Under the Overtree

by James A. Moore

  He was almost all the way to Hinkley The Herniated’s class, when the walking trash-heap known as Goose, stepped into his way. Goose was fairly tall and as angular as Tyler himself, but was also known to lift tanks in an attempt to build a better bicep. He was really remarkably strong, both physically and in the olfactory sense of the word. Ty was having none of it, he lowered his head, tensed his toothpick neck and head butted the man into next week. Ty was later told by Stan Martin, a sub-freshman, who was eagerly working on becoming the next Tyler of good ol’ Westphalen High, that it was a sight to see, he literally ran up the man’s torso and over his head and landed on his feet without missing a beat. That was when he saw the rest of the Goon Platoon standing in front of the open door leading to Hinkley’s classroom.

  Never one to be slow in thought, Tyler tossed his books at Jerry’s head and saw the goof ball duck from the high velocity missiles (said missiles then scattered themselves all over the interior of Hinkley’s room, actually startling the man into a state of semi-consciousness). Simultaneous with that action, Tyler sped up and ran straight at Tommy.

  Tommy stood his ground and tensed for the collision; no way was he going to get bowled over by a dweeb like Wilson. Tyler, naturally, had no intentions of slamming into Tommy, what works with the sewage man, seldom works with slabs of concrete. Instead, he waited until he was almost within arm’s reach of the resident psychopath and dove towards the ground.

  It should be noted at this point, that Principal Sam (The Ham) Watkins, was known to be slightly anal retentive when it came to filth of any kind. He had a staff of four janitors working at the school, having worked the financial reports with enough finesse, that three of the fine gentlemen in question never even showed up on the annual and quarterly reports to the county education system. These fine upstanding men were paid well to keep the school clean and through the remarkable level of fear the old Ham managed to inspire did it damn well. You could, though to date no one had, eat off of the floors, at least until the end of the first period. This particular wing of the school was normally handled by Sam’s very favorite janitor, Otis. Otis believed that the best way to keep a floor clean was to wax it once a week, which he did, at the end of the school day, every Friday afternoon. The floors in the west wing were just slightly easier to walk on than ice and were wonderful for sliding on.

  Tyler shot like a bullet between Tommy’s braced legs and because he was there any way, slowed himself slightly with a vicious fist to Tommy’s crotch. He did not, however, slow himself enough to avoid crashing merrily into the first three rows of desks, sending pencils, paper and pupils flying in the process.

  Tyler was mostly unscathed and certainly in better shape than he would have been had Tommy and friends had a chance to dance the Watusi on his face.

  Tommy was not nearly as lucky, he had after all been struck at velocity in his testicles. By the time Hinkley had staggered over to him, he was curled into a fetal position, loudly moaning out his pain for the entire classroom to hear. After the class had finally put two and two together and realized that Tyler was the victor, a good portion of them burst into a combination of laughter, applause and snide jeers directed towards Tommy, that was as beautiful as the finest music ever performed to Tyler’s friction burned ears.

  Hinkley looked down at the convulsing Tommy and asked him sharply, “Were you chasing that boy?” while pointing his finger in Ty’s general direction.

  Tommy responded with, “Urnk,” while his comrade in arms, Jerry, beat a hasty retreat.

  “Why were you chasing that poor boy, what did he ever do to you?” was the next question aimed at Tommy.

  Ever quick to get into a teacher’s good graces, he responded promptly with “Ooolk.”

  Well, enough was enough, Hinkley immediately called at the top of his lungs for Coach Malloy who, fortunately, was in the process of trying to locate Tyler before he had to scrape him off of the ground with a spatula. That boy’s mouth was going to be the end of him yet; he still remembered the year Tyler first came to school and had to be driven home every day to avoid the literal line of kids outside waiting for a chance to crack his skull. As Tyler’s folks both kept busy schedules, Malloy had taken the task of driving him home upon his own weary shoulders. It avoided having to testify in juvenile court as to why the seventy or so people should not be thrown in prison for manslaughter. He was more than willing to drag Tommy away, after a quick smile and wink towards Tyler, who though he would never admit it, was his favorite student; not just of this year, but of his entire academic career.

  Tyler reveled in the praise of his fellow students the rest of the day and was the first one on the bus just as soon as the bell rang. As always, life was good to Tyler, if in a way that was as crazy as his own mouth.

  7

  Mark spent his Monday in a blue funk that reminded him of the same color funk he’d been in the day before. This was unfortunate, because the reason for his funk happened to be what had happened the day before yesterday, when he had cheated on Cassie. Mark had a tendency to flog himself mercilessly when it came to his guilty feelings. The fact that Cassie had yet to call was definitely not making him feel any better.

  He thought about her and his heart broke. He felt like the junkies always looked in the movies when they couldn’t get their fix; his insides had jellied and he couldn’t think about anything else.

  He managed to tolerate all of his classes and to survive the monotony of his life by thinking about her smile. If he had to go through too much more of this, he was certain that his brain would explode into a thousand little bits and leak out of his ears. He was fairly certain that it was already too late for his heart, which he was convinced had stopped beating at least two hours earlier.

  Also, he knew what was on Tony’s mind and he couldn’t blame his one time worst enemy for wanting to steal Cassie away from him. In his present state of mind, he felt that he didn’t deserve to be with her, she was too wonderful to be stuck with a loser like him.

  All that any of these thoughts did was make the whole matter worse and unfortunately, they were all that he could think about.

  He missed the bus home lost as he was in his own private hell of guilt and depression. He walked without thought and They watched him, afraid to show up too soon and worried about what could be bothering the One so very much. They whispered to each other, trying to decide what They should do; They had been having this problem for the last three days.

  He was all but lost to Them and They couldn’t understand why. It had all started with the dark-haired girl, that was the only certainty that They had. The worst thing, was that They couldn’t decide if she was friend or foe. One moment, she had been caressing the One in a way which They knew He enjoyed, the next, she hit Him in the mouth. Then, just when They had decided she must die, she and He had had some sort of reconciliation. All They wanted to know, was just what the devil was going on. It was all very confusing.

  They watched and waited. Sooner or later, He would come to be comforted and when that happened, They would be there. He was still necessary. For now. They still loved Him. For now.

  As They had predicted, the One showed himself in the sacred place. He talked, They listened; He cried, They soothed. He slept and dreamt of making love to his one and only, They made the changes in Him that They had to make.

  8

  On Thursday afternoon as Mark was climbing out of the school bus, Cassie was waiting for him. He could have cried when he finally saw her face, for Mark it seemed as if years had passed.

  Both stood completely still, looking at each other over the distance of several feet until the bus was gone, and then the fairly flew into each other’s arms. When they pulled apart from each other, Cassie looked slightly puzzled and couldn’t understand why.

  After convincing her to go with him for a walk in the woods, Mark told her about the preceding Saturday night.

  At first she was too stunned to speak and then she was furious. She screamed at
him and called him names and even came damn close to knocking his teeth down his throat. She swore she would never speak to him again and she stormed away. And he took it all, he deserved nothing but her condemnation and he knew it.

  The sun had long since set before he bothered to move. When he did move, it was with a determined walk and a deep scowl across his face.

  He’d heard about Tommy’s latest attempt to devastate Tyler and Tommy seemed as good a way to vent his steam as any. For the first time in his life, Mark knew why people from time to time took out their frustrations on others, people who had nothing to do with the problem.

  Just as They had been changing his body, They had been changing his mind and now was the time for the first real fruits of Their labors to show the scar They had left on his personality; it was Mark Howell that set out that night to find Tommy Blake, but it was a different Mark Howell than the one who had come into the town of Summitville almost a year ago. Very different indeed.

  As he walked through the woods heading towards the school he had left earlier in the day, The Folk gathered around him and rushed through the woods to watch the creation They had been working on. They were certain that a fine time would be had by all.

  9

  Cassie was furious and more than a little saddened by Mark’s betrayal. After spending so much time getting to know each other, Mark had pulled this crap and destroyed the fragile trust that the two of them had shared. Now, storming through the woods, all that she could think of was the fact that he had all but slept with Lisa Scarrabelli; the fact that he had confessed his indiscretions did nothing to soothe the wounds to her ego.

  Hurt and angry and confused, Cassie did as she had always done when the world slapped her down; she ran to Tyler. She didn’t concern herself with the fact that he was a close friend to Mark; she knew that he would listen, he always had. He always would. That was simply what best friends did.

  Trying to find him at home had done no good whatsoever and now she jogged the distance to the Basilisk, where his mother had said he was spending a great deal of his free time. Her frantic state of mind threw off her ability to breathe properly and she was forced to stop just before the front door and catch her breath.

  She looked at the huge old house with the same mixture of feelings that she always had; awe at its stunning landscaping and more than a little dread at the thought of passing the unique statuary that P.J. had placed around the premises. The creatures that seemed to peer around trees and look out from beneath the crawl space made her want to shudder. Roughly carved as they were, they all seemed to have a life of their own. She could easily imagine the various gargoyles and ghouls sneaking away from the house late at night and going to find flesh to feast on.

  Pushing away the morbid thoughts, she forced herself into the sanctuary of the store and was relieved to find P.J. and Tyler looking over at her with mild surprise and more than a touch of concern. Ty frowned and for the first time it occurred to her that she might be interfering in something that was private. Then Ty smiled and she realized that all was well with the world, Tyler Wilson was here and if anyone could drive the demons away, it was him.

  “Cassie, babe, how are you?” The concern ran across his face, so much like an open book to her and she realized that she was supposed to be in mourning for her Grandmother. ”You holdin’ up okay?” Tyler ran over to her and gave her a brief hug with his reed thin arms; she hugged back ferociously and felt better for it. Tyler looked away from her, over to P.J., and said that he’d be back in a little while. P.J. was anything but slow and nodded once, a sad smile on his face, before going back to the enormous stack of moldy books in front of him.

  Tyler casually wrapped an arm around her shoulders and she realized numbly that he too was in a serious growth spurt, he was almost as tall as she was once again. She waved and smiled her thanks to the author, as they slipped outside.

  They walked in silence for a little while, until they came upon a clearing near one of the dozens of tiny creeks that trickled through the woods. Tyler cleared the dust and leaves off of a couple of the larger rocks and settled her down upon one of them before perching on the other just off to her right.

  “So,” his face shifted into his The Doctor Is In look and he pushed his thick glasses back into place. “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong, or are we going to play twenty questions?” The smile he flashed took any possible hurt from the words and looking at him, she felt the sting of tears starting in her eyes.

  Before she knew what was happening, she started blurting out the words. “Mark went into the woods with Lisa the very same night that I went to bury my Grammy. He went into the woods with her and they almost screwed. I thought he cared for me, I thought he was special. I thought he was going to be the one, the one I gave myself to.” She felt the tears flowing with greater force and closed her eyes, covering her face with her callused hands as she finally let the impact of her Grandmother’s death and her betrayal by Mark sink in. It couldn’t have been a second later that she felt Tyler’s thin body and arms crush against her. He pulled her close with remarkable strength and forced her to accept the comfort of his friendship. And she cried, hormones and grief gathering together in strength and assaulting her as a hurricane batters a rowboat adrift at sea. She mourned the loss of her Grandmother; she mourned the loss of the innocence that had marked her relationship with Mark and she mourned the fact that childhood ends, replaced by the bitter cynicism of puberty.

  And through it all, Tyler, who knew of all of these things, held her and whispered gentle assurances and proved once again that he was the finest friend a girl could ask for. She realized that he too was crying, mourning with her the pains of a broken heart.

  When she was finally done crying, he pulled the button up shirt off of his back, leaving behind a tee shirt that was in desperate need of bleaching and offered his dress shirt to her as a make-shift hanky. She accepted gratefully and he stroked her long hair and rubbed lightly at the tension that had developed in her neck and shoulders.

  Finally, he sat next to her and folded her hand into a tight grasp, pulling it towards his chest. They sat for several moments in the silence of the woods, listening to the birds chirrup and the occasional hiss of a car going down Third Avenue, hidden away by the trees.

  Then he looked at her and said, “Would you like to hear the whole story now, or would you rather wait for the TV movie?”

  Cassie looked over at her friend and saw the gentle admonition on his angular face. “What do you mean, ‘the whole story?’ Mark told me himself.”

  Tyler grinned that ridiculous grin of his and shook his head sadly. “Since when have you ever known Mark to have the slightest clue as to what was going on around him?” She wanted to protest, to defend him, despite what he had done, but Tyler held up his hand, signaling for her to stop before she got started. “Mark never noticed that you were looking at him almost as much as he was looking at you. Mark never noticed that the Asshole Patrol had it out for him in a bigger way than they did for other kids and Mark never noticed that Tony Scarrabelli was the biggest Homophobe this planet has ever seen.” He pushed his glasses back into place again and frowned at her, defying her to deny any of the things that he had just said; she couldn’t, they were all the truth.

  “Mark never noticed that his own face is more than a little effeminate; you put him in a dress with falsies and the guys would go wild. Mark just doesn’t think that way, he’s too busy thinking about other things, like horror novels,” Tyler leered at her and winked evilly, “and getting into your very shapely pants.” That did it, she stood up, ready to tear into him for the comment and he looked at her, with enough force behind the stare, to stagger her. “Sit down! I’m not finished yet.” Shocked by the anger in his voice, she sat.

  “I’m not saying anything bad about Mark. Hell, I happen to think he’s a very nice guy, I’m just saying that he’s never been what you would call quick on the pick-up.”

  Tyler turned aw
ay from her for a moment and then looked at her with a forgiving smile. “I think you’re tops, you know that. But, I have to say some of the same things about you.” Again, he held up the cautionary hand and again she waited for a further explanation.

  “What I’m trying to get across to you, is that I knew he was about to get into trouble and if you’d been paying attention, you would have too.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and looked her in the eye as he sat in front of her on the rock and pulled her hands to him. “Lisa’s been looking at him like he was fresh meat, for weeks.”

  “No. I would have noticed, I would have spotted that.” Her protests were, to be kind, weak.

  Tyler grinned like the Cheshire Cat and shook his head gently. “No doubt. Just like you noticed that Tony’s been looking at you like a starving man looks at a roast beef sandwich.” She stared at him, certain that he’d lost his mind and he continued undaunted. “So suddenly, the guy that’s been trashing Mark since his first day in school, the guy that’s been out for my blood since the third grade, got a conscience? Wake up, Cassie! He’s been wanting to jump you for the last two years!”

  Cassie decided to get to the heart of this and get to it fast, before he said something that she couldn’t deny and that she really didn’t want to hear. “Well, so what if he has? I didn’t go off into the woods with him, did I?” She was feeling damn triumphant about her little retort, until Tyler asked her the question that she’d been dreading.

  Looking her in the eyes, with perceptions as sharp as a hunting hawk, he asked, “Are you saying you wouldn’t?” She had no answer to that and he clarified making sure that she saw his point. “Are you actually saying that if Tony Scarrabelli was innocently walking in the woods with you and kissed you on your lips, that you wouldn’t be sorely tempted to let it go farther? You know me better,” he chastised softly, “I’ve seen the way you watch him when we’re at the pool. It’s not a one-way street.”