The Matador in the Bulrush Part Three

I started to feel the art around me and the nudity in the design of things. The moss on the sheds roof as I sped by; the heavy silky oatmeal sand beneath my tires during those times I ventured and laboriously rode the forested paths with my lungs pumping air as strong as any blacksmiths bellows; the shadows crossing long and short, crossways and behind me; all the science of a settling sun. Through-out my life I have always felt as Columbus, standing on the deck and peering into the mist. I was always hoping to see a new island, a new landing where no foot had stepped, but always at peace in the journey, secretly wishing for the search for whatever it was to never end. In those times when I was hurt, frightened or insecure, I would mentally slide onto that bike and ride the distances I remembered. I may have replaced it with airplanes and cars, but my mind still peddles to the rhythm of then. Now the years have passed, and the mist has cleared a bit. The landscape I see is both frightening and surreal, and although it beckons me, I have days I when I fear I have ridden too far to ever return. Its definition, in all its collection of days, was a gift from Joshua. There are times still when I can just see the outline of him, a saturated swipe of color standing behind a sheet of rain, until I realize it is me, standing in my own fog and I know, no matter how loud I shout, he can’t hear me. And then, when his refusal to walk to me comes, I hear the fragile ice beneath my tires creak their cracks, and I am back in spring, peddling fast and away. Nothing can take me like this journey has and the consequences unknown is willingly paid. The bicycle gave me that; the same bicycle that brought me to Joshua.

To a child, at schools end and in the height of summer, every day is Saturday. To every child those two months, a mere sixty plus days, roll as slowly forward as any turtle embedded in overheated asphalt. And in most cases, a child learns more, discovers more in those two months than they ever did in the ten or so months previous. I think, to some degree, that every child held a feathered thought; a soul bound belief, that school was simply a tool that prepared them for summer.

It was one of those Saturdays, in the dusk of July that I found him. My bike and I had been together three years by then, and by 1972 I no longer had to reach and stretch for my toes to hold the peddles on each bottom arc. I had enjoyed a growth spurt through winter, and it was that summer when I first noticed that my bike was shrinking, aging and becoming as bone feeble as any of the elderly people around me. But the added length of my legs gave me more power, allowing me to travel faster so I pushed that bike harder than I ever had, listening as the seat springs moaned and whined, and the brakes croaking like a frog on helium. At the same time my rusty chain had loosened and its loop was slapping across the sprocket like ill fitting dentures. It had been hot for two weeks and with no rainfall to cool the air or soothe the parched ground, left most people hovering and moving as slow as dozing porch hounds robbed of their shadows.

For me the solution to escaping the oven-still heat was simply to ride fast and whip the wind across my face until it cooled my skin. That, as well as my trips to Beaver Lake, were what the regiment of days held as my routine. At day’s end you could always find people dipping themselves in the water, wading and baptizing themselves in the ritual of washing away the dust of their labors. The open air of the town may have seemed unbearable to those trapped and unable to make the journey, but for those of us who could, found ourselves tested by all Dante had to offer. The forest guarding its shores always held the heat longer, strengthening its swelter until the shimmering waves of temperature seemed to broil away the definition of trees, erasing its needles and branches, until it all appeared amateurish; the anonymous thumb -smear mistakenly applied to an unframed canvas.

I was feeling all those things as I approached the cut in the wall of spruce trees, the small space that marked the beginning of the path to the lake. I was watching how the air was melting the green to a spill of color, knowing how hot it would be inside the forest, despite how long the shadows were, and how unlucky everyone else was who did not own a bike as trustworthy as mine.

I moved through the forest in imaginary speed, cutting across the cooled dark stains, rounding corners with balanced perfection, always countering and leaning sideways as the worn paths fine silica sand tried its best to grasp my tires and ensnare me. I was climbing the last hill, slowing in the effort and barely aware of the tickle of sweat that was drawing its line down my neck when my bikes chain made its decision to commit suicide. That hill was always the last obstacle to conquer, before its down- slope gave way to smooth packed grass and an easy coast to its bottom. If you peddled hard and built enough speed you could ride the distance to the last stretch of sand and make it half- way before you had to renew peddling again. From there it was an easy right curve of hard ground before another smaller hill brought you down to the lakeshore. But as I was about to break its crest I felt my leg push free, heard the snap and knew that my chain had broken. I stopped at the apex and inspected the damage, hoping that it had merely jumped off its sprockets cogs. My heart sank when I confirmed that the chain was dangling loose and tangled, definitely and irreconcilably separated. Worse yet, one of the cogs had snapped making the sprocket forever useless. I had to make a decision then. I could coast the hill and walk the rest of the way to the lake, which would make the trip home even longer and more arduous, or cut my losses and make the shorter walk home immediately. I wonder today what would I have been if I had decided differently.

It was the heat, and the need of the water, that pushed me forward. I drew my legs up beside me to be free of the angry bouncing length of chain-links and let gravity pull me down. The acceleration was much slower than I had ever experienced and by the time I was ten feet into the sand I was wavering drunkenly on my bike, trying to hold my balance as long as possible. In seconds I was sitting beside my bikes corpse, already feeling the regret of its loss. I picked it up from its side and was about to make the rest of the way to the lake when I heard a sound. To my right, not at a far distance, came a hint of voice, a murmur of laughter and something else. I stayed quiet and waited. It came again, sounding almost familiar yet quiet in its danger. The voices seemed harsh, breezing to me a feeling, almost like the acidic stench common to any sarcastic apology. I slid my bike into a small stand of shrub, and made me way towards the voices. I pushed through the forest, peeling branches from my hair, swatting mosquitoes like a drummer, unraveling the grass beneath my feet until I found myself on a piece of rock, peering through the branches and looking down at the owners of the voices.

No one ever came this way, but as I looked down at the three of them, I realized I knew them all.

Standing at the edge of the water were the two twins, Pinch and Fat Albert. Their real names, if they had any, were gone from me then. Both of them were eighteen and famous to all of us as the bullies they were. In those days we all crossed the sidewalk to avoid sharing the ground they walked, knowing not to do so risked the capture of their eyes. It took me awhile to know how Fat Albert had earned his name. He was neither fat, nor black, but he did have an annoying habit of starting every conversation with “hey”. He was about 5’11, skinny, with longish hair that ran wispy across his shoulders. His skin was never suntanned and to us he always looked like the undead, woken from his coffin in midday and pissed off at the sun. Although Pinch was a twin, he looked nothing like his partnered egg. He was fat, shorter than his brother, with a military haircut fashioned after his fathers. If he ever owned a belt, we never saw it. His name, for us, was self explanatory. Whomever he was near, he would reach and grab a piece of their skin, preferably a nipple, and twist, always laughing as he said “Wanna’ pinch?”.

Standing in the water and facing them was Joshua. At his back was a column of bulrushes, spreading shadows across the water twice as long as their height. His hair had darkened since I had last seen him, becoming deeply red and almost auburn. He was wearing blue baggy summer shorts, standing in that depth of water where the bottom hems were just changing hue. He had removed his t-shirt and had tied it around his shoulders like a makeshift cape, and in his hands he was holding a spear, a broken piece of deadfall that he had sharpened to a point.  Then, in that day, the bulrushes were as high as his shoulders. I knew, without being told, that the twins had walked the shoreline and had come upon Joshua in his secret place.

“Hey, hey hey..Pinch”, Fat Albert was saying, “lookee what we got here. We got us a spear chucker bent on killin’ us both. What you make of THAT Pinch? You shakin?”

Joshua was stoically silent, watching them both with dispassionate eyes.

“Well now.....what you got planned boy?” Fat Albert chided. Although I couldn’t see it, I knew there was a grin in his voice. “ Gonna stab one of us?...while the other one fucks you up?”

Pinch was moving right, away from Joshua and a good distance from his brother. “ I don’t know Albee....seems to me this ...this...witch fucker has it all worked out. What you say?  C’mon short stuff....let that wood go...”

Joshua slid right, keeping the point of his spear at hip level, but newly pointed at Pinch.

Fat Albert let out a howl, “ Pinch...Pinch!  I can’t wait,,,yer making me piss man!  Hey!...orphan boy...what ya think there? Got some spell to cast? Turn us into frogs and shit? You aint nothin’ man...nothin I ain’t seen. Some fucked up kid with a dead dad..and a coward brother that got his-self squished into an envelope. HOLEEEEE...Thats funny Pinch...his brother in an envelope!! Betcha he did that tryin’ to escape the war....fukin’ panty sniffer!!!”

Pinch was quiet. I wanted to yell at Joshua and tell him that Pinch was flanking him, but the coward in me stayed hidden. Joshua spun back to Fat Albert, and in that instance his guard was split. As he leveled his spear at Fat Albert, Pinch let out an apache yelp, charging into the water until he reached Joshua.

I watched as Pinch grabbed the t-shirt around Joshua’s neck and spun him in a circle, using his weight to turn Joshua around, frothing the water until he fell. Joshua was kneeling in the water then, with Pinch standing over him, daring him to breathe. The spear had disappeared beneath the water, but I knew Joshua had not let go.

“Oh mY GOD!!! Your sooooo stupid witch boy! Watcha gonna do now?....huh? jack off? What?  You are such a stupid pussy boy....same as your retarded dad and that stupid brother of yours.”  Pinch leaned forward and waited for Joshua to turn his head upward, before slapping his face with the full of his palm. To this day it remains the most vulgar thing I have witnessed, and if truth be told, any man alive will tell you they would prefer the violence of a punch, to the eternal bruise of a slap.

Fat Albert was moving forward until Joshua yelled.

On his knees Joshua screamed, “ AAAAAHHHHhhhhhhhhh.....AHHHHHHHhhhhhh!!!! at the same time slamming his fist into the water. Pinch backed up a step, while Fat Albert stopped in his tracks. Then Joshua stood up slowly, still holding his spear. The water was running off him in small rivers, the cascade of it all twinkling in the sinking in sun. His face had changed, his jaw becoming as cast as concrete while his eyes went somewhere else.

The spear was pointed at Fat Albert while Joshua’s head slowly pivoted to Pinch. Both brothers went quiet as they cautiously backed away. Something was happening that neither of them understood, some new level of promised violence that was about to give them both, the never before experienced honesty of war.