Secrets and Trees - In That Order

The thing about keeping secrets is, the guy who shares the private stuff has all of the power, and the secret-keeper has to carry the load of the secret, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant it might be. Holding on to that secret can take a ridiculous amount of effort to not, under any circumstance, (purposfully or inadvertently), let the secret out. Being asked to keep a secret is also a bit manipulative. You initially feel special, like the person has enormous faith in you as a trusted friend -- real inner circle vibes. Then, reality sets in. You realize you have to carry a burden with that person, be in collusion, be dishonest, even as part of the secret-keeping process. The privilege, the burden, the anxiety, and the outright agony of keeping a secret was something Charlie gifted me with on a weekly basis. 

Usually, he’d tell me small secrets, like when he would hide the shovels, the key to Chuck’s beloved John Deer tractor, or even Chuck’s favorite work gloves. He would show me where he hid the item, then roll on the ground laughing when Chuck would accuse someone of stealing it, usually the neighbor kids. Chuck had an irrational hatred for the neighbors, despite knowing almost nothing about them. He was a sucker for a conspiracy theory and was sure that whenever anything went missing or when he couldn’t find a tool, etc. (which happened a lot -- Chuck was not very careful with his tools), that someone had taken it. He loved to blame others for his screw-ups.

The neighborhood kids were often the target of his blame.. Funny how he never suspected his own son, but then, Charlie was an excellent liar and had a great poker face. He even encouraged Chuck’s crazy accusations by telling his dad that he’d seen a “shadowy figure” pass under the fence” or that he had “seen a bootprint. In the side yard next to where the properties met.” 

Chuck just ate that shit up. He found it easy to believe that people were out to get him, to wrong him because it allowed him to play the victim and the victor simulatneoulsy. He got to own the whole scene, and Charlie, likewise, goto play Chuck for a fool. Charlie knew how fanatical Chuck was about not being a victim because Chuck had a piece of paper with some lame quote that he framed and hung up in the living room that said:

“I won’t be wronged,

I won't be insulted.

I won't be laid a-hand on.

I don't do these things to other people,

and I require the same from them.”

It was apparently a quote from a guy named John Wayne, who was some old-timey Western film star. He lived by that saying. It was his motto and his creed -- his excuse for being overly-rightous, yet highly hypocritical toward literally everyone. And it was his rabid reason for carrying a pistol on a holster when he was working outside. He was a gun nut, and it was one of the things he and my mom fought about. Loaded guns were everywhere in the house, hanging above the fireplace, in his bedside table drawer, in the garage, and even in a storage compartment on his tractor. When my mom got pregnant with Mayzie, she asked Chuck to at least separate the ammunition from the guns, but he wouldn’t hear of it. That argument was the first time I got really scared of Chuck. He raged. He screamed, and he charged at my mom aggressivly, pinning her against the wall without actually laying a hand on her. He was close, intimidating, scary, but he stopped himself short of touching her. 

He got right into her face and said, “Goddamit, Marilyn! What good is a gun without any bullets? If someone broke into our house, do you really think I would have time to stop and load a gun?! I mean, what the hell!”

“Okay, Chuck. Okay,” she said, shaking but somehow remaining calm. She had that ability - keeping it together for our sake, I think. 

That was the end of the argument. No more talk of disarming guns, and as it turned out, there was really no need. None of us kids, not even Mayzie, had any desire or urge to even touch them. Maybe the underlying violent atomsphere in the house was enough for us to stay away from anything else that might add to the fear and the threat of brutality. 

Nonetheless, Charlie didn’t shy away from causing Chuck discomfort in the form of invisible terrorists from next door. People in our neighborhood had between 5-10 acres, so while there was lots of space between house, we were still close enough to people to walk over and visit or whatever. Our property line ran alongside the supposed offending property of a large family. They had about ten kids, ranging in age from 4-17. Charlie was in the same grade as one of the middle kids, so he saw him regularly at school. They weren’t friends, but we both rode the bus with him. He was decent kid. He didn’t deserve to be blamed for stealing things from our property, but I think Charlie needed a scapegoat from Chuck’s anger sometimes, and as long as no one was actually getting hurt, it seemed to work out for both of them. The neighbor boy was none the wiser. Sometimes, Charlie even blamed the kid’s older siblings, high schoolers, for the more “crafty” and “sophisticated” jobs - ones the seemed to require a little extra thought, such as taking Chuck’s holster and hanging it in the shed where he kept his death chemicals from work. Charlie was like that -- his shenanigans sometimes had messages attached. 

One night last summer, thought, Charlie asked me to keep a bigger secret. At first, I was honored. 

I was honored. He’d never really shared anything personal with me before, despite us being “step-brothers” for a few years. The night he asked me, we were in our bunk beds. We had just gotten bunk beds a few weeks before, and he had taken the top bunk when I told him I was afraid of heights. At first, he said, “Whatever, weirdo. It’s only about 5 feet high,” but then he climbed up the ladder, and that was that. He started with a pretty tame secret.

“Don’t tell my dad that I pulled up some potato plants while we were weeding the garden,” Charlie said in an excited whisper.

“Not really a big deal, dude. I mean, weeding isn’t an exact science” I replied. 

“Yea, but I exactly meant to pull up the plants.”

“Ok. Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe…maybe because I wanted to see if he, you know, my dad, noticed.”

“Right. I get it, I guess.”

“You do? Really? Cause I’m not really sure I get it. I just get so mad, sometimes, you know?”

“About?”

Charlie’s upside down face popped down over the top bunk. It took me a minute to make out his expression in the dark. When my eyes adjusted, I could see his white teeth smiling widely, but his eyes were scrunched up as if he were both confused and annoyed by my question.

“You serious, broh? Have you not been working with that asshole long enough yet?”

“I mean, yeah. He’s your dad, thought, right?! Aren’t you afraid of getting in trouble?”

At that, Charlie’s head disappeared from my view, but I could hear his muffled, breathless giggling. When he finally caught his breath, he gruffly whispered.

“Geez, Zander! It’s like you’ve never even met me! Of course I don’t want to get in trouble, but that just means I try extra hard not to get caught!” the more he talked, the more serious he sounded. “Someone needs to give him hell. He thinks he can do whatever he wants - like - he doesn’t have to answer to anyone, ever.”

Wasn’t that all grownups, I thought? I was quiet for a moment -- thinking. How do I respond? Charlie was talking this way about his own father. When my mom told me she was marrying Charlie, I was only seven. I was confused, and I asked her what was going to happen when my dad came back and found her married to another man. At first, she just stared at me. Daggers. She was so angry. I didn’t understand; I guess I still don’t. Of course, I understand now that dead people don’t come back to life, but I still don’t understand why she had to rush into marriage with someone who was unlike my dad in every way. 

Memories of my dad are getting bit fuzzy these days, but from what I remember, he was heaps different from Charlie in almost every way. Where Charlie rarely smiled, my dad was almost always laughing, telling jokes, and kidding around. He loved teaching me new card games - games he grew up playing with his family. Some were a bit too hard for me to understand at such a young age, but he was always patient. He took his time, and if I didn’t get it at first, he would give me some time, and try to teach me again later. Chuck didn’t allow much card playing in his house. He caught me playing solitaire once on the floor in the living room and scolded me for wasting my brain power on such mindless garbage. I knew without a doubt I was to avoid playing any games in front of Chuck. No unproductive, frivolous activity on his watch. 

Beyond the specific differences between them, though, was the overall atmosphere. Life with my parents felt safe, calm, like spending a day walking on the beach or watching a ball game. Peaceful, exciting sometimes, but never dark, never sinister. Chuck brought a sense of uneasiness with him from the beginning, and I could never understand why my mother would trade our life for a life with an someone who rarely smiled or spoke a kind word, even to her. 

Charlie, but what if he notices and asks me about it?”

“Just say you don’t know.”

“But I do know. I don’t have a great poker face. People can usually tell when I’m lying.”

“You’ll be fine! Just act like you don’t know. I mean, you didn’t actually see me do it, right?”

“Well, no. But, you just told me! Why did you tell me? Why did I have to know?”

From my bed on the bottom bunk, I couldn’t see his face when he told me he had something important to tell me, but I could hear the seriousness in his voice. I echoed his concerned tone, vowing to take whatever he was going to tell me to my grave. 

It was the dead of winter, and as he told me his secret, I could hear the wind whipping outside our windows. The plastic film my mom had applied to keep out the cold was no match for the bitter temperatures that night, and I pulled my blanket tight to my neck as I settled in to hear Chuck’s story. 

Charlie began by asking me if I remembered when someone cut off the sapling trees that Chuck had planted along the front of the house last summer. Of course I remembered! Chuck was furious that someone had had the nerve to come onto his property and dared to commit such destruction.

I remember the intensity and excitement referencing some saplings that Chuck had planted along the front of the yard and then suggested that it must have been those “jerk kids” who lived next door that led to quite an ordeal, and I never said a word.

Chuck wasn’t exactly the friendliest neighbor, and as a result, the neighbor kids didn’t really come around much. There was clearly animosity there, so when Charlie commented that he saw Wally Dentman crossing under the fence between our two properties with a small garden sheer in his hands, he gifted Chuck with a covert mission of paramount proportions. 

Every night for two weeks straight, we all huddled in the living room under blankets, lights off, hiding our flashlights until we heard a noise. Chuck, of course, had his loaded gun at the ready, in case he needed to scare the shit out of those assholes who came onto his land and destroyed his property. If he happened to hit one of the bastards, then he was well within his rights, he said, as they were trespassing and committing a crime. creates, Understand, these are KIDS. I think Wally was about twelve at the time, and there was no way he gave Chuck and his stupid trees a second thought. Hell, I don’t even think he knew they were even there. 

Our kid sister, Mayze, didn’t really understand the situation, but she sensed the excitement and energy that vigilante justice creates. She was right there with us those fourteen nights, giggling and shushing us in alternating outbursts. Chuck got irritated real quick, and Mayze usually lasted about a half and hour before Mom took her upstairs to bed. Our eyes burned as we scanned the darkness, looking for any sign of movement. Our ears were perked trying to hear any kind of rustle or crunch amongst the leaves and grass. What a hoot! It wasn’t until a month after that when Charlie told me he had made up the entire accusation against the neighbors. He had snipped those saplings himself to get back at Chuck for, well, for being Chuck. This was all a big game for him, and he swore me to secrecy. That was last year, and I haven’t said a word. 

Eventually, Chuck got tired of staying up late staring out of the picture window into the darkness, so he gave up looking for hooligans in the dead of night. I’m pretty sure he was disappointed that he didn’t get to use his gun in the name of justice and fair play. Later, he even spun the story to include looking straight into Wally’s eyes through the window. He would say that once Wally saw him there, gun in hand, he hightailed it home, and that was when Chuck decided he’d sufficiently scared that brat into coming into his yard again. Why he didn’t go over and have a friendly conversation with Wally’s parents, I’ll never understand. It would have way less dramatic and might have even answered some questions. I never really pegged Chuck for someone who wanted any other explanation than his own, though. No one was smarter or had more integrity than him, and no one ever would.

The point is, I didn’t tell. Not ever, and I didn’t intend to. It was stupid and crazy, but something told me Charlie needed that win, that outlet, and even though poor Wally got pinned with the crime, I don’t think he ever knew anything about it, so no victim, really, except Chuck. And he earned it.

My inability to make any positive difference had been haunting me for a while now. I’m not sure why I felt the need to fix bad situations. I guess Mayze and I are alike in that way, except Mayze doesn't know enough yet to be cautious, and she isn’t really old enough to be held fully accountable. My mom married Chuck eight years ago, when I was Mayze’s age. My real dad had died only a year before that in a pretty bad car accident, and my mom had been a mess. From what I can remember, she wandered around the house in a daze, stopping periodically and dropping to her knees in tears. She cried more than she didn’t, and because we lived far away from family, she didn’t have regular moral support from her parents and her sister. Oh, sure. Gram and Gramp and Aunt June visited a lot those first few months, but they were never a close family, and after awhile, they were at a loss as to how to help her. So, instead, they resigned themselves to checking in with a phone call every Sunday afternoon, and I was left with a perpetually sad and emotionally absent mom. 

Then, Chuck happened. They met at work. I think he had scoped her out long before my dad died and had waited just long enough after his death to go in for the kill. I blame myself. If I had been a little more needy or a little less needy, anything, she wouldn’t have felt compelled to seek comfort in the arms of that devil. She was vulnerable, lonely, and lost, just the way Chuck likes them. After eight months of dating, they were married, and I instantly had an older brother, an evil-step father, and a new life on Chuck’s dream farm. He had Mom sell the house she owned outright, and sunk that money and the money she received from my dad’s life insurance money into ten acres of land with an old farmhouse on it in Harrisonville, Missouri - the middle of nowhere, USA. I grew up real fast after that, and seven years later, Mayze came along. I couldn’t stop that, either, and now, after all this time, Charlie’s disappearance haunts me. Why didn’t I see any warning signs? Or, more importantly, why wasn’t I enough to make Charlie stay?