Hole In The Mesquite

Hole in the Mesquite

By

Christopher “Bully the Kid” Bennett

The man looked at his hands. The lines appearing as darkened crevices that ran to the veins of his wrist like streams into individual rivers. He had looked at these hands since before he knew what hands were. They were hardened, but not calloused hands of a day laborer. Merely hands that had seen their fair share of sunsets and sunrises. A small black box set on the wooden table in front of him.

He stared at the box as if the contents were going to pop open and reveal its purpose. Yet the box sat still... unmoving, merely a box on an empty table. The man thought how odd it was that such a small box could hold such large dreams. That this box was the prelude to an answered prayer, or the initial whisper of a coming nightmare. A mere half a day ago this box was the beginning.... yet now it set on the table as the definition of an end.

The man shifted his weight on his wooden chair, leaning back into the rigid back frame and allowing his elbows to rest on the hardened arms. A tear slowly rolled from his eyes and down his cheek. He resisted the urge to wipe the tear and allowed it to drip off his cheek onto the old t-shirt he was wearing. He didn’t want to think of the moments the night before... the feeling of elation, only to be followed by the crushing weight of rejection.

Chapter 2

The man was not wealthy, his earnings were meager at best, and most months meager would be a luxury he could ill afford. He was a hard worker, but the times had limited the need for his skill set. He had bounced around from town to town looking for work. He would take the odd job here and there to provide a way for himself and those that depended on him. It wasn’t long ago that his life was different, and he could splurge on the unnecessary, from trips to clothing... he could afford to live as he pleased.

Yet those days were so long ago that they felt like a movie... depicting another mans life, playing on a screen that was too blurry to make out the closed captioning text at the bottom of the film. Today he sat in a reality that he wished would push forward to the end credits. No such luck however... and the box simply stared at him. It dared him to open it... mocking him... laughing at him because he actually thought happiness was a possibility.

He thought of her laugh at that moment. The way her face lit up when she smiled. Her eyes so striking against the paleness of her skin. He almost smiled himself through the pain, but suddenly the jovial face became dark, her cheeks flushed with the disappointment of his proposal. He was awkward... stuttering and stumbling over the simplest of words. His thoughts disoriented and his mind over processing the moment. He rushed through it... instead of taking a moment to catch his breath... he pushed the words out.

His fingers like chubby sausages around the diamond ring... so unattractive, so not romantic, her fingers delicate yet the ring was too rigid, it was too small.... yet they squeezed it on. For a moment he thought her tears were happiness for a moment they had spoken of for so long. Now he knew the tears weren’t of happiness, but of the realization that he had failed as a man. He was not Prince Charming, merely a frog dressed up as a man.... it was simply a moment, but a defining one.

Chapter 3

Love had evaded him. He had escaped untrue love, the selfish, self obsessed love of the wrong women that came into his life. He had long ago decided that love was simply a dream, a unicorn for a handful of lucky individuals that GOD blessed with a person. This was not his destiny... his destiny was to fail at the most precious of emotions. He realized that his melancholy thoughts were depressing, and he should move from the chair in front of the table that held up the ring.

The man stood up sliding the chair back abruptly from the table. He walked to the window that looked out onto his street. Three small children were arguing about what to do on the dusty day. Jump rope, or ride bikes... simple decisions that seemed so pressing for children at that age. A young mother watching her flock as she shielded her eyes from the dust and sun. She spotted him in the window and waved. He waved back fighting his initial reaction to hide behind the curtain. He was not ready to be seen... knowing the dissatisfaction in himself would be evident.

The man stepped away from the window and grabbed his keys from the hanging key mount. He allowed his fingers to play along the sharp edges of the keys. Each pointy edge jabbing him as if each were individual tiny needles... tiny needles that produced no blood. Small wonder as he felt as if his heart had stopped beating hours ago. He snatched the ring off the table and shoved it into the pockets of his faded jeans and made his way to his garage. The old truck sat there waiting for him to sit in it’s sinking cloth seats, and fire up the old Chevrolet engine.

The engine roared to life and the man enjoyed the shake of his beast as it warmed itself for whatever adventure the man would demand of it. He backed out the driveway looking for the group of children who were playing a moment before, yet they had since left the street and carried on to fun times that awaited them elsewhere in the small cul-de-sac. He pressed the gas and the engine roared to life as he shot out the driveway and down the street.

Chapter 4

The highway was only two short minutes from his driveway. The confines of the thirty-five mile an hour residential speed limit disappeared and made way for the seventy-five mile an hour speed of the four lane freeway. The man rolled the old window down to enjoy the whipping winds of the world around him. He took the black box from his pants pocket and placed it in the dusty dash of the truck. The truck was far from smooth, yet the box stayed where he placed it.

The scenery outside his window was a blur of browns and greens as he accelerated.... Seventy-five.... eighty-five …. Ninety-seven miles an hour! The truck whined as if it enjoyed the speed it was being pressed to. The man smirked as for a moment he thought of throwing the laughing box from the dash and watching it bounce down the asphalted interstate. He didn’t though... it occurred to him suddenly where he wanted to go... how far away he would go, not in distance, but in time.

The man eased the truck to a slow pace as he turned down the alley adjacent to the dusty wash that had seen its fair share of flash floods, and muddy waters. He stopped the truck and grabbed the box as he walked towards a large mesquite tree that grew over the brick wall separating the desert from civilization. He hadn’t walked this street in two decades, yet his feet traced the steps of his teenage days as if it was yesterday. He came to the tree and his eyes watered when he saw it... in the gnarled bark the four initials he etched there so long ago... CB with a heart between JG... the initials that forever would stand for disappointment. Etched for this corner of the world to laugh at and mock at love for a century to come.

Chapter 5

The man opened the box... the diamonds winked at him in the sunlight... as if they were winking at him. The precious stones were shining. Twinkling as tiny stars caught in a silver embrace. He thought of the saying, that a ring symbolizes a circle... a circle of trust. He had broken that circle.. he had lost that trust... now he merely had a zero... not a circle, but a zero representing the hope he had in love and in his personal forever.

How tricky a thing hope is. Hope is the adolescent thought process that goes against reason. How could he find love after all the hearts he had broken in his careless selfish time playing with the minds of women. Yet here he sat, a long way from the piles of money, articles of clothes, and fine jewelry of his past. Now the man and his hands stood in front of the tree... lost and ashamed. He could not stop asking himself questions..

Why had he not tried harder?

Why was he not smoother?

Where was his patience?

His creativity?

He had discarded all the above to simply rush through a moment that would scar him forever. He had no reason, he had no why... what he had was a diamond and a memory... disappointment and discontent... not in her, but in himself. He knew he could tell himself he deserved better, that she was not the one so it ended where, and when it did. He knew that that was not the case though... she was the one, she was the blessing, the prayer that he had turned into a nightmare.

That nightmare he would relive, until the moment he lived no longer. He ran his fingers along the bark of the mesquite. It was sharp, and his fingers traced thorns that acted as armor protecting the old wood. He traced the crevices down the tree as if he were a blind man reading brail, when his finger slid into a hole. It shocked him for a moment the sudden plunge into the heart of the desert shrubbery. He didn’t think of the creatures that may have sought refuge in the decrepit bark, he merely felt the smooth insides of the tree... when his hand bumped a sharp corner edge.

Chapter 6

The edge shocked him, but his fingers were able to make out the shape of a small rectangular box. He pulled the box from the tree. It was covered in refuse and debris. A small lock clasped it shut. There was no key attached, but the man thought that maybe... perhaps the owner would have left the key in the same hole. He reached back in, his stubby fingers bumping the sides and rummaging through old leaves and dirt. He had just about given up the search when his fingers felt something pointy.. he knew... he had found the key.

He pulled it out and examined the tiny, delicate piece. It was only slightly rusted, and it still sent a glint of shine when the sun touched its metal surface. The man blew the dust from the key. He was pondering if he should open the box, after all the box was not his. Surely someone placed it to be found, and by the look of it, it was not placed recently. He would surmise it was perhaps placed almost as long as his personal etching on the tree. In a matter of moments he knew he would open the box to see his contents. If it were not meant to be removed he would replace it... what harm could come from his curiosity.

The man leaned against the brick wall, looking around as if the owner of the box would pop out from under a rock at anytime. He almost laughed at thinking of a small leprechaun figure jumping out and yelling “let go of me treasure!”. It felt good to laugh... he truly didn’t know if he still had it in him to chuckle, let alone laugh. The moment of joy made him feel better about opening the box and he inserted the key to see what it possessed.

The box opened unceremoniously, no whimsical music accompanying the opening. No magical genie popping out to grant three random wishes, merely a piece of old parchment paper, a golden tennis bracelet and a folded sheet of notebook paper. He knew he would read the note... without even going through a fake moment of wondering if it was an invasion of privacy or not. He unfolded the paper...

“Dear Always......”

Chapter 7

The cursive handwriting flowed as if they were tiny black waves on the page. Each letter flowing into the next and each word separated by a break in the waves…. He began to read the letter…

“It took me two weeks before I had the ability to push the button that would call you. Two weeks before I could face the reality of what had transpired over a year. Two weeks before I could recognize the similarities and the differences in my feelings and the subtle changes to my heart. I had thought that two weeks was patience… that half a month would be long enough to know that what I felt was not fleeting… or merely a nuance of some faux remnant of an emotion that did not truly exist…

Yet… two weeks was not long… it was not 40 days of fasting, or 40 days of rain… it was simply a start…. It was the starter pistol going off to start a race that would be forever… that’s how I imagine the end of love beginning. Yet love never truly ends.. it can be pushed aside, or hidden in the shadows in the darkest of closets, or it can be bludgeoned by hate, doubt, anger, or distrust.. but love will always remain. It does not need light, or the slightest wisp of wind to be noticed, or the quiver of sound, or the faintest fragrance of a memory… love simply persists… it quite simply is…

I am not a great storyteller of love… I’m merely one of everyone who has ever been heartbroken and carries the sorrow of regret for loving completely… one of many that started this race to a place that ends in ….. Why. Why does an emotion that seems strong enough to move mountains crumble out of the weak words of circumstance, coincidence, or the coinciding chances that are meant to merely trip the greatest of emotions.

Two weeks I grieved, as I pondered the ever so great God given gift which is love… as I went through the stages of loss… I thought of you… I dreamed of you… I wondered if I could have done more, talked less, listened more intently… if I could I have realized something I had missed….

I wanted you to realize the truth in my words… the sincerity in my heart, I wanted to show you how your mistrust ripped me apart, because I had never been more honest than I had with you.. I told you everything… everything until I had no more to tell. I had no answers to the whispers in your mind… I fell upon God, I knelt before his love because I know we both shared the same…..

For two weeks I thought of what you must have felt to walk away, to remove me from your world, so permanently…. Until there was not even a remnant of me in your home, in your mind, in your heart… that your days passed without even a casual thought of me. While my days were full of anguish, pain, and loss associated with having lost love, friendship, and hope… two weeks of thinking of you waking up angry at trusting me, in a rage about loving me, that my voice that use to sooth you, now only enraged you…. That my touch which use to make you feel comfortable now made you pull away….

I thought of how easy I walked away from others, how selfish I had been in the past, how I discarded others feelings for me and was happy to lose myself in my wants, needs, and fancies… mere moments that did not correlate to everlasting memories. Yet here I lay at 2am with a flight to catch in 4 hours and a long day ahead of me… thinking of you and missing the light of your eyes, the smell of your hair, the gentleness in your voice that has always made me happy… for decades it has made me smile… yet fore decades to come I may never feel the same….

I would be lying if I did not admit that I hoped you were more at peace without me, that my mind did not think of you having conversations with other men that have replaced me and that they now made you laugh, feel safe, and peaked your interest. Despite the pain I know that if you are happy then I know that Gods plan is always the best plan. Yet not a day goes by that I don’t hear just love her… fight for her… don’t quit….persevere .. she will see, she will hear…

Take the time to prepare… prepare my heart to love… completely. There is a story in closing all entrances, all access… there is a story in opening those very doors and windows and allowing love back in… I know one day you will open yourself up to me and allow me back in… I’ll be ready… Until then two weeks is a start…

Love is not only blind, but it is also deaf… because it can make us feel helpless… that we are unable to see reason, or hear caution… it is faith that makes love strong… because faith overpowers the weakness that comes with love… faith is what makes us believe when others doubt. We are believers… because God is the light in the darkness, his voice is the sound in silence… and love is often his test of faith for us all… yet it is also the greatest reward.

Chapter 8……..