myself up behind Charlie into a serious kick-down tree house.
There’s a rope hammock and an old cracked piece of glass fit into one window. And around the window frame somebody started to carve rough roses.
The kind that you carve on picture frames. The kind that Angel Juan’s father taught Angel Juan to carve.
I feel like I’m still on the rope ladder. I feel like I am a rope ladder trembly in a wind storm. I grab onto the hammock but it swings and I stumble against the tree house wall. A ghost is here with me and I’ve seen two tree spirits, but finding this is the most slamminest thing of all.
Angel Juan told me that someday he would build a tree house for us in the lemon tree looking out over the canyon. And the lady at Sylvia’s told me that a boy who loved her grits and wore a mole-man sweatshirt and a bandana had leaves in his hair and said he lived in the trees.
“Charlie,” I say all shaky. “We have to stay here. I have to wait for him to come back.”
“It’s too cold to stay here now. You don’t have any shoes on.”
“I don’t care. He was here.”
“If he was here I don’t think he’s coming back, Witch Baby.”
“What are you talking about?”
“None of his things are here. And it’s too cold.”
I sit on the splintery floor of the tree house. I want to live here with Angel Juan. We could just go down to play music and make a little money, buy some food and come back, stay here all the time. In the spring we’d eat raspberries and kiss right in the hug of the branches, the stars shifting through the leaves like sparkles in a kaleidoscope. We’d wake up to a neighborhood of birds’ nests right outside and the world far away down below. Sometimes Charlie Bat and the tree spirits would come over for dinner—or to watch us eat dinner I guess. We’d hardly ever have to leave.
I pick up a dried leaf and an acorn, with its little beanie cap, lying on the tree house floor. I try to bend the leaf to make it into an elf’s coat for the acorn head but it crumbles in my hand. I look down throughcracked glass at the winter park, the scattered people with maybe nowhere else to be.
Everybody should have their own tree house. Maybe Angel Juan and I could help build houses in every tree. If the tree spirits wouldn’t mind. If I ever find Angel Juan again.
Someone is standing under the house looking up. Who wears white in New York City in the middle of winter except for maybe mannequins in store windows? All of a sudden I feel frosty, stiff and naked like a winter branch.
“Who’s that?” I whisper to Charlie.
“He doesn’t look like a tree spirit,” Charlie says.
I swing down the rope ladder into the lower branches to see better but the snow-colored-no-colored man has disappeared.
I feel Charlie behind me. “I think we should leave now,” he says.
On the way home Charlie stops in front of a glassed-in courtyard with a big twinkling tree, little tables underneath, heat lamps all around.
“What are those lights in the tree?” I ask.
“Fireflies.”
“Fireflies in New York City? They look like a whole lot of guys like you.”
“Let’s go in and eat,” says Charlie.
I don’t feel like eating. I want to pad around in a circle on the carpet at Charlie’s place like Tiki-Tee making his bed in the dirt and then I want to curl up there and sleep and sleep and have at least one dream about melting into Angel Juan. But I follow Charlie anyway. Maybe because Angel Juan and I used to eat samosas bursting peas and potatoes at an Indian restaurant in L.A. that looked like a camera on the outside. Maybe because of the fireflies.
I sit near a heat lamp that takes the cold ache out of my knobby spine. A man with incense-colored skin and a turban comes over. He has a liquid-butter voice. Ghee they call it on the menu he gives me.
Charlie tells me to order saffron-yellow vegetable curry with candy-glossy chutney, rice and lentil-bread. The food is so hot it scalds the taste
There’s a rope hammock and an old cracked piece of glass fit into one window. And around the window frame somebody started to carve rough roses.
The kind that you carve on picture frames. The kind that Angel Juan’s father taught Angel Juan to carve.
I feel like I’m still on the rope ladder. I feel like I am a rope ladder trembly in a wind storm. I grab onto the hammock but it swings and I stumble against the tree house wall. A ghost is here with me and I’ve seen two tree spirits, but finding this is the most slamminest thing of all.
Angel Juan told me that someday he would build a tree house for us in the lemon tree looking out over the canyon. And the lady at Sylvia’s told me that a boy who loved her grits and wore a mole-man sweatshirt and a bandana had leaves in his hair and said he lived in the trees.
“Charlie,” I say all shaky. “We have to stay here. I have to wait for him to come back.”
“It’s too cold to stay here now. You don’t have any shoes on.”
“I don’t care. He was here.”
“If he was here I don’t think he’s coming back, Witch Baby.”
“What are you talking about?”
“None of his things are here. And it’s too cold.”
I sit on the splintery floor of the tree house. I want to live here with Angel Juan. We could just go down to play music and make a little money, buy some food and come back, stay here all the time. In the spring we’d eat raspberries and kiss right in the hug of the branches, the stars shifting through the leaves like sparkles in a kaleidoscope. We’d wake up to a neighborhood of birds’ nests right outside and the world far away down below. Sometimes Charlie Bat and the tree spirits would come over for dinner—or to watch us eat dinner I guess. We’d hardly ever have to leave.
I pick up a dried leaf and an acorn, with its little beanie cap, lying on the tree house floor. I try to bend the leaf to make it into an elf’s coat for the acorn head but it crumbles in my hand. I look down throughcracked glass at the winter park, the scattered people with maybe nowhere else to be.
Everybody should have their own tree house. Maybe Angel Juan and I could help build houses in every tree. If the tree spirits wouldn’t mind. If I ever find Angel Juan again.
Someone is standing under the house looking up. Who wears white in New York City in the middle of winter except for maybe mannequins in store windows? All of a sudden I feel frosty, stiff and naked like a winter branch.
“Who’s that?” I whisper to Charlie.
“He doesn’t look like a tree spirit,” Charlie says.
I swing down the rope ladder into the lower branches to see better but the snow-colored-no-colored man has disappeared.
I feel Charlie behind me. “I think we should leave now,” he says.
On the way home Charlie stops in front of a glassed-in courtyard with a big twinkling tree, little tables underneath, heat lamps all around.
“What are those lights in the tree?” I ask.
“Fireflies.”
“Fireflies in New York City? They look like a whole lot of guys like you.”
“Let’s go in and eat,” says Charlie.
I don’t feel like eating. I want to pad around in a circle on the carpet at Charlie’s place like Tiki-Tee making his bed in the dirt and then I want to curl up there and sleep and sleep and have at least one dream about melting into Angel Juan. But I follow Charlie anyway. Maybe because Angel Juan and I used to eat samosas bursting peas and potatoes at an Indian restaurant in L.A. that looked like a camera on the outside. Maybe because of the fireflies.
I sit near a heat lamp that takes the cold ache out of my knobby spine. A man with incense-colored skin and a turban comes over. He has a liquid-butter voice. Ghee they call it on the menu he gives me.
Charlie tells me to order saffron-yellow vegetable curry with candy-glossy chutney, rice and lentil-bread. The food is so hot it scalds the taste
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