by Kody Boye
We’re almost there! I would happily cry.
“We know,” my parents would both say, often at the same time.
We would all laugh and things would be well, happy times that happened before the bad times came.
The first day I went to the beach, I was the happiest little kid alive. Little did I know it would be the last time I would ever see it again.
I know what you’re thinking, John—I used to live on the coast. I’d be wrong to say that I didn’t, but the ‘beach’ we went to was never really a ‘beach’ beach—it was a small pond turned into an attraction so homeowners would buy the properties in the neighborhood I used to live in. It worked, for a time, but after ‘it’ happened, no one ever went back. No. There was no going back to a place filled with such hate and misery.
To put it simply, the trip to the beach itself went just fine—I swam in the shallows, my dad stood just a few short feet away, and my mom alternated between reading a book and taking pictures of me and my dad. There was nothing immensely impacting about the visit that could have traumatized me in any way at the time, as I was just a little kid and would not have known any better. The actual unease would come years later, after I entered my teens and learned about what had really been happening at the beach all those years ago.
Once, during my joyous rampage through the shallows, I tripped and almost fell face-first into the water.
When I opened my eyes, a face looked up at me.
I screamed, hurled myself from the water, and ran to the shore, all the while crying that someone in the water was looking at me.
My dad told me there was nothing to worry about.
My mom said I was just seeing things.
Weeks later, after I’d forgotten the event and told my parents I wanted to go back, they said we couldn’t, that they’d drained the lake because something had happened to the water.
The truth behind the story?
Someone really had looked up at me from the shallows, but that someone wasn’t alive. That someone was dead.
There’s not really much more to say, other than that someone had been killing people and dumping them into the lake. Sure—I could go on a lengthy tangent to say how it could have affected me and how it could still be affecting me, but there wouldn’t really be any point. It might serve its purpose, sure, but it almost might not do anything more than just make me feel stupid for writing it.
I know you wanted me to write about something good, John. I’m sorry I ended up writing about this, but I think it’s at least in part good. It helped me remember that there was, in fact, good times in my childhood, and I had experienced my share of happy moments, regardless of the things that were destined to come.
I don’t know what else to say. I’ve written almost two pages. Hopefully you won’t be disappointed.
–Day 8–
I’m in a bit of a disorganized mood. I woke up this morning with my head by the footrest and my ribs in screaming pain, so it’s not hard to say that today hasn’t gone very well. John told me that he came in once during the night because he’d heard me struggling, then tried to calm me down so I wouldn’t end up hurting myself. I vaguely recall waking up, panicking, then hitting him in the face before passing out. His black eye this morning proved it.
It’s about three-thirty PM right now. John’s been at work since eleven and I’ve been up since ten-something. I don’t remember when exactly, but it doesn’t particularly matter. Right as I got out of the shower and wandered into the living room this morning, John had been scrambling to get out the door. He’d said hello, told me about what happened last night, pushed his other arm into the loose sleeve of his jacket and picked up his suitcase before he walked out of the door, yelling that he’d made me lunch as he ran down the driveway.
Lunch was, and technically still is, two mayonnaise-tomato sandwiches and the remnants of the vegetable salad he made the other day (the night he said he was going to ‘make something special.’ We ended up watching some Lifetime movie about a boy and his dog.)
I don’t think John’s read my journal entry from last night yet. If he has, he didn’t mention it, but I’m guessing he didn’t from the way he didn’t bother to mention anything about my journal when he walked out the door this morning. It’s usually the first thing he comments on when I walk out of the bedroom and sit down at the kitchen table, but not today. Then again, that could just be because he was in such a big hurry to get to work, but I don’t know.
The whole journal thing is starting to make me feel a little weird. When I stopped writing last night, I felt like I was just dumping my problems on someone who didn’t really need to hear them, at least in the sense that they didn’t initially want to hear them, but ended up having to hear them because the person (being me) forced them (being John) to listen. This’ll probably come up shortly after John reads this, because I know he’ll have something to say about it, but before it does, I want to say something right now—I know I’m not forcing any of this on you, John. If you didn’t want to hear about what I’m going through, you wouldn’t ask to read my journal. Hell, I wouldn’t even be here if you didn’t care to read about my life, but I guess that’s how the world works. If you want to learn about something, you have to read about it. If you don’t want to learn about something, you don’t read about it—you just let it go. I guess that’s why I feel a bit weird talking to a journal, even though you’re usually always reading it and giving me nearly-constant feedback. I feel like I’m dumping stuff on you that you don’t need to hear.
I liked the prompt you gave me yesterday. I know you haven’t mentioned anything about it yet, but it really gave me a sense of direction when it came to yesterday’s journal entry. I know a prompt a day might be a little much, but maybe a prompt a week or something would be good. It gives me a security net, but pushes me to climb the rungs when I’m forced to. Not that I’m necessarily being forced into anything, but you get my point.
Sorry my journal entries are getting longer. It doesn’t seem like I have a lot to write about. It seems like I’m mostly rambling.
–Day 9–
I dreamed about a pelican flying across the sky. The sun was setting and it looked like a supernova was exploding in the distance. The outer rim of the sun was a shade of pink and the inside looked like hot, melting wax. At the end of this day in my dream, just as the sky above was turning a shade of purple and the stars were beginning to twinkle to life, the clumsy pelican desperately flapped its wings, awkward in its attempts to carry its huge weight across the sky. It was no real bird, that much was for sure. Its wings were too ornate, with their intricate, swanlike flourish at the end, and its body looked like the cockpit of a small private plane than anything else. Whoever I was dreaming about was walking with his grandmother. He asked her if she saw it and she said yes, then he called to his family, to which they looked up and awed over the clumsy creature floating across the sky.
I don’t know what the significance of the dream was, but I thought I should mention it, just because it was such a beautiful, awkward thing.
John read my journal entries last night. He got caught up with work the past two days and wasn’t able to read them, but this morning, after I got up and sat down at the table, we talked about stuff—the dream, me hitting him, my unease about writing to a journal. He apologized for not keeping up-to-date and said that it probably would’ve helped if he’d read it before he tried to calm me down. After a moment of hesitant laughter, he reached across the table and gave my shoulder a brief squeeze, then returned his hand to his side.
“It’s weird,” he’d said, then looked down at his hands. “Writing about what’s going on, I mean.”
I wasn’t sure what to say, so I simply waited for John to continue. When he didn’t, I let out a long exhale and closed my eyes, grimacing when my ribs flared up in response to the action. John’s first reaction was to ask if I wanted some medicine, to which I replied yes, but he didn’t speak further on the topic of my
unease while he combed through the cabinets. It seemed like he was deliberately taking his time with looking. Why, I’m not sure, but when he came back with the painkillers and a glass of water in hand, he reseated himself, took a deep breath of his own, then looked me in the eyes.
“I used to have the same problem. You know what I did? I told myself that no one had to see it except me. I know I’ve been asking to see your journal, but if at any time you don’t want me to see it, just tell me. I’ll respect your privacy.”
But what about me staying here? I’d asked.
“I trust you. I know you’ll keep writing.”
It seems almost impossible to think that you can become so close, so comfortable with someone in such a short amount of time that you’d be willing to give them everything—your life, your home, your deepest, darkest secrets. I used to never be this unguarded. Now, though, I’m not particularly sure. I mean, I’m completely comfortable with John, otherwise I wouldn’t have been here for as long as I have, but I’m a bit uncomfortable with how low I’ve let my barriers fall. I’ll probably get another talk about this, John, so hopefully you have something to tell me. I just hope it isn’t any of that ‘people are good by nature’ bullshit, because if people really were ‘good by nature,’ I wouldn’t have been homeless for as long as I was.
–Day 10–
“People aren’t good by nature,” John said. “They’re good by nurture.”
When he initially said that, I wasn’t sure what to think. Now I think I’m getting it.
He read my journal earlier this evening after getting home from work. At first, I wasn’t sure if he was going to, because he looked like he’d had a bad day. His eyes were bloodshot and he had bags under them. When I asked him what was wrong, he simply shrugged my comment off and ran his hand through his hair. He stood in the doorway for a moment, suitcase still in hand, then closed the door before crossing the room and settling into his recliner to read my journal. It took him a while to get through the entry, mostly because he kept pausing to rub his eyes and temple, but when he finished, he nodded and walked into the kitchen. It wasn’t until after dinner was done that he sat down at the table and said the words I opened this entry with.
“People aren’t good by nature. They’re good by nurture.”
He explained that it wasn’t in our nature to be good to one another, that if that had been the case, the human race wouldn’t have survived for as long as it had. He said that had we always been nice, and had we always chose to accept one another, we would have never gotten anywhere. I was quick to repute, asking why blood had to be shed in order for someone to get anywhere, then he said a few simple words that changed my entire perspective on my opinion.
Those words were simple.
Those words were: “You’re here, aren’t you?”
Even now, a few hours after hearing those words, I’m still shaken. The moment he’d said it, every part of my body had started hurting—my ribs, my ankle, my eye, most of my face. I hadn’t fallen, I hadn’t tripped, I hadn’t had a train run into me and I hadn’t had something fall from the sky. The only thing I’d been hit with was a realization.
“You’re here because you got beat up,” John had said, “because if you wouldn’t have been an inch away from death, I would have never stopped to ask if you needed help.”
He said that the majority of the homeless never leave an impact in your mind because they all look the same—dry, washed up, sad with maybe a long, grey beard and dirty clothing. He said that society has become so accustomed to seeing such people that we don’t think twice when we see them, that they’re simply invisible blips on the map of overall success. Some succeed, some fail, but we’re always a part of that map. He said that the one thing that will get someone’s attention, regardless of time or place, is blood.
“You were bleeding. You were hurt. You looked like you were about to die.”
So he helped me. That’s why I’m here. Because I was almost dead.
–Day 11–
John’s not going to be here for the next three days. He said he has to go on a business trip and that I’ll be here alone. When I asked if he was all right with me staying here, he said that yes, it was fine, that just because he’s going on a business trip doesn’t mean he’s going to kick me out of the house.
“Keep writing,” he said, “because I’ll be looking forward to your entries when I get back.”
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do while he’s gone, but I’m sure I’ll figure something out. He’s got a library full of books and a catalogue’s worth of DVDs on a shelf under the entertainment center. He also said he’s got some free movie-on-demand thing that he can show me how to use before the night is over.
At least I won’t be bored while he’s gone.
At least, I hope not.
–Day 12–
I spent the better part of the morning wandering around the house. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here for almost two weeks and still haven’t seen most of it, but I guess I can’t blame myself, seeing as how I haven’t been able to walk very well. It seems like my ankle’s almost healed and my ribs are hurting less and less every day, so I decided to use my newfound strength to explore my surroundings.
I’ll get this out of the way right now, John—I went in your office. I won’t lie and say I didn’t touch anything, because I did, but I didn’t take anything. I’m not much of a thief anyway, seeing as how I have a guilty conscience, and even if I was, I don’t think I’d take anything from your office. Not that I’m saying I’d know if I would or not, because I can’t know because I’m not a klepto, but I didn’t take anything.
For personal recollection’s sake, I’ll start at the beginning: At about nine-thirty this morning, I wandered into the kitchen and went through the cupboards. Cans, medicine and other essentials filled most of them, but I found some pots and pans on the lower shelves (which killed me to bend over to open. That moment pretty much killed any relief I’d had in my chest.) They’ll come in handy if I want to try and cook anything while John’s gone, but I doubt I’ll be doing it, seeing as how I’m still in my awkward injury phase. The discovery of the pots and pans isn’t really essential though, so I’ll keep going, less I bore myself and John. I wandered through the kitchen for a little while afterward, looking at knickknacks and other personal objects, before leaving the kitchen to walk down the long hall that my room is in. The door after my room (the second in the hall) holds a guest bedroom. I didn’t bother to go in there because there didn’t seem to be anything of interest, and mostly because I knew from the lack of presence that no one usually slept in there. I then proceeded to walk down the hall to the third and fourth door, the third of which John sleeps in, the fourth of which is the office, positioned directly at the end of the hall.
I’ll tell you, John—when I first looked at the doorway, I felt like a kid going to Narnia. When I opened it, I felt the exact same way.
There’s a giant desk in John’s room. Atop it are a varying assortment of objects, the most prominent in particular being the Chinese dragon that spans the entire front edge of it. I was immediately gravitated toward it the moment I set foot in the room. I ran my hand over its intricate head, its scaly back, its rough legs and its sharp claws. His red scales and his hypnotic, golden eyes were so beautiful that I could have spent the next hour awing over him, but I eventually pulled myself away and looked around the rest of the office. I briefly saw the library when I watched him open the door one night while going to bed, but until this morning, I hadn’t realized that the whole western wall was one complete shelf. Most of it is covered in psych books, but the bottom half holds a world of fiction, completely alphabetized by author and, in some cases, by the individual date of each edition’s release. I found it funny that the first book that I laid eyes on was the Narnia collection, seeing as how I’d felt just like those kids when they opened the wardrobe upon stepping up to the office door, but I didn’t dwell on it. I seated myself
in the office chair and spun around the room, taking in everything—the wood paneling, the shelf on the wall opposite the books which holds rows upon rows of intricate sculptures and pictures, the cupboards just below that shelf, which I didn’t dare open. Just sitting in there made me feel so important, so special, so honorable. To think that a man of such stature would open his home to me, a runaway, and trust me with his personal belongings was such an amazing feeling. There’s been few times in my life that I’ve felt truly special. Right now is one of them.
Hopefully I didn’t overstep my boundaries.
If I did, I’m sorry.
–Day 13–
Day 2 of John being gone. I can already feel the pressure of being here all alone. I’m not used to not hearing him in the morning, getting up to take a shower or cursing the coffee maker. I’m not used to hearing his footsteps in the hallway. I’m not even used to the door not being cracked open every morning before he leaves so he can check on me.
