The Red Glint of Lost Dreams

Folding down the attic stairs, Robbie braced them against the floor, the subtle creak of the ancient wood like the sound of an aged man’s bones upon rising. He could still hear the ghost of such clicks and grunts as his old man struggled out of that pathetic pea-green recliner to shuffle, drunk and defeated, to the fridge for another beer. The old man had seemed to live on beer alone, as a truck on diesel, and it eventually caught up with him, to no one’s surprise but himself.

               The stale taste of tobacco smoke pervaded the air in the cramped ranch house, so thick Rob knew he wouldn’t be able to get the stink out of his clothes, his hair, for days. The smell of his childhood.

               The chair was the first thing to go, reclining like a sagging sack of refuse on the curb for any dumpster divers to take, free of charge. No takers yet, nor, he knew, would there be any. No one wanted a relic of the eighties, upholstery torn, cigarette burns on the arms, the immovable imprint of a wide ass carved out in the seat. Just so much trash, yet another reminder from his childhood hoisted gratefully onto the trash heap.

               Bracing himself for a possible neck-breaking fall, he began to climb the rickety rungs up into the cave that was their disused attic. Head like a gopher popping out of the earth, he shoved his way up into the darkness, pulling out his phone to click on the flashlight. Bathed in the eerie bright glow of light, the room seemed to take on a menacing persona, a living being ready to swallow him whole.

               Choking down his exasperation, shoving his torso the rest of the way up into the black, gaping maw, he sat on the edge of the precipice, dangling his feet in the opening, a child on a precarious swing. Below him the rusty orange, outdated carpet awaited his offerings.

               Trying to heave a deep breath, he choked on the dust, covering his mouth and nose from the sudden onslaught of the inevitable motes floating around him like snowflakes. He waved his free hand through the air as if to drive off the swarm of particles swarming around him, landing in his hair, on h8is shoulders, but this only served to worsen conditions.

               His wild waving did bear some fruit, however unintentional, as he slapped at a metallic, beaded cord, and, tugging on it carefully so as not to rip the chain asunder, a reluctant lightbulb sputtered to life, revealing the room to be a dismal gray under its dim golden orange glow.

               Surrounding him on all sides, Rob stumbled against an army of knick-knacks and junk, yet more for the landfill. To his right a broken rocking chair, wicker seat caved in as if punched through in a drunken stupor. To his right, hanging like a firing squad of garroted soldiers, his father’s ‘thin’ clothes, once so carefully maintained, now moth eaten and musty.

               All over the floor, a carpet in its own right, were scattered whiskey bottles and crushed beer cans. Clearly these were the leavings of his father, just after it happened, back when he still tried to hide his ever-encroaching drinking problem. Teetotaler no more, after that day he’d thrown himself headfirst into the hobby that robs so many of their livers and lives. Just another statistic.

               Ducking beneath and behind the army of hanging shirts, coughing his way through the silence, Rob bent to start rifling through the stacks of carboard boxes, some labelled in a feminine hand, most not. A collection of China dishes, a blender that didn’t work. Children’s books and his baseball card collection, worth keeping in case there was one valuable piece in the set whose price would reimburse him for all the time currently being wasted emptying out a house that hadn’t been a home in twenty odd years.

               One box held a collection of yellowed photographs and, plucking the topmost from the pile, he looked at the happy collection of figures celebrating his seventh birthday. The room was bedecked in multicolored ribbons and streamers, his buck-toothed, freckled face puckering up to blow out the candles of his Power Rangers cake. Bending over behind him as if leaning in to read a book over his shoulder, the beaming face of a radiant woman, hair teased a foot high, was also puckering red-painted lips to assist as her son expelled all the air from his lungs to win a wish. He should’ve wished for something else. 

               Dropping the photo back into the tragic box of bittersweet memories, he moved on to the next box. Crossing his legs, he sat mid-yoga pose, maneuvering the heavy box onto his lap, eagerly tearing it open, driven by a surge of nostalgia. “Robbie’s Toys.”

               The topmost items were trash: once treasured crayon scribblings assigned in kindergarten and a few report cards from elementary school, where none but the dullest kids in class got As. Setting these aside to be thrown away, unheeding the possibility of roaches or spiders in the box’s depths, he thrust his hand down deeper, fingers knocking against fabric and plastic. Fisting all he could manage in one grasp, he wrenched the items eagerly out of the box and readied himself for a flood of pleasant nostalgia to overwhelm him.

               Instead, he was met by a fist to the gut, disgust coloring his features, skin paling at what reclined in his hands. Lying like a wounded warrior against his palm, the figurine of the red ranger, besmirched with the odd marker stain, missing his plastic belt. His favorite toy until the day he swore hatred for his once beloved childhood idol, abhorring the deception of all he stood for, betrayed in his belief that good triumphed over evil. Tangled around the doll, slipping through his fingers, that year’s Halloween costume, the cheap, spandex, child-sized facsimile of the Red Ranger himself, front still stained with the now rust-colored splashes of blood.

               Crumpling the fabric around the figurine, he uncrossed his legs and rose shakily, moving his right leg back and forth in frustration, waiting for the pins and needles of numbness to fade, starting back towards the ladder, face fallen and cold; he descended.

               Every year was the same until it wasn’t. Every year his father took him trick-or-treating while mom stayed home to pass out candy. She loved doing it, face lighting up to see the creative collection of children’s costumes as they came begging for undeserved treats. 

               They’d scoured their neighborhood, then the one two streets over, until his pillowcase bulged with the plunder of the night’s reward. Amiably, father and son talked as they returned home, digging in the dark sack to find the rare Baby Ruth or the coveted Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Plucking off the Red Ranger mask, he shoved candy in his mouth like a starving man, then, when in sight of their home, he ran full out, eager to show his mother his riches. Only to find her.

               Walking up to the trashcan at the end of the uneven concrete driveway, he latched onto the can’s cover and ripped it back, dumping the toy and bloodstained fabric into the trash, smashing it down with all his strength, heedless of the squelching refuse that covered his hands as he pushed ever deeper down. When he could no longer see the red glint of lost dreams, he pulled back and fastened the can closed tight. Kicking the trash receptacle one last time for good measure, he stood there, stinking of cigarette smoke, and wondered if perhaps, somewhere amid all the wreckage and ruin inside, there was a bottle of whisky still half full.