A late lesson

"This goddamn chair is goddamn uncomfortable."

"What did I tell you about taking the Lord's name in vain, Clinton?" Howard stood over the fire, warming his hands, while his 17 year old son sat on one of the tri-pod chairs they had brought. They were sold cheap and made cheaper, with very little material used for the buttocks and no back at all. They are goddamn uncomfortable, Howard thought. He looked at his boy, measuring him. Strong build and average height, but with a streak of mean in him that would sprout up unexpectedly. He's more like my father than I ever had a right to be, Howard reasoned.

They had gotten into the National Forest well after dark the night before. Howard practically had to drag the young man from the house, turning off the computer while Clinton was playing his favorite video game. The moon was high and full when they finally made camp, but at least they had some light to go by. While Clinton was raised working with his hands, he had never pitched a tent, cut firewood or made a fire. This will be his coming into manhood, Howard believed. This will give us something to talk about. Already though, they were trudging through great marshes of silence, with Clinton only speaking occasionally and only then to complain. Raising the boy, Howard and Clinton never saw eye to eye. Howard thought Clinton a mama's boy; Clinton thought his father an asshole. Finally beginning to put a picture of himself together as his son saw him, Howard looked at the boy again, eyeing the way his hands played over the divets in an oak branch.

"These goddamn seats are goddamn uncomfortable, though," he said aloud. The boy looked up, unsure what to make of his father. Howard gave a slight smile and pressed forward. "You ever wonder what God would say if he were to hit his thumb with a hammer. What if he has the hammer at the ready," Howard grabs a similar branch to Clinton's, bends over and pretends to nail, "and then BAM! He hits himself. You think he'd go 'Medamnit!'?" The older man chuckles and eyes his son.

"You're trying too hard, Pop."

"Ah, I see. Well, just trying to lighten the mood," says the elder. He tosses the wood into the fire and the embers float up with the smoke, dissipating in the the cover of the California black oak. "No harm, no foul, I suppose."

"I suppose not. Hey, can I ask you something,?"

"Of course."

"What makes these divets here, in the wood?" Clinton hands the branch to Howard, who turns it over in his hand, feeling the grooves left behind.

"You ever see the half-eaten leaves after a caterpillar gets done feeding? This is similar to that only, instead of a caterpillar doing the chomping, it's a bark beetle. These pesky things get into a forest and can kill 200 year old trees quicker than you'd think. Where a caterpillar eats until they're ready to cocoon, beetles just eat and eat and eat, destroying whole forests. Their grooves make pretty designs in walking sticks, though." Howard hands the branch back to Clinton, who takes it and looks again at the grooves, this time a little more thoughtfully.

"Thanks," he says.

"Yep." They sit in silence a little longer, both looking at the fire as it smolders.

"How'd you learn all this, anyway?"

Howard chuckles half to himself and says, "Well, I had this idea as a kid that a man should be able to track and hunt and know his way around a forest. I didn't realize that a man really needs to know how to work a job, play well with others and know his way around a city. Anyway, I bought lots of books as a kid and spent a lot of time behind your grandpa's house in the woods. Not to mention, I also watched a lot of National Geographic before it was cool to do so and even spent my summers in college hiking across the U.S. and Canada."

"Wait, what?"

"What what?"

"You spent your summers in college hiking across the U.S. and Canada?!"

"Well, yeah. That's how I managed to meet your mother in Oregon. I'm surprised she never told you."

"Come on, Pop, we're close, but we don't talk like that. That's awesome. So, you have a lot of knowledge of this kind of thing. What got you into hiking and how'd you decide to hike across the U.S.? And why Canada of all places? Why not some South American rainforest?"

"OK OK. Haha. For the second question, that's easy enough. I didn't go to the rainforests for two reasons. First: money. Second: language. I hiked Canada for the same reasons I didn't hike South America. And I don't know what got me into hiking. I think it was a combination of just who I was and the books I read, etc."

The silence crept in again and the men continued examining the fire, then their feet, then the soil.

"So," Clinton finally said, "can you teach me?"

"Teach you what?"

"You know. To be a man. Like you said. Will you teach me?"

The Exchange

The pain in his gut was so intense it made his head buzz. He lay on the cold concrete, his warm blood seeping beneath him and staining the ground, his clothes, his backside.

"And my mom said to always wear clean underwear," he thought. "Good use that's doing." He smiled to himself, thinking of his mother: her warm cocoa eyes, her smile to him when he was a child, the way her hands made soup for him when he was sick.

"Now don't worry, Joshie," she would say, "this is going to warm you up and put you good as new in no time. Just you watch." She would hand him the soup in an overgrown Papa Smurf mug, he laying bundled in blankets on the cinnamon-colored couch in the living room. She'd bend down to him, the back-side of her palm touching his forehead, then cheeks. A quick warning of the soup's heat and then she'd slip two ice cubes in like skinny dippers. He loved hearing the ice crack under the heat of the soup, the cold cubes touching his lip as he sipped, the warmth of the broth seeping down his throat, cascading into his adbomen. "You know," she said once, "I never can tell what your temperature is with my hands, especially after holding that chicken noodle," and she bent over and kissed his forehead.

"Definitely feverish," she said, "but definitely mine." She smiled down at him and he smiled back - feverish, sick and happy.

Now he lay dying in a pool of his own blood on the cold concrete ground outside the elementary school. Perkins said they should meet here and Josh brought the package, as demanded. They met just out of range of the streetlight, each man hiding his wickedness in the shadows. He gave Perkins the brown paper bag and, upon inspecting its contents, Perkins gave him 2 slugs from his .45 for his troubles.

"Thanks mate," the sluggish Aussie said. The streetlight showed the man's shadow lumber back to the Lincoln Towncar. The engine started and then receded into the night.

His breathing was beginning to come in gasps and he could taste the blood in the back of his throat. "Nothing like mom's chicken noodle," he mused. Closing his eyes, breathing through his nose, he thought of her and what she might think of him tonight, bleeding out in the chilly evening.

In the barn

Just a writing exercise to keep me writing...

-----------------------

We lay in the haystacks, breathing heavily. The deep shade from the barn loft hid the seawater of her eyes from me. Sweat began to glisten and stick below my t-shirt. I lay there, panting. In, a maelstrom of cool air into my nose. Out, a tornado of warmth out my mouth. She rolled onto her side, propping up her head with an arm, looking at me.

Not staring, just casually observing.

We lay like that a while. I, on my back, mostly staring at the roof of the barn, counting the spiderwebs and chips in the paint. She, on her side, observing me with a grin in her eyes until I could stand it no longer. I rolled to my side and matched her posture.

"May I help you?," I asked.

"Oh, you already have, darlin'. Though, I could always use a little MORE help."

Women are not supposed to talk this way, I figured. At least, I had never heard such. She grinned at me, her black hair falling into her eyes, she sweeping it away with her hand.