by Geoff Gouveia

In the backyard of their desert California home Tyson made his creations in the shack near the small cactus that grew alongside the fence. From the backdoor the wooden shack looked empty, save for the tools and various gadgets needed to keep the lawn trimmed. Father agreed to let Tyson use the shack in any capacity as long as the tools were accessible. Tyson complied and kept his belongings behind the tools against the old timbered surface.

The shack erected with much help from Gran-Papa's stubbornness when Father was a child. Light blue painted chips fell off the sides near the doors and the cement cracked in the back from uneven placement and do-it-yourself wear and tear from projects Gran-Papa and Father and Tyson assembled. Father was a man with sturdy forearms and now owned the restaurant supply company Gran-Papa started. The forearms bulged when he picked up the loads and placed them on the truck, bulged still when he used a dolly to carry the supplies into the restaurants. Entering by way of back doors that opened when chefs in white coats with slim, muscular forearms yelled at boys in black shirts to open them, the smell of cooking made him smile. Gran-Papa had worked Father’s aspirations of becoming a chef out of him. Delivery was his business now and this did not dismay Father, he only wanted to work.

Tyson grew up working under Father, into the age that he was now, 17, and learned the ways from his Gran-Papa before he passed four years back. Now on their own, Father and Tyson fought over trivial issues with the shack being the principle of them.

Once, after skipping a time to help him with the business much like Gran-Papa had required of him at that age, Father confronted Tyson about the shack.

“Why do you spend so much time in there boy?”

“My work is important.”

Father grabbed Tyson’s arm and held it to his, comparing the forearms. Father’s dwarfed Tyson’s as it threw the slender arm back.

“Work? You don’t work.”

Tyson looked at his hands. The cuts and scrapes from the days prior felt they had lifted and known work, only not the work that defined his father.

Tyson desired to work with wood. Piecing the broken shards from the shattered palettes that held the supplies in the warehouse, Tyson took them home and assembled new creations inside of his personal factory. When the dry wood entered the shack, it soaked in ideas, saturated until they meshed into new lives. Tyson painted these and then hid them around town. The tiny figures he created were not pretty but they were unique and they were his.

Tyson never shared the space with anyone, never knew why he never shared and never questioned that of himself. He only knew to protect it from the outside world because the very notion of an outside perspective would, in his mind, foster mildew to seep into the wood in the stacks in the corners, bowing the pieces until they warped into unusable refuse. For this reason, he kept the creations covered when he wasn’t using or tinkering with them. He left a small piece of wood on the corner of the tarp that covered them, a sign of trespass should it stray. He made it up in his mind that if the piece strayed he’d destroyed what he’d made and start a new. But the piece never departed from the corner though the tools had regular use from the front of the shack. His heart skipped a beat when he heard his father open the creaking lumber door to retrieve a tool. This is the time, this is the time Father finds what I’ve done. When he went to hide the next figure, the muslin remained untouched.

Around town the figures began to create questions though Tyson never heard them. The children walking from the grocer to the parking lot had the distinct advantage of a new perspective, one no one could see and with it they found the figures half tucked near curbs. The faded magenta painted tribal faces on the figures mystified the children, how could treasure exist here in this arid dry place? Their parents knew from its placement it was set as opposed to forgotten. This gave the figurines untold importance. Tyson never saw this, he set the figure and walked away, checking back days later and found nothing nor the smile of the child holding the item above a seat in the car.

Despite his solitude Tyson created day after day in the shack. Often times at night he used a small lamp that bled light between the boards on the sides and out of the small window near the front of the shack. Father settled on the couch, resting his cold beer on the coffee table now that his wife had passed and couldn’t correct him. In between sips he peered out the sliding glass door, at the side of the shack. The soft glow from the lamp inside flickered when Tyson moved past it. His father never stirred higher than that look, returning back to the sporting event on the television.

After some time Father drifted to sleep in his chair. The alcohol helped him sleep but his interior alarm clock gave him confidence to drift into slumber untethered. Tyson waited for these moments, peering out through the shack’s boards and into the sliding glass window. When his father leaned back Tyson knew he had a chance to hide a new batch of the creations. The lamp switched off with a click and the door to the shack clumped closed with a muffled thump.

Slipping out the back gate, Tyson carried a gray satchel with wooden figures that bumped hollow in the night with his purposeful trot. The magenta paint on their silent faces reflected stray lights, eager to find a new home in the desert town. Nestled close together like paratroopers before the release of the bay door, the wooden soldiers were ready to embark on a new mission. Tyson felt proud sending them into the world. A small piece of him wished he could keep them but a greater part of his mind knew they were never his to begin with. From outside the shack they began, the shack assembled them and Tyson completed the cycle by spreading them back it into the world.

After the final placement Tyson returned home. Humming while he opened the gate, he sucked his breath in before it billowed out between his teeth in fragments: a slanted ajar door spilled light out of the shack. Tyson held in the doorway, his face illuminated in a three inch wide beam that went from head to toe, watching his father pick up the pieces on Tyson’s work bench.

A tiny pot of magenta paint sat next to a cup of water with a brush sticking out of it. His father swirled the brush with his right hand while he eyed the different mix matched wood fragments. Half built figures stood erect and scribbled sheets of paper gave away secrets for new creations. Tyson stood frozen, waiting for his father to turn around and confront him. While he waited his heart expanded and the breath in his lungs felt hollow. He watched his father trace with his index finger a scribble on a page to his left while touching the corresponding half finished figurine on the table. A slow tear rolled down Father’s face when he looked at his own hands, the puffed up parts at the end of meaty forearms, arms that looked different than the chef’s arms he thought he’d have by now. Before Father covered the table with the muslin and switched off the lamp, he scribbled a note on the scrap of paper. He stumbled through the door into the house. Tyson crept from the side of the shack, feeling his way towards the table.

In the moonbeam that shot through the window, the frail paper read in staggered capital letters:

---

Thank you for reading this short story! Please comment below what you think Tyson did next...