Featherweight

Among the tall elm trees the gloomy rain settled itself in the green leaves, and then rolled off -- briefly pausing at the ends to catch a glimpse of the sky -- in an aimless downward direction, as if there were no ground to welcome it. The wind had left them in a flurry of where to go, which branch to touch, and which way they would fall. It was a strangely beautiful thing, the understanding nature seemed to possess of human emotion, like it was in tune with every drifting mind floating in the space between sadness and bliss.

How we arrived parked in front of the large farmhouse-style estate so suddenly was beyond me. I had spent the duration of the drive with my head leaned against the foggy window, lost in deep thought and slowly dozing off; the unpleasant bump of the ride down the off road had invited me to sleep with its sweet, gentle charm.

The sounds came back to me when I heard the crunch of wet tires over a bed of an abused driveway and the roaring engine die out. Weakly, I pushed open the passenger door and leaned against the side of the red truck, wavering my thoughts between the dark night and the exciting sting of rain on my skin.

I heard him sigh low, and turned to see that he was checking his watch, a black Velcro strapped one I had given to him as a birthday present.

“Hey, I’m sor--”

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” he interrupted in a soft voice, unexpectedly abandoning his innocent front and turning on his heels to fill the void of idleness between us. After a moment or two, he turned back to me, his face unreadable.

I looked in his eyes, wondering if he really knew. If he really knew, if he could hear my thoughts and is secretly plotting revenge against me. We just looked at each other for the longest time, our gazes always locked like we were caught in this parallel dimension where it was only him and me. I knew, as the rain seeped through my plaid shirt, that the weather began to dampen the world we had briefly created together.

The raindrops assaulting his dark hair glistened under the glow of the porch light in the distance, his eyes not quite blue or green, but an alarming unknown hue which reminded me of the dark ocean bottom--though I knew well that his eyes were actually brown. The reflection of light, surrounding trees and dark blue sky flooded them with enrichment--it gave him that devastatingly vulnerable beauty which pushed me further into the depths of total despair.

* * *

“Why do you have to invite Robbie?”

“Because he’s my friend,” Andy told his little brother, with a tinge of frustration heavily emphasized at the end. Putting a cigarette to his lips to further neglect his hopes of quitting, he leaned back in the seat of their spoiled Shelby Mustang. The sweltering summer day had cast a spell of sweat over the town-goers as they strolled along the sidewalks, drifted in and out of shops, and lounged in their blazing vehicles.

The stop light at the corner of Addison and Main had been broken by a falling tree from the dirty men in boots and hats as they prepared a site for the construction of the new mall--something which disgruntled the citizens as well as enlightened them, as they were forced to boil in heat waiting for aid to guide them through the intersection, and finally winning the long awaited shopping mall. A town as small as this didn’t have much to do in the woeful boredom of summer.

“I don’t like him,” Dave mumbled, turning his head towards the rolled down window. Two older men had been arguing for the last ten minutes about who was responsible for the trees' misguided direction. To drown out the sound of the surrounding chaos, he bent forward and turned on the radio, then quickly rolled up the window.

“I don’t understand why.” Andy rubbed his temples, his cigarette tucked away in his left hand. Settling himself into the seat more, he exhaled and tapped the end of his Marlboro on the window to shake off the ash. “He’s a nice guy.”

“No, he’s not,” Dave protested, snapping his head to the older boy. “He’s rude and inconsiderate. He’s not like that around you, though . . . only me.”

“I don’t believe that. Besides, he was probably in a bad mood when you met him.” Andy rubbed his fingers through his hair to wipe away the accumulating sweat on his scalp, still alert of the inconvenient situation. “I don’t think he’s really like that.”

“I told you, that’s because he’s not like that around you.” They stared at each other in a moment of defense, regaining some lost trace of masculinity they surely cast away during their fit of laughter over the question if they could drive through the whole irritable mess of the intersection, dreaming if they would be killed in the process.

When the light had gone down, the traffic had stopped up and since there was no safe way of finding another route without backing into anyone, it seemed the conversation usually to be saved for home could not be kept between the two best friends. Had there not been an inconveniently placed accident in their path, they would have waited to share their thoughts until they got home--Andy’s house.

Robbie was the town banker’s son, a seventeen year old prep school attendee with a nose for somebody’s asshole when he needed connections, or even friends. He’d been staying in Vernon, timidly so, to visit his freshly divorced father for the summer.

When Andy and Dave met him last month at the Garage, he had been obviously bothered by the fact that he was driving his BMW into a place like this for an oil change. Dave had noticed his sweaty palms before he concealed them in his pants pocket; he came to the conclusion that the boy was nervous to be around all these rednecks, alone. He almost felt sorry for him.

Robbie was handsome boy, and no one could deny that, not even Dave. But there was something in his face that made him slightly vicious, like a serpent. He had mildly angular features and mid toned skin that shone gold in the sun, but death white in the long grocery isle lights. The reddish-brown hue of his hair often changed from honey-like to dark, pine colored; though the fresh appearance of him was far behind his age, his hair had always been casually disheveled.

It was disgusting how attractive he was.

They exchanged handshakes, Robbie’s being weak but businesses-like, and gave each other faint, friendly smiles. Although all three knew there had been no tingle, no hopefulness of becoming friends and exchanging words on a regular basis, they still found a way to socialize. It was Dave and Andy always together, running into him in some public building in the small town.

There had been one occasion when Andy went to their aunt’s house to care for her in sickness, and Dave bumped into Robbie at the gas station. There had been something different in their conversation, an awkwardness that hadn’t been there before. Their eyes never met, averting themselves to uninteresting things around, and in Robbie’s tone of voice Dave could hear a small cry of “I hate you and everyone in this town” and “I am better than everyone else and you know it.”

On their way back from running into Robbie at the bank--they had withdrawn some money for their upcoming hiking trip--Andy, in his bout of friendliness and good nature, openly invited the younger boy to come along. Dave suspected it was because Andy didn’t want people to get ideas of two young men going alone on a trip, to the woods. . . alone. He had to laugh at that privately. And then, there was the notion that perhaps Andy really was trying to be friends with him, and this was his attempt to invite him to their world--their orb of fascinating wilderness, and pull that needle out of his ass.

Robbie seemed flattered, but still showed evidence of hesitation. This time, both noticed his nervousness while he fiddled with the lining of his pocket and looked around the marble floored lobby. “Yeah, sure,” he had said finally.

“Well he’s somebody we need to suck up to; he’s got connections,” Andy sheepishly mentioned.

Turning his head slowly towards the twenty one year old former sketch artist, Dave gave him a painfully dumbfounded expression. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“What?” Andy perked up, adding a little bit of anger to his voice to intensify his desire for Robbie to come along.

“You’re doing what he’s doing. Being a sneaky little asshole to get what you want, manipulating people . . .”

“I’m not manipulating people . . . just Robbie,” he responded, putting out his abused cigarette. “Look, I’m tired of being here, stuck in stupid fucking little Vernon, Missouri, waiting on something to happen--something good to happen. I know it’s horrible but I had got to thinking that maybe if I was nice to him and we made friends, I could gain some new friends and . . .” his voice trailed off into the roar of advancing engines, springing the Mustang forward in the direction of the far away shades of the woods, their tall arms pooling dark shades of green and brown.

“Whatever, man. I still don’t trust him,” Dave distantly half whispered.

* * *

The comfort of sleep had grasped me with fatherly hands that night. Oh, did I sleep like a baby. Stumbling through the resounding hallways of Andy’s house had led me to the irresistible mattress I had, over the years, came to call my own. He had graciously opened his arms to me and embraced my deficiency as a brother, allowing my sorry self to live in the place he made for himself, the way he had moved on.

In the darkness, I had lay awake with my arms folded behind my head, staring up to the ceiling. The alluring shadows on the wall captured my attention, and I followed their slight movements made by the wind. They were most likely trees disturbed by the gusts of wind. They folded upon each other, overlapping the edges and connecting to form a huge black abyss on the wall. It was a vastness I had not realized before, an endless, constantly moving . . . creature. I knew for sure, that in some metaphoric way, it must mean something.

Perhaps it was the desperate search for connection I had chased down these last few years--I really don’t know--that caused me to raise my head at the slightest noise, touch, or vision. I always felt there was something there, a lingering animal’s teeth awaiting my flesh in the bushes, a rank breath catching me and throwing off my use of driving as a distraction from sorrow. I could see myself busy with an unknown task in the woods, a giant black monster towering behind me as it emerged from the brush, pushing an offensive odor down my spine and heaving an ominous, warm blooded chest.

For a moment, I had almost imagined it eating me alive.

It was then that I fell asleep; the day had forgiven me. That was all, really. I had simply fallen asleep to the sound of my own obscene thoughts of self torture. Before that familiar descending into the vehement wonders of dreams, I thought of the birthday where I gave Andy his wrist watch.