Forts Special Edition: Fathers and Sons

by Steven Novak

  Tommy – who looked so unbearably similar to his mother.

  “Oh, there you are. When I tell you to come downstairs, you had better get your ass downstairs, young man. Do you understand me?”

  Glancing briefly to the side of his father’s legs, Tommy spotted his little brother against the wall underneath the bay window. Quiet little Nicky - he looked so small - so pure. Hidden behind his green eyes and unmoving mouth there was innocence and possibility and the promise of things that were good and fresh and new.

  “ANSWER ME, TOMMY! DO WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER?”

  Tommy had decided some time ago that he would do whatever it took to make sure his brother did not have to go through everything he went through. At least one of them would come out of their youth unscathed. At least one of them would move into adulthood somewhat clean.

  Staring into the eyes of the man that he once called his father, Tommy saw nothing remaining of the man that he remembered from a few years ago. That man was dead and gone, replaced by the huffing, lumbering shape with the acid, alcohol smell pouring disgustingly from its breath.

  Gazing directly into the eyes of this creature now hovering like an angry old oak tree high above his head, he said the words that he had to say in order to fulfill his promise to Nicky, “Yes.”

  “Yes what?”

  “Yes we understand each other.”

  Chris Jarvis stared back into his son’s eyes, his brain awash with the wonderful pain-numbing haze that melts over you like a finely woven blanket of butter, those moments when you realize that you have reached the bottom of the bottle. A quick stop at the local bar on his way home from work helped him clear his mind, helped him to see things straight. It helped him see though the lies of his eldest and the almost mocking silence of his youngest. It helped him deal with the pressures of his life and made some semblance of sense in a world that he no longer controlled.

  “Guess what, Tommy…I don’t believe you.”

  In one quick motion, his hand reached out and snatched Tommy by the wrist. With his eldest firmly in his grasp, he immediately started toward the stairs, dragging the boy behind him, whipping him violently as he went.

  “I don’t believe a God damn word you’ve said to me, Tommy. You’re lying to me, and I can’t stand liars. I’m gonna teach you not to lie to me, Tommy. I’m gonna show you what happens to little boys who lie to their fathers.”

  Up the stairs went the mad pair of wildly flailing bodies; up the stairs and into the bedroom at the end of the hall; the terrifying noise muffled by the heavy slamming of the door.

  With his every limb shivering, Nicky Jarvis crawled back in front of the television, grabbed the remote and turned the volume up high. It was not that he did not want to hear the sounds that came from upstairs, but rather that he somehow instinctively understood that his brother did not want him to hear.

  *

  CHAPTER 6

  THE FORT

  *

  As the day often does, it chose to turn into night, which then folded once again into a brand new day. By the time Tommy Jarvis rolled his sore, aching body out of bed the sun had just begun its long trek into the sky. Putting on a fresh shirt, he pulled on his shoes and crept slowly into his little brother’s bedroom. After shaking Nicky awake and helping him get dressed, the brothers made their way downstairs, out the front door and into the yard. It was Saturday morning and their father would not be up for hours. When he finally would wake, no doubt with a pounding headache, aching knuckles, and a somewhat fuzzy memory of the night before, Tommy did not want either of them to be home. The pair managed to make it as far as the sidewalk when they heard a voice coming from behind. “Tommy! Hey, Tommy!”

  The brothers turned their heads in unison, just in time to see Staci Alexander jogging toward them, her ponytail bouncing back and forth with each step.

  Tommy instantly grabbed his little brother’s arm, pulling his waif-like form across the street in the opposite direction.

  “Hey! Wait a minute! Wait up!” Staci yelled as she tried to catch up. “Where are you guys going?” She had not talked to either of the Jarvis brothers in years and was not entirely sure why she wanted to so badly now.

  Something in the back of her mind was telling her that she needed to, though. It was deep and far away, but surprisingly loud, something she could not ignore, even if she did not fully understand it. Maybe it was the talk with her mother last night, maybe it was simply because she missed talking to her friend Tommy. Whatever the reason, she found herself running after them, and no part of her wanted to turn around and go home.

  Dragging his little brother by the arm slowed Tommy down so Staci easily caught up to the pair.

  Slowing to a walking pace as she caught her breath, she looked at Tommy with a cautious smile. “Hey Tommy. Where are you guys going?”

  Instead of answering her, Tommy walked between the Parker and Thompson houses, stepping through the adjoining tree line in their backyards. He believed that Staci might turn around and head home the minute they entered the wooded area, but she remained hot on their tails, still trying to get Tommy’s attention. “Come on, Tommy…just tell me where you’re going.”

  “Nowhere. We’re not going anywhere.”

  “You’re obviously going somewhere, Tommy. You’re not just walking through the woods for no reason at all. You’ve got to be going somewhere.”

  “Nope, nowhere…now leave us alone.”

  Staci lightly tapped Nicky on his shoulder. “Where are you guys going, Nicky?” She was fairly positive that Nicky would not answer but thought that it might get the attention of his overly protective big brother, which was exactly what it did.

  Tommy immediately stopped in his tracks, spinning around to face her. “Don’t…touch…him.”

  The look on his face caught Staci by surprise and for an instant she began to rethink her decision to follow the Jarvis brothers. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe she should just stay away from them. Maybe it was not her problem. Maybe he was not the same Tommy that she grew up with. Maybe she should just turn around and go home.

  After recognizing the expression of fear in her delicate eyes, Tommy looked away, lowering his head in shame. In his heart of hearts he knew that she did not mean any harm. He should not have snapped at her, “Look, I’m sorry Staci, it’s just…what do you want?”

  “Nothing, really. I just want to know where you’re going. Maybe, I dunno…can go with you?”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? We used to do stuff together all the time.”

  Earlier images of Staci crawled out from their hiding places inside Tommy’s brain, once again making their presence known. He remembered the summer nights when they had managed to catch fireflies. They had been able to fill a glass jar which they then set on the windowsill, making their bedrooms visible without ever having to turn on the lights. He remembered the caring, sad, vaguely apologetic look on her eyes at his mother’s funeral, almost as if her mother had died as well. He could not be mean to her - not Staci. No matter how badly he thought that she was better off just leaving him and his brother alone, no matter how much he wanted her to turn around, go home and never speak to him again, he could not be mean to Staci.

  “Fine…you can come if you want to…just keep quiet.”

  When he glanced at his little brother, he saw a slightly mischievous smile slowly creeping across the young boy’s face. Looking again at Staci, he saw the very same smile.

  Maybe he was making a mistake.

  After grabbing hold of his brother’s wrist, the trio continued moving through the trees. They had not been walking for more than three minutes before Staci chimed in once again. “So where are we going?”

  “You’ll see when we get there,” Tommy answered with a deep, obviously annoyed sigh.

  “How far is it?”

  “Do you want to come or not, Staci?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then stop asking questions.”

 
; Five minutes later the group exited the trees, making their way up and over a large grassy field. They went down the other side, toward another thin line of trees which extended as far as the eye could see in either direction. They walked through the woods and came across a stream which blocked their path. Staci, who found the walk tiresome asked, “How much further Tommy?”

  Tommy stopped. Letting go of his little brother’s wrist, he turned to face her. “We’re here,” he said, pointing up with his index finger.

  Staci’s head craned back as her eyes followed his finger into the air. Above her, built into the branches of a large, very old looking tree sat a rather large fort. It seemed to be constructed of rusty old nails and sheets of wood that had been more than likely left on the side of the street, or pulled out of the dumpsters at a construction site.

  It was impressive in size, considering it had been built by a fourteen-year-old not known for being handy with a hammer and his somewhat scrawny eleven-year-old mute brother.

  Nicky quickly left his older brother’s side and started climbing up the planks of wood that had been nailed into the side of the thick, brownish-gray trunk. From the instant he began climbing, a grin almost too big for his face burst into existence. Staci could not recall ever having seen the boy move so quickly or look so happy. She chuckled to herself at his exuberance.

  Still staring at the massive structure, she added with no small amount of surprise in her voice. “Wow…did you build this, Tommy?”

  “Yea…quite a while ago…it took me an entire summer.”

  “I didn’t know you could build stuff.”

  “Neither did I.”

  By this time Nicky was up the ladder and was stomping around happily on the rickety wooden floor high above their heads. His head peeked through a window, down toward Staci, motioning wildly with his right hand for her to join him.

  Smiling at him softly, she then turned back to Tommy, “Is it okay?”

  He rolled his eyes, sighed deeply and nodded yes. He turned and walked toward the stream. Staci giggled at him under her breath. She found something cute about his annoyance, something she could not quite put her finger on – something she was happy to see again. Once Tommy moved away from her, she turned back toward the fort and began to cautiously make her way up the wobbly half-rotted steps. When Tommy was sure she was not looking, he turned around and watched as she awkwardly tried to get her footing on the ladder’s rickety rungs, while his younger brother happily peeked through a hole in the fort’s floor. For a brief instant Tommy nearly smiled, but quickly caught himself and looked away.

  When Staci reached the top of the ladder, Nicky grabbed her arm with both hands as he helped her into the fort. Once inside she stood up, dusted the dirt off of her knees and looked around. Strangely the fort seemed even bigger from the inside than it did from the outside. In one corner sat two dirty old lawn chairs placed around two large tree trunks with a piece of wood resting on top of them, forming a makeshift table. On the table rested a couple of empty soda cans, a few discarded Twinkie wrappers, a rusty old tool box with a hammer and a bunch of bent nails, a deck of playing cards and a stack of comic books that had seen better days. What really caught her eye were the hundreds of drawings taped on every wall - – there were drawings of trees, drawings of people, drawings of strange landscapes, faraway places and animals both fictional and real. Each and every single one was distinctly different from the last. While taking in the magnitude of them all, her eyes glanced at the far wall where one drawing in particular caught her attention. Very slowly she walked across the creaky floor to get a closer look.

  It was a house – not just any house though – it was her house.

  Through a window on the second floor she saw herself on the bed, lying on her stomach with her legs dangling in the air behind her, while she read a book. Above that drawing was another one which featured a profile of her head with her hair drawn back into a ponytail and a soft smile on her face. Not far away from that one, yet another. This one showed her standing at the bus stop with her backpack flung over her shoulder. Standing next to her were rough, half-finished outline sketches of her friends. As she took in the drawings around her Staci felt her chest getting warm. The warmth slowly traveled up her face and settled somewhere in the area around her cheeks, which turned hot and red. The drawings were beautiful, each lovingly rendered and incredibly detailed. She reached for the closest drawing and slowly ran her index finger across the contours of her face. She could feel the slight indention in the paper where the graphite had been pressed into it. All at once she was flattered, embarrassed and confused. Why had Tommy drawn so many pictures of her? Why did he put them up on the walls of his tree fort? What would she say to him now that she had seen them?

  The questions flew in her brain like a hundred birds crammed in a cage much too small; they came to an abrupt stop when she heard a booming, unfamiliar voice coming from outside.

  “I TOLD YOU I’D SEE YOU TOMORROW, WEIRDO!”

  Quickly running to the opposite window, she looked out across the trees. Teetering perilously close to the stream was Tommy. Heading in his direction, like a group of enormous fleshy armored tanks, were Donald Rondage and three of his goons.

  Donald stopped, put his hands on his beefy hips and looked around. His gazed at the tree fort and at Staci who was now leaning halfway out the window with a surprised, scared look on her face.

  “HA! Who’s that loser, your girlfriend? Is your stupid little mute brother up there too?” Donald slowly turned back toward Tommy, a sloppy grin cutting across the lower half of his face. “No offense, but aren’t you a little old for tree houses, weirdo?”

  Tommy did not answer back. He dug his heels into the ground, preparing himself for Donald’s inevitable attack.

  “Tell me something, weirdo…how good of a swimmer are you?”

  Moments after finishing his sentence, Donald lunged at Tommy with all the strength his oversized fourteen-year-old body could muster, slamming into his stomach with full force. The collision knocked the wind out of Tommy as the pair tumbled back, splashing into the stream behind them.

  *

  *

  CHAPTER 7

  WELCOME TO FILLAGROU

  *

  The slow moving, extremely muddy stream water engulfed the tumbling boys, folding them into the darkest recesses of its depths. With no up, down, left or right, and unable to see beyond a few inches, both Tommy and Donald grabbed hold of anything within their narrow reach. Hair, skin, clothes, whatever they could wrap their hands around and clutch tightly was fair game. The boys tugged, pulled, and punched in the general direction of each other, all the while trying to hold their breath and see through the dark brown nothingness of the chilly water. Realizing that he was not going to be able to hold his breath much longer, Donald began swimming frantically towards the direction he thought might possibly be up. The moment Tommy felt the boy’s bulky form start to move away, he grabbed a handful of Donald’s pants, instinctively following in the same direction, air bubbles escaping from the side of his lips. The instant Donald’s head popped out of the water he opened his mouth and inhaled a lungful of much needed air. His vision was clouded, his head dizzy, and his breathing labored. Reaching forward with his eyes closed, he grabbed a handful of grass and dirt, using it to pull himself onto land. Tommy popped out of the water soon after, struggling to catch his breath as well. He opened his eyes and noticed Donald lying in the grass with his eyes shut tight. The big oaf was having great difficulty catching his breath, wheezing and gasping as if caught in the midst of an asthma attack, his oversized belly rising and heaving.

  A half smile curled its way across Tommy’s lips, but quickly dissipated when he noticed that something about the scene was not quite right.

  The grass crushed underneath Donald’s rear was more red than green, and not a normal looking red, at that. No, this was a darker, more saturated and strangely vibrant red. Tommy looked at the surrounding trees, but they
were not trees like any he had ever seen. Every leaf hanging from their strangely gray branches was the same rich crimson. He looked down, fully expecting to see the muddy stream that Donald had knocked him into. Tommy saw little more than a puddle. The tiny patch of cloudy water was no more than four feet across at its widest point. Frantically, Tommy spun in the puddle, his outstretched arms pushing off the reddish green grass which surrounded him. Where was his brother? Where was Staci? Where was the stream? Where were his tree fort and Donald’s goon squad? Where was he – and how did he get here?

  Crawling onto land, he quickly made his way to his feet, raised his hands in front of his mouth and started screaming at the top of his lungs, “NICKY! NICKY!”

  Each yell echoed through the endless red forest surrounding him, repeating itself at least fifteen times before it was swallowed up by the emptiness and the trees. While Tommy was in the middle of screaming, Donald sat up after managing to catch his breath.

  He looked at the yelling, spinning, frantic Tommy and laughed to himself. “Stop screaming, loser…it was just a little water. It’s not gonna kill you.”

  Tommy turned toward him angrily, moving quickly in the direction of the bully. When he was within inches of Donald’s burly face, he opened his mouth and wailed angrily, “LOOK AROUND YOU, YOU MORON!”

  Surprised by Tommy’s forcefulness, and more than a bit confused by it as well, Donald did just that. His eyes drank in the red trees, the red grass, the lack of a stream, the absence of a fort, and of course his missing cohorts. Once his brain had properly registered the reality of what his eyes were seeing, it sent a message to his legs telling them that he needed to stand up. By this time Tommy had moved away from him and resumed his high-pitched screaming. Donald lumbered toward him, grabbed his shirt and tugged the blond-haired boy violently toward his chest, “WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO, WEIRDO?! WHERE ARE WE?!”