by Leila Pakawongse

 

“What’s going on?”
Commotion had overtaken the intersection of Spruce and Grizzly Peak.  No one walked down the hill but the smoke was rising and the fire was lighting up the trees.
The neighbors at the top of the hill had formed a circle.
“Billy, what happened to Old Man Tuck?” 
“His house is up in flames you doofus, what do you think?”
“Too bad he had a suck ass life.”
“How do you think it happened?”
à
Tuck had a life that you wouldn’t want for yourself.  Grown up in a place where the people spoke their minds and the lifestyle was different.  Organic this, organic that.  Bikram Yoga and Tree Sitters, this place was not for him.  He was stuck in a foreign place and had lost his passport.  Leaving would’ve been an option if his wife hadn’t loved the town.
There were few roads that lead you to Tuck’s house.  Tilden Regional Park was home to only few people, and therefore, house visitors were minimal.  There is a cross between Spruce, Grizzly Peak and Wildcat Canyon.  Five different roads come about from the junction of three.  Tuck lives at the bottom of this hill.  Cruise on the brakes of your car to get down the hill of Wildcat Canyon.
Out of place and so intriguing, you wouldn’t be the first person to feel the urge to walk down the winding path into the woods.
But Tuck liked it that way.  During the summer you could hear the summer camp kids on hikes and at cook outs.  During the mornings you could hear dogs barking as their owners attempted to run along side them.  But mostly, it was quiet.  No one really came to bother.
à
Each day Tuck wakes up at 6:45 am.  He walks to his living room window and look out at his view.  He has the best view in the city, and no one else knows it.  Everyone paid their millions in real estates purchases, but not one single person realized that the woods carried the view worth more than their millions.  He looks out the window, sees the fog, turns around and thinks,
“What a waste.”
He had a three bedroom, two and half bath, hardwood floors, enough room to raise two kids and a backyard that was a Regional Park.  The large closet space, natural lighting and privacy had been an attraction to Tuck’s wife.  She  had loved the seclusion and the merry smell of the eucalyptus and redwood trees. 
He now hates it.
In the mornings, they would wake up together when the sun had risen just past the tip of the redwood trees.  Occasionally a car would drive by with some enthused hiker, way too early in the morning for anyone to see three feet past the fog.  They would lay in bed for seventeen minutes before she would nudge his side.   He’d kiss her on her forehead and their day would begin.
She would make him toast and tea in the morning.  Butter on his whole wheat.  Honey and milk in his Earl Grey.
He now drinks his coffee black.
Separated by the hours in the day, each went off to work.  She had been a kindergarten teacher at the Montessori, a thirteen minutes drive away.  He had worked as a Park Ranger, having been to critical of all his co-workers and employer, his only boss now, was himself.
Each night, she would return to make dinner.  They would finish with the dishes by 7:15 pm and be ready for bed by 8:45 pm.  At 9 pm he would grasp her hand and say a final good night.
She’d smile.
“I love you, Darling.”
On June 5, 1998, she forgot to say it.
On June 5, 2008, it had been ten years since he had heard her say anything.
Now he sleeps alone.
à
They had met in high school.  The two had argued over  Freud’s theory of the unconscious mind and how it affected a person’s daily life.
“I have control over every thing I do, you don’t?” She would say with a smirk, as if proving a point.
“I have control, I’m controlling myself from hitting you right now, but that -”
“Smart ass”  She had said slyly under her breath.
“ - but that doesn’t explain why we have slip ups when we talk.”
“What’s your point, Tuck?”
“People think things, and they don’t register it.”  He was getting somewhere.
“And…”  She was started to believe him.
“You could want to kill me, and not realize that you’ve already planned out every single detail from crime to cover up.”
“Weirdo”
“Or you could want to kiss me, and not realize that you’ve already imagined our first kiss to our first dance…”
“Yep, still a weirdo, Tuck.”

à


The nights had an eerie quiet to them.  Things were always too silent since she left him.  He could hear the birds communicating between species, directing which trees to sleep in for the night.  The cars that drove the drunk teenagers interrupted his conversations with the pictures he had around the house.  He was told that pictures had a thousand words.  One of them had to be willing to talk to him.  There was the picture of the two at Fisherman’s Warf, the wind billowing through his dark hair.  She was slightly shorter than him, and he barely reached six feet tall.  His torso was the same length as his lower half, and his face was just as squat.  He was once built strong, to match his strength, but soon faded into a smaller human being, losing control of his body and mind.
He now stood with a hunch, and a heavy step.
Tuck had been described as an intellect.  He questioned what he could and took the time to counter any argument given.
“Let it go, please”
Why?”  Tuck’s typical response to anything.
“Sometimes you have to accept that you’re wrong.”
“Why?”  Again, a typical second response.
“Because that’s how life is.”
“Why?”
“Do you always act like this?”
“Only when I’m right, why?”
And usually, he was right.
à

I was in my bed.  The covers enclosed me into a coffin like position.  I liked it that way.  There was tapping at the window.  I couldn’t quite figure out the sound.  A shake.  Tap Tap Tap.  Pressure and a spraying sound.  A shake.  Tap Tap Tap.  The branches that had fallen to the ground were now being shifted around.  The sound was crisp, there were many of them.  A shake.  Tap Tap Tap.  Shhhhhhh.  More crisp breaking and then everything was over.
“You ok, Old Man Tuck?”  Officer Colins asked.
“Well I am quite well, my house shows otherwise.”
The word “WEIRDO” had been spray painted to the south facing side of his house.
“Any idea who might have done this?”
“Why?”
“Well, I want to help out, Tuck.”
“Why?”
“You don’t need my help?  You don’t want to find out who did this to you?”
“I already know who did this.”
“Who?”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why does it matter if you know?  I can take care of it, no problem.”
à
Because I did know who did damage to my house.
There were five of them.  The badass ring leader, the blonde lanky one, the fat one who rarely did anything but eat, the pimple-faced hyena, and the kid who’s mother went to church everyday Sunday and would give her son a right spanking in the left ass check if she knew what he were up to.  All of them trouble makers who don’t give a crap about anyone else, and that pisses me off.
They need a lesson to be handed to them and then each of them needed a good slap to the face.
The five of them started their antics seven years, two months and 21 days after my wife left me.  The first prank of theirs had been a little humorous.  Scattering my yard with mushrooms and buckets of water.  That morning I found twelve deer eating my front yard.
The next prank of theirs was clever.  I will give them that, but a sure pain in my ass.  They had sandbagged the roadway in front of my house to divert the water from running straight into the water drain, and instead, into my front living room.  The hardwood floors my wife had been to keen to keep in their original condition had developed a rotting smell.  I never found the time to get them repaired.
The school year had started, and the pranks had ceased. 
But during school breaks the pranks would commence again. 
They lined the road with tire spikes and sent my car zooming down the hill.  I had lost control of the wheel and ran into the guard rail.  Officer Colins found me later that day, and took me to the hospital.  I had to get six stitches to my head.
The boys probably messed with me because they had nothing better to do with their lives.
But after they tore apart the back porch my wife used to sit at in the evenings, I had had enough.
à
It was my turn to play a trick on them.
They mess with me, I get a chance to mess back.
“Hey man, wanna hang?” 
I had gotten that little ring leader’s phone number from Eric’s church going mother.  She was only too pleased to hear that her boys had offered to clean my yard.
“What’s with your voice, you sound like a girl,”  the ring leader, Alex, had asked, questioning who I was.
“Just sick,”  I said in the most non convincing voice.
“K, yeah after dinner.  Where?”  Apparently Alex was more of a dumb kid than I’d thought.
“Old Man Tuck’s house, duh.  Meet you there.  I’ve got a better prank this time, I’ll call the guys.”
That scrawny little runt would walk his bike up the hill and hop as he hit the top of the hill going down to my house. 
I’d let him wait.  Wait until he gathered enough annoyance to start heading back.  Just when he’d lost interest.
“Asshole,”  I heard him whisper to himself.
“Hello,” I would say.
“Who is that?” stuttering in speech.
The sun had set without the boys’ notice.  He shivered at the cold but more so he shivered at the voice.
“Hello,” I would repeat again.
“Who is that?” a bigger sense of urgency filled the air around Alex.
Tuck walked closer and closer, aware that he knew the surrounding better than Alex.
Snap, a twig collapsed under the pressure of Tuck’s weight.
The silence overtook the two.
A second of hesitation spread over Tucks’ body.  A moment of reservation stopped him.
But he had to go through with it.
Tuck’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, the boy had never seen the dark like at the bottom of Tilden.
“What the fuck is this?”  the boy asked, as if expecting an answer.
“Be quiet,”  and that was all I said.
The boy had walked a step but realize the crunch beneath his feet gave away any chance of running.  He had no idea how fast this guy was.  He had no idea how many of them there were.  He had no idea what was happening.  He had no idea what was going to happen.
Alex heard a twig break and the tingles went all through his toes and up his spine.
Tuck lunged.
Knife in hand, he had thought about this.  It penetrated.  Tuck pushed a little harder.  He could feel a warm thick liquid run down his hand.  He couldn’t see the boys face.  He had wanted it that way.  He didn’t want to see his face.
The boy screamed, if only for a moment.  He grabbed at Tuck.  He felt the old man hold his body so he couldn’t move.  Pointless.  He couldn’t move.  One knife, four knives, all the same.  His body shook.  His knees gave underneath him.
Tuck shed a tear.  Grabbed the boys body and carried him back up the hill.  He placed the boy in the middle of the five way intersection.
à
Tuck woke up to the pounding of the clocked timed with the rhythm of his heart.  The grip of his right hand had left fingernail impressions and blood covered his palm.
The knife lay on his bedside table.
Tuck smiled.
He looked at the clock and saw it was only 3:27 am.  He had plenty of time to perfect his plan before going through with it.
He fell back asleep.
Sweat had gathered on his forehead.  The salty liquid began to run down across his eyebrow.  He kicked his blankets off.  His body was swamped with sweat.
He inhaled.
He took in a breath of smoke.
He sat up, and saw the foot of his bed was engulfed in flames.
His breathing turned heavy.
The smoke surrounded his bed room.  He went to the window, burned his hands as he pried it open.
Vision blurred, he saw the five boys.  He saw five grins.  Then he saw flames erupt.