Treehouse
By Jon Sindell
Copyright 2012 Jon Sindell
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The problem was, Darren wanted a treehouse.
He wanted a treehouse, and he wouldn't let go.
"But we'd have to ... mess up that beautiful tree!" said Kenneth in a thin reedy voice, with the grin that had reassured his son through eleven years of life: I'm your dad, I love you, and I want what's best for you.
But Darren perceived something strained in the grin, and cocked his head as the new pup did when you chattered like an excited chimp.
"Don’t you remember, pal? We bought this house so you could climb that great tree! Remember what you said, at the open house? You said, I'm gonna climb that tree and see the Pacific--like Nunez de Balboa!" Kenneth shook his head in proud disbelief at his son's precocious store of knowledge. "Nunez de Balboa. Or Columbus sighting the Bahamian shore! Or a pirate in the crow's nest, looking out for the Royal Navy," winding a pale doughy arm around Darren's neck in a piratical way. "Dare," he counseled, "you couldn't climb high enough to do any of those things if we buil--" he choked back the word built -- "if we put a treehouse down there where those limbs fork at the ... the--"
"Crotch," Darren sighed, frowning at the grass and grinding his toe demurely into it. Then the pup nipped his foot and his smile sprang back, and he chased Magellan into the massive hydrangeas with their pink and blue blooms that thrived in the deep shade beneath the oak tree. It was a marvelous tree, twenty-five feet high with a twenty-foot spread, and limbs enough for a multi-tiered village of treehouses.
"Hey, Dare," hollered Kenneth, "this grass is kind of high, doncha think? I'd better push that new mower over it, kinda show it who's boss, you know?" Kenneth strode purposefully into the two-car garage, which was half as large as the apartment they'd left behind in San Francisco, hoisted the mower with difficulty and supported it against the cushion of belly that strained against his Mind Matters tee, eschewing the easy course of rolling the mower into the yard so that he might show off his strength. Unfortunately the wheel banged into the door frame, and Kenneth stumbled awkwardly into the yard as the mower thudded onto the grass. "No harm," he grinned, "missed my toes completely. Guess I'd better wear workboots, huh? There’s a lesson for you, Dare--don't work in flip flops! A guy got his toe messed up big time once when a hammer dropped on his foot when he was wearing flip-flops.” He marveled at the prostrate mower as if it were a felled tiger. "Man,” he said. “That sucker must weigh thirty pounds."
To Dad, Darren was Borg-Boy. When new information was available for acquisition, he would rotate his head, widen the eyes which his father termed "information-admitting apertures," and download the data to his "blood-engorged hard drive" for processing and storage. Having processed the content of his father's cautionary advice, and having registered as well its awkward delivery for future decoding, he flopped onto the grass to wrestle the pup as his dad clomped upstairs to put sneakers on.
Kenneth blamed himself. A writer at an educational software firm who understood visual learning, he'd shared Stand By Me with Darren the night before to show him what boys were like in the Fifties, when Granpa was a boy. Sitting cross-legged on the living room floor during this inaugural Friday Night At The Movies--“our new tradition,” Dad had announced with pomp while passing out candies--Darren's aperture-eyes and o-ring mouth had gaped throughout as boys in white tees and cuffed jeans played chicken with trains, camped out in the woods, fired a gun for the sheer hell of it, ran for their lives from a junkyard dog, and, best of all, somehow, played cards, smoked, and hung out in a treehouse. "Granpa was the coolest kid ever!" Darren had said at the end of the film. "The number one awesomest man in the clan!" He'd perceived undefined pain in his dad's jagged smile, but as he saw no point in dwelling on matters he did not understand, he'd rushed to the computer to research treehouses.
He continued his research while Kenneth strained against the push mower, returning to the yard full of excitement.
"Showed that sucker who's boss," said Kenneth, standing in the center of the lawn with his hand resting on the handle of the mower like a soldier posing with his arm draped over a comrade’s shoulder. Darren mirrored his father’s proud smile, and Kenneth tossed two handfuls of grass high up into the air over both their heads like confetti.
"I found some plans for a treehouse," said Darren with a smile that rose high and pulled his father’s down low.
"That's great, Dare. But it's not just a question of building it, you know. Safety's the main thing, where my best friend's concerned. Do we even know if the tree can support all that weight? Do we know if its roots are alright? Or if the treehouse won't blow down in the wind? As you know, Dare, when the wind blows, the cradle will rock."
With the cool objectivity of an actuarial, Darren said: "Granpa can sell you insurance for that."
"He wouldn't sell us insurance, first off, and Dare, I don't care about money, I care about your everlovin' life and limb. And speaking of limbs, how do we even know if the branches are thick enough to support a treehouse?"
Darren didn't know, so he pivoted neatly and marched inside to sit down at the Mac with tortilla chips and a glass of Country Time lemonade which his mom called "homemade" with a wry, self-deprecating grin.
"Since when do we eat at the computer?" Kenneth asked Pam, who had nestled into the giant cloth-covered cushions of the beige couch.
"Since when do you care?" said Pam, flipping a card into an overturned sombrero from last weekend’s housewarming margarita party.
"The boy spends too much time on the computer," Kenneth declared with an Old World patriarchal air. Pam raised a brow at her technophile hubby, who added, "I mean, too much time when it's nice out like this. And school ends in two weeks. So if he’s gonna be on the computer, it needs to be for homework." Pam mewled like a randy cat at Kenneth's uncharacteristic forcefulness, and Kenneth puffed his big body up: "Darren. You need to go out now. We didn't spend our last dime on a house with a yard so you could be a couch potato on a gorgeous Saturday, son."
Darren appealed to his mom with a look, but Pam’s commitment to being off work on weekends encompassed parenting duties, so she just gave him a cool little smile and flipped another card at the hat. Darren knit thick brows which belonged to neither parent and poured his fake lemonade down the drain in protest of their tyranny, then marched out into the yard and sat cross-legged beneath the oak tree like a martyr. When his anger cooled he gazed up at the limbs like a structural engineer surveying a challenge.
Kenneth plopped down on the couch next to Pam. “Treehouse,” he said with a confidential grin implying that the word, or the concept, or both, were absurd. The pair twined their fingers and gazed at the home which they’d worked for ten years to buy--he for four years as an internet writer and six at the learning software firm, she as a chat-room moderator and then a college counselor. It was not an especially large home, but it seemed large due to its open floor plan and high ceiling, and the mellow blond wood which glowed in the light that filtered through the double glass-door and wraparound windows.
Darren marched straight to the Mac like a man on a mission.
"I thought I told you to spend time in the fresh air, Dare."
"You told me to do my homework," said Darren, secure in the rectitude of his position. He set himself down at the pinewood dining table in sight of his parents and lowered his head, and kept it lowered as he burrowed through his homework. Pam nuked mac-and-cheese and fr
ozen apple pie for dinner, and they watched a cooking show while they ate. It was dark when they finished, so Darren wasn't worried about being kicked out of doors when he seated himself before the computer to research treehouses.
"Eight inches, dad!"
Pam raised an amused brow at Kenneth, who loaded up a jowl-shaking, "What?"
"Eight inches," repeated Darren with a peevish tone that surprised all three. "The branches need to be at least eight inches thick to support a treehouse at four attachment points. We can measure it tomorrow, or we can go out now if we have a--"
"I'm not going out now," said Kenneth. He wrapped his arm around Pam's shoulders, and she, surprised, set her crossword down and snuggled up against hubby's warm, doughy flank. "It's Parent Time, Dare."
"I thought Parent Time was on--"
"And we're watching Nat Geo. It's about Roman engineering, Dare--the amazing aqueducts, this special waterproof concrete they developed for their bridges." He patted the sofa. "You should see it, tiger. You'll get some awesome ideas for those bridges you're building in Ancient Wonders II."
"It's Parent Time," sniffed Darren, and marched from the room.
The next day, Sunday, Mr. Dan, the Vietnamese gardener, stood in the center of the mown lawn with Kenneth.