Guardians And Angels | Chapter Five | Part 20

One

My father stood at my bedroom door buzzing Hard as Fuck.

That Friday night, when he decided to walk into my bedroom, I was still at the dance with mirror ball lights spinning across my freckles not knowing back home the robot cicadas from the fucking Jungle were screaming at him again.

SOMETHIIIIIIIIIIIING DOESN’T ADD UP, GEORGE!

He was high, High As Fuck, as he would say when I saw him zoned out looking at nothing, asking him what was wrong. My father always said when he was High As Fuck, he could hear himself talking in his head much better, much closer. He could hear himself think things through, and the think things through voice; he recognized it, it was his real voice. For some reason he could hear his thoughts crisp and clear behind the marijuana haze, as if the marijuana fog occluded the signals that caused the wires to layer other voices over his own somehow.

After I left for the dance, with Kai, my father smoked his weed, a shit ton of it, and sat in his chair for a while, playing with his Colt .45, thinking about the night and how it played out. He’d been caught off guard, surprised. Almost ambushed.

That wouldn’t happen again. No, no, no.

He was curious now. Some shit had been going down right under his nose, right in front of his fucking face, and he didn’t know about it. George didn’t like that. Didn’t like that at all. It made him feel the fucking Buzz really bad. Made him Buzz Hard As Fuck. His eyes would vibrate, vision swirl, and his grip would feel weak. His heart would race, his hands would get sweaty, and he’d start to feel the dizziness...the need to hold on to something.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze, George

Fight, Flight, or Freeze

Door number One, Two, or Three...

The robot cicadas were catcalling through the marijuana haze, lewd tones, sneering, sounding disgusted at him. Cinca was there. So loyal, ears perking up when she heard the catcalls echo. George knew she knew, couldn’t explain it, but she heard them somehow too. She was licking his face, through the haze. Tickling him with her tongue, barely touching him, tickling him to bring him back to the Hum.

He needed to calm down.

When I brought Kai over, unannounced, and presented him to my father with some sob story, some tearjerker, it made the robot cicadas start singing their static songs again. The cacophony of the cicadas would start buzzing and screaming and saying “Something doesn’t add up, George!” over and over, unwilling to be ignored.

George didn’t like when things didn’t add up. It made him paranoid, made him think of worst-case scenarios, made him catastrophize and really start to Buzz hard. He felt the buzzing come back as soon as the boys went to the dance, felt it open the front door and fly in like a mosquito and buzz him with piercing vibrations that made his ears warble.

SOMETHIIIIIIIIIIIING DOESN’T ADD UP, GEORGE!

Cinca had followed Carol back into the bedroom, loyal as ever, watching her every move down the hallway, sneaking back to my father a few moments later. She knew the Buzz was bad. She knew he needed to calm down. Lil Bit was sleeping in the living room, making noises from her dream... or nightmare, most likely. He felt the Buzz rising in volume as he stared down at his daughter, nicknamed Lil’ Bit, twitching from the images in her mind as the TV flashed Cagney & Lacey scenes in silence and the bluish light flickered upon the walls around her.

He sat next to her and laid his hand on her hair, long and black, the opposite of my short red hair. It twisted in tendrils around her neck and flowed down onto her pajamas, leaving her forehead uncovered, furrowed from the dream. He laid his palm, thick with callouses, tan with splotchy white spots on his skin as if stained from bleach, on her forehead, feeling her warmth, letting her know he was there.

She’d had a hard few months, Lil Bit did. Her babysitter Sarah Netter had been killed when she was run over by a Volkswagen van on River Road over the summer, on Fourth of July, and it had left Lil Bit devastated. She took it way harder than they had imagined. Michelle, or Lil Bit, as I nicknamed her and everyone called her now, went pretty much crazy in my father’s mind. Batshit crazy. Maybe not Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off a bat crazy, but as crazy as a seven-year-old can get from overwhelming grief.

That's where she got her nickname Lil Bit from

Lil Bit 5150

I called her Lil Bit 5150 because of her reaction to her babysitter Sarah’s death. I called her Lil Bit 5150, pronounced Fifty-One Fifty, from the California police code for involuntary psychiatric holds, and the Van Halen album. I would try to scare Michelle, tease her, make her normal, and say she was going to get taken away because “she was a ‘Lil Bit 5150.’” I would say Officer Friendly, Larry Jones, would be coming to get her and take her to the Sonoma State Hospital, and throw the key away. I want to say I thought it would help her, but I just wanted her to shut up and be normal. I wanted her to stop reminding me that everything was really fucked up now, with Sarah gone. I wanted everything to be better, instead, I just made things worse.

Michelle went a ‘Lil Bit 5150’ the night of Fourth of July, when Officer Jones pulled up to the trailer, his police lights off, tires creaking on our gravel, radio squelching as he parked. He met us on our front porch, the whole family, Cinca at our feet whining as she waited to be released so she could lick Officer Friendly’s face. She loved Larry Jones. Everyone loved Larry Jones.

He looked up at us, his dark brown eyes finding ours, revealing the red lines snaking across the whites of his eyes from crying. His black face was the most beautiful color bronze under our porch light, the ridges of his cheeks shining, glistening, as he shifted and looked away from our concerned looks, gathering his words.

“I don’t know how to say this any other way, so I’m just going to say it from my heart,” he said, his voice deep, but the deepness became jagged from his throat not cooperating.

“Today, at the Russian River, on River Road,” his voice finding its feet, then stumbling again.

“Our Babygirl, Sarah, Sarah Netter, was hit by a vehicle and the Good Lord took her back to Heaven.”

The Good Lord took her back to Heaven...

His eyes were so red.

Red lightning...etched by tears

I remember time stopping.

All the clicks on all the watches, all the swings of all the grandfather clocks, all the second hands and the minute hands across the universe, I heard them halt. Not with a noise, but with a sudden silence. A whoosh, a vacuum of some sort, sucking all the colors and sounds out of the world as I felt like I was falling, as I felt my stomach drop the way it did when I finally rode the rollercoaster named The Demon at Marriott’s Great America with Sarah Netter only a week before. Time stood still around us, all the colors in the world became smeared, like the dust on a butterfly wing when you catch it and hold it too hard. Somewhere, far, far away, in another galaxy, I heard my little sister asking, “what does that mean, Daddy?” over and over, louder and louder. Our new clock, ticking repeatedly, my little sister’s escalating questions.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, DADDY!?

I had never seen my father speechless until that night. Not even when he was High As Fuck and zoned out, thinking of faraway places filled with dead soldiers. My father always had something to say, always... but tonight he stood like a statue in Medusa’s Garden, eyes locked on his friend, the best man in town in my father’s view, and he stood wordless.

The Good Lord took her back to Heaven...

My sister’s questions rose in the air, louder and louder, while her little fingertips, painted with pink Strawberry Shortcake nail polish, clawed up my father’s calloused palm, and pulled on him like a marionette. She tugged upon his forearm, etched in veins, veins that sent signals to his heart, signals that shut off his mouth.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN, DADDY!?

Full grey. No color. The entire world. The butterfly wing dust was now gone from the scenery, it had been sucked out by the whoosh noise coming from the horrible news I was hearing. I saw Officer Jones move his lips, which were now light grey upon his dark grey face, no more ebony bronze cheeks, and I heard the words that shattered my heart for the first time in my life. Shattered this Pisces into a million little pieces.

“Sarah is in Heaven. Sarah is an angel now.”

The Good Lord took her back to Heaven...

And then I heard my little sister scream.

It was the kind of scream only little girls can make, the kind of scream that vibrates your eardrums and hurts enough for you to cover them and make you wince. She screamed, long and shrill, and didn’t stop screaming until the ambulance arrived, red and blue lights on the Fourth of July in Cotati, California, 1987.

Two

Three months later, I wasn’t home, and my father walked into my bedroom for the first time since Sarah died.

I was at the dance, a few miles away, with laser lights shooting down between my friends and me, trying to be cool. At home, my sister's screams were trapped within her bad dreams as she twitched and moaned on the fold-out bed in the living room. Her lips stayed closed as her brow furrowed and her legs kicked every now and then. My father felt helpless looking down at her long eyelashes, fluttering as her eyes shook under her eyelids with REM sleep. He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the forehead, his thin lips barely touching its alabaster surface. In his mind he whispered, “I love you” and he delivered it wrapped in the softest peck so he wouldn’t wake her.

He whispered it, delivered it to her, put his Colt .45 down on the end table and then turned toward my bedroom. The door was shut, brown faux wood with a cheap golden doorknob. Once he turned that knob, he would find out what doesn’t add up. Once he turned that knob, he would be hunting for something, and when he caught it the cicadas would shut the fuck up.

It was Rabbit Season.

With his eyes closed, hand on the cheap doorknob, George said a prayer. The only prayer he knew by heart because Carol hung it on a little golden yellow plaque with a monarch butterfly painted on it. She hung it right next to the front door, above where he hung his truck keys, so he could see it every time he left the house. He knew the prayer by heart but liked to say it his own way. Slow, measured, repeating the important parts, so God could really hear him. Really listen to him.

God…

grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change

God…

grant me the courage

to change the things I can

God…

Grant me the wisdom

the wisdom…

to know the difference

Amen

My father turned the cheap golden door handle and pushed the fake wooden door to my bedroom open and entered my hiding spot, my burrow. With a flick, the way you would a light switch, his mind entered Recon Mode.

LRRP time. Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol initiated. Objective: Christopher’s bedroom. Intel: Something doesn’t add up. Mission: Make the fucking Buzz go away.

When he opened his eyes, they were eagle eyes, piercing yellow, scanning the room for prey. Looking for a rabbit in the crevices. He didn’t need to worry about Insertion. He was already in the heart of the darkness, alone in the center of my bedroom. He didn’t need to worry about Movement and Concealment; I wasn’t home, Lil Bit was sleeping, Carol was in the bedroom, Cinca was watching from the doorway. No mosquitoes here, he could slap at things all he wanted without being discovered. This wasn’t the jungle, he thought, it was more unfamiliar. So, it was time to do some Recon Work. Time to observe & take some notes

Time to find the Rabbit.

My father always thought of me as a rabbit. Timid. Nice. Quick. Hides a lot. Not sure what they sound like. He thought I got that from my mom’s side of the family. He knew it couldn’t be from him. He was a Hunter, not the Hunted. So now he was going rabbit hunting, and when George scanned the room, he took it all in at once and then dove into a detail of interest quickly, logging it as a clue. Checking his boxes. Check, check, check.

He looked at my walls. Posters. Posters of athletes covering every single surface. Running backs were displayed like the Hall of Fame, dress-right-dress, lined up evenly across the length of the wall. Walter Payton, Eric Dickerson, Marcus Allen, Tony Dorsett, Barry Sanders, Herschel Walker.

Below them was a row of linebackers and defensive players: Mike Singletary, Lawrence Taylor, Richard Dent, Howie Long, Ronnie Lott, and Brian Bosworth.

Across the side walls were baseball players in batting stances and various running motions: Rickey Henderson, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco, Dwight Gooden, Mike Schmidt, and Tony Gwynn.

In one area of the room, I had a lone poster of Pete Rose, a little shrine of baseball cards and memorabilia lined up perfectly for inspection on an end table below the Cincinnati Reds superstar.

I loved Pete Rose. So did my dad. I’m not sure if I loved Pete Rose because of Pete Rose of if it was because of how my dad always talked about him. He talked about him with such admiration, his eyes would get wide, and he’d explain all these little details about him. His style, his attitude, his mindset. I “kinda played baseball like him” my father would say to me. Kinda. I hustled hard. Always hustled around the base paths. George loved that I was a born hustler. Always digging in. But I wasn’t a Hunter. I was the Hunted. My father had to chase me with his stern looks from the baseball stands to get me to be that way. He had to bark at me like a dog from behind the fence to motivate me to do what I saw Pete Rose do.

My father walked over to the bookshelves, lined with books and magazines on some, toys and action figures on others. The books were organized perfectly by height, sloping slowly down to the right as you scanned their names. Stephen King books filled up most of the shelves. I had read every Stephen King book he’d put out up to that point. I spent long days with thick books in my room, silently reading for hours on end with titles like The Stand, Pet Sematary, and The Talisman.

On the shelves with magazines, he noticed they were not only stacked perfectly, but they were stacked by month. Each publication had its own chronological stack. The newest edition of Muscle & Fitness sat on top, and the earlier editions cascaded down month by month. Flex Magazine had its own stack, as did Ironman,and a magazine titled Muscular Development. All lined up, display worthy, ready for a museum.

On the shelves in between the books, which were up top, and the magazines, which were below so you could see the covers when you stood over them, were the toys and action figures. GI Joes stood in squads in each shelf corner, grouped together on opposite ends, preparing their troops for future battles. On one side stood the bad guys: Cobra Commander and Destro, Zartan and Storm Shadow, Serpentor and Dr. Mindbender. On the other side of the shelf stood the good guys, Duke and Snake Eyes, Shipwreck and Gung-Ho, Stalker and Spirit with his eagle. They all stood in formation, dress-right-dress, ready for inspection, ready to march, ready for battle.

Where did he get all these fucking toys?

In the center of the toy shelf my father saw larger figures lined up as if they were two football teams getting ready to face off… or two wrestling teams ready to grapple in a 20-man steel cage match for WrestleMania III in the Pontiac Silverdome. Figures of muscular men with exaggerated lumps, striations molded into their quadriceps and deltoids, biceps with peaks, and triceps with cuts, stood side by side.

George recognized some of the figures from watching wrestling on Saturday nights when he’d stay up until midnight with me. We would stay up late together and watch the WWF Saturday Night Main Event. We’d buy some Cherry Coke and warm up the rest of the Domino's Pizza, or finish off the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Extra Crispy… I wouldn’t eat it if it wasn’t Extra Crispy. Well, I would, but I acted like I wouldn’t to get my way.

I would get so amped up and excited to watch the WWF Saturday Night Main Event, it was the happiest my father would remember seeing me. I loved watching the WWF wrestlers. My eyes would light up and I’d pump my fist in the air and jump up and down on the couch in my white socks as we watched the men twist and turn from storyline to storyline.

My father loved when the I lit up with my competitiveness. Loved when he saw it burning through me and showing on the outsides and not simmering within. He loved when I finally chose sides. The world was filled with Good and Evil, mostly Evil, he would say, and I had a hard time choosing sides. He thought I was too nice. I always wanted everyone to win. My father vowed to get that out me. That was from my mother’s side of the family. Fucking dreamers.

He saw more toys. Expensive toys he didn’t buy me. He saw Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant, Macho Man Savage and Rowdy Roddy Piper, Junkyard Dog and George “The Animal” Steele, King Kong Bundy and Big John Studd. They were lined up, bulging shoulder to bulging shoulder, dress-right-dress, taking orders from my favorite wrestler, The Ultimate Warrior. The Warrior stood up front, legs bent and showing every muscle imaginable, screaming forever into the room, face painted, neon pink and electric blue strings tied around his bulging biceps.

On the opposite end stood the He-Men, or He-Man’s—I wasn’t sure what to call them as a group. I watched that damn cartoon all the time growing up. I’d get out of school at 2:30 p.m. and run, run as fast as I could, all the way home. I could make the two miles from school in 15 minutes, no problemo. But that wasn’t enough, I wanted to do it in 13 minutes. Every day I walked out of school, hit the timer on my Casio watch with all the buttons, and ran as fast as I could so I could get home to see He-Man, Masters of the Universe.

I’d usually get there in 14 minutes and 30 seconds. That would piss me off. I’d be Hella Pissed, that’s what I called it when I was angry like my dad. Hella Pissed. I’d kick or hit something if I found out it was longer than 14:30. Grit my teeth and grunt as hard as I could. I’d only be happy if I achieved a new record. Every day of the week I would try, over and over again.

Monday. Bell ring. Step outside. Stopwatch. Run. Check results, He-Man

Tuesday. Bell ring. Step outside. Stopwatch. Run. Check results. He-Man

Wednesday. Bell ring. Step outside. Stopwatch. Run. Check results. He-Man

Thursday. Bell ring. Step outside. Stopwatch. Run. Check results. He-Man

Friday. Bell ring. Step outside. Stopwatch. Run. Check results. He-Man

George didn’t know many kids who were doing that, he thought to himself as he scanned my room. Clues tucked away and processing in his mind. Eagle eyes, yellow flicks, looking for a rabbit. He could sense it. Sense the warmth of what he was hunting for, he was near it, close enough to feel it radiate heat. Something wasn’t adding up. Something he was missing. George hated when things didn’t add up.

It made him paranoid.

It made him catastrophize.

It made him think of… worst case scenarios…

George scanned the walls again. His eyes flickered over the images of men running, and tackling, hitting, and diving to catch things. He scanned up and down, side to side. Something doesn’t add up… something doesn’t add up. When something doesn’t add up it means it could be a Worst. Case. Scenario. It means it has to be the Worst. Case. Scenario.

SOMETHIIIIIIIIIIIING DOESN’T ADD UP, GEORGE!

George turned his head and stared back at the bookshelf, eagle eyes scanning for rabbits hiding in granite crevices in Yosemite. Granite walls can hide so much, very deceptive. He looked at the toys, lined up to march into battle, lined up to wrestle in a steel cage… a cage like the one the fucking Vietcong trapped him in for a few months, and he started thinking about worst case scenarios. Started thinking about worst case scenarios that make things not add up with your teenage son.

Grabbing the Ultimate Warrior doll, holding my favorite toy in his impetigo splotched hands, he lifted it up and studied it. Memorized its form, its shape, its muscles, the divots in between the muscles, the veins etched upon the muscles. A permanent scream etched upon the figure’s face as the Warrior clenched with all his might and flexed is bulbous muscles. My father knew all about permanent screams. Everyone around him did too. They were a quartet of permanent screamers, his family.

My father closed his eyes, holding the Ultimate Warrior, my favorite wrestler, and he said his prayer.

God…

grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change

God…

grant me the courage

to change the things I can

God…

Grant me the wisdom

the wisdom…

to know the difference

Amen

When George opened his eyes and looked at the Ultimate Warrior doll nestled in his calloused hands, burnt white and splotchy with impetigo, a skin disorder that made some areas of his skin turn whiter on him, he saw it. He saw everything crisp and clear and heard his own voice, his real voice

“It all adds up, George” he thought to himself

Men. Everything was Men.

Everything in Christopher’s bedroom was about Men. Muscular Men. Men with thick legs and bulging arms, Men with clenched abs and rounded deltoids. Men with thick chests and veiny forearms.

Toys of Men

Books of Men

Magazines of Men

Walls of Men

Shrines to Men within a Temple of Men. Everything, every single thing the boy collected and looked at when he was locked in his room was devoted... to Men. Not one single woman was allowed in the room from the looks of it. He didn’t see a single female, no bikinis, no boobies, no long, tanned, shaved legs on a beach somewhere tropical. No cars even. Not one Lamborghini or Porsche.

It was only Men.

Muscular Men

Athletic Men.

Men everywhere

George stood quiet for quite some time. Thinking. Connecting the dots. Putting all the intel together. Giving himself a Sitrep before he made any moves. He checked the boxes in his mind as he ran down the list, check, check, check, check.

“It all adds up, George” he thought to himself again.

He felt the cicadas begin to falter as he figured out what added up, but while he was thinking, they came roaring back. With each check of the box, as more and more things began to add up, add all the way up, he heard them begin to scream again. Scream their robotic buzz. Louder than ever, inside his head, all corners, even the darkest ones vibrated. Once again, for the third time that night, this time with a lump in his chest that was pressing down on his heart, suffocating it, he said his prayer.

God…

grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change

God…

grant me the courage

to change the things I can

God…

Grant me the wisdom

the wisdom…

to know the difference

Amen

When George opened his eyes, he turned around and saw the boombox sitting on the dresser. The green and chrome one Sarah gave me. She was so good to the me, really took care of me. Was really getting me to finally open up when she got creamed on River Road by that Volkswagen van.

It was a really nice piece, the boombox. Top of the line. Sarah spent all her babysitting money on it for me. My father always thought that was a little weird, but it kind of added up, so he never probed at it much.

That wouldn’t happen again. No, no, no.

He walked over to the boombox, with its huge speakers, owl eyes watching over the room, and saw some cassette tapes stacked neatly, dress-right-dress, on top of each other. Every tape had some kind of handwriting, some kind of title, written on the spine. Mixtapes. I loved to make my mixtapes and create my playlists. He scanned the titles, funny innuendos and serious statements, depending on the contents. My father could tell they were all themed, had some storyline to them. He could tell the titles of the mixtapes were a conglomeration of the songs’ meanings, that everything was thought out. Well planned. Methodical. Just like him.

As he scanned the pile of stacked tapes, he saw the bottom mixtape didn’t have a title. No pretty handwriting, he always thought my handwriting was too pretty for a boy. The very bottom tape. The foundation tape, the last one you would get to if you were sifting through the tapes, had no title.

George looked at that blank space for a minute, maybe two, thinking about the checklist in his head, with all the checkmarks in all the boxes, and wondered if the last box would be checked off if he grabbed the mixtape with the blank space for a title? He reached for the blank tape, white spine showing and thought...

Found the Rabbit

George carefully lifted the pile of cassettes, balancing them and setting them down to the side so he could grab the mixtape with the blank space for a title in his hands, and inspect it, see if it checked the last box.

He didn’t have to inspect much. The rabbit was caught, staring at him helpless. The spine was blank, yes, but on the cover of the cassette tape, written in my girly penmanship across the front was the title, revealed in hot pink ink.

To: Kai Cooper

Love: Christopher

IT ALL AAAAAAAADDS UP, GEORGE!

“No… no… the last box isn’t checked yet. Not all the way” he whispered to himself out loud in my bedroom, breaking the silence between the cicadas.

“Not all the way”

George opened the mixtape and pulled out the cassette. He set it aside on the dresser gently and looked at the track list on the back of the mixtape cover. With eagle eyes, yellow flicks, ones that searched for rabbits in the granite crevices of Yosemite, he read the titles in his mind with his real voice, crisp and clear:

1. Why Can’t This Be Love - Van Halen

2. Love Walks In - Van Halen

3. I Need Love – LL Cool J

4. Glory of Love - Peter Cetera

5. Love Bites - Def Leppard

6. Will You Still Love Me - Chicago

7. What’s Love Got to Do With It - Tina Turner

8. I Want To Know What Love Is - Foreigner

9. Love Is A Battlefield - Pat Benatar

10. Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer

11. The One I Love - R.E.M.

Love Songs.

All Love Songs.

All eleven songs on a mixtape from Christopher to the boy who he ambushed George with tonight, the pretty boy with the sob story.

It all added up.

My father gently put the cassette into his pocket, placed the case back where he found it, and stacked the pile back up. He looked around the room one more time, scanned the Temple of Men that his son had built right under his nose. As he walked out my bedroom and shut my door and heard the cheap golden doorknob click shut... he also heard the checkbox click in his mind. He checked it, with permanent ink and saw there was one more. One more checkbox he never expected to check. He checked it off, in pencil, and exhaled, placing his forehead against my bedroom door as he reviewed the checklist and saw the last two clues, laid out bare in front of him.

Christopher was in love.

Check

Christopher was in love with a boy.

Check