Under the Walnut Tree

By S.D. Tolson

Teenagers live passionally in a challenging world of incredible changes and surprising experiencies. Standing between the fantasies of their vanishing childhood and the reality of mature everyday life, they adventure dreamily into the future of desire. Some of them react against the social constraints imposed by tradition, and find in the unbound forces of nature the values missing in the imperfect world of grown-ups. In their conflictive growing process the rebellious teen goes through a surprising metamorphosis that leads him to dramatically develop into his true mature identity. S. D. Tolson was born and raised in a land of ample sea horizons and high mountains and presently, after having lived in several diverse U.S. regions, resides in San Antonio, Texas, evoking the absent mountains and the distant sea. Literature has been S. D. Tolson’s life avocation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jul 5, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312332263

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Under the Walnut Tree

S. D. Tolson

Under the Walnut Tree

mediaIsla

Las edades de Alicia

Kingwood, TX 2013

Copyright © S. D. Tolson

Colección Las edades de Alicia No. 6

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First Edition: September 2013

ISBN: 978-1-312-33226-3

Published by: mediaisla editores, ltd/lulu.com

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Cover Design: © Praxis Peña

Interior Design Concept: mediaIsla editores, ltd

sunt mihi semidei, sunt, rustica numina, nymphae

faunique satyrique et monticolae silvani;

quos quoniam caeli nondum dignamur honore,

quas dedimus, certe terras habitare sinamus.

Ovidi Nasonis

Metamorphosen Liber Primvs, vv. 192-195.

I have my demigods to think about,

Rustic divinities, the nymphs, the fauns,

The Satyrs, and the spirits of the forest

That dwell on mountainsides, although as yet,

We haven’t honored them with residence

In heaven, we must guarantee their safety

Upon the earth which we have given them.

Ovid.

Metamorphoses. I, vv. 264-270.

The End of Summer 

Look at you, Ari, Carmen, the-prettiest-girl-in-school, had almost screamed when I came to sit with her group at lunch-time. You are gorgeous, she exclaimed for everyone to hear as she embraced me. Isn’t he, guys? she asked the other girls at the table, holding me in her arms like one of her prized pets. She would have kissed me, Carmen, the passionate girl, there and then, if I hadn’t scurried away and sat a few seats from her, next to Molly, a safer companion.

Don’t pay attention to her, Ari. You boys are driving Carmen crazy since she arrived at school this morning, Molly said to me. But you know what? She is right; Ari Malacher, you’re looking great. The summer at your Granddad’s did you good.

You are not looking bad yourself, Molly, I dared to say. She actually looked different, not like Billy’s twin sister anymore, although they look identical.

I know, she beamed, kissed me, quickly, on the cheek —a warm enthralling kiss— and ran away to her class, followed by Carmen furiously accusing her of being a rotten friend, a weasel of a bad girl, a boy friends snatcher. As for me, I just sat there, the target of the jokes and guffaws from the guys around me.

At the bell I ran to the restroom to look in the mirror and compare myself with the others, wondering what they saw in me that was different.

Admiring yourself, pretty boy? an upperclassman commented. You’re a hot looking little animal all right, kiddo. Better be prepared.

I stared at him; baffled, I suppose.

I’m telling you, be prepared you’re too different, too fucking attractive, kid. You’re in trouble. He poked me in the ribs and went about his business.

In the mirror I saw myself again as someone I didn’t know, someone who looked at me with two piercing eyes, surprised at their alien stare. Were they mine, those eyes of wonder, the eyes my mother used to kiss shut every night? The eyes she would compare longingly with my father’s unfathomable stare in her night table portrait? My eyes were his eyes; my loneliness, his absence.

I was late to Mrs. Tolliver’s English class and made, with no intention, the grand entrance, to the mocking cheer and applause of my classmates. They looked at me with admiring, envious eyes. The center of everyone’s attention, I walked swiftly to my seat at the back of the room.

Sitting there in a class I could hardly follow I felt like a caged animal. The wild beast I had been when playing alone in the woods all summer long was trapped, cornered, chained to submission by the rules of men. It cried for its freedom. I had to get out, get away, back to my wanderings in search of what waited for me in the lands of my ancestors, the lands Granddad was keeping for me, the son of his son, the sole heir of his imperiled dreams of a world untouched by wickedness.

From my seat I could see out the window, half-framed by the shimmering leaves of the old school yard cottonwood, the wooded hills to the east, where some new houses were breaking up all suggestion of the wild. I could imagine my flight beyond those trodden hills into the Garden, hidden far up in the distant mountains.

Away I went. Dreamily I ran all the way into my Granddad’s land, up to the knoll where our walnut tree, standing tall and imposing, was murmuring its ancient spells in the breeze. I had been learning to understand its teachings in long summer hours of solitary wandering under its canopy of shifting lights and shades. Granddad had taught me to go there when troubled and confused, when in need to keep quiet and listen to the whisper of a voice, even wiser than his, in the sounds of the ocean wind rustling the tree fronds above me. I would listen to the secret murmur of nature telling me by confusing oracles what I was, what I was to become. Reclining on its bole many an afternoon I learned to love the land of my inheritance, with its meandering river and its hills which, in successive increasing waves of deepening greens, climbed from the ample arch of the beach and dunes to the coastal mountains and the farther Eastern range, palely dark in the distance, alluring.

Ari Malacher, the teacher called me when I had almost reached the quiet of that outlook under the walnut tree. Daydreaming again?

Yes, Ma’am, I admitted. I was daydreaming again. Why lie to her or to anyone? I was daydreaming, and a better person because of it. Different, I thought, from the lot of them around me, my classmates. Of course they jeered and laughed at my answer.

Mrs. Tolliver smiled.

She likes you, pretty boy, someone jabbered behind me.

What if she did? Didn’t everybody look at me as if I were an exotic animal to be owned and admired?

She is in love with you, Ari, another said.

Mrs. Tolliver told me to pay attention and resumed her talking to the whole class.

I sat straight, but I couldn’t pay attention to her talk. I couldn’t avoid looking out of the window to the hills of my escape. Brightly lit and tantalizing under the afternoon sun, the hills called me back to run free to the wild, away from the world of everyday reality.

A collective moan brought me back to the classroom.

Not the same boring crap again. Several classmates were complaining.

Mrs. Tolliver wanted us to write about our vacations.

Instead of crying, why don’t you tell Mrs. Tolliver it’s a trite, boring assignment, and that you are not going to do it? I taunted them.

Why don’t you do it? was the obvious response. After all she liked me best, they said.

You are her little boy, Ari beast, someone hissed from somewhere. She will do anything you ask her to do.

Go, fucking cat. Go for the hot cougar.

Go, go, go, they panted, they drooled.

I shrugged, not so much disgusted as troubled. I tried to run from them, back to my hills and be lost, deep in the woods, following the twisted paths of deer and other feral beings, my true companions. But I was trapped by the gang and their vulgar teasing.

I bet you don’t dare. The challenge came from I didn’t care who.

Bet I do. It wasn’t such a big deal after all. I raised my hand, and interrupted Mrs. Tolliver in mid-sentence. Do you really want us to do something so boring as writing about our summer vacation? I asked her in the most naive of tones and a slightly quivering voice. I didn’t dare, though, to go as far as saying that it was such a trite assignment that it surprised me she would have even thought of it as an exercise worth doing. I won the bet, but I got myself in trouble.

See me after class, Mrs. Tolliver said, not a bit amused.

It was the last class of the day, the first day of school. I was starting on the wrong foot. Mrs. Tolliver had sounded disappointed. I rested my head in my folded arms on top of my desk and tried to go back to my daydreaming.

At the end of the period I walked to the teacher’s desk followed by my classmates’ muffled goads. From the hall came a wolfish howl. I blushed and half turned away.

Where are you going, Ari? Mrs. Tolliver called me, oblivious, it seemed, to all that teasing. We have to talk.

I did it only on a dare, I told her when she asked for an explanation to what I had said about the assignment. No one else would have done it. I would have left it there, but I couldn’t. Mrs. Tolliver was silent, waiting for what she wanted me to add. But really, I said bluntly, I think they are right.

You also find it boring? Or is it too trite of an exercise to write about your summer vacation?

Yes and no. Not exactly, I couldn’t tell her my true reason. Again, she waited in silence. I cannot write about my summer vacation, I mumbled finally.

What kind of an excuse is that, Ari? She wasn’t upset, but amused. Are you going to tell me you lost your talent over the summer? You have always been good at writing. It goes with your daydreaming.

Not anymore. I was certain of that. I’m not good with words now, I confessed, baffled as I was by the ineffability of my experience. I had nothing I could tell in words about my summer.

Well, Ari Malacher, the teacher in her spoke, you will have to find the words. That’s the whole point of the assignment.

Still, I insisted, I’ll prefer to do something else, something totally different. Nothing like what the others will be doing.   

She laughed. As always, the same individualist Ari. I saw she liked me for it. Growing up this summer, she added, putting her hand on my shoulder while looking at me with a warm stare, hasn’t changed you a bit.

I guessed I hadn’t. I was still the hardheaded independent little kid who wants to do his own thing, who has to differ.

Mrs. Tolliver knew me well. She knew I sat in her class watching out the window, daydreaming, as she said, who knows what fantastic adventures in those hills out there.

Ari, she said, and in her eyes I saw myself as the wonderful being I wanted to be, you are not a little kid anymore, you are becoming a young man and you have to start acting like one.

Why should I? I was becoming someone else, Mrs. Tolliver was right; but not, I hoped, the young man she was expecting me to become. Not if I could avoid it. I had a totally different idea about the matter, although I didn’t know exactly at the moment what it was. For certain, though, it was not growing up to become another one of them, those who come out of school, ready or not, to be part of the crowd.

No way, I brushed aside her comment.

What then? You are going to stop growing up?

I wish I could.

But you cannot.

I know. I had to admit.

That’s precisely why you have to write: to grow up to be who you are going to be, who you are becoming. Think about it, Ari. Think and write.

I would rather do it my own way. I insisted. I had to insist.

I see. She could not get upset at me. And what is your own way, Ari? What do you propose to do instead?

I don’t know. Anything but writing about my summer vacation.

Anything? She busied herself moving papers on her desk. Then she stretched up in the defiant posture of someone who has been insulted to her face. Like half-cooking an easier non written audiovisual project, I suppose?

No. It is not that.

What is it then, Ari?

I just cannot write about my summer vacation.

She looked at me in a way that made me like her a little more. Something funny in her grin, a spark of mischievous recognition of a kindred soul showing in her eyes emboldened me to add with a dramatically lowered voice: I wouldn’t know how to do it.

Come on, don’t tell me that, not you. You only think so, Ari. I am sure you will see differently once you try to do the assignment like everyone else. Now, if you want to do some other project later, I would love to help you with it. But first, I want to see you writing about your summer.

I really will not be able to do it, I insisted. I didn’t have a vacation I could write about.

So, for you the exercise will be more effective: to write about what you cannot write about. That is the challenge.

A challenge was the last thing I needed. She was not going to let me avoid a bummer of an impossible task. I did not want to have any more reminders of my long, bewildering summer.

Get to it and you will be surprised.

She was starting to leave when, as if she had suddenly changed her mind, she turned around to where I was standing paralyzed, angry at her, and added, Try to write something that might have happened to you. And then she left, leaving a hint of a scent in the air —a nice one. It might work, she said, as if to herself, when she was already out in the hall.

The halls were empty by then. It felt good being all alone. I walked to my locker as noiselessly as I could, stepping only on the tan tiles, the black ones being too muddy a color.

Summer was still blasting outside. Through the glass doors at the end of the main hall, the cool cave-like space where I lingered for a while, I could make out the brightly lit figures of some students waiting in the yard. I wanted them to leave before I went out. My mother had probably forgotten to come pick me up, as I should have expected from her, and I wasn’t going to stand outside forever, letting other late parents ask me if I needed a ride. I wandered around the halls letting the time pass until it was late enough to get moving on my own, unnoticed. I was the only one, I thought, in the whole empty school, a building in silence. The absence of people gave me a mixed feeling of peace and despondency.

My locker was empty also, being the first day of classes. Half-hidden behind its open door from anyone who might have looked in from the outside, I stared blankly inside the metal cubicle —my only private space in the public labyrinth of the school— and thought about the possibility of doing what the teacher had suggested: to write about what the summer was not; to write about what it should have been, the summer not of musing and half dreams, but of action, adventure and discovery.

A bang on the locker door almost threw me to the floor.

Ari, why are you always running away?

I’m not, I lied.

Yes, you are and don’t deny it. Billy had been looking for me everywhere after class. My talk with the English teacher had been a long one.

Where were you?

In hiding, of course, but I said that I had been there all the time.

No, you weren’t. But it doesn’t matter now, we’ve got to go, they’re closing.

Billy, wait. I called, I have to organize my locker, which was empty.

Not now. You can do it tomorrow. Let’s go!

Don’t talk to me like that, Billy. I’m not your pet dog you can order around.

You look like one, though. With a warm hand he messed with my hair and growled. I barked in response. Pushing and shoving each other we reached the door. The old janitor was laughing next to the exit, waiting for us to leave and lock up for the night.

Go home, and no peeing on my bushes, you crazy puppies. The old guy laughed at his own lame joke.

The afternoon was taking its time to settle down and the evening sadness had begun to creep all over in the quiet of the empty school grounds. I stopped to take a breath and looked around me, trying to find the reason for my sudden feeling of despair. A neighborhood dog barked. A staccato choir of howling and barking, near and far, followed, as if the silence distressed all dogs as much as it pained me with an anguished feeling of loss. I added my own howling to their calls.

We’ll take you home. Billy’s father was waiting in the only vehicle left in the parking lot. We had to walk half a football field of empty parking spots to get to it. A dense symphonic melody as heavy as the impending nightfall was coming from the old-looking monstrosity of his car.

Do you want to stay at my home tonight? Billy offered.

I might not, I said, avoiding an answer. Let us see how things work at home.

Billy’s father did not even glance at us when we got into our seats. He was listening to his music, eyes closed and a frown on his brow. He started the engine in a hypnotic trance. As a blast of horns and kettle drums worked the speakers to a maximum we drove across the parking lot, too fast, and into the street, which by then was free of traffic.

I like that. I said.

It figures. You are weird.

Brahms, said the father in triumphal brevity. That’s Brahms for you.

Brahms, Bach, Bartok, buttocks, bum heads . . . boring.

I like it, though, I insisted, holding my ground.

Billy tried to break his father’s music with an out-of-tune mockery of a popular song, but tired of it even before his father reached to raise the volume.

Brahms was still going strong when the car pulled into the driveway. With the engine stopped the music gained in clarity. Billy opened his door brusquely, got out of the car, and walked toward the house in a fury. I started to follow him, but he stopped almost at the front door and walked back to the car. His father was waiting for the music to end.

Dad, Ari would like to stay here tonight.

Talk to your mother, Billy’s father said. He stayed in the car, listening to the last bars of the symphony.

Billy’s mother did not want to be the one denying our request. Call your mother, she said to me, I will talk to her.

I went to the studio and overhead Billy’s parents talking in the kitchen about my staying or not staying overnight, this being a school day, Billy’s mother argued. And her house, after all, was not, as she put it in ironic distaste, a bed and breakfast, an open home for transient misfits with no decent family of their own. Her cooking in the process became a violent act of indignation. She banged pots and cabinet doors while talking. When I came into the kitchen she was angrily handling a kitchen knife; a huge one, and gestured with it theatrically.

I cannot stay, I lied.

She looked at me with scorn and delight, and slapped the knife into the counter in triumph.

I had not even called my mother. Besides, she probably wouldn’t have answered the phone, not being home. Billy’s mom said something about mothers being the only responsible and sensible people in a household, and went back to cooking with the prideful poise of the righteous.

Larry, did you buy what I asked you to get at the store? she asked her husband.

Whatever it was, I totally forgot, he admitted. "Tell me again what it was and I will go get it. Won’t take me long. On the way I can drop off Ari at his home. What was it I was supposed to buy?

You know, she answered in anger, I told you ten times already.

Billy’s father took some time in coming out of the house. We had to wait next to the car, like two anxious pets hoping for a ride around the wide world, far from the inside walls of the screaming house. He walked slowly toward the car, trying to seem unaffected by the embarrassing situation. At the click of the car’s door lock, we swiftly got in, ready to go, go, go into the streets and roads of nowhere and of promising adventure. We sat back, hid in the gloom of the back seat. With a grin of complicity barely noticeable under his unkempt beard, Billy’s father sat ceremoniously at the wheel. Here we go, he said as he turned on the engine and drove away, the car radio blaring some enthusiastic von Suppe’s call for joyful action.

Ari does not have the keys to his house, Billy said a few minutes into the ride.

Didn’t he just talk to his mother?

She wasn’t home. I explained.

I see, Billy’s father sighed, after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.

We drove by my house. Billy’s dad did not stop to drop me off at my door. Neither did he stop at the store. We were running some capricious errand, driven by the foolishly hopeful spirit of a musical fantasy.

First things first, offered Billy’s father as the only explanation of his wayward driving. A few minutes later we were turning into the neighborhood pizza joint.

I am sure you kids are hungry. I am. Nevertheless, he lingered in the parking lot, in the farthest spot he could find, while the music played to its end.

We got out of the car and waited for him a few yards away, standing awkwardly in the middle of the half empty lot. He eventually turned off the radio, got out of the car, and walked toward the mall with the energy and speed of a cavalry charge. We followed him, amused and ashamed of having to run like two little kids behind this crazy balding bearded guy gone absurd beyond the limits of decorum.

We had a quiet dinner of pizza and salad. Billy’s father had a beer; we drank soda and a sip each from his glass. It was a warm and silent get together around a dining table. I felt as good as ever. Billy’s father was in front of us, a mysterious presence we did not even try to understand. We made believe that he wasn’t there and we looked at him briefly from the corner of our eyes while we talked to each other in very, very low voices. We knew he was also looking at us stealthily, as if we were not with him, as if he were not providing the food and drinks and was not the patriarch presiding at the muted ceremony of eating in company.

Dad, Billy said when we were to leave, may I stay at Ari’s instead?

I hadn’t said a word about him staying at my house, but I liked the idea.

He doesn’t have a house key, does he?

His mother must be back by now, Billy insisted.

Probably not, I said.

We can wait for her in the back yard. Billy was determined.

Let us go and see. Billy’s father stood up to leave.

May I stay with Ari, then? Billy insisted. His father seemed uncomfortable at Billy’s demand. I tried to make myself invisible.

What did your mother say? Billy’s father asked in a tired murmur.

I didn’t ask her. I thought about it only now. He was upset at his father, pushed the chair back impatiently and got up. Angry, he walked towards the door. Come on Ari, we are taking you home. He shouted as if he were in charge.

I’m not your pet dog, remember? I shouted back and waited for Billy’s father to leave before I did. He seemed unhappy and tired. I felt uneasy and sorry for my part in the uncomfortable situation and I would have liked to say something to him, but only mumbled a few sounds, a growl of thankfulness, like the dog I was made to be.

It has been my pleasure, Ari. He was leading me out of the door with a slight touch of his hand on my shoulder. One day soon you will know the joy of treating others to a meal. We walked in silence toward the car, and in silence he drove us to my front door.

My mother, to my amazement, was home and was delighted to have Billy stay. Of course he could stay, her Billy dear, forever if he wanted. She held Billy’s head with two hands and kissed him once and twice on his puffed cheeks. Of course, my little darling boy, you can stay with us and, yes, I will prepare you a great breakfast tomorrow.

Billy’s father smiled, amused and proud.

But what I’m saying, my mother wailed, addressing Billy’s father, your boy is not a boy anymore. They are no longer our little boys. And this time it was my turn to be smooched, twice, thrice, and be embarrassed and happy.

The unavoidable phone call to Billy’s mother turned into a long and difficult negotiation. Next day was a school day, she argued repeatedly, and what about rules and good habits. My mother counteracted with a senseless prattle to disarm all logic and stubborn determination.

At last Billy’s father drove back alone, probably listening to some sedating tunes in a world by himself behind the steering wheel of that old car of his, perhaps his only true possession. My mother said good night to us and disappeared, leaving me to deal with the sleeping arrangements. We stayed in the kitchen and in a matter of seconds made a mess of it in preparing a dessert, a sort of souped-up French toast we concocted with too many eggs and topped with jam, ice cream, compote and a maraschino cherry from my mother’s bar for looks.

Sated, we went up to my room and settled down on the floor on top of the blankets to talk all night long about anything and everything as if we were camping out. In the dark my bedroom had become a realm of adventure and possibilities. It was the wide open space of a night in the wild, its darkest corners as deep as the immensity of the infinite sky. Billy and I were stranded adventurers wondering about what was going to be our next challenge. To make the situation even more convincing, the moon rays played tricky games of lights and shadows on the walls as they filtered through the moving branches of the acacia outside my window.

The moon is out hunting, I said. Anything can happen now. It’s an almost full moon, you know?

And you are full of it, Ari, as always.

Our neighbor’s dog —a good friend of ours since ever— started barking wildly. I shivered, of course.

Didn’t I tell you, Billy? Rover is warning us about something weird moving around out there.

He is only barking at the moon, the silly dog.

That’s precisely what I’m telling you, I said in all earnest, the moon is the source of all perils.

We’re doomed, then, Billy moaned, now playing along beautifully.

Not yet. We can protect ourselves. . .

. . . and Rover, Billy inserted his concern, the sentimental animal lover.

. . . from its witch’s powers, I finished. Rover has nothing to worry about, he is a dog, a privileged being, you know, that cannot be touched by wickedness and evil.

"He is the Guardian Angel, right?

Yes, he is, I suppose. We are the ones at risk. I threw my side of the blanket over Billy, who disappeared under it. I jumped to my feet, stepping on him on purpose to enhance the urgency of the moment. He groaned and complained, half choking in laughter.

Come on, Billy, get up. Don’t hide there under the covers whining, you coward. We have to act before it’s too late.

Into the dark hall we went and downstairs in the stealthy search for the secret weapon that would save us from being transformed by the moon rays into mutant half breeds of human and who knows what hideous looking night sprites or even wolves, those that roam forever in the dark.

I wouldn’t mind being a wolf, Billy said. I told him to be quiet if he didn’t want us to be discovered by the witch’s minions who were looking for us everywhere to feed on our delicious and desirable young human blood.

Barefooted, we did not make a sound —the perfection of our plan even more enjoyable in secrecy of silence. In the studio, next to the living room, I searched in the desk drawers.

Here it is. In my hands I held the bulky old fashioned video camera my father must have bought when I was to be born. He had thought then, mother had told me once in dismissive amusement, of making those family films nobody watches after a while, as if they had been made only to prove the sarcastic powers of oblivion.

The secret weapon? Billy asked rhetorically. The good God has heard our prayers.

Don’t get religious, Billy. This has nothing to do with your good God, I chastised him.

What about the moon? Isn’t it a goddess?

Of course not. There are no gods, Billy; no goddesses either. Not in our world, at least.

Okay, no gods, then. No prayers. What are we afraid of, then?

Of everything and everyone, I answered in the ominous voice of ill fate.

We have the secret weapon, though. Don’t we?

Yes, you’re right, I said. let’s go use it right now.

Back we went upstairs, risking our lives in the wilderness of the night, which was teeming with unpredictable forces of damnation.

Once we film the moon, capturing its image in the labyrinth of the technical universe, its light won’t have any influence on us, I invented.

As simple as that? Billy asked, somehow unconvinced.

What more do you want?

A little gore, of course.

Billy, you’re sick. You are not different from the rest of them —a true human beast.

Look who’s talking.

I’m better than human. I have evolved back to animal perfection. I justified my superiority.

Right on, Ari. You’re my pet dog.

If you say it again, I bite you. Or better yet, I piss on your shoes.

Slowly I opened my bedroom door. Rover was not barking and the moonlight was gone; no filigrees of lights and shadows squirming on the walls.

Rats! I said. She’s hiding.

Or gone for good. She was afraid of us and our weapon.

I left the camera on top of the bed signifying with it the end of the adventure.

Billy sat on my bed. He took the camera and handled it with careful interest. I should get me one of these, he said, talking mostly to himself. A nice secret weapon. With one of this in your hands there is no fear to fear.

You may have it. It’s yours.

We both knew it was not mine to be giving it to him, but he accepted it anyway. As proof of his ownership, he switched it on.

It works!

Of course it works. Mother keeps it ready for any occasion. It has never been used, though. That who knows what occasion never seems to happen.

Billy had begun to film me, in spite of the darkness.

Hey! I complained, Don’t steal my soul.

Don’t worry, Ari, you have no soul to care about. But I am capturing your body forever in the permanent time of the tape.

My body is my soul, I moaned as I dropped onto the floor and squirmed, entangled in a death wrestle with a monstrous snake, or better yet, with a wondrous dragon. After a few seconds I played dead.

Great acting, Billy shouted.

Outside, the dog started to bark again.

The moon is back!

Actually, the clouds had parted and the moon, a little higher in the sky than before, flicked a faint glimmer on my bedroom rug.

The magic bloom, I sighed from the netherworld. The magic bloom of resurrection. Vermin-like I crawled toward where, under the pale moonlight, the rug designs had the reddish tint of a flower or a blood clot.

Action! shouted Billy the moment I started to move, and began to film my resurrection.

Incredibly, he got the whole scene filmed. In the screen of my tv I was a ghostly mass of shadows moving within shadows. The effect was great: it made your nape hairs stand up in fear.

Fantastic! I cried.

From another world. Billy was really impressed. It’s creepy. You look so different, Ari.

Hey! I shouted again, surprising myself with my own suggestion. What if, instead of writing a boring composition about our summer, as Mrs. Tolliver wants us to do, we made a terror film of a summer adventure of our invention?

Because this is not an art class, Mrs. Write-a-boring-what-I-did-not-do-in-summer-composition said when, the following day, we approached her in class with our proposal. If you haven’t noticed, guys, this is an English class, she pointed out with a touch of ironic bantering. And English classes have to do with language, with reading and writing.

But… I began, hoping in vain that Mrs. Tolliver would, as the caring teacher she was, make an exception. After all, wasn’t I her pet student, as they said?

Obviously I wasn’t. There was no discussing the issue further, and we had to return to our seats dejected and, at least in my case, determined to avoid by all means, and as a matter of principle, the dull, unimaginative assignment she insisted on imposing on us.

It doesn’t matter what Mrs. Tolliver says, I’m not writing a word about vacations, I said later to Billy, and you are not either. Let us agree on this. I insisted on our idea of a visual story.

Well, Ari, it’s not so important, after all.

Billy, I jumped, you are so meek and conforming. I feel like kicking you in the ass, and actually tried, but he was quick and I ended up flat on the floor. Just the night before, I reminded him when he started running down the hall, he had been full of enthusiasm with our plan. I had convinced him to take the risk of doing things in our own way, and now he was backing down, always the uncertain one.

We are going to invent the summer we didn’t have, I had decided. We can be whatever we want to be, Billy. Isn’t this camera the magic weapon of our salvation?

The movie of our summer that wasn’t. He had repeated slowly a couple of times my last sentence. And then, Yes, yes, had hissed with conviction as if he had suddenly understood its meaning, a summer of our imagination. He had raised himself on his elbows and looked at me. I rose also. We looked at each other in perfect agreement.

Great! I said and punched him on his chest. He punched me back, harder, of course. Billy, tomorrow you start filming all you can film at school and everywhere.

Done, he promised, already a captive to the allure of the lens.

We left it there, unsure of what to do next. We dropped back down to the mat and fell silent. 

Thank you for staying, I said after a short while. I knew how his mother would make him feel sorry for having gone against her wishes. I was glad he had done it to be with me.

Any time.

It feels good having you here, I confessed.

Afraid of being left alone in the dark, the little boy? Billy teased me, changing the tone of the moment.

Who isn’t? I played the philosophical sincerity card.

You have always said you like to be left alone, haven’t you, Ari, the Steppenwolf?

"Yes, I do need to be alone, but not always. You are here, aren’t you?

There was no answer. Before I knew it I was also asleep. 

Of course, next morning we didn’t wake up on time to go to school. My mother did not care to wake us up, as she herself slept till mid-morning. By then, we were barely aware of the time. Summer was still with us, and in our film it was going to be the best summer ever.

A Black Sheep

I never had been much interested in school. Arriving late the second day of classes suited me quite well, and did not bother my mother at all. With Billy it was a different matter. He was indignant with me for having caused him to be late and for suffering his mother’s nagging and complaints about her troublesome and irresponsible son. Unlike me, he did not mind being in school and following orders. He didn’t mind the crowding, didn’t mind having to be always surrounded by others and be swallowed by the group. He actually liked going here and there, doing this and that in groups and associations, clubs and teams, and who knows what other forms of communal participation. In spite of these differences we were the best of friends and spent a lot of time together. I depended on his practical and organized ways, he needed my flights of unbridled imagination.

It took me a couple of days to get Billy to talk to me again. He managed to avoid me like the plague. The camera was waiting for him, hidden in my locker. Anxious as I was for him to start filming, I thought about cornering him somewhere in school, somehow, and make him listen to my apologies and my call to start work on our film. I even thought —such was my impatience— of asking his sister for help. Mid-morning Friday, however, as I was hiding in a bathroom avoiding my inane Government class, Billy walked in. I did not confront him until he was standing in front of the urinal, unable to move away. Bathrooms are ideal for desperate business.

Don’t even try to move, I whispered gangster-like into his ear, my index finger deeply sunk into his kidneys. I have you surrounded by my best men with orders to keeping you here for as long as it takes. You must allow me to talk to you. You must hear my most sincere apologies. And you better accept my offering of a safe passage to our summer land of adventure and freedom from grown-ups and other biped vermin. I can declaim a good convincing paragraph any time, especially in crucial circumstances.

Billy didn’t say a word. He was trying to avoid laughing and giving up to my demands too soon.

Your silence, oh wise hero, encourages me, I continued in a solemn voice, and I gave an order to my imaginary guards to leave us alone. As a sign of my good will and of our renewed friendship I will pee next to you in ceremonial brotherhood. Basic rituals, I assumed, solve most human troubles caused by misunderstandings and hurt feelings. I was not mistaken. Billy laughed blithely and told me I was an unbearable stupid funny fool.

And a good fuck, right? You queer slime, a disgusted voice said from behind us. Bathrooms can be very dangerous places for any kind of business. It was one of Billy’s swimming teammates, not one of his friends, obviously, the one who had talked so menacingly.

Go shit on your face, I said to the swimmer. He was lucky I had just ordered my guards to leave. I let him know how fortunate he was that I didn’t pay attention to swimming pool scum like him, and I walked out of the restroom.

Billy followed me a few seconds later.

Fine, he said. I see you’re determined to complicate my life.

An uncomplicated life is a bore. I declared, encouraging Billy to free himself from his childish fears.

I’d rather be bored, was his lame answer. The words, I thought, of someone entrapped by passivity.

Like last summer, right? When you turned into a walking dead man out of boredom. You’re a zombie, Billy. Look at you, rotten flesh and all. Disgusting. Actually he looked quite alive and in perfect shape. Come on, Billy minnow, I was getting tired of the hide and seek game. Get a life. Let’s go film our summer. It’s waiting for us.

Get rid of that good for nothing gay pretty face, growled the clammy guy from before, or I shall do it for you. He had just come out of the restroom, all spruced up and ready for a confrontation.

That’s okay, I said, throwing my arms up in sign of retreat. I wasn’t going to let any slimy swimmer start something that wasn’t going to end well for any of us. I am leaving. As I walked down the hall I added, to both of them, Go swim in your own pee, gooey amoeba.

That first week of classes we had been surprised by the new PE instructor and his team of overachieving assistant coaches. We were treated like a flock of sheep from the very start. We came into the gym expecting to be met there by our old coach, our good-hearted and caring Mr. Pym. Instead, we were shouted at by a younger, too athletic mouth-foaming mad jock, and rounded up by his guard of rabid human Rottweilers, some kind of junior versions of himself. A very few of us, of course, were uncomfortable and angered by the situation; most of the class, though, after the first shock, took to the collective role of a flock with the grumbling relish of youthful bodies in full action.

By the end of that first class we were clearly and unmistakably divided into two distinct groups. A large one made up of the good sheep, all baas and jumps; and the second one, of only two, at the most three black sheep; or better yet, disgruntled bad lone wolves, those difficult few who always end up making life miserable for everyone around them, starting with themselves.

Being tagged as a black sheep (and this was not the image used by the coach, who had a much more colorful expression to refer to us) suited me perfectly well. Coming from the maw of the Big Naked Ape, the Super Beast himself, the insulting tag felt like a badge of honor and I was to fulfill my duties as the prime pain-in-the-neck member of the team to the best of my capacities. To start with, I decided, I was to forego any formalities of respect and not follow orders, no matter how loudly they were shouted at me. Not fitting into the group, the happy-go-lucky bunch of sweating, groaning, even vomiting aspiring semi-titans, gladiators to be, was another basic principle of being a true black sheep, a bona fide and self-respecting dark fleeced rebel. My option included, to be sure, some not too easily bearable consequences, as I was to learn pretty soon after our second PE class the following Thursday.

Not all was darkness and negativity in those