[this story also won honorable mention in Honolulu Magazine's short fiction contest, but for the year previous to Side A. Consider it as an alternate play on Willow's name.]
XII. “Willow Weep for Me” (SIDE B): Sleep Walker
“Sleepwalker, don't be shy
Now don't open your eyes tonight
You'll be the one that defends my life
While I'm dead asleep dreamin'...
Now, sleepwalker, what's my line
It's only a matter of time
Until I learn to open up my eyes
When I'm dead asleep dreamin'”
-The Wallflowers, “Sleepwalker”
The gibbous moon reigns unchallenged overhead, painting the world in sharp contrasts, like high noon in a black-and-white movie. I return to myself, my awareness a helium balloon gently pulled back by its tether, and find that I am carrying Willow, my six month old daughter, in the hammock-like pouch of a Sling-E-Zee. Before me lies my small, enclosed backyard, the compost a healthy black, the spreading stolons of Seashore Paspalum a hesitant grey. A lone tree in one corner of the yard hesitantly reaches its thin trunk towards the moon.
I’m here because I got into an argument with my wife. I wouldn’t say that I lost because technically, the argument wasn’t over when Willow started to cry. But I’m here, demonstrating who had the final say, who always gets the final say. As I left the bedroom, I heard my wife call out, “You don’t appreciate us!”
That stung.
I do appreciate and love my wife and daughter; in fact, I hold them to be dearer than life itself.
Appreciation, however, wasn’t the issue. It was something else. Maybe I was having a mid-life crisis (wasn’t that what they called any vague dissatisfactions experienced after the 20's?). I was feeling like I was floating, stuck, in "mid-error." I had tried to express this feeling, tried to tell my wife how I had begun to feel dead inside, as though an essential part of myself had been left behind and buried in the past. I had tried to explain by recalling how I’d been in my last years of high school, a rebellious loner with dreams bigger than all the ‘burbs of Mililani.
Where was that kid now?
Willow shifts about impatiently, as if on cue. “Okay, I know,” I murmur wearily. “You want a walk and a story, right?” Willow gazes up at me expectantly, her eyes twin stars in a vast constellation. “Let’s see, what story should I tell?” Perhaps it’s the moon or the recent argument, but my eyes wander north, to a place I haven’t been to in over a decade, a place I’m not certain still exists. And before I know it, my feet are walking and my mouth is talking.
“Someday, you’re going to ask me why we chose to name you Willow,” I begin, circling the house, and descending the front driveway. Suddenly, the sublime moonlit sky is obscured by the glaring orange of streetlamps. I follow the sidewalk north, passing the homes of sleeping neighbors. “There were a lot of objections to it, you know. Like your uncle Dean, he kept saying there was a movie with the same name, and the main character was a midget. Or your grandpa, he kept saying that you were going to be a crybaby, a ‘weeping willow.’”
I take a deep breath. “Well, we named you Willow at first because it sounded graceful in the book. We didn’t know anyone bad with that name; in fact, the only person I knew who had anything close was your great great grandmother. Her name was Riyu, which is Japanese for willow tree. And she was a wonderful lady.”
I pause at this point, perhaps for dramatic effect, or perhaps so I can place more distance between myself and my wife. In that brief period, I hear my words and footsteps return to me in distorted echoes. “But the truth is that I did have someone else in mind when I named you. Your mom doesn’t know this, but there was someone I sort of came across in high school. Her name was Riyu too. I called her Rue.”
The sidewalk passes from relative darkness to an unearthly orange glow in a slow metronome-like rhythm as I continue my walk. At this ungodly time of night, I find it’s easy for me to pass from narrating the story to actually reliving it in my mind. In fact, I can’t be sure whether parts of the tale actually pass through my lips, or remain hidden within me. It doesn’t really matter, of course, since Willow cannot understand me. All that really matters is that the drone of my words, combined with the rocking of my footsteps, lulls Willow to sleep.
The intrinsic significance of the story is mine alone.
***
On afternoons and weekends during my sophomore year, after my best friend Cliff moved away, I took to hiking to distract me from my feelings of isolation. I would pack a book and some food and a drink, and just wander off, trying to get myself lost. I went on increasingly far-ranging hikes that took me outside the borders of Mililani Town, into the pineapple fields and beyond. It was as though I were trying to get away from civilization, and the impossible task of fitting into it.
One afternoon, I walked north along Meheula Parkway, across the bridge that spanned the H-2, to where the asphalt ended in a culdesac, and a rusty gate beckoned. I crossed the gate without hesitation, and followed the red dirt pathway on its course towards the Koolau Mountains. There was a near undetectable slope to the path, and after walking about a mile or so in, I was able to turn around and see the entirety of Mililani stretch out below me. It looked small from this distance; I could cover it up with one single outstretched hand.
As I proceeded further, the path curved gently to the right. The endless rows of spiky-leaved pineapples grew less regimented, and California grass popped up within chinks in the ranks. After a while, the California grass was all that I could see on either side, their tall stalks and hairy bladed leaves obscuring my vision.
Without warning, I came upon a couple of squat cylindrical water tanks, surrounded by a chain link fence. The path ahead was choked off by California grass, so the only way to proceed was to follow the clearing that edged the fence. When I had passed nearly halfway around the periphery of the fence, I glimpsed something beyond a stand of California grass that gave me a start. I thought I saw the silhouette of a tombstone!
I tried to cross the grass quietly, leaning on stalks and leaves to bend them down into a manageable slope. As soon as I committed my weight upon it, however, I fell with a rustling crash. I rose clumsily, trying to reestablish my footing on the treacherous grass.
The sight before me stilled my movements, and my heart.
I stood about 20 feet from the edge of Kipapa Gulch. A near impenetrable wall of California grass blocked the view of the gulch to my left and right, but directly in front of me, I could glimpse it, like the glinting of an emerald sea.
The view was framed by the trunk and branches of a lone acacia koa tree. It had smooth grey bark, like elephant skin, with gnarled branches that grew wild in all directions. Crescent shaped leaves flowered in bunches on the branches, providing mottled, shifting shade. Tucked between a couple of arthritic roots was a torn out carseat (the “tombstone”).
I entered the shade of the tree to get a better view of the gulch. The ground fell away sharply just beyond the roots of the tree, in a dangerous, crumbling path of orange chalk-rock. To the side of the path, in a small chasm, was an old rusted van, face down, rear exposed to the sky. Kipapa Gulch opened ahead and to either side like a gaping wound.
I absently stroked the bark of the tree, as though trying to confirm its reality. My hand flinched as it discovered patterns in the texture. Graffiti tattooed and populated the bark in interspersed patches. Some were neatly done in straight lines like cuneiform, while others were wild and clumsy hacks into the bark. Marks for the sake of posterity: secret loves, secret hates, secret violence, secret perversions, secrets.
As I gingerly sat in the carseat, I discovered a near hidden section of graffiti done in the space between two knuckled roots. Unlike the others, it was done in minute, patient cuts, with edges that had been smoothed over by sandpaper. It read:
Weeping Willow tree, weep in sympathy,
Bend your branches down along the ground and cover me,
When the shadows fall, bend oh willow,
Bend oh willow and weep for me.
-Riyu
I knew where the words had come from. They were part of a song called “Willow Weep For Me” that I’d heard on the Oldies station (yes, at the time, I was rebelling against glam rock and pop music, and somehow along the way, discovered the appeal of “Old School”). I also happened to know that “Riyu” could mean “Willow Tree” in Japanese, because my great grandmother, Obaban, had that name.
I was instantly intrigued by this particular bit of graffiti. I wondered who Riyu was, and what had inspired her to patiently and painstakingly carve out those words. Had she lost a loved one, and come to this tree longing for solace? Did she eventually find it, or did she come here to end her life? I couldn’t help but think about her over and over in my head.
In fact, me being lonely myself, I sat back and imagined myself somehow returning to the past, to catch her sitting in this very chair, crying in a moment of vulnerability and grief. I imagined myself approaching her, consoling her, somehow getting her to stop crying, to smile even.
But as is the case with all daydreams and vague little hopes, I left the devil with the details, unable to think of what I’d actually, specifically, say.
***
I pause the story.
The only landmarks remaining from my high school days are the cylindrical water tanks. I am standing before them now. They look smaller somehow, divorced from the context that I once associated them with. Now, they sit on the edge of a wide, two-lane street. Behind the tanks, I see signs of construction: a black tarp fence, and beyond it, through holes cut for the wind, I catch glimpses of metal and wood. They are building a new section of Mililani Mauka there, I suppose.
If memory serves me correctly, that’s where we have to go. I follow the street bordering the tanks as far as I can, and then cross through a hole in the black tarp. Suddenly, I am in what one day will be someone’s backyard. A wood and aluminum frame of a house looms before me like a fleshless skeleton. Without walls, I think idly, the moonlight, the wind, and even Willow and I can pass straight through the house unchallenged. I could leave my footprints in the dust, or scrawl my name in some forgotten corner. There’s a feeling of omnipotence in that fact.
Of course, by the time the house is built and ready for new owners, any and all trace of our passing will have been erased or covered up.
It will have been as though we never were.
Willow stirs impatiently.
I continue my story.
***
Time passed, and I had less of it to spend on hiking up to the tree. My days were filled instead with “busy-ness”: studying to prepare for college, or working in the hardware department at Gems to earn some cash.
I don’t know what motivated me to go to the tree the final time. Perhaps I needed a breather from all the studying. Maybe I was just curious to see if it was still there. After all, I’d heard that they were going to begin construction of an entirely new section north of the H-2. It was going to be called Mililani Mauka.
I parked my car, the Blue Bomber (an old blue Mazda GLC), in the culdesac, and walked through the open gates. There was a bulldozer and a grader parked a little ways in. An omen, I thought silently.
The red dirt of the path seemed more packed than I had remembered, as though there had been a great deal of traffic of late. The pineapples, meanwhile, seemed neglected and forgotten. There was no regularity in their ranks. Weeds and California grass broke their lines like a barbarian horde.
The grass wall that guarded the tree was higher than usual, but I managed to cross it without too much effort. Before I realized it, I was there.
The tree was the same as it had ever been. I stroked a hand across its tattooed bark to be sure. I felt a strange sense of relief in its presence, as though it confirmed something within my past, and within my self.
I sat in the carseat, and propped my legs on one of the gnarled roots. I suppose I must have been tired, because it seemed as though I fell into a dream. I say ‘seemed’ because I couldn’t quite tell when the dream began.
But dream or no, it felt so real that I remember it even to this day.
In my dream, I was still sitting in the carseat. Across me, on a branch that dipped dangerously out over the steep crumbling path, sat Riyu. I don’t know how I knew it was her, but I did. It seemed as though I had known her for a long time, because I was in the midst of an easy conversation with her.
“Have you ever heard of a Will o’ the Wisp?” she asked.
I told her that I thought the trees at the Sumida Farm near Pearlridge were willows.
“No, no,” she corrected. “Not a willow tree. A Will o’ the Wisp. Also known as ‘Ignus Fatuus,’ or ‘Jask of the Lamp.’”
I shook my head no.
“The story was that there was some guy named Will. One day, the Devil climbed up a tree, to perch himself in wait for souls to catch. Unfortunately, like a cat, he found himself unable to come down again. So when Will came walking under the tree, the Devil begged him to help him out. Will agreed, but on one condition, that when he died, the Devil would not take his soul into Hell. The Devil reluctantly agreed.” Riyu smiled a strange smile.
“So what happened then?” I asked finally.
“Well, Will, imagining he had a ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ card, basically lived it up, sinning in every way possible. And when he finally died, he was so wicked that Heaven shut its gates in his face. He descended into the earth and tried to make his way into Hell, but per agreement, the Devil refused to take him in. So Will was condemned to wander the earth, a restless, doubly damned soul, barred from both Heaven and Hell. And sad and alone, he lit a wisp, a bundle of straw, to light his way.”
A silence fell between us.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
“No reason,” she said, smiling suddenly. And she continued the conversation on a completely different vein. “You know, your visits have made me happy here. Do you know why? It’s because you listen to me sing.”
I smiled in embarrassment.
“No, no, it’s true,” she said. “With you around, I feel my voice is stronger, clearer. I have more confidence.” She paused thoughtfully. “Confidence,” she repeated slowly. “Have you ever wondered about that word? How it means, on the one hand, something akin to courage, but on the other, it means to share a secret?” She smiled warmly at me. “I think that’s why I’m more confident, and why you are too. We share a secret, here in this secret place.”
A breeze cut through the gulch suddenly, rocking Riyu’s branch. She squealed, clinging to it with her knees and her hands. Then as fast as it had come, the breeze was gone. The branch steadied itself with an ominous creaking. Catching her breath, Riyu looked me straight in the eye. “One day, you’ll go away to distant places, trying to do important things. And when you return, you’ll find that everything has changed. You’ll try to come back home, back to this tree, but it won’t be here any longer. And you’ll wonder whether you’ve lost something irreplaceable.” Riyu’s seat wobbled slightly, and she cleared her throat. “Help me down, would you?”
I did so. Her hand, when I held it, was that of a shadow, cool and subtle.
Riyu stood beside me, nodded her thanks, smiled sadly. “The bad news is that yes, you will have lost something. But the good news is that when you accept that loss, you will understand my secret, the secret of confidence. And you’ll be able to sing with me.”
Riyu’s voice was unearthly, disembodied, genderless:
Weeping willow tree, weep in sympathy,
Bend your branches down along the ground and cover me,
When the shadows fall, bend oh willow,
Bend oh willow and weep for me.
When I woke, sitting in that same tombstone chair, I realized that the voice, weak and whispery, was my own.
***
Willow is sleeping. Her even snores and the odd angle of her head tell me so. I carefully adjust Willow’s head so that it curls up snugly within the confines of the Sling-E-Zee.
The tree is still here, but it won’t be much longer. It has been tagged for eventual removal by the landscapers. The carseat was probably hauled away a long time ago, along with the ruins of the abandoned van. The steep path below will likely be bulldozed to make the slope gentler and safer. Then, they’ll plant weedelia or goldencoin on it to hold everything in place.
This will probably be the last time I can take Willow here. Soon, walls will be put up, and people will be living in the lots I crossed to get here.
I stroke the bark of the tree, searching between the knuckled roots. Her graffiti is gone. The bark there is scorched gray, and there are abandoned crack pipes nearby.
I smile sadly, then carry Willow home.
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