Exposition, Chapter 1 (p. 13-20)

"First of all, I'm no longer young enough to be anybody's messenger, even if I were so obsequious." D. looked a little ashamed. "But I think it would have done me good, as a child, to have somebody like Nathaniel to admire, even to serve to a degree.

"I am much too old now to lament the fact, but mine was not a pleasant childhood. This may be partly attributable to my father's being dumb-stricken when he learned of my conception. He had been a priest in the hills of Arizona, and after a scandalous affair with one of his more elderly parishioners was discovered, his position was forever irredeemable. Oh, he married her to prevent my being a bastard, but I'm sure, had he ever broken from his verbal impotence, he would have condemned his virility and my intractable will to be born. I never did hear him utter more than a disapproving grumble. But such circumstances come to pass as they might, and he managed to keep the three of us clothed and fed.

"In my life, I've recounted my youth over-much, so I'll not encumber the relation of my tale with such an irreconcilable sheathing. Suffice to say, through all the drinking and lambasting, with every shattered hope and disappointing embarrassment, taking, sum-total, every indecency of the mind and body through which my younger self was forced to persevere, mine was not a pleasant childhood. True, yes, many the cause, and right, have I to lament, but this is not a tale of disaffection. No, you've neither need nor desire, I'm sure, to hear the lugubrious discourses of an old man describing childhood nights awoken by an hellacious hissing. Many were the hours I lay in bed and shivered at my cowardly inability to interrupt on my mother's behalf. Reams could be written of the shadows on my celing, like ancient runes hovering over me. When I was around sixteen years of age, adolescence flared, and I discovered within myself the power of will to charge into my parents' room and, kicking open the door, declare that I would no longer sit idly by while the cacophony of terror reverberated in my ears, ears that my father promptly boxed and set to ringing. Yes, that night I was beaten as my mother's surrogate, but fixing door hinges with three broken fingers, two at the knuckle and one at the larger joint on my right hand." John indicated the appropriate fingers, which apparently had healed quite well, as there was no noticeable crookedness. "Yes, watching blood seep through my makeshift bandages and drip upon the floor was therapy enough without my describing to you every last horrific detail of the dark stain, in the shape of a crucifix but with a seventeen degree angle at the bottom, that is, to this day — as far as I know — a monument to my first and only battle against the tyranny of my father."

John took a dramatic breath to compose himself, then went on, "After graduating from high school, I managed to secure a position in the lower echelons of a local chapter of the IRS and, over the course of twelve years, managed to work my way to a comfortable, unassuming living. I suppose I was your typical middle-class Western miscreant throughout my twenties, doing nothing but passing the time from year to year, but when my third decade of life began, I lost my impetus and the local bars and houses of ill repute lost my patronage. Cleaning my face in the bathroom sink one evening, after another drudgingly lengthened day, with a whisky consolation on the windowsill and a suicidal conviction in my soul, I gave up. I just put an extra pair of shoes between two spare bottles of liquor in a bag and walked from my modest efficiency residence into the great wide world.

"Here again I could elaborate on specifics; I could enumerate the stars which shone down on me as I lay stretched out beside the gray and mossy stones of a country wall, wondering how much farther I would go, could go, on, while six pebbles dug relentlessly into my back no matter how much I tossed and turned; I could measure my progress in footsteps and perform lengthy discourses on every grain which pierced my feet once my soles had worn thin, embedding themselves in the skin until they seemed as boulders and I thought that my limping, almost as if to the beat of an indolent samba, would never allow me to walk otherwise than obliquely again; oh, I could bore you to tears, because I have been unable to erase from my mind one single animal that left me scarred with biting and scratching, attacking me for no other reason than that I did not belong, and likely smelled quite badly as well, nor can I forget the jeering faces of every young boy who took my debasement as a right of passage for himself, or one single passer-by who glared at me in disgust when I was forced to walk the highway or through a town; though I must admit that if I ever come across a pale green Cadillac with Pennsylvania plates and a faded yellow bumper sticker that reads 'Go with God/or take a bus,' I may lose control and perform some drastic act of contrition because I'm convinced that I have still not completely removed the mud that its squealing tires splattered upon me." He looked suspiciously at D. as if inspecting her face for any suggestion that she knew of such a car. "Believe me when I tell you that I could talk on for hours, for these are demons that refuse to abate their tormenting. But mine is as little a story of pilgrimage and discovery as it is of dysfunctionality, so I'll not linger on my life as a wandering hermit making dubious progress across the heartland, getting lost on barren roads in Tennessee, and even walking misguidedly westward for two weeks into Ohio, where I was fortuitous enough to stumble upon a fellow wanderer with an extra pair of shoes that nearly fit, though they smelled of cat refuse, but speed forward to my arrival in New York City, to which, for whatever reason, I was drawn. No, the important part of my story, with the entrance of Nathaniel, is yet to come, so I'll waste no more time in getting to it."

John paused to pick a pebble from the treads of his boot. He examined every scar that time had etched into it and flung it far into the darkening woods.

"It's getting late," said D. "Are we almost there?"

"Yes, the end of our jaunt is just over the next rise. We'll double our steps and arrive before the sun departs."

D. was beginning to feel that she had made a mistake, but that perhaps it was not too late to correct it. "Maybe if you'd just walk me back to my car," she began.

"Nonsense," was the quick reply. "We've come this far already; it makes no sense at all to turn back now."

Looking around, D. realized that, were she to excuse herself, she would most likely be unable to find her way back to the car. She also thought John might decide to prevent her from walking back tranquilly, if only by insisting, after much complaint, that he lead her. With an attempt to subtly increase their pace, D. decided that, even though she was already fairly dry despite the cooling air, a warm meal would offer a pleasant respite before she insisted that John take her back.

When their new rhythm was established, John continued.

"As fortune had it, the towers of the grand metropolis rose from the horizon with time enough for me to learn the routes and turns of homeless urbanity before the cold crept in. I quickened my step until the mighty Hudson swept the ground from my path. In an urgency to reach my new home, I chose rather than extend my march any longer on the New Jersey coast to make the lethargically daring swim into a final trial. I remember, very clearly, the rolling waves which so fiercely attempted to topple me, cresting distant against the sky like a Red Sea cataclysm; I can still feel the clutches of the deep trying to pull me down; the demon flood strove with all its might to swallow me and replace my very breath with its essence; I was tossed, at times, almost entirely above the surface of the water by the famously violent undulations; but my march had made me strong, and my legs were able to propel me, against the monstrous odds of resistance, to safety. I finally pulled myself from the pummeling water, feeling cleansed and sedate as I lay on the stones to dry myself and rest through the calm, mildly breezy Spring afternoon. My future lay ahead, and my plan was clear. The last thing I remember definitively is spending the remainder of my funds on a cheap pair of shoes and a liter bottle of rum.

"The life of the Big Apple Homeless is well enough documented that there is little I could add that would be anything more than repetitive. The Autumn floated by as so many colorful leaves used in a vain attempt at a counterpane after an evening spent trying to discover which dumpsters were particularly auspicious in their yield. The Winter was a blur of shelters and half-filled bottles of nameless alcohol thrown, when divested of their powerful fumigant, into a drum-fire. I sweated so profusely through the Summer, because I was fully clothed for fear of stripping a layer and losing it, that the smell of the urine flowing like rivers all around me as I lay upon the ground hardly caused my nose to quiver.

"Only the Spring was somewhat livable, and I recall that it was a fine May day when I awoke, commonly, behind a dumpster in an alley. The haze over my eyes and the pounding in my head were so eternally a part of my morning ritual that, were it not for the coolness of the air, I could have been five years younger in Tucson. Luckily, this fine morning, I was still armed with ample remnants of my bender and was fully recovered within half an hour.

"Not without difficulty, I pulled myself to my feet and resolved to take a walk through the park. Staggering around for a bit, I was woozy enough to feel only moderately ashamed as I sat to rest on a bench by Strawberry Fields. I lost myself for a while in my palms and was watching the amorphously flowing forms of red on my eyelids, hypnotized, when some unascertainable impulse forced me to belabor my head to rising, and I was caught forthwith in a glaring match with a disheveled young waif who could not have been a day older than sixteen years of age. The lad smiled impishly and skittered into some bushes. In my state, I had neither desire nor ability to give chase, and having never been duped into believing the fable of rainbows and cauldrons, I acquiesced to my morosity and rolled along with the day. By nightfall I had separated myself from that moment with ample wandering and spirits to have completely forgotten not only the child, but nearly the existence of Central Park itself.

"Some of my compatriots — I use this term because people in that state have neither friend nor acquaintance, but all feel an ardent kinship — had managed to encourage some kindling to blaze and a ghoulish glow was cloaking every face and aspect of the alley with a crimson guise and casting long fiendish shadows twenty feet high on every wall, the patrons of our Medieval ball shuffling by like so many dwarves, phantoms, and succubi, as if they danced a satanic jig to celebrate the flaming, crackling warmth, and it was only by the sharp contrast of his azure hue that I distinguished my little leprechaun galloping on an invisible horse to where I lay.

"'Come,' he said, 'I have chosen you as the harbinger of my shibboleth. Come. Sleep.'

"He placed his hand over my eyes, and I was thrust at once into a blessfully dreamless slumber. I awoke by the side of that very same stream in which you were recently immersed, not knowing how long I had slept, where I was, or how I had gotten there. Miraculously, my head and vision were clear. At that moment, I was able to distinguish through the golden sunlight even the fringes of the sparse clouds. My new friend was splashing about in the water and called out to me, 'Hey, you're awake. Come in and clean yourself.'

"It seemed the right thing to do, so I stripped myself from clothes that I had expected to die in and slipped easily into the brook's embrace. Handing me a bar of soap, he waded to a midsized stone and waited for me to finish. If you've never gone over-long without a cleansing, you have no idea the sense of rebirth and atonement which overwhelms you when, having been dragged through the mire of society, you are offered the opportunity to renew your husk. I rinsed with one final submersion and, upon rising, looked about for the child, but he was not to be seen. Exiting the water, I shivered and heard a crystalline voice from behind.

"'Are you not going to assist me?'

"I returned to the water's edge, somewhat perplexed by this mild tomfoolery, and, as I pulled the rapscallion from the water, for no inferable reason said, 'You are my own dear son with whom I am pleased.'

"'No,' he cajolingly corrected, 'no, it is I who am pleased.'

"Something in his tone drew me into an elucidative rumination, and I was still dully considering the price of a revelation when I became aware that my clothes were not where I had left them. Noticing my quandary, the boy told me that his name was Nathaniel and that I would find an entirely new costume were I to make a short excursion.

"I admit that our bareness caused me a little consternation, but as we progressed, his unassuming manner put me at ease, and he entrusted me with his design.

"Quite some time has passed since that fateful day, but memory lapses notwithstanding, I think I can recite verbatim his explanation." John cleared his throat. "'I can feel within a great change arising,'" he quoted, "'and it was in search of a place in which to nurture my new convictions that I was first drawn to this forest. In my wanderings I had the good fortune to stumble upon an old, abandoned, and neglected estate, and it is there that I intend to repose when the outside world too much inhibits my augmentation.' He gestured toward the horizon and continued, 'That other realm, the real world, as it is so incredulously dubbed, however, still claims a hold on my allegiances, so I will need a surrogate to watch after the refuge and persevere in the progress of its renovation in my absence.'

"It was at that moment that we broke through this wall of underbrush up ahead and saw the house, our new tabernacle, and I knew that from then on it would be my home."

John cleared the way through the evergreen thicket of which he was speaking, and the last traces of daylight seemed to linger just long enough for D. to get a pure glimpse of the large building. And while something indescribable in its design was undeniably engaging, she was too weary from the walk and fresh air and too dazed by John's excessive narrative to be appreciative of anything other than the chance for an intermission.

"So here we are at last," whispered John, and the pair crossed the short yard to complete their journey.

Pausing on the porch, D. perused the line of trees from which she had just emerged. Just a meal and a rest and I'll go, she thought, feeling the weight of the bones in her legs, or maybe even a short nap to regain my strength. Then I'll find my way back to the car. The forest seemed to gray around her as she watched. The sun had finished setting, but the world had yet to admit it. Well, it looks to be awfully dark tonight. Maybe if John has a room with a door that locks I'll stay until morning. What could happen in one night? Really, just because I'm a woman doesn't mean that I can't handle myself. So it's settled then: I'll stay the night, and in the morning, I'll assert myself and have John lead me to my car.

With this reassurance, D. followed John through the doubled width of the front doors, which closed behind them as if at the urging of some ghostly hand.

Twilight has fallen, and the owls call out their alluring chant, so different from the birds of the day. So refreshing. A raccoon waddles around the porch and into the woods, his path erased by the breeze. The wind has calmed and now whistles only delicately through the still naked branches — it is cool and strokes our eyes awake. The trees are silent. The lumber of the dark house creaks and groans as it settles.

Quiet, listen closely. Do the sounds of the night blend their phrasings? Does a voice materialize from the seamless nonsense? Sit back on the soft earth, plush with dead grass. Close your eyes, but not to sleep. Close your eyes for there is nothing to see but those minute details that we would surely fail to see were our eyes open. Close your eyes and listen as if you are running your ears like fingers across the cracks and scrapes — the story lines — of the house: here is a tale we've yet to hear.

Posted by Justin Katz at January 2, 2005 1:58 PM
A Whispering Through the Branches