A Southern Memoir

When I was a kid, me and my siblings would climb a weighty tree that appeared to have two entwined trunks at its base. Its branches spread out like fingers holding up the sky, which imitated the veins of my wrist. This tree was the arm of our house, and it held us when no one else would.

In the summer twilight, even the tree’s silhouette matched the cobalt-violet just beneath my skin. At night we’d shine flashlights from its canopy and feel the wilder wind whistle through the branches. We saw a flickering of lightning bugs, which we snapped from the air with our crab palms and hoarded in grass-stuffed mason jars. The bonfire smelled of smores, hotdogs, and gasolined newspapers that foreshadowed a coming market crash.

One time, I fell from that tree a whole nine feet, but it caught my foot with its cross-split trunk right before my nose touched the ground. Then, as dictated by the law of comedic timing, my foot slipped from my shoe, and I bonked my head on the grass. I hadn’t learned to tie my shoes until I was eleven, so perhaps it was inevitable. Or perhaps it was the tree’s impish personality. The second time I fell – I was not caught midair. I was on a branch four feet from the ground. I rested my head back as I daydreamed, and I remember my sister laughing as my back hit the grassy backyard. That was me, falling out of trees, abusing the ground.

I loved climbing trees, but I haven’t done so in nearly a decade. I want to, but I haven’t. I want to fall out of a tree a third time, as the law of comedy would suggest, but that prophecy was left unfulfilled. It makes me wonder if the tree chose not to catch me that second time, as a warning, and I took the warning too seriously.

Once, during my friend-turned-foster-brother’s birthday, I won a blue Packman Ghost plushie in a claw machine. I gave it to him as a gift, but I wanted to keep that ghost, and I never found out if he actually appreciated it. For some reason, not out of malice as far as I can recall, I had tied the ghost and a bag of Halloween candy to the top of the tree. They both disappeared shortly after. It’s strange how childhood selfishness remains so vibrant. I’d gladly throw away cash for my siblings, but I’d have paid thousands to give my ten-year-old self that blue Packman Ghost.

Once, when I was ten, I caught a blue-tailed lizard and kept it as a pet, but my mother made me let it go because it lost its tail, and she told me it’ll only live if I let it go. I found out later that lizards lose their tails to escape capture, but I don’t think that was her real intent.

Once, when I was eight, my brother had a pet gecko he kept as a pet. Thinking it indestructible, I had repeatedly thrown it against my window to see if it would stick. Its tail fell off, and it died. I remember crying because I didn’t understand death, but I did understand hell. Eternal fire, like when I touched a hot stove, only I wouldn’t be able to take my hand away. I thought if I flipped the bird I’d be sentenced to eternal damnation.

Even in high school, I rarely cursed.

My mother must’ve thought I hurt the blue-tail just as I did the gecko.

Once, I had a dog who died of cancer. I remember leaving for school the day he died, watching his face in the backdoor glass and telling him I couldn’t play today.

I get really quiet when I grieve.

I grieved the same when my cat died. He was uniquely named mittens, and he was grey with white paws. The last time I saw him I skittered a stick – back and forth across the pavement – so he can chase it. My mother told me he was ran over by a car, but died painlessly because his skull was crushed.

Once, Mittens had an older brother. We named him Satan because he was a little devil, but renamed him Smoky because he had a solid grey coat, like ash, and his old name made people uncomfortable. He was an outdoor cat that frequently patrolled the forestry behind our home. And behind those woods, was the riverbed where me and my siblings would search for geodes. During one of these expeditions, I heard my little brother shriek, and we were rushed back to the house. He had found Smoky’s corpse, and we discovered he was shot by the next-door neighbor.

Now I don’t want to fall from a tree. Because I have a third cat, and the law of comedy isn’t funny anymore. His name is Crazy, but a more appropriate name would be Fighter. He was hit by a car recently, but he survived.

Once, my mother’s breaks failed, and we crashed our car into a massive ditch. I had to get stitches across my forehead. Streaks of ruddy blood was cleaned from my face, and I was given a grape popsicle by a nurse.

Once, I found a ruby-red-quartz in a small ditch where I saw salamanders for the first time. I became obsessed with collecting stones, bones, and trinkets. I later found a purple-square-diamond ring in the dirt and was forced to return it to its owners. I was given a small cash reward though, which was fine. I wanted to be an archeologist, but I grew out of that want in middle school.

Once, I collected geodes. I’d haul a dozen stones at a time from the riverbed, up the inclined forest, and dump them in a pile in our backyard. Occasionally I’d break them open with a sledgehammer, hoping to find crystals and quartz. I never did, but I must’ve left hundreds of unopened stones on that path.

In the center of the path, between the riverbed and the house, there were two forts. The main fort was a tree with a fire swing and a pot on a stomp. I remember planning to climb the tree of the fort if I ever saw a black bear or a wolf. The fort didn’t have walls, instead it had a trail of sticks surrounding it like a fairy circle. On the opposite side of the trail was the second, sadder, smaller fort. I think it was built by two of my siblings in retaliation and was just a circle of sticks surrounding thin saplings.

Further down the slope of the path there is a throne on the righthand side of the path. No one ever sat on it because we assumed there were snakes in it. The throne was an old couch atop a pile of discarded tires at the bottom of a hill. A mini-junk-heap in the middle of nowhere. This wasn’t surprising, there were all sorts of trash-to-treasures hidden between the trenches of the hilly woods. We’d collect silverware and glass bottles. I still have that fork I found, I hoped it was silver when I was little. It’s probably not, but I’m not going to try and find out. The mystery is important to me.

Me and my siblings divided the riverbed into two zones, right-side and left-side. Right side was a dirt bed with scraps of other people’s lives. We joked that a tornado came through there, because of all the trashed children’s clothing and drawers. We joked that the place was haunted, so we never entered there alone. We stopped going right-side after Smoky was shot.

There wasn’t much there anyway.

The left-side of the riverbed was filled with rocks and potential geodes. We’d follow the path until we had to take a right turn at the washing machine. It might’ve been a drier, but I couldn’t tell the difference at that age. So in my mind it will forever be a washing machine.

The farthest I went was marked by a massive stump, big enough for a child to lie down on.

We pitied it like the giving tree. Beyond that was a construction site and a gas station, and my older sibling went there once. I wish I went with her when I had the chance. At least once.

I still can. I could grab my siblings from their lives and force them into a strangers backyard. Past the forts that might still be there. Past the throne that couldn’t have decayed by now. Not passing the grave of a cat. Passing the washer that marked our progress. Past the enormous stump that should be mulch by now. Past whatever they built, past the gas station, to the origin of the riverbed. To the answer to why the water dried, and how to bring it back to what it once was.

But that time has long since gone, and only the riverbed remains. Full of unopened geodes, fossils of lizards, ghosts of childhood pets, and new trees growing from rotted stumps. Like the veins of my aging wrists.