by Thomas Melo
“Oh, I see. I’m dreaming,” Jim concluded.
“You said that, and I already said you were. No wonder you got out of teaching early, you can’t remember two minutes ago, let alone who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo!”
“The Duke Wellington!” Jim fired, snapping his fingers like a contestant of a quiz show.
“Touché. Ah! What am I saying? For all I know it could’ve been Judy Garland. Anyway, I can’t remember when I’ve had more fun, but get in touch with the Swanson kid, for the love of Pete, before it’s too late.”
“Before what? What’s going to happen?” Jim almost plead.
“Apoyo-gee, fuck-head!” Jim’s unrequited love called to him as he exited his own establishment straight through the ceiling in an explosion of dust and sheetrock.
Jim woke up in his bed with a jerk and sat up immediately for a second time that night. “Apollo tree,” Jim said to his solitary bedroom. Jim slid to the edge of his warm bed and slid his feet into his frosty slippers.
Jim made his way through the dark house, no longer half asleep. Something was going to happen that night. Good or bad, he did not know, but it was about time he found out.
* * *
The hinges moaned like a wendigo stalking its prey in a distant timberland as Jim opened the backdoor of his house leading to his spacious backyard. He tried not to think about the phenomenon of how a door creaking in the light of day was exponentially less disturbing than a door creaking at half-past three in the morning as he braved his dark backyard. Jim tried to focus on the tree slowly edging closer and pushed away dark thoughts, cursing himself for not fixing the flood light that hung lifelessly on the corner of his home, pointing uselessly into the vast opaque backyard. The wind whipping off of the lake (pond) stopped him in his tracks for a moment. It wasn’t just the chill of the air, but the banshee cry that brought it.
Jim finally reached the Apollo tree perched ominously over the onyx colored water. “Alright, I’m here. What now?” Jim asked nature over his tightly crossed arms and through chattering teeth, which, by the way, were not chattering exclusively as a result from the cold. Now, Jim asked the tree directly, and why not? He was alone. “I’ve sat under you in this chair here day after day either with my book or cocktail and nothing. What is it? What am I supposed to do?”
The tree did not speak…not really, but while looking at the branches swaying in the steady wind, they seemed to beckon Jim closer. Jim moved closer and closer until he was right next to it. A strong wind grew from behind Jim, a gale so strong that it unsteadied him on his feet.
As Jim grabbed the tree trunk to regain his balance a magnificent jolt surged through his body that was not unpleasant but was, by no means, pleasant. An electric shock, yes, but with no kick of voltage whatsoever. Jim tried to let go of the tree trunk but could not. The Apollo tree had wanted his attention for so long, and now it finally had it. Jim struggled to lift his head but managed, looking out over Robinson Pond, perhaps for a mystical being to come to his aid? Instead of finding a harbinger of salvation, he saw images. It was like watching a movie on one of the film projectors he used to use in his classroom, but instead of showing footage of D-Day, Jim saw a hand moving back and forth over typically lined stationary with fervor. The images that flashed next were what Jim concluded to be excerpts of whatever the person whose hand he saw was writing. He would see words like “immoral,” “evil,” and “unacceptable” in conjunction with phrases such as “All of the bodyguards in Nevada won’t help you!”, “I won’t rest until your resurrection of the Colosseum falls like Rome!” and “The evil deeds of the wicked ensnare them; the cords of their sins hold them fast (Proverbs 5:22).” There were other words and images just as grandiose that flashed before Jim’s intent gaze. The final vision, before the Apollo tree was through with Jim, was a picture of Tyler from the 2019 senior yearbook with a large “X” drawn through his picture, before the picture spontaneously combusted into an amber flame.
All was dark and cold again in the middle of the night, at the edge of Jim Colabza’s backyard. Jim fell to his knees and stayed there for a minute to catch his breath. The unnerving call of a loon from across Robinson Pond snapped Jim back to attention. Jim ran back into his house, knowing exactly what he needed to do. His idea was unorthodox, sure, but he would deal with the fallout of that in time if he was wrong. For now, he believed that Tyler was in grave danger.
Jim ran up his staircase and to his study and leapt at his writing desk, jerking open his desk drawer, one after the other until he finally came to his teacher’s companion. Jim’s teacher’s companion was a thick spiral notebook, complete with old auburn coffee stains, which contained the names and phone numbers of all of his students over his twenty-plus year teaching career. Well, it held the student’s names, but no doubt the phone numbers belonged to the parents with whom the student resided. Jim flew through the pages in a panic until he reached the year 2019. There he was, Tyler Swanson, with the phone number. Jim battled in his mind whether or not a current phone number in 2019 remained current in 2029. Jim thought his chances were very strong that the number still belonged to the Swanson residence. But what would he say?
Jim hadn’t spoken to anyone in the Swanson family, including his former student, in years. So now he was to call someone in the family and say what? “Hello Mr. or Mrs. Swanson, this is Jim Colabza, remember me? Well, I’m fine, thanks, but I feel like Tyler is in danger because my tree out back said so,” Jim thought to himself sardonically. He decided that yes, it sounded impractical, but if he cared as much as he did, the embarrassment was a negligible price to pay; and at least it wasn’t face-to-face! “There’s that,” Jim said to his tranquil, yet cold study. Jim picked up the receiver briefly, then re-cradled the handset. He quickly picked the phone up again and dialed the number from his teacher’s companion without even giving himself a chance to think or chicken out another time. The thinking was that if he didhang up at this point, at this ungodly hour to reach out and touch someone, Mr. or perhaps Mrs. Swanson would surely reverse-dial his home–which they regionally referred to as “star-69-ing” in the Empire State…and how humiliating would that be? So, he waited with the handset pasted to his ear, waiting for someone to pick up and take his urgent reveille.
“H-Hello?” It was a female, no doubt Cindy Swanson.
“Yes, Mrs. Swanson, hello. I am very sorry for disturbing you at this late hour, truly I am–”
“Who is this?” Cindy asked.
“Mrs. Swanson, this is Jim Colabza.” Not wanting there to be an unknowing silence stabbing his ear through the receiver, he prattled on. “I don’t know if you remember me, but years ago I was Tyler’s social studies teacher at Alan B. Shepard High.”
“Oh hello, Mr. Colabza, what can I do for you?” Cindy asked, with shockingly little surprise in her voice regarding the unexpected early morning/middle-of-the-night phone call.
“Jim, please. Mrs. Swanson I–”
“And Cindy to you, or Cynthia if you’d like.”
“Thank you. Again, I apologize for this phone call and I know it sounds crazy,” he just could not ditch his preamble, “but I think that Tyler may be in some grave danger.” Jim was immediately reminded of a line from one of his favorite movies, A Few Good Men, in which Tom Cruise was cross-examining Jack Nicholson in court and Nicholson barked “Is there any other kind?” when Cruise asked if the subject was is grave danger.
“W-What do you mean? What’s happened? Are you with him?” Cindy inquired in rapid-fire sequence. Jim could hear rustling on the other end of the phone, most likely Cindy sitting up in bed.
“No Cindy, I’m not with him. I’m at my home in Copake, NY and he–”
“Copiague?” she asked, as had everyone else to whom Jim had told the name of his town who was not from Copake.
“No, it’s Copake, C-O-P-A-K-E. It’s upstate a bit, about three hours away from you.”
“How do you know about Tyler then?”
“Again
, this will sound crazy, but, I get these suspicions at times, and typically they come to fruition. Not all the time, mind you, but enough for me to justify calling you out of nowhere at four in the morning after not being in touch for years.” Jim had decided to give a veiled version of the truth. He feared that if he told her exactly how his trepidations came to him that she would not only slam the phone down onto her receiver with enough force to give him an ear ache later that day, but she would also have men armed with nets visit him to haul him off to the basket factory. No, the veiled truth would suffice in giving her enough information while still allowing Jim to maintain the projection of sanity that he deserved, given the circumstances.
Jim was met with silence on the other end of the phone.
“M-Mrs. Swanson? Cindy?”
“I’m here…I-I just…” The fact was she did not know where to begin with Jim. “It’s that wife of his…I know it is,” Cindy shared her eureka-moment.
“Lilith,” Jim confirmed.
“Yes! There is something about her. There has always been something about her,” Cindy continued. An image of Lilith and that ghastly smirk, her smirk, flashed at him through his study window, which looked out over his black backyard. Jim shivered, erupting his flesh into goose bumps as he turned away from the window and sat down in his study chair, being sure not to look through any windows or into any mirrors for the remainder of the night.
“I know it, Cindy. Is Mr. Swanson awake with you now?”
“Ray is away on a conference until tomorrow afternoon. I know she has something to do with this, Jim. Directly or indirectly, and I don’t know what to do. What kind of trouble do you think he is in?”
Jim was confused as to why she was at a loss for what she, Tyler’s mother, could do about the situation.
“Well, what I suspect is that someone who is unhappy with he and Lilith’s business venture–”
“You mean the modern-day Colosseum? I had contempt for that idea since he told us. How could my son breed such brutality? He was raised so much differently than that. And the compassion he had…it was almost to a fault growing up,” Cindy began sobbing.
Jim continued gingerly. “As for what to do, couldn’t you call him to warn him to be careful or hire some extra security to follow him?”
“I’ll try again, but I haven’t had any luck with trying to find out his number or address in the past. After we had a falling out, about the blood money he was making, he changed his cell phone and house numbers and since he has a sort of celebrity status now, I can’t find out anything regarding his personal information. I think it was that bitch wife of his–excuse my language–that did it, to be honest. Tyler is too compassionate to turn his back on his father and I. He’s always been easy influenced by people around him and I think this time a really depraved person got her hooks into him. That’s the only explanation for what he has become,” Cindy explained.
Jim knew that in some way, this was therapeutic for Cindy, so he kept quiet and let her go on for another few minutes, carefully bringing himself to gaze out his study window ever now and then. His once black backyard was now dimly illuminated by moonlight. Jim could see the Apollo tree through his window, and just like that, was struck with an idea.
“Mrs. Swanson, I’m sorry to cut you off, but I have to go now. Please try and get a hold of your son in any way possible.” Jim hung up before she had a chance to respond. Jim grabbed his jacket, which was draped over the back of his desk chair, and headed out of the room.
Chapter 22
It was 12:16am in the west when Jayson met Tyler at a bar they frequented at an inconspicuous location off the strip. The bar, McJagger’s, was nestled within a strip mall on Nevada State Route 160. It was the consummate home to a dozen solid local music acts that drew a dense crowd, but not the type of crowd where they would be moving on to anything bigger anytime soon, if at all. The location was unassuming, as successful bars in the area were typically stand-alone buildings with flashy signs–in true Las Vegas fashion–that would draw people from the parkways. McJagger’s was slotted between Wang’s Laundromat and a slightly upscale haberdashery.
On that particular night the bar was relatively empty. There were no music acts scheduled to play, and the music acts brought most of the clientele. Jayson walked in as A Day in the Life, by The Beatles–still relevant after over sixty years–rang out the final sustained E-chord. To paraphrase a brilliant New England writer, “All good songs start with E.” I would contend that they also end with E.
Tyler motioned to his long-time friend and colleague, who saw him right away in the nearly vacant bar and headed over to him. “Hey Ty, what the hell are we doing out so late?”
“Jaaayson! Good to see you! You wannna drink? Have a drink. Have one. Sidown, for the love of Mike, wouldja?” Tyler beckoned in his best interpretation of alcoholic sign language. Jayson sat with his friend, although the discomfort was prominently plastered to his face. He knew Ty for a long time, and knew him well enough to know that Ty was not one to frequent bars, save for the occasional friendly invite or circumstance. This meant that if he was at a bar, drunk as a skunk, and alone above all, this must not be a catching-up-about-life sort of rendezvous.
“I’m alright; I don’t want a drink. What’s going on? Is everything alright?” Jayson got right down to it. “Does Lilith know you’re here right now?” Jayson asked.
“Pffft…fuck…” Tyler scoffed and turned away.
“What?” Jayson asked legitimately confused.
“I’m leaving her, Jay.”
Jayson was sure that he had heard his friend correctly, so he did not bother to ask “what?” the way people tend to do when they hear shocking news. He was not without shock, however. The look on his face said it all. In fact, the look said so much that he was sure that he saw a look of concerned surprise, but fake concern; the type of concern you are consciously putting on so that your friend is not suspicious that you, a good friend, have been having an affair with your pal’s wife, which Jayson was.
It was no secret that Tyler and Lilith were growing apart, especially after the other night in the Memorial Garden. It had started before that…way before that. The crack in the foundation of their marriage, or chasm, conveniently enough, was the Super Chasm. He was gung-ho about opening a fighting arena, but fighting to the death in most cases? This was just not him and he had made himself sick over the fact that he had spent blood money and that there were people out there who hated him for it. He had to come to grips with the fact that his wife was not eccentric, or misunderstood, but evil. That was the hardest realization of them all.
“I’m done…with all of it; Lilith and the Chasm. I’m done.”
“What do you mean you’re done? In two weeks we have the biggest match-up coming to the Chasm to date! Do you know how hard I had to break my balls to get this match together? Do you have any idea? These guys are going to fucking massacre each other, and in case you didn’t know, this fight alone is going to be enough to pay off the rest of the mortgage on that enormous fucking house you live in in cash, my friend! So I’m a little confused by what you mean when you say that you’re done.”
Jayson, never wanting to be at the epicenter of a “scene,” did his best to keep his voice down even though the vacancy of the bar made this impossible. It also did not go unnoticed by Tyler that while Jayson tried to talk his friend out of leaving the empire– because that’s what it was quickly becoming–he did not try to talk him into staying with Lilith. This had infuriated Tyler in a tangled and chaotic sort of way. He had emotionally closed himself off from Lilith after deciding to break away from her once and for all and this new life he had created for himself under her tutelage, while at the same time he had reacted to his inner-male instinct of detesting those who encroached on his “territory”. But, he could not possibly place all of the blame on his childhood friend, could he? After all, without stripping Jayson of his responsibility in this, Lilith was the one in the committed relationsh
ip, not Jayson, and Lilith did have that certain something about her, did she not? You know what I mean don’t you? That look. That look that, depending on her desire, could either enslave a man or frighten him to within an inch of his life…just ask Jim Colabza.
All at once, losing his drunken slur as some can when it really matters, “I can appreciate the work that you put into this next fight and all of the fights that came before it, but I’m done. This isn’t me. I used to be a cop and now I collect money for giving two animals a venue to literally kill each other. I’ve become a glorified cock-fighter, but worse because they’re human beings, not birds. And in the process, I’ve grown apart from my wife because I realized that in the end, we are just too different to reconcile. And I’ve also lost my parents because they’ve come to the realization about what a monster they have raised. My father told me that the only difference between me and Hitler was the amount of bodies we are responsible for. While I know that that’s an absurd comparison, I know that a part of him meant it, and I have never forgiven him for that. In fact, I cut off contact with both of my parents.” They sat in silence, trying not to look at each other but trying not to conspicuously look away either for close to a minute before Tyler finally continued. “So anyway, all of your hard work aside, tomorrow will be my last day.”
“Well, I guess you’re done then.” With all that needed to be said uncovered, Jayson got up and walked away from his lifelong friend.
Tyler gave two weak knocks on the wooden pub table and got up to head out to his car, sure to avoid awkward eye contact with the bartender, who was busy wiping down the bar and pretending that he was not eavesdropping. After all, the bartender was a big fan of the Chasm.
* * *
Jim headed back out into his commodious upstate backyard and eyed the Apollo tree. He took one step out his back door and the wind picked up immediately and howled that troubled, unnerving song once again that brought back the same chill that stabbed at Jim’s spine during his first trip out to the tree. This was the right thing, and he now knew it. It reminded him of a movie where nothing would be easy in pursuit of the protagonist doing the correct thing…the destined action…the swan song. Jim thought that if the unsettling howl of the wind and ensuing goose-bumps were the extent of his obstacles in pursuit of fulfilling his role, then not only could he live with that, but he considered himself way ahead of the game.