Old Growth

Silas Gap didn’t swat at the flies. He leaned against the chain link fence letting the bugs form a crown around his head. It was warm for spring, and the birds were singing chickadee-dee-dee in a sad way. I imagined hot braids across his back as he pressed against the steel cords, the sun behind him. Gap made the uncomfortable look comfortable. I was sitting next to him watching the ants parade along the slope disappearing beneath the sand and grit rubble. He let his jaw slide sideways and began to grind as though his teeth itched, which made me start.

“Now what?” I asked, looking up.

Gap yawned and let his fingers wrap around the diamond links so he could hold on and let his body stretch outwards almost airborne like some mythological winged creature. He looked magnificent the way his reddish-brown hair flared in the sun, his satisfied grin. We had found our way through the pines to the scrapyard, climbing the steep embankment to where the fencing began.

“I think we should find a spot that will let us in.”

I watched his frozen bird-like stance, afraid he might let go or slip if we didn’t move. He pulled himself back to land. We were hovering over a cornice that faced the woods.

“It’s just a lot of trash, and we can even see some of it from here.” I turned and peered through the slim wires at a hill of car doors, flattened like tin cans. A slight breeze had come, replacing the scent of pine with something vitriolic, damp grass with metallic overtures.

“I bet there is a tractor in there,” Gap said slowly, “and one of those metal claw machines, just like at the arcade, with the keys still in it.”

“I’d rather go to the arcade.”

“Come on, we can’t make it all the way here and turn around.”

“We can.”

Gap didn’t hear me and started to march in the opposite direction from where we started. I held my breath, the stench thick, but I could only hold my breath for half a minute and Gap didn’t turn around in time. I looked back at the woods, cool and green, and then at Gap’s blinding silhouette.

With long strides I caught up, eyes locked on the tips of my boots, the worn edges. They were the same boots from two years ago. I didn’t grow, not like Gap. He was a head taller and I felt even smaller, walking behind his effortless gait, stepping into the footprints of his new sneakers with the reddish-orange swoosh, blue stripes, bright white.

“It’s late, nearly six,” I said, after waiting as long as possible.

“Do you need to go?” He paused for a moment before stating what I already knew, “It doesn’t matter when I get back.” Gap’s parents weren’t like everyone else’s. They never really took notice, but we did, as though we had to for his sake.

“I’ll walk with you a ways.” I didn’t want to walk home alone. There was a good long stretch through the woods, and the older kids were always hanging around there. For someone slight in stature, I did draw attention. If I walked a little farther maybe I could persuade Gap to turn around before the sun hung too low and the horizon burned up.

At points, we had to hold on to the metal fence poles to keep our balance, the dirt crumbling underneath our boots. But it didn’t matter, we stayed on our route, the smell was becoming more familiar, sinking in, and Gap nearly blocked the sun for most of the way. He didn’t even break a sweat, but rather the rays of light seemed to refract back into the atmosphere.

I was getting ready to interrupt the silence again when a new voice strained through the heat from the sloping earth below us. Gap stopped and I nearly walked into him.

“Aw, it’s Lily,” I said. I didn’t feel like waiting, especially since I knew how hard it was to get up the hill. But Gap, he dropped down on his stomach and reached out to her. I was surprised how easily he lifted her, so she ended up perched on the ledge next to him. Lily always followed Gap, she was younger and we all said she was his pet. If she wasn’t Lily, I would have thought she was in love, but Lily had boots just like us and didn’t mind the ants.

“Hey Lily.”

“Hey Marcus.”

“How did you know we were all the way over here?”

She shrugged her shoulders, standing up to brush off her jeans. “You guys are always hanging in the woods.”

“Yeah, but we’re not in the woods.”

“You were talking about doing this the other day, and I know how to follow a trail.” I was ready to volley back that she had been secretly following us the whole time, but the way Gap was standing there made me shut my mouth. Lily with all her golden curls was unlike any of the other girls. I would even say pretty, but I couldn’t admit it because we were nearly the same height and she could run faster than me when we raced at school. Gap always thought it was funny and maybe that’s why he let her hang around.

“I was waiting to see if you would show up,” he said. I looked up at him, wondering if he meant it. His smile, disarming. Lily took the lead and Gap didn’t mind. He bowed, sweeping his arm out in a flourish as she walked by, and for once I thought maybe it was the other way around. She may have followed, but he let her after all.

“Lily, when do you have to be home?” I yelled from the back after a few minutes of silence.

“I don’t know, Marcus. I don’t think it matters much.”

I nodded to no one, the two of them farther ahead now. I would have to turn back on my own and find the connecting trails that weaved back to the dead end street. I half smiled, thinking about how there was never a maze where you wanted to find the dead end.

For the next half-hour I practiced spitting and whistling, dragging my feet, hoping they would slow down and give up, until I finally had to admit I would be late for dinner if I didn’t hurry.

“Oh all right, Marcus, don’t get lost in those woods,” Gap said, not in a mean way, before running his tongue along the edge of his broken tooth. It was an especially sharp tooth and he took exceptional delight in polishing it as though he might eventually wear it down so it wouldn’t be so obvious.

Lily turned and waved, I couldn’t see her face with the sun in my eyes. As I walked alone in the opposite direction, the distance between me and them quickening, the fence looked long and glittered. It was a boundary for our woods marking the point where our ownership ended. I think Gap felt the need to breach it for that reason. For me, who always preferred a more passive approach, walking along the chain links was enough. Eventually the narrow dirt path would erode and it would all fall away.

* * *

It wasn’t until after dinner when the sirens started. They wailed from far off and then right by the house and down the street. A few minutes went by and I almost believed that was the end of it, before a series of blue and red lights swung through the front window. Gap told me if only the lights were on then the emergency was over. Either someone was dead or they were okay, but not anything in between.

I ran outside to where my father was talking with our neighbors. I leaned against him, my head hovering above his waist. For a while, it was nearly all speculation. Gap’s house was only two blocks away. It seemed necessary to run over since he probably knew what was going on, but my father shook his head and I turned back to the yard to show my annoyance.

I had lost interest by the time the phone rang. I was kicking at the rocks bordering my mother’s vegetable garden on the side of the house. I only heard the bright ring of the phone because the windows were open.

I couldn’t hear my mother’s voice but I could see her through the panes. Her shoulders were curved, right arm crossed over her waist, as though she was holding herself together. My father’s hand touched her; he was listening too. I was waiting for them to call me in when my mother finally hung up. I resumed kicking at the rocks, but my feet lost touch with the ground before I even felt my father’s arms around me. My head swung back from the force of his embrace, and I saw the sky turning dark and navy. It was later than I thought. I could feel the air pressing out of me. I couldn’t say anything, so I kept looking at the leaves above me, their symmetry making the weightless sky tangible. When he finally let go, all I heard was the word sorry. I would hear it again and again for longer than I wanted. I guess everyone knew how close I was to Gap; the only person closer was Lily.

* * *

I dreamt of ants. They combed through peels of aluminum and grated wire. I wasn’t supposed to see it, but I looked and saw. It made me want to forget his face.

* * *

I lay in the yard and looked at the sky churning over the clouds, making a mess of the afternoon. It was cloudy out, made worse by my blurred tears. I would not go, and my father didn’t try to change my mind. Instead he walked by me in the yard, in his black suit, and gave me a hard smile. I rolled over on my side and heard the vibrations of the earth. I was embarrassed, by my useless tears and the way he had held me after the phone rang.

I don’t remember how long I lay on my side. I had a small stone I was using for digging. It felt good to dig and get nowhere, and watch a little slice of earth widen into a scar. Soon a worm rolled up into view, a small one, his gray coils like a slinky. I jabbed at him and immediately felt bad about it. The way he flailed up and arched his eyeless body. I’m sorry, I thought and sat up so I wouldn’t have to watch him anymore.

Movement caught my eye and it took me a moment to recognize the figure hanging by the edge of our lawn. Lily. I wondered how long she had been waiting, hovering, as though we were in the middle of a game of tag.

I didn’t say anything at first. I had not seen her since Gap had pulled her up one-handed, falling next to us in a tangled heap of blonde and denim. Her hair was all tied back now in a single braid. I wanted her to say hello, but I knew she would not. I heard she had not spoken in days.

“Lily,” it felt rough and I wondered how long it had been since I had spoken. I could not remember.

She walked toward me, someone had put her in a dress, but her boots were still on. She sat down next to me, not bothering to cross her legs.

I did not know what to say besides her name so I said it again because it felt nice. My heart beating raggedly, the blood running out on me. She looked so different since our walk. I called it our walk, but it was Gap’s and I knew I had no real right to it.

I noticed the bruises on her wrists, the ones my mother and father talked about in whispers when they thought I had gone to bed. But I hadn’t slept, not really, not since. It was a labored sleep that took effort. My mother had to change my sheets from the sweat.

“Lily,” I said again, pausing on each L, feeling my tongue press against my front teeth. The word, her name, light like her hair. She was looking at the street. I seized the moment to study her wrist again. They were the thick lines of large fingers, her wrist like my own, slender, blue veins visible. My own hand automatically reached out, enamored by those strange marks. I felt her tense, but she did not pull away, as though she wanted me to study them. I had never been alone with her before. There was always Gap.

Her green eyes looked unimpressed and I removed my hand in frustration. I wondered why she had come. She of all people who followed him like a dog.

“It’s not fair you get to know, keeping it to yourself like this,” my tongue tripped and the words came out in a loose jumble of hot spit and tears that had been left in my throat. “Just go, get.” I pushed her, weakly.

To my surprise she lifted her hand, the hand I had just touched, and brought her fingers to my face. She wiped away the spit in long strokes. I held still until she was finished. Not sure what to say. I’m sorry. But, I felt more than sorry. I wanted to be running next to her. And then her ahead of me to where Gap stood on the baseball field, his arms outstretched waiting at the finish line. A small T of a figure until we got close and could see the long muscles in his arms. And Lily would win and jump and Gap would catch her and I would slow until I was left bent over my knees, disappointed but smiling.

* * *

They had found a hole in the fence. A tower of metal machinery. You didn’t need a claw to crush a body — but she had to have gotten those marks from someone.… She wouldn’t speak, not to me, not anymore. I was not Gap, the murdered ants patrolling up and down. I burned. My pillow felt like the braided fence, the glare of Lily’s hair. Sticky sweet vines, buckled tin. I fell down the slope, got lost on the trail. I saw them go in, into our boundary of green. They looked at me sideways, but Gap said they wouldn’t cause trouble. You had to stare and stand straight, make the dogs know.

* * *

I kissed her before she left. I kissed her while the sun set the trees afire. It was selfish the way I poured over it, stretched it out in my mind so it lasted longer.

In my memory of it, for it had already become a memory, her eyes were closed. One had to close their eyes to make it mean something.

It took a few years before I stopped wandering the trails that Gap and I had made. They no longer seemed private; the woods were getting closed off and new houses built up into the hillside. The scrapyard would become a parking lot. My father said they were cleaning the place up, trying to prove a point or something. Gap was lost anyway, so it didn’t matter if they were cleaning or not.

I finally had the growth spurt that I had been waiting for. Lily didn’t seem to notice or care we were no longer the same height. Sometimes she looked older, but for the most part her outline remained the same for me, bittersweet, all wrapped up in the greensmell of leaves and dirt and rust, chickadee-dee-dee.

I don’t think of Gap often. It’s usually something inconsequential. A mundane thread of time that becomes transportive. A pair of headlights scanning through a window. The shadow of a fast-moving cloud. And that’s when I see him. His arms spread wide, a drowning bird in the wake of a waning sun now asleep amid the loam, the light rain of early spring, his body twisted reaching for something unknown to all of us.