Beaconsfield

for mama

Ben is swimming in a pool exactly the width and length of one lane.  Pulling against the water, accelerating with each stroke, he rushes in oval laps as fast as a hydroplane, until he's only gliding, then lifted and airborne, the water falling in streams off his boyish torso, down his leg, down onto the grassy edges of the churchyard, sliding off the black iron fence.  Rising upward, he can no longer see the grassy field, nor the sanctuary, nor the cemetery, nor street, nor town -- he is flying towards the horizon, towards a soft orange light that fades into dusk.  The wind he creates clings as he pushes forward, at once warm yet exhilarating on his skin.  

Asteroid. It was a rock, or a boulder hurled to his stomach; his eyes are suddenly wide open, and he blinks, taking in his surroundings.  On grass.  In the churchyard.  Pummeled by a football.  The boys were standing there, laughing?  Why?  He can't even breathe -- the wind.  Ben gulps for air and stumbles away from the field, through the iron gates, past the creek, across the driveway, towards the brick steps, yanks at the heavy brass knobs until the oak planks yield slowly and he's able to slide through.  

He clamors up the stairs to an upper room, his favorite hiding place.  It smells like wet wood, like forest after rain and the light tumbles across the cold stone walls in technicolor splinters.  Ben lies on a bench and sighs; the sun falls in colored refractions across his body – he is part of the furniture and at least for a moment, his muscles melt into a lump over the oak bench, his face is tilted towards the warmth streaming in from the windows, stained glass images he looks on with a grimace.  So he shuts his eyes, and all the muscles in his young face relax as well.  The sound of his breath makes him feel like he owns the entire space.

He stands up on the bench to look out the window.  The boys are still running around the field.  There’s cheering from one end, and then a stampede of victors with their hands in the air as they gather and slap each other on the back.  The fight in their faces reminds Ben of school, which is not his favorite place.  He takes his pocket knife from his jeans and carves a jagged line through the top left corner of the bench.  He feels immediately guilty for doing so, sighs so the walls can hear, and putters around until he doesn’t think about it anymore, and he’s doing sit ups and handstands through the splintered light.

Ben’s in a handstand when the door creaks open and on the floor below he sees a long, skeletal shadow cast through the building attached to the lanky silhouette of an elderly man holding a guitar case in his right hand.  Astonished (as one is when he is completely alone and then suddenly intruded upon), Ben noiselessly lowers his body to the bench.  He thinks the intruder can hear his heartbeat accelerate from the little room above – it sounds like blood is pumping through the entire chapel, a pulse that sounds like an ocean in his skull. 

But the aging musician sits down on a dusty red cushioned pew, unlatches the brassy latches of his black case, runs his fingers across the velvet lining as he reaches and plucks the instrument towards his chest.  The strings are strummed all, as a chord first, then one by one while the pegs are adjusted and the musician languidly eases into song.  He plays for half an hour before Ben breathes again through his mouth; the guitar and song are so ancient that they seem to be coming from within the walls, the walls Ben owns.  Yet the rickety tenor lingers like a sun haze through the summer, in the kitchen, in his bed, on the river.  The walls are still warm with cadence as the green trees spark aflame and Ben slips back into the school pool.  His shoulders are now almost as wide as his nemeses', good for catching medals on his way towards that old horizon.

'Closing' by my mama