Angels And Bad Men

By: David H
(© 2011 by the author)
Editor: Ken King

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 4
“A House in the Trees”

By the time I awoke the next morning, Armando was gone.  In a note left on my dresser by my cell phone, he explained that he had to get back to Tuscaloosa for a final exam study session and also to teach a class that was part of his graduate assistantship in the Department of Music.  He told me in the note to text him as soon as I awoke, that he needed to tell me something.

“I’m awake,” I said after he answered the phone, and we said our hellos. I chose to call rather than text because I didn’t feel like taking the time in my sleepy haze to type out a message to him.

“Good!” he said in a chipper voice.  “How’d you sleep?”

“Okay, I guess,” I replied.

“So, I’m almost back in T-town, but I wanted to let you know that there is a gift for you in the tree house.  It’s in an old coffee can that’s out there.”

“Okay...  What is it?” I asked.

“You’ll have to find it to find out,” he explained.

“Alrighty.”

“And find it today,” he commanded with a voice that was between joking and serious.

“Yes sir,” I answered.

“All right.  I’m on the other line with Carmen, and I’m pulling off the interstate.  I’ll call you this evening.  Okay?”

“Cool,” I answered before our salutations and silence settled in the line between us.

I took a quick piss and then went out into the house for a bottle of water.  It had become my morning routine.  Normally, I would have returned to my room, but I instead stood in the kitchen for a moment in just my boxers and a light t-shirt. 

When my father built the house years before, Mom had asked him for the kitchen of her dreams.  One of the criteria that she set forth was that she wanted a breakfast nook area with a large window that would let in natural light and give all inside a view of the magnificence of the property that they’d purchased just for the house.

As I stood there, I looked out that window.  I wasn’t sure that I’d ever seen a springtime view quite as beautiful as the one before me.  All the leaves on the trees were a bright shade of green.  Winter had passed and spring had moved in quickly.  The world, at least for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, had been reborn.  Proserpina had ascended from her captivity in the underworld, and Ceres found it within herself to allow the plants and trees to flourish.  Somehow, though, it was as if it all had passed me by.  I hadn’t taken the time this season to notice the beauty that was just outside.

As I peered out, I saw the tree house.  My dad, an architect, had designed the place himself.  And because he was an architect, his children couldn’t have just any tree house.  It was a multi-room place that was supported on one of its ends by stilts and on the other by a giant, old oak tree.  I remember when it was built.  Justin was still a newborn baby; Dad, Parker, and Parker’s best friend, Mark, built the tree house over the course of several weekends.  My responsibility was to make sure that they had a tool when they needed it.  What better job for a seven year old, eh?

For all three of us, that place among the trees had been a refuge.  Parker saw it as a safe haven from Justin and me.  I, on the other hand, had a certain special respect for the place.  It was where I’d written my first story, created my first characters, and really developed my love of literature.  It was the place where I’d first learned the joys of self-exploration.  It was even the place where I’d lost my virginity on an afternoon when one of my teammates on the swimming team and I got out of practice earlier than usual and we were bored.

I remembered so many things right then that it was almost overwhelming.  If I had bled out in the parking lot, those memories would have been forever lost in the pools of my blood. 

I knew that Armando wanted me to go out there, but I still wasn’t quite sure if I could face the prospects of leaving the house.  I walked back into the bedroom and slipped on a pair of shorts and my ‘around-the-house’ flip-flops anyway.  I walked into the living room, to the door on the back of the house that led to our large deck, then to the yard.

My hands rested on the door knob for a second.  It was cold to the touch.  The chill ran up my left arm.  If I opened that door, I thought, I would have to leave.  I would have to walk out onto the deck.  I would have to test my boundaries and hope that I wouldn’t go crazy as a result.  I turned it.  Easy enough.

The door creaked as it opened; the sound echoed through the living room with its vaulted ceilings and rug-covered hardwood floors.  There was a gust of wind as I walked out, but it was nothing that would have forced me back inside to get a jacket.  I strolled off the deck and toward the tree house.  My plan was to get the gift and then,   as quickly as I could, return to the house.

I climbed the steps that led into the tree house and opened the door.  As I stepped in, I realized that it had been a very long time since I was last there, as I had to bend down to get in the door and could barely stand up straight in the place despite its abnormal size.  I quickly found the can to which Armando had made reference sitting on a shelf just beside one of the windows.  I grabbed it and opened it up.  Inside, there was a brown bag.

I was a little nervous.  I didn’t know what to expect had been put in there for me by my cousin.  I knew it would either be goofy or funny, but I was surprised to find a note at the top of the bag simply telling me that what was inside would ‘relax me’ a bit.  I looked inside to find a small sack of weed, along with my cousin’s ‘lucky pipe’ and ‘lucky lighter.’

I knew what was in the bag was illegal, and my Mom would probably kill both of us if she knew it were even out there, but the fact that he parted with those two things was… simply… a sign that he wanted and needed for me to be back in a good place, in a good state.

In the tree house there were two folding chairs.  I sat in one of them and thought about what was in front of me.  Part of me knew that I should just throw out the weed and return the other things to Armando, but there was another part of me that thought for a second, a moment, that the weed would rid me, albeit temporarily, of the confusion and frustration that was still ravaging my mind. 

A certain greed took over my psyche.  I wanted respite from the thoughts of walking across that parking lot; I wanted freedom from the black parts, the missing pieces that were there, almost taunting me.  To that end, I took some of the weed and packed it into the pipe.  With the lighter, I lit the weed up and took the first hit.  It stung, and I hurt as I struggled to keep it in my lungs for a second.  When I released it, I coughed a couple of times.

The second hit was a little smoother.  It was a little hard to hold it there for a second, but I relaxed myself and it seemed to help.  The third and fourth hits were all I needed to have in my system at that point.  Before I was too loopy to know what was going on, I put everything back the way that Armando had packed it.  I put the coffee can in a less obvious place, a ‘hiding place,’ as it were, where I’d once kept notebooks  containing sketches for characters and outlines for stories, contraband since my family didn’t yet know of my secret desires for men.

Rather than leaving, though, I just sat there in the chair.  I let the high take me over, muscle by muscle, synapse by synapse.  It felt so good to be free from everything for a few minutes.  It felt wonderful to be able to think about things other than the attack, had I wanted to think about something different for a change.

I thought about going back into the house, but I didn’t want to move.  Every single molecule of my being was caught up in the enjoyment of it all.  The trees I could see from the window waved in the breeze.  Everything seemed more distinct.  The colors were brighter.  The air around me seemed lighter.  I liked the way I felt.  I couldn’t feel any pain, physical or mental.  It was nice.

To be honest, I wasn’t really aware of time as I sat there.  The breeze felt so good I just didn’t give a shit in which part of the sky the sun was shining.  The buzz wore off sometime around one, so I went inside the house and grabbed a snack.  Before everyone got home, I took a shower and put the clothes I had been wearing that day in the wash.

For the rest of the day, I sat with the family.  For a few hours, I felt like I was myself again.  I felt good ... like the Old Ryan.  I felt like the man I’d been before.  I was on top of my world even if just for a little while.  I’m sure it was noticed by the others that something had changed, but nothing was said.  Perhaps they just thought I was coming out of the funk.  Maybe they deduced I was just having the first of at least a few good days.  Possibly they thought that I was in denial.  I don’t know.

I went to bed that night in a good mood.  There were no dreams that I remembered.  There was only peace, and I liked it, more than anyone could have ever known in that moment.

To be continued...

Posted: 12/02/11