I asked for stories about family:
the fun, the inspirational, the heartwarming moments that make us part of a
family. Author Darren Leo shares an excerpt from his novel, The Trees Beneath Us, which is the story of a father that is trying to cope with the loss of a son.
I
don’t have the fond, fuzzy memories of dad that most do. I have two memories of my biological
father…he worked in a grocery store, and he beat me with a phone; the heavy,
old, black, rotary type. He left us when
I was five, and I’ve never seen him again.
In the age of the google, I looked him up a few years ago, and I called
him. It didn’t go well. In fairness to him, I did threaten to show up
at his house and beat him with a phone.
Ahhhh, good times.
My
“dad” was my stepfather. He adopted and
raised me. I learned a hard lesson about
blood and water when he divorced my mother.
I was an adult with a lifetime of trying to please him and was
dumbstruck when I found he was divorcing me as well.
I’m
not a fan of fathers. Following is an
excerpt from my book, The Trees Beneath
Us. It is the story of a father who
loses a son and how he struggles to cope with that loss. I wish both of my fathers would read it.
The covered bridge
loomed empty, like a tunnel between worlds.
The wind whistled inside it. On
the other side, I found a white blaze on a tree and turned back into the wood
line.
Back
among the trees, my pace slowed. I
realized I was panting. A wide log with
moss growing on it lay to the right. I
clambered through the undergrowth to it and, on its dark northern side, found
mushrooms. I harvested them with my
knife and deposited them into the side pocket of the pack.
I
hiked slowly back up toward the ridge. I
was watching the ground and stopped often to examine leaves or wander off trail
to investigate a plant that caught my eye.
In a glade that was dappled with sun just before the clouds covered it,
I found Indian turnip. It was poisonous
raw but delicious when cooked. Further
along, I found a wild mustard plant.
Dinner would be good.
Just
off the ridgeline on the leeward side, next to a sheltering boulder and beneath
the wide spread of a fir tree, I pitched my tent. The sky was beginning to spit, and I quickly
gathered wood for the fire. I dragged a
downed log up the hill for fuel. It was
going to be one of those nights. As the
fire grew, I pulled off my boots and propped my feet on the pack for their
moment. Beyond the boughs of the fir,
rain hit the ground in hard little explosions.
I
blanched the Indian turnip in hot water then emptied the water, added the
mushrooms and seared in the pan until the turnips were golden brown. With some soy sauce, salt, pepper, Tabasco
sauce, and a pack of salmon, I added pasta.
As the mixture bubbled, I sliced the mustard root and some ginger into
it. I nibbled a corner of the chocolate,
took a sip of the Southern Comfort and recalled how good that beer had
tasted. The forest darkened before the
approaching storm and night. The fire
snapped. The smell of my stew wafted in
the midst of scents of loam and dirt and rain.
I was back in the woods.
My
father loved food. He reminisced about
great meals the way other people recalled favorite vacations. He spared no expense when it came to food. His rationale was the memory and taste of a
good meal would linger long after any material object purchased had been
abandoned, broken, or replaced with a newer version. When Keegan was two, my dad served him his
first lobster. That started a two year
stretch of explaining to a screaming toddler that happy meals didn’t come with
lobster. By the time I was nine I had
eaten dim sum, sushi, thai curry, vindaloo, abalone, squid, brains, and
tripe.
I
ate my stew by firelight as the wind howled above me. The food was good although I had gone a
little heavy on the ginger. My father
might have liked it. Merlin would have
said it sucked and then taken another serving.
I wondered how he was doing. I
lifted the whiskey bottle toward the dark sky and took a slug.
“Cheers,
Dad.”
I
didn’t know how I felt about his death yet.
I had not seen or spoken to him in years. In terms of my daily life, the news changed
little. I would get up again the next
day and hike. He was a heartless bastard
at times, and his favorite hobby had been pointing out my errors and
shortcomings. Still, he had his moments,
and I had always thought we would share another meal, argue about its
preparation or seasonings. One time,
just after I was out of basic training, he came to visit, and we went to an all
you can eat seafood buffet. Oysters,
shrimp and crabs were displayed on broad, mirrored platters with ice. We ate until they were out of oysters and
shrimp and asked us to leave.
The
rain fell in wide waves, driven by the wind.
The boulder and tree kept me dry and the tent still. I scraped the last noodles from the bottom of
the pot, put a little water in it, and set it by the fire to boil away the food
scent. Another sheet of rain dropped out
beyond the boughs. I pulled on my rain
jacket and grabbed the food bag and rope.
It wasn’t far into the deluge before I found a good, horizontal limb and
strung the food up into the sky.
Raccoons might still get it, clever bastards, but a bear wouldn’t.
I
dragged the log across the fire to burn it in half and took another sip of the
whiskey. During my senior year in high
school, we traveled to Las Vegas for a national wrestling tournament. I took second, but the team won, and my
father bought us a fifth of Jack Daniels to celebrate. He figured one bottle among twelve boys
wouldn’t do much. We had the cleverness
to get a bum outside a grocery store to buy us several more. Cocky teenage boys with no body fat and lots
of alcohol didn’t mix well. I came to
that conclusion when I ran naked past my mother while she was playing slots and
security was chasing me. My father gave
me the usual stern lecture for that one, but he almost seemed pleased while he
did it.
The
fire cracked and snapped. Sometimes an
errant raindrop made its way in and hissed with a puff of steam upon
landing. He taught me to stir fry when I
was about sixteen. Heat the oil in the
wok until it is snapping. Drop in the
vegetables in a cloud of steam and toss quickly. He was disappointed when I switched my major
from English to Business Management. Through
tenacity and hard work, he was successful at most things he tried, but he was a
vagabond. He had been a hair stylist,
police officer, ski instructor and general contractor, and he wasn’t happy that
I was choosing a career that required wearing a tie. I wondered how he would feel about my current
endeavor.
I
remembered him carving graceful and effortless turns through fresh powder at
Alta and showing me how to tie a double fisherman’s knot. We never climbed together. He was already beyond his climbing days when
I took it up. I would have liked
that. He would have bitched about bolts
being a cheating shortcut for driving pitons, but he was grudgingly pleased
when I led an unbolted 5.12. He still
said the equipment was so good now that anyone could do it. And I went out looking for other achievements
that might impress him.
I
took a long drink from the bottle. The
darkness pressed in around the firelight like a warm sleeping bag. I thought of other happy memories of my
dad. There were plenty of unpleasant
ones, but it would do no good to dig those up.
Given the circumstances of our relationship and my life, a good meal and
thinking of him by a fire in the wilderness were the most honor I could offer
him. I looked up at the reaching limbs
of the fir tree. Bad news does not
travel through trees. The boulder loomed
solidly behind me, and the reflected fire danced on its face.
