Patterns Papillon on the Wing (Part 7)
Summer found the middle of itself that year in ways that were both semi-predictable and (or so it seemed at the time) boringly quiet as it went. July was hot, and distractingly relentless about it, too. I never managed extremely hot days very well. Even at the ripe old age of twelve, some well-meaning grown-up would smile and tell me "It's all right to perspire, Ellis. Everyone perspires at this time of the summer around here..." and all I could manage to respond, as politely as I could muster, was: "I'll have you know that I don't perspire. I never have "perspired". I sweat. Like a pig, I sweat bucketloads of stinky liquid out of every pore in my body. I'm grouchy. I don't know how to swim. Eating ice cream makes my teeth hurt. Even my root beers get warm before I get more than one swallow. And people far more civilized than I am do this "perspiring" thing. I am with the farm animals on this one; there is no relief. So I sweat. I am disgusting!" Of all the issues I was willing to be pre-teen wobbly about, mid-summer heat was clearly not one of them. And, as you might imagine, this became yet another area of reality whereupon George Thunderhack and I differed in every direction possible. I would be out in our yard, panting like a fat dog running uphill, and over would gallop George. Not a hair out of place, that wretched toothy smile still intact, clothes unwrinkled and fresh smelling. And not even one bead of wet evidence that it was approximately 950 degrees outside as we'd meet up! I found it very annoying. And, on that day in particular that I largely remember (with an urgency that almost defies details that might lessen it), here came George again. Looking as though he'd just hopped out of an air conditioned barber shop. He was his friendly self, as usual.
"Good afternoon, Ellis! Beautiful day, isn't it? Mom always told me that sunflowers were invented on a day like this. Only nobody knows how it happened. All of a sudden, for reasons that seemed dumb to most, a big round yellow sun grew out of the ground reaching up to find the real sun. There could only be one sun, though, so the flowers grew just tall enough to be noticed. And yellow enough to look like sunshine...."
As you might expect, I was in no mood for any of this sort of ridiculous conversation that day. Not a word of it. George's constant "fairy tales" seemed to do no more than make me feel even worse. Hotter. Not even a tiny bit willing to consider this magical thing becoming this other natural something else. It all seemed to end up in the same place, anyway, no matter what sort of "thing" he decided was important. And, pretty much (especially as grouchy as I happened to be that day in July), they all ended up finding the same conclusions that weren't close to 'conclusive' in the least.
To him, that altar of boxes in his frightening basement were a refuge for the lifetime his father had spent on this Earth. With them there, Mr. Thunderhack would never "not matter". To me? They were just a pile of moldy stuff in a damp corner populated by venomous spiders. And little more than just that.
To him, the sun was a beautiful gift from some faraway place - put there to shine like a light of endless places. To give a warmth to all of we little people down below it. To make us look up and realize that there is, as he so innocently liked to say it, "A bottom to a top to a bottom that never stops. It's a merry-go-round of fantastic things, Ellis! It is!" I'd listen, and think:
It was a miserably hot rock, angrily parching we victims who couldn't escape it. Its only purpose was to torture, discomfort, melt popsicles and encourage body odor. Not much different than being interrogated under bare light bulbs in those old Army movies I used to watch, in my estimation. Torture. Pure and simple.
George reached over just then and grabbed my arm. My head throbbed because, I was sure of it, that meant that he was about to go searching for those blasted "rivers" again. Just another thing I was in NO mood for.
But, as was his way, he was a calming force. Sometimes, when I was with Goran (hot sweaty bad temprament or not) I felt that there was no safer place in the world. Maybe it was that simplicity in him that I could relate to, maybe it was that observation he'd made that day that I felt I had outgrown making six months before? I didn't know. But, even at his most pestering, my neighbor made me feel calmer. As though there was a lot more peace in a day than I tended to think there was. Like everything, if we decided it as such, could happen right.
He touched my wrist, very gently (but a lttle purposefully, too). And he started talking, low and almost to himself, I thought. About the waters, the current, the force of it (all that crap...). How it was cool, that stream. How the breeze blew over it, how the flow found its way from the warmth of the sky to the damp coolness of the ground below. How the hypnotic rhythm of the water called for the kids to come. To wade there, and fish. To play. Oh, I'm remembering all his words using adult terms now ... his own phrases that day were short. And simple. And painfully NOT colorful or even well-chosen. But, it only took minutes for a feeling of cool refreshment to begin flowing through my arms, my neck, my temples, my head and legs. Like a rush of ice water almost! Yes, like the river had picked up speed and was coursing through my entire person with a mission. And it was working. I was very soon not so hot. I stopped sweating. I felt comfortable!
George shared that slight smile at me.
"I know, I know," I said, some residual grumpiness still in place. "I'm just not 'trying' hard enough. Right, Goran?"
Without hesitation, he replied: "It's much different than that, Ellis. You're not trying at all!" And it was then the first time I saw him do something, and also the last. George Thunderhack laughed! He smiled in his sleep, I was sure of that, but I'd NEVER heard him laugh! It startled me, quite honestly. And it was the best laugh, too, mysterious as it was. He was not laughing AT me. Not really even laughing WITH me, either. He was just laughing. And I'd never heard one sound like that, so full of layers and honesty. And, within seconds, I was laughing right along with him.
In the back of my mind, I wondered if I was 'trying' hard enough. And then, the cool waters flowed fiercely within me in a surge. I thought, for one fleeting moment, that I fully understood. I was trying very very hard NOT to try ... and it was working. I was one of those "children" wading in the river. That river was NOT in me at all. I was in it. And it was just borrowing me for the time being.
"Good afternoon, Ellis! Beautiful day, isn't it? Mom always told me that sunflowers were invented on a day like this. Only nobody knows how it happened. All of a sudden, for reasons that seemed dumb to most, a big round yellow sun grew out of the ground reaching up to find the real sun. There could only be one sun, though, so the flowers grew just tall enough to be noticed. And yellow enough to look like sunshine...."
As you might expect, I was in no mood for any of this sort of ridiculous conversation that day. Not a word of it. George's constant "fairy tales" seemed to do no more than make me feel even worse. Hotter. Not even a tiny bit willing to consider this magical thing becoming this other natural something else. It all seemed to end up in the same place, anyway, no matter what sort of "thing" he decided was important. And, pretty much (especially as grouchy as I happened to be that day in July), they all ended up finding the same conclusions that weren't close to 'conclusive' in the least.
To him, that altar of boxes in his frightening basement were a refuge for the lifetime his father had spent on this Earth. With them there, Mr. Thunderhack would never "not matter". To me? They were just a pile of moldy stuff in a damp corner populated by venomous spiders. And little more than just that.
To him, the sun was a beautiful gift from some faraway place - put there to shine like a light of endless places. To give a warmth to all of we little people down below it. To make us look up and realize that there is, as he so innocently liked to say it, "A bottom to a top to a bottom that never stops. It's a merry-go-round of fantastic things, Ellis! It is!" I'd listen, and think:
It was a miserably hot rock, angrily parching we victims who couldn't escape it. Its only purpose was to torture, discomfort, melt popsicles and encourage body odor. Not much different than being interrogated under bare light bulbs in those old Army movies I used to watch, in my estimation. Torture. Pure and simple.
George reached over just then and grabbed my arm. My head throbbed because, I was sure of it, that meant that he was about to go searching for those blasted "rivers" again. Just another thing I was in NO mood for.
But, as was his way, he was a calming force. Sometimes, when I was with Goran (hot sweaty bad temprament or not) I felt that there was no safer place in the world. Maybe it was that simplicity in him that I could relate to, maybe it was that observation he'd made that day that I felt I had outgrown making six months before? I didn't know. But, even at his most pestering, my neighbor made me feel calmer. As though there was a lot more peace in a day than I tended to think there was. Like everything, if we decided it as such, could happen right.
He touched my wrist, very gently (but a lttle purposefully, too). And he started talking, low and almost to himself, I thought. About the waters, the current, the force of it (all that crap...). How it was cool, that stream. How the breeze blew over it, how the flow found its way from the warmth of the sky to the damp coolness of the ground below. How the hypnotic rhythm of the water called for the kids to come. To wade there, and fish. To play. Oh, I'm remembering all his words using adult terms now ... his own phrases that day were short. And simple. And painfully NOT colorful or even well-chosen. But, it only took minutes for a feeling of cool refreshment to begin flowing through my arms, my neck, my temples, my head and legs. Like a rush of ice water almost! Yes, like the river had picked up speed and was coursing through my entire person with a mission. And it was working. I was very soon not so hot. I stopped sweating. I felt comfortable!
George shared that slight smile at me.
"I know, I know," I said, some residual grumpiness still in place. "I'm just not 'trying' hard enough. Right, Goran?"
Without hesitation, he replied: "It's much different than that, Ellis. You're not trying at all!" And it was then the first time I saw him do something, and also the last. George Thunderhack laughed! He smiled in his sleep, I was sure of that, but I'd NEVER heard him laugh! It startled me, quite honestly. And it was the best laugh, too, mysterious as it was. He was not laughing AT me. Not really even laughing WITH me, either. He was just laughing. And I'd never heard one sound like that, so full of layers and honesty. And, within seconds, I was laughing right along with him.
In the back of my mind, I wondered if I was 'trying' hard enough. And then, the cool waters flowed fiercely within me in a surge. I thought, for one fleeting moment, that I fully understood. I was trying very very hard NOT to try ... and it was working. I was one of those "children" wading in the river. That river was NOT in me at all. I was in it. And it was just borrowing me for the time being.
4 Comments:
I tell you Mr. 'ThunderGats' :), reading stuff like this can easily become an addiction. Thank you for a hot July in the middle of December and for making me THINK more than I was in the mood to this Sunday.
Hope I never have to wait that long for the next part. These boys are like family now and I simply have to keep my eyes on them regularly. ;)
By denni19, Dec 16 07 5:35 AM
Like a finely tuned, well oiled prose machine, you craft the tale of George and Ellis...apparently being drenched with cold water leaks and midnight hedge trimming trigger some special neuron connection, yet to be acknowledged by science. This triple neuron bypass enables the victim to fling golden sentences off his keyboard like so many grocery lists and complaints to the county assessor.
Lovely, readable stuff.
By ktstew, Dec 18 07 8:06 AM
I am gobsmacked. I just read the whole thing. You have an incredible, wonderful gift my dear. I am now hooked as much as the other fans here and need to know what's next. It is , indeed, lovely readable stuff.
By ren33, Dec 22 07 6:04 PM
hey
check out the new:
FUNTRIVIA SONG CONTEST
at my blog.....
and be sure to participate!!!
regards
linkinparksid aka sid
By linkinparksid, Dec 28 07 12:49 PM