Guardians and Angels | Chapter Four (Part 15)

“You never told me your mother was blind?”

Kai gasped at my admission slightly as he turned toward me in the moonlight, his mouth—the mouth of sly smirks, gentle smiles, and perfect pouts—stood open as his eyebrows raised and his eyes searched for mine in the darkness. “Why didn’t you tell me, Christopher?”

His voice fell away, a sad curiosity seasoning his tone. My name was only a whisper by the time he finished his question. I was a mystery he kept trying to unravel; he was a curiosity that kept probing at me. An everlasting dance, or so I hoped. A hundred clues dawned upon him as he stood in front of me waiting for my answer. His golden brow furrowed as his rich-boy concern began to show upon his pink lips. He whispered at me, “I’m so sorry, buddy,” with a soft squeeze of the shoulder.

I knew it.

He fucking feels sorry for me.

Worst-case scenario.

(Look away, look away.)

I looked up at him. I couldn’t help it. No tears in my eyes this time, not when at home. I don’t fucking cry at home.

“Never been any reason,” I mumbled back at him as I peered past his shoulder toward the darkened porch across the field where my mother sat waiting for us. A thousand thoughts clashed within my mind when I said it; all my lies were like knights in battle armor making their last stand in castles made of stone. Swords struck swords in my head. Chainmail scraped stone stairs. Muscle and bone bounced off brick walls as bodies scraped downward into my mind’s trapdoors where I kept the truth about me. His curiosity was unending, a barrage forcing its way into my chambers. My kingsguard were falling on their swords.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

My mental guards, making their last stand, were grunting and screaming inside me as they held the line valiantly. No turning back from his onslaught of concern. He would find out everything. Somewhere in the hallways of my heart, I heard the swish of sword blades sliding into flesh, air escaping lungs, bloody gurgles. My guards had fallen. I didn’t know if it was trust or infatuation, or both, but my stone walls crumbled down before him rather easily. A facade revealed. As soon as we crossed the thin electric fence humming in the October night a few feet before us, there would be nothing standing between him and everything I had been hiding from him. My home life was now an open belly, warm and pink, exposed to his teeth.

“Let’s go meet my Mom,” I whispered.

No sneaking in tonight.

The home I slept in every night crouched a hundred yards in the distance. A double-wide trailer made of aluminum. Something that could blow away in the wind. A rectangle in the steel-blue night with a warm subtle glow, not from white siding, but from yellow siding, a buttery yellow. There were windows up front, but no lights shone from behind them, the curtains drawn. Four or five stairs ran up the center of the porch and led to a doorway with something hanging in the center, an unknown detail in the darkness. Just to the side of the doorway, there was a small spark floating in the air. A lone spark, fluttering like a firefly filled with magma, hovering and then dipping, hovering and then dipping, over and over.

Her cigarette.

Beside the doorway, in the darkness, her two companions crouched in loyalty: one in silence, the other screaming. Cinca, her guide dog, was sniffing the wind, reading the scent that traveled upon it, seeing the scene from a mile away as it unfolded in her mind’s eye. Sitting on a small table with a couple of drawers was her second companion, a boombox radio that she received for her birthday, which also fell on Christmas Day. Christopher gave her the radio for her birthday and a cassette tape for her Christmas present, both wrapped in different wrapping, so she had a present for each. For some reason, that was important to him, little details like that. Christopher was like that.

One of her favorite bands from the Seventies, a group named Heart, had an album out that year simply titled Heart, and Christopher bought it for her. She loved it. She couldn’t stop playing it; she loved it with all her heart, she would say, and then giggle at her little joke. It was the soundtrack to her blindness, the audio that played when her ‘video’ didn’t. She had other favorites too, not just that album. Heart released a new album this summer named Bad Animals, and she had her new obsession. The song “Alone” was playing beside her, over and over, the guitar and piano chords clashing out, powerful vocals resonating in waves of earnest agony across the field before her.

“Til now!

I always got by on my own!

I NEVER REALLY CARED UNTIL I MET YOU!!!!

And now it chills me to the bone!

How will I get you Aloooooooooooooooooooooooooooone!?

How will I get you Aloooooooooooooooooooooooooooone!?”

Pause.

The radio on the porch fell silent, abruptly. The wailing of the rock-singing sisters echoed a bit for a moment as the field sucked in the last of their yearning voices, thirsty for their aching vibrations. My mother knew I was home, and so did Cinca, who was moving toward us, and she was moving FAST!

No sneaking in tonight!

I saw the shadows shifting violently as the tall waves of grass parted before Cinca’s mass as she careened through the field toward us, her paws softly striking the adobe as she bounded forward in a fury. She was picking up speed with each pounce, head locked onto her target, feet gliding across the earth, all her energy bounding forth like a cannonball shot from only yards away. I only had a moment to warn Kai before she leaped over the electric fence and pounced upon us: a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound black Labrador retriever, with teeth bared, prepared to kill if required.

Cinca’s mass was a locomotive steaming toward us at full speed. Her coat was black and glistening like a Florida panther but moving far too fast to shimmer in the moonlight. You could hear the rumble of her growl rising in her throat, gravel on a dirt road under slow heavy tires. As her growl boiled forth into a roar, she launched into the air about five yards before the electric fence, easily clearing it. Her entire mass, all her force, was aimed dead center at Kai’s chest, her teeth emblazoned upon her snout, white stalactites in the night, ready to clench and rip within seconds.

As quick as Kai was, Cinca was quicker, and there was no twisting or turning or ducking to get out of the way once Cinca set her target on someone and launched toward them while running at full speed. She was a torpedo that never missed. She would bite and clamp down and subdue any interloper if there was any doubt about their intentions. My father had trained her to act first, think second. My only hope was the secret code, the on/off switch, the one that turned her from a guardian to an angel.

“PEGASUS! ENVOLE-TOI!”

I cried the words out as loud as I could and lunged to my left with all my weight, pushing Kai hard to the ground. He tumbled to his side, falling into the dry grass and rolling onto his back as Cinca’s black mass glided past him, missing him only slightly, by mere millimeters. Her ebony hair brushed his golden skin with a faint tickle as she slipped by and landed behind him on her feet with a whoosh and a thud.

“PEGASUS! ENVOLE-TOI!”

I cried the code out again, a French term my father brought back from Vietnam, with my face turned toward Cinca as I covered Kai with my body the same way I had done a thousand times at wrestling practice, wrapping him up in my arms and rolling him into a headlock. Below me, I could feel him instinctively curl up into a fetal position and clench his muscles. He tensed and constricted like a python underneath me, his thickening muscles contracting in fear. He cried out with more fright in his voice than I expected.

“Don’t let her bite me! DON’T LET HER BITE ME!”

He was afraid.

Cinca wheeled around and tucked her alabaster teeth away, fangs sliding back into her jowls, her eyes flickering from a midnight black to a soft sienna brown, the color of Saturday morning pancakes. She flopped out her long pink tongue and headed toward us, somehow shifting from the deepest ebony black to a soft charcoal shadow. Her transition from a demon dog to an off-duty guide dog was complete; the secret code to switch her personalities on and off was nestled firmly in her mind, and she was now bouncing toward us like an overgrown puppy as she prepared to wrestle us to the ground and lick our faces until we couldn’t breathe through our laughter.

____________________________________

Carol stood on the porch smoking her menthol cigarette, its glowing red tip blazing forth, unknowingly bright in her blindness, as it fluttered up and down, hovering and then dipping, hovering and then dipping, over and over. In between the hovering, she would pull in deeply with her lips on the cotton filter and drag the minty smoke through her throat with a long drag until it burned a bit.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

hold it in

hold it in

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let it out

let it out

She felt Cinca sit up quickly, alerted, tense beside her. Her weight shifted as she transitioned and darkened, growing larger and more massive in an instant.

ACTIVATED!

Her transition from guide dog to guard dog jolted Carol away from the memories of a dream she had dreamt a week ago. A dream she couldn’t stop thinking about. One of those dreams that didn’t fit in anywhere and then didn’t disappear in the real world, a lingerer. She sensed it now, returning, lingering.

She was on a beach…but it was a winery…long rows of vineyards lined up all the way down... an impossibly long beach. She walked down the center, vines on both sides, heavy and dripping with purple grapes. Her feet dragging in the sand. Ahead of her was a coyote pulling what looked to be a pack behind it.nStrings stretched out behind him… not strings, though.

Umbilical cords, thick and veiny, attached and twisting

The coyote was pulling something on the ends of the umbilical cords. She had to get closer. The sand was so thick, slowing her down, she was so tired. She stumbled forward and the coyote turned and looked at her with a growl that made her tremble to her bones.

“You can’t steal what I stole, Carol”

He looked toward them, in the sand, and she finally saw what he was pulling. Golden hearts, they are golden hearts…heavy and making traces in the sand, outlines. Clues.

(A hand on her shoulder… the scent of watermelon bubblegum)

A boy with green eyes is behind her when she turns around, squinting in the sun.

“Can you see him, Carol?... did I do it right?”

Carol snapped out of her daydream with a start. Cinca was right; someone was here, across the field. Carol reached out her hand and found the knob on the boombox instinctively. She knew where everything was; everything had a place. Blind people needed systems; they needed patterns. She pinched the volume knob between her two fingertips, manicured perfectly and painted a neon pink with electric blue stripes running diagonally across in lacquer nail polish, little sparkles shimmering as she readied herself to flick off the music if needed. Cinca sniffed the air twice and made a small “Boof!” noise.

Boof! meant Christopher was home.

Cinca stood up and grew darker, larger. Her mass was now five times the mass she normally was. The darkness grew deeper, and she stirred inside like a volcano, began rumbling with her own magma. She was EXTRA ACTIVATED!

Something was wrong.

Carol flicked the knob with her fingers and killed the volume on the radio, severing the voices erupting forth. Cinca launched from the porch and sped across the field toward Christopher, a runaway train on a one-way track, destination: Christopher. She was pretending she would maul him, as usual, but this was different; they always played the same game: Christopher was the enemy sneaking in behind enemy lines, Cinca was the Sentinel. The perceiver of all that shifted and all that shined. The sole guardian of the Echo Field in which they lived. She could see with her nose, see the echoes, see the images, and she would protect her family from anything that meant them harm, anything that dared to wade into her Echo Field and disturb its vibrations.

Carol could faintly sense Christopher’s glowing electrical outline in the distance, shimmering and flickering like a sparkler on Independence Day. The flicker was different, though, new. She sat up and focused her attention harder with her mind. His outline was being occluded by another outline; someone else was with him. He’d brought a friend home. Christopher never brings a friend home.

(the beach from her dream, it’s going to be the boy from the beach from her dream, green eyes)

She reached down and found her burgundy leather cigarette case with the gold metal snap closure on the top and flicked it open with her pink and blue fingertips. She needed a cigarette for this. With the flick of her wrist, another Newport cigarette pulled forth from the pack, and she pulled it out with her lips smoothly, guided by intuition and patterns. With another flick of her wrist, she lit the tip with her lighter. Flick! The menthol fired up, the tobacco crackling in the stillness as she pulled in the minty air and created her ashes.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

hold it in

hold it in

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let it out

let it out

“This should be interesting,” she whispered to herself, her dream from a week ago waking up in the back of her mind along with the first tinge of worry.

I bet he has green eyes

She heard the laughter and commotion of the boys wrestling with the dog in the nighttime air as Cinca frolicked and barked and lunged upon them in the distance. Her duty done, her realm protected, she was back to her lovable self, a normal Labrador frolicking in a field. The sound of the crooked gate opening and closing jangled; a metallic click was heard as the lock was snapped shut on the metal post. Carol 'saw' two forms with her newfound ability, or two outlines, approaching with Cinca: her son, a purple electric outline, sparkling and fizzing with swirls of pinks and blue, and another form.

A golden outline.

A golden sizzle with a warm copper glow sitting in the center of it where the heart would be. The glow from the middle of him was emanating like late afternoon sunshine on a mountain lake with sparkling reflections of yellow and orange light beams rippling across water and shooting forth from him like a disco ball in the summertime sunset. He was a million endless summers. A bittersweet ache. Above the golden ripples sat his eyes—emeralds in the night with pupils of jade. Green beyond green. He was dazzling.

His beautiful soul outline was blinding even to a blind woman, a golden glow that was like an unfolding explosion, roiling and exploding and contracting and re-exploding over and over like the surface of the sun, a hot shimmer that warmed her own heart from yards away. As he grew closer and closer, approaching cautiously, his golden glow dimmed and became a soft fuzzy hue around his outline, a buttery shimmer shifting and darkening as he saw her sitting in her chair at the top of the stairs. She stood up to greet him, a shadowy figure with her glowing orb cigarette tip floating around her on the darkened porch. He was afraid.

“I wanna do it right…” she heard echo around him. Over and over, a teenage boy mantra.

An image of a chameleon changing colors flashed in her mind. Colors rippling and changing tones in sequences, in patterns. Kai walked to the bottom of the stairs, side by side with Christopher, a golden hum vibrating next to his violet and pink opal shimmer; the colors of their souls mixing in sublime ombre tones that reminded her again of lightning, of thunderbolts, and how you never really know what color lightning is even if it’s frozen right in front of you. How did he shift his color like that?

“Hey, Mom, this is my friend Kai. He’s on the wrestling team with me,” I smirked at her, shyness in my voice. (sounding sweet, oh my God.)

She paused. Listening to the crickets.

Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

hold it in

hold it in

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let it out

let it out

“Pleasure meeting you, Kai,” my mother purred, a slow soft greeting, her voice calm in the shadows.

“HELLO MRS DUBBS!!” Kai shouted, overly loud, out of nowhere, jarring me a bit. I looked at him sharply, shocked at his exclamation, jolted by the surprise, and elbowed him in the side.

Oh My God, No! He’s going to fuck it up.

“She’s blind, not deaf, dumbass,” I said with a half-laugh under my breath, knowing his logic instinctively. My heart pounded an extra step from the shock even though it was already galloping at a nice pace from nervousness.

He looked at me appalled, hopefully at himself, and cocked his head, eyes widening, mouthing “what?” toward me. He would’ve shoved me if the situation had been any different, I bet, but he was on his best behavior now. Instead, he stood up straight and pulled his shoulders back, puffed out his chest, and walked up the stairs to my mother. He reached for her hand in the darkness, finding her fingers with his. He cupped her hand into his and knelt before her on one knee, leaned down, and kissed her knuckles softly with his lips, pausing for a few seconds before softly saying, “Kai Cooper, Christopher’s best friend, forever. Very pleased to meet you, Mrs. Dubbs.”

OMG WHAT IS HE DOING? This is NOT how I thought this would go…

My mother giggled. She only giggled, never really laughed. I don’t remember my mother ever laughing out loud with a huge sound. It was always just a shy giggle, and I hadn’t heard it in quite some time.

giggle, giggle

“Well, aren’t you a charmer,” she said, her voice tinged with bashfulness. “I’m Carol Arlene, very pleased to meet you, Kai Cooper.”

giggle, giggle

I saw Kai squeeze her hand, one, two…pause…three. And I saw my mother squeeze back, heard her giggle, and with that, the last of my defenses fell. My headquarters of secrets and lies was breached. My mother was as infatuated with Kai Cooper, the golden boy from the Valley of the Moon, as I was. It was a devastating defeat. He had plundered and razed my entire domain with his charm in only a few moments. My walls lay in dust on the edges of my childhood home, and my mother was there to tell me to clean them up. I had friends coming over. I don’t think I’m giving anything away when I say my mother fell in love with Kai Cooper and would end up loving him as much as me, maybe even more at times. You’ll see why. Soon.

I walked up the stairs and gave my mother a small peck on the cheek, Kai still holding her hand, beaming at me as Cinca bounded up behind me to find her place by my mother’s side. I updated her on our plans, eager to depart this clash of worlds.

“We are just stopping by, Mom. We need to change for the dance, and I, uhhh, forgot something.”

Pause

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hold it in

hold it in

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let it out

let it out

“What’d you forget?” she whispered into the night, smoke billowing in coils around her. Let’s play the mind game, Christopher. Think of something. Lie your ass off to me, she thought.

“A mixtape.”

“A mixtape?” she cocked her head.

“Yeah, it’s for wrestling. We have a championship tournament in two weeks, and we need music to wrestle to, to, you know, get us pumped up and stuff.”

She giggled. “Pumped up, huh?”

“You know what I mean, Mom.”

“Yeah, I get it, pumped up... and stuff,” she looked away at nothing. Darkness reminded her of everything she couldn’t see in her blindness. She knew he was lying. She always knew. Christopher would turn from his beautiful purple to a deep dull red, a throbbing red, a burgundy, that reminded her of shame when she saw it. She wished he wouldn’t lie to her. The boy had so many secrets nowadays.

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hold it in

hold it in

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let it out

let it out

“Why do you need the mixtape for the dance?” she asked. Pull something out of your ass, Christopher. Let’s rumble, she thought.

“I was going to stay at Kai’s all weekend, but,” my voice trailed off. I hadn’t practiced what I would say; everything happened so fast tonight.

“But things changed.”

Pause. She scanned him with her mind, seeing without seeing, just the outlines... using her gift.

Hmmmm, purple again…he’s telling the truth

“And I just wanted to have the mixtape on hand so we can practice anywhere.”

Red… so red. Sigh… what is he up to?

“You and your mixtapes,” she whispered, a smirk on her face.

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hold it in

hold it in

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let it out

let it out

“He ever make you a mixtape yet, Kai?” she said, not turning toward him, her voice purring. She continued to face toward the field as if she could somehow see it, her inquiry floating like the smoke around her. Kai was looking at me, watching me squirm, his face crumpled at the direction I was going. Judging me. He squinted his eyes at me, and I knew he was wondering what I was doing.

“Oh yeah, and I love it,” he said, cheerfully. “I listen to it every night.”

“You ever need a fucking mixtape for a school dance, Kai?” my mother asked, her voice no longer purring. Her tone soft but slightly menacing. No more bullshit.

“No, Ma’am, you see... Christopher’s trying to cover for me,” he said, confidently.

I turned toward him, my turn to cock my head to the side and wonder what was happening. My mother turned her head toward him too, facing him now, almost as if she was really seeing him. All our attention was on him, the way he liked it, and he stood there beaming, soaking up the energy, loving every moment. He knew the feel of things when he impacted a room, and he felt his impact radiating the way he hoped it would. He looked at me and mouthed the word ‘sorry’ and then spoke out loud to me.

“We can’t lie forever, Christopher… Not unless we want our entire lives to be a lie,” and then turned toward my mother, still holding her hand.

“You see, Mrs. Dubbs…my father, this guy named Coty, who acts like my father, well, he beats the shit out of me every weekend, and I was hoping I could stay here sometimes.”

He did it right.

My mother squeezed Kai’s hand and pulled him toward her, her unseeing eyes clenched tight like she was going to cry. No tears came forth, though; she knew when to be strong and serious. She pulled him and hugged him and whispered in his ear, “You came to the right place, baby.”

They hugged for a few moments, rocking back and forth. I stood in silence watching something play in front of me that was foreign to me, a language I had not yet learned. Honesty poured forth from my front porch that night and overflowed down the stairs and into the world I would escape into to tell my lies. I was stunned, confused, and relieved all at once. No words formed, just emotions, and I was silent for a while… afraid to destroy the truthfulness in front of me. I let them hug until it was awkward and then mentioned we needed to get going, asking the awkward on my mind to question to break their grasps.

“Mom, ummm, can Kai come inside, to my room, to change? I’ll cover his eyes until we are in the room.”

He turned toward me quickly as their hug parted and shot a look while mouthing, “What the fuck?” I shot a look back at him and waved my hand dismissively. He’d figure it out soon enough. But not without her permission.

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hold it in

hold it in

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let it out

let it out

My mother turned back toward the field and, without hesitation, said, “He can go inside, Christopher. No need for the blindfold.”

Tapping Kai on the shoulder, I opened the front door and motioned for him to be quiet. My little sister was sleeping on some mattresses on the floor of the living room, sprawled haphazardly in her Strawberry Shortcake pajamas, wrapped in sheets. The television was flickering a blue haze over the furniture, casting a glow upon the walls that went from dark to light as the scenes changed on the screen. The pungent smell of marijuana hit our faces, shocking our noses with its tartness, skunky and sweet. Kai’s eyes opened wide as he caught the aroma, shaking his face from the shock to his senses.

Across the room, in a corner, sitting in an oversized leather recliner, sat my father. He was cleaning a rifle, one of many he owned, with several other rifles strewn around him haphazardly. Cold steel barrels pointing in all directions, paranoid and ready to fire, unknowing which way the enemy would come.

Without looking up, my father reached quickly, but smoothly, over to a revolver by his right thigh and grasped the handle… Smooth is fast, Christopher… smooth is fast

I only had a split second to turn him off.

“Pegasus, envole-toi,” I said calmly, looking my father in the eyes as he raised his revolver toward the door, finger on the trigger, barrel pointing straight at us.

"Pegasus, envole-toi”