Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
"When the sky falls the cypress tree will become
Buddah" Zhau Zhau
Tiny Tree of Life - 200 BC
"Chin Lu, Chin Lu" her
mother shouted as she chased her little girl through the rice field. Water splashed on Chin's legs, bare beneath
her sky blue silk dress hiked up so she could run real fast. She ran into the forest beneath cool shade
that tall green trees provided. Chin was
only five years in the world but could run very fast, her mother could barely
keep up with the giggling girl. Down the
path cut through the forest centuries before by Buddhist Monks, she ran. Her long silky black hair floated behind, her
feet barely touching the ground.
Sunbeams fell through the canopy of leaves and gently touched Chin's
face as she flew between the cypress trees; innocent energy.
Chin made it to the clearing well
before her mother and stood silently staring, mouth agape, at the smooth gray
stone Buddha looming thirty feet in the sky.
She realized at this moment that she already had memories. The statue had been there forever, it was
said, at least long before mortal men arrived in this place. As big as he was, Chin was never afraid of
the Buddha; he had a stern but trusting expression on his face. Chin and her mother came here almost every
day to pick flowers and bathe in the pool of cool water that formed at base of
the Buddha. This day, beneath the blue
sky, green leaves and golden sun, Chin noticed the tiniest cypress tree just
beginning life. It grew boldly,
searching for fragments of sunlight, next to the pool of water that Chin and
her mother were now covering with pink flower petals. A large rock was bending the tree at its base
and it appeared painful to Chin, so she tried to move the rock away. It was heavy and she pushed with all her
strength. Her mother watched in silence
while she braided her daughter's silky hair.
The rock finally gave way and Chin nearly fell into the pool from the
momentum of pushing. The little girl was
very pleased with her work but the tree remained bent. Chin gathered dark earth around the base of
the six-inch tall tree and patted it firm to hold it perfectly straight. She observed it with one eye closed just to
be sure. Then she cupped water in her
hands from the wading pool and gave her tree a drink.
They came on horses, large
beautiful, black horses that echoed like thunder through the trees. As soon as she heard them, Chin's mother
firmly took her daughter's hand and began running up the path but it was too
late. A dozen soldiers who sat
ominously, high on black horses dressed in bright red and gold and green,
flashing silver weapons and sinister smiles, surrounded them. Nothing was said at first, only the heavy
breathing of horses, the clanging of metal armor and pawing of nervous hooves
was heard as the soldiers stared at Chin and her mother. It was an evaluation, and then a decision,
"Take them", said the fat one with the large mustache. Two soldiers jumped off their horses and
grabbed the little girl and her mother.
As they struggled, Chin noticed out of the corner of her eye, a soldier
stepping carelessly on her little tree.
Her instinct was, of course, to save the young plant. She broke free of her capture's grasp and ran
back toward the Buddha and her tree. As
she ran bye, a soldier, a boy, removed his sword from its sheath with a
menacing swoosh of a sound. It was, of
course, his instinct to stop her.
Sweeping his weapon across her small body, Chin was cut down like a small
tree in the forest. She lay dying next
to her tree; the soldier boy trembled in fear and regret of his act as he
watched Chin's fresh, warm blood travel down her arm to her tiny left hand
holding the plant upright. The young
girl's blood, her soul and innocent energy released and dripped slowly merging
with the dark earth she had prepared for her tree to grow.
#
The Pigeon Heat Wave
Eliot stood looking out the window of
his room with the lights not on. The
noisy air-conditioner blew cold into his chest and it felt good, like it was
his own air made cold by him. Eliot didn't
really like air conditioning but it was way too hot outside to sleep with the
window open. Neon lights flashed in from
the city outside drenching his tiny room in color. On, off in a rhythmic silence. The orange, then green light painted the white
walls; Pizza Palace, Pizza Palace, Pizza Palace. The words kept him company, visiting briefly
and consistently from across 19th Street but also reminding him that he was a
little hungry as his mind wandered randomly and relentless from thought to
thought. It was hypnotizing and soothing
to watch the lights that made him a little sleepy. Pizza Palace pizza was too greasy but Eliot
liked the sign.
Above the Pizza Palace sign, rising
ten stories high from the grimy asphalt and concrete narrow Philadelphia
streets, was St. Mary's Nursing Home, where his mom worked every day as an
accountant. On the roof of St. Mary's
was a bright blue and white sign that lit up the night sky like a signal beacon
or a searchlight depending upon your perspective. The sign read St. Mary's Home, as if she
really lived there. Eliot could see the
cross glowing bright above if he bent low in his window. The nursing home was behind St. Mary's Church,
the second largest Catholic Church in town next to St. Peter and Paul Cathedral. It had two saints and was the home to the
diocese of Philadelphia.
The entrance to the main part of the
church was around the corner on 21st Street.
The tall stained glass windows and the giant statues of Mary were the
dominating features of the neighborhood; either alone or holding a baby or
dying Jesus. Everywhere kids journeyed
in the neighborhood, the huge church watched over them lending an omnipresent
mindfulness to behave. Eliot's father's
cynical perspective would infer that is why they built churches and cathedrals
so large, because G-d had to be that big.
He had never been inside the church but often wondered what might be
held in such a large and beautiful building.
The wooden doors were huge and heavy, and never open long enough for him
to peek inside as he walked by on a daily basis.
Nuns
floated around the neighborhood streets like gangs. Eliot never saw their feet, and it made him
wonder if they had special gliding powers or if they had to give up their feet
as part of a vow or something. Some of
them wore black and white and some wore light blue. The difference was not quite clear but the
blue ones smiled more often and more genuinely.
The nuns like minions, added to the neighborhood mindfulness and, his
dad said, were no doubt part of the Catholic master plan for control of our
culture's poorest and most needy.
Eliot
had a perfect view into the second floor of the nursing home where black and
white nuns tended to old people staring at four, old color televisions. Most nights the same old woman sat alone,
close to the window, away from the other old people and, more importantly it
seemed, away from the nuns. There were
nights that she waved goodnight to him and turned back to the televisions. She never waited for Eliot to waive back but
he always did. And he waived goodnight
this night too leaving his hand on the warm window pane for a moment feeling
the world outside, watching and waiting for something to happen. She turned back to her television show and
Eliot turned back to his life, inside his room.
Eliot
studied himself in his mirror for a moment as he did most nights before
sleeping. His reflection changed color
with each third beat of his heart, green to orange. He liked his face better when he didn't
smile. Smiles made someone appear goofy,
uninteresting, shallow and weak, laughs were ten-times worse. Eliot thought he didn't look different than
everyone else, he only felt different.
He didn't care about not being like everyone but he didn't like the way
the people that were like everyone else treated each other. Eliot was different because of several
reasons but the reason he felt most different was that his father was in
prison.
It
would be a year on his birthday, the day they came to get him. Eliot hadn't seen him since; no one not Eliot
or his family knew had seen him they heard from him now and by phone or letter
but they didn't know where he was or anything about his current life, just what
the newspapers wrote and newspapers only speculated until they had lost
interest. It was getting colder in his
room. His little air conditioner worked
too well and made a slight rattle noise over the motor hum. Eliot could fix it sometimes by stuffing a
folded Pokemon card between the plastic slats.
But he had become accustomed to the rattle now; it was even soothing in
a way, drowning out the more subtle and disturbing noises inside his head. He rarely
turned it down on these very hot days, choosing instead to pull a warm blanket
around himself while his mind wandered randomly from thought to thought, mostly
fixating on his father in the darkness of his room.
To
the news people, his dad was an accused potential terrorist but Eliot knew that
he was just a lonely man who lived alone in his one room apartment because no
one could understand him and he didn't care enough to try to understand
them. Eliot did understand him and knew
that he never cared enough about anything to plot about it. He was a dreamer not a plotter.
The
lights outside flickered one last time and went out, a signal that midnight had
arrived. The Pizza Palace never closed
early and rarely closed late. In the
cooler days, when his window was open, he could hear the click-buzz of the
light source. The final flicker was
unique almost a click-double-buzz before black.
On this night he heard only the rattle over the hum when the lights
stopped flashing.
Sometimes
Eliot wondered what his dad was thinking about at an exact moment in time, what
filled his senses where he was. He
taught Eliot, told him, how to observe.
"It isn't that hard, you just have to pay attention when you are
awake and remember your dreams. It's not
that hard." The last thing Eliot remembered about being with his Dad, he
wrote a story, sent it to a few people to read for comments and then he was
gone. "Freedom so beautiful it
burns," he wrote on a Sunday in a poem that was to become the story when he
thought about it more. He explained to
Eliot, when they talked about the poem, about John Cheever. He wrote, in Falconer that "Freedom is
wasted on the free". Cheever was
right his Dad explained; no one can understand freedom until they do not have
it. Those who do not have it see its
beauty from outside, as wasted with excess, on the self-anointed free. They become jealous and even angry. The United States' international policy with
regard to so called democracy building was of great concern to Eliot's dad and
the essence of this particular short story. A story about freedom and now he
was not free he did not exist anymore.
Eliot knew it was the story that took his dad's freedom away, took his
father away.
Eliot's
hair was red, reddish blond, more red than blond. In the mirror it cast a dark shadow over his
face covering his left eye. His Mom was
constantly moving it aside, telling him how handsome he was but Eliot liked it
hanging over his eyes allowing him to hide and peek at the world selectively. Adults told him he looked more like her than
him; Eliot couldn't really tell and didn't really care. The door to his room opened just enough to
let in a sliver of light and his mother's voice," Eliot, are you still
awake, get into bed please." She
always said please, even when she yelled. She exhibited a polite anger. He didn't sleep very much; mom always had to
remind him of its necessity but then had to remind him to wake up as well. There was too much to do, too much to think
about. Sleeping is such a waste of time
and accomplishes nothing. He slept in
his clothes sometimes but his mom didn't like it, so this night he left them in
a pile by the window and put on some pajamas.
Tomorrow
would be Saturday. The thought of
Saturday sent waves of excitement through his belly as it did for most boys his
age, knowing that his mom would not be waking him early for school. Eliot had to kick some books out of the way
to get to his bed and I fell in to the softness. He loved pulling the covers up to his
chin. It provided warmth in his cold
room and safety. Orange then green
flashed, he could see it even with his eyes closed and grew irritated with the
disturbance. Dreading the drastic change
in temperature, he waited a few minutes hoping that the Pizza Palace might
close a little early for once. No luck,
so Eliot made a mad dash through the coldness of his room to the window to pull
down the blinds. As he reached up to
grasp the cord of the plastic blinds, he noticed the old woman was waiving
again. So he waived back. She stopped and turned back to her television
show but he waited to watch her for a little longer even though he was standing
directly in front of the air conditioner and was freezing. She turned and waived again. It was then he realized she wasn't even
waiving at him, she never was. She was
waving at no one or some imaginary person, some memory she had, or she was
waiving at time. Eliot waived back
anyway then closed the blinds and fell back into bed before he froze to
death.
Eliot
thought for a moment on how he might be able to remember the exact moment of
falling to sleep. It would be like
seeing your own back or your own life before you were born he thought. The harder you try the more elusive it
becomes. His theory was that if he could
catch that moment then he might be able to control his dreams and he needed to
control his dreams because he didn't like the direction they were heading. He could hear the droning of the late night
news cast from down the hall and it comforted him to feel her there. Eliot did not remember falling asleep that
night and he didn't remember his dreams.
He
sensed his mom in his room at night sometimes.
Even though he was asleep, he felt her there watching him breathe. Sometimes she would cry and Eliot would dream
a worry for her and she would move his hair from his face to see his eyes
closed tightly dreaming more worries for his father and whether anyone would
care if he ever smiled again. She wanted
to sleep in his bed on some nights and she did when she had been crying for a
particularly long time. And when she
left him alone in his room she always let the door open a crack so the worries
could get out.
#
The next day Eliot woke early before
his mom and his brothers. The boys slept
in their own room. It was bigger than
Eliot's but there were two of them. The
wooden stairs creaked in certain places on certain stairs, he knew exactly
which ones were noisy and where not to step but he had to be careful not to
move the pictures of mostly dead relatives adorning the stairway wall. He could hear the murmur of the television
news voices from his Mom's room as he snuck by her door. Some news commentator was delivering a
message to the world. Eliot didn't
really care.
Keeping
his balance was difficult when he couldn't touch the wall. If one picture were not perfectly in line,
his mom would question the boys until they confessed. The pictures got older as you climbed higher
on the stairway. They started with the
three boys, and ended at the top with their mom's great grandfather dressed in
his Army uniform standing next to his seated wife. She was dressed all in white and was wearing
some kind of bonnet on her head that made her face look very white. She wasn't smiling and looked already dead in
the picture. He always moved by that
last one quickly because that picture seemed a little creepy to Eliot.
The
next set of stairs, to the basement, was dark.
For some reason, there was no light switch at the top of the stairs,
only at the bottom. Eliot never
understood why someone would plan that way.
One had to assume it was safe down there or at the very least, he needed
to be ready for some sort of battle. Eliot
bounded down the last five steps all at once and ran to the switch to gain any
advantage possible over unknown entities lurking in the dark. When his eyes adjusted to the flood of light,
he saw the devastation, the horror. His
video games lay strewn across the basement floor like dead bodies on a
battlefield complete. Blood rushed to
his eyes and anger overtook his body completely. As he was running back up the stairs sounding
like a herd of horses he screamed "Walt! Samuel! I am going to kill you!"
tripping twice, he nearly knocked every one of the dead and close to dead
relatives askew as he flew by. Rounding
the corner at the top of the stairs Eliot busted in their room "ahhhhhh,
who messed up my games?" He was an
angry detective having had lessons in interrogation from their mother. The boys were not surprised to see their
brother appear in their room having heard the ruckus. They were awake, playing with 347 small
stuffed animals. All of the animals of
various species, sizes and colors were lined up in rows on the bedroom floor
looking in the same direction where Walt was giving a lecture on the phases of
the moon a subject he was intimate with since visiting the Planetarium on a
field trip earlier that week.
Samuel spoke first. He was eight years old but very big for that
age, nearly as tall as Eliot. However,
he took no chances this morning sensing Eliot's anger in the loudness of his
yells and the wild rage in his eyes.
"It was Walt; he was using them as ships for the Fire Fiends to attack
the Secret Island of Zen." Eliot
thought about this explanation for a second.
As truthful as it was, and he did have sympathy for one of their
father's bedtime stories brought to life with his stuff, but he could not
contain his anger for the disrespect for his belongings. So, at the full capacity of his lungs he
screamed "Walt!" Walt was five
years old and stood stunned at Samuel's lack of loyalty and the fact that he
cracked so quickly. He stared open
mouthed in disbelief at Samuel, then turned to Eliot, who did not care about
Samuel's lack of allegiance to their little brother. He needed to kill Walt first. Walt ran fast for a little kid and ducked
beneath Eliot's grasp, out the door and down the hall toward his Mom's room and
sanctuary. "Mom", he
laugh-cried, "Eliot is trying to kill me". Her bedroom door was closed but as Walt
approached, nearly passing the sound of his own voice, it opened and light from
her room poured into the dark hall.
"Please stop yelling," she yelled. The whole world stopped. Birds stopped chirping, traffic lights
stopped changing, cars stopped honking and little boys stopped breathing. She reached down and gently touched the soft
blond hair of Walt's head. Eliot's face
was hot with guilt; Walt put his index finger in his mouth and held on to mom's
leg tightly. Eliot all of a sudden felt
stupid. He should have expected this
reaction. He reacted before he could be
afraid. Now there was quiet and
consequences. "You all need to be
quiet", she said more calmly. It is
Saturday; this is the only day I get to sleep late. Please go downstairs and play quietly."
They all breathed a collective sigh
of relief and the world was allowed to turn again. Tired with sleep still on her face mom turned
around, and closed her door. She was
gone and the boys were a little sad about that.
They
walked down the stairs to the basement in a row, obedient little ducks. Eliot's brothers helped him put the games
back in order because they felt obligated after he spent so much energy on his
tirade and even more on his contrition.
Then Samuel and Walt watched him play Radical Runner on the Play
Station. This was a game with a crazy
Gecko lizard that is very difficult to control as he runs around some mythical
Central American town searching for Inca gold and bugs to eat. The boys all became part of the action moving
their bodies in unison with Radical Runner as he dodged assaults by the
Conservative Guard. Eliot directed the
Gecko down an unknown deep blue path through a rainforest. A member of the Conservative Guard was
lurking up in a tree. He jumped down,
landing with a thud, holding a long rifle prepared to shoot Radical. Instinctively Eliot pressed a-b-a-b on the
control and waited for Radical's long pink tongue to shoot out between the
yellow teeth of his sinister grin. The
death of an enemy soldier is horrible and delightful. The tongue wraps quickly
around the victim's neck like a python snake.
The surprised soldier's eyes bulge out of their sockets, turn several
shades of red before exploding in a shower of tyrannical blood all over
everything in the screen. The boys all
laughed in unison at the horror witnessed many times before but they never
tired of watching this carnage. Eliot
loved the violence but didn't care for the political undertones; it was just a
game, you know. Time moved at little boy
speed when they played their games and nothing up the stairs or outside the
doors of the house mattered, when they were playing their games.
#
After
their mom woke up and after they ate, and after they were dressed and after
they were inspected, they boys assisted their mother on her Saturday
errands. That is what Saturdays were
for, the things she did not have time for during the week especially now that
their dad was gone. She called for them
all by name in no particular order and they all obeyed running to the front
door. The first stop was always the
grocery store. Just outside the door of
the townhouse was the insufferable heat of the day. It was the hottest summer ever recorded in
Philadelphia, the heat and draught was lasting into September. The heat was so severe that pigeons were
dropping dead from the sky in mid-flight.
Dead birds on the Philadelphia streets were very common that summer. There was one incident, well told in the
boy's neighborhood, where a pigeon fell dead out of the sky and hit an old
woman on the head as she was crossing Market Street at 17th. She was literally frightened to death as she
had a heart attack right there in the middle of the hot street, in the middle
of the hot city. Eliot didn't believe
the story until he saw the bodies of birds beginning to litter the streets on
the really hot days. Water conservation
shut down all of the city's fountains where birds and homeless normally
gathered for liquid solace. The
fountains were dry and littered with debris and dirt and unfortunate pigeons
covered with opportunistic flies.
This
day was hot but not the hottest. Eliot
noticed the Pizza Palace sign was just white, no colors at all. Where did the sign get its color? He did not ask the question, just thought
about it for a minute until he was distracted by the pleadings of his brothers. "Mom, can I get some candy?" Walt asked as he skipped ahead and turned to
walk backwards in front of her.
"We'll see she replied
side-stepping him as he stopped to celebrate the probability of candy. To little boys, 'we'll see' was a 'yes'. "Me too" yelled Samuel.
"We'll see" said Walt
mimicking his mother who smiled at the humor of her five year old. Eliot stayed at least ten steps behind the
silliness of the rest of the family. Not
unhappy, just uninterested, examining the streets of the city where they
lived. It was crowded, dirty and hot but
he liked it anyway. There was energy in
the city that did not exist outside its concrete streets. The buildings and the speed of life promised
adventure yet unfulfilled. The Safeway
was up 19th street and around the corner on 22nd. The walk was not long but it was getting very
hot. The boys all wore shorts that
looked too big, hanging below their knees in the style of the day. In his pocket, Eliot carried three dollars in
change, twelve quarters. They weighed
him down and as he walked they jingled, the sound echoed in the canyon of
buildings that formed 19th street. They
turned left on Spring Garden Street and walked down three blocks to 22nd
street. "Let's cut through on
Montrose, Eliot said, it's a short-cut."
He took two steps down the alley called Montrose Avenue.
"No, no we will stay on the main
streets. I don't like alleys. They can be dangerous." She replied looking back at Eliot. "Stay close" The darkness of the
alley was inviting to Eliot. What lay
beyond the cobblestone curve in the road?
There were many sordid stories.
His heart beat quickly as his mother and the boys moved farther away
from him. They were turning onto 22nd
when he finally decided to run to catch up to them glancing back at the mouth
of Montrose alley.
The
Safeway store was about halfway up the block of 22nd Street on the same side of
the street where they were walking. As
they approached the store, Eliot could see Stan the Street Man in his normal
place in front of the doors of the store.
Fairly close to Stan stood two men dressed in long white gowns covering
their denim jeans. They wore small
multi-colored caps on their heads.
Eliot's dad explained to him awhile back that these were Muslims but not
traditional Muslims, they were from the Nation Of Islam, American Muslims. The men were preaching loudly. "In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent,
The Merciful. Why did Jesus say to his disciples - "Suffer the little
children to come unto me and forbid them not for of such is the Kingdom of
God?" What was it about the disciples and their zeal to follow Jesus, but
they were not as they should be to the young? So Jesus had to admonish them,
"suffer the little children." He was telling them, "Do not drive
the children away."
Stan
was laying on a piece of cardboard covering the hot cement, propping up his
head with one hand, on elbow, as if he were relaxing watching a boring
television show. Long stringy gray blond
hair stuck to the sweat on his red forehead and face. The boys could not help staring at Stan. How could he wear that long black coat in the
middle of the Pigeon Heat Wave? This and
other questions came to Eliot's mind as they passed by Stan and the
Muslims. How did Stan end up in this place, this way? Why were Muslims talking about Jesus? Stan stared back at Eliot. "Hey boys," he said to them in a
very friendly way over the loud Muslim talk.
He did sort of know them. He held
out his coffee can and rattled the loose change within it. Eliot could smell Stan from where he was
several yards away. It was a familiar
city smell of human weakness and suffering.
Sweat, urine, alcohol and tobacco.
They never gave Stan anything.
Their mother would not allow it.
Stan looked scary staring right through Eliot who turned around as they
entered the store by the sliding electric door into to cool inside. Eliot noticed his eyes. Blue like steel or ice with a kindness hidden
by the grime the city left on him. His
eyes reminded him of his dad's, pale blue.
Cool to see. Like the cool inside
the store behind the glass. Safe from
the hot street, the loud preaching and Stan's stare, still there. He turned and followed his mom who already
had a cart with Walt in it, Walt with his finger in his mouth as he rode in
comfort through the aisles of Safeway, followed by Samuel and Eliot, pushed by
his mom. They only bought three bags of
groceries and none of it very good in the boys' minds. They did get candy. Samuel chose gum with some type of flavored
red goo. Walt got Skittles and was busy
eating them before they were through the slow check-out line. She put the three paper bags in her little
hand cart with the squeaky wheels and they were ready to go outside past Stan
still staring and the Muslims still preaching.
The electric door opened magically forcing them to greet the hot, humid
air before they were really ready. It
felt like a wet wool blanket as they pushed through it past Stan. Eliot still had fifty cents after buying a
gaming magazine which he hoped would provide him with clues to leap to new
levels of Radical. He held the two
quarters tightly in his right fist.
Running in small quick steps, Eliot moved toward Stan. He dropped his quarters in the can with a
clank, clank. "Thank you,
Eliot," said Stan without even looking into the can to see how much Eliot
gave him. The tall Black Muslim yelled
"Go ahead give your white money to the white devil" Eliot stopped
next to Stan frozen with fear. Stan's
voice was smooth and calm, "Don't be afraid of them" he said, and he
did not sound crazy or even old. Eliot
looked directly into Stan's blue eyes and his dirty sunburned face. Stan smiled with the whitest most perfect
smile Eliot had ever seen. The squeaking
wheels of the grocery cart stopped, "Eliot come here please, leave the man
alone," his mom's voice came from over his shoulder. "Go on Eliot. Do not talk to strangers," said
Stan. "Go to her, you are a good
boy." He smiled again with that
perfect smile. Eliot thought that
strange because it did not fit in with the rest of Stan's appearance. Eliot ran ahead to his mom and brothers with
one last glance back at Stan who was standing now arguing with the black
Muslims. "What do you think you are
doing?" his mom asked with a clenched jaw and impatience in her voice. "Don't you ever do that again. I told you about strangers and street
people. They can be very dangerous not
to mention that other group." She
held his hand tightly and would not let go.
Eliot did not mind. They walked
home the way they came through the hot dirty streets. The street cleaning machine was moving down
19th Street spraying water and moving dust and dead birds to the curb kicking
up smells of wet dirt and diesel fumes, city smells. Some guy wearing rubber gloves had the job of
following the street sweeping machine picking up dead pigeons and throwing them
in a dump truck. Feathers flew in the
warm air behind the truck floating to the street, leaving a somber trail of
remembrance. Where did they take all of
the dead pigeons? Following the pigeon
procession, until they reached the front door of their townhouse, Eliot lost
interest as a group of nuns in blue walked by smiling and chatting with each
other. Their mom opened the door Samuel
and Walt raced ahead into the cool air tripping over the mail just delivered
that lay on the wooden floor next to the door.
<<<<>>>>
Comments
Post a Comment