From “Leonard” it comes,

 

Likewise it is written to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wigger and the Woods

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One day shortly after the New Year Winter decided to move into town instead of merely visit.  So the trees were now much like the ceramic village pines of the kind which mothers nag children about not touching when shopping in trinket gift shops.  But Leo noticed that unlike the fabricated heirloom ones his mother never had the money to purchase the actual trees of Springfield never looked like each other.  He noticed each tree had its own interesting shape and size and texture.  Some with huge crinkly large leaves and some with dainty pointy leaves that seemed like they would be blown to the ocean if they ever fell off their source.  Some trees had straight, telephone-pole like trunks and others were stumpy or crooked.  Some trees were taller than a house or even a building and some were more miniature and almost round like a huge white playground ball that had lost shape from too much kicking. 

The snow, which he had also learned contained no two flakes alike, would never rest on any two trees the same way.  And even more, depending on the time of day, the clouds in the sky and even the wind, the very same tree would look different depending when you looked at it—so that the variety of trees for a pensive boy such as Leo to look at seemed to number in the millions.  In fact, he had by now given up trying to draw each kind of tree he saw since the task was endless, and being in the thick of that transitional age between only a “child” and some kind of “elementary school student” he no longer felt that his drawings were good enough to even present to his mother for posting on their apartment refrigerator.  The real thing—the real trees, that is—were far more amazing and at this point Leo was most content to observe.

And this is a major reason why on the same day that Winter arrived with permanence his mother and two of her cousins were packing up his room and piling it all into their cars and forming an automobile caravan to the other side of Springfield—even a bit out of town, in fact.  Leo’s mother, being the sole provider for the family, could never afford more than the one-bedroom downtown apartment they were vacating.   But her cousin had a small two-bedroom rental house on the very edge of their property in their suburban cul-de-sac which was now available.  Although her name was Brenda and in fact she was his second-cousin, Leo had somehow grown up calling her “Aunt Bessie.”  Brenda had recently received a small inheritance on her husband’s side which enabled them to stop lending the rental cottage for such a high-fee—and so now Leo’s mother could move out to the semi-country and start life in many ways anew.  Besides, Brenda felt that they should pass along some of this good luck they were getting and help out her cousin, who despite working hard had always seemed to have everything in life fall apart.

From Leo’s perspective, though, this move was chiefly a chance to see more trees than ever before.  His bedroom window in their apartment was scarcely larger than his pillow and it looked directly into another apartment across the alley where an old man lived that always seemed to be looking out the window in a strange way when Leo looked out it.  One time he remembered peering out the window and coming face to face to the old man taking all of his teeth and gums out of his face and then rubbing the inside of his mouth with his wet finger.  This frightened Leo so greatly that he consciously never looked out the window again, even taping some of his drawings of trees onto the window which he began to call his “alley forest.”

Leo’s mother, Jenny, realized that this was more than a passing fancy about trees.  Leo needed to live in a place more suited for a little boy with an undetermined future.  The place in which they lived seemed to oppressively weigh down their dreams.  And perhaps trees were his obsession simply because he rarely saw one from their neighborhood.  Regardless, Jenny was sleeping on a Futon convertible bed that served as their couch during the day.  Therefore her own privacy and sanity was compromised greatly—never feeling that she could get just one room away from anyone even in her own home.  So the new rental cottage situation was ideal for them—and indeed, Aunt Bessie, who had a newborn baby, could even keep one eye on Leo after school for the several hours that he would be alone before Jenny returned from work.  All this was entirely on the outskirts of the decision for Leo, of course, since the rental cottage he had seen once when visiting was in the back part of the property in the subdivision and was directly adjacent to a large wooded area with more trees than he had ever seen in one place in his brief life.  In fact, Bessie’s husband once claimed to Leo that the forest stretched from there to the next state!  This was a bald lie, since they were located precisely in the middle of the state, but in reality one could drive on country roads from that neighborhood west to the border and not encounter much more than the occasional farm or small town with a population less than that of their old apartment building.  So for Leo his imaginary “alley forest” would soon be replaced with an actual forest.  The first thing he asked when his mother told him they could move there was, “Can I have a window that faces the trees?”

Jenny steered her gray-colored two-door car around the corner and down Wigger Drive as Leo pressed his right cheek against the cold window while his eyes darted back and forth at the hundreds and hundreds of tree tops behind the houses.  When they reached Brenda’s home at 49 Wigger she pulled just past the driveway and bobbled the car down a stone access drive behind the house where an 800 square foot blue house stood with a rod-iron “49B” on the wooden door.  Jenny looked up into the rearview mirror and saw Leo now totally pressed against the window with his upper lip tucked tensely behind his lower teeth and his eyes growing larger than seemed physically possible.  Without a word he unbuckled, tilted the seat forward, unlatched the long heavy door with a grunt and raced out into the snow, slipping a bit with a giggle as he rounded the house to the right and out of sight.  Jenny cried on and off for the rest of the day—tears of joy she had not remembered shedding since she too was a child.

 

So as Winter moved in with a sense of stable decisiveness and glad permanence—so did Jenny and Leo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Glimpse of the Bridge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            The following day found Jenny fast at work unpacking their few boxes after sleeping in much longer than her formerly uncomfortable mind would normally let her.  Perhaps sleeping in a room of her own enabled this peace—for Leo had made a bowl of cereal and was looking out his window all dressed when she came out to find him.

            Leo sat down on his bed after drinking the leftover purplish milk from the cereal bowl.  He would catch a glimpse of his mother walking past the door every few seconds it seemed.  She was in quite a “nesting mode” this morning in her new digs.  Leo smiled as he saw her brush her sandy brown hair out of her face, since he always associated his mother with that hair.  She always had that extra-long straight blondish hair which made her seem younger than she was.  Seeing her hair and body from behind without her facial profile would make you think her a teenager—and often people would treat her as a tragic teenage mother unconsciously until they saw her face, which they discovered had hints of wrinkles about it that are earned more by tragedy than by years.  A teenage mother she was not, though an unwed mother, yes.  Or, at least, the dainty gold band she wore attached her to no living spouse.

            She wore a pair of stonewashed jeans of the kind that were popular when she was in high school, and which she could still fit into and would wear on the weekends.  And under an un-tucked baggy brown corduroy shirt she wore a company-issued T-Shirt from a steakhouse she used to wait tables at.  As she strode barefoot into Leo’s room with a small box of the dinosaurs he used to play with she finally noticed the “man” of the house staring at her from his bed.  She didn’t take much notice at first but then she met his gaze with a smirk, “What are you looking at, Buster?”  “I love you mom,” was the immediate reply which was at first met with a melting heart—for Leo was not frequent in this declaration.  But then Jenny partly tackled him in his bed while cheering, “I love you too!” and tickling him till he gasped for air.

            Over Macaroni and Cheese for lunch Jenny and Leo talked about school the coming week, and then about how he wanted his room set up (his small desk would be set in front of the window with his bed beside).  Jenny then talked much of her job and the ins and outs of her work.  As usual, Leo didn’t get much of this—but Jenny, also as usual, needed to tell someone of her “life” and thought it marginally better to talk to a child day-dreaming of something else than to talk to herself.  At this time, and actually since they moved in the night earlier, Leo was dreaming of trees.

            After a full day of unpacking all their boxes and re-arranging their paltry array of furniture into every conceivable combination the family of two set off for bed after a late dinner of canned ravioli and popcorn.  They would often head to bed early in the old apartment, for they had never owned a television and Jenny had needed time to prepare their living room into her make-shift bedroom.  Now that they had their own rooms this was no longer a motive, but old habits are hard to break even in one young as Leo, for in relative lifespan time, the habits of a child are even older and secure.

            It was remarkably quiet at 49B Wigger Drive.  It was, when one reflected on it, the last house on the last street in the last subdivision of the west side around the city.  The noise of city life was several miles to the east of them—and sleeping in silence was harder after learning to sleep amidst aimless sounds heard through paper-thin walls and slim windows.  Leo got up in bed and turned on his Tyrannosaurus Rex fashioned desk lamp.  It was the kind of thing in his room he might have been embarrassed to have friends see if he had ever thought of friends wanting to come to his home—a remote idea in the past.  This was an option he was now going to consider.  There would be, however, the small problem of finding someone to be his friend.  Leo somehow had never made friends of the kind that might come over to play.  He was not un-liked—but not all together appreciated for his presence either.  His company was entirely optional for those at his school.  The kind of bland child one forgets they ever went to school with until they meet them ten years later and they awkwardly introduce themselves to you.  On top of this, the children in his old neighborhood wisely ran directly from the bus to their apartments and back each day as they were instructed to by their mothers.

Leo peered out his beloved window and noticed that the snow fell in full flakes that seemed too heavy to float in the air that supported their descent.  Despite his mother’s past demands that he never open the windows, he opened his up part way and stuck his pajama-clad elbows into the cold air and cocked his head 90° to peer out.  Immediately a bright-red bird flew out of nowhere and landed on Leo’s window-sill.  This made him jump out of his skin for an instant, until he realized it to be a harmless and intriguing bird.  He stuck his head out the window again half-expecting the bird to fly away but it did not.  It simply stared into the woods as though Leo was not present.  Leo wondered if this was a usual perching spot for the bird that had yet to know the house was re-occupied.  As Leo rested his head on his elbow again the bird slowly cocked his head to face him.  Leo’s face gave a strange look at the animal and for a moment Leo thought it returned him the favor.  Then the bird flew off the sill in to the air with only the sound of his flapping wings.

But The Cardinal didn’t fly off out of sight.  In fact, he mostly glided into the middle of the back-yard.  Leo thought it strange to see a bird land in a few inches of snow—especially such a brightly colored bird.  Leo wondered if he would have been able to even see the bird had his scarlet feathers not stood out so much against moonlit snowy drift.  The Cardinal waddled off away from him, hopping a bit, even sort of walking when the snow grew thinner.  Leo decided that this was all far too odd and threw open the window with a bit more force than he should have—causing quite a ruckus as he cleared the way for a better look.  The bird and his mother both heard the noise, causing both to stir.  He could hear his mother getting up from her bed but couldn’t take his eyes off the bird which now landed at the bottom of the snow bank behind the house about 15 yards away.  There the bird continued across a creek that Leo had not noticed the night before because it was not that wide and was obscured by the ice and snow that covered it up.  But The Cardinal did not cross on the ice.  He continued in his waddling, hopping, walking manner, crossing a bridge of some kind.  This is quite a discovery.  There’s a bridge back there.  In fact, all his beautiful trees found their roots on the other side of the creek he had not noticed.  The bridge seemed the only sensible way across the trench it cut.  But as all these thoughts rushed through his mind he heard his mother knocking at his door.  He stood speechless in the drafty room staring at the bridge he discovered.  Just as his mother felt a draft on her bare feet under the door and opened it he saw The Cardinal take two long swoops with his wings and spin himself around to one of the posts on the small bridge.  He had come to rest with his claws on a one-inch-wide board atop the highest post, and when he did so the snow fell off of it.  The Cardinal adjusted his gaze away from the house and Leo’s window down to the board he was perched on.  The wood had lettering on it that shone silver in the moonlit back-yard, but Leo could not make out what it said from such a distance.

 

“What in blue blazes are you doing, Leonard!  You are going to freeze to death and let all the heat out of the house you crazy child!”  Jenny went on with her tirade about the new gas heating bill and letting snow in and other things, but Leo was transfixed toward the window even as his mother picked him up and plopped him in his bed, shutting the window and storming out of the room in a flurry of offended activity.

 

Back under his covers Leo now realized how cold his body had been and how hot his imagination continued to be.  “Not just trees, but a Bridge too” he spoke to himself in a whisper.  And then he heard a bird call he at the same time did not recognize but also knew precisely of its source.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Crossing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

            Leo awoke the next morning obsessed with the thought of crossing his bridge and looking at the trees in the forest.  Apparently his dreams in unconscious night were alike to his dreams in conscious daytime.  He began to form a list in his mind of all the things he must take with him, grabbing what he could immediately and mentally marking them off his list:

Winter coat... check.

Knit cap... check.

Gloves... check.

Boots... check.

Small binoculars... check! (These were one of the few items he had which were left for him by his father.)

Tree Notebook... check (This small black and white composition book held his previous listings and drawings of trees in it, which he had abandoned, but now thought would come in handy as a reference on this first foray in to the forest.)

Emergency kit... check (This medium sized pouch was prepared for just such an occasion as this.)

 

            Leo now donned what he fancied as his winter expedition garb and tossed these essential items into his school backpack.  He now threw open his bedroom door and was setting off with his forehead looking down so as to again mentally check off essential items—being sure not to miss anything.  Shuffling across the floor quickly he ran smack into the belly of his mother who was standing in the middle of the central room of the house drinking a cup of coffee and reading a letter.  This collision caused her coffee to go splattering all over the place, even soaking the letter she was reading.  Rather than fly off the handle, Leo was surprised to find that instead his mother calmly began to clean up the mess, and simply motioned to him to go to the front door, saying, “I found out that the bus stops at the intersection of our street and Alpine Road, it’s just three houses down at the crossing.  There’s already some kids waiting out there—so go on, Leo, I’ll see you after school.”

            As his shoulders involuntarily drooped the weight of the week unfolded in his mind with a sense of dread most adults only experience if they are awaiting their own capital punishment.  He had forgotten that the weekend was now over and Monday morning was already here.  Five days of monotonous class time were ahead of him.  AAAaahhh!

            Leo trudged down to the school bus stop which, as his mother said had several kids already waiting at it.  He had packed for his expected expedition in his school bag, and so he didn’t need to gather his things in order to go.  He had simply walked out the door as his mother said to... handing him a room-temperature toaster tart to munch on the bus—along with his brown bagged bologna sandwich and juice box lunch for later.

            The kids were all strangely arranged like bundled crows on a wire at the crossing with their backs to the street in a line, originally because the wind was blowing from that direction, but additionally on this day in order to check out the new kid.  Leo had friendship problems before... but now he had the added marks of being the new kid and also being the one that lived in the tiny rental cottage in the neighborhood—whereas all the other kids lived in 4 bedroom suburban castles with two car garages, basketball hoops and riding lawn-mowers.  It was by no means an extravagantly wealthy neighborhood, but for children those things are relative, Leo was finding, as their status in the world is still as yet undefined they would grasp at whatever straws indicate their superiority over one another.  Clothes, money, sports, size, and grades: they all fit the bill as status identifiers for sure.  But where one lived carried the added identifier of where one came from, and so must likewise be.

            For Leo—this meant his first day in the neighborhood bus group would likely be rather unpleasant.  Name-calling would be expected.  Alienation should be his lot.  Humiliation might be the order of the day.  Leo’s fears accurately culminated in several sideways jeers and serious scowls from his fellow schoolboys.  The girls huddled in one group together; casting their gaze aside when Leo caught them giggling some comments to each other in the secret social languages that schoolboys never in their entire lives learn to interpret.  The worst could be assumed on this doubly cold morning.

            Standing quite apart from the main group of boys and girls was a solitary boy with a large purple snow-suit and a huge black knit hat with a fuzzy ball sewn on to the top.   The fuzzy ball was nearly falling off with years of abuse and actually dangled to the left of the portly boy’s face.  His cheeks were the kind that were designed by the Creator to hold a large quantity of mashed potatoes, and the tops of their wind-blown pink edges pushed up his black glasses so that his smallish eyes were somehow forced into the bottom third of the lenses.

            “My name is Robert,” said the boy to Leo, his voice as large as the mouth it echoed through.  “You can ride with me on the bus if you wanna.”

            “Okay,” said Leo, “That would be great.”  He meant great in every sense of the word, for Leo couldn’t remember being asked to join the company of another boy in months.

            And so as the giggling girls and the still sneering boys bounded onto the school bus Leo followed Robert’s purple mass of friendship onto it and sat in the first seat with him.

            Jenny had been all along watching from the only window in the front of their cottage, and took a sip from her newly filled coffee mug with a grin creeping up at the corners around the cup.  She laid out her coffee-stained letter on the table to dry.  It was dated six years prior and had no envelope.  At the top it read, “My lovely Jennifer.”

 

© December 2001 by David Edward Drury

 

 

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