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Sliver of Time: #1

Seattle still doesn’t feel like home, outside the rain drops come crashing down hard against my window. I imagine the drops wearing tiny helmets their arms at their side bracing for impact the tiny kamikaze’s desperately trying to break through my window. I think about my brother’s helmet that yellow rusty looking football helmet he’d try to ram us with, “it’s two hand touch!” I’d scream at him as he chased me full board. That stupid helmet with Its sad one gray bar as a face mask. The helmets mustard color use to blind me in the sun id never see him coming and he’d tackle the shit out of me and I’d go down hard seeing sun spots. I remember it all, the old world that will forever be attached to my DNA, how I long for the smell of summer.

The house I grew up in was a ranch home, the “White house” as we called her belonged to the “Sundquist” family they were the owners of the orchard ranch my dad worked for.  We lived in the ranch home because my dad had to be on the job at crazy hours of the day. I loved that house, within it resided some of the most beautiful memories I had ever had. It housed my childhood, and the white house had never smelled better than in the summer. It was as if the heat carried the rich aromas of my mother’s flowers everywhere. It was an amazing place my home, there were pears and apple trees that surrounded our home and we had always eaten them straight from their limbs. we weren’t supposed to, but forbidden fruit is always just too tempting especially to a house full of boys. The whole house looked like it was whittled together by some “Mexican MacGyver” which it was my pops had made a lot of shit with wood: house stairs, chicken coops, garages, benches, dog houses.  Suffice to say the old man was crafty.

Apart from making wooden projects my old man also made a lot of damn kids, six boys to be exact! We all got along well but I was closest to Oscar and Jr. the most because we were closer in age. They both were older than me and in those days everything seemed to be moving much faster than now. I was always running, we were always running. We’d grab a mayonnaise taco hot from the pan the mayonnaise running thin would melt like butter and my mother would wrap it in a napkin and we’d take off again recharged and running down the steps, and we’d head for the canal.

We’d run past our enormous pine tree, which to me was the beacon of our humble home, it stood guard on our front lawn blessing us with its shade. Oscar was always running ahead of us the oldest of our generation he always had his shirt off in those days. “I don’t wear shirts in the summer” he’d say. J.r. would be at his heels trying to keep up but still always worried he’d drop his taco. My bro J.r. the worrier and Oscar the dare devil. As for me I’d always be last, trying to keep up with these 2 skinny kids as they’d dive deep into the orchard following a thin dirt path that had been created by the constant tractors going in and out of the orchard. I can still see their arms and legs pumping furiously breaking the very wind with each stride. If I close my eyes and ignore the rain I can still take myself there.

Diving into the orchard I’m shielded from the hot sun, I can feel the humidity like sweat dripping from the leaves, I run my hands through them the pear leaves are rough, but they feel good wet. I run through the orchard pretending it’s a giant forest, I pretend there’s wolves behind me and I need to catch up to my brothers or I’ll be eaten alive. Diving deeper into the orchard the smell is overwhelming with fresh fruit and trees and a mist from the sprinklers is cooling this world. My shoes begin to become heavy as I am sinking them into the thick mud, each step is heavier than the last and I can see Oscar looking at me in the mud. We’ve reached the water line and he’s holding one of the many sprinklers to let us pass and not get wet, he shakes his head “you better wash your shoes before you get home or mom’s gonna beat your ass” he says. It’s a challenge to not say something stupid to him but then think about it and I wash them then and there.

Even before we reach our destination I can already hear the buzzing of insects and mosquitos that call the canal home just like us. Out of the orchard the sun beats on us. The canal is one long stretch that covers miles and surrounds the entire ranch. The canal is at a slope the highest point being at the end of the orchard line which then descends at an angle into the canal. A thick wooden bridge connects the sides. The top slope is green and full of pears and the other side is the complete opposite, it’s a barron stip of fine dirt. We run over the big wooden bridge and onto the dirt strip. Oscars fights off his shoes and he’s quickly dove into the water. He immediately emerges and takes a big gulp of air “Fuck that’s cold!” he says and we all begin to laugh, its always the same joke every summer. I start slow and take my shoes off, the dirt is like hot sand it burns my soles and I must tiptoe quickly into the muddy bank and into the water. The water is cold, it’s always so cold!

“Dunk your head in” Oscar says, “Give me a second” I yell back at him. “your gonna get sick fool” he says. I creep in little by little. I can feel the water working my body closer to itself. Finally, I count to 3 and dunk myself in. The hot sting of the sun is immediately gone, under the water I look at my white fishy toes digging under the mud and then I spring myself up towards the oxygen, wading in the canal I let the brilliant sun bathe me in warmth and then it’s hot again.

We head up to other side of the bridge where the orchard and the grass have a nice shade growing on them, we lay our shirts down, the three of us laying out bathing our bellies in the sun and our heads in the shade of the trees. Oscar tells us of the times before we were born, he tells us of times to come and the times that are unknown. We never would have guessed our future after this I can feel the sun burning my pale tummy and I get out of its way and into the shade.

We stay back longer taking bites of pears and then throwing them into the canal seeing who could throw it the furthest, Oscar always won, he was always the best of us all. Together on our own private little beach my bro tells us dirty jokes, Oscars thin body shakes in spasms as he laughs, his golden frame bathing in the sunlight, his long black hair wet and fingered backwards. when we run out of things to say I tell them that ” I can’t wait till school starts” Oscar sucks his tooth and says, “There’s plenty of time for that shit”.

My brother Oscar was always calm and collected, his violence was always quick, a flash of lightning that left you marked, his mark. His anger would come and go but what he really loved was to manipulate, he was a prankster, his nickname was “the little devil”.

Oscar smiles at us “Look what I got boys” he says and pulls out that damned yellow rusted helmet and he puts it on.  J.r. cries out “where did you get the helmet from?”  Oscar laughs like a hyena and finger the ear-holes of the football helmet. “I always got this bad boy handy” he says his laughter now sounding like a dolphin. “I’m going in boys” he says. and jumps in from the top of the orchard all the way down his arms at his side he dives in head first, like raindrops in the water he barely makes a wave. We both stand up and go check on him, he comes up the cartoonish character of my brother spouting water from his mouth.

“fuck” I say, and I am at the edge of the grass looking down at the canal below me. my toes are on the edge, my legs shake as I contemplate diving in. my brother has a big grin and is shaking his head daring me to do it. The sun beats down on me and I begin to see sun spots. “come on ya pussy” he screams his eyes looking wild and crazy. “You want the helmet bro” he says laughing and taking it off and brandishing it letting the sun shine on its rusty glory. Oscar wading in the water “Where that J.r.?” he says. And I can hear J.r. yell in the background “Fuck that!”

still at the edge, the water below looks dark and dangerous, “what if I break my neck?” but Oscar just tells me that I must arch my back as soon as I hit the water and this makes me even more nervous. I am at the edge bending my knees waiting to hear them creak like a rusty hinge and then I count to three and I jump! I arch my back as soon as I hit the water and I’ve done it and I’m up unharmed. another lesson learned as I come up for air some water has entered my nose it stings but my brother Oscar stands in the water facing me, he smiles ‘holy shit, you didn’t die” he says and laughs his ass off.

I look up to the orchards side and j.r.’s head pokes out from the edge “damn that’s high” he says and walks across down to the bridge and simply jumps in.

We’d walk home tired, soaked heavy in the sun our tans always there. My mother having food ready, nothing ever beats satisfying that hunger you get after swimming. We lived in that canal everyday of the summer swimming in it, trying our first beers there, our first smoke there, it was our own little beach with who knows how many chemicals pumped into me through that water. But it was fun, and I miss those days, the days with my bro’s not a care in the world except how to prove your no welcher.

Seattle still doesn’t feel like home perhaps it never will my home is where my family is. Outside the rain lets up but inside me another storm rage’s on and I can feel the tears swell up from my ducts and I am overwhelmed with the greatest feeling of loneliness I had ever had in my life. I stop writing and I call my brother. “Whats up pussy” he says and I feel at home once again.