TO READER:
I need help with punctuation, grammar, and diction (overall improvement needed). Please read this, I just spat it out my mind it's for a grade and I want to improve,
Thank you, read on.
Centuries ago, a husband, wife,
child, and slave pioneered to the oak-covered Appalachian peaks that belonged
to the Cherokee Nation. Building a small hearth-warmed log cabin; the family was
content. They were safe from the wild’s critters and warriors within their
home. One day, the Indians lured the man from the home and into the encroaching
woods where the Indians then slaughtered him. But, unbeknownst to the Indians,
their prey was a notorious Colonel, a leader of devoted soldiers. And he was
revenged thoroughly, blood for blood. The juice of humans was not spilt for
nothing, for after the battle other settlers came to the area and settled
Morristown, which evolved into Asheville. The town has grown immensely since then,
with a state University and hypnotic drum circle, breeding grounds for hippies.
My story starts in the latter.
Leather
being beaten with hands, spoons, fists, and foreheads; the leather, wrapped
tightly around a wooden base and secured down with fraying string, from either
use, or as an aesthetic. The banging of this top-most leather, results in an
earthy rumble emitted from the vibrations, a drum. And knocking these drums all
around us, were the Asheville natives. Amongst the belligerent babbling
drummers and long-haired-everywhere dancers, dykes, and fairies, stood my
company and me. We were enveloped in the
fumes rising from the entertainers, or so they thought they were, was a mixture
of sweat, pale ale, and mountain air; it was like thrusting your nostrils into the
hair of Cherokee matriarch.
It was invigorating, the cool mountain air and the rumbling
of the drums awoke in me a spirit that lived only until the end of that
weekend. And this spirit wanted to leave the drum circle and find shelter in
the University of Asheville. So, I made the executive decision to move our
caravan to the mountainous safe-zone. I wanted to gather the party, but I
noticed a missing member, Noah Arita! My eyes searched furiously for my
best-friend, it seemed as if he had been absorbed into the mutating limbs of
the cloud of dancing hippies. I panned left, right, then left again and spied him;
locked arm-in-arm with a swirling monk-like figure that was sprinting around in
circles ever faster. Grabbing the boomeranging boy, we dashed off to the car
and headed for the University.
Up, up, up we road, road the road that we were told by the
GPS. Ensnared with primitive desire for senseless fun, the two of us parked,
jumped from the vehicle, and then sprinted to Noah’s step brother’s dorm and
met up with him. We huffed, puffed, and expelled stank breath onto him, Roger, and
divulging the events that had transpired. He thought it was an average night at
Asheville so he, called an Uber. I, not knowing exactly where our quest would
soon take us, posed the question, “Where are we going, Roger?” His reply: a sly
white-toothed grin and a wink. Approximately five minutes of greetings ensued,
that being my first time meeting the man, followed by a honk of the black sedan
that had arrived, probably five minutes before.
The seats inside: bountifully bouncy leather, the woman
driver: nothing, practically mute, her hair was the only thing I remember, it
being dark and slick enough to consume the sun, smelled of patchouli.
Patchouli, the scent of immigrants and hippies since the ‘60s:
pungent, powerful, and groovy. Along those lines, that’s how the house-show went
to the point. The aroma of hippy stench and Brut deodorant attacked my
olfactory senses like an ambush in Vietnam! The scent swooshed off everyone, it
was like the plague; everyone had it, and pretended they didn’t. The energy in
the basement of this house was electrifying, my arms and legs could not keep up
with the influx of punk-rock hysterical tunes that were bellowed from the stage
that sat like a pedestal in the basement. Small talk, big talk, political talk, it’s all
the same there, there’s punches being thrown and punch being drank. The grime
and sludge that was carried in from the bottoms of our sneakers was sleeping
vacant in a putrescent puddle right in front of the stage, it was a small buoy
between the fanatic listeners and the anti-establishment Bernie-loving band, an
oxymoron to everyone except themselves. Besides all the hippy-dippy bellbottom
pants and the flowing dress shirts, there was an exotic variety of colorful
fashion that spoke as much about the lifestyle of Asheville as it did about the
wearer. There would not be just a man wearing a red shirt, it would be a
half-man half-donkey wearing a flowing, rose, zigzag-pattern shirt that he
found at a Goodwill just hours prior to arriving at the party. His name,
unknown, his movements were surely not.
The basement gig was
busted after two hours, cops came, then people dressed as cops came, the whole
party was done after that. So our fellowship of the mountains moved back to the
dorm room, along with a handful of lucky cowgirls who just so happened to be
lassoed into our extravagant frivolous aura. Old party gone; and in its place anew,
another now existed, it entailed: my best friend, his step brother, three
ladies, scrambled eggs on the side, and myself. We were telling stories all around
and the originals spoke to the newcomers in pairs, until the entire room was
just pairs of people laughing and flirting. The night soon ended and all of us
had a grand old time, the true heroes, however, were not present.
Time passes, memories are made, but those are pricey. The lives
lost in battles with Cherokee Indians were the cost; memories were the item.
Points: 342
Reviews: 7
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