Problems in a Time of Peace

Problems In a Time of Peace

By

Scott Bryan

The trees beyond the fence that marked Caleb’s backyard grew up toward the sky like they were reaching for the sun. They defied the laws of ground and air, gravity, and logic. They were thin but hard, and they seemed to have purpose in their height. They were far enough away from each other that Caleb and Sammie could run between them, effortlessly dodging the spindly white trunks as they looked over their shoulders for invading spacemen or gangsters or Native Braves in pursuit on horseback.

“Wait for me, Caleb,” Sammie would whine as she fell behind him. She was round in all the wrong places. Her feet were puffy and tilted out at the arches. Her belly was plump and it stuck out even more when she pouted, which was a lot of the time. Her bottom lip followed her tummy’s lead and her eyes- great peering orbs that demystified her thoughts in an instant- looked longingly for a kind movement from Caleb.

He picked up the pace just to see if he could outrun her pleas. He was no stallion either, an awkward little hellion who was prone to fits of anger when playtime was over, but here he was in control. He dictated the games played and length of time spent in each fantasy. He told her when he did not want to run anymore. He pushed her on the swing, a great heavy tire fastened to a rope that hung from the increasingly strained branch of one of the otherwise inclined trees. Then he would, at his leisure, heave his lumpy body onto the grass to stare at the sky or run to sit on the fence at the edge of his yard.

Now they were out beyond the fence. The moment he felt his lungs start to burn, Caleb collapsed on the leaf covered turf of the forest floor. A runner he was not. A few moments later, Sammie emerged from the brush, her arms flapping at her sides and her hot breath bordering on a wheeze.

“Cay-lub,” she said his name like her mouth was full of marbles. “You never wait for me.”

Caleb ignored her and looked up through the trees at the dimming, late-afternoon sky. The air was calm and the leaves, those that still clung to their posts, bustled only enough to calm the animals that perked up at the sound of stillness. Caleb put his hands behind his head and hoped Sammie would see how completely he was relaxing. It would be a miracle if she did not pester him.

Sammie sloshed clumsily down next to him and looked up. She tried to see what he was seeing. Her breath hitched and she began to cough. She tried to stop the fit, but the dust from the ground only made everything more difficult. She was not concerned about her form-fitting blue pants. She had a million of them. If she came back dirty, her dad would probably be relieved that she hadn’t spent the entire afternoon inside in front of the flat screen.

Caleb was thinking about video games. He was obsessed with the latest ‘jump and grab’ affair that his mom had deemed appropriate for his age. Caleb did not daydream about great deeds or riches. He thought mostly about ascending to the next level of his game. There was no one to shoot or defeat, and no one was after you. Really, there weren’t even puzzles to figure out. He would mash the controller and wander around, escaping his own body and inhabiting the persona of whatever character he had unlocked. He would pick up rings or orbs, and eventually reach the next level. Caleb liked games that didn’t make him compete against other characters.

“Let’s go back. It’s dirty out here,” Sammie picked at puffy white skin on one of her fingers. It was a blister that had popped. Now that skin was hard and callused. White like a fried egg, crispy like a grain of rice.

Caleb looked at her with a childhood version of disdain. “Go ahead, I’m going to stay until it’s dark and my mom has to come.”

“She’ll be mad.”

“I don’t care,” Caleb said with as much defiance as he could muster. He thought of his mother coming out into the woods and finding him. He would be asleep in the grass and she would cradle him in her arms and tell him how she worried and how much she loved him. “She’s stupid anyway.”

“I don’t like my dad either,” Sammie said in solidarity.

CLICK

I have a gun in my black gym bag, and the gun is just big enough to be scary when I pull it out. I’ve never pulled it out in public, but I think today is the day. This city is so overrun with idiots that today has to be the day.

I started carrying the gun a couple days ago, bought it a week before that. I just can’t see any other way for me to make a point anymore. Everyone is so obsessed with hearing themselves talk that they don’t listen to people who are smarter than they are. I know this because no one ever listens to me. I’m starting to think I’m going to have to speak in a way that helps them understand. That’s why I have the gun.

This coffee shop is just like any coffee shop that you’ve ever been to. Everyone in line gets to the front and suddenly they have no idea what coffee is, how to use money, or how to talk to a teenager in an apron.

“Yeah, it’s a white beamer,” the guy in front of me tells the girl at the register. Then he laughs. It’s one of those ‘guy laughs’ that kind of sounds mocking in some way. Like he’s laughing at his own good fortune. It could also easily be mistaken for a cough.

Look at this preppy college jerk. He’s trying to flirt with this girl. Yeah, right, idiot. Oh, what’s that? You drive a white BMW? Well, whoopee! Your parents are rich, so you must be worth more than everyone behind you in this line. Mention your car two or three more times. I bet this girl is just going to quit her job right now and go home with you. Maybe you should take out your wallet and pay for the drink you still haven’t ordered so the rest of us can get on with this abysmal day. Show her how much cash you carry.

I start to think this guy might be the one. He might start the spree. I guess this counts as ‘pre-meditation’ on my part. That would make any crime I carry out worthy of more severe punishment. And I’m pretty sure once I get going it will turn into a spree. I won’t be able to stop at just this one revolting example of the human experience gone wrong. I know there are other people in here who would be easy, justifiable targets. That, or they’d make themselves into a target after I started shooting. They’d do something dumb. So, you know, this guy is a reasonable sacrifice to the larger point, but maybe he isn’t worth whatever the rest of my life would be reduced to if I were to pull out a gun and end him.

Eventually, he moves along. He isn’t brave enough for bold action in the line at the coffee shop. My guess is that he’d love to ask that girl for her number. I bet he’ll be thinking about her all day. Maybe he’ll slowly become a regular in the shop, kind of creepily but not too creepily only come in when she’s working, talk to her enough to build their customer/barista relationship into a point of contact that she remembers the next time he comes in, take certain calculated actions to build upon that experience until a quasi-friendship occurs; then he’ll contact her on social media, chat with her, eventually get up the nerve to ask her to hang out, become one of her better friends, watch her go through a string of stupid boyfriends that he doesn’t approve of and tries to undermine for his own purposes. All of this will happen over about a year’s time. He’ll buy her expensive gifts that reinforce his single selling point but actually kind of make her uncomfortable. Then, when he finally gets up the nerve to make a move on her, he’ll get the rejection and he won’t know why. He will fail to recognize that she was always merely a passive participant in the entire dance. That he was easier to tolerate than he was to put off. But that will change when his real intentions become known. The minute he asks anything of her, he’ll be served the rejection he could have right now if he had the guts. Why doesn’t he ask her for her number and let her shoot him down right now?

Fear. That’s why. Fear, and some misguided hope that all of that other nonsense would change the fact that she is not interested in a guy in a collared shirt who makes a big deal about having lots of cash that he didn’t earn. Why doesn’t he just move along and find someone to date-rape instead of causing me to witness all of this potential human tragedy? Maybe I should do him a favor and pull out the gun after all.

“HELLO?”

Sammie finally talked Caleb into going back. They were taking turns on the tire swing before the sun began to disappear behind the tree-lined horizon. The swing was within the official barriers of the backyard. A small picket fence marked the line. These boards, made from the wood of trees that had given their lives to the rule of the natural world, were a shield against the wild world beyond. Sammie felt as though she could lower her guard, at least somewhat, when she and Caleb played within the wobbly cube of the actual yard. Out beyond the fence, where Caleb preferred to roam, were animals and dangers and the unknown. Sammie much preferred the calculated enjoyment of the treehouse and the tire swing.

She looked out at the horizon as she broke free from the ground. She knew that she was heading in the opposite direction of the sun. She kicked her awkward legs out in front of her as if they gave the swing any added momentum, and she felt her stomach drop as she rose away from the earth.

Now came the best part. She recoiled, the pendulum of the swing reacted to gravity and the rope creaked as the wind whipped her hair around her face. She let herself fall backward past Caleb on the ground. She looked at him until the swing lost its thrust. She hung in the air for a moment, a blob of blossoming feelings encased in a rubber donut. 

She was 10 feet off the ground, looking down from heaven, observing Caleb and wondering why her insides felt like a hurricane when she saw him. Then, as she passed him again, the swing coming to the lowest point, the long ancient rope perpendicular to the grass plane below, Caleb’s hand graced her back and pushed her forward.

When he touched her, Sammie felt a shock of emotion and energy that made her clench her teeth. This surge mixed with the feeling of flight and she rose again back toward the heavens, this time looking up at the sky. There was no other action in the world. Sammie closed her eyes.

DARKNESS

“I really like what you’ve done here, Cameron,” I am thankful that these guys have stopped talking politics. How would I have possibly been seen as the bad guy if I gunned down two supporters of this ignorant, insane, Cro-Magnon, power-mad president? They have just been talking about how this idiot with the hair who wears the suit with the American flag pin was going to save the coal industry. Holy cow. But now they were switching gears.

I was supposed to go into the office after I got my coffee, but I just couldn’t force myself. The human garbage show is too intense and someone needs to monitor it. These people are all repurposed waste, masquerading as fine art.

They are now bent over a small canvas. The older guy seems to be a professor of sorts. Of what, I’m not sure. I don’t see how anyone in education could possibly support this president. They are inspecting the canvas, a crappy piece of student art that Cameron, the younger of the two, brought along to showcase in front of his prof.

“Your use of color and space, the symbolism of the imagery- it’s interesting.”

“Yeah, I like the juxtaposition of conflicting ideas within the same space,” Cameron twitters incoherently. That’s it! It has to be now. ‘Juxtaposition?!’ What a worthless word. Doesn’t Cameron know that the word ‘juxtaposition’ is only used by college kids who are describing the genius of their own work or critiquing the work of classmates? This word doesn’t exist in the real world. It only works as a calling card for know-it-all college students. If you use it, the rest of the educated world knows you’re kind of green. Juxtaposers are worthless. If that word appears in a sentence, it is cause for evacuation from the conversation. But still, the Prof sits there and indulges this creep. This confident, overpraised fool.

Cameron should not be allowed to reach fruition. His teacher should not be allowed to encourage the continued pampering of lesser minds. Why do people always get a gold star nowadays? I never did. Why doesn’t anyone love me?

“Do you need anything else, Mister?” another kid in a visor and an apron, probably about the same age as Cameron, but less educated, is standing next to me. He has one of those little brown tubs that restaurants use to gather dishes for the wash. It is full of trash and discarded cups and napkins. His face is pimpled and pocked. His eyes are dead. His life is worthless, or so I would assume.

I look at his nametag. “No, thank you… Sammy.”

Sammy rolls his eyes at me and walks away. The juxtaposers continue with their little art show and the coffee shop employee, who isn’t even competent enough to wrangle one of the endlessly available barista positions, walks away from me like I’m some worthless, needy customer without any feelings or thoughts of my own. How could he think that of me when I think it of him?

PULL

The kids sat on a cross-piece of the fence where two of the picketed boards had been knocked out. Caleb talked about video games and Sammie watched the sun dip into the land in the distance. Sammie liked how the sunset seemed to light the world on fire, the flames of some distant blaze just over the curve of the earth sending trundles of red light billowing up into the sky. It was gorgeous.

“It’s pretty easy, you know,” Caleb exclaimed of his conquest in the digital world. “You just run around and smash up blocks and these stars appear and…”

Sammie and Caleb dangled their legs over the tall grass that grew wildly on the outer side of the fence. The line of trimmed, manicured lawn went right up to the fence line. This border ran directly under where the children now sat. The world seemed so easy to explain when Sammie looked at grass lines and sunsets. The good guys always won, beauty always prevailed. Sammy smiled and reached over for Caleb’s hand.

She didn’t think about her move, her body acted almost of its own accord, as if it was simply giving into the ancient and old laws of nature. She moved her hand along the painted wood and grasped Caleb’s. It was electric, just like the feeling she enjoyed when his hand grazed her back to propel her forward on the swing.

Caleb stopped talking and looked down at their joined hands. For a moment he just stared, but in another instant, he reacted. Before he moved his hand at all, Sammie could feel the anger surge through him.

He jerked his hand away from her and her hurt was instantaneous. Her mouth curled down into a grimace and she braced for his reaction.

But Caleb simply hopped down off the fence and landed with his back to her. It was as if he really wanted to make sure this moment was not wasted, so he stood in silent contemplation before he spoke.

“I think that you’re ugly,” he said calmly, coldly.

GO

It is time. My coffee is drained down to the sugary bottom, that last horrid drink where the cup lets you know what a glutton you have been. I usually don’t drink this last drink. I don’t want a reminder of how wasteful I am. I rise, hoist the bag up onto the table and move my hand to the zipper.

Suddenly, however, before I can pull the piece out of the bag, Cameron begins to choke. He starts slow, trying to play it off like it’s no big deal, hoping that whatever is lodged in his throat will make its way down into his guts without further inconvenience to the important discussion of his artistic triumph. His hope is not granted. He coughs and retches. He grabs violently at his neck and tries to stand. Apparently, Mr. Juxtaposition-of-color-and-images never learned to chew his biscotti effectively. His professor stares at him as their coffees and the canvas are knocked asunder. Cameron clutches his throat. All of the idiots in visors and aprons look on helplessly or, even worse, apathetically. Some of the other customers actually just look down at their cups or napkins. They mind their business. They are worthless, selfish fools. They have no stake in this.

One other guy, the college coward, starts to move toward Cameron, perhaps hoping his heroics will catch the attention of his fantasy barista, thus accelerating the chain of events that will lead to his evisceration at her hands. I had not even noticed that he lingered, but for some reason, I react faster.

I leave my bag unopened. There is no spree. There is no sporadic fire and no one dies, not even Cameron. I am behind him quickly and my hands are locked into fists on his abdomen. His professor reaches up as if to help and I wish I was holding the gun instead of this educated nincompoop. I jerk upward and, in one try, I pop a little piece of food out of his windpipe. The windpipe of Cameron, the visual artist.

SNAP

Sammie is down off the fence faster than her lumpy body would suggest was possible. Frenetic action drives her now. She is in the present tense as she picks up a board from the ground. It is a tree that has a sad story. It was cut and cut and cut and cut down and painted and nailed and neglected, and now it rests in her hand. A rusty nail jaggedly punctured through holds court at the opposite summit of the stick. She grips her end so tightly that she feels splinters nearly jump into her hands. Her picked blister sends a rush of fire up her arm. Her fury is uncontrollable, unexplainable. She does not hate Caleb, she loves him. She loves him so much.

POP

The college guy slunk away in past tense. He was defeated. He had not acted, twice.

I dropped to the floor for a moment, my act of compassion had exhausted me and I wanted to cry. Suddenly, and with some surprise, I am. I was. I wept as if I have been unexpectedly smacked by my father like he used to do. Backhanded, the hard coil of metal on his pinky clunking against my eye socket and telling me I will never be loved. He died in a hotel room with a prostitute, my father did. I brought my hand to my face and cried into it and realized that everyone in the coffee shop wanted to join me. They wanted to cry. We all wanted to cry. Some of them loved me because I was crying. We all have fathers and sad stories and shame and pain, and we feel it while we are alone. We are almost always alone. If I had taken my gun out of my bag in this moment, we could have all been together, I guess. But I didn’t, because I loved them back.

“BYE?”

Sammie swings the plank only once and strikes Caleb in the temple. He wretches as if he is belching. His tongue waggles out of his mouth and he tries to scream, but the belch noise only increases. He drops as Sammie releases the stick from her hands. She screams- the pain of the planet is rising though her chubby limbs. She screams for Jesus, she screams for her mother and Caleb’s father. She screams for herself. She clutches at her face as her faculties return to her. Her vision returns, the memory of the tire swing returns, the memory of the swing of the plank returns, the rejection flees and she is alone.

NO, HELLO

Someone touched my shoulder as if to comfort me. They wanted to say ‘thanks’ or ‘it’s okay’ or ‘are you okay?’ but instead someone just touched me and I jolted back into form. I rose to my feet and ran from the shop. I left my bag sitting on the table. I knew I didn’t need it anymore. I needed something else. I wanted to reach for the sky as if there was something up there, reach inside the sky and pull out the answers, but I didn’t know how. All I knew how to do was run away, so I did. I did not talk to anyone. I did not scream or cry anymore, after someone touched me.

I ran out of the coffee shop in search of the world. I ran down the pavement and I weaved in and out of the people there. We did not touch each other. I looked behind me, expecting to see the horsemen of the apocalypse or a tidal wave or a picket fence. Something running me down, trying to overtake me, to make me cry again. Something there that would let me know that we all want to cry.

I ran right into a tree.