“Yeah. But I miss you,” Christopher said.
“I miss you, too, honey.”
“Maybe after church tomorrow, we can do something fun,” he said.
“Sure, honey. Whatever you want. Dave & Buster’s even.”
“Okay, Mom. I love you,” he said.
“I love you, too, honey. See you tomorrow.”
With that, they hung up. And there was silence.
Christopher handed the phone to Special Ed and returned to work. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Mike and Matt text their moms from Special Ed’s mom’s phone (which Eddie smartly “lost” for the weekend). Out of the corner of his ear, he could hear Special Ed call his dad from Mike and Matt’s phone and say they were having the best time at Mike and Matt’s house. And oh, no…he hadn’t seen Mom’s phone. Maybe she left it at the salon during her mani-pedi.
But Christopher barely paid attention. He just wanted this new “friend” to be nice to his mom. Unlike the others. He thought about all the screams he heard through the walls. All the times she had been called names that he was too young to understand. A few months later, he heard some older kid say “bitch” on the playground. Maybe two months after that, the word “crap” became “shit.” And “jerk” became “asshole.” And the words made them all older and uglier. If he could just make the walls of the tree house thick enough, no one could hear those bad words through them. If he could make them strong enough, no one could ever hear “Fuck you, bitch” ever again. So, he stared at the white plastic bag as he hammered and hammered nail after nail after nail after…
“Come on, guys. Break is over,” he said.
Nobody questioned him. The boys just fell into line and returned to the tree. They had worked like that all day, pausing only to take a drink of cherry Kool-Aid or a bite of chipped ham. The floor beams had been secured by late morning. The secret door with the rope ladder by lunch. By midday, the beams for the four walls were up. Even as the temperature dropped twenty degrees, they kept building with an almost religious focus. The autumn chill had worked its way into their bones as they let their minds go to the big thoughts of little boys.
Special Ed talked about cheeseburgers. He wondered why the ones at McDonald’s were so much better than the ones in the cafeteria. He had a bone to pick with McDonald’s about their apple pies, though. “Ever heard of caramel? Hello!” His rant quickly turned to daydreams of Thanksgiving dinner with his one grandma’s famous apple pie. Only five days away. Mmmmmm.
Matt wondered when his eye would stop being lazy, so he could take off his eye patch. He hoped it was soon so Jenny Hertzog would stop yelling, “Pirate Parrot! Pirate Parrot!”
Mike did not talk about being called “Mike the Dyke.” His focus was building the tree house. He said these nails were perfect. They went in every time, no problem. Normally, nails were difficult. They would bend, and you’d have to pull them out and straighten them. But not these nails. They always found footing in this tree. Mike looked at his little brother, who smiled at him. For some reason all their own, he smiled back.
“Remember that time you stepped on a rusty nail and needed a tetanus shot?” Mike said to his little brother.
“You mean a tennis shot,” Special Ed corrected.
“Yeah. That hurt,” Matt said.
“You didn’t cry, though,” Mike said.
“No. I didn’t.”
The discussion quickly found its way to a heated debate about which Avenger was best. Special Ed was a Hulk man himself. Matt liked Iron Man until his older brother liked Thor, and then Matt agreed Thor was best. Nobody could figure out what it would look like if the Hulk ever took a crap. But everyone agreed that it was the funniest thing they ever heard.
They decided they should each get their own character. Special Ed got his beloved Hulk after convincing the group Mike was the perfect Thor since he was the best with a hammer. Matt had to be Captain America because he started as a pipsqueak but became big and powerful. The whole group said there was only one Iron Man. Christopher. He was the leader. The smartest. The mastermind.
“The vote is anonymous then,” Special Ed said.
And that was that. The boys didn’t say another word for the rest of the afternoon. The tree was like a mom with babies in her arms. Safe and warm. It was only when they left the tree that the cold caught up to them, and they would realize how freezing it really was. They didn’t know where the hours went. The clearing was its own little world. A big circle protected by trees and clouds. An island in the middle of the ocean.
The only person who didn’t feel safe was Christopher. As day became dusk, he found himself watching the clearing like a deer with eyes on each side of its head to see predators approaching. The predator wasn’t visible, but he could still sense it. With every tap of the hammer, he could feel a whisper working deep into his mind. The same words echoing over and over like the congregation repeating the Lord’s Prayer with Father Tom and Mrs. Radcliffe on Sundays.
We’re not going fast enough.
Christopher asked the guys to go that much faster. And they did. Their hands raw. Their faces sunburnt despite the November cold. They all looked more exhausted than they would ever admit. Especially Matt, who never wanted to seem weak in front of his big brother. But even Mike looked tired. Still, they had kept working. Silently humming a song in their hearts. Blue Moon. Until finally, around eleven o’clock that night, their bodies began to give out, and the unlikely voice of reason spoke.
“This is nuts. I’m hungry,” Special Ed exclaimed.
“We’re not stopping,” Christopher said.
“Come on, Chris. Put down the whip. It’s the first night,” Mike said.
“Yeah,” Matt added.
“Guys, we need to finish before Christmas,” Christopher said.
“Why?” Special Ed asked in a huff. “What’s the big deal?”
Christopher looked at the white plastic bag. Then, he shrugged.
“It’s nothing. You’re right. Let’s eat,” he said.
The four boys sat on the longest branch, side by side, like the men who built Rockefeller Center. Christopher had seen that picture in the library once with his mom. All those men hovering above the city on a beam. One false move and they would all die.
At dinner, they passed around the canteen filled with Kool-Aid, eating peanut butter sandwiches with grape jelly on Town Talk bread. For dessert, they snacked on Oreos with ice-cold milk kept in the stream near the billy goat bridge. After a full day’s work, they were the most delicious Oreo cookies any of them had ever had. They spent the next hour making each other howl with laughter with the latest and greatest burp or fart.
All the while telling ghost stories.
Matt told the one about the guy with the hook that everyone had heard a million times. And without Matt pretending to be the guy (since no one had a hook), it didn’t get much of a scare. But Christopher did his best to act afraid so that Matt wouldn’t feel too bad for his failure.
Christopher then recounted the plot of the movie The Shining, which was on TV one night when Jerry had fallen asleep on the couch. His mom was working the late shift at the diner, and Jerry was supposed to be babysitting. Christopher liked the black cook the best and didn’t understand why if he could see the future he would walk directly into the ax. But otherwise, it was really good.