Part 10

[author] Like the previous section, this contains descriptions of threats and psychological abuse by family members[/author]

We went north along the road which passed by the college, after stopping briefly to fill the tank of Allison’s car. She brushed her feet along the floor in front of her. There was a quietness to her demeanor which bothered me. I put on the radio for a while and she hummed along to a jazzy song before leaning towards me.

Her eyes dipped down and she told me, “Thank you for this. But you’re sure there’s no problem? Nothing with Lissa you want to talk about?” I reassured her sincerely that Lissa was fine and this was what she wanted and we would be sure to have fun with a special movie on Thursday. Learning this eased Allison’s mood a little. Still, she seemed to sniff out that there was something else. I hummed along to the next song and she soon joined in.

The road continued up till the massive shipping facilities adjacent to the major freeways. From there, we had to head west towards looming gray mountains in the distance and the ever-present power poles which crossed every empty intersection. Not a lot of people went out this way. There was just an old prison which was being converted into a veteran’s home by the county and some restaurants which somehow managed to scrape by.

Our turn came up eventually, followed by another long drive into the desert, marked by a variety of small shrubs and trees with names I could never remember which looked particularly parched by the chill-but-dry end to winter. This afternoon was nice though. The wind was still, which was rare out this far. The sun looked far away but I knew it was slowly edging closer each day. We brought jackets with us, just in case.

I could tell we were almost there when the road started to curve. It was a gradual curve. There were few other drivers on the road. Naturally, one of those few was right behind us. He could’ve easily passed but he seemed content to linger far enough away not to annoy me but still close enough that I could tell he was there. Soon, we passed a business park and had to make a little loop around to get onto the other street. The business park opened to great fanfare, as I recall, but there were empty plots and areas where foundations had been set and nothing followed.

If we kept going we would eventually run into a National Guard Armory. Instead, we made our way towards a light industrial area with an active airfield. The airfield was a small building with a tower behind it, a café, and just a few cars parked around. Large, old planes sat out in the desert, some stripped to their crumbling skeletons and others looking like they could take off at a moment’s notice. I recognized some of them. After a flight school with a familiar name, we came to the park.

It wasn’t as fancy as I remembered from before (but then it had never been that fancy). It seemed to be maintained though. We found a parking spot near the front and the car which had tagged along behind us continued further down the lot. There were only about a dozen other cars, so it wasn’t hard to find spaces.

Allison hauled the picnic basket with a single finger and a smirk before slipping her fingers around the handle to carry it properly. The trash cans around were reconditioned, green oil drums. The crummy, old restrooms were still around but there was a gray building which looked like the temporary structures around a newly-built school I went to when I was younger.

As I gazed around, Allison gave a little wave to my face and asked, “Nostalgia?”

I nodded quietly and told her, “Not much has changed.”

She shrugged and offered, “Yeah but it’s still nice. I like that place over by the bridge!”

The park had a large pond in the middle of it with a long path tracing the edge. Little islands dotted the center. Some were for the birds and waterfowl. One was larger and meant for visitors to cross a metal bridge over the water. A dense congregation of mallards, geese, birds with big pompadours, birds with bright-green heads, and birds that looked like me before I brushed my hair made noises over by the nearest shore.

I warned Allison about the geese. They were not to be messed with. I mentioned when I was about five and I thought I could scare off a goose as many a child must’ve imagined too. I chased at it with my arms flailing. It stood its ground, spread its wings and bill, and made like it wanted to eat me. Movie dinosaurs had met their match for some time after that.

Allison giggled a little but still offered me a sympathetic, “Awwww.” We skipped the picnic area by the cluster of birds because there were several scouts trailing behind us for some stray crumbs. I knew they were absolutely bold enough to snatch anything off a table without a second thought.

We picked a place for the picnic past those ravenous birds and downwind in a nice little area where the paint wasn’t peeling too much and the Jackson Pollock splattering of petrified bird poop was confined to one end of the table. Allison laid a cloth across it just as the wind started to stir up a bit but not strong enough to ruffle the cloth. Still, she used a couple ties to keep it in place while avoiding the jagged edges.

She eyed the little barbeque tray on a pole set to one side. It looked like the entire thing had been torched and the bottom of it was blackened ash. We sat down facing each other. The boards on my side shifted slightly but held. With a smile, Allison sifted through my culinary work. I stopped her and said, “Allow me, m’lady.”

Allison grinned and put her hands behind her as I presented what I’d made. Salads first. She gave an approving smile. The dressing tasted bitter compared to how Allison made it but she ate without saying anything was off and finished the whole container. Next came a few little snacks that even I couldn’t mess up. Some pita chips and dip. I tossed one over a duck who was slowly creeping towards us to lead it in the other direction. It dashed for it but a group of ravens which had been patrolling the parking lot suddenly swarmed and fought for it. The quarrel rippled out until one flew off with its prize.

I offered Allison a bit of pasta salad, which she seemed to enjoy. Between food, we talked. She began, “Did you visit this place much?”

I shook my head and furrowed my brow. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d come. I was sure it hadn’t been with Uncle Nolan, so it had to be before. I offered my best guess that it had been years since I’d last been. Allison turned a little in her seat. A family passed by and a little boy paused to look at Allison’s colorful figure like she was a new breed of bird. The boy’s mother soon scooped him up and gave him a whispered scolding. I sipped my lemonade.

I definitely considered the wraps worthy but then I oftentimes made them for snacks on my own. I was not as confident about the little tarts and brownies I’d made for dessert. Allison popped a deviled egg in her mouth and said, after swallowing, “It’s been years for me too. When my mom still lived with my dad. I used to scamper around the whole edge of the place. It would take forever. I thought it was huge. It’s still pretty impressive.”

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It was definitely big. Probably the biggest park in the area. I knew that over the summer they would have special fishing competitions. Considering the water was reclaimed and there was a layer of odd, green slime and floating bits of refuse, I wasn’t too keen on any fish that came out of that water.

We ate slowly but I made sure Allison sampled a little bit of everything. There were some things she gave a thoughtful look and a kind nod but I could tell they weren’t as good as what she could put together. Halfway through, she got up to stretch and get rid of some paper. When she came back, she slipped over to my side of the table and scooted right next to me.

She noted, “Cozier?”

I smiled back. The wind became a calm but constant presence but nothing fluttered or risked getting lost. Families passed us in our sheltered little area. Curious waterfowl ambled past with sly cleverness. I tossed a bit of sandwich bread I had at the closest one before the others ganged up on him.

Allison talked up her day as the eating ebbed. She spoke of “accentuating herself” through her theater class. She noted how she felt as though her hips were different, even as a boy. She had to correct her balance at times but it wasn’t bad. I was about to worry when she urged me, “It’s no big deal. I like it.”

I felt just the faintest flash of jealousy when she told me about a 50s dance practice at the end of class where she took the female role with another male partner. She rested on my shoulder and said, “I wouldn’t mind a slow waltz with you…or a saucy tango.” I took her up on the offer. There was a large cement area east of here. She accepted but said, “Later, when the sunset provides the perfect backdrop before we leave and all the rowdy kids are gone.”

One such barreled by towards a tall goose. I could only imagine it ending badly but he stood up to it and the goose got annoyed and left. Then he stomped around the area like a T-rex till his father retrieved him.

Before long, the meal was pretty much done except for some things which were going to be leftovers. Allison took the basket back to the car and joined me further down the path to the west.

She seized my hand with our fingers looped together and we walked hand in hand. It felt relaxed and comforting, especially since the pace of her steps matched mine so well. We only separated so she could dash off to the ladies' room. She dashed out a moment later and shook her head as she said, “That is just…WRONG. Do they let the ducks use the toilets? Yikes.”

I told her she could just switch off the device and use the other one. She raised a cotton candy trail of eyebrow and said, “You’ve been in a men’s room, right?” Point. She added, “Besides, it would kill the mood.”

Fortunately, the next one wasn’t nearly as bad but I still saw Allison give a shiver when she came out and murmured, “Like a smelly glacier…”

I was fine, so we continued along the path. The trees (which looked like pines and cypresses) seemed to loom just as much as when I was younger. They bent, whether on a hill or mossy flatland, towards the lake without fail. I guessed it was the presence of the wind blasting them day after day in that direction.

Much of the old playground equipment I remembered was gone, which wasn’t bad. It had all been metal with sharp links and rough patches which often scratched me. But the new stuff didn’t have the same personality, the same sense of having been used and abused by countless children over the decades. And it was already starting to show signs of wear. At least the long swings hanging from a wide arch of metal were still there. I invited Allison to join me on them.

The visual of a Kinrae sitting on a swing and pushing off looked as odd as expected but the way Allison held on to it kindled memories of so many old animes. She leaned back and watched me as I tried to match her arc.

After a bit of silliness, we let the swings drift as we dragged our feet.

The wind was getting persistent enough to ruffle our hair. After a long span of quiet, Allison asked simply, “What’s bothering you? Please don’t say 'nothing'. I can tell something’s up but I wanted to be polite.”

I didn’t need to ask her to clarify. I made a slight track in the sand and told her, “My uncle told me some stuff about…family.” I could’ve stopped at that. I could’ve glossed over it by suggesting it was a private matter. But I also said, “He told me my mother confessed to some things I suspected from when I was younger.”

And it was out there. A thread. A strand but one I couldn’t leave hanging. In a way, I’d wanted to tell Allison and others about it for a long time. In other ways, I never wanted to speak a word of it. But there was no way of avoiding the rest of it. I hung my head and drifted backwards and forwards on the swing. As I did, I felt my thoughts shifting from the pain of the present to what I wanted to forget of the past.

Allison didn’t push me. She let me speak.

I began, “They tell me that my mother had a bad case of post-partum depression but it’s probably worse than that. She already had issues and it would take forever to get into all of them. When I was a baby, she would forget me in random places. She would leave me like someone’s unwanted trash. And, once, she tried to hold me underwater but…for some reason…stopped before I started drowning.”

Allison had stopped rocking. Her vast, bright eyes were locked on me. I took a breath.

“To anyone on the outside, she was a loving mother. But she could appear any way to anyone she wanted. Never even got a whisper from social services, even when she was feeding me poison as a little kid.”

I shut my eyes. She called it medicine but something about the taste always made me suspicious. I tried to find reasons not to take it. I learned how to cough it up.

“Everyone thought I was sickly, that I had so many diseases and problems. I had to be pulled out of school all the time, so my mother could take care of me. At this time, my dad was at his worst with alcohol and anger. But my mom was an easy match. She always had a long, serrated knife within reach. I have no idea why she never used it on me.”

And that was just the physical stuff. I felt confused growing up because there were things I received random encouragement about. Drawing something well, even if it was just a little lumpy house. Then my mother would burn all my drawings and say they were terrible. She liked to burn a lot of things of mine. I had only certain family photos left from when I was younger because I would hide them in books on my shelf.

As I opened my eyes, I saw that Allison’s hand was trembling and cupped to her mouth. I felt bad to lay all this on her but it was better to keep going.