I scoped out a young cedar, took cover under it. To pass the time I closed my eyes, took in the sounds of the forest. A flock of birds, chirping well down in the canyon, caught my ear. The chirps grew louder until they filled my tree. I opened my eyes. Grey puffballs smaller than golf balls were darting about. Bushtits. A few Ruby-crowned Kinglets had joined them. A Kinglet flew across my face so close it winged my cheekbone.
Omen.
Yes, I must follow this flock to the ends of the world.
Though bushtits foraged more than they flew, still, following a flock zig-zagging through a rain forest was no little workout. But it was worth it seeing how these merry birds were sure to lead me to wisdom, or, at the very least, some neck of Eden I'd never been to.
Up the mountain I clambered, over the ridge I fell. Sliding on my ass down the mountain, I spied some ruins below. But, damn, these ruins were nothing new; I'd seen them before looking up from the other side. Catching a foot on an outcrop of basalt, I stopped sliding, let the flock get away. Sitting there, I cursed myself for losing my bearings, cursed the flock for leading me here. No, stone ruins depressed the hell out of me. Always had. It had to do with my middle name.
Oh, how guarded were my formative years, keeping that Sogn a secret. Oh, what covet I felt for the middle names of my buddies--Irwin, Hiram, Gould. Cornier than my Sogn, sure, but at least they were named after dead grandfathers, not some nowhere valley my still living great grandmother grew up in. And the sound of my name: Sew-gun. Imagine a young boy coming into the John Wayne '50's with a name like that. Hell, I wanted to ride high-in-the-saddle, not ride into town clicking open the safety on my Singer sewing machine.
No, parents should do more trouble-shooting when christening a kid. Take the dialogue my mom and my older sister were always having in my face. "Love your brother," mom would say, grimacing. "But mom," my sister would say, "I asked for a dog, not a soggy bottom."
Soggy Bottom. That's what my sister called me up until I was eleven. Which reminded me of something. My bottom was getting soggy right now sitting here on this rain forest floor. So I got up to start the long trek home. But then I got brave, stared down those ruins--stared 'em down like John Wayne.
My sister was four years my senior. Soggy Bottom was one of the nicer things she called me. At least she gave me attention. Something my mom never gave me. Oh, the wrong I'd get into to get my mom's attention. But, no, mom couldn't even look at me without grimacing.
My dad grimaced too--every morning before work. At least my dad had some love in him. I could tell by the way he looked into his after-work beer. That was how I learned to count. It took four beers for mom to tell dad all the wrong I'd done her in a day.
My sister never grimaced; too busy making fun of me. You should have seen her eyes light up when dad stood up after desert, decked me on his way to beer five. But God bless my sister. With mom and dad heading for Walter Cronkite, sis would bend over where I lay all fetile, her blond hair stirring the pool of tears draining into the crack in the marbled kitchen linoleum.
"Soggy Bottom," she'd say, as if reading from a stone above my head, "the boy who never got around to putting two-and-two together."
I was eleven before I got around to putting two-and-two together. But thanks to my great grandma, I was nine when I took a stand like a man.
My great grandma lived with us up until she died. Grandma Vik couldn't walk exactly, but with a cane in each hand, she got around enough to get in my hair. The kids up the hill already made fun of me for living down by the tracks. Throw in grandma's witch looks and old-world accent bouncing off our '40's funereal wallpaper, and it was rare anyone came over to play.
"Anton Sogn Celadon," Grandma Vik would call out from down the hall. "Is that you?"
"It is, Grandma V."
"The very Anton Sogn Celadon I've heard tell about?"
"The very, Grandma V."
We didn't have carpeting on account of my allergies, so grandma Vik--with her two canes and metal plates nailed to the heals of her combat boots--sounded like a galloping horse when she moved up the hall real slow.
I'd always look up from the TV when grandma entered the living room. I wanted to see if she'd grown any shorter. Dad kept gluing rubber stoppers on the ends of grandma's canes, and grandma kept sawing them off. No, my memory of grandma's canes had the curves down around her knees.
"No, young man," she'd say poking me with her cane, "it's time I told you something."
"Grandma, you've only told me a million times. Jeez."
I kept my eyes peeled. If grandma put a hand in her black pocket, I had to turn off the TV. Grandma kept ribbons of hard candy in her deep pockets, and she'd only open her spotted hand if I turned off the TV.
"No chewing now, young man. You want to make the sweet last. When I was a kid we knew how to make the sweet last. When I was a kid, growing up in Sogn Valley, a summer lasted longer than all the years I've lived since. And that valley; oh, the prettiest valley you never saw. A deep valley. And down in the deepest part stood the ruins, see. Ruins so scary it killed you just to look at 'em. Too bad you never seen 'em."
"Grandma," suck, suck, "I seen 'em a million times. Jeez."
"OK then, hitch up the horses. I'll take you on down to see 'em then."
"Grandma," suck, suck, "we don't got no horses. Jeez."
"No horses? Not surprising, that oaf of a father of yours. And that poor ma of yours; fortunate to have a pot to piss in, I suppose. Then again, it's all my fault, runnin' off like I did when she was barely born. Terrible thing, that. But, oh, don't you go thinking she don't make me pay dearly for it now, shoving that yesteryear in my face day in, day out."
"Grandma," suck, suck, "mom's not your daughter; she's your granddaughter. Jeez."
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