn't tempted enough already. The heavy heat of summer threw itself head first into my front yard, where Gene and I spend our days playing poker, flipping each other off my hammock, making rude comments about the neighbors, and discussing things that never made much sense to us. That includes, among other things, trigonometry, popularity, God, giraffes, and girls.
     I throw my weight against the rough ropes and hop off, and Gene crashes onto the grass in a chuckling heap. It's just pathetic. It's only two in the afternoon, and already we've each flipped the hammock seven times. Make that eight. So there's Gene absolutely hysterical on the ground, clutching his knee and smooshing the Casino Royale cards into the trampled grass. The whole scene's pretty ridiculous, really. It's already late August, and the biggest thrill of our summer has been Gene's cousin, Edie, who we crammed on the hammock with us for a week in July and played canasta with. Edie is great at canasta.
     Laughing like a madman on the ground, Gene sums up my dream in a word: batty. He's always calling me batty this and batty that. He even accused me of being batty over Edie, which I explained was merely an obvious side effect stemming from my blatant adoration of canasta.
     It's a good game, it really is.
     I tell him the only one who's batty around here is him, because I'm not the one rolling around in the grass like a rabid dog. This only makes him laugh more, an annoying high pitched giggle. What a routine we've got going. I'm back in my usual spot, sprawled out on the saggy hammock, cracking jokes, while he tries to gather up the mangled playing cards. Every time the wind picks up, we lose another one. The damned cards love falling through the thick roped diamonds, and whoever falls off the hammock has to pick up the ones that had plummeted to their death in the dewy grass.
     When Edie was here we'd try flipping Gene over when he wasn't paying attention. The only problem was that we weren't very coordinated together, and all three of us would always end up in a tangled mess of cards and grass. I'd usually fall victim to Edie's thick cloud of coppery hair and its syrupy sweet scent of daisy.
     Alright, I never really smelled daisies... As in, leaned over and sniffed at the little things. But if you just saw Edie, you would completely understand my claim that she smells like a single daisy. Maybe I have gone batty.
     Trapped between green matted grass and metallic hair, we three laughed insanely as Gene struggled to make his way out of the twisted confusion. And I was left under the hammock with Edie and the remainder of her canasta hand. I caught her eyes to mine for three seconds before she grinned like a daisy and crawled away to gather up her fallen cards. I told you she was great at canasta.
     Edie left a few days later, leaving behind a nothing but a thin scent of daisies. I had never even asked her where she lives, and Gene never mentioned it. So the two of us went back to playing poker after she left, like nothing happened. And I guess nothing really did happen� just a few games of canasta.
     Gene's still ranting on about the stupidity of my dream, but I can't take my mind off Edie. Gene notices the foolish expression most likely painted across my face, and he reminds me, in case I had forgot, of my battiness. I say he's full of it, and anyway, she used to always horde the aces. So we return back to poker, and I smirk as Gene makes vicious comments about Al. It's kind of annoying, really. The Taylor kid isn't the point of my dream at all, I try to explain, and Gene demands to know the actual point. I shrug. Maybe there is no point, I say, and raise him a dollar.
     We play silently, lost in solace of the drooping hammock. Our perennial poker games slowly decrescendo by dusk. I like to watch as the copper sun collapses across the street, dragging crimson clouds violently through the crushed sapphire. Almost makes me wish I could paint, you know? By the time the stars sink into their covetous ink and the cricket's begin to cavort in the darkness, the cards usually slipped into the darkness. That's when Gene and I usually begin dissecting the world, right when everything fades into that grayish blur.
     So I ask for Edie's address. Gene flips me off the hammock.
     Maybe I am batty about Edie. I'm really not sure anymore. Like I said, the girl's great at canasta. So I could be mistaken. And I just might be wrong about the heaven thing, too.