Thread 132

       Sunday found me hacking back the rain forest that threatened to close the portal in the evergreen windrow Coral had to walk through when she entered the campus to work her shift.
       The best way to hack back is to work your pruning saw like a machete, butchering everything in sight. But when you're working towards some other end it's best to pace yourself so you don't get said job done before said end shows up. Pacing, I opened the portal one thread at a time.
       All too soon, of course, I'd sawed myself down to the last thread. No, this twig of a tree--an English filbert that had lost all its leaves save one--required a degree of pruning best left for the arborist as seen on PBS. 
       I reached down, tapped the tree with the tip of my saw. Better yet, I got down by my saw, made a face for the camera, made a voice for PBS: 
       "Down here is the prune you want to make if a plant's health is what concerns you. But up here is the prune you want to make if aesthetics are where your concern is at. Of course, we can't overlook the most concerning prune of all--the prune whereby the drought-stressed filbert is put out of its misery altogether. But that prune requires me to fetch a shovel, and seeing how today's mystery guest--a natural beauty, she--is due any minute now, I'll go ahead and make my prune right cheer, halfway between health and beauty."
       Before I could draw my saw, I heard my name called out.
       Oh, boy; it was Coral. Oh, boy; time to launch the script I'd prepared for the occasion. "Coral," I said, deep like those leading men as seen on the Big Screen, "surprised to see you, though pleased." 
       Coral threw me a look that said, 'Get real,' then, with all the body language of concrete, she barreled towards the portal. 
       "Some weather," I said, blocking the portal with my saw. "Strange weather for these parts."
       Coral stopped, sized up my saw. "These parts," was all she said.
       Undeterred by Coral's lack of conversation skills, I recited her lines for her: "Strange weather, indeed. Here I . . . I mean, here you've been warned of all the rain in these parts, and, yet, here it is, mid-October and you haven't seen a drop."
       Coral sized up my nose. "Drop," was all she said.
       I wiped my nose "Ya, well," I said, waving my saw, "this ain't really what Fall's like here. I think what we have, here, is old Mother Nature giving us an October to remember."
       Coral didn't say anything.
       "Why, you ask? Because it's the last frigging October of the millennium, that's why."
       Warming, Coral said, "It snowed in Anchorage last night." 
       I had me a cold vision then; her dad and Trent stepping out of a whirlwind of snow, drawing me into the sights of their big game rifles. 
       "So, tell me, Mr. Weather," Coral was saying, "what is Fall really like, here, in these parts?"
       Now this is the kind of girl a guy can fall for--the girl who sticks to the script. "Oh, Coral, Fall's a whole different animal in these parts. See those mountains?" I pointed west through the portal. "Come November you'll see a cloud lipping over 'em. That lip won't look like much, but, believe me, that lip's tied to a dragon-of-a-cloud whose tail ends somewhere over China, ha, ha."
       Coral didn't laugh. "Mountains?" she said, peering through the portal. "In Alaska we call those hills."
       No, I hadn't included laughter in Coral's script--barrels of concrete never laugh. But neither had I included hills.  
       "I can see, Coral, you're having trouble grasping the full measure of a dragon so mammoth it spans the Pacific. That's OK. What's important to know is this: Once that dragon-of-a-cloud lips over those mountains, then it's pretty much rain till the dragon's ass passes over campus July fifth." I waved my saw over my spread. "Of course, I--" I kept waving, for I'd forgotten my lines. 
       Coral's eyes followed the wave of my saw; the English ivy, the English holly, the English stucco falling off the 1926 school house ACCW had acquired to teach 3D.
       My eyes, of course, got stuck on the stand of weeds going to seed in the building's rain gutters. Which made me remember the lines I'd forgot. Pointing my saw at the rain gutter, I said, "Of course, I'm the type of guy who looks at rain as a glass-half-full. It's like we say in these parts: 'No little Eden without a lot of rain.'" 
       Coral shrugged her shoulders. "Parts of these parts are OK, but I wouldn't call the sum Eden."
       I wanted to say, 'Stick to the script, bitch.' Instead, I said, "It is too Eden. Eden and then some."
       "I can see it was Eden. But it's all been altered by humans. You should see Alaska, Anton--totally pristine. Eden's should be pristine, don't you think?"
       The gal of this Alaskan, trashing my parts, let alone this neck of Eden I'd been called upon to keep. But what really pissed me off was my script--my precious script. I had no choice, now, but to throw it out, write something on the fly.

       "Well," I said, slapping the blade of my saw into my gloved hand, "we'll see how the winter rains affect you. Then again, what's a gray day or two up against an Alaskan winter where it's night all day long."
       I hadn't meant to be funny, really, but there stood Coral having a bit of a laugh. Cry me a creed; the girl can laugh. And, oh, what a new world order her laugh made for me. I stopped slapping my saw that I might reassess my Eden. Coral was right; Eden ain't Eden until Eve laughs.
       Up to my neck in Eden, I smiled so hard I felt my ears climbing up the sides of my head. When a guy's ears climb like that, he loses all sense of ground, says things like, "I like you better now."
       Coral stopped laughing. "What?"
       "You, laughing--I thought you incapable of it."
       Coral threw me her bad-dog glare. "You are sick."  
       I felt my ears slipping down the sides of my neck. When a guy's ears slip like that, he remembers certain issues--heavy issues--he'd been lurking here to address.
       Getting back to slapping my saw, I said, "You know, Coral, I've got to ask you about a thing--Trent. He gave me a look the other day that makes me think he doesn't like . . ." I stopped slapping my saw, for I had cut my hand. Placing my bleeding hand behind my back, I calmed my voice to hide my alarm. "That maybe he doesn't like me talking to you."
       "I don't think Trent has a problem with us talking. He hasn't said anything. I think you've misread his look. It's probably that he's just shy."
       "Oh, I suppose that could be."
       "It's strange," Coral said, gazing through the portal. "I'm in a class with him, and he's completely different in class than the Trent I know."
       "Ya, well," I said, unsure now what I'd read in Trent," I guess we all do that to some degree. Take me. I can interact with anyone one-on-one, but put me in a group, like a dinner party, and I just shut down."
       Coral snapped her head my way. "Me too! Take the Greek dinner at the beginning of the semester; I just sat there like this." Coral went rigid. "Everyone was probably thinking, 'Arrogant bitch,' when in truth, I was just too shy to participate."
       "God, I know. I've been accused of being arrogant for the same reasons. So I don't do dinner parties anymore. See, that's how I confront my problems."
       Dear Coral gave up another bit of a laugh. A laugh so uplifting I could feel the corners of my campus lifting up. A laugh so bright I had to look down the dark windrow to keep from falling in love. Little help, that. Look at them; even the down-most limbs were lifting up.

       
       Looking at those cedars, lined up like my years, made me think of an old man lying on his death bed. Is he recounting the woman he married, the kids he fathered, the fortunes he made? No, he's recounting the day in the schoolyard when he'd made the school girl laugh.

       Oh, how I wanted to pull out my pad and pen, write that down. Instead, I held that glove--full of blood--firm behind my back. Didn't want the fairer sex, here, fainting or anything.
       Feeling faint, I focussed in on the lift I got falling in love. To help that lift, I shifted my gaze to the bell tower falling apart atop the old School House. That's when an even better line came to me: "It's always in a schoolyard where a boy receives his first lesson of the heart; parts of it going the way of bell tower, other parts dripping on his pant leg, wetting his sock." 

       Now I felt like a fool for falling in love. 
       "Jeez, Coral, now I feel like a fool for bringing this Trent thing up."

       "Fools," Coral said, gazing through the portal, "our lot as humans."
       I didn't say anything.
       Coral looked at me. "But I can see this is troubling you. Do you want me to say something to Trent?"

       "No, no say. If he hasn't said . . . It's just that I've had some experience with this sort of thing, and I had to say something, otherwise, I wouldn't know how to act."
       "What?"
       "Well, like, should I stop talking to you? Then you'd think I didn't like you no more. When I do like you some more--all the more now that you saw fit to laugh. But now you're giving me that look again. That look that makes a dog of me. Fine. But if you think you're the first girl to make a dog of me, you're not. Oh, but listen to me; saying everything I didn't come here to say. Not that I came here to say anything. Hell, I didn't even come here at all. I mean, sure, here I am. But only because I had work--had this portal here to hack open. So I hacked her open. Well, most of her. Still got that last thread--that twig of a Filbert hanging onto its last leaf as if it were life itself. Hah, life, what a thing to cling to. Of course, I'm a monk, so you won't catch me . . . So, let me just say what I have to say whether I came here to say it or not: See, Coral, I do want to continue interacting with you because, well, I think that's what you and I are here to do; interact. Why? Because that's what two people got to do to grow. But, of course, if that boy--that beaux of yours--is going to get all dog-jealous over me, well, then, maybe we should just let the sleeping dog lie."

       Coral frowned like she frowned when reading something heavy. "What experience did you have with this sort of thing?"

       I frowned like I frowned when leaning into that big gray boulder I was determined to shove up boot hill. "My friend--my friend who was a girl. She had a boyfriend who didn't like me. So they fought. He accused her of cheating. When that wasn't what was going on at all. We were just friends; movie buddies, actually."

       Coral didn't say anything.

       "See, Coral, that's how I deal with people. I deal with individuals. I don't see wedding rings, age, sexual orientation or whatnot. If another person and I show the promise of having a meaningful exchange, I go for it. Because that's a rare thing to have between two people. I don't want to steal them away. I want to interact with them that I might grow from it, and, perhaps, they too may grow."

       Coral's face melted. "And that's how you should deal with other people. So, tell me, what happened?"

       "Happened?"

       "To your friend--your friend who was a girl."

       "Oh. Her boyfriend got mad, gave her a black eye. So, she left him--which was good. But she left him for another boy--a boy who lives in Hollywood. Which is bad, of course. For now we can't be movie buddies no more."

       "Wow."

       "Jeez, Coral. I'm sorry to get all heavy on you with all this Trent stuff. I mean, I want to go on interacting with you, because I really value our friendship, but I'm serious; if it messes up your relationship with Trent, then it's not worth it."

       "Trent and I have an understanding: I am my own person, and I can't allow my relationship with him to mess that up." And with these powerful words, Coral stormed through the portal.

       Drawn to power, I followed Coral through the portal. On the other side, however, I had me a vision; saw myself as a puppy hard at the heels of his master. I stopped, looked back through the portal. 
       There it was; the last thread. Advancing, I drew my saw. That's when I saw it; the blood soaking through my glove. I lowered my saw. No, I'd done enough hacking for one day.

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