Pay it Forward

Archie knew he had a problem, but he also had another problem that compounded that problem. Firstly, he was in the habit of not listening. But what made it worse was that even in knowing that he wasn’t listening and that this was increasingly becoming a problem, he did nothing about it.

“You can’t do this,” Archie said as he was manhandled from the car and walked to the back door of the huge edifice of a building made ominous by the dark shadows thrown by street lamps that stood well back and avoided the less salubrious parts of the city.

“Are you going to remind me of daft laws that had no business being passed for the likes of you and I?” 

It wasn’t the question itself that made Archie gobble up air like a guppy fish, but it was a good question. Neither was it the challenge that the question presented, or rather a pushback on something that Archie had thrown at his old man a few times too many. No, it was the look the big man gave his son. That look crushed Archie in a way he didn’t know was possible. What that look crushed was a piece of his heart that had lain forgotten in his chest for far too long. 

Archie saw a heady cocktail of love and disappointment in his father’s eyes and in that moment, he knew he’d pushed it all too far. Now he had an unspoken question of his own. A question that haunts the world and visits unfortunates with a gift of shame; how did it get to this?

An inexplicable feeling of sadness threatened to rear up within Archie. If he’d allowed it to come forth then everything would have turned out differently. It certainly would have been far easier for Archie. But Archie wasn’t about easy. He had a feeling he was owed, but he’d never sat down with that feeling to have a chat about what it might be that he thought was coming to him.

Instead, the shame gripped him. The shame knew its business, besides which, it had a willing host. Archie thought he was ignoring his shame as he invoked his anger. The shame smiled, it was the deceitful face of anger and it had won another battle against a supposedly superior opponent.

“No,” said Archie defiantly, “this is trespass.”

Archie’s Dad rolled his sad eyes, any doubt he might’ve had about this last-ditch endeavour was dispelled by his errant son’s arrogance. He knew his son was better than this, but he was sick to the back teeth with Archie’s shows of bravado. More and more he suppressed his true nature and it was becoming increasingly difficult to get through to the boy. 

Even so, Dan, or Big Dan as he was known in the village that he’d made his home for the past thirty years, almost faltered. Archie was his little boy and he’d never lost sight of that. He drew in a breath of resolve, reminding himself that he’d probably been too soft on the lad. That he’d tried his best to understand and done everything he could to be the boy’s world. There was a compromise there though and that compromise had done them both a disservice. 

What was about to happen was harsh. Some would call it unfair. Life was unfair and there was too much suffering for some. But it was what it was, making excuses only made it worse. Blaming others, worse still.

He unlocked the door and waved his son through.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this!” said Archie, his voice rising in pitch to convey the depth of his protest.

“You’ve brought this on yourself, son,” said Dan shaking his head in sorrow. Archie opened his mouth to speak, but Dan raised a single finger in stark warning, “don’t, you had ample opportunity to turn the corner, but you thought better of it and now this is the consequence.” He narrowed his eyes and grit his teeth, “you’ve gotta learn sometime. You reap what you sow, boy.”

Archie knew better than to pipe up. This was as much survival instinct as respect. Sometimes the message was clear however much you didn’t want to hear it, and however much noise you made in an attempt to drown it out.

They walked in silence into the depths of the building. It was dark, but the full moon and the city’s ambient light was sufficient for them to see where they were going, but it carried with it a lack that was verging on a dark threat. Archie didn’t want to admit that the place scared him and this internal battle increased his fear, even before he got around to considering how it would be when his father abandoned him here.

Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light. Dan had the presence of mind to clap a hand over his son’s mouth and drag him into the shadows. The lights in the next room had been switched on by the security guard doing his rounds.

Dan leaned into his son and whispered into his ear, “you don’t want to be seen by that guy. If you are, you have nowhere to go and you will be arrested.”

Archie’s eyes went wide, Dan noticed this even in the shadows. Turned out that he did still listen when his life depended upon it. Maybe the boy would turn the corner after all. If not, then Dan had done everything that he could.

They waited as the guard did his patrol in the neighbouring room, relaxing a little as the light went out. A flashlight beam danced around and the next light switch was flicked. Thankfully that next room charted a course away from Dan and Archie’s current location. Dan smiled inwardly at this. He’d not known where the guard was headed, but Archie wasn’t to know this. The perception of Dan’s knowing would add a certain something to the proceedings, or ordeal as Dan was sure Archie would be viewing it right now. That would change. Or if it didn’t then Archie was too far gone.

Dan refused to believe that. His love beat his chest fiercely and reminded him of what really counted. Not him. Not Archie. There was far more at play here. More than even Dan understood. By the time the sun rose and transformed death into life once again, Archie would understand a little more. Dan believed this with a burning passion, a force of will. His son would open his eyes to the first day of the rest of his life and they would get through whatever obstacles they were presented. Together.

Three heartbeats later, Dan released his son. He stood before him and prepared to leave him to face the music that would only be played for his ears. This was a moment. A solemn moment. Something passed between father and son, and Dan automatically presented his little lad with his spade-like hand.

“It’s time,” he said fiercely, perhaps a little too fiercely. It sounded too much like you’re on your own. “You’ve got this,” he added with a squeeze of his hand. Then he turned on his heel and vanished far too quickly for Archie’s liking.

Archie watched his dad go and the moment of overwhelming pride at what he had just said almost exploded into shards of pain as an all too familiar feeling of abandonment assailed him. 

It’s not his fault.

He didn’t abandon me.

Words in Archie’s ear, the voice of the little boy he once was. The little boy that he now loathed. He stood there in turmoil. He was that weak and pathetic little boy, but his dad had just made him feel like a man. The little boy didn’t want him to be a man and that man resented the little boy. 

A powerful urge threatened to drag him down to the floor and it was all he could do not to let go, give up and cry tears of pity that should be a comfort but could never bring the comfort he required.

He pushed himself away from the protection of the alcove that his father had pulled him into and drove himself forth. If he stayed where he was, he would be discovered. He had to do something. He had to move. 

Now he was on his own and walking through the building he was more himself and this brought an awareness that he had been lacking in the bubble of the panic he’d experienced in his dad’s car and had been fighting ever since.

“It’s done now,” he whispered to himself.

His dad had referred to one guard. So it should be a simple case of moving around in a circle so he always had sufficient distance from that man. There was the question of how he would make his exit, but there was something about the way his father had acted that gave Archie an assurance in that respect. He trusted that all would become clear and all he really had to do was evade the bloke who was paid to wander an empty building to ensure it remained empty.

Simple, as long as Archie stuck to the brief. Even now he got that that in itself was a lesson. Archie had made simple increasingly hard and that difficulty was not isolated to Archie. He knew he was hurting his dad, and once he was in receipt of that awareness it had only seemed to make him worse. Once that was the case, Archie couldn’t see a way back.

That was the point, he realised. His dad was making it clear that he also couldn’t see a way back unless something changed. Unless Archie changed.

He should have resented being here. He should have carried on with his dull and destructive downward patterns of behaviour, but he felt exhilarated by the adventure he was now presented with. It took him a while to realise that a part of that was the belief that his dad had in him. That his dad had always had in him.

As this sank in, he began to see around him. Really see around him. Now he was taking in his surroundings and there was a weird and eerie sense to what he saw. He was in a place devoted to the past. A carnal house of sorts. The ancient bones of times lost, arranged in meaningful ways to speak to those who paid attention enough.

His surroundings transformed around him. Obstacles and potential hiding places stepped out before him and greeted him. He’d heard the word gravitas several times, but never attended to its meaning. Some words were like that. They sat in a crowd of context but never made a fuss. Instead they awaited an appropriate time to make a proper introduction. 

Archie didn’t think that inanimate objects could have gravitas. People had gravitas. They walked into the room and showed it off to everyone in order to manipulate them and get what they wanted. He stopped at a bust and read the plaque in the surreal light that bathed his surroundings. The date meant nothing to him beyond old. He couldn’t comprehend the distance of time between himself and that of the life of the person the bust depicted.

He moved on, but only a short distance to a cabinet which contained weapons of war from the same era. The naughty boy inside him wished that there were no cabinet. He had an overwhelming urge to reach out and brandish each and every weapon. Feel the weight of them, imagining himself on a battle field in the midst of conflict. A shiver ran down his spine as he was reminded that he was in a place of death. Everyone who had wielded weapons such as these were dead, even the victors couldn’t escape that inevitable conclusion to life.

In the next room there were paintings. He didn’t note the change that was overcoming him. It crept up on him until he was calm and flowing through the place with little care for anything other than what was presented to him. He was floating in the blue light and taking in a world he’d never realised existed. He’d passed through places like this previously, but on those occasions there had been hustle, bustle and a glare of lights that reminded him of school. Too much of it had reminded him of the structure and rules of education and there had been little room for him to experience any enjoyment. This was different though. Somehow, he could be himself here in a way he never knew possible. 

The centrepiece in this room was a huge, imposing painting made all the more daunting by the horse upon which a pompous man was seated. Pompous he may have been, but there was something in the imperious look of the man that made Archie feel small and insignificant. He wanted to resent that feeling, but something else spoke to him and said simply; relax, this is important.

Archie moved on and as he wandered with a purpose he could not quite describe, he thought of those words and the importance of this night. His dad was at the end of his tether. Archie knew that. He’d pushed and pushed and pushed until he forgot why it was that he was pushing. He thought he’d probably wanted a reaction, and that each time he’d been in receipt of a reaction he had deemed it insufficient. Now he was here. As a final act, his father had locked him in this place.

Why?

Of all the options available to him, his dad had chosen this place. His dad’s choice intrigued him as much as his surroundings did. He thought he knew why he was here, but there was no simple answer to it. Instead, there was a suite of answers and many of those answers spawned more questions. Not a surprise because this was a place of learning as well as the resting place for old bones.

Archie stood before a weather worn and pockmarked statue that had once sat proudly in a desert kingdom. He looked at the artist’s interpretation of how the statue had looked thousands of years ago when it was as young as him. It’s presence had not diminished with time. Quite the opposite.

He continued his circuit, barely aware of the guard he kept at a constant distance, only once thinking of the only other occupant of the building; hoping he enjoyed this solitude with the wise dead as much as Archie was. 

As the light in the building shone more brightly, heralding the end of Archie’s adventure, he felt a sense of loss. At first it was a far off call, but a call he could not deny. It was as he sensed the arrival of the first hoard of visitors and the end of his time in the museum that he found himself in front of a marble statue of a woman in robes. The statue was a statue he’d seen a thousand concrete copies of, in garden centres and the like. The contempt of his mistaken familiarity almost led him to miss the moment this museum had saved until the very last.

He looked up at the statue and came face to face with his mother. His mother as he was always supposed to remember her, a faint, mischievous smile that held a thousand promises. He wanted to cry, but instead he returned the smile and he held it close as he ran from the building and into his father’s arms.

“I’m sorry dad,” he said into the big man’s chest.

Dan eased him away, but not out of his arms, “what did you see?”

“Mum,” Archie said simply, “I saw Mum.”

Dan nodded. That was enough and more.

But for Archie it wasn’t. The boy needed to say more, to share the truth of his night at the museum, “I…” he began.

“It’s OK,” said Dan, “I know,” he added kindly.

“No!” protested Archie, “it’s not that… I mean… I am sorry. I’ve been a little git and I took things out on you that I shouldn’t have.”

Dan shrugged, “it’s what I’m here for,” then he grinned, “sometimes,” he added with loaded meaning.

Archie scrutinised his dad’s face, looking for an answer he was already in possession of, “it wasn’t just Mum you wanted me to see was it?”

“No,” confirmed Dan as he turned and lead his son away from the museum and towards a greasy spoon. The night’s work had made them both ravenous.

“You wanted me to learn,” said Archie.

“I always want you to learn,” said Dan, “that’s what it’s all about. Took your mother to truly teach me that. And you…” he turned and smiled sadly at his son.

“I miss her too,” said Archie, falling into his dad like the little boy he would always be as far as his father was concerned.

“She’s right here with us, son.” Dan said softly as he ruffled the boys hair lovingly.

“They all are,” whispered Archie, “all the people that made us possible. All the people that made this possible. We owe them more than we can ever repay.”

“True,” agreed Dan.

“So how’d we…” began Archie.

“Pay it forward,” Dan said, “Give. There is a light that burns within each and every one of us. It burns all the more brightly for everything we’ve been given. Throughout our life we are the custodians of that light. We’re meant to nurture and grow it. Give and add to it and in the end, we give it all away so that it continues to light this world up. That is living well.”

Archie smiled, wondering how he’d ever been so angry with his Dad. He’d learnt his lesson and then some.