The Key

By Brian Elder

What would you do to learn about the way things really are? Would you be willing to kiss your old habits goodbye? All of them? What if you were bored?
What if you suspected that all the adults you knew were lying to you, that there was nothing good on TV and you just really wanted to go outside and look at some flowers? What if you suspected that the flowers themselves were lying to you but only because you were lying to yourself?

Meet Stephen, who meets Mr. Edviso. Stephen is fourteen, not real happy, and full of questions. Mr. Edviso is pretty even-keeled emotionally and full of answersbut answers that lead to more questions, answers that lead to what some call magic.

If you are willing to swallow your anger, if you are willing to admit to yourself that your first reaction might be wrong, if you are willing to keep a cool head at least for the next five minutesthat is to carry the key.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Nov 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504369053

Brian Elder

Brian Elder has painted fresco with a WPA-era frescoist, has had a rich and rewarding career as an artist and a designer, has been adopted into one Native American family, and has befriended many others. He has worked as a counselor in northern California and is trying to stay humble. This is his first book. Perfect bound, 200 pages. Cover illustration by the author, Brian Elder ([e-mail]).

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Copyright © 2016 Brian Elder.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6904-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-6905-3 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 04/04/2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

At The Edge Of The Woods

Tim

Larger Circles

Fox Circles

The Mission Bells

Vernor’s

Via De La Sombre

At Least His Socks Were Dry

Blacker Than Black

You Are Required To Pay For Every Item

Biking Uphill

Amarantha

The Shoe Perdu

Gladiators

I’d Like To Meet His Tailor

Nothing To See Here, Folks

Phyllis Stein

I’ll See You In September

The End Of The Six Dollar Man

Deuces Are Wild

It Does Not Matter Whether It Rains Or Not

It wasn’t so much that they were magic. It’s just that they understood things. They could feel, in a way that no one else could feel. They were a part of every leaf, every stone, and every blade of grass. And they somehow learned how to be a part of that – and how to be better people, by being a part of that.

I want to thank all of you who have read it, and all of those who will.

No, it’s not about you. But read this-and see yourself in it somewhere.

This is dedicated to Grampa.

AT THE EDGE OF THE WOODS

M aybe it’s a moving branch. Maybe it’s a bird’s egg, where it shouldn’t have been. Maybe it’s a circle of flowers – or a circle of stones. Or maybe it’s a wind. For Stephen, it was a wind.

Have you ever noticed, on certain evenings, the coming from all directions of a sudden cold breeze? Maybe one with a power all its own, a power to change the commonplace into the mysterious? That breeze comes with just one guarantee – it will change your life forever. If you notice it, your life will really change. And the best ones, the ones that make you doubt your name and maybe fear for your life, always come around sundown.

It was early spring. They brought in the carnival, the one for Pioneer Days. There were the sights of the signs, the lights, and the people; the smells of cotton candy, axle grease, and a little ozone from the big generators powering the rides. There were families, some high schoolers on first dates, all wearing tentative smiles. Even a good time in Comeback Town rang a little hollow; everyone in this town seemed to look over their shoulder at least once at a public event. Still - no one expected the breeze; no one expected the coming of sundown. When the breeze came the carnival emptied out. Kids you know from school, somebody from across town in the middle of a hotdog, somebody else’s parents – first they’re there, and then nobody is there. Better get out of that carnival fast before that breeze hits.

Stephen Icarus didn’t notice any of this. Stephen Icarus was on a mission, and it involved ducks. Now: when you go to a carnival, there are people who like bumper cars. There are people who like the Incredible Vomit launcher. Then there are people who just like the Ferris wheel. Stephen liked one booth, one called Hit the Ducks! Hit the ducks and win an 8 track tape – three shots for a dollar, this was the promise, as the shadows lengthened, and the breeze picked up. Despite having had no lunch, Stephen had his dollar, and was promised three shots for a buck. Now Stephen didn’t even have a BB gun – but thanks to borrowed firearms, he considered himself a pretty good shot. But though he was determined to win, Stephen was fated to lose. As the breeze blew harder, Stephen’s shots went wider and wider. He couldn’t hit the ducks. Every shot got him further from the ducks and further from that 8 track. And further into the threat of twilight, further from The Doobie Brothers, Three Dog Night, Elton John’s Honky Chateau. Further into worthlessness. With the third shot, Stephen looked up and noticed the breeze. He was filled for a moment with the most amazing lonely magic.

Stephen gave up and left the circle of light, the sound of the generators, the stares of people in town that knew him and, uh, really didn’t like him. As Stephen walked home he could hear the songs he hadn’t won almost taunting him. Get back, honky cats, better get back to the woods. Where was that feeling of being guided, guided by…something? He was guided by something, he knew it. He felt it every day. Now where was that something when he wanted to win something – not for himself but for someone else?

There were signs of all sorts around Stephen, but not the kind he would ever think of as divine. Like this morning he had seen a one year old boy, right down the street from him, with no pants on, look up at Stephen and smile. Where was the guidance in that? A piece of paper, sticky from cotton candy, stuck to Stephen’s shoe. Was that a sign?

Earlier that day he had seen his mom looking down, instead of at him. He got about six inches away from her face, caught her eyes, and said, Dad’s not coming back, is he? She turned away. Was that a sign?

He walked past a huge vacant lot. The town was full of them. They were more like parts of the woods, or parts of the desolate coastal prairie that had been there before town was built. This one was a beautiful stretch of land, covered with manzanita, scotch broom, even some sage. The twilight was now so deep he could barely make them out, but the wind helped to define the bushes through their sounds. From the lengthening shadow under a dumpy Port Orford Cedar, he heard a voice. Confident, quiet, and calming, it seemed to be the voice of someone he knew.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you aiming at something you couldn’t hit. Was the twilight taunting him now? Stephen turned around and faced the deepest part of the twilight. Much, much later in his life he would think, this is where my troubles began.

You wanted that 8 track tape for a girl!

How did he know that? Stephen thought, and peered into the shadow more deeply. Stephen said, Mr. Edviso? Not that it mattered, it could be The Abominable Dr. Phibes in the state Stephen was in. But he liked Mr. Edviso, especially at Halloween, when he gave out extra candy for kids that would make their way to his spook house. Then there was Mr. Edviso’s pure Oklahoma accent, coupled with his incredibly soft, polite way of speaking. Stephen liked Mr. Edviso all right, but he turned and kept walking.

But you didn’t succeed. And you’ll never succeed as long as you don’t believe in yourself. You don’t!

And Stephen thought: I have a crush on a girl. I do. We held hands once in the hall. We did. She goes to school in her brother’s car every day. She does. And she hates the music he plays on his 8 track. She really, really does. And I just wanted to get an 8 track tape for Liz- I mean, Liz Estrada that she likes. I did. To fix that little part of her life. Can’t I do anything?

You can’t do anything because you want so hard to do it! That stands in the way of you doing anything. Stephen turned around hard. Was this guy reading his thoughts? This would be creepy if it wasn’t so ordinary, and if Mr. Edviso wasn’t so kind – all the time.

How about the fact that I’m a 14 year old boy? And I don’t have superpowers? And I’m no good at basketball? Did I mention I don’t have a winning lottery ticket?

Mr. Edviso laughed, stepped out of the shadow, and fell into walking with Stephen home. You try too hard, he said. But look, everybody says that. What if I were to say that in all things we want there are two ways of pursuit. One is working within the thing itself, wanting it, desiring it, and getting disappointed and mean when we don’t get it. The other is working outside those things that we want. It’s almost like seeing what we want from a distance, and putting our wishes and hopes on hold for a minute while we move things from afar, or ask for them to be moved. he said. Which way would you say is useless, and which way would you say is useful?

Stephen came to a dead stop, and glared at him. How am I supposed to know?

The last bright orange of sunset still played on a mountain far away from town. A cry of a hoot owl came out from the woods, somewhere in the same direction, over the sound of the wind through the trees. Mr. Edviso laughed. If you weren’t upset, you wouldn’t come up with such good responses – or any responses at all. What if I were to say that acting outside of the event, wishing, hoping, and dreaming outside of the event, with supreme detachment from the event, is the only thing that you can do to change the event? Like those ducks – you wanted to hit one a little too much. With detachment you might have had better luck.

My dad had a detached retina once, said Stephen.

You know what I mean, said Mr. Edviso.

What if I don’t?

Mr. Edviso laughed. I believe in the next couple of days something will happen to you that might make you understand. That’s all I can say. And he walked off.

You know how it is to be frustrated, and young, and in love? Merlin could have given Stephen the Holy Grail, right then and there, and Stephen would have said nothing more than Cool. And ditched it right then and there, and gone home to watch Hawaii Five-O. Well, he did go home, and Hawaii Five-O was on, and for some reason there was mac and cheese – with peas, and he watched it. And it wasn’t bad.

The next morning was different. Breakfast was powdered milk and some very stale Cheerios, but he really didn’t care. His friend Bill had promised to be in Fallen Tree Grove outside of town. Bill always kept his promises. Let’s build a ladder, he would say, and pull out his hatchet or his machete. Or, Let’s make a single tree bridge. Everyone knew that there was nothing on TV. And nothing to do in town. Everyone was bored, broke, out of their minds, and just had different ways of dealing with it. Bill and Stephen dealt with it by sneaking off to destroy trees and build stuff. And there were a lot of trees to play with. Where he lived trees and ocean and river went on forever. It was people who seemed to be small, and integrity that seemed to be in short supply.

Fallen Tree Grove, for kids– even for high school kids, was beyond cool. It was where tons of redwoods had come down in a huge rainstorm with high winds about two years before. The rainstorm had saturated the swampy ground, so all kinds of trees – especially the shallow rooted redwoods – had fallen. Now the trees were down in every crazy angle imaginable. It was a climber’s paradise. And with a little work it was a playground, or with no work it was a great place to destroy stuff. Bill and Stephen had been coming here since they first met, and although they had sort of outgrown destroying it, they continued to come back and build stuff.

It’s Stephen!! Here’s the wonderrr hatchet! That was Stephen’s friend Bill, and Stephen smiled when he heard his voice echo all over Fallen Tree Grove. He smiled also because it was a wonder that this extra hatchet, in its leather holster, was still in one piece. It had been used by the worst wood splitters Stephen could imagine, but it was a spare. It was a wonder in fact that the hatchet wasn’t destroyed by now.

Bill had also brought some food. Stephen had brought a desire to imitate Tarzan, or at least David Bowie doing Fame. With a lot of mutual teasing and a few bits of falsetto –Is it any wonderrr?- they built a beautiful rail and lashed it on some small branches still sticking out of a tree trunk that was going up into midair at a crazy angle. And a swing, but it was really just a knotted rope with a board. It was a good day, but Stephen remembered that he had to get back in the afternoon to chop Firewood. Stephen asked Bill to care for the Wonder Hatchet until next time they met in Fallen Tree Grove, because it was absolutely useless for longer than five minutes at a time. So they yelled like Tarzan, fist bumped each other, and went their separate ways home. Stephen was happy, because Stephen cherished Bill. Bill was one of the only friends he had.

Stephen was not really liked by everyone where he lived. In fact, he had like two friends. Who do you know that is liked by everyone? Ringo Starr? Richie Rich? Stephen thought sometimes that there were maybe eight million people in town who hated him, and then he thought, this town isn’t that big. OK – seven million.

At the edge of the woods, the path narrowed where it finally emptied out into town, and then it broadened out. There was a huge flat open spot, devoid of plant life of all kinds, where dozens of kids had made their way into the woods, beckoned by the promise of all kinds of magic and adventure. Going back to town you just lined up with the new tract houses and you were there. It wasn’t hard to find town in a sea of trees. Town was the only thing that looked like…town. Stephen was coming out of the forest when he saw Bennett coming in to the forest. Bennett was 15, twice Stephen’s size, and hated him. Bennett picked up a rock. Welll. Where do you think you’re going? I think you’re not going home…today. I think you’d better…turn around, wimp. Turn around and run back into the woods!

Stephen had just finished about a year of being chased around town. There had been a fight more than a year before, and he had lost it. But there was no winning that fight, because it had been Stephen versus…everybody else. Now he found his life punctuated by stupid kids who just wanted to scare him ’cause they were just as bored as he was.

I said! Turn! Around! Wimp! Or I’ll smash you! Wif’ this rock!

There were two ways this always went before. Fight or flight. He had never been good at either. This time, he just decided to stand there, to not move. And this time he heard a far off sound, like a bell, or a far off guitar chord, and the clear, but faint voice of someone standing right behind him. Stand your ground, the voice said. The first rock will hit your forehead. Every other rock will miss.

Bennett threw the first rock. It hit him right in the forehead. And did it hurt? Yes. But did Stephen falter? No – because sometimes an invisible voice is the best advice you can get. Bennett stepped closer, and threw again. It missed. He stepped closer, and closer. I think! Someone! Is going back into! The woods! You hear me? Run! Away! Or! I’ll! Pound! You!

But Stephen held his ground. The closer Bennett came, the more Stephen was determined to stand. And Bennett came closer and closer. And the next stone missed too. Bennett got right in front of him, throwing wildly. Throwing wildly- because every stone that Bennett threw was further off course. Why isn’t someone TURNING AROUND! And with that, Stephen swore he heard a sniffle. You’re making all my rocks miss! WHY! WON’T! YOU! MOVE! But it was Bennett himself who backed off, crying, and ran away.

Stephen’s forehead was bleeding. Someone had taught him to put dirt on a wound, if the dirt has clay in it, and there’s nothing else. This whole town has nothing else, he thought, as he dabbed himself. And he turned around, wondering if someone was using ventriloquism – You Can Throw Your Voice! – for that mysterious voice part. Of course there was no one there.

His head really hurt. He felt rickety on his feet. He sort of picked his way home at first, but somehow his feet grew steadier in town. Stephen was wondering if Bennett would come back and pound him, and still wondering just what was up with that voice. And then Stephen found himself wondering just what he could get out of the refrigerator before he had to chop wood.

Well, Bennett had disappeared. There was no ready answer on the voice. But someone had come home with some groceries. Even with chores to do, nothing could stand between him and a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. Fresh out of the box, with real milk this time. And nobody at home.

Stephen was a lazy as anybody else, but when there was something to do, he did it. Eventually. So he went out back, lined up a round on the chopping stump, examined the axe carefully (his mom was pretty bad at chopping, when she had to, and had recently whacked the handle pretty hard on a piece of wood that she had wanted to split), took a deep breath, and proceeded to chop. Stephen had actually found a maul recently, so he used that, the blunt end of the axe, and an old sledge hammer on some large rounds, making fireplace sized pieces out of some pretty big logs.

Stephen hit the wood hard, because he was puzzled. As he swung, he found himself talking to Creator, or God. As he swung, you could say that he found himself in prayer, sort of. He said: "Can you please please tell me what’s going on here? I am just Stephen, with my little axe, and my maul, trying to figure out what I am doing here, when my dad will come back, and why that meanie, one of my worsties, just ran away from me crying. Please!"

Stephen really didn’t get an answer. Outside of an echo from a big Cap’n Crunch belch. The last ring of the axe hitting the maul hung over the back yard, and Stephen, expecting nothing more, finished his work splitting wood, and came back to the house through the kitchen.

Stephen had not noticed that Mr. Edviso and another man, who he only knew vaguely, had walked in to his house unannounced while Stephen was working out back. When he came in to wash his hands, he heard a noise, and walked into the living room. And there they were.

Please forgive us, and I hope we did not startle you, said Mr. Edviso as Stephen walked in, startled. We’ve been watching you, and we would like to give you the opportunity to participate in something special.

Stephen was pulling a splinter out of his pinky- eww, lodged partly under the nail. Can you say that again, he said. Turning to the stranger, he said, And what’s your name?

I’m Dan. And again, please, please forgive me. Maybe you’ve felt like you’ve been watched from time to time when you thought you were alone. And today, at the edge of the woods, we…

Stephen forgot the splinter. In fact, Stephen became almost irate. "You watched me? When Bennett ran away? Did you hear that voice? The voice – did you send the voice I heard somehow?"

Mr. Edviso interrupted this time. No, we were just there, watching, hiding. And I apologize, too, for both of us. We didn’t hear a voice, but we knew you had Guidance. And that you might be ready, as we say…well, to receive something.

Well, Stephen was a bit of a skeptic in matters of magic and the great beyond. In fact, that’s a bit of an understatement. Stephen was pretty mad at the whole universe ever since he had moved to town, and it had gotten worse after his dad had disappeared. So this was too much. Life was hard enough without two people reading your mind, and showing up out of nowhere when he was out back chopping wood. But Stephen took a few deep breaths, and suddenly, he realized that whatever they were offering was going to be vastly more interesting than another bowl of Cap’n Crunch. With real milk.

He looked at them both. OK – I’m ready. What do you have in mind?

Dan reached over. On the coffee table was a small wooden box, about the size of four matchboxes laid out flat, and about an inch thick – or less. There were two hinges on it, and a hasp. Handing it to Stephen, Dan said, Open it.

The late afternoon’s light was pretty dim. The living room was almost in shadow, but not quite. Stephen opened the box. There was a black velvet lining, and at first he thought that it contained nothing. But then, as he saw a blue fire outline, his eyesight shifted, and he saw a Key. It was simple and at the same time the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. It looked formal, like the Key to the City, or something. But it was humble.

Stephen said, What is this used for? Mr. Edviso smiled. It is used in many ways, but as an instrument of influence – from a distance. Let me show you something. Mr. Edviso took the box, took the key out, and said, In the Key is the strength of man and woman. Not just man and woman, but the power of the male and female forces that create the universe every day. When held with both hands it recreates the forces that made the universe. There is nothing more powerful. He held it out as if offering it, handle first, to something invisible.

But what do you DO with it? said Stephen.

"Remember before, when I said about two ways of pursuit for every event in our lives? Imagine that the best way really is to