Like Kings

The tree tops blew in the wild storm, the swish of the branches painting a picture in the mind that the eye could not see. Paul called out somewhere ahead and I stumbled on.

 
Dark as the night was it had not started out that way. Home from school for the Summer, I had been enjoying a leisurely reintroduction to my locale: taking my dog Barney out for walks; working in the kitchen of a local hotel washing dishes. Paul, a kid who would never go away to school, had stayed behind; living the local streets and working at the sawmill.  It was good to meet with him and pretend we had not changed, yet changed we had. I had grown wild somewhat with the newness of opportunity that student life in a town gave, away from los parentes and awash with temptation. Paul had become older, more rugged. I don't think that I realized at the time how he had changed for it didn't make sense to my bumptious, haughty, academic self that a laborer with no learning to him could be more mature than a student at a prestigious college. But, of course, the student has structure and funding, and ideals given to him via the system that inure him from worry; whilst the laborer must live by his own wits, pay for his own shoes and discern his own direction in the scheme of things. Of all this Paul was more than capable.

We had met at high school, both keen on the same TV shows, the same arch sense of humor, and the same taste in women; though the girls had warmed more to me, it is true. Being guys there had been little to no communication during the nine months of my initiations but now, Summertime, we hung out when we could.  He introduced me to riding pillion and I introduced him to smoking blow. He refused to toke before riding out but seemed to enjoy the buzz, on his days off most of all.

Tuesday, matters not really but I think it was, I came home from the hotel; a walk along town of about half an hour.  For reasons I still cannot fathom, dread filled the meat of me. I probably put that memory in after the fact but it is something I cannot shake from the tale this far down the line. Mom stood at the garden gate, waiting for me, her eyes full of fear.  I ran up, asking about father, my eyes darting like a kite all over the scene.  Mom quietened me and said that dad was fine but to follow her in.  We walked, single file, up the slope to the undercroft.  Dad was in there, stroking an ear that protruded from the orange trash bag on the saw bench.  A black ear, long and beautiful and belonging to my best friend. I felt a numbness I was not to feel for many years more. I bit back the tears. I forced breaths into my lungs and helped dad dig the trench.

The family drove down to the garden center and picked a camellia bush to plant over the body. Then we went home and filled the trench with his blanket, his bowl and his biscuits; placing him in easy distance, a few rushes over the top to keep the worst of the earth off him.  We filled the dirt in but left it loose on top; a small gesture but he'd been through a lot.  I should have been angry that mom had left the gate open for him to run out like that but I never found the blame.  He was that kind of soul and would have gone sooner or later.  I said I needed time and called Paul to see if he fancied a toke.

Down at the beach we sat, on the swings in the kids' playpark, and sucked on the spliff; letting the acrid bite close my wounded throat with the pain I needed.  I'd bluntly yet briefly told him on the 'phone what had happened and Paul suddenly reached into his pocket and produced a medicine cylinder.  'Crazy bastard, what's this?' He shrugged and mumbled something about it taking the pain away, raising an enigmatic eyebrow and smiling in concern.

This guy I had known since I was twelve so I popped the pill.  'Let's go for a walk,' said I.'

'Sure. Bike?'  I knew he was taking a risk for me as he had been toking and I appreciated it.

'Sure, where?'

'Falls.'  The falls, beautiful torrent, lay up in the hills behind the bay. The path was about a mile from where we sat.  It was so near we left the helmets behind and were there in two minutes.  Night was coming down and dusk was seeping from every ridge of roots and every crack in the mortar of the old barns we passed, walking from the street into the woods beside the river.  The pill and the Mary Jane and the grief were mixing inside of me now, bringing a calm. A sense of iron in my chest that kept me walking, kept me going up that hill and into the night.

Branches scratched and the wind picked up.  Pine forests have a special calm for me.  The smell is good, earthy, real yet the stuff of legend.  The trees grow so close together they keep sights, animals, and competition from other trees all at bay; closing out the world outside. Pine forests have a sense of place all their own. Paul tripped, cursing. 'Here,' I said, pulling out my lighter.  It was not the best source of light, especially not for my poor fingers.  It kept blowing out in the wind and the strike wheel was hot from the flame: so A-star on that one!

The gas ran out eventually, much to the relief of my fingers, and we stood for a moment realizing how dark it was. I said that, maybe, we should head back. No, Paul was convinced there'd be better light up at the falls; we were nearly there too.

Stumbling into the clearing above the falls, the moon shone briefly from the clouds, lighting the scene with an eerie stillness as the wind dropped to sough more softly. The river rushed through the rocks as on and on it pushed towards the drop and disappeared as all my childhood had done before.

Paul whistled low and got my help in hauling a log into the current. 'To Barney,' he said as the wood was tossed over the edge as easily as if it were a match and disappeared from view. 

'To Barney,' I echoed and let the disappearing bole pull out the sinews of grief from my heart and drown them in oblivion. We stood in silence then turned to continue home.  The path was a circular loop so we crossed the river on the little wooden bridge, one railing on the downstream side, picking our way up a little rise to the path back into woodland.

Now, the woods over here were less dense however they also had no real path, the point being that most people traversed the route during daylight hours, following yellow chevrons painted onto posts fifty yards apart.  We were beyond the reach of the moon now and, the wind picking up once more, tar in our eyes would not have made a difference.  The ground was mercifully smooth but the trees scratched at us like files in a workshop explosion distracting us and making us stoop and turn. 

I know, for I have walked the route many times in daylight, that the distance was only a few hundred yards but on this occasion it was akin to the trials of Ulysses. I stumbled more than once, each time feeling my case becoming lonelier and more lost. The tree tops blew in the wild storm. Paul called out somewhere ahead and I stumbled on. 

'Paul?'

'Here. Mind your step, I think we've reached the edge.'  I edged closer and the roar grew louder.  The falls are over a hundred feet high and we were somewhere on the cliff in front of them, the gorge dropping away just feet from us. At least that is what we guessed; our ears and imagination replacing the sense we most craved.

'Are we gonna die here?'  Genuinely it sounded as if Paul meant it. Tears prickled at my stone eyes. Objective achieved, Barney was gone from my thoughts replaced with a sense of peril stronger than any I had experienced previously.

'No, Paul,' I replied, 'we're going to make it. We're less than a hundred yards from the forest access road.' I prayed what I said was true. He held onto my shirt back as we inched slowly away from the sound of water and towards salvation.

Suddenly, in the darkness, I caught my neck on barbed wire. Of all the things to happen deep in a forest, but this had once been farmland and the fields had  ditches and fences to separate them.  No worse injury than a scratch so I told Paul to mind the barbs and felt underneath the fence.  It seemed to demarcate a ditch into which we tumbled and found ourselves a solution to our woes.  The ditch ran straight and true up the hill and away from the immediate threat of death. Mercifully it was also a couple of feet deep and so avoided the worst of the scratchy branches.  We trundled up there, our hopes rising with the land till, coming to the end, we saw the rotten rock road ahead across a verge. What is more, we could actually see this for the sky was lightening and the trees were thinning.  We clambered out onto the access road and strolled down the hill like kings.

Paul died later that same year in a motorcycle skid that severed me from those last stages of childhood forever. Our lives blow away as chaff in the wind and loss is a more common state than possession. I am glad for that night of terror on the hills as it reminds me how precious life is and that we should experience these things whilst we can.  Paul, Barney, Mom, Dad, you all gave me life and then you all disappeared from view like a log falling off a cliff and out of sight. One day I will take that plunge too, this world being but one of many.  Till then I live my life and gaze at the stars thankful for all I have. Mary and the kids keep me sane and I know happiness in the full. Adieu my friends. See you on the other side.