Rustle, Oklahoma

Lenny led the way into the house as that Josh Turner guy’s music played outside. I followed behind Henry, entering the house and closing the door behind me. Nobody else is allowed inside the house. We cross through the living room past the two long couches and recliner around the glass coffee table.

The wooden floor creaked as we made our way past granite counter surrounded by black legged, wood seat stools and into the kitchen. The drying rack is full of cooking utensils, pans, and bowls. In the center of the kitchen is a round, light-brown table with four chairs around it. On it is a near-empty napkin holder, a small bottle of toothpicks, salt and pepper, an empty glass, and a wide paper plate covered in tinfoil.

I stopped at the plate and remove the foil. I heard the other two stop, “C’mon Billy, you can eat it after,” Henry said waving for me to follow.

“Sorry but I’ve been running on water, lemonade, and a sandwich. I’ll chew with my mouth closed, don’t worry,” I told my brother and picked up the plate. I could feel the slight warmth of the food through the Styrofoam. I snatched a knife from a drawer and a fork from the drying rack. “Alright, lead the way, Lenny.”

Lenny went up the stairs, the two of us following. He opened the door to his bedroom and held it open for my brother and I to enter. He shut the door behind himself once we were in the room. Lenny’s a boy that enjoys his privacy and most importantly of all, enjoys keeping his toys safe. On the blue mat with a drawing of a white, red seamed baseball shooting halfway across the carpet with white, speed trails, are three toys. A plastic dinosaur, a toy soldier with his motorcycle lying beside him.

These aren’t his favorite toys. Those he keeps hidden somewhere in his room. Why is he so secretive? Not even Henry or Mary knows. My take is that Henry’s shyness, like our mother, has been inherited by Lenny. Henry had his thing and so did our mom. Henry, self-conscious, didn’t like people watching him eat when he was younger. Our mother, introverted, didn’t like to wear jewelry out in public. And Lenny, outgoing but suspicious, hides his favorite items like a squirrel stashing away their nuts for winter.

Lenny’s floor is the same boarding as the rest of the house but the wallpaper in the room is different. It’s a dark blue like the mat and his bed, which has dark-blue sheets and pillows. There’s a sliding door closet, two pairs of shoes underneath the bed, a dark pine desk with a lamp, a notebook, and two toy soldiers on it, along with a dark pine chair pushed in. The music could barely be heard at all this far into the house.

“Lenny, why don’t you take a seat on the bed,” Henry says to him.

“Sure,” Lenny walked across the room, obliging his father. “What’s up?” He asked Henry who was pulling out his desk chair.

“Me and Billy have something to give you,” Henry lifted the chair, placing it beside Lenny. Against the wall is a dresser three-by-three rows of drawers. I leaned back against Lenny’s dresser up against the wall beside the door. I put my food down, chewing on a small piece of brisket with some potato salad, and dug into my right jacket pocket. I fished out the gift, “Henry.”

He turned, spotted the gift in my hand, and reached out. I placed the gift squarely into Henry’s palm. My brother turned to his son, and I watched as he explained the tradition in our family that started with a child’s curiosity of his home’s top-most room.

“You see, Lenny. When Billy was little, younger than you, probably five or six,” Henry turned to me for confirmation. Unable to speak with brisket in my mouth, I held up five fingers. “At five years old, Billy had gotten into the attic. Billy, entered your grandparents’ room, grabbed a pole with a hook at the end, and managed to hook the loop on the stairs for the attic, and pulled it down.” Henry finished with a light chuckle.

Lenny’s mouth was open, the corners of his lips turned up, and his eyes full of amusement like his mother, over his father’s story. “Really? You really did that uncle?” My nephew and brother stared up at me.

“Sure did, wanna tell him what happened next Henry?”

“Yeah,” Henry turned back, Lenny did the same to look at his father, Henry grinning and Lenny excited. “So, he walks back, pulling on the loop on a chain connected to the stairs, and the staircase comes down. And I mean it come’s down Lenny. Like BAM!” Henry slaps his hands together. The clap loud in the bedroom. “You see, your uncle, he was lucky. He pulled back on the chain and then fell backwards. He let go of the pole causing the stairs to come crashing down. Had he not fallen back, well,” Henry eyed me then his son, “let’s not think about that.”

I scoffed, picked up a piece of corn and bit into it, and listened as Henry continued. “Grandpa was supposed to be watching him because grandma was in town spending a day with her friend. Your grandpa didn’t notice because he was fixing the kitchen sink. Billy was told to stay in the kitchen or living room, but your uncle went upstairs instead. You see, Billy and I, we were both rebellious kids.”

I laughed and tried to mumble with a full mouth: Hold on, Hold on. Henry turned cackling and Lenny watched gleefully as I swallowed my food and commented on my brother’s narrative. “We both had issues with listening to mom and dad, true, but I went through my rebellious phase as a little kid. You went through your phase as a teenager.”

Henry cackled harder. I wagged my finger at Henry, shaking my head, grinning like a fool. Lenny watched his cackling father and foolishly grinning uncle with an open smile showcasing two missing teeth, the left front tooth and the right canine on his lower jaw. “What happened next?” Lenny asked excited, his hair whipping side-to-side, turning to each of us.

“Well, Grandpa Lenny heard and rushed upstairs. He found Billy on his rear, with big wide, white eyes like eggs on a skillet, staring up at him and the stairs to the attic deployed. Grandpa scolded your uncle then helped him up. Grandpa asked him, ‘What the hell what you’re thinking?’

“Your uncle stared up at your grandpa and told him the truth…”

As I watched Henry give the story with vibrant energy and Lenny watching full of excitement. I was pulled back into that time when I was five. It was as if Henry’s voice was a hand grasping at a thread from a ball of yarn. As he continued to talk, his voice pulled on the thread unrolling the yarn. Pulling on my memories, the thread stopping at the old memory.

My chewing a sort of metronome throwing me into a trance. The edges around my vision turned white, the yellow light in the room became warmer, as warm as the sun’s rays. Suddenly, I was being carried into the attic by my father. Going into that dark and dusty place full of curiosity and fear of what may be found in there. Once up the groaning ladder, my dad sat me away from the hole on something firm. Dad had to walk with his hands outstretched in the dark. Once he found the latch for the white, round wooden, window shutters. He pulled the shutters open and through the brownish glass came a flood of gold-orange warmth that lit the place up and brought out the color of the faded walnut colored wood.

The ceiling up in the attic was slanted, dad was in a nook that led towards the window, and he was kneeling on a leather seat just below the window. The attic was kept neat by my mother. Rarely did we ever come in here, the few times my parents did go up into the attic, I was never with them. Turning the room at the top of the house into a mystery that fascinated me. There was the faint squawking of birds coming from outside. The air in the attic was a bit stuffy. It was also hot, hotter than downstairs. Hot for a spring day in Rustle.

The nook my dad was walking back from had about six boxes stacked beside a wooden chest, the color of dirt, with pine-needle green leather straps that kept it shut. Dad had knelt on one knee in front of the chest. He undid the buckles of the leather straps and pulled out a leather box. The light coming through the window washed him over. He was wearing a white shirt, spotted with water, dirt, and some rust, tucked into blue, denim jeans with a tanned, leather belt around his waist. My dad stood with box in hand, his worn brown work boots, the leather covered in scratches, wrinkles, and dark-brown spots, sounding like blocks on the wooden floor of the attic.

He sat down beside me, and just then did I realize he sat me on some other chest. It was a velvet red, leather, rectangular chest with light-caramel leather straps, and black buckles. My father had smelt like iron and sweat. His hair was disheveled, dark brown strands of hair dangled in front of his face, and light scruff covered his jaw.

“Billy, you wanted to see what was up here, right?” He had asked me in his deep and friendly voice. I nodded at my father, and he continued, “Up in the attic we keep old things. Things we don’t need currently. Things we might need later. Things that your mom and I want to keep. Mementos and what not. This is one of mine. In this box, I keep things from when I was in the Vietnam war.”

“Veet-gnam?” My voice was light and squeaky in contrast to his deep and scruffy voice.

“Vee-uht-naam. Yup. We went to war there and I got drafted into it. So, up here you’ll find a lot of things, like my box. The things in here are important to me. Memories of those moments in the war where I wasn’t terrified. Moments during which me and my comrades were able to escape the war. Things, I would rather show you than you just find. You understand?”

“I can’t come up here?”

“By yourself? No. With me or your mom? Yes, you can, just ask first.”

“So that you two can show me stuff?”

He threw his head back and laughed. “No. So, that you don’t get smashed by that ladder. But maybe, if you ask us, we’ll show you something like I’m doing right now.”

“Ooooh! Okay!” I had said without fully understanding. “What’s in the box?”

“Let me open it,” my dad undid the gold, gleaming buckle. Inside the box were various items. Photos, a necklace, two pretty stones that rested on a bundle of letters, and tucked into the corner was an item that caught my eye. A handgun. My dad noticed my gaze was on it and pulled it out gently.

“This is an M1911 pistol,” my dad held it by the dark, chocolate colored grip. The rest of the steel was the color of coal. I felt like my eyes were bugging out of my head at that moment. “Here, hold out your palms.”

I did as I was told, and my dad carefully placed the pistol into my palms. The barrel facing towards the walls of the attic. “What do you think?” He asked me with a curious look.

“It’s heavy, cold, and cool,” I spoke with awe.

“Heh, it saved my life you know. Deep in some muddy ditch, alone, separated from my squad and afraid. This bad boy saved my life.” My dad explained then picked the gun from out of my hands. “One day, I’ll show you how to take care of it. I’m going to need somebody to look after my lifesaver someday when I can’t do it anymore.”

“I’ll take care of it! I can! I promise!” I was jumping up and down. Wanting to show him how much it meant to me. Forgetting what he said about it saving his life.

My dad laughed at my enthusiasm. “Ok. Ok. You’re hired. Now, let me show you what else is in here.”

He placed the box on my lap and pulled out items from it one at a time. There were photos of him with squad mates and of him at camp. Photos of him out in some jungle. At the time I didn’t know the details of the Vietnam war. I knew a bit of war, mainly that people shot guns at one another in it, killing each other. There were two photos from when he came back to the country. He explained that many American citizens did not like the country’s involvement in the war. Which led to their hatred and distaste spilling over onto the soldiers. But, the last two photos were with mom, and she seemed overjoyed to be in them with him. She didn’t hate him, no sir.

He then showed me, but did not open, the letters which were a bit weathered and beginning to discolor. Some were from my grandparents, his friends, and from my mother. Finally, he pulled out the necklace with its silver beads and tags. “It has your name on them dad,” that caught my attention.

“Dog tags. We all had them.”

“I want a necklace with my name on it,” I told him as I stared at the tags. I wasn’t much of a reader or a smart kid for that matter. I did know my father’s name. And though I couldn’t spell it, I could recognize it. His name kept repeating in my head as I stared at the tag, Lenny Buford Rile…

“…on his seventh birthday, your grandpa bought Uncle Billy a necklace. It was a silver, rope chain necklace with a silver coin.” I pulled back, away from my memories, just in time for my cue. I finished chewing the food in my mouth and pulled out from underneath my black clergy shirt the silver necklace. I walked close to the two and tugged on my necklace to show Lenny. Lenny leaned in, inspecting the silver coin with my initials engraved on the front: B.R. and my full name on the back: Billy Rile.

“On my eighth birthday, your grandpa gave me mine,” Henry dug his hand into his shirt to pull out his own necklace. A gold, curved chain necklace with its own coin. Henry’s coin is oval shaped, mine a circle. His is flat and thin, mine thick as a fifty-cent coin. His initials on the front are engraved vertically: L.R. and his full name on the back engraved with the first name above the last: Lenny Rile.

“Is that why you always wear it dad? Because grandpa gave it to you?”

“That’s right. Also, because your uncle always wore his. Now, since it’s your ninth birthday, we both got you something special,” Henry told Lenny and handed him the gift box.

Lenny pulled the top off, set it on the bed, and poked his fingers into the box. He pulled his hand up, pinched between his index and thumb, is a titanium, fox tail chain necklace with a square coin. The chain and coin are a dark, sleek, charcoal color, with silver that gleamed under the light. Engraved, silver letters in the front are Lenny’s initials: L.R. and in the back is his full name: Lenny Rile.

Henry helped Lenny put on the necklace. “Looking good kid,” I said complementing the fresh necklace hanging down to Lenny’s chest.

“Thank you, Uncle,” then he looked at his dad. “Thanks dad. I’ll wear it, always, like the both of you.”

“Heh,” Henry stood and rustled Lenny’s hair. “I love you son.”