Hope Burned

by Brent LaPorte

  I’m not sure who was yelling louder, my old man at me or his old man at him. I honestly didn’t care. We set the jack under the back bumper and began to lift the truck off my grandfather’s legs. When it was high enough for the old man to crawl out, it was pretty clear that his right leg was badly busted up. There was some blood, and the limb was bent at an awkward angle between the knee and the ankle.

  “Jesus, Pa, we gotta get you to a doctor.”

  “Ain’t no sonofabitch sawbones gonna get their paws on me.” He tried to stand and fell back in agony.

  “Pa, you can’t even get up. Lookit yer leg, fer christsakes. It’s all sideways.”

  “Shut yer goddamned mouth and help me up.”

  My father went to his aid—I wasn’t being asked. Actually, it was as though I wasn’t even there. My grandfather leaned on my father hard and tried to kneel. He collapsed again.

  “Fuck me. Jesus fucking Christ.”

  “Paw, let me put the wheel back on, lock up the boy and get you to a doctor. In fact, it won’t take me and the boy more’n an hour to load the truck up and we kin drop off a load a vegetables while we’re in town.”

  The old man ran his fingers through his greasy, thinning hair, looked at me, then said, “Go get me a jug. It’s gonna be a long fuckin’ night.”

  Sweeter words I’d never heard.

  I loaded vegetables with speed never seen before. They likely thought it was because I had some genuine concern for my grandfather. And that was fine; I wasn’t about to tell them any different. About an hour later I was locked in the crawlspace with two days’ worth of food and water, my urine pot and something they didn’t give me—a key.

  I waited for maybe five minutes after the sound of the truck had faded, but it seemed like an eternity before I made my way to the storm doors. It was pitch black, but I have yet to feel more light. I found the hinge bolts immediately and began my task quickly. When you’re blind half of your life, your hands make excellent eyes when called upon. It took some convincing to get the bolts moving out of the old, hard wood, but bit by bit they loosened. With each crank I was gaining my freedom. It took all of my strength to loosen some of them, but I would have chewed them off if I had to. Like tumblers in a lock they fell to my crude key, the top hinge first, then the bottom. I was tempted, after freeing the top, to try to push my way out. But I knew I couldn’t afford being injured, so I patiently worked on the bottom hinge as well.

  Once the bottom hinge came free I was able to scrape my way out. I froze again, looking around me, at this place, at where I had just come from and took the first breath of my life. Deep. Satisfying. Mine.

  I wanted to run, as fast as I could, through the forest and to the city, but I remembered my father’s lesson—about paper money and how I would need it in order to get new clothes, food and possibly a place to stay. As the sun died in the west I did the most difficult thing I had ever done: I crawled back into that nightmare. I had to; I needed the paper money. Perhaps I shouldn’t have emerged without it in the first place, but I had to experience the fresh air, the sun and the sounds, everything that a normal man takes for granted when he leaves for work in the morning. If someone needs to be reminded just how precious these things are, lock them up for a month, a week . . . hell, even a day. I guarantee they’ll never breathe another breath without understanding what, at any given moment, can be taken away.

  As I reentered my cell I had to recall the beatings, humiliation, starvation and pain to give me the courage to continue. I took deep, calming breaths, so I could do what I had practiced so many times. It was surprisingly easy. I likely spent more time convincing myself to get the box and the money than I spent on the actual act.

  Son, too often we waste time fighting against what we know we must do. It is a lesson I have carried with me my entire life.

  Climbing out the first time felt amazing, but leaving the second time was even better. The sun was setting, its orange glow reaching through the trees and touching my skin. I should have run like hell and never looked back, but for some reason I still couldn’t. Beyond the house there was still the mill. Even though I really couldn’t imagine what went on in there, I knew it was the place where the most evil of evil acts took place. And in the setting sun, covered in the shadows of its own eaves and dark rotted wood, it seemed to have an evil life of its own, as though the building itself was just as much a player in the horror as the living participants.

  Strangely, I was drawn to it; I had to return.

  My father and grandfather were long gone, but I was still scared out of my mind. Was it the way the sun’s last rays were crawling over the wooden roof of the mill, long claws trying to hold on for just one more day, or was it the darkness inside the gray building, the weight of the events of so many years? Buildings and places do take on human characteristics. A bakery is a happy place to some, simply because of the smell. The baker could be the meanest man in town, but all of the children love the cakes and pies. . . . A hospital or old age home, full of caring people, makes many of us cringe with just its antiseptic smell.

  The second time I entered the mill was different. The mystique was gone, but the horror was not.

  I went straight to the workbench and picked up the sundress. Just having it with me I felt stronger, more sure than ever that I was going to successfully escape and never return. As I was about to leave I noticed a red can sitting by the door. I had seen grandpa pour liquid from it onto brush the previous fall, then set it on fire. I knew fire. And I knew that when you pour this liquid on it, fire really takes off. I found a pack of matches on the bench and did what instinct told me to do. I poured the contents of the can all over the mill, much of it on the center column. I made a trail to the door—just like Grandpa did when lighting brush—dropped the match, and watched the place come to life with light. I am pretty sure that that when I saw the flames take, licking the workbench, the column and the walls, I smiled.

  Flames lapped up the sawdust and the evil of the place.

  I’d finally made a good fire.

  THE FIRE CAME FAST and hot. The heat jolted me into action. If it hadn’t, I might have watched the whole damn place burn to the ground—and then set fire to the house.

  As the orange glow engulfing the mill replaced that of the dying sun, there was no one to chase me, but I ran like there was. I felt great. My lungs were full of fresh air and my mind was full of new thoughts. Of other girls in sundresses, smiling, eyes full of life, inviting. No more despair, no more sadness: just joy.

  The ground was cold under my bare feet but I didn’t notice for quite some time. I made my way through the fields and into the skeleton forest. I suppose a normal child of my age would have been terrified. Not me.

  I had no idea how long my journey would be, or where I was going. But the evil I was running from kept me going most of the night. I never felt the thorny brush that cut my legs, arms and face as I made my escape. And I was oblivious to anything that might have seen me as a midnight snack—animal, ghost, goblin or otherwise. In retrospect, you’d pity anyone or anything that got in my way. I was possessed. The only thing that could, and eventually did, stop me was physical exhaustion.

  When I finally stopped, my lungs were screaming and my legs spent. I slowed to a walk and then, ultimately, a crawl. Fighting my body’s every message, my mind kept me moving forward, crawling along the damp forest floor until, finally, my body did what it had to do. When it shut me down I simply passed out.

  SON, IF I WAS WRITING a novel instead of a letter, this is where a chapter called “My New Life” would begin. But that too might be revised, simplified further. “Life,” it could be rightly called—because prior to this point, I’d had none.

  I merely was, existed because I was allowed to exist.

  Prior to my escape I had no more purpose than a robotic welder. Outside of my duties I never did anything but be. Dig, plant, water and weed. Day in and day out. Dig, plant, water and weed.

  It all chan
ged the day I woke up in the forest. Actually, it was when I was awakened in the forest. The sun was in the midday sky, warm against my skin. The forest floor was still not completely dry, but the morning dew was disappearing. I know I was facedown because when I opened my eyes the earth I was sleeping on surprised me. Instantly reminded of where I was and what was going on—my simple plan was being executed to the fullest. I rolled onto my side and looked around me, staring at every rock and clump of dirt as only a person with new vision can. I felt the toll that running a marathon inflicts: my thighs ached, my calves throbbed and my feet were bloodied and bruised.

  And son, I never felt better.

  I was alive and awake—not because of a verbal assault, but because my body told me it had had enough rest. Truly awake, I realized, I had some control—over me. I rolled onto my back and noticed how the sun streamed through the half-naked trees. Reluctant leaves—yellow, orange and red—still clung to the branches, knowing that once they lost their grip they would fall to the forest floor and, in time, become food for their parents.

  There was no breeze to push them from their perch so they just hung, silent. I lay in silence, only the sound of my own breath confirming that I had not gone deaf. I was merely alone. Alone, with my life. My life. . . . Odd, that at that time, in that place, scarred and mud-covered, I understood that I had a life.

  Every vein on every leaf, every needle on every pine, each curve of each bare branch was new to me. It really was like I’d regained my sight after years of blindness. Each rock and blade of grass that stood has been etched in my mind ever since. I breathed deeply and luxuriated in every particle of air that entered my new lungs. All the old pain was gone—the broken bones, cracked ribs and charred flesh, all gone. My body was new, healed: it was mine.

  I got up on one knee, so full of questions and ready for any answer, wanting to take everything in all at once, wanting to inhale it all in one gulp. I don’t want to say that I was giddy or drunk with what was happening, because that would cheapen what I felt. But I did want to drink it all in. Imagine someone long stranded in the desert being submerged in a cool, freshwater lake. You could drown in all of the new sensations, become engorged with everything you had been deprived of. Me? I’d been deprived of life.

  Everywhere I looked, even in the dying of fall, I saw life. A squirrel scrounging for a long cold winter, a tree trying to shed its leaves so that an early ice storm would not cripple it. Thank God it wasn’t summer—the abundance might have overloaded my simple brain. Finally, I stood. Shoulders back, chest out, arms by my side: I took another breath, and still felt human. I looked down and noticed myself. My feet were black with dirt and mud, my toenails long, rotted. My overalls were in tatters, bloodied, too, from running through the forest. I turned my hands front to back. These palms, callused well beyond their years, knuckles gnarled and swollen.

  The body is a funny thing, my little man. A person can try to hide behind makeup and guile, but age always shows through. Still, those who have had an easy go of it seem to look younger than they are, while the rest of us seem older. Some of us, much older. Character lines, they’re often called. I have a different word: scars.

  Look around any room and you can pretty much pick us out. We shouldn’t be so damn old, but we are. People watchers try to fill the gaps. In bars, hotel lobbies and airports, they construct our stories—who we are and where we came from—from the lines on our faces. They wonder what the hump-backed old men looked like when they walked erect. They imagine what the painted, creviced faces of old ladies revealed in their youth. Beautiful? Just pretty? Neither?

  Oh, the stories a body’s scars can tell. Or at least begin. Only the soul wearing the body knows the whole story. Some of the most beautiful people in the world are burdened with the deepest scars; some of the ugliest, most beat-up, actually carry the least—inside, they may be the sweetest, happiest people in the world.

  At that moment, I couldn’t begin to imagine what someone would have thought of me—the story my pathetic state would tell. But I would soon find out.

  I BEGAN TO WALK. There was no particular direction—I just walked. I can’t say how far I went or how long it took, but eventually the forest began to thin. Soon, I could hear the rumbling of what sounded very much like my grandfather’s truck. Instinctively, I crept towards the noise, while the barren trees did their best to hide me from possible detection. From one to the next I crept. Sure I was safe, I’d move on. I don’t think I was afraid, just cautious. I didn’t really believe that it could be his truck, but I couldn’t be sure. As the noise grew louder I realized there was more than one truck. And they were both coming and going. Soon the trees thinned enough for me to see it: there were only two lanes, but the highway was marvel to me nonetheless. So were the trucks, cars and buses that passed. I hid in the ditch, mesmerized and, to be honest, terrified. I didn’t think it was possible for anything to move that fast.

  If the air the big trucks moved sent shivers through me, the small cars—of every color imaginable, with drivers of every shape and size—took my breath away. It was true: there were others, hundreds of them, flashing before me, speeding off into their lives, back to their homes to shit in their golden toilets. I wanted to leave with them, become one of them, but was too afraid to stand up and show myself. Any passing truck might be my grandfather’s, and I wouldn’t take that chance. Instead, I picked a direction and slunk along the tree line—following the road . . . to somewhere.

  By following the traffic, I reasoned, I’d eventually get to a place where I could use the paper money for clothes, shoes and food. My body was speaking to me again, telling me it was time to eat. I had been hungry before but had no more control of when I would be fed than the family dog. Now I would eat because I wanted to, needed to eat. I would eat because I could.

  As the sun once again began to sink in the western sky, my bare feet became numb to the cold and damp. I kept to the black road, heading towards what I dared hope was someplace warm and welcoming. The lights from the cars and trucks made sure that I didn’t stray too far from this trail to my new life. And then, as I was cresting a hill, I saw the most spectacular thing.

  Mountains of light reached into the evening sky. Hundreds, maybe thousands of them. They sparkled from the bottom of this hill, radiating through the valley like thousands upon thousands of diamonds. I had to double over to catch my breath before I could take one more step towards the shining city—down the gentle slope towards my future.

  As the tree line disappeared it was replaced by large brick homes. There were cars parked everywhere. The large windows of these two-storey monsters were full of light and warmth. The smoke coming out of the tall brick chimneys wasn’t acrid, dirty or angry; it was inviting, the smoke of alluring, happy fire. The dirt of the ditch gave way to a concrete path; tall metal posts, lights hanging from them like fruit, replaced my protective trees.

  The unfamiliar surface made me nervous, as did the idea of exposing myself to anyone who might be looking out from those warm windows. But I had gone through too much to get to this point, to a place full of light, and nothing was going to stop me now.

  There were many different roads, but the one I followed seemed to lead to the most light so I cautiously continued. Keeping to the shadows where I could, avoiding the exposing car and truck lights, I watched the large brick homes being replaced by buildings with much larger windows, more lights and flashing signs. Son, you know I couldn’t read, couldn’t possibly have known the buildings were stores. But I peered in the windows and saw amazing things. Large boxes with miniature humans moving in them, clothes—so many clothes—food and people. Lots and lots of people. They sat in one room, together, eating. There were long counters, men in white uniforms barking at women in pink dresses to pick up plates of food.

  I felt for my paper money and wondered: if I gave them this, would they give me food, too? And then, I saw how these people were dressed—and noticed my own reflection in the window. Good lor
d, I looked half-dead.

  My long hair caked with mud, my skeletal face scratched and bloodied; my sunken eyes yellow, my cheeks ashen. I scared the hell out of myself—I couldn’t go in there.

  A gap between the buildings offered plenty of darkness for me to hide my ugliness from the beautiful, clean, eating people. Could I ever be that clean and happy? I would never fit in with them; they’d run screaming, like I was some kind of a monster. I was so confused for a moment I may have even considered returning to the farm. Maybe I deserved no better. Maybe they were keeping me there because I was too ugly for the world of light. Maybe I was a monster.

  My mind raced like this when a door opened and light exploded over me.

  “Jesus Christ! Look at you . . .”

  It was one of the white-uniformed men from behind the counter. He paused for a second, lit a cigarette and then noticed how uncomfortable the light was making me. Thankfully, he closed the door.

  I could see the ember as he took a drag; it dropped to his side when he removed it from his mouth.

  “What the hell happened to you, son?”

  This is how the first conversation I ever had with someone other than my father or grandfather began. My every impulse told me to run again, but the food smelled so good, and I had so many questions.

  “Happened to me, sir?”

  “Yeah, kid, you look like you been through the wringer.”

  “The wringer, sir?”

  He paused, perhaps wondering what he was dealing with. “Where you from, son?” he said, his tone gentler.

  “I’m not sure, sir.”

  “You hungry?”

  “Yes, sir, I am.”

  “Okay. Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be right back with a plate. I can’t take you inside looking like that.”

  I did as he said and remained in the shadows, scared but exhilarated by the thought of food. A few minutes later light again filled the alley. Once more he kindly closed the door.