Don't own stuff...
Chapter IV: The Definition of Home
They were all gone.
All the original boarding members, his supposed family, disbanded, dead or dying. That was the thought that strikes him first as he peers down at the photo his grandmother had handed him at dinner. Now, back in his room, he stands with his own dish of pasta in one hand and the old photograph in the other.
He was approximately 12 at the time, he guesses, studying his anxious face. He remembers when the photo had been shot if only because grandma had for once remembered the correct date of Halloween. She was dressed up as Helen Keller and was refusing, or more likely, pretending she couldn't hear his worried cries of get down, as she stood stomping on the table. Behind her to the right was Mr. Hyunh and Mr. Potts dressed as pirates respectively. They were facing each other, fists raised, seeming to be in a heated argument, probably over who made a better pirate. To her left was a dirty white blob its back turned to the camera. It stood rifling through the refrigerator completely unaware of Abner, who on the floor, was slowly pulling the sheet with his teeth, which in turn revealed a cookie and milk guzzling Kokoshka.
It was a funny photo. Grandpa had always had a knack for capturing oddball moments. But the feeling that overcomes Arnold is anything but sweet. Instead, the old feeling of resentment washes over him making the recollection of every one of their departures resurface to his mind.
Arnold places his plate on the desk and sits himself down in the overly rigid chair.
Mr. Potts was the first to go. 'Sometime after this photo was taken' he realizes. He had probably just turned 13 when Ernie had broken the news that he was planning on moving in with his "long time girl" and opening up a demolition company. He remembers how Mr. Potts enormous arms had wrapped around him and his grandpa. His grandpa had only muttered a one begrudging "I ain't your gramps" before breaking down completely, crying saying he'd miss him too. He left soon after that. Arnold got a nice amount of money every birthday, so he could only assume the business was doing well.
Mr. Hyunh departure had come at the worst of times, and even though he knew he shouldn't, he still resents his leaving the most.
It had been about three months after Grandpa's funeral. Arnold had been sweeping on the first floor. He'd come to enjoy the activity of methodically sweeping back-forth-back-forth across the coarse hairs of the rug. His mind released from its constant whirring, just wandering. In that state he'd go hours hearing nothing. Which is probably why on this specific day he had barely noticed Mr. Hyunh clutching the boarding house's only phone and repeating "Yes! Yes!" with growing emphatics.
It wasn't until he'd been lifted a foot off the floor by two surprisingly strong arms did he realize that he'd been there at all.
"Arnold! Oh Arnold the best of news!" he'd said still holding him in the air.
Arnold had replied his voice rather dull, "oh? What kind of news?" before wriggling out of Mr. Hyunh's grasp.
"My Mai has a baby! A baby boy and he is my Grandson!" It was almost like standing underneath the sun the guy was so happy. "His name is Andrew ah, just like you an A name. This is very good!" Arnold managed a weak but genuine smile and shook his hand offered his congratulations. "Yes, yes it is a very good congratulations. My daughter has a son and I am a grandfather! And Mai wants me to be with her and my grandson. And she has a job at a hotel restaurant for me, as a chef, yes!"
With a sharp pain Arnold realized all to suddenly what he had just said. He was leaving.
Mr. Hyunh realizing his insensitivity, in a more somber tone added "and she wants me to come right away."
"Oh that's, that's great Mr. Hyunh I'm so happy for you. So you'll finally be with your family. That's good" The word family had brought the taste of bile to his spit. "I hope you're happy there."
And with that he retreated up the steps to his bedroom, where he had sat in self-pity, having his own private panic attack.
It hadn't been so much the fact that he was leaving, but that once he was gone he'd be alone, all alone with no one to rely on.
And he was jealous, horribly ridiculously jealous. 'Why did it get to work out for Mr. Hyunh, and not me', he had thought. He was the one who had used up his own miracle so they could be together. He'd used up his one miracle because he thought if Mr. Hyunh and his daughter could be reunited, surely...
Before he left Mr. Hyunh gave Arnold a compilation CD with his new songs.
Mr. Hyunh had been the one to teach him how to play the guitar he had found in the storage room. Had even humored him when he said he wanted to learn something other than country. Had always tried to get him to write his own ditties.
Arnold puts the plate of pasta he's been eating down and crosses to his couch, picks up his multi task remote, and point it at the elaborate sound system across from him. He'd managed to update the old 90's equipment enough to support a record player, tape and CD as well as ipod dock. He chooses a familiar mix and presses play. Almost immediately Mr. Hyunh's deep country voice begins to croon making Arnold smile.
In the backyard of a redbrick boarding house
lies a daydreaming football among the grass
listening to the music of a house filled full of crazy fruit bats
the only kind in the States worth any brass.
Arnold chuckles resuming his seat and picking up the plate. 'His lyrics were always a bit odd' he thinks twirling his fork and stabbing a meatball.
About a month after he'd left Arnold received a crisp white envelope. It held a letter detailing Hyunh's new home and his beautiful new family in his hesitant block lettering. Arnold had stood in the foyer reading it and feeling nothing. He had been crumpling the envelope with his left hand as he read but found it resisted. When he had turned it over to the back and upside down a slightly crumpled photograph drifted out.
He had stared at it, lying there on the floor, small round cheery faces mocking him from the ground. It was then; looking at that photograph that something went dark inside him. It was in that moment, all his ability to see the best in things, to make the best of things, was forgotten.
Because it had all been lie.
As much as they had said it, as much as they had pretended to be, they had never been a family. They were just a bunch of "miss matched misfits" like his grandfather had always said.
And he almost had moved, he had thought, he could have been growing up in Florida. Grandpa could be passing away now peacefully, like he should have, rather than being killed by a bus. The realization made him see what his grandfather had been saying all those years ago.
This was not the definition of home.
Home was where you lived with people who cared about each other, and helped one another, like a family.
"Like a family Arnold, that's what a home's supposed to be"
But he and the boarding house members, the so-called family, had pressured him into staying. Mr. Potts had said that they'd take care of him, even if grandpa decided to leave, because they loved him, like a family.
But that hadn't been true. They had left like semi-liked strangers, disappearing with an awkward goodbye and one last howdy before cutting ties all together.
He knew then, that it had always been a substitute for the real thing, for all of them. And now Mr. Hyunh had gotten the real thing. And Arnold would never have that. There were no more miracles for him. He was alone.
At the exact moment of that thought the sound of Kokoshka's television broke him from his dark meditation. The sound broke something inside him; the sound of it triggered some ugly physical reaction that spread all through out his body.
Kokoshka was the last to go.
Arnold swallows a ball of starch noting the beginning to a John Coltrane song he used to love.
He still feels bad about it. The whole ordeal, even though, he's sure now it had to be done. At the time Oscar had been living at the expense of the boarding house for over four months.
Suzie had finally left him. The reasons were unclear but he'd heard through the thin walls of their apartment something about his losing their baby girl gambling. He remembers watching her come home with the small child in her arms. Her face set. The next morning she was gone. Arnold had not felt bad for him.
All of his memories of the deadbeat, but lovable Czech, had been completely dissolved over years of moral agitation against the man. He drank too much, he was selfish and needy, he gambled away all of Suzie's money and worked her like a dog. When he finally gave her what she wanted, a child, he spent most of his time too sloshed to take care of the kid. One time he almost drowned her in the kitchen sink, another time he passed out while she was free to try and crawl out a window. Arnold had saved her both times. He could only guess at the other almost incidents.
Suzie had sent an apologetic letter a month or so later but Arnold can't really remember what it had said. At the time he had been too preoccupied with mourning to take any notice.
Oskar somehow had managed to beg off a month's rent from his grandpa and luckily for him the next month the old man was no longer around to collect. Arnold too weak with grief hadn't had the energy to do anything about it. Even Mr. Hyunh, before he left, had offered to help him kick Oskar out. But he had declined, not wanting to be completely alone.
But that had changed. In that moment he had wanted nothing more. It didn't matter how many people were around him, or said they loved him, he knew now, understood that he would always be, truly alone.
Or at least that's how he had felt.
The whole affair had been quite dramatic.
He remembers racing up the stairs, punching Kokoshka's door rather than knocking. When finally the door was opened Arnold had been struck by how old and dirty Oskar looked. He realized then that he had completely ignored him for the past couple of months.
" He he he. Arnold just the man I want to see. Come in! Can I get you a beer?" he had said.
Arnold had felt completely static walking into that room. He had surveyed it in muted horror. It was if a layer of grease was on everything. Every inch of furniture had its own stain. It smelled. The scent was wet and yet acidic at the same time. There were piles of garbage, which seemed to mold perfectly in with piles of junk that he assumed Oskar had won playing cards.
As soon as he had taken it in Arnold had replied with a vividly cold "No". His mouth moved to continue when Oskar holding the fridge open, rushed over him. "Oh eh that is good he he, you know because this, it is my last" and with that he tore of the bottle cap with his yellow jagged teeth and gulped the contents down, the whole action ending with an awful burp and his usual obnoxious laugh.
That had been the moment were he'd snapped. "Get the fuck out."
He didn't yell it; he had barely even uttered it actually. Instead it was more of a preemptive growl.
"Oh but Arnold! I forgot to tell you, hehe, I got a job!"
Arnold immediately knew he was lying but remained quite as Oskar crossed to him, in one desperate stride, clapping a perspiring hand onto his back. "But the thing is little buddy my boss, he says, he won't give me no money till the end of the month, so if I could just-"
"I don't care" once again soft, but this time crystal clear. "But Arnold-"
"Get the fuck out Kokoshka. I don't care if you have a job or not. I want you out, all your shit gone by tomorrow."
Immediately Oskar changed tactics, his subordinate grin morphing into a whiny scowl, his voice pitching to petulant and defensive. "No! Arnold you can't. This is my home remember! I can get the money. I can get the money just give me time to get the money! You can't make me leave! I won't go!"
His hands had been all over him, pulling him, prodding, begging.
"FINE!" He had screamed.
"Than you can get the fuck out now!" and with that he began picking up dusty disgusting knickknacks piling them to his chest and running down the stairs only to throw them on the stoop as soon as possible. He slowly and methodically through every last thing of possible value out onto the stoop, Oskar screaming and crying after him the whole time.
When he finally got down with the last of it, his small TV and a lamp, Oskar had made a desperate play and struck out. Arnold, immediately and easily flipped him with his outstretched fist, the motion hurling him through the door and onto his back. He landed painfully on a mound of his detritus groaning about how he had just broken his back.
"But Arnold we are family we take care of each other! You can't do this!" He had moaned lying prostrate on the concrete steps.
Up until that point Arnold had been on a murderous autopilot. At the word "family" it was as if his circuits had all but shorted.
"NO WE ARE NOT!" Every word was a punctuated scream.
" You are a BUM Kokoshka a BUM and you've always been a BUM and everybody knows you're a BUM! You are a lousy, selfish, DISGUSTING human being. And if by some HORRIBLE turn of fate we actual were family I would have disowned myself from you YEARS ago. YOU GOT THAT!"
People had stopped to stare at the exchange but Arnold hadn't cared. After his outburst he quickly turned on his heel and slammed the green door in Oskar's face, only to find his grandma shocked and a little awed behind him.
"Where'd ya learn karate Tex?" she had said.
He spent the rest of the day cleaning out Oscar's room, for reasons he himself couldn't conjure. The boarding house had never had many new comers to begin with. But at that time there was nobody interested in renting a room for more than a night.
So for a while it was just him and Pookie in the old red house on the corner of Sunset Arms. He'd clean the house, make dinner, look at bills he didn't know how to read and went to school.
Except he didn't really go to school.
A lot of the time he'd find himself down by the bay instead of in homeroom at 8:00 in the morning. His grades began to slip, and everyone, everyone, Gerald especially, had been worried about him.
Finally the principal had him called into the office where he faced off against her, the school guidance councilor, and a woman from social services. It was terrifying to say the least. Somehow they had worked out a deal. He was given the ultimatum of finding some help for his situation at home, so he could remain with his grandmother, and get back to being a good student "destined for great things" his principle had finished.
So he put an ad in the paper.
Help wanted, looking for a part time house cleaner and care taker. Little pay but will be compensated with free room and meals.
That was it.
He thought he was going to get a scrawny runway or a homeless person. In fact Kokoshka showed up a few times on his stoop, looking horrible, making his gut wrench with guilt. He'd let him do a few chores, out of pity, for some food or a bed if the night was bad, but always refused to give him the job.
A week had gone by and he had begun to worry. He'd started to play lies in his head to tell the principle about the great new help he'd hired. He'd have dark fantasies about the social worker coming to take him away from his grandma. He'd imagine two heavyset men in white suits carrying him out the door screaming and crying. He'd picked back up on his studies to quell the fear of being found out, but his teachers still nosy as ever, asked after his wellbeing, and it took all the energy he had just to smile. Lila had broken up with him. The kids at school were treating him like a leper. Gerald was the only one who stuck by him, but even he, at times lost his patience. The situation had not been good.
The truth is that I never shook my shadow
Every day it's trying to trick me into doing battle
Calling out 'faker' only get me rattled
Wanna pull me back behind the fence with the cattle
Building your lenses, digging your trenches
Put me on the front line, leave me with a dumb mind
With no defenses, but your defense is
If you can't stand to feel the pain then you are senseless
Arnold's fork clatters against his plate. The noise rattles against the soft guitar strum drifting from his stereo.
Since this, I've grown up some
Different kinda fighter
And when the darkness come, let it inside you
Your darkness is shining
My darkness is shining Have faith in myself
Truth.
He sits there and his eyes rest on the stains left from his sauce. His finger trails a downward curve. He stares at the mark and then moves to make an eye but doesn't. He sucks the red from his appendage and pushes the plate away to make space, his face concentrated into a contemplative frown.
I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon
Now which is the future you choosen before you go dying
I'll tell you about a secret I've been undermining
Every little lie in this world comes from dividing
Say you're my lover say you're my homie
Tilt my chin back, slit my troath
Take a bath in my blood, get to know me
All out of my secrets
All my enemies are turning into my teachers
'It got better' he chastises. He pulls out from under the table a small toolbox and larger mettle box and sets it in front of himself. His fingers dance deftly over tools, placing oil clothes and screwdrivers in their place.
Because light's blinding
No way dividing
What's yours or mine when everything's shining
Your darkness is shining
My darkness is shining
Have faith in ourselves
Truth.
When all the tools were out in front of him he places the smaller red box bellow and moved to open the larger one. He pauses to lean over and tug at the mettle cord of his desk lamp. The chalk white table, slightly leaned, bounced the warm tungsten light, bathing everything in a moody glow. Arnold flips back the black box's lid and delicately places his hands inside. He gives the object a small smile before placing it on the table. The black box follows its brother beneath the table and Arnold comes back up ready to work.
"She's really going to like this," he says.
Before him sits an airplane, a PT-17 Penny model. He had built it himself, from the parts to the body. When he is finished it will fly.
"Yeah she'll really like this" He gives another smile to the partially painted sun yellow wing, as if the apparatus could console him.
I wanna only love til I'm only loving
I swear to god I'm only loving.
Trying to be loving, loving, loving, loving, loving, loving, love...
Truth
Song: Truth by Alexander Ebert... I hope everyone gets the irony of his grandma asking how he knows karate... CAUSE SHE TAUGHT IT TO HIM! okay catch ya on the flip side. REVIEW!