by Geoff Gouveia

The wind in the Arrowhead Mountains sings a song that never began and never ends. It tickles the trees and spins leaves over dirt tracks that lead to paved roads and continue up to man-built houses. The wind never ceases against the polished boards, battering them with branches. Long arms, they sweep across the sky, interlocking tree to tree. When it blows through the leaves, it whispers unto itself:

Selah.

“Got any brothers or sisters?” I ask as our feet clop in near unison down the steps.

“Ya. A younger brother I see a few times a month. If I’m good at the home.”

“The home?”

“Yeah. The group home.”

“I see. Any older siblings?”

“Ya. But we don’t talk no more.” He drops the topic with a swift kick of a pinecone across the cement. It drops off the cement path down the hill.

“Didja see that? One kick. I got a good kick, don’t I?”

“You sure do, Colby. But let’s not kick anymore pine cones, ok?”

“Ok. Hey George- wasn’t that funny last night?”

“What? When you-”

“YAA when I yelled at Jeremy.”

I force a laugh through my lips. Colby smiles with satisfaction. Our feet crunch leaves in a sing-song pattern. It is the percussion to the wind’s soft voice. My voice interrupts the music performing around us.

“That was funny, man. He wasn’t expecting-”

“He WASN’T expecting it, huh?”

“Yessir, just like I was going to-”

“George, question for you. What is for dinner?”

“The ability to finish one dang sentence, that’s what I hope they’re servin’ me for dinner tonight.”

“Sorry.” Colby kicks another pinecone.

“My bad, man. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. That was real funny last-”

His smile returns as he snatches my hat and sprints the last steps up to the cafeteria.

“Hey- George- who am I?” He motions with his hands at the hat and purses his lips together. In a mocking tone, between a half British and half Southern accent, “Colby, stop kicking pinecones.” His feet do a tiny jig and he spins around laughing at the end of the twirl.

I smile to appease him. He laughs harder and throws my hat back, spinning the bill round. The wind lifts it above my outstretched hand and lands under a bush. Pairs of tiny tracks pad the area, the telltale sign of little hop-hop woodland life.

“That was a good one, huh George?” He asks as I bend over to dust the bill off.

“It sure was Colby. Thought I was lookin’ in a mirror for a second there. Let’s sit outside today, though. Just me an’ you, yeah?”

“Yeah, Ok.” His somber answer seeps into the ground.

Tonight the salad is crisp. The balsamic dressing stings a cut in my mouth from a wayward elbow yesterday. Colby pushes the entire plate of salad to the middle of the table, focusing only on the eggrolls. Camp food never agrees with my stomach nor the campers' but Colby has yet to learn this.

“Dang these eggrolls are bomb. Why aren’t ya eating yours, George?”

“Because it’s too good. You should have it. And your salad. Eat your salad and I’ll give you my eggroll.”

He pulls the salad back with a teenage paw. The paw stabs a fork through lettuce into the plate. The salad disappears in three monstrous bites with the last bits swirling around his mouth as he questions me.

“Wheresmaeggroll?” A quick swallow.

“Where’s your wha-” I return with raised eyebrows.

“Where’s my eggroll?”

“Here you go. Winner-winner, chicken dinner. Chicken eggroll. Actually chicken nothing. Hey man- I meant to ask you last night. Right before we went to bed, and all the guys were talking, what did you mean?”

A crunch from the eggroll sends the crispy ends on his lap.

“What did I mean when?” Colby questions with wide eyes.

“Well, when you said, ‘everyone around me is dyin’.’ What does that mean?”

The smile falls from his face onto the plate along with his fork and eyes. Fork in hand he scratches the plate, a small metallic ringing against the porcelain. The wind struggles against my hand to lift the paper into the air, the ends blowing up around my fingers. A soft voice returns my inquiry.

“Everyone around me - they die. My sister was fine on April fool’s day. I called her. Said I was in the hospital as a joke. She got real scared and I laughed. Next day she called me and said she was in the hospital. I laughed at her. ‘Good one, Martha,’ I told her. Except she wasn’t lyin’. She didn’t ever leave the hospital. I miss her. Everyone around me is dyin’. And I wonder if it is me or what. I don’t know if God cares. I know I can’t explain why everyone around me keeps dyin’.”

The wind rustles through the trees. It is a faint whisper from heavenly lips. Colby doesn’t hear it over the scratching on the plate. The wind is all around him but the shaking of his body beats against the swift breeze. His eyes remain on the fork as he continues his story.

“Last month I got a call from Chino State. My brother got locked up there. You know sometimes you say things you don’t mean? Well he got locked up for beating my cousin. He threatened to kill her, man. And he asked me for bail. I said no. I had the money from the allowance the state gives me. But I said no. He said I was stupid and I said…”

Colby’s free hand shakes under the table. “I said he should kill himself.” The wind carries a palm-sized leaf to his shoulder. He brushes it off. I watch it float down like a raft in the river past my line of sight.

“I got a letter in the mail. He wrote me. It said By the time you read this, I’ll be gone and I hope you’ll be happy. Sometimes you say things. I didn’t mean it but I said it. Everyone around me keeps dyin’. It’s all my fault, huh?”

I shake my head. No words left my mouth. A human voice couldn’t answer now. The trees sway under the silent mighty weight back and forth like a large choir. The scraping of the fork continued against the plate, drowning out the gust ensemble.

“When I was 10, I was in the living room, right? Sitting there. Watching cartoons or somethin’ kids watch. Watchin’ with my dad. We had an old brown couch and he was on it. I was sittin’ on the floor. Well maybe my mom didn’t like that, maybe they got into another fistfight earlier. My mom shot him in the head. My dad just slouched forward and I didn’t know what to do, you know? I was 10. That’s when it began- everyone dyin’ and all.”

Near the table, the wind blows the leaves of the bush together like the sweet symphony of a cricket quartet. A rabbit peaks from a hole to hear the music. It had brown fur that held tight to his body. Bouncing out of the shrub onto the cement, he investigates newcomers in the area. My foot scuffs the ground and sends the creature scurrying towards the shack behind Colby by the road.

“I’m not gonna make it, am I?” Colby mumbles with glistening eyes glued to the table.

“Make it where?” I ask.

“Make it in life.” His deep brown eyes look into mine. The eyes turn black, the pupil undistinguishable from the retina. Colorless, they dissolve into his head. A deep black marked an absence of light and hope.

“I don’t know what ‘make it’ means. I don’t know what to say, man.” The seat creaks under my weight shifting from left to right.

“I don’t know what I mean. Make it. Like you, you know?” Colby points at my chest, “A wife. A job. Alive.”

His comment penetrates into a sectioned-off room in my head. Every aspiration I had protected on the top shelf of my mind shatters to the tune of metal on porcelain.

His fork stops and the wind increases its strength. It blows my napkin off the table, past the shack and into the street. The rabbit darts after it to a babbling rain run off on the other side. From the left, a truck speeds down the road. The rabbit jumps in quick hops towards the water. I lose sight of the brown mass under the front tire. The truck passes and nothing moves. A soft hiccup, a tiny bump and life snuffs out like a candle. The wind brushes over the flattened brown fur.

In the distance the tires from the truck spin against the road. An engine revs loud and then fades past the trees. The Arrowhead Mountains nestle in, eager to hear another verse. The wind resumes its timeless chorus:

Selah.

 

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