Superman's Cape (7 page)

Kyle walked deeper into the woods. He walked with a hurt and shame that was his to wear. The hurt and shame wore on him and weighed down his steps. He kicked at the pine needles and pulled stalks of the grass as he swiped at his watering eyes. He walked until the contorted vision in front of him grew clearer. He swung his hands at the baby trees around him, their tops approaching his face, and their defenseless arms extending a stunted reach to shake his hands. He grabbed one of the younger saplings, his fingers wrapping around the top, and pulled until the force ended with a snap. He continued walking off the unfriendliness in his head.

The anger and resentment he felt when he woke every day didn’t pass with the rise of the sun. It didn’t find calm in the afternoons. It didn’t sleep when he lay back down at night to close his eyes. The lightness and fun that once was a part of him was becoming a faint memory. It was going to a place far away deep inside. Lost to his eyes. Lost to his ears. Lost to his lips and to his heart. A part of him missed feeling good. But he missed it less and less.

He walked some more and thought about his dad. He replayed the images in his head as the man’s gun spewed the smoke and metal that turned the day into a tragedy. He walked from tree to tree and sometimes in short circles while thinking of blood and Jonnie’s Superman cape. He skipped his toe into the floor of pine needles. He skipped his toe hard. He could still smell the smoke and hear his father’s last breath. He walked until a squirrel ran across his feet and startled him. Kyle came to a stop, interrupting the cloud of feelings he was so unwilling to leave.

Kyle put a hand and arm to his face. He cleared his eyes of the remaining tears and wiped his nose of the runniness that crept towards his upper lip. His eyes wandered up the tall trees as he paused in awe of their size. Umbrella growths blossomed at their tops, smiling at the sky. He saw glimpses of blue and graying sky through the broken areas of branches and leaves and blossoms. Kyle rested his eyes for a minute as the sky peeked back at him from the other side.

With his fingers, he tried to pry a shingle of bark from a tree. He pulled on it. But the tree protested, yelling out what sounded like the slow tearing of paper. He pulled again and the tree finally let go. The shingle covered most of his hand.
If I were a Hobbit, I’d build a roof with these
, he thought amusingly for a moment then tossed the shingle to the ground.

“There are a lot of trees in here,” he said to the pine wearing a fresh wound.

As if listening, the tops of the trees waved to each other. They moved rhythmically backward then forward before returning home to their original stances. He felt the air cross his face and go through his hair. As a breeze passed over his wet cheeks, the cold reminded him of his tears and what he was doing there. The question of direction sprouted in his mind like the green stalks of grass shooting up from the floor of the woods.
Which direction,
the grass stalks whipped at his memory.
Which direction did I come from?

This has to be easy
, he thought in an attempt to settle the fear that was building.
Just need to remember where the sun was … it was behind me. My shadow was in front of me.
A sense of pride turned up a smile and he looked to the ground in search of his shadow. “If my shadow was in front of me when I entered the woods then I need to put my shadow behind me now. And then just keep walking in that direction”, he proclaimed to the trees. “Simple. Right.” Kyle turned left and right, looking for his shadow. He walked a few yards ahead, his head down and eyes to the floor. He searched the pine needles for the figure of his outline.

“Where is the Sun?” he questioned, and lifted his chin to find it through the tall trees. The ceiling of umbrella blooms swayed back and forth, hiding it from him. Hiding the shadow he needed. He watched as the trees moved in the breeze. He listened to them sounding off angry giggles. They giggled louder, mocking his predicament. It was a punishment for his having peeled the bark off one of their brothers and for having killed one of their young.

Suddenly, a patch of sunlight burst through the ceiling and landed to wake up the forest floor. Kyle ran to a sunlit patch. He ran from one to another then another as the wind’s direction changed. The light painted abstract shades across the pine needle floor. The painting in front of him seemed alive as it morphed from one shape to another. The wind moved the light. It danced and jumped around. And then the wind steadied and slowed. He ran to one more patch of ground and thrust his feet into the light with the expectation of seeing his shadow. But just as before, the sunlight faded into the surrounding gray.

“Which direction is home?” he asked the trees as frustration edged his trembling lip. His shadow stayed hidden from his eyes like a teasing game of Marco Polo. “Marco
,”
he mumbled, wishing he could hear someone reply.

Get a Grip.
Kyle dismissed the growing concern. He stifled the speculation that was breeding fear in his mind, and instead turned around from the direction he was facing, and walked.

“It’s this way,” he said defiantly. And in soldier form he stepped five or more yards before considering a look in any direction other than forward.

A minute of walking passed. And then another. And when he stopped to look around, he only saw the same frustrating trees. He didn’t recognize anything. He looked to the ground with hope that his sneakers left imprints. But the blanket of pine needles kept the dirt hidden. The blanket didn’t show a hint of remembering who he was, let alone betray whether anyone, or anything, had ever walked here.

Kyle searched in vain for the broken sapling. The one he grabbed earlier, out of anger, and pulled until he felt it break. He turned – there it was!
How simple
, he thought. He saw the sapling just ten yards away. His heart leapt and he picked up his feet and ran over to the young sapling. He apologized to the surrounding trees for having hurt the poor thing, but at the same time was so thankful that he had broken it; otherwise, who knew where he’d be? Kyle felt the fracture in the bark. The young tree bled a sticky goo of sap that was resilient to his attempts at wiping it away.

Kyle glimpsed another small tree. One, then two and then three more. As far as his eyes could see, and in every direction, broken saplings sprinkled the woods around him. A sinking feeling entered him. It replaced all others that overwhelmed his senses that day. He finally realized that he didn’t know which direction he walked in from. He didn’t know. He had no idea which direction was home.

Andy ordered his fourth beer while Jacob was still finishing his first. By Jacob’s count, the lunch offer he made was picked up by half a dozen or so, and still growing. The group from the station sat in and around two long tables at the center of one of their favorite watering holes. The ‘Rust Bucket’ was located just off Rt. 17 – closer to Maysville than their station. You always knew you were near when the salty smell of the Atlantic Ocean greeted you. Everyone liked the ‘Rust Bucket.’ It was the place to go with folks from the station, or when you just wanted to grab a beer. The place was hypnotic – a throwback to an easier time.

A whisper of escape seemed to sit fresh in the air when you first walked in. The smell and ambience persuaded you to shed the outside from your bones and stay a while. The knotty pine wood bar spilled the secrets of patrons past, telling you to enjoy the music and the food and of course the liquid freedoms to help you forget all that troubled you.

A few steps down from the door’s landing and you were in the body of the big room. Paths of burgundy stones lined the floors, leading up to the corners of the bar and then back to the walls. The room reminded Jacob of the flavors and colors found west of the Mississippi. It offered a glimpse into the small rustic town of Arizona and West Texas. A great fireplace wrapped in shale stone was the centerpiece of the ‘Rust Bucket.’ When the fall and winter months requested it, the owner always made sure a welcome and inviting fire was burning.

“You might want to slow it a bit there,” Jacob said.

“Not at all. Just getting started. You want another?” Andy queried on the tail end of finishing number four.

“Sure. Need a few more to catch up to you,” Jacob belted in a laugh.

Across the bar and in the corner near the ceiling an old Panasonic TV was dialed in to their Station. He looked up to see his afternoon siblings doing their part in delivering a rendition of the news and weather. Jacob shrugged. The broadcast was the same, just different faces. The updated hurricane forecast narrowed the number of hours a little, but nothing dramatic. He smiled when he saw the National Weather Service bending a bit and conceding to include clouds and a sprinkle in the updated forecast.

“It’ll be rain,” he said to the beer in his hand, then winked before taking a swig.

“I know it will,” Andy replied on return from the bar with Miller longnecks in each hand. “You said that this morning … having second thoughts?” Andy continued while passing off one of the longnecks to Jacob.

“Nope, just repeating it is all. National Weather Service is leaning in favor of it too,” he said, pointing his beer toward the screen. Andy looked back up in time to see the last of the forecast before it cut to commercial.

“Good to know – Shalom,” he said pitching his Miller to the Panasonic before bringing it back to Jacob for an obligatory tap of the longnecks. Jacob and Andy toasted to friendship, the weather and mainly the ‘Rust Bucket’ for being open to serve good food and many beers to the crew of WJL-TV.

“Uh-oh, Jake, here comes Jill and she’s got a few beers in her and some eyes on you,” he finished as the longnecks clinked.

“She does not – and as the
Boss,
don’t you have to mind your P’s and Q’s around us? We’re just the minion … the impressionable peons,” Jacob retorted, laughing.

“Uh-uh, my friend! Not this afternoon Bud-dy, I’m just a patron in this Baaar like you,” he replied trying to take on a Pauly Shore persona. Only now the beers were starting to play mischief with his words. He laughed anyway.

Jacob turned as Jill approached. What Andy didn’t know was the two were already playing a good game of
you flirt
,
I flirt.
And that the game was turning serious and becoming more of a relationship. Their dating outside of the station grew steady. They exchanged more than phone calls and text messages these days. Sometimes Jill left a change of clothes packed in the back of her car. And sometimes Jacob left a change of clothes in his car.

Jill was an 8 to 9 out of 10.
A true beauty,
as his father used to say. Not a made-up beauty or false beauty where different cover-ups hide the skin tones. Or where fake eye-lashes dared to fall off like some rogue military spider out for vengeance on your nose and mouth. Jill was a true beauty that captured Jacob’s attention whenever she wasn’t looking and sometimes when she was. He watched her approach. He watched her long brown hair riding across her shoulders along her neckline and laying to rest just above her breasts. He watched the blue in her eyes as they met his and a smile broadened in response to his own.

“She is a true beauty,” he said aloud without considering Andy’s listening ears.

“Yes she is – I knew you liked that … you gonna tap that, aren’t you,” Andy said, breaking Jacob’s attention in time to see him wriggle his tongue and smack his lips with groans escaping between claps of his fingers.

“OK, Ewwww – so what, only four beers in and you take us back to the sixth grade?” Jacob said trying not to laugh but failing as he watched Andy continue the contorted lip dancing.

“It’s five, five beers! Hey Jake. Jake, ask her to call one of her girlfriends! We’ll double for dinner and dessert,” Andy slurred with an emphasis on the word dessert. Jacob stuttered a laugh and took the beer from Andy’s hands, placing it on the table.

“First, this isn’t some campy eighties movie we’re stuck in. So don’t make me feel like it is. And second, you’re getting drunk,” he trumpeted, raising an eyebrow while finishing the remainder of his beer. Jill stopped next to him. Leaning, she placed her arm across his back and laid a hand to rest on his shoulder.

“Hi guys!” she announced, smiling at Jacob and then to Andy. “What are the two of you doing all the way over here?”

“It’s umm … It’s ahhh – closer to the bar,” Andy struggled to say as he grabbed his longneck back from the table to drink. Jacob laughed at his friend, and then turned back to Jill. He could smell her hair and perfume as she leaned against him some more. She was inviting. Intoxicating.

“Just wanted to see the forecast,” he offered pointing up to the Panasonic in the corner.

“Can I have one of these?” she asked looking to the beers in front of Andy. Without waiting for a reply, she leaned over and moved across Jacob’s face. She pushed up on her feet, reaching past him for one of the beers. While doing so, she let all of her front come within an inch of Jacob’s imagination. Grabbing the longneck, Jill took the seat next to Jacob. She fixed a smile on her lips and her eyes on his.

Her smile and more immediate intentions admittedly caught him off guard, “Well, hello to you, too,” was all Jacob could think to say.

“You’re so damn cute – you know that,” she began and reached with her finger to play with the dimple in his chin. “You know … I’ve never kissed a man with a dimple in his chin,” she admitted. The kiss was a white lie and Jacob thought she said it as a courtesy to Andy who stayed close enough to listen.

“Neither have I,” he was quick to answer.

“Cute and funny. I like that,” Jill said, and favored him with a wrinkle of her nose.

“I think you need to tell your friend he’s got one already,” she indicated and motioned to Andy.

Jacob turned to see Andy pulling a cigarette from the pack of Red Mediums on the table. He flipped the cigarette up and put it in his mouth next to the one he was already smoking.