At the Top of the Redwoods

At The Top of the Redwoods

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Roosevelt’s Perch was not unlike many of the suburbs nestled neatly in the quiet hills of Billington: Middle class families living above their means... lonely house wives driving SUVs purchased in credit card debt, flaunting Gucci purses that sit empty on their sun scorched shoulders, hiding their daytime hangovers with oversized sunglasses and Listerine; husbands working office jobs for low end salaries supplementing their income from 20 dollar trifecta bets after gathering inside information from stable boys at the local track; the only way to keep their trophy wives displayed neatly on the mantle. I watched these people from my bedroom window and felt inadequate in a way that felt all too normal. An inadequacy that I would feel until the day I walked into those West side woods that sat behind our modest home.
It was the first day of school and the mornings had a sad heaviness about them that was brought on by the sun’s early exit out from the shadows. Its slow and steady lift from the bottom of the Pacific and through the outlying hills, into my morning must be an exhausting venture. The overwhelming emptiness of the blue sky felt like space without the stars and if you stared too long into its center you ended up spinning like a tilt a whirl on a slow motion ride. Early morning shadows were dark as night and the dew leftover from nightfall was slowly drying in the chilly air.  I was standing on the corner of Elm and Messiah trying to not appear terrified when Ricky snuck up from behind me and yelled, “COCKSUCKER” at an unbearable decibel directly into my left eardrum.
“Why?”...”Why...when you know it is taking everything within myself to even stand here right now.”
“You are a fucking pussy”....”and so are you, and you and you” as he pointed to each of the first graders huddled together like baby chickens.
Ricky was proud to be a dick. He said it was his calling.
My stomach flipped as my semitransparent shroud of confidence quickly turned to air, leaving me the same uncertain young man I have always been. More bones than muscle, more fear than courage, more vanilla than Neapolitan. My disguise was rather superficial, but it did seem to fool my sister and her friends. and maybe I could fool my classmates at Sacred Heart into believing that I was now more than just a stain on the wall.
The bus pulled up the hill screaming like a colicky baby and the arms flailing out the window looked like flames licking the sky. My panic peaked and I almost blacked out, but I smiled, adjusted my bookbag to my shoulder and stepped onto the lemon yellow bus.
The bus was litered with children of all ages; all harboring issues consistant with after school specials and bad teen movies. I thought that they must have problems, even though they showed no ill effect from them, laughing and carrying on like Hyenas. The inside of the bus felt like an atom splitting experiment and I didn't think the air inside could hold any more sound. I bit my bottom lip and kept moving.
Zoey was the first familiar face I saw and she was sitting by herself towards the back of the bus. She looked sleepy and her smile seemed uninterested. She had on a white tanktop and her dark, almost black hair was pulled back with a beret. Her body was slender, but not eating disorder slender. Her skin was smooth and blushed. Her beauty was obvious at first glance. It hit you right in the face. We made eye contact for a moment and a fork did a back flip in my stomach. I quickly looked away and slid into the first empty seat I saw,
Lisa screamed out, “Look Luke there’s Zoey, you want to give her babies!!!” The entire bus roared and I vomited a little in my mouth. I then cocked my head at a 90 degree angle and stared through the steamed up bus window holding back my fury of tears.
I must have traveled through some sort of time continuum because I surely lost 3 years of my life on that 10 minute busride to school. That's what that kind of utter embarrassment does to you...it subtly sucks years away.
As we pulled up to the front pillars of Sacred heart I observed mothers walking in with their 1st graders, dragging them as if they were on their way to the guillotine. It felt familiar, as I had done the exact thing every September for the last 7 years. Except it wasn't my mother dragging me, it was my own driving force of sadism and self-loathing. Before long my less than positive outlook on life was a rain soaked quilt and I had become used to its weight.
I balanced my forehead on the hard plastic covered seat in front of me and waited for the bus to empty. Madness ensued with kids rushing down the aisle as if they had no idea where they were hurrying off to. I laughed at the thought of these kids running off in blind joy to the electric chair. Ricky was the first one out of the bus and coincidentally the first one in the principal’s office that year. Apparently wearing a 5 foot crucifix around your neck and yelling “Flavor Flav!!!” is frowned upon by the pious nuns at Sacred Heart. The last few stragglers made their way to the pavement and just when I thought I was the last one on the bus I felt a warm hand on the back of my neck.
“You’ve really grown this year Luke...I mean you are taller...more...”
“Oh thanks Zoey"....razor blade goldfish are swimming in my stomach.
a pause that seemed to last a minute...
“Its really nice seeing you...maybe we will talk later?”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's good...great...sounds great.” Slow…breathe in air…sweat glands stop production immediately.
“Alright, see you around”
“Yeah, bood gye...blah, blah…good bye...ha ha what am I saying...I will see you later, god bless” holy shit stop talking and what are you saying, GOD BLESS-- Oh yes you must be Zoey’s grandmother. A very good day to you. “Alright, peace out” nice...real nice.
“bye Luke have a good day”...she said slightly blushing.

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Sacred Heart is a small Catholic school on the South Side of Billington. It was the only alternative to Public Education in the town, therefore was attended by anyone who could afford the modestly priced tuition. The school saw a wide range of families walk through those doors; from the outwardly rich to the outwardly poor and all the rest stuck in the middle.
The school was one of the last to still be run solely by priests, brothers, deacons and nuns. We were best known for our embarrassing 2001 headline scandal involving members of the football team prostituting young freshman girls out to the public school miscreants; before that the school had always been a well revered institution for as far back as people can remember. Father O’ Connelly and Sister Rose had done everything within their power and within the power of ‘the lord Jesus Christ’ to distance themselves from the humiliation these accusations had brought.  The embedded guilt that lives within Catholics always baffled me.  I had it, but never knew why I did. 
I snickered when I watched them scramble to untangle themselves from the colossal mess only to find themselves with shit all over their faces. If the papers only knew what I knew; Hell wouldn’t be the worst place those two were headed.
The front of the building was majestic with its concrete columns and marble statue in the likeness of Mary holding a partially clothed baby Jesus. Built in the 1930’s, the architecture was flawless, but the years had taken a toll on that gray facade leaving cracks visible from the busy city street. Some said you could feel the ghosts of famous alums in those shadowed hallways. The likes of Jack O’ Leary and Shelby Williams were not only seen in the class pictures hanging on brick walls but their whispers echoed lightly in the rafters of the old gymnasium and in the dated basement boiler room. I never heard shit, but I appreciated the attempt at poetry.
I could no longer smell the must in the hallways...it was there, but we were used to it. Old ceiling lamps glowed from high above and produced light barely stronger than an overcast evening sky. Cobwebs held hands from fixture to fixture and I could only imagine the fun those house spiders had watching our daily adolescent drama unfold from above. Even in the sunlight the place seemed doomed to me...like it was shaded in the darkness of a history of voodoo and lies. I guess that was my bubbly persona shining its true colors. Teachers often asked me why I looked so “blue”. “Blue is really my color don’t you know” I would say in an attempt to seem witty. They would laugh and I would wish for anonymity.
My mother went here and that’s why I go here...and my father went here and that’s why they know my name. If it wasn’t for him I would have already been dismissed as a complete and utter waste of the Earths air supply. You see, he was sort of a legend here. A great athlete, a scholarly student, a good Catholic. I find sports a bore, school work arbitrary and Catholicism witchcraft. I am not like my father. He died when I was 4...I remember his face shaving in the mirror and he called me Lucas. He was a giant. He wore jeans and t-shirts. He loved baseball, drank cans of beer after dinner and often sang Johnny Cash while he drove. I wanted to be him. He was shot in the head running down a man who had just snatched a purse from a pretty young girl on Culver Square in downtown Billington; at least that is what they say. Mom said my father tried to make the world a better place. I am not like him.
My mother was a beautiful woman when she was younger. Slender, dark skinned, her face peppered with freckles...her hair was short and atypical for the time...it wasn’t long after she had it cut when other girls followed suit by having their flowing locks clipped; but it wasn’t just her looks that drew people to her it was her carefree attitude and rebellious confidence. She was one of those people who took others only as seriously as she needed to. She embodied confidence bordering on arrogance. Her ability to make independent decisions is what made people follow her. She didn’t give a fuck what anyone else was doing…she did things her way. When I look at old pictures of her, I miss a girl I have never met.
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I was always over analyzing everything in my life. There wasn't a second in the day that went by where I wasn't trying to figure out exactly what so and so meant when they said what they did or why teachers act so phony or why I continued to drive race cars at 200 miles per hour around the halls of my head. By the end of every day the thought of resting my head in a noose was the only thing that seemed like peace. I didn't want to kill myself, I just wanted some rest. I walked around quietly hating everyone and trying to figure out why things happen like they do. I suppose you could say that I was searching for truth, but that really just romanticized my despair. The pattern of events on this planet could be thought of as cyclical.. the history books don't lie, I mainly felt like there was someone out there playing games with my every day life. I won't say that I don't believe in God. I mean there must be something that keeps the ball rolling...I don't know if it is God or a kid with a vendetta to settle. I am philosophy professor in an empty lecture hall.
Somedays it feels like a cruel joke. Good things happening to bad people and bad things happening to good people. The resilient and the cowards. You never know how they are going to react towards a tragedy until the tragedy happens to them. I suppose there are choices, but only one that allows the living to continue on as human. They have to forget about the disaster quickly, before they drift too far away from the harbor; before the vast sea eats them up and never lets them back out. They have to forget about love and move on like an amnesia patient. My mother did not move on. She did not forget. And therefore she lies silent in the belly of the sea.
Scrapbooks of pictures are the only reason I know she was ever alive. I am in love with my mother in those pictures. She is beautiful and happy and at the time had no idea that the sunlight would one day run out, and the flowers would lose their scent and that love would lose its punch…if she did I think she might have taken some of it with her and buried it in a jelly jar in the back yard.
Today she seems broken. Like every breath is a burden. I worry about her...and at the same time I don’t give a shit.
I resent my mother for my less than sunny disposition. Her sadness rubs off on me like wet ink…and smudges my flesh beyond recognition. There wasn’t a day that went by where I felt comfortable in my skin. Some days I felt invisible...it was the other days I felt like an animated mistake. My mother said it was normal to feel this way and I asked her if it is normal to want to eat the barrel of a gun. She slapped me and sent me to my room. I smirked and sort of felt alive.
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The first day of school is an event to some; the dawning of a new chapter in their sheltered, precious little lives. These spoiled children look at this day the same way their parents look at New Years Day; an opportunity to purge all of their sinful actions and start from scratch...a clean slate ready to be splattered with more regrettable indiscressions. I looked at it as the first day of eternity; for that is what the school year felt like to me...an endless abyss of torture. Different teachers all telling me the same things I have heard every year since I was 8...
-you have to try to be happy Luke, its not just going to happen automatically for you...what do you like doing outside of school?
Fuckoff. I would just like a girl to touch my pecker....leave me alone.
It made me sick. Everyone trying so hard to be beautiful; trying so hard to be “something”; to be “important”. Sometimes I cried at the thought of someone believing that they matter.
I sat in my first hour Theology class listening to our deacon lecture us on the importance of living a life in the likeness of Jesus Christ. Most of the kids smiled and nodded their faux angelic little heads, not knowing exactly what they were agreeing to.
*You are all going to hell; it is just a matter of time.
**nod
*Your sins are regrettable, yet Jesus will forgive you
**nod
*Jesus is a man of flesh and blood
**And the color girls sing...
I raised my hand. Deacon Gerard looked shocked.
“Don't you think Jesus was a bit too cock sure of himself?"
"Cock sure? Luke I'm not sure....
"I mean why should we be so arrogant like Jesus…a savior? believe in me?”....I had a fever in my voice…it felt nauseating and necessary. “Why should we live our life to be crucified in the town square as heckling common folk throw rocks and curse us as witches.”
Deacon Gerard simply pointed to the door. "Out." No one laughed.
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I usually blacked out in my room once a week. No one was ever around and I don’t think anyone even knows that I am affected by this affliction. It usually happens when I start thinking about why I am in the situation that I am in, which isn’t really a bad situation as much as a situation of metaphorical suspension; like I am waiting to become a serial killer.
The blackout itself is calm and euphoric. In the beginning I used to smash my head against bookshelves and bed posts, but now I can feel them coming on and I let my face fall methodically on our outdated brown shag carpeting and enjoy the state of dreamlike limbo.

“Honey...Lucas...oh no...Oh no" she said in a panic, "...wake up what’s wrong...somebody call....Lisa call someone…”
-Mom, relax- I muttered as I lifted my head and wiped my saliva waterfall off my face.
-I’m fine shit what...
“Language” she barked.
I slowly noticed the state I was in and quickly rose to my feet as if I had been caught with my hand in the panty drawer.
“Honey, what is the matter with you...we are going to the emergency room...what happened to you...why were you laying there...why didn’t you answer me when I called you...you were...you are like a ghost sometimes” she wiped tears out of her eyes.
-mom I was just messing with you
WELL DONT DO THAT GODDAMIT
-Language?
“Shut up...go to your room...stay in your room...I don’t want to talk to you right now”
At this point she had quit sobbing and I could tell she almost believed me and almost thought it was funny.
“When did you become such a ghost” and she quietly closed my bedroom door. Her footsteps disappeared down our hallway.

I suppose I can see where my mom is coming from...calling me a ghost. Not only does my appearance lend itself to the label, I am pale, almost gray...almost see though...and my eyes are usually someone else’s, and my actions border on the bizarre. I act so fucking strange around people. Its not that I don’t know how to behave. I have seen enough movies to understand how to be witty and how to be coy and how to be interesting and how to impress people. It didn’t take me long to figure out that the people we are supposed to “impress” aren’t worth impressing. 
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I wake up randomly throughout the course of a night.  I have a love/hate kind of relationship with sleep.  By the time I get through an entire day of  I am pretty exhausted and excited and shotgun into bed.  My bed, my island, my space ship.  All of these things give me a sense of safety and I dive into my sleep vessel with lazy enthusiasm.  I drift off quickly usually dreaming about baseball and naked women, but know that my moments of peace will shortly be interrupted by a shotgun shot of morbid dread and anxiety.  As peace becomes chaos by body responds with cold sweats and pounding heartbeats followed by clock watching and sleep racing.  Guilt riffles throught my body and settles restlessly in what I imagine as, my soul.  I say Hail Mary's over and over and over again as a multipurpose version of counting sheep and when that fails I imagine removing my soul with my bare hands, placing it in a shoe box, and burying it in my back yard.  When this is complete I fall asleep.  I am a corpse in a coffin shot into space.



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The seasons subtly changed around Billington. Fall melded with Winter which rolled into Spring which inconspicuously became summer. Fall was always the most pleasant around here. 55 degree days that felt comfortable in my track jacket and thermal sleeves. . This time of year always found my mother in a state of masked vegetation. She walked around and she smiled periodically and she made just enough conversation with people so they would not question her about her obvious misery. Her mask was simply an effort to keep people at arms length. It was in October when we all sat in St. Peter’s Cemetery weeping over my father’s casket being dropped into the ground. Every day of Autumn feels like that very day to us. It shows in all of our faces and in the way we try to go to sleep.



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Christmas time in Roosevelt’s Perch was an event more than a biblical celebration with a purpose. The tiny suburb of Billington turned into a snow globe of lights and pageantry. Every street corner looked like it was designed by Charles Dickens on crack cocaine and every family competed against each other with a level of malice that would make a Colombian soccer crowd seem like the Peace Corp. You could hear households rehearsing their Christmas Carols as early as October as poor Halloween was forgotten, simply turning into a chapter in our History books. Gutters donned strings of multi colored flashing lights as early as Thanksgiving and were kept up through the early days of spring. Housewives, without much of anything to do, dressed up like turn of the century royalty wearing flowing gowns and bustieres that showed more than a holiday’s share of cleavage. I can’t say that I minded their attempts at Holiday Spirit. If you want to talk about the evils of peer pressure lets start with the pressure to celebrate Christmas with more flavor than your neighbor. We were the only house in the area that didn’t quiet meet the standard that was set. We decorated with a plastic snowman that used to illuminate and my mother placed individual electric candles at each bedroom window. By comparison we looked like we were only doing it because it was expected of us. And of course, this was true.
Each year my mom would bake a dozen or so fruit cakes to hand out to neighbors and teachers and the mailman. It was her chance to appear normal to the many people who thought we were Satan Worshiping freaks. As much as her appearance seemed to scream indifference, she took a lot of pride in making these blocks of processed citrus and cake mix. I grew to enjoy the day she spent baking and playing Christmas music, even if I refrained from even taking a bite of the dense dessert. It wasn’t that it was all that terrible...it was just that it was fruit cake, and I have yet to meet a man or woman under the age of 55 who light up at the notion of digging into a holiday fruit cake.
It was just recently when my mother became convinced that her hours of slaving were in vain. As she sifted flour and packed baking tins she would envision them all raving about her work at dinner parties and social outings.
“Oh have you ever tasted anything so moist in your life.”
“I don’t know how she does it...she is extraordinary...exquisite”
Last year after she made her last delivery of the season she decided to sneak a peak through a family room window...you know, to see for herself, the excitement she had always imagined. That she felt she created. Soon everyone’s curiosity gets the best of them. Her hope and joy was quickly shattered in a slow motion of shock and disappointment as her beautiful creation was pitched into a shallow trash can grave by the very woman who looked so thrilled to receive the gift. My mother ran back with her myriad of hateful thoughts to catch glimpses at the other’s kitchens. Each house revealed the same result…perfectly wrapped fruit cake in an open casket trash container. Blinding rage and fury gave way to a blank stare and silence. I thought that was the end of fruit cake baking day as we knew it. Part of me was right…and part of me was most definitely wrong.
The following year my mom baked as she baked every year, albeit with a little more verve and determination. I couldn’t figure out where this focus was coming from and it kind of scared me. My mother was an O’ Reirden. And O’ Reirdens are a vengeful bunch.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Mrs. Leigh Gallagher was one of the “elite” of Roosevelt’s Perch…or at least she thought she was. Her son, Blaine, was in my class. I did not like Blaine. Blaine was arrogant without a real reason, he was pretentious without any self awareness and girls loved him only because he treated them like shit. It’s not that I necessarily wanted to murder him; I just wanted someone to inject him with the Ebola virus and I wanted to charge admission to watch his skin melt off like micro waved string cheese.
My mother, once a proud and confident young girl, found herself obsessing over this woman and the life she had leached herself onto. Without her makeup and imitation Prada sunglasses, plastic boobs and Louis Viton purse she was nothing but a used up rag herself. It’s amazing what daytime martinis, fruit cups of prescription pills and a little cash can do for ones self esteem.
Leigh was the last stop on the fruit cake tour that year and my mother’s heart must have pounded as she lifted the exquisite lion’s head door knocker. She came to the door in a cocktail dress with enough lip gloss and eye shadow to make a clown blush. My mom was prettier, but sometimes her posture was that of a leper…her confidence mirrored her body language.
“Oh hello, look, it is Luke’s moms…How are you Luke’s mom” –my mother pictured her staggering around her dining room knocking over fine china foaming at the mouth.
“Mrs. Gallagher, I am well.” Addressing her like she was the queen of England…but the Queen of England doesn’t huff glue when her children were at school. I saw this one day when I was supposed to be at school. She huffed it like a whore coming up for air…if you know what I mean.
“A fruit cake; I was beginning to think you forgot about us”, sarcasm saturated her tone.
“Never. Please enjoy and have a Happy Holiday”
“Well thank you Luke’s Mom…Christmas wouldn’t be the same without your beautiful cakes…thank you.”
My mother heard a snicker coming from the side living room where house guests gathered to get drunk and share stories of their infidelities.
“Merry Christmas”
“And to you.” as she arrogantly slammed the door to her castle.
Instead of imagining the joy of smiles and praises for her delicious gift my mother pictured something different; a slow and paralyzing death brought on by the high doses of cyanide she added to each 10 inch by 8 inch block of alum and raisins and figs. She never knew I was aware of what she had done. If it were me I might have just added a little Ex-Lax and called it a day. Rationality wasn’t always my mother’s strong suit. When you hold ange
That year not a human fell ill. To my mothers dismay the neighbors all thanked her emphatically for the gift as they passed each other in the supermarket and in the park and on the streets.
“Another triumph Annie, my family loved it.”…
My mother simply smiled out of the side of her mouth and continued on her way. Her disappointment was undetectable, unless you knew her like I did, and then you could see the despair in her eyes.
Not so coincidentally there were 8 deaths of family pets that December in Roosevelt’s Perch. No one ever linked it to my mothers Holiday Cyanide Cakes. My mom and I drove around the neighborhood that Christmas and watched sad kids burying their dogs and cats, sobbing, while marking their headstones “We will miss you Mittens”. My mom laughed and I felt nothing. That was the day…my conscience died.
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Zoey’s family was very different than mine. In fact, the Meloy’s were probably on the opposite end of the socio economic scale from the O’ Reirdans. We were the potato farmers; they were the lords of the manor.  They ate steaks and small fancy appetizers and had grapes fed to them by angelic servants.  We had meatloaf and american cheese and downed fruit cocktail cups like champs.   Zoey's mother ran around with Leigh Gallagher and had cocktail parties and had affairs and wore enough jewelry to stop traffic. My mother ran around with us and her cocktail parties were solo affairs and the only action she was getting was from her afternoon Soaps. I know that Zoey’s parents disapproved of my hanging around. The were very proper people and I could see the disdain in their eyes every time our paths crossed, which these days seemed to be pretty often. I could tell they were just dying to ask me to clean out the stables or fetch a pail of water to draw up a bath. I just smiled and enjoyed an inner monologue of degradation and profanity aimed in their direction.
-“Thank you for the Kool-Aid Ms. Meloy (You bitch.  You sideshow clown.  You Saturday morning prostitute.  You look like the joker this afternoon and you smell like an animal carcass wrapped in rose petals)”
-“Mr. Meloy, did you catch the score of the Mariners game last night (would you like me to hedge clip those unruly nose hairs you old bastard and how about you straighten that crazy eye of yours and look at me when I am talking to you…you drunk)”
It was a fun game that I played and it kept me entertained; and some say that the ability to entertain oneself is the secret to life.
Their house was one of the biggest in all of Billington, standing alone on 8 acres of land all fenced in with beautiful cast iron fencing. It was important for the wealthy to keep the peasants off of the earth they felt was theirs. The redish brown colored bricks stacked three stories and from the street you could almost assume that the house was made for someone of importance. Mr. Meloy was a CEO of a very successful technology company. I didn’t bother myself with details of the unimportant so I never actually knew which company he was associated with. Rich was rich and I didn’t care how the money was made. Nothing about this family was modest. Everything from their home to their cars to their pets screamed out, “I am richer than you”. This made it very difficult to understand how Zoey was the way she was. Unlike her parents, money was not the air she breathed.
It was another Saturday afternoon and I found myself in Zoey’s bedroom listening to old Pink Floyd albums and pseudo-intellectually discussing the purpose of life and our place in this world. Her bedroom was huge and uncluttered. Hard wood floors covered every square inch of the room giving way to huge Oriental Rugs that cost more than my mother’s Camry. The bed was giant and white and the windows were open, giving the room a clean, springtime feeling even though the weather during this time of year rarely hit 60 degrees. Antique dolls were scattered about the room and I made fun of the way her mother had decorated. I didn’t tell her this but I was scared shitless of the way some of them looked at me; wide eyed and judgmental.
Tawny was as easy going as I was, if not a little more. She rarely raised her voice and she rarely took anything too seriously. Yet her grades were straight A’s and her reputation around school was as close to perfection as you could get. Nine out of Ten students at Sacred Heart would say that Zoey was the most popular girl in school. Ten out of ten students at Sacred Heart wondered what the hell she was doing hanging out with me. I would have to say that I often wondered the same thing. We had a great time together and I didn’t worry too much about the critics.
You never heard Zoey talk about herself in an arrogant or bragging way. You never heard her talk about how beautiful she was (if I were her I would wake up in the morning sit in front of the mirror until bedtime and then go to sleep…wake and repeat) and at the same time she never made calculating comments about how ugly she was in a simple attempt to collect false compliments. Her confidence and appearance spoke louder than words in a sentence and I heard everything she didn’t say. One thing you could count on though was opinions. She had them for everything. Love, Rock Music, people, environment, god, angels, devils, movies, concerts, dancing, politics…My opinions were her opinions and I hated myself for not disagreeing more. Sometimes I did…and it felt alright.
We were both looking out of her grand bedroom window; watching the streets move and the day go by; looking down at the vampires and vultures as they crept out of their homes…hiding behind their giant sunglasses…plotting their attacks on the feeble hearted…the soft souls.
“There is something about this place that turns us all into monsters.” Zoey said, breaking our silence “Blood sucking communist, plain Jane, whoring, lifeless, guiltless, hopeless, heartless… Our mothers used to be pearls, Luke…they used to be smart and witty. They used to be filled with bottle rockets, firecrackers and sparks. They had the entire world eating out of their clean and perfect hands. You’ve seen the pictures. Your mother was it. She was an…orchestrator of madness…”
“An orchestrator of madness?” I grinned.
“Yes and stop laughing…I am being serious.” She couldn’t help but smirk and my heart cracked a little.
She plopped back onto her bed…the sheets rippled.
“You see my point. There was some moment along the way when they became…what they are. There was one second…one single, solitary second when they decided to go left instead of right…when they decided to give up the fight…to sink into that couch of anonymity and become…normal. One second when youth turned into adulthood and magic turned to make believe and innocence turned into dirt and filth…the dirt you can’t rub off. I don’t ever want to be them, Luke, never ever.” She paused for what felt like minutes and she tore into my eyes with hers. “Lucas…you…my man…” I blushed. “Make me a promise will you?”
“Sure…what?” She could have asked for my spleen and I would have grabbed the nearest steak knife and Googled “spleen removal”.
She grabbed my arm with force and leaned close to my ear. I could feel her breath against my skin and gravity left the room.
“Always protect me. Don’t ever…ever, ever, ever let me become a monster like these monsters…these women…these sad people” she was almost crying.
I told her it was impossible…that she was better than them. She insisted.
“Lucas I mean it…promise” she raised her voice and sharpened her eyes. “Do whatever you have to do…never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let me become the monster this place makes you become.”
I promised her. In an illusion of chivalry and confidence; I promised her that I would always protect her, that I would make it my mission to keep her the angel that she is today. She smiled and I smiled and she rolled off the bed.
She made fun of me for the “angel comment” and I threw a pillow at her. We continued on with our day a little closer than we had before.
Our relationship to this point was simply plutonic. I can’t say that this way my idea and I can’t say that this was the way it went in my head; in real life we were simply very good friends who enjoyed the same music, the same bad horror movies, and had the same dooming cynicism towards the world and mankind. We started spending most weekends together and when Ricky would ask me how far I had gotten with her; my answer always led to Ricky questioning my sexuality.
“Dude, what the hell, are you a cake eater or what.”
“Hey Nancy, how do these shoes look on me”
“Hey man, I know I am hot, but I don’t swing that way. Why don’t you head down to the Loading Zone for a little woo hoooooo.”
Ricky was a classic. He was my best friend and I always wondered why.





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Lisa was 4 years younger than me and had never known our father because she was still warm in my mothers belly the day dad was killed. Lisa was a whip. Her tongue was sharp and could shoot venom to anyone who tried to get smart with her. I was envious of the way she talked to people. She talked to my friends like she was years older, with nothing at all to lose. Her mouth got her into a lot of trouble with the nuns at Sacred Heart. The fact that she was probably the cutest girl in the entire 5th grade didn’t hurt her cause when faced with consequences from the powers that be. Figures of authority laughed at some of her tirades. This adorable little freckle faced child, standing barely 4 feet tall with long reddish brown hair ripped back in pigtails would hurl some of the most offensive compound curse words you have ever heard at anyone who crossed her.
“What the fuck are you looking at you little carpet munching cunt face…will you still think I am adorable with my foot up your ass.”
She also knew exactly how to shut up a 15 year old male. A gift that left my friends and classmates scared to death of this tiny little devil.
“Lisa, will you go play in your fucking sandbox or make mud pies or something. You are a baby and little babies belong with other babies…eat shit.” Ricky spit.
“Hey Ricky why don’t you take that little tiny dick of yours and go suck on your mother’s tit…tiny dick, tiny dick, tiny dick.”
I blushed.
Ricky shut his mouth faster than a bear trap sensing flesh.
My mother wondered where Lisa got such a mouth and where she got this spitfire persona that rarely let anyone into her world. I loved Lisa with an awkward passion bordering on inappropriate. We had grown up as close as two siblings possibly can. Sharing everything; like best friends. She and I shared a bed for as long as I can remember. I often pretended that the bed was our spaceship and we levitated over everyone and everything. Once good old puberty hit though, my mother ruled that the sleeping arrangement was getting “creepy” and made Lisa return to her own bed and her own bedroom. The two of us never thought a thing about sleeping together. It felt normal. We kept each other safe when we felt unsafe, we kept each other company when we felt like the only two people on the planet, and we understood each other when we knew that no one else did. I was a different character around Lisa…I acted a different role in the play that was “us”. I was a little surer of myself…a little more of a man. The act was forced because I knew our father wouldn’t be walking through the front doors. I was all there was, and that scared me. Since my mother seemed robotic in her love for us, we latched on to each other like children awaiting the unforgiving winds of a hurricane.
We both knew that our mother loved us. She said it every night, albeit in a tape recorder kind of way. Something about her seemed very inhuman…like she was detached from life in a way that numbed her senses. It was her defense mechanism that she learned after dad died. Or maybe she learned it before then…oh how beautiful and confident she used to be.





++++6++++

We have mass the fist Wednesday of every month. I must have had my days mixed up because instead of heading into Mr. Dowry’s Science class first thing that morning I headed into our auditorium for what I thought was “Mass Day”. I walked into the quiet makeshift Church that was a building better suited for school plays than for religious ceremonies and took my seat in the same creaky movie theater chair as I always did. The building was cold and the lighting was dim and a faint odor of incense hung in the tapestries and in the scratchy seat cushions of every chair. Being Catholic is as much about aura as it is about believing. I have never really bought into idea of the Holy Trinity, (the body, the blood, the machine) and about how I could sin all I wanted to as long as I went to confession to wipe my slate clean…seemed too easy.
-Steal 5 dollars from my mother’s purse
-Sorry Lord for I have sinned…poof…forgiven

-Punch a puppy in the neck
-Sorry Father for I have sinned…presto…clean slate

-Think about Zoey giving me a hand job…
-Oh sweet lord Jesus wash away my indescressions...abracadabra…I am heeled.

One thing my father taught me before his untimely death was that “if it’s too good to be true than it probably is.” I think this lesson was aimed more at telemarketers trying to sell electric colanders and fold away golf clubs than Catholicism, but interpretation is left up to the living and I am the living so I believe he was talking about God and that is that.
As I sat there trying to buy into the idea of “a greater being”. I said to myself. “Let me be alone with god…let him talk to me…” I closed my eyes…and tried to picture the “big guy” up there on a golden thrown, beard flowing, holding a large tree trunk staff directing traffic and killing babies. Just as I was entering my imagination of secular peace I was distracted by sounds all too foreign under this roof of the Lord. I knew these sounds all too well as I heard them every night through a scrambled channel 99 with my door bolted shut.
“Ouch, ouch…no…move over…a little more…over…up…up…there. Oh father that’s it right there…”
“What…the fuck…is that…” I said inside my own head.
I rocked back and up out of my creaky chair and inched with silent caution towards the ruckus sounding from behind the vestibule and tapestries.
“Don’t call me Father, you know what that does to me…”
My heart paused and I could feel my face swell up with nausea. At that very moment I knew I should have turned around and walked the other way. Like a child who knows that Santa Claus is downstairs…It is better not to see. It’s amazing what we will do to make ourselves believe what we want to believe. Against my better judgment I viewed a scene that will forever haunt my daydreams.
Amidst a wave of unholy moaning I found myself in the middle of a geriatric porno of sacrilegious proportions.
I cleared my throat.
“Father, no mass today?” I said rather plainly.
He gasped in an attempt to inhale clean air.
“Sister, you are looking dapper.” I almost broke a smile.
“Oh dear Jesus...”
“Lucas, what are you doing here, get out of here…get to class!!!!!”
There were holy garments everywhere. Sister Rose still had on a piece of her habit, but Father O’ Connelly sported nothing but his black support hose and what I only assume is your standard issue black religious shoe, plain, thick soled, meshing nicely with the all important vow of poverty. Their naked bodies were enough to make (someone famous for painting naked bodies) vomit on his canvas.
At this very moment I have in my hands the very figurative “loaded gun”. A gun filled with more gun powder than any firearm Clint Eastwood ever brandished in any movie; in my hands I held the power of blackmail.
I smiled and nodded to both of them as they scrambled about like two small children chasing after the last plastic egg in an Easter Egg hunt.
“A very good day to you both…” I nodded and headed out the door.
Before I reached the mighty wooden double doors to the outside world, I turned and sort of ironically stated “and don’t forget to make it to confession.” I blushed at my quick wit. I walked out of the building with a sense of accomplishment and confidence I could not quite understand. I felt important for the first time. Today was going to be a good day.
The rest of the day went pretty much as scripted. I walked around semi-invisible as usual, to classmates and teachers alike. I did notice that people started to pay me a little more attention since my friendship with Zoey Meloy had taken off. I became the topic of rumors and gossip and all that attention felt very uncomfortable to me, especially since most of the rumors were based around the thought that I was homosexual. Unfortunately Ricky took it upon himself to be my spokesperson answering questions from the Press, who were simply the low life gossips of Sacred Heart School.
“No he hasn’t got shit from her….and I don’t know what he is doing with that fine piece of ass there”
“What is he gay or something?”
“Whoah, whoah, lets not get hasty here…he may or may not like the dick…I am not qualified to answer that question. But me, I love the ladies that is for certain”
Ricky was petrified that he would be thought of as a gay by his peers. He went a little over the top when it came to the topic of sexuality. He was a sex machine that got as much action as I did…absolutely nothing.

Later that day I was called out of 7th hour Latin to discuss the events that had transpired earlier that morning. Father O’ Connely looked at me the way a parent must look at their child the morning after they have the “sex talk”. Awkwardly stammering Father O’ Connely asked me to sit down and take a load off. He was usually stern and impossible to read, today he was a child caught with chocolate all over his face before dinner. He was bashful and filled with uncertainty. It was nice to see. Whether he knew it or not, he was getting a brief perspective of what I went through every day of my life. To have no confidence is to be less than human.
He spent a couple minutes feeling me out; talking to me about my family and about how he thought my father was one of the strongest men he had ever known. I humored him and let him talk, but I sat there and waited for him to crack. I waited for him to get to the point. We both knew it, he was fucked.
“Lucas, about this morning…uh, I’m…uh…”
“No need to explain Father, I think I have a good idea about what I saw.”
“Yes, yes…um…what exactly you saw was…uh…”
“Father, no need to relive that…whatever that was in there. I am not here to condemn you for your…lack of moral fortitude, but I am here to get what I want.”
“Young man, you need to understand…”
“No Father I think you need to understand.” I said with a level of authority that startled me. “I hold in my possession enough information to make whatever life you have left about as miserable as earthly possible. And you still have Hell to look forward to…”
“Watch your tongue. You are not my judge. You are not qualified to make such a statement.”
I paused. “Whatever. I will get back with you in a couple days with my requests.”
I got up to leave the office, standing a little taller than I ever had before.
“Luke, you aren’t going to tell anyone, are you?” In the way a child begs for mercy, “…your father would not approve…”
“My father is a ghost and so am I. A couple days…and don’t worry you won’t get anything you don’t deserve.”
I briskly opened the door, slid out, and gently closed it behind me. As I walked out I saw Sister Rose, head down, feet trembling, rubbing her crucifix with enough force to grind the Lord Jesus Christ into dust. I sort of felt bad for her as I walked by with my chin lifted high; I never had a problem with Rose. She had always been pretty good to me. She taught both my mother and father, and I think she felt sorry for what had transpired in my life. I wanted to tell her not to worry, but I didn’t want to lose any of the power that stood with my threats. She was part of the enemy and Father O’ Connely would have to think about her reputation as well as his own; even though I knew he was only out to save his own ass.
There really wasn’t anything in the world that I desired. Maybe, I just wanted normalcy, but I knew that Father couldn’t give me this in return for my silence. I didn’t care enough about my grades to do anything about them and I lacked the creativity that someone like Ricky would have in a situation like this. I ended up doing nothing. Leaving it up in the air gave me as much satisfaction as anything. Walking past them every day, watching the panic in their eyes, watching them age years throughout the course of the final two months of school. The rest of their life would be marred by sleepless nights and paranoid head turns. I smiled at their suspended fate. The lack of resolve can really cast a permanent cartoon rain cloud above ones head…even if the resolution is a damning conclusion. I never told anyone about their escapades. I never told Zoey, or Ricky, or my sister. Sometimes doing the unexpected makes life bearable…or meaningful…or real. God knows this, and he also knows that I didn’t hold this information in an act of kindness or empathy. He knows it was an act of selfishness and I am alright with that.


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++++7++++

I had always questioned my ability to produce true evil. Not that I ever had a burning desire to do something terrible…I was just interested to find out if I could do something terrible. Most of the time I did what was expected and sometimes I just felt like a vampire in front of a mirror. Being invisible means that you are just good enough to not be bad and just bad enough to not be good. If this group of people had a spokesman it would have to be me. The worst thing I had ever done was steal a copy of Ms. Bradshaw’s grammar final and the best thing I had ever done was not getting caught. The idea that people were predisposed to wrongdoings was something I had a hard time understanding; that a new born baby could be sitting there enjoying the new world they had just popped into and at the same time burning with a furnace rage to do evil, even before evil was defined to them. The idea of baby Hitler playing with his rattle and doodling swastikas didn’t quite mesh with me. I mean, I understand why we conjure up this idea that people are “born unholy”. Without a reason, we feel very unsafe. If we believe that people can become evil we have to take some sort of responsibility for what our sons and daughters do. If we believe the potential is inherent then we can sit and ponder how our God can produce such fear and hatred.
As my digital alarm clock hit midnight I slipped out from under my covers, threw on my tattered Nikes, pocketed my mothers Maglite flashlight, brushed the Doritos out of my teeth and snuck out the back bedroom window. My heart raced at the prospect of what I was about to do and who I was about to do it with. My mother and sister, deep in their dreamland sleep were unaware of my nocturnal activities. I usually stayed up late watching scrambled porn and making ice cream sundae concoctions.
The wooded area behind our house was an ocean, endless and mysterious. It was a playground to the children of the Perch, a place to drink and fornicate for teenagers of the Perch, and a potential hideout for the villains and outlaws of the Northwest. Growing up I was always told to steer clear of these woods. My mom thought those woods were filled with danger and uncertainty. So while all the other kids ran amuck, building tree forts and digging for grub worms deep in the forest, I sat in my bedroom dreaming about a life that would never be mine. Looking back I think I just wanted to be important for once. I wanted to belong to something. I always felt like I didn’t matter.
There was something very humbling about the trees in those woods standing arm and arm like infantry soldiers preparing for battle. The Redwoods were so straight and so tall and stood majestically amongst the pines who sat feeble in comparison. You couldn’t help but think about the history in these woods; the good the bad…when the trees were simply seeds in the soil. I thought about the blood that seeped deep into the earth and the tears that simply evaporated off of it’s surface. When I look up the trunk of the mighty Redwood I think about infinity and about how these trees are as old as God. I wondered if they ever stopped growing. I wondered what happened when we die. Do we meet at the top of the Redwoods or do we just go to sleep.

Zoey and I met up in the midst of the early morning dew and fog of those great woods. She stood in a clearing, leaning against an old tire swing, wearing blue jeans and white thermal sleeves underneath a yellow soccer t-shirt. Her black hair was pulled back and a little damp and her breath looked like factory exhaust. She smiled nervously and I walked towards her, accepting each sound the forest floor produced as I got closer and closer to her. She and I held hands and she smelled like Tulips. The moon was as bright as I had ever remembered; a crystal clear lunar glow refracted against the moist summer night air. As I took a deep breath of the dew soaked air a wave of nervousness shot through my body…through my toes. The night was peaceful and silent; a silence that echoed in my ears. An almost cold breeze flirted with the leaves that stood upright on the limbs of the trees surrounding us. Something about being out there felt very innocent; and something out there felt very wrong. The tree branches, sharp and naked hung over us like the claws of Hades and for the first time in my life I stood out in those woods behind my house without a notion fear. Zoey looked terrified and I removed my hand from hers and placed it around her back. I wanted to protect her…I had made a promise. She smiled and tilted her head on mine. We moved over to a rotted out log and got off of our feet. I loved the way she smelled and I loved the way her confidence gave way to her uncertainty as we were both about to enter into an arena we had never been. The only thing is that our ideas of what was about to take place were quite different.
We were both nervous, but for different reasons. Zoey was nervous about what she thought would soon be the end of childhood and innocence and an entrance into a world of womanhood. I was nervous because I was finally about to do something that would make the earth move another direction. My actions would cause a reverberation that would be felt through all of mankind. The same way she felt she was entering womanhood I guess I felt as if I was becoming a man…or at least human.
We talked anxiously and I could feel the saliva drying up in my mouth. I licked my lips repeatedly but still had that same feeling of waking up in the middle of the night without a glass of water. She looked sleepy in the way her eyes blinked to stay awake. Her smile cracked from the side of her mouth and as she spoke, she periodically brushed her hand against my arm. Waves of beautiful panic shot into my chest and I enjoyed every touch, every scent, and every word that came out of her. We sat and listened to the wind dancing and the animals playing. We sat in the moonlight and pretended that the moon was just a small hole in a very big and black sky. We laughed and then there was silence. I loved her too much.

As the silence turned into more silence I kissed her and my mind was filled with dynamite. My arms squeezed around her and the sky cracked and the trees stopped to watch and the wind made absolutely no sound at all. Underneath a ceiling of redwoods stood pedestrian trees of all sorts, plain and gentle. Zoey took a couple steps back and grabbed my hand, leading me through an unkept path underneath a tunnel of tree branches reaching for each other like children playing games. As she turned I felt a wave of fire shoot through my face. My eyes blurred with tears and my muscles tightened in an almost epileptic fit. She was too beautiful, she was too pure, she was too clean. For the rest of her life she would never be the feeling that she is at this moment…her perfection would end the moment she left these woods. This thought made me sad and angry but at the same time I wanted to eat her up…I wanted her to be me…I wanted to save her, protect her; I wanted to preserve her immaculate soul. I thought about my mother and the day she quite looking back. I thought about evil and how evil is better than indifference and I thought about God and all the evil He showers down in His masquerade of divine power and I thought about my father and how I am not like him.
Quickly the wind spoke up again and the entire night tried to blow away. Trees whipped and stood on tiptoes and that bright hole in the sky became the rest of the night. Zoey shivered. I took my flashlight from out of my pocket and hit her over head. One blow and she was gone. I hit her on the side of her pretty little temple and bits of her skull shot into her brain ending her sweet and perfect life. As she lay there, face down in the dirt and rocks I leaned down to see if she was breathing. She was not and all I wanted to do was kill her again.
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