Forts: Liars and Thieves Read online

  “Get your fat ass out of here, Roundy …the adults have got some business to take care of,” his oldest brother, Alex, stated gruffly while delivering a stiff kick to Donald’s side. “Go hang out in your room and play dress up with your dollies — I don’t really care. You can’t stay here, though.”

  The group of boys instantly converged on the empty couch. Alex pulled a sandwich bag filled with a light green substance from his jacket pocket. “Alright you losers, this is the good stuff I’ve got for you today, so I’m expecting top dollar. If you’re looking for the cheap crap, the door’s right over there — don’t let it hit you in the ass on your way out.”

  Despite being filled with an overwhelming urge to leap onto Alex’s chest, push him to the floor and smack him around, Donald instead pulled himself to his feet and shuffled toward his bedroom. While Donald Rondage might have been considered large when compared to the average fourteen-year old, Alex and Will were large for average seventeen-and eighteen-year olds, respectively. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against one of them, let alone the pair and their drug addict friends as well. Over the years Donald had found it easier to simply keep his mouth shut and go his own way. Standing up to his brothers in the past had proven to be an extremely painful experience. Neither Alex nor Will had ever given Donald the slightest bit of respect – after all, he was only their half-brother – barely a brother at all, really, at least in their eyes.

  Donald had never met his father. The few times that he tried to ask his mother about him, her response was always the same, “He was a loser, Donny …a mistake. Trust me, you’re better off forgetting he even exists.”

  While it sounded simple enough in theory – just to forget about him — Donald had spent the majority of his young life wondering about the father he’d never met. What did he look like? What kind of man was he? Why did he leave? What would he think of his son if they ever came face-to-face? He hated his father, which he found strange. To be filled with such incredible hatred toward a person while at the same time longing so very badly to meet them was a contradiction he’d wrestled with for years. At this point, though, he had resigned himself to the fact that he would more than likely never find the answers to his questions concerning the man partially responsible for his creation. It’s because of this that, long ago, he made the decision that simply not having questions in the first place was the only truly viable solution. In order to move on, he had to accept the unknown and the unknowable. The invisible man would forever remain invisible.

  Arriving at his bedroom, Donald stomped inside, slamming the door behind him with the vague hope it might silence the sounds of his brothers’ voices. His bedroom was sparsely decorated, little more than a twin bed with a dresser. His clothes, strewn haphazardly across the floor, were dirty and wrinkled, as if they hadn’t been washed in months — which was exactly the case. The Rondage family had never had much money, and what little they’d managed to scrape together was almost never spent on Donald — or even his brothers, for that matter. His mother Victoria was a single parent raising three boys with little to no help from any of their fathers. Every few months a new boyfriend moved in, burned through what little funds she might have managed to scrape together, then got into a screaming match with her, broke a piece of furniture, and was instantly sent on his merry way. So many men had come through the doors over the years that Donald could scarcely recall even half their names. There was Dale, Roger, Mark, Walter, another Mark, a Marcus, Edgar, Bo, Bob, Bill, and who could forget the guy with the tattoo covering his bald head that wanted Donald to call him the Mash Man?

  Yep, his mother sure knew how to pick them.

  Coming from what was essentially the “wrong side of the tracks,” Donald had spent his life feeling like an outsider at school. It didn’t take long for this feeling of inadequacy to transform into jealousy. Not long after that the jealousy turned to anger – as jealousy has a tendency to do. He’d chosen to spend his formative years locked inside this wall of anger.

  Falling face first onto a pile of clothes scattered across his bed, Donald ground his teeth together while silently cursing his mother and brothers under his breath. Why couldn’t his family be like everyone else’s’? Why were things always so much harder for him than the rest of the kids at school? Those jerks didn’t deserve what they had – not a single one of them. It wasn’t fair. None of it. Inhaling the disgusting, sweaty butt-stink from the seat of a dirty pair of jeans snuggled against his nose, Donald’s mind wandered from his frustrating excuse of a life to the mysterious land of Fillagrou and his experiences there. As frightening as it was – stumbling into another world, fighting muscled lizard men and seeing so much death firsthand – as terrifying and painful an experience as it proved to be, he missed it. In Fillagrou, he had powers. In Fillagrou, a house weighed no more than a rock, and a rock could be crushed to dust between his fingers. In Fillagrou he was something, he was somebody – unlike what he was here, which was nothing.

  The annoying, screeching cackle of his brothers and their friends in the other room had grown louder. Every high-pitched shriek stabbed him in the ears. The awful smell of their smoke was slowly creeping under his door, sinking into the fibers of his clothes and sheets where it would undoubtedly linger for days. A sharp pain in his head pressed against his temples, further feeding his hungry annoyance. Rolling off his bed, Donald grabbed a sweatshirt from the floor and pulled it over his head. He didn’t want to be here anymore. This house and the people living in it were the cause of every single one of his problems. He saw no point in spending more time in their company than necessary.

  He needed to get away. It didn’t matter where he went – anywhere was better than here.

  Opening the broken window in his bedroom took some work, as it was sloppily painted shut some years ago. Immediately after prying it loose, Donald pulled himself through and ended up in the backyard. The sky above him was gray, heavy with cloud cover. A chilly fall breeze hit him square in the face, immediately reddening his nose, cheeks and ears. Inside the house Donald could still hear the excited squeals of his brothers and their annoying friends. Pulling the hood of his sweatshirt over his head, he began walking in the opposite direction with his shoulders slumped deeply. Eventually the laughter faded away, swallowed up by the soft rustle of the dead, falling leaves. The direction in which he headed was of no real importance. All that mattered was that it led away from home. His mother was working the late shift and wouldn’t be home for hours. There was no rush. He had all night.

  *

  CHAPTER 4

  TEARFUL REUNION

  *

  Chris Jarvis showed up at the Williamson’s home at ten ‘til five. The state appointed social worker had yet to arrive. After shutting off the engine, Chris leaned back in the seat of his car, taking the opportunity to breathe deeply. Still gripping the wheel, he noticed his hands were shaking ever so slightly, sliding back and forth across the worn, tightly drawn leather. It had been so long since he’d seen either of his children, since he’d gazed into their eyes. It was even longer since he’d seen either of them smile.

  Chris was only now beginning to understand how badly he had failed his boys. Three months sober had brought a variety of previously blurry moments over the past few years into crystal-clear focus – some of which he wished he could forget again. The enormity of his wrongs was staggering. Not only had he failed his children, but he had failed himself as well. The question now became: Would Tommy or Nicky ever find it in their hearts to forgive him? Could they? Did he even deserve their forgiveness? Could he forgive himself? Should he forgive himself?

  In the rearview mirror, Chris watched as the car belonging to the social worker pulled into the driveway behind him. Instantly the thump of his heart quickened. He mashed his sweaty hands together, his fingers twitching and twiddling and tightly intertwined. Ahead of him the home of Ed and Edna Williamson loomed like a massive black question mark across the darkening mid-afternoon sky. Within it
s walls lay his past, his present and his future. Behind the cheap vinyl siding rested something not everyone is fortunate enough to receive in their lives – inside lay a second chance.

  From his thinning hairline dripped a worried, panicky sweat. Months of counseling, hour upon hour of baring the deepest, darkest, most shameful recesses of his soul to people he barely knew, had led him to this single moment. He couldn’t fail. He wouldn’t fail, not again. Chris retrieved his wedding ring from his jacket pocket. The modest gold band was stained with bluish-green spots, scratched and old, grimy looking by even the oldest of wedding band standards. He thought he’d lost it after Megan’s death – another victim of one of his many drunken stupors. While cleaning three weeks ago he discovered it wedged beneath some old boxes in the garage. It was chipped, it was filthy — yet it could be made clean. He knew that much like this ring, anything could be polished if given the proper time and care. Making a fist, he squeezed the tiny band of gold so tightly it left an imprint on the skin of his palm. If ever in his life there had been a moment he needed Megan beside him, this was it.

  Hearing the doorbell ring, Edna Williamson quickly crossed the distance between the kitchen and the front door. After checking her hair in a nearby mirror, she took a deep breath and opened it. On her front porch, an awkward, slightly shameful smile spread across his face, stood Chris Jarvis. Having spent months wondering exactly what the man would look like, Edna found herself slightly disappointed with the reality. Hearing what the Jarvis boys had been put through, she half expected the boogeyman, something terrifying and evil, something less a human being than a force of nature. The person standing shyly on her porch, though, was no creature of darkness – this was just a man. Despite his six foot, two hundred-or-so pound frame, Chris Jarvis looked significantly more sad than imposing. Like a child caught with his hands in the cookie jar, he seemed ashamed of himself, so much so that he could barely look her in the eye. Surprisingly, rather than feeling anger toward him, Edna Williamson suddenly realized she was overcome with pity.

  “Mr. Jarvis,” She stated simply, slightly nodding and doing her best to keep things proper, cordial and businesslike.

  “Hello, Mrs. Williamson,” Chris responded softly, uncomfortably digging the tip of his shoe into the concrete beneath his feet.

  “Mrs. Williamson?” A somewhat high-pitched feminine voice squeaked out from behind Chris. “Hi! Mrs. Williamson, I’m Amber Frye, Child Social Services.”

  A smallish woman with long blonde hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail stepped out from behind Chris, extending her hand forward. Edna quickly made note of the fact that the girl couldn’t possibly be more than twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, if that. Suddenly she felt very old. Suddenly she cursed herself for not spending more time fixing her hair.

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Frye.” Edna answered politely, shaking the young woman’s delicate hand while admiring the luxurious length of her eyelashes. “Please, both of you, come in.”

  Immediately after stepping into the Williamson’s home, Chris caught sight of Nicky standing at the end of a hallway leading to the kitchen. Behind his son, a hand resting gently on the boy’s left shoulder, was a stone-faced Ed Williamson.

  Unlike his wife, Ed felt absolutely no sympathy for Chris Jarvis and doubted he ever would. The man had done terrible things –to his own children, no less. The very idea confused and disgusted him in a way that brought new meaning to the words. Chris Jarvis deserved no sympathy. For some things there are no excuses, no reasoning that instantly makes them acceptable or understandable, and this was one of those things. Ed’s grip on Nicky’s shoulder tightened a bit, his fingers pressing protectively into the boy’s flesh. A fatherly instinct he long thought buried rushed up from his chest and into his hands – quite suddenly he didn’t want to let the boy slide from his grasp.

  Standing in front of his youngest son after such a very long time, Chris Jarvis found himself overcome with a mixture of excitement, happiness, incredible shame, and awful fear. Emotions too large and complicated to fully comprehend scattered wildly in every direction inside his brain. Every time he managed to grab hold of one, another buzzed past, causing him to lose his grip and forcing him to start over.

  With no idea what to say, Chris chose to mumble the obvious. “Hi, Nicky.”

  It was stupid, simple, and meaningless. It did nothing to capture the magnitude of the moment, yet it was all he could manage.

  Neither son nor father made a move. The air in the foyer of the Williamsons’ home quickly grew silent, thick and gooey, like a jar of extra sticky molasses. For nearly a minute, not a single word was muttered. Feeling the urge to move closer to his son, Chris glanced in the direction of the diminutive Amber Frye for confirmation.

  After nodding to him, Amber found herself absentmindedly averting her gaze, unable to fully deal with the awkwardness of the situation. Technically this was her first time in the field. Having only been hired earlier this year, most of that time had been spent behind a desk filing, documenting, copying, and doing everything else generally referred to as paperwork. Despite having trained for situations such as this, she quickly realized that it in no way prepared her for the starkness the reality of the moment would carry with it. She felt like a voyeur, as if the moment were something she shouldn’t be seeing – even if it happened to be her job.

  Taking two steps in the direction of his son Chris whispered with some caution, “It’s good to see you again buddy …you - you look good …your hair’s gotten longer.”

  Extending his finger, Chris pointed toward his son’s shaggy, brown locks. They had grown a bit over the last few months, coming perilously close to covering his eyes and making the boy look a bit like a spindly, dark haired sheep dog. Not sure what to say next, Chris let his body decide for him. Slowly lifting his arms and opening them wide, he awkwardly invited his son to give him a hug. It was an enormous step – moving from zero to sixty in less than a second — but it was a step he felt he had to take.

  Even with everything that had happened in the past, with everything he’d seen the old man do to his brother and everything that was done to him — quite unexpectedly Nicky Jarvis found himself filled with the overwhelming desire to be close to his father once again. Swallowing deep, he wiggled himself from Ed’s grip, leaping forward as if his legs were spring-loaded, and melted into Chris’ outstretched arms.

  Tears welling up in the corners of his eyes, Chris Jarvis enveloped his son completely, pulling him tight to his chest while squeezing with every last muscle in his upper body. His hand reached forward to cup the back of Nicky’s head, his fingers intertwining with the boy’s thick hair.

  In a half-there, shaky on-the-border-of-tipping voice, he choked, “I missed you Nicky. I missed you so much. I’m so sorry.”

  A lump in Nicky’s throat made it impossible to answer back. Instead of trying, the teary-eyed boy tightened his grip on his father’s waist, pressing his head harder against the man’s torso. Half-happy and half-sad, the tears in Chris’ eyes responded in a way mere words could never do justice.

  Simultaneously frightening and heart-warming, the inherent strangeness of the moment was not lost on Nicky Jarvis, or anyone else in the room for that matter. Trying his best to not think of what had happened in the past, or what might happen in the future, Nicky instead let the safety of his father’s hug fill him with much-needed warmth for the first time in a very long time. A part of him believed that this moment might never come again – making it even more important that he enjoy it while it lasted.

  In spite of her best efforts to not get caught up in the moment, Edna Williamson could feel her cheeks warming, an unwanted moisture building up behind her eyes. With a tissue retrieved from the pocket of her pants, she dabbed away the tears before they caused her makeup to run and smiled kindly at the father-son reunion, praying it would be the first of many.

  Near the end of the hallway, Ed Williamson turned his back.

  *


  CHAPTER 5

  MY ENEMY, MY FRIEND

  *

  The trip across town to the tree fort took some time, and when Tommy finally arrived the sun had already begun its slow descent into night. Fall had stripped the tree branches bare, its dead brown leaves lying scattered across the ground below. No longer hidden behind thick foliage, the haphazardly constructed tree fort seemed less impressive than he remembered it. Every crooked, rain-warped board and bent nail was exposed for all to see. What seemed astoundingly well constructed in the summer suddenly looked sloppy - obviously the work of a child. The icy weather of the coming winter had begun to freeze small sections of the stream near the tree’s base; thick chunks of smooth, dirty ice now sprouted sporadically from the water’s edge. Underneath the water and the ice was the doorway to Fillagrou. Now more than ever Tommy wished he could go back. Having tried unsuccessfully on numerous occasions since returning six months ago, he came to the realization long ago that it simply wasn’t possible. Something Zanell said to him before saying goodbye for the last time scratched at the back of his brain like an unwelcome visitor: “The door lets through who needs to be let through, when they need to be let through.” It was cryptic, it was stupid, and it was apparently true. This was no simple doorway, and unfortunately for Tommy Jarvis it seemed off limits — for the moment, anyway.

  “Don’t bother trying, weirdo. It ain’t gonna work.”

  The deep voice came from somewhere behind Tommy. Quickly rotating in place, he glanced upward toward the tree fort. Leaning halfway out of the crudely constructed window near the front with an annoyed smirk on his face was the burly-bodied Donald Rondage.

  “I’ve tried going back at least twenty times. All it got me was soaking wet,” Donald grumbled, cautiously making his way down the rickety boards nailed to the tree’s trunk. “I even stole an old snorkel from my brother’s room and searched every inch of that damn stream bottom with my bare hands. Guess what I found? Zero. Nothing. For a while, I started thinking that maybe I dreamt the whole damn thing. I guess you showing up here proves that’s not the case.”