WARNING: This is NOT the BEGINNING of “EVEREST & THE EXCEPTIONS.” To start at the beginning, go HERE.
It is a beautiful thing to be confident, strong, and able to get that song out of your head. At the moment, Everest Manning is none of these.
His cheek pressed against a drool-soaked pillow, Everest is rueing last night’s decision to select the radio option on his new alarm clock. At his own behest, the machine is now blaring some pop candy that beckons Everest, not only to wake, but to do so before he go-goes. He shuffles into motion across the cluttered bedroom - the only way to shut that annoyance down.
His bedsheet inadvertently wrapped around his left ankle, Everest plows a wide path through the ephemera scattered across his floor. He smacks the entire clock gingerly with his bandaged hand, accomplishing nothing. A-doo the jitterbug. What radio station would urge that thought at seven in the morning? He rips the cord from the wall and hurls the just-silenced box full-throttle into his closet. A satisfying kee-rack accompanies the scattering of pieces. This summons the first smile of the morning. Yet, music remains somewhere in Everest’s bedroom. Strange. A significantly better song, for certain - but not coming from the euthanized clock. Elsewhere, muffled - undeniably under his bed.
Awake now from the itch of curiosity, Everest stoops to the floor and begins to burrow through the anonymous necessities that live underneath his bed. As Everest excavates, the music is clearer now, closer.
Look out kid - they keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole, light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals. Try to avoid the scandals
A twang, a plea from a tenor - half singing, half speechifying. The hair stands on the back of Everest’s neck. He is sucker-punched by his reaction to the voice, the lyric - it feels like that exhilarating moment right before you wash down a packet of pop rocks by chugging a Coke. Everest digs further. Another muffled refrain.
Don't want to be a bum, you better chew gum
The pump don't work cause the vandals took the handles
A harmonica solo steals his breath. Something about the sound of a harmonica has always embedded the warmest sort of melancholy into Everest’s soul. And then, just as Everest wrestles the last armful of whatnots out into the light - the music stops. Frustrated, Everest plops the carnage onto his knotted bedsheet. The wrapped bandage holding the fingers of his right hand hostage makes the rummage awkward: a checklist of forgot-I-had-thats (Skeletor action figure, the liner notes from his Murmur cassette), and a few what-on-earths (colored pie pieces from Mother's trivia game, a ripped sticker that reads only …the Beef?), but nothing that should be able to play music. There is one of his brother Harrison’s metallic remote-controlled contraptions pieced together from Radio Shack parts - this one almost the shape of a silver metallic dog with thin, wiry rabbit ears. Almost.
Everest wonders if he can recall the melody and seizes his treasured Hohner harmonica. He fumbles with a few bars to no success. The moment is gone now. The exhilaration of the song dissipates. The numbness returns in full force. Adrenaline surrendering to a weak cough, Everest lays onto his floor, back of his hand wiping the beginnings of flopsweat from his forehead. A truly craptastic way to begin a birthday.
Everest doesn’t love these brief flirtations with intense feeling because they remind him of all he has lost through his daily treatments. He carefully reaches in-between his mattress and box springs and pulls out a single unmailed postcard. Nothing at all written on it. No message. Only pictures of the corn fields of Indiana. He presses his nose to it. It still smells like her. If there were hand-scribbled words, Father and Mother would have taken it away. Only Everest knows that this card is a gift from the coffee-skinned girl who somehow understood him at the rest stop in I-65. The most beautiful girl he has ever seen. He stares at it - remembering the brief encounter with her that brought on those intense feelings. Maybe right now, she is looking at the thing he gave her.
The bald canine-like robotic contraption emits garbled static, it’s eyes flickering with frustrated light. So, the song did come from this thing. It spits out more indiscernible noise, like the stutters of the car radio when you drive through the Deacon Street tunnel. Realizing he fell asleep in his Levi’s again, Everest puts the postcard in his back pocket and stares into the creature’s eyes. His brother’s craftsmanship is improving. This thing is a serious upgrade from the thingamajigs piling up in Harrison’s bedroom. Everest chucks it across the hall through the slightly ajar shadow between the jamb and his brother’s door, “Keep your science project in your own SPACE!” He synchronizes space in time with the metal creature clunking against something in the darkness. If Everest is going to have a rude awakening on his birthday, so is his twin.
Then - a twinge of pain. Everest places his thumb to his temple and presses hard. He should have known a migraine would come. The pain is always sharp and behind the right eye. Because he had that dream. Or it might be more accurate to say because he had the dream. There was only one. Most nights, nothing at all flew through Everest’s nocturnal brain. No subconscious fears or yearnings manifesting themselves as fantastical journeys. Most nights, Everest did not dream at all. Except on the rare occasion when he had that one dream. The only dream he ever had.
He is younger - perhaps twelve. He is startled from his bed by a growing rumble. He wanders the house with urgency, but as he moves, the floor tilts and sways. Young Everest maneuvers the room, bracing himself against both sides of an open doorway. The further he moves, the greater the rumble. As Everest arrives in the empty living room, he stands solid through the house while its contents continue to shake. There is one painting before him on the wall - a mass of dots in the sky above a field of corn. The mass troubles Everest, although he guesses it to be only a murder of crows. The rumbling stops. Startled by silence, Everest turns to look out the window. Outside, a blaze. The whole world is on fire.
Standing up quickly makes the headache worse and Everest turns his pockets out to see if he has any aspirin on hand. Nope. Only a wadded ball of receipts that turned into a paper stone in the washing machine and a coin with a hole drilled right through the center. Ornate on one side and the underbelly smooth. Everest trashes the receipts but repockets the coin for its sentimental value.
The recurrence of the dream troubles Everest. But, that isn’t the half of it. He has begun to see things again. Awake. In the real world. Things that couldn’t possibly be real. If they are real, the world as it believes itself to be is a great lie. Sometimes, Harrison beckons Everest when Mother and Father are asleep, “what sort of things do you see?” But, Everest will not speak of them. Everest knows that there is something different about him. Not a corruption, but perhaps a defect. He suspects that deep down, he is a bottled tornado - and he isn’t sure he wants to discover what will happen if the bottle is uncorked. This is why he told Mother about the dream. That was a mistake - because Father overheard the conversation and that is when the injections began.
The shots make the dream go away. The shots make everything go away. Everest stopped seeing strange things in the real world - but at a cost. Each shot dampens Everest. His thoughts dull, his imaginations sparse, his feelings rare. He struggles to search his brain for the right word. Easily frustrated from Everest’s stutters and fruitless stumbles, Harrison tends to correct his brother, “…metamorphic, Everest. The answer is sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. You KNOW that. Where’s your head?”
His Mother unintentionally projects her guilt every time she administers the daily injection. In those moments, if she says anything at all, it’s only four words, “for your own good,” but her eyes disagree with her mouth.
Mother is not exactly the most present of parental figures. Ever distracted, her love for her boys seems genuine but fueled by worry - each hug more of a smother. The only other affection when she presses a kiss to the boy’s cheek, leaving a perfect imprint of her Cover Girl fuchsia lipstick. She spends her evenings tiptoeing around Father’s mood swings and her days “scrapbooking” in her off-limits walk-in closet. Everest and Harrison have never actually seen proof of any scrapbooks and are therefore fairly certain the location is her not-so-secret booze stash. Everest cannot help but wonder if it is the administering of his shots that drives Mother to drink.
Father says “Imagination is fine in drips, but Everest is a loose firehose. Ergo, the shots.” Father actually says Ergo. Yeah. He’s that guy. The injections make Everest feel as if his head is perpetually in the center of a raincloud. The shots wipe away the troubling visions - and they had done away with that dream. Until last night.
Everest steps onto a damp section of the carpet near the window of his room. The insistent drip from a damaged roof that Father never seems to have the bandwidth to repair. Father doesn’t seem to have the bandwidth for a lot of things: driving lessons, homework help, a smile, a generous word, deodorant, empathy. Ergo, he’s an asshole. This wasn’t always the case. Everest has a few vague but fond memories of an engaged and kind Father - but there was a shift when the twins turned eleven and Father started working for Uncle Asthma. At least that’s what Harrison calls the man. His voice sounds like he is one Marlboro shy of a collapsed lung. Father now exists in a persistent cloud of annoyance, the only joy he seems to derive from life comes when Mother is asleep and Father watches Chuck McQuiver movies in the dark. In those moments, Everest can hear car chases and explosions from the hum of the television through the bedroom wall and his drunk Father muttering, “Nothing like a solid Chuck McQuiver matinee,” which is an odd thing for a grown man to say to himself in the middle of the night, especially with such sadness.
Until this moment, Everest hadn’t noticed the rhythmic light timpani of raindrops falling outside. He eases the curtains open and sees that it is indeed beginning to pour. Some might consider this a bad omen or at least a birthday disappointment. Not Everest. He prefers the October rain. On a practical level, the overcast makes the migraine more tolerable, but Everest also simply appreciates the heavens accomplishing something he can observe. To Everest, a downpour insists whatever is up beyond those clouds is either crying or taking a piss on us. Neither reflects well on what they see down here, but at least it’s engaged.
Everest glances at his digital calculator wristwatch. Seven-sixteen in the morning on Wednesday, October 29. Hard to believe 1985 is almost over. Time flies when your life sucks. He takes three large breaths. In the nose. Out the mouth. He attempts to be aware of his own body: head pounding, hand throbbing, stomach pangs requesting breakfast. He assesses the view of his backyard: a field of overgrown weeds and (an optimist might suggest) grass leading to a wooden fence that could collapse at any moment. Just past that fence, the condemned hotel that had been “scheduled for demolition” as far back as Everest could remember. The Grand Horizon. Everest picked this bedroom for the view. Not the current one. The one hoped for when the city finally tears that God-forsaken rat-trap into dust. Harrison scoffed at this choice, but Everest loves the slow-burn. Especially for his age, he has patience to brave the most precarious of times as long as a beautiful reveal awaits at the end. And when that building finally comes down - man oh man. A perfect view of the Tennessee sunset every single evening. A smile comes to Everest’s face as he envisions Harrison’s jealousy. Speaking of Harrison...
And if you say run, I’ll run with you
And if you say hide, we’ll hide!
Startled, Everest clutches his ears. Harrison also has a new clock radio. Of course. Neither he nor his brother tend to receive many gifts, but when they do, they are equal: one package, one card, two identical whatevers. As if being born at the same time makes you want the same things. Mother is the chief offender, making this mistake every year since the twins turned eleven and she gave them the leather bracelets. Nothing a preteen boy wants to wear less than a leather bracelet, but Mother made an effective and passive-aggressive case for why it would destroy her feelings if the boys ever took them off. Everest obliged, the bracelet never leaving his wrist until a week ago when he didn’t really have a choice. Harrison never even put his on.
This year, Mother gave them clock radios. Harrison clearly set his alarm at maximum volume. Of course he did. Harrison doesn’t struggle with extreme sensory input like Everest. It only takes an unexpected car honk to derail Everest for the morning while it takes a bulldozer in the room just to wake Harrison.
Because my love for you would BREAK my heart in TWO
If you should fall into my arms - and tremble like a FLOWER!
For the love. “TURN. IT. DOWN.” Like daggers to the ears. Just when Everest is ready to march into Harrison’s room and smack both the clock and his brother, the volume abates. Not silence. And Everest knows why - because the chorus isn’t finished and the singer is Bowie.
Let’s Dance. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues
To the song they’re playing on the radio.
And THEN Harrison turns the radio off. Everest’s twin brother Harrison is a connoisseur of music and he considers it good luck to wake up to David Bowie, Peter Gabriel, or a third one Everest forgets. Everest isn’t nearly as picky. He considers it good luck just to wake up without the migraine. The doing-away with the headaches (for the most part) is the one real benefit of the shots. Of course, there are side effects that Everest doesn’t mention.
Everest dare not complain of these side effects to Father. Father will give Everest that look. That look that says Would you rather have side effects or repeat what happened at the Fontaine?
The Fontaine is the local eatery Father insists upon when he has a banner day at the office. Everest and Harrison know nothing about Father’s office or what goings-on would mark a day there as banner. They know only that Father is sad when he leaves in the morning and angry when he gets home. One week ago, however - the day of the incident - Father came home pleasant and insisted on a special dinner to honor himself. Every Manning knows honoring Father means the Fontaine.
There was a violin in the corner as well as a man playing it. There were not-red-enough drapes and too-white tablecloths and a carpet with a pattern that was meant to disguise spills, but didn’t. The room held eleven round tables, but Everest could see from indentations in the carpet there were meant to be twelve. Even dampened, when entering a room, Everest noticed what his Father called “too much.” But, this day, Everest was not dampened.
That afternoon, just as Everest’s digital calculator watch alarm reminded him that it was five minutes until his daily treatment (a-deedle-a-deedle-a-dee it would ping irritatingly), Mother received a phone call that left her in a cold stare without speech or motion - the phone receiver dangling from her right hand adrift by her hip, the cord to the wall wrapped around her waist. Just as Everest began to ask what had happened, Father arrived craving the Fontaine. He asked Mother to dress fancy, which mostly meant putting on a floral scarf to cover the scars on her neck since the accident on their eleventh birthday and grabbing her ever-present Hermes Birkin handbag. Amid the interruption, the injection was forgotten. Everest had no intention of reminding his Mother, nor did he think it right to yank her out of her concern. But, without the shot, Everest’s racing mind could not resist cataloguing every detail. This would be problem enough even without Everest’s compulsion to whisper this minutia into Harrison’s ear.
“There are two plates of complimentary bread on seven tables and one complimentary plate of bread on four tables.”
“Everest,” Harrison quietly implored, “please stop that.”
“The gentleman at the ten o’clock table speaks the loudest because he is the most nervous and his date is sweating down the back of her blouse.”
“Everest,” Harrison continued, “Cut it out.”
“The server just ignored the three o’clock table on accident because she’s still thinking about ignoring the two o’clock table on purpose.”
“STOP IT.”
At that, Mother whirled toward them and whisper-screamed “BOYS.” Then she gave them a look and through her teeth the most frightening words on the planet, “your Father.” Everest and Harrison both flushed red, Everest out of panic and Harrison out of embarrassment.
But Harrison knew his brother well. Harrison turned and whispered with kindness, “no shot?” To which Everest nodded in agreement. Harrison continued, “Father will know if you don’t slow down. Remember the breathing? In the nose, out the mouth. Count to ten. Stare at a fixed point. If it’s all too much, squeeze my hand under the table.”
The reminder that one person on this planet truly understands him brought a seed of calm to Everest. He took the advice and settled himself as the hostess seated them outside on the veranda beside the fire pit (the coveted table that requires a reservation). Once seated, Everest closed his eyes and breathed with intention, interrupted only as his Father told the server, “I’ll take the large filet - medium rare - and I’ll tip big if you can get the boy here to stop breathing like a Sith Lord.” Everest opened his eyes and clutched Harrison’s hand. His gaze met Mother who was now realizing the injection she had forgotten. Everest could have sworn he saw beads of sweat forming at her hairline.
She interjected, too strongly, “You’re right, love. Everest isn’t well. I’ll take him home and you and Harrison…” Harrison spoke up, “NO.” But Father’s glare silenced all comers, “We will celebrate me tonight. I find it rather necessary.”
Everest knew above all he could not allow Father to notice. Everest would not be the only one punished. And when Father punished Mother, it was neither kind nor soft.
Stuck on his Mother’s wet eyes, Everest tamed his breathing to be more discreet. He eased his grip on Harrison’s almost bent fingers. He found a fixed point. A woman, stately, standing just outside the doorway leading back to the interior of the restaurant, her nostrils flared and her cold stare fixed down her nose at the seating hostess. Everest watched the woman intently as she squabbled with the hostess. The stately woman wore a severe hat and a mink stole wrapped around her shoulders. The kind of fur that hasn’t been fashionable for a decade but makes a statement of wealth. The hostess was attempting to keep the situation from becoming a situation as the stately woman stirred the pot, turning disappointment into accusation and with a look on her face that insisted something more troubling than impatience was brewing underneath. All the while, Everest’s eyes locked onto the fur around her shoulders. As it ruffled in the October breeze, it almost seemed…
And then, what happened at the Fontaine - happened.
Harrison emerges from the darkness of his bedroom, still whisper-singing Bowie. His hair appearing as if a sculptor dropped a clay head down a stairwell. “What,” he states to Everest as neither a question nor an exclamation. He just lets the word hang there. Everest, a light sleeper and early riser, forces a jolly “Happy fifteenth birthday, twin,” to which Harrison yawns “same” as his knuckles scrub sleep out of his eye corners.
Though identical, Everest and Harrison are separable. Not to say they don’t enjoy or exasperate one another. They do both - thoroughly. They are not the make of twin who finish one another’s sentences and date sisters. They are alike - but not exactly - and they are different in severe ways that take a jackhammer to their likenesses. Where many twins are puzzle pieces (what I have you need, what I need you have), Everest and Harrison are a set of refrigerator magnets (you repel me but we match).
“Something smells off,” Harrison tosses the words toward Everest with a yawned propulsion of halitosis.
Everest is quick to reply with Harrison’s language of choice, “I’ll say. When exactly did you eat a possum that died in a toilet?”
Harrison protests, “Wow. So harsh for a birthday greeting.”
Everest quickly shrinks, “Oh - sorry. I thought we were…”
to which Harrison parlays, “Ev. I’m messing with you.”
Harrison does this to Everest more often than Everest would care to admit. Harrison is quick - and people tell him he’s funny - which is the worst. Harrison is fiercely protective of his brother, defending his twin by severely tongue-lashing anyone who dares throw unkindness Everest’s way - but when it is only the two of them, it isn’t pleasant to be on the receiving end of jabs hurled well. “No,” Harrison continues, “I mean something smells off because I don’t smell bacon.”
A solid point, Everest just now registers that no breakfast aroma at all is coming from the kitchen. Mother is not a chef. The only dish she is adept at preparing well is a double gin-and-tonic, but their birthday is another story. There were very few wonderful things that Father allowed his sons to enjoy and bacon was an obvious non-starter: bad for you, takes too much of Mother’s time to prepare, the smell lingers past its welcome. But, on their birthday, an exception is made. Always. Only, this morning, it seems an exception has been made to the exception.
Everest is first to the kitchen because there is clearly no food and that is the only circumstance that would hasten Harrison. The room is vacant, save a small display on the table tucked into what mother calls the breakfast nook: a note and a cupcake. Harrison is first with the commentary, “Who gives twins one cupcake?” Everest picks up the note, in Mother’s hand-writing.
Errand with Father. Be back at five. Stay out of trouble.
“What does it say about the bacon?”
Everest is unsurprised by the singular track of Harrison’s mind. “They’re gone,” Everest says, stunned. Even with the daily slights to which the twins have grown accustomed, this is a fresh wound, “Back at five, I guess.”
“Really?!” Harrison replies too enthusiastically, “Now, that’s a gift.”
Everest grasps the card (and the cupcake, of course) and instinctively follows Harrison, who hurries to his own room, “Stay out of trouble? What kind of a birthday sentiment is that?”
Harrison begins to burrow into the mound of unwashed clothing in the corner of his room, “You know, if you stopped using words like sentiment, you might get a girlfriend. Ah!” The expulsion of discovery tells Everest that Harrison has found the item for which he is digging: his school backpack. Harrison removes his own shirt in a single fluid motion, reminding Everest of the other discrepancy between them. His twin, the bacon-eater who sleeps mornings away, is perfectly fit while Everest looks like he feels - soft, weak. Everest inadvertently backs into Harrison’s bag of baseball equipment. It tumbles to the floor with a clatter, bats rolling about.
Identical, my ass, Everest sighs with the unfairness of it all and seriously reconsiders the cupcake.
Harrison throws on a striped Izod Lacoste that appears to have been designed to perfectly accent his form and his fitted Atlanta Braves baseball cap. He always wears the baseball cap. He then begins to dump the backpack’s contents onto the floor: unsigned and crumpled detention slips, a couple of Harrison’s signature mix tapes, an unwrapped half-sandwich, two textbooks that have clearly never been cracked open, a notebook filled with his drawings, SO many Hubba Bubba wrappers.
Of course, this level of mess fits right into Harrison’s decor. His room is a veritable extravaganza of projects. From his scribbles of artwork taped across the walls to the dozen half-assembled, high-tech, remote-controlled robotic creatures. Everest’s brother’s room is a cornucopia of spare parts, cassette tapes, used batteries, unwashed clothes and dinner plates strewn about like a cyclone was invited to linger here. Solid proof that Harrison is a mastermind who never actually finishes anything.
Everest’s eyes begin to water at the stench, but he continues nevertheless, “Why wouldn’t they say ‘enjoy yourselves’ or anything really that isn’t infused with suspicion?”
His backpack now emptied of contents, Harrison keeps the conversation going without effort, “Infused? Just stick to words with letters you can count on one hand.”
Everest hardly hears him, “Is it too much to ask for a little kindness?”
Harrison stops mid-motion and meets Everest’s gaze with more than his usual attempt at empathy, “Everest, you’re talking about our parents. Of course It’s too much to ask.”
Noticing what Harrison is doing for the first time, Everest screws up the corner of his mouth like he does when Harrison is being Harrison, “Why are you dumping your school stuff out?”
Harrison stops dumb, staring at Everest as if a monkey is hanging from his jaw, “I’m packing everything we need to skip school and actually have a birthday.”
It takes a nanosecond for the thought to register. Everest feels the onslaught of anxiety, “You can’t be serious. Father will…"
Harrison interrupts, “What? What will Father do that will be any worse than what he always does?” He throws the mix tapes back into the pack along with snacks from a drawer and a fistful of cash he pulls out of a rotting gym sock that Mother and Father would never consider inspecting. “Might as well be brutalized for a bit of a joyride instead of for just existing,” Harrison urges with a hungry smile.
Everest protests, “You know we shouldn’t do this.”
But Harrison has his comeback loaded, “Which is exactly what makes it fun.”
The volley is interrupted by the intrusion of a voice, staggered and laden with static. Only a slight syllable here and there. Nothing that can be deciphered, but definitely someone trying to say something. The twins follow the sound to the device askew in the corner of the room: the canine-with-rabbit-ears robot that had been underneath Everest’s bed. It seems to be attempting to broadcast a signal, a garbled message coming from its tinny speakers.
Both boys are puzzled but Everest brings words to it, “Can you fix it?”
Harrison’s response: “How should I know?”
Everest follows up, “Well, it’s yours.” But, it isn’t.
Harrison, just as bewildered as his brother, has never seen this device before, “I didn’t build this one.”
Everest scans the room again, thoroughly confused, “But - it looks just like…"
Harrison interrupts, “Yeah, I picked up on that. Maybe it’s a birthday present.”
Everest screws his face up, “Underneath my bed?”
One distinct word emerges from amid the otherwise indiscernible white noise of the creature: Warning. The twins lock eyes.
Everest is perplexed, “Did that thing just say Warning?”
Harrison musters a mischievous smile, “And this is what we’ll be doing today.”
They work their way through the woods toward Franklin’s historic district. Technically a shortcut, Everest is frustrated by this route’s brambles and puddles, but he knows they can’t risk being seen on the main road while they should be in school.
“It’s like you’ve never hiked through these woods, Everest.”
“Exactly. Because I’ve never hiked through these woods.”
“Come on. I haven’t brought you down here?”
“Brought me down here? When have you had time or permission to be down here yourself?”
“Well, one makes time and evades permission for the things that are important.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“For one thing, baseball practice isn’t really three hours. I spend half of that time down here.”
“Why? What’s down here?”
“I’ll show you.”
Harrison ushers Everest through three waves of thickets, a precisely Harrison-sized crawl hole pocket-knifed out of each. They clearly were not designed for Everest’s slightly larger and significantly less bendy frame. Of course, Harrison maneuvers them perfectly. His Braves cap doesn’t even fall off. Everest, on the other hand, scratches his arms up and catches his Garbage Pail Kids t-shirt. Not a tear, but close. He cruds up everything he is wearing while sliding against the earth to maneuver the tangle. After the third mess, they emerge in a clearing.
It is stunning. Harrison has cleared out the overgrowth so that this circle of Autumn Blaze Red Maples sprinkled with Gold Ginkgoes feels almost otherworldly, hidden away and visible only by the momentary sun breaking through the overcast and streaming through the foliage above. The contrast of the startling burst of orange leaves and the Ginkgo golds takes Everest’s breath away, “What is all this?”
Harrison smiles, “Follow me. And - don’t be mad.”
The thought of Harrison micromanaging Everest’s anger makes Everest angry.
Within the dense foliage of the circle, an enormous Maple tree stands as a centerpiece - towering up to the overhang. Everest recognizes immediately that where the Blaze Reds and Gold Ginkgoes seem to have been intentionally planted here some three years ago into their particular positions, this stately tree must be the reason why. It has clearly been here for more than a hundred years, “Did you - did you make all of this?”
“I planted the smaller trees, yes - and then I built this.”
Everest immediately recognizes that this is the grandfather of all treehouses. The weathering and discoloring of the wood reveals that it was erected one beam-at-a-time over what must have been several years. Blocks secured into the base of the Maple allow one to shimmy up while grasping a knotted rope. It is at least three levels high, both surrounding and embedded within the branches and trunk of the stately tree. Illuminated lights hang gorgeously from the branches and Everest has no idea where the electricity is coming from. Of all of the genius constructs Everest has seen Harrison build, this is the pièce de résistance. Everest realizes his mouth is hanging open, “How did you do this? WHEN did you do this?! Mother and Father never let us out!”
“Very slowly,” Harrison confirms, “They let us out for school requirements. So, I lied or exaggerated about a lot of school requirements.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think? To have a secret place of my own - where the thought police weren’t breathing down my neck, micromanaging every freaking thing I do.”
“I mean - why didn’t you ever bring me?”
This is clearly why it has taken Harrison this long to reveal his secret to Everest, “Ev - you know you can’t keep a secret.”
“So, you’ve just been out here building your little oasis - leaving me alone with them.”
“Don’t make it into that, Ev. We’re here now. Together.”
Everest sighs.
“Come look inside.”
If Everest thought Harrison’s bedroom was a trashed museum of projects, this utopia is his museum of ideas. The inside is surprisingly comfortable with layers of tarp protecting the abode from moisture while a pulley system releases trap windows that allow the light in, even on this overcast day. There are white Christmas lights hanging and drooping, illuminating the space.
“How did you do that?” Everest motions to the lights.
“My pal at Radio Shack showed me how to rig a battery that charges up from - get this - solar thermal energy!”
“No freaking way. Your battery is the sun?”
“I’ve got three of ‘em secured to the top of the tree. Isn’t that insane?”
The lawn furniture that Mother and Father discarded two years ago for upgrades now call this space home. In fact, Everest recognizes all sorts of items and accoutrements that were once the decor of the Manning household. Above all, it makes Everest realize how frequently Mother and Father buy a new thing when the item they intend to replace still works just fine.
“Why is it more comfortable in here than it is outside?”
“I swiped some insulation from a construction site and built it into these walls. It holds the warm or the cool in just perfect.”
Everest finds himself amazed at his brother’s skillset while dismayed at his own. It never dawned on Everest to attempt something like this - much less muster the ability and tenacity to achieve it, “It’s - it’s crazy awesome, Harrison.” Still downcast, “I just wish we could have shared something like this at home.”
“Come on, Ev. That building is just a house. It will never be our home. Not really. Not like this place could be.”
Everest looks about and smiles, “I do like the thought of that.”
Everest rummages through the piles of stuff. Underneath Mad magazines, he finds Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and Something Wicked this Way Comes, the latest Rolling Stone with Spielberg on the cover as well as the Live Aid issue from back in August and the U2 cover from March (they are, after all, one of Harrison’s absolute favorites). Buried within the pile are The Catcher in the Rye, Lois Lawry’s The Giver and even some Aldous Huxley. They are all tattered, notes in the margins. Everest lifts a Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and cocks a suspicious eyebrow at his brother.
“What can I say?” Harrison turns red, “Paulina Porizkova, right? Ric Ocasek is a lucky man.”
Everest surveys the small library, “I’ve never really seen you read.”
“Well, these are novels of ideas, Everest - and Mother and Father don’t like for us to have our own ideas. Better for them to assume I’m not interested.”
Everest says nothing, his silence corroborating the truth.
Everest paces the room, his eyes lingering over every drawing Harrison has hung upon the walls. They are aged to different degrees, some browning and curling at the edges with ink running, others crisp and as colorful as if Harrison sketched them yesterday. All hand-drawn. Everest had admired Harrison’s artistic ability when it came to the designs he whipped up for his anthropomorphic inventions, but he had never seen Harrison put the ability to use with sentiment or emotion. These drawings are all the equivalent of crude photographs, capturing a moment in time between two boys. There is a catch in Everest’s throat, “Are these - you and me?”
Embarrassed, Harrison stumbles over his explanation, “Oh - they’re - it’s just a - just a thing.”
Everest lingers more closely. He begins to recognize the moments in question captured within each image, “Am I the red boy?”
“Yeah. You know, we look so similar, it’s easier to just make you red and me blue.”
“Our favorite colors.”
“Or at least the colors of the clothes they always give us. I don’t know that I chose blue as much as it was assigned to me.”
“Isn’t that what a favorite color is?”
The images aren’t world class, but they aren’t half bad either. Everest had never thought of his twin as sentimental, especially toward Everest. There are moments here that Everest has embedded within his memory. The red boy and the blue boy rolling down a grassy hill as their harried Father scurries to change a flat tire on the side of the road. The red boy and the blue boy gathering a crowd as they bang uninvited on a piano inside the department store where Mother attempts to return a blender. Setting off firecrackers underneath the porch while Mother and Father meet with Uncle Asthma above them (they had to call the fire department for that one). An eleven-year-old red boy and blue boy crying together on the red boy’s bed the night they barely survived the car accident.
“Wow,” Everest muses, “You really captured everything, didn’t you?”
“They never take pictures.”
“Huh?”
“Mother and Father never take photos of anything. It’s like they don’t want us to remember. Drawing these makes sure that I don’t forget.”
“There are a lot of moments here that I haven’t thought about in a long time.”
Harrison and Everest stand side-by-side, laughing when an image urges the response, and remaining silent when the reality of the drawing is more unpleasantly true.
Everest scrunches his nose, “I can’t tell what this one is supposed to be.”
“That’s the hospital when I was thirteen. Remember? I broke my shoulder playing baseball.”
“Why am I just sitting there?”
“You’re not just sitting there. You’re asleep.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“No. That’s the memory, Everest. Mother and Father went back to their meetings, but you refused to leave me. They all fought you on it. The doctors, too. But, you threw a fit like I’ve never seen you do before or since. You ended up sitting there beside my bed all night long, just because I was in pain. You were so emotionally depleted, you fell asleep.”
“I - I honestly don’t remember that.”
“I know.” Harrison sighs, “That’s exactly why I drew the picture.”
Everest stares at the image for another moment before turning and looking Harrison in the eyes, “You didn’t really break your shoulder in baseball, did you?”
Harrison remains silent for a few moments before answering, “No. But I don’t think I’ll draw a picture about that.”
Everest kicks a small cubby door open that leads to another area, “What’s this?” As he crawls in, he discovers padding and pillows and cassette tapes lining the walls. A Toshiba RT-7055 Double Cassette Boom Box sits comfortably at the far end with an enormous stack of unused batteries at the ready, “Oh my God. This is where you make the mixtapes!”
“Did you not even wonder…”
“I just assumed it was somewhere underneath that mess in your room.”
“Like Mother would allow any of this.”
Now that Everest thinks about it, there is zero chance Mother would permit this library of ideas: from antiestablishment sentiments to flat out rock rebellion, the walls of the space are lined with the genius of Talking Heads and Depeche Mode, New Order and The Smiths, Madonna and Prince and Sting and Bono. Simple Minds and Duran Duran and Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac. Paul Simon and Don Henley and The Fixx and, of course, every Bowie cassette from his 1969 solo debut to 1984’s Tonight. And - wait. What’s this? Howard Jones?
“Brother,” Harrison pleads, almost offended, “HoJo is a genius. Breaking ground in music and technology.”
“Things Can Only Get Better? Really?”
“I believe it was Socrates who said no band should be judged by their biggest hit.”
“Yes. Spoken like a true student of Plato.”
“He was, of course, referring to Rick Springfield at the time.”
“Yet another philosophical ideal birthed out of one of the actors from General Hospital.”
“Although, you know: ‘Love Somebody,’ ‘Human Touch,’ ‘Jessie’s Girl.’ The Rickster can write a mean hook. Here, you need to give Howard Jones another chance.” Harrison smashes play on the left-side cassette. A soft high-hat and bass drum ease in to what sounds to Everest like electronic pan flutes, “This is ‘Hide and Seek’ from Human’s Lib. It’s epic and powerful.”
Everest punches the stop button, “Yeah, it’s elevator crap. What’s in the other deck?” Everest presses play to hear the inimitable guitar work of Tim Farriss on INXS’ “Don’t Change” from Shabooh Shoobah, “Nice!”
Harrison quickly presses pause, “Shh! Can’t let anybody hear us. Headphones, Ev.” Harrison puts his Braves cap on backward as he detaches one ear from his headset and allows each of the two to press one side against their individual ear. They lay on their backs as Everest notices the skylight above framed by tree branches with a view of the clouds passing. It is as close to euphoria as Everest can risk imagining.
I’m standing here on the ground.
The sky above won’t fall down.
See no evil in all directions.
Resolution of happiness.
Things have been dark for too long.
Don’t change for you.
Don’t change a thing - for me.
Hanging to Everest’s immediate left is Harrison’s newest piece of art. It takes Everest a full verse of the song to register what he is seeing. In the image, the blue boy is pulling the red boy away from a fire pit, rescuing him.
Everest is taken aback. He rips the headphone off, “You drew a picture of what happened at the Fontaine?”
Unflinching, Harrison continues to lay back, eyes closed, “Everest - we can’t only make sure we remember the good stuff.”
Tentative, Everest lingers on the image. The red boy cradles his burnt arm.
Everest then leans back, opting to lose himself in the song. Michael Hutchence’s stunning vocal moves the narrative forward - as melancholy rock tends to do - into the darker edges of its chosen territory. Everest closes his eyes and soaks it in.
Execution of bitterness.
Message received loud and clear.
Don’t change for you.
Don’t change a thing - for me.
Next: Read "EVEREST & THE EXCEPTIONS" Chapter Two PREVIEW: the horrific and thrilling continuation of Mark Steele’s upcoming fictional novel coming in October 2024.