by Geoff Gouveia

As a small boy in the field near my childhood home, I mistook my skin for stone and only noticed that as I grew, so softened my flesh.

The field provided an expansive sanctuary for three young brothers. At the end of the field was the base of the mountain, the steep slope slid off water into various creeks to cut with liquid chisels into the canyon.  On our excursions we noticed piles of rocks lining the creeks. My Italian father told us the English word for these rock formations was cairn but was more proud to tell us the word his people gave it: ometto or little man. These little men held their positions in complete stoicism near the banks of the creek.

Young boys, in their bouncing and rambling, love to destroy anything the opposite of them. Our energy fed us destruction and the three brothers ran along the slight slopes to abolish the formations. As we shattered the purpose for their stance, the rocks tumbled into the stream with splashes of water and giggles of boys. One time we spied an elderly man in action of stacking the stones. He collected them on his hip before placing them one atop the other, standing back in admiration of his creation. We hid in the bushes far off, chuckling at his limp and watched him struggle over the terrain to the base of the mountain. Out of sight, we sprung from behind the bush and executed the stone man, his head crumbling into the slow moving creek.

That day was the first day I didn't enjoy knocking the omettos down. Looking back, it was the beginning of the end of my childhood. The end didn't happen until a few years later, on the same day my older brother married.

The morning of the wedding I sat in his room. The mix of protein powder and deodorant combined to make the scent of my brother. I sat on his bed staring the sheets taken away and the walls empty, the bookshelf with nothing in it. The only qualities of the room that gave hints of memory were accidents, small pebbles overlooked as the formations themselves shifted. Holes where I’d made him mad and then he punched the wall, the stain on the carpet I spilled my juice as a kid. I looked down at the spot next to the bed where he’d let me spend the night when I was afraid. Those were memories but until that point I thought it was brotherhood. Brotherhood never ends, life forced me to learn, it evolves. I knew it was time for new but I wanted the old, a familiar hug or to have him yell G one last time in frustration.

At the wedding, I tried holding onto our moments as kids. When you hold anything past its expiration, something releases in its place and it was tears when I gave the best man speech. Our giggles over toppled cairns rang in my ears, the crumbling stones each a different memory of boyhood.

My younger brother and I went into the field after the wedding. Stubborn stone men lined the creek. Two brothers pushed them into the water and the stones clanked without satisfaction. No laughter or surprise attacks on unsuspecting elderly hikers. Only scattered stone men, mirrored in fragmented memories within us. I roamed with the younger brother to protect him. He slipped when he was a small boy, busting open his chin and giving me (by way of Ma) the duty of looking after him. That job ended when I watched him drive off the first day to university.

It was a warm summer morning. I had woken at the usual time to go to work and then class. My mom made breakfast for the both of us; my father said his goodbyes the night before. I helped my young brother load his belongings in the car. When his back turned, I slipped a note in a painting I gave him, tucking it behind the backseat: a message in a bottle for one. When he got behind the wheel, my mother and I waved. The car door closed with a thump that resembled two stones knocking together. He backed out of the driveway, the music blaring with a slow turn rolling him up the street.

We watched him venture out, the wheels picking up speed. He turned left onto the familiar road towards the freeway. My mother leaned into me. She mistook me for a pillar; my confidence a skin sheet over jumbled stacked rocks. She sobbed into my shoulder, asking will he be ok: I didn’t know what to answer. I’m sure he would be, he always was ok, but I wished she’d asked about me.

I was the ometto and I wasn’t made of stone any longer.

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