Remember When We Rode the Coaster?

How funny would it be if I fell off the ladder today, of all days? Years of reckless boyhood, without a care for safety or caution, and not one major injury to speak of. It’s a miracle that none of us got seriously hurt, especially this high off the ground.

And wow, it’s a lot smaller than I remember. I manage to squeeze my now six-foot frame into an opening the size of a dog door, somehow, and try to stand. I can’t even extend my legs before my head bangs against the wooden rooftop of the treehouse. Ow.

I sit back down, curled in a fetal position, knees to my chest. Take a breath. A warm breeze cuts through the windows, bringing with it the scent of candy and popcorn. A familiar jingle echoes through the trees around me. A carnival! It brings back some deep, tucked away memories I forgot I even had.

***

Sitting on my left, Michael hands me a cone of cotton candy. Pink, fluffy, and gone in about two seconds. I stand up, my hair just barely touching the roof of the treehouse. Wood beneath our feet creaks under the weight of four fourth-grade boys, but none of us notice.

“I didn’t get any!” whines Evan, sulking in the corner. Most of the creaking came from him. Looking at him, none of us feel particularly guilty that he’s the last one to eat.

Gabriel sighs. “You had, like, three coneys for lunch already.”

“But I’m still hungry,” he whines, drawing out the word in the most spoiled-baby way possible. Somehow, he manages to make his stomach rumble, supporting the evidence of his complete and total starvation. The rest of us roll our eyes.

Gabriel grabs a bag of popcorn and chucks it at our friend’s head. “Would you shut up, fatty?” It sounds harsh, but we have an unspoken rule around here: only Gabriel, Michael, and myself are allowed to insult Evan’s weight. If anyone outside of this treehouse makes a pass at him, that kid will meet a swift fist to the mouth while walking from his locker to a classroom. But here, deep in the branches of the oldest spruce tree in town, we justify our insults as encouragements for Evan’s health and well-being. Although we never quite clarified that with Evan himself.

But he doesn’t seem to mind, or even hear, the insult. He sticks his fingers in the bag and shovels fistfuls of popcorn into his mouth, over and over, like an eating machine. We’ve seen it before but it’s impossible not to watch the process. It’s like bird watching, only way more disgusting and kinda impressive.

When he’s finally finished, the four of us relax into our respective corners of the treehouse. Mine, situated just under a window, is filled with half-finished LEGO sets that my mom had given me over the past few Christmases. The dirt and wear on their surfaces are testaments to the countless times I’ve built, taken apart, and rebuilt them. By now, I can build an entire spaceship straight from memory, no instructions required.

Evan’s corner has, of course, plenty of empty wrappers and used napkins. But there’s also papers filled to their edges with drawings, sketches, and comic strips. If you look at the piles, from the bottom up, the art gets progressively better and better. Evan doesn’t know it, but he’s already a fantastic artist at the ripe old age of ten.

Gabriel doesn’t have much, both because his dad can’t really afford toys or coloring books and because his favorite things to do require nothing but a ball, a hoop, and an oversized pair of tennis shoes. Gabriel believes he’s destined to be the world’s next basketball star; I’m pretty sure he’s already rehearsed his interviews for ESPN. Who cares if his dad is only five-ten, or if his mom, before she left Gabriel and his dad without a penny to speak of, passed on her severe asthma to her son? That’s not gonna stop nine-year-old Gabriel from anything.

Michael, however, has no drive to speak of. If he was a cat, he’d let a mouse tell him what to do without question. Shy, quiet, and simple, Michael seems content blending in with the background in any situation. He does like animals, although his cat, Sprinkles, almost always leaves deep scratches on his arms and legs. At least we think it’s Sprinkles. We hope it’s Sprinkles.

By now Evan has already finished his bag of popcorn. He makes a face, somewhere between a pout and a smile, that means he’s still hungry. But even Evan knows when to stop whining. The rest of us, happy and full, listen to the bullfrogs croak and the distant sounds of the carnival as the sun sets behind the Texas spruce trees. Looking at my friends, I take a mental snapshot of this moment. It’s like a surreal painting, like I’m not really here and am, instead, looking through a golden frame in a museum.

I open my eyes and the painting vanishes. I’m alone, and the corners of the treehouse become bare and empty. The wood is old now, falling apart, rotting from the outside in. It’s too humid, and it’s been too long since I’ve come up here. I know that I’m, in part, responsible for its poor state; it was my treehouse, in my yard. Why did I leave? Why didn’t I come back sooner? Would that have fixed things, or was the future of all of us inevitable?

When I got the letter from Gabriel’s dad, inviting me to his memorial service, I almost didn’t remember who he was. I had forgotten! That thought still haunts me. It’s what drove me up this ladder today, why I’m here, alone, crying in a treehouse that’s older than my own son. The last time I saw Gabriel, we were fifteen years old.

Evan had already moved away the year before. His mom had gotten a job in Dallas, taking the family with her in the old red van, the one that had taken the four of us boys around town more times than I could count. Michael, Gabriel, and I had watched them leave. We didn’t cry; crying was for babies and girls. We were almost men. We wouldn’t cry. We shouldn’t cry.

Well I was crying now. I pulled out the letter and studied Gabriel’s face, so familiar and so foreign at the same time. He had the same eyes, the same nose and mouth. It was undeniably Gabriel. But he was taller, only by a little bit, and he looked old. Not just older than ten, but older than fifty. Something had aged Gabriel well beyond his years. Maybe that was why he had gone first. His dad had said it was suicide, but looking at those eyes through the glassy photo convinced me it wasn’t a tragedy. Maybe I just didn’t want it to be one. Maybe I was looking for meaning in the face of someone that I really, truly, didn’t know anymore. A stranger.

I wonder where Michael is. I didn’t see him at the service, although I’m sure he was invited. There’s no way Gabriel’s dad would have forgotten. After I left for college, I heard rumors that Michael’s mom had been arrested. For what, I wasn’t sure, but I had my suspicions. She had never liked us very much, and she was almost always the reason Michael couldn’t come and play most weekends. He’d show up for school on Monday, haunted and distant, but we never asked about it. Maybe we should have. Would that have brought him here today?

Evan even asked about him earlier. I hardly recognized the man; he was skinny now! That chubby little kid I’d known for seven years of my life had become someone totally new. He wore a fancy-pants suit, a tie, and kept his hair in a gelled-back fade that showed off his new jawline and hollow cheeks. The man was a Greek god! I must have looked ridiculous, mouth agape, when the pieces finally connected about who he really was.

But it was still Evan. He hugged me, hard and tight, almost picking me up off the ground. Told me he was designing houses now. He had his own TV show. Considering the suit and watch he was wearing, I could see past the modesty into how successful he had become. Evan had really made something of himself. Maybe because he was the first one to leave, or maybe because he had the most to lose. I wasn’t sure what inspired him, and I selfishly wish I could’ve been there to see it.

He didn’t want to come to the treehouse. That, he said, was not something he was ready to face. I could tell Gabriel’s death was harder on him than he wanted to admit, but I didn’t press. And a part of me wanted to come up here alone. Would Gabriel’s spirit be here? Would I find peace in the skeleton of my childhood? 

Or would I just look crazy, crying into my knees inside a thirty year old box of wood, stuck in an even older tree? They wouldn’t stop, the tears, but no one was here to see them.

***

“Louie, are you crying? Are you a girl or somethin’?”

My breath catches in my throat. I look up; Evan, Michael, and Gabriel are standing over me, watching me with a mixture of laughter and concern. Evan still has crumbs on his shirt from the Oreos he’d recently stuffed away. Michael, always the most sensitive, asks “Are you okay?” with just his eyes.

And Gabriel, full of bravado confidence in his four-foot-five body, points a finger in my face. “What’s the matter, baby-brain? Need a pacifier?”

I smack his hand away and wipe the snot from my nose. “Shut up, man.”

He smirks. “Waah!” he mocks. “Mommy! Waah!”

I stand. “I said shut up!”

He stops suddenly. Looks directly into my eyes, like I’ve said something weird or offensive. I look back, searching, seeing more years in those eyes than Gabriel had ever lived. Even then, the signs were all there. I just didn’t know what I was looking at.

Outside, the sounds of the carnival grow louder, like it’s calling us. I can smell the popcorn still. Evan’s stomach growls loudly, breaking the tense mood, and we laugh. His face goes red.

Gabriel turns back to me and, for the first time, his smile is soft. “I’ve got a few bucks left. Wanna ride the coaster one more time?”

Evan inhales sharply. “That coaster’s scary!”

“Well then stay here and eat, piggy! We’ll go by ourselves, together, right Louie?” He extends a hand.

Outside, riders scream with glee as the coaster careens down the track. I can hear them clearly. It should terrify me, the coaster. It’s tall and scary and who knows if I’ll come back alive. But I look at Gabriel’s face, so confident, so sure of himself. He’s already faced the coaster; he knows we’ll all come back alright. He’s just along for the ride, for me.

I nod and take his hand. “Together.”