The Roots of Us

by Candace Knoebel

  I hung up. Pushed the phone away from me as the room blurred. As my heart gasped, and then fell to its knees. Why would he disconnect his phone? It was the only form of communication he used.

  Maybe he changed his mind. I couldn’t blame him.

  I was the one who left.

  And for the first time in fifteen years, I let myself cry over a man.

  FEBRUARY 23, 2016

  THE MORNING STARTED WITH THE din of loud chatter. Voices slowly raised, like the swelling of a wave as everyone set up the equipment for the long day of interviews. I didn’t mind it. It drowned out the thoughts of Hudson that kept trying to surface.

  We were stationed in the recreational hall. The set designers decided on doing the interviews in front of the far wall that was covered in windows. The crisp, vivid background that overlooked the forest was a stunning setting.

  I stood in front of the table set up as a makeshift breakfast bar, trying to decide if I wanted a bagel with cream cheese or that beautiful pink doughnut with sprinkles.

  “The doughnuts are from a local bakery. They use magic to create those things, I swear,” James said from behind me.

  When I turned around, he handed me a tall coffee and a dazzling smile.

  “Thank you,” I said, bringing the warm brew to my nose for a sniff. My head was pounding, eyes raw.

  “I figured you’d need it. I’ve already had two energy drinks.”

  “We got a lot accomplished, though,” I pointed out.

  He smirked. “That we did.”

  After popping the lid off, I added three sugars and a splash of creamer, then took a tentative sip.

  Heaven.

  “Our first interview is ready,” Janice said as she came in through the side door.

  “Now remember, everyone. Be friendly. Be thoughtful. And most definitely please do not gawk,” James said as he grabbed a doughnut and headed for the camera. “It’s showtime.”

  THIS WAS MY FAVORITE PART of any documentary. This was where the heart was. Where the grit grew. We blew through the first few interviews, coming up empty-handed. And then, by interview five, the match was struck. We were getting somewhere, and the story began to form.

  Interview five.

  Caroline Higgins

  Age 32

  Member for four years.

  “Do you know, before I came to Bare Freedom, I barely knew what I looked like naked? I mean, do you know what you look like? Or you? How about you?” she asked as her oval eyes penetrated through each of us. “I was more of a mind than a body. I was thoughts inside a shell I didn’t bother paying any attention to. The first time I realized I had a beauty mark just under my breast was when I was twenty-one. How insane is that? I didn’t take time to really look at myself. The body beneath the lies we cover ourselves in every day.”

  Interview seven.

  Dave Masters

  Age 53

  Member for fourteen years.

  “Sex,” he said confidently. He was a lump of a man. Thinning, balding hair turned to silver. A wide, rounded stomach that had seen its share of beers. A large thicket of black hair spread across his chest. “The sex is amazing when a woman truly loves herself. When she isn’t worrying about what she looks like. She wants the lights on, and that’s when the sex becomes mind-blowing. The only worry is the pleasure you give your partner, and nothing more.”

  Interview twelve.

  Arianna Sears

  Age 24

  Member for one year

  “Because my boobs were a lie,” she said. This warranted a small chuckle from the sound guy behind me who I turned and gave a stern glare. Arianna didn’t fuss when I turned back. Maybe she was used to the reaction.

  She had soft, caramel-colored skin. Bright, shockingly blue eyes. Dark hair clumped in thick strands that sat artfully atop her head. A nose piercing. Ears cluttered with silver.

  “I remember the first guy I ever slept with was during the summer of my freshman year in high school. I was so nervous and excited. He was a drummer in the band. I was a flute player. We snuck out of practice and went to his car. He drove us into the woods behind the school. I thought everything was perfect. He was tender and thoughtful, until the next day when I went to practice. Some of the boys and a few girls kept throwing tissues at me. Stuffed. That’s what they nicknamed me. Others called me ant bites. He must have seen me take the tissue out of my bra before we had sex.” Her eyes fell to her chest and she smiled. “My breasts are small, but I love them as they are. This place has taught me to find beauty in myself.”

  We shot hours and hours’ worth of interview material. Some I immediately knew would make the cut… others were simply stating the same thing over and over. We needed something deeper. A real story.

  “Bring Basil in,” I said to Sarah. He was one of three we had left to interview before we’d finished with everyone who’d signed up.

  We were all exhausted. Even James seemed like he was getting bored with the camera.

  “Did someone order a touch of Basil to give this party a whole lot of flavor?” Basil asked a second later as he sashayed into the room. The boisterousness he projected was like a shot of Red Bull straight to the veins. He was full of old glamour and charm, as if the paparazzi were waiting on the other side of the door. Everyone perked up, his presence seeming to overwhelm the camera. “Make sure you get my best angle. Can’t be looking bad on the silver screen.”

  After the makeup artist gave his last look, James sat straight and zoomed in. I moved beside him, holding the list of questions I needed to ask.

  “Basil… what a rich and curious name. Is it your real name?” I asked. We started out with simple questions to ease them in with the camera and lighting before getting to the heavy stuff.

  His lips curled. “What makes a name real or fake? If you’re asking if I was born with this name, no. My birth name is Jeremiah, but that is not who I translate as.”

  “So why Basil?”

  A small grin spread across his full, dark lips. “I chose Basil after the character Basil Hallward in The Picture of Dorian Gray written by the great Oscar Wilde. Have you read it?”

  He glanced around the room. Only a few of us nodded.

  “Basil was an oil painter in the story. He is the master behind the painting of Dorian. But that’s not why I chose his name. I chose his name because of what the story itself stood for, and what Oscar was trying to accomplish with that specific plot.”

  “And that was?” I asked, thoroughly intrigued.

  “That art needn’t be nothing more than beautiful. There didn’t need to be a purpose to it, or an expectation to come from it. Not everything needs a label.”

  He smiled as his words sank in.

  “Art has many forms and shapes and colors. Many different facets to be admired. We are art. And I like to think of myself as someone continuing that legacy by encouraging self-love here at Bare Freedom.”

  “Those are some insightful words,” I said as he began to take shape in front of me. “What did you do before you came here?”

  “I was working toward a doctorate in philosophical science,” he said proudly.

  That made sense. He seemed to speak in a way that felt like his every word was used to give advice rather than to simply communicate.

  “I spent more time chasing a piece of paper that would give me the validation of the skills I already knew I had in me, rather than applying those skills to help others see the truth.”

  I could relate to that. Imagined most of us could. How often did we find ourselves trying to live up to expectations set by a higher power, rather than living out our short lives on this earth the way we wanted to?

  “How long have you been living here as a nudist?” I asked.

  “We prefer the term naturist. And sixteen years next month,” Basil said.

  “That makes you—”

  “The longest residing employee outside of the owners… yes,” he finished. His lips were pursed, a smile in his eye
s.

  “Can you tell us why?”

  He swayed back and forth in his seat, head tilted to the left. He was made for the spotlight, soaking it in as he adjusted his sparkling pink scarf. “Do you want the quick version, or the heavy version?”

  I looked at James. He nodded.

  “If you’re comfortable, we’d prefer the heavy. We want to send a message, Basil. Wake people up.”

  “Then you’ve asked the right lady.” He crossed his knees and propped his hands on them ever so elegantly. “I was married for twenty-two years.”

  The room fell silent. I spotted the hook of the story. Felt that internal shift that buzzed when the story aligned.

  “We had a son at twenty, and I walked out on them at the age of thirty-two.”

  He didn’t say it proudly, despite his posture that carried confidence. He said it like a confession, and the camera was his priest.

  “I knew at a young age that I was different from the other boys. My mother knew, too. She caught me trying on her dress when I was eleven. She hid it from my father, until he caught me in her heels when I was sixteen. I was homeless after that, but I had enough older friends that I had couches to move between until I graduated. I did good in school, enough so that between the money I’d saved up working and the scholarships, I could put myself through college.

  “That’s where I met my wife. I couldn’t explain my attraction to her. I liked men. I’d been with a few already, but there was something about her that lured me in. Her effortless beauty. The way she looked at me… like I was her sun. She inspired me to be what society expected of me. To be what was considered normal. So I fought my urges, and we were married at nineteen. After my son was born, there was a brief period when I thought I’d somehow been cured. And then I met who would be one of many affairs I had on my wife.”

  My stomach twisted. It was like hearing my father speak—only I liked Basil.

  “By the time I turned thirty-two, I knew I couldn’t continue living a lie. I couldn’t keep stealing a happy life from my wife. She deserved someone better, and that someone wasn’t me.” He dropped his gaze, voice dimming with shame. “I left them, because she’d never leave me. She was Catholic, and she would rather die than divorce. It was the hardest, most freeing decision I’d ever made. I came here, broken and ashamed, on a path to learning how to forgive myself for being the way I am.”

  “What about your son?” I asked, feeling the hurt that boy must have went through.

  He looked up, mist in his eyes. “It took me ten years to get my son to agree to speak with me. Another five to forgive me.”

  “But he did?” I asked, wishing I could meet this boy and get some pointers.

  “His mother remarried. She had two more children with a man who gives the world to her. I might have gone about it all wrong, but I wanted to protect him. I’d rather he hate me than be ashamed of me. I couldn’t tell him who I was. I couldn’t tell either of them, because I could barely tell it to myself. Imagine being in your thirties, realizing the last few decades of your life were a lie. I dabbled in drugs. Drank too much. And then I found Bare Freedom.”

  I couldn’t help but think of my father and his mistakes. I could compare him to Basil… I meant to Jeremiah. Except there was a sincerity to Jeremiah’s leaving. He didn’t want to thieve happiness from his wife. Didn’t want to shame his son.

  But not my dad.

  How could I forgive a man who left to find happiness? Who didn’t think twice about how I felt? Who never tried to reconnect?

  “You know, we don’t just shed clothing here,” Basil continued. “This place is a mindset. Most people don’t realize that our pasts and those painful grudges we hold so close to our hearts weigh us down more than any article of clothing ever could. You have to learn to let go. To forgive and embrace life’s messiness, because when you do, that’s when you find the true beauty in being human. We’re all flawed, honey,” he said, flipping the part of his scarf that fell back over his shoulder. “And we’re all on the same journey of discovering who we are at our core. That’s why this place was built. Bare Freedom. Freedom from clothes. Freedom from judgment. But most importantly, freedom from yourself. We shed our skin until we find the one we belong in. And until you find the courage to do that, you aren’t really living.”

  The room was quiet. I gave Basil an encouraging smile. The power in his truth was the most heartbreakingly beautiful thing I’d ever heard. Ideas poured into my mind like a dam broken open. Basil was the star we needed, and we’d only just scratched the surface with him.

  I opened my mouth, about to ask another question, when James cut me off.

  “Good work, everyone. Let’s call it a night,” he said, setting the camera down. There was something off about him. A sadness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before. Basil had said something that must have struck a nerve. Why can’t you forgive him? Was it because of his father? Because of the threat he’d made?

  I walked up to him as everyone scattered. “James,” I said, touching his shoulder. “We still have two more interviews. We’re already behind schedule. If we stop now, we’re going to lose half a day. You said yourself we can’t afford it.”

  He stared at me, a wall forming between us. “I said we’re calling it.” He shook Basil’s hand, and then headed out into the cool night air.

  I took over wrapping everything up, slightly annoyed he had left like that. He said he was emotional, but I didn’t grasp that until then. He was the kind of man who heard or saw something that shook loose whatever they were hiding on the inside, and didn’t know how to put it back on the shelf. My father was like that. Mom would say one thing he didn’t like, and he’d disappear for hours. A dramatic scene. A forlorn return. She’d have to coddle him. Tell him she was sorry. Sorry for something that wasn’t intended to hurt him.

  “Have you worked with him before?” Janice asked me.

  I spun around. “No.”

  She leaned in. “This is my third project with him. James is a… how should I put this? He’s in touch with his emotions. It’s one of the reasons why his films are so deep.”

  “I get being emotional, but to call it a day over an interview? If this is how the next few months are going to go, we for sure won’t finish on time.”

  Janice dropped her hands by her side. “James had a traumatic past. I can’t confirm it because he never speaks about it, but from what I’ve gathered, someone important to him hurt him. Or at least that’s where they say the inspiration came from for his first film. The one that touched on the young boy who was looking for his father.”

  I remembered that film. It was the reason I started following James’ career in the first place. The imagery and the work moved me in a way I’d never been moved before. It stuck a knife through my past and twisted hard.

  “Like I said, he’s never confirmed it, but he hasn’t denied it either. Any time he was asked about it, he shut down. I don’t think he likes talking about it.”

  I could relate to that.

  I SAT IN FRONT OF the computer, messing around with the days’ footage. I was in a funk. I couldn’t find my rhythm, even with reviewing the sound bite from Basil’s earlier interview.

  Pushing the mouse from me, I decided to go for a walk. Being alone with my thoughts was dangerous. Especially when I’d memorized the number to the diner. I wouldn’t stoop to stalking. If he wanted to change his number, then so be it. Maybe it wasn’t as real as he thought it was.

  Then why does it burn so bad?

  I found a path that led through the woods and followed it, taking in the crisp, clean air. I felt like I could breathe there. Like all the bad in the world couldn’t touch this place. That was when I spotted James a few yards ahead, staring up at one of the hundreds of trees.

  I twisted to leave, but he must have heard me because he turned in my direction.

  “Wait,” he said. It was a small plea. A white flag I couldn’t ignore.

  I finished crossing the
space between us and stopped beside him.

  We stood there for a while, not saying anything to one another. Truthfully, I didn’t know what to say. It kind of felt like that night, so many years ago, when he’d opened up during the party.

  “Have you ever been hurt by someone so deeply, you couldn’t find the will to forgive them?” he asked, searching my face.

  His questions hit me square in the chest. “Yes,” I said before I could think to say anything else.

  He nodded, and then faced the lake. I realized then he was hurting. Maybe because of his father. It was why he’d needed to leave the room after Basil’s interview.

  “My father,” I said after a moment, assuming he was talking about his. Sometimes, the only way to reach someone was to open personal wounds in front of them and share in their feelings.

  He focused on me again, his eyes blurred with tears. There was an honesty in their depths that couldn’t be ignored. He wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before. He wasn’t scared to feel. He wasn’t scared to admit he was feeling, and I was drawn to that. I felt safe inside it.

  Safe enough to let him in.

  “I’ve never forgiven him,” I continued, feeling the wounds peeling open again. “Honestly, I’ve never had the chance. The last time we spoke was a few years back when I called him on his birthday. I think the call lasted around a minute. Long enough for the brother I’ve never met to start crying. He hung up, saying he had to go take care of him.” I snorted. “For so long, I wondered what I did wrong. Why his paternal instinct never kicked in when it came to me, and you know what?”

  He waited, emotions swimming deep in his eyes.

  “I realized it isn’t my fault. And you know when I realized that?”

  “When?”

  “During Basil’s interview. He was right, James. The pain in our pasts that we hold close to our hearts is weighing us down.” I paused as it dawned on me. “You know, I think I’ve held onto the hurt from my father for so long that in some ways, I need it. Crave it like a drug, because it justifies every bad decision I make. There’s a certain comfort in being able to point my finger at the hurt that caused me to make a bad decision, rather than pointing that finger at myself. I know what I need to do; I just need to find the courage to do it.”