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Forts & Guns is a short story about a certain kind of faith. It is both autobiographical (the activities and some thoughts are based on my childhood) and not autobiographical (the parents certainly aren’t modeled on my parents). Enjoy …

FORTS & GUNS

by Ranjit Singh Mathoda
created and copyright January 2, 1994

He was a kid’s worst fear: whipcord lean, hawk eyed, with a prominent nose and broad flat hands stained slightly with chalk. His clothes were rumpled, as if he slept in them, but he did not. His desk was always kept clean, except for the stack of quizzes and the apple.

Mother had told me, “Brian, give this to Father, you’re his favorite student,” offering the bright fruit. As she spoke her face grew long and withered; her hair grayed, her breasts sagged, and her bright smile glittered. “No.” I said and then fled. Leaving would get me in trouble but maybe someone would believe I hadn’t given it to him. What a horrible idea that would have been.

Mark Kimble, who everyone likes, thought it was me anyway. He got punished half way through the year for passing notes in class and hadn’t liked me since.

My Father never punished with his hands or a paddle; he was a linguist. He preferred to cut slowly with language, in shallow strokes, until the flesh was all but stripped away. Every time a note had been passed it was dropped in the locked drawer, forgotten by all. When enough had been collected, father fashioned them into examples. Each day, point out the noun, the verb.

Quiet Mark. Don’t snivel. Stay a moment after the bell. Let the class leave. “Son, wait for me outside, I have to talk to Mark.” Voices are raised. No, that sentence was not about you, it’s just an example. Hush, boy, it’s all right. Yes, yes, I forgive you.

When someone noticed a dark splotch on the apple’s taut red skin, where a worm had worked its way into the sweet white interior, we laughed nervously, and liked Mark more.

Father didn’t look sad at all. Just ignored the smiles and spoke about the fifty states or twelve colonies or something. He had a habit of gripping the chalk tightly and when he taught there was an edge of fury in his voice. Like a preacher, although he is an atheist, a good old God-hating atheist.

At lunch the apple was gone (someone said he ate it, and we thought that was clever and disgusting and somewhat grand). There was a twinge of guilt, sure, but I squashed it. You have to, in those situations.

~

“Guns tomorrow?” asked Charles McGuire, legs dangling out from the window as he fidgeted. He had a habit of shifting his weight forward as if he were just about ready to jump; it drove his mother mad. I could see the soles of Charlie’s shoes and his head between them. He seemed a mile up from the ground, even when I stood some distance from the side of his house. It was stupid to hang out like that, I thought, but brave too.

“Yeah, if you brin-”

“Don’t invite your brother,” he commanded. I frowned in annoyance, because he had interrupted me, and nodded. “Anything else?” He said it as if I had not begun to say something.

“Bring one for me,” I answered, forgiving him. He was my friend. Maybe he had not heard me, from up there, but I bet he had.

“Okay,” he said, and retracted his legs, going back into the room. Somehow I could smell his parents cooking. Charles’ parents thought cooking was something to be done together.

“Charlie!” I yelled, running up to the wall. He must have looked outside, then heard me push against the siding, in a vain effort to scale it. Sometimes I think I can. His head poked out over the window sill and I felt like I was gliding along the surface of the blue painted wall, with its boards laid against each other in a rippled pattern. Like climbing but better.

“Yeah?” His mouth moved nearly two seconds before the sound came. I laughed. It was clever.
“Can I come to dinner?”

He nodded, motioned for me to go to the front door, and disappeared. I ran and jumped to a stop on the concrete outside their front door. My heart pounded in its cage.

~

“We don’t see much of you, son,” Father said. His voice was tight and had a thin line of menace underneath it. Mother did not notice. She never does. I wondered what he wanted, not that I cared to find out.

“I was at Charles’ place.”

“That’s wonderful, but you should have called,” Mother interjected. She was like a well oiled clock. I could count on her to say the right things. I don’t know what would happen if I didn’t use Mother’s predictability. Probably all the wrong things would be said, and done.

“Did you say a prayer before eating?” Father said.

“Yes, Father,” I said with false exasperation. “I was only being polite.” My eyes flicked to my brother, who was being very silent. He knew Father wanted something. He was almost never silent. I asked Father, “Is there something you want to know?”

His eyes found my mother’s, perhaps wondering if she told, then bore down on me. If she shrugged I didn’t see it. My gaze lay on him. I was infinitely aware of where his hands were, of the small things.

He did not congratulate me on my detective work, just waited. My brother and mom made no motion to file out so he indicated I should sit. “Someone put a worm in that apple.”

My brother started laughing. It was very funny. I gave up, grinning as my mind, drunk on glee, started to race. Mom giggled, hiding her mouth with a demure hand. Father sported a sickly smile.

“I think it was Mark.” I said. I knew in the end, he’d want the answer. My mind was sober now, my smile devoured. I was being cowardly. I did not care all that much. My brother turned his laugh into a snicker, but he could afford to.

Father nodded, wisely, and then the thoughts began to gnaw at my composure.

“You’re not going to punish him for it, are you Dad? Not in front of the class?” He gave me a reproachful look. My monkey’s brain, screeched in endless fear.

“I don’t punish, I teach,” he said. I nodded, noncommittal. It was time to lick wounds.

~

Beating through the underbrush at break-neck speed is dangerous. It attracts attention. Frightens the birds. I crept across the forest ground, watching the clearing ahead through leaves turned crimson and gold by the naked sun. When I was no longer hidden by overlapping trunks I lay on the ground and inhaled the forest floor.

That’s what it felt like; I did my best to stifle a gasp. The air was rich with scents: moss and humus, mushrooms growing in dark loam near the roots of trees, patches of grass choked with dust … all that nature stuff was there with a vengeance. My eyes were watering so I crunched them shut and waited four heartbeats. Nearly two seconds. Leaves crackled as someone walked upon them.

“Shut up, Charles,” I whispered urgently. Then I realized it might be the Enemy, and twisted from being on my gut to resting on my back. The gun’s firm plastic seemed light in my hand, a chunk of wood was digging into my side. “Charlie?”

He slid from a tree twenty feet away, walking over a layer of leaves. I winced. Why hadn’t he gone around?

At least he slid to the ground and slithered up, snake like. “I haven’t heard them,” he told me, sliding past to look for the enemy. I moved closer to him and we waited. As soldiers we were masters of patience.

It was stifling hot but my mind was utterly cool. I gripped a grenade in one hand, feeling the texture of its surface, kneading it. We waited, so long that I was counting out of order. Something scuttled across my hand but when I looked it was gone. A shadow passed by, a bird circling. Once long ago I had envied its flight but now I thought of it with contempt. It had such a small brain. Ants had a hive intelligence; they could wage war, but birds were dumb.

I fired an imaginary shot at where it had been, then turned my attention back in time to see Kevin Daniels working his way across the clearing. It was hard not to laugh, watching someone try to hide as they moved over open ground.

We waited until he was nearly done, then threw the grenades. One of them, mine, landed at his feet, and didn’t burst. His eyes widened slightly, large and blue in a face that looked childish and naive. He was larger than us, rugged in his way, with sandy brown hair. All of us liked him because he was fearless. I liked him because he was predictable, utterly cool and respected me.

He started to pick up the balloon when the second hit to his side, and exploded. It caught him in a backlash of water colored blue and red. That is all there should be in life. Action and consequence.
He yelled, a fierce warrior cry, staggered in salute to the thrower, and then charged. Across the field five other cries came and then Daniels’ Entourage was upon us. Devoted followers, all about eight years old. Too young to trouble the veterans.

Charles and I were already moving. As they entered the safety of our side of the forest, seeking the cover of trees, we crossed the clearing, trying to get to where they had come from. Kevin followed; he was faster than his mob.

Swifter than Charlie too, so we lobbed two more precious grenades and opened fire, the color staining the air. Rivers of red and ochre and violet leapt magically from our guns. A finger caught on the trigger, and I let go in pain, then pressed again as the handle grew slick with leaking water. I held it carefully. I didn’t want any on me. I felt like the Wicked Witch of the East.

“You’re DEAD!” Cried Charles, but he said it in a wimp voice and Kevin Daniels ignored him, attacking with his black Uzi in hand and a wild look on his face. Daniels brushed a sleeve against his forehead as he came, and it was suddenly smudged with blue ink.

Charles and I split, and Daniels followed me, because I hadn’t said anything stupid and I challenged him with a grin. I dropped my gun and ran. I was a deer … no, a cheetah, devouring ground with long strides. Now was the time for reckless speed, for the blurred pace which I knew none could follow. My mind studied the slopes of ground, flickers of visual sensations, and placed feet upon semi-stable rocks and the roots of trees.

I heard Kevin pick up my gun, or rather Charles’ gun, for which I was thankful. It slowed Kevin down and the gun would have been hard to find, later.

“I’m the quickest,” he yelled, in challenge and then I heard him barging through the forest behind. He was! My shocked mind realized it despite my senses trying to make it not so. There was a strength in him that was not in me. He grunted and cursed at the exertion, but mostly he just closed the distance.
I turned in an arc, though that was dangerous. Spider and the fly, but which am I?

The trees were closer here, thorns and brush filled the space in between. I reached out to grab at the scab faced trunks, changing direction sharply as I threaded a path. Daniels didn’t use his hands; it did not work if you had not practiced it. After a while he tired of following my path and just ran straight at me. The first patch he ignored, and the second but the third snagged his clothing. I looked at him struggling, my sides shaking as my lungs fluttered inside.

“That was good,” he said suddenly still, and as he smiled I knew he meant it. He tossed the guns aside and slowly started to figure his way out of the vegetation’s embrace. I ran up beside him and picked up the plastic weapons. He looked me over, and shrugged. There were still piercers in his clothing, like thick black hairs. He scratched the back of his hand and for a moment I felt his pain. Then he was bending and I saw the balloon he had left, and it was too late to run. I started shooting, but he shrugged it off and tossed in one generous gesture.

He groaned as it bounced off me. “Over?” I asked. He nodded. “Next time we get some weaker balloons.”

I picked up the unbroken grenade then pointed a gun at him.

“I had to try,” he said by way of explanation, and we walked back, full of mutual respect.

~

There were times when Father was not dangerous. They came when he was doing something he liked. When he was reading literature. When he was baking bread. He liked freshly made Italian bread served with a strip of butter melting on it. He was making bread now.

“I won,” I said. He had been in the army, he knew how it felt to win. I showed him the swirls the colored water had left on my hand. My only wounds, self inflicted. Even those were not necessary if I could get my own water gun. I opened my mouth to speak.

He spoke first. “You could have gotten your shirt stained. How many times do have I to tell you to change into your old clothes first?” I looked at him in shock. He was supposed to be happy, baking bread.
Tension lay in the furrows of his brow, in the stretch of skin between my shoulder blades. I nodded as he talked, as if sad at myself, as if I saw the need to change with startling clarity. I never cried, it did not seem worth it. I thought he might want me to, but he would not respect me afterwards. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to get hit by the water.”

I realized how stupid those words were. His lips pressed together into a thin line and his broad hands were coated with flour.

“Where did you get the food coloring?” He asked. His voice was very calm.

~

They started the fortress without me. “Is Kevin home, Mrs. Daniels?” I could feel something was up.
“No,” she drawled, putting a hand over her brow. It was a bright Saturday morning and I could see time was passing slowly for her. “I think he’s over at Charles home.” Each word was separated by an eternity.

“Okay, Thanks,” I said swiftly, and then took off. They weren’t there, I had already checked.

When I found my friends they were behind the Wild’s place, or rather the fort was in the field behind Brad’s yard and they were rummaging through a construction site nearby. The “keep” was fashioned from scraps of ply board and beams of wood.

I greeted my friends, prepared to act angry that no one had called. Charles and Kevin never gave me the chance, competing with each other as they tried to show their rooms inside the fort. “Got space for a flashlight on these nails,” Kevin was saying after I had finished going over Charlie’s section.

I nodded, fidgeting with some dirt. Some stolen plastic wrapping snapped about loudly as the wind tugged at it. Kevin’s room was cramped. I looked at him.

“Want to help me start another one?”

“Brad will get mad,” Kevin replied. Charles popped his head through a hole cut in the board. His grin showed he was willing.

I looked at Kevin. “Well I have to add my section. We could just make that real strong and sort of shift over the center of the fort. But we’re gonna need real tools.”

They both grinned.

~

“Your dad wants you.”

I shook off my sense of drowsiness and pushed myself up, feeling Kevin’s words replay through my mind, a hard litany. I opened the trap door.

“Hi Father!” I said, very cheerful. He looked at me, hands on his hips. Behind him I could see Brad approaching. The Wild’s were very strong Christians. They had taught their son that everything action had a consequence and a reason, and he believed it. Sometimes I sat through his Sunday classes. It felt strange, believing.

“Hello Mr. Harkin,” said Charles. He was resting on the third crossbeam. At least I called it that.

Father nodded curtly and passed around the place. It was much improved over the original design, although he had not seen it before. The roof was made of the thick tar paper that the construction people use underneath shingles. We had nailed it into the boards and cut it in places, making trap doors. The backbone of the skeleton was three large beams which lay within a maze of boards. And the rooms were individualized. Mine had a shelf for binoculars, a slab of wood resting on two nails. Kevin’s had a picture of a girl.

“My mom says the construction people are going to take this apart,” Brad said. “They don’t like us taking their scrap. And she’s worried, along with all of your parents, that it’ll all collapse.”

Charles bent down, disappearing for a moment, then stood back up. “They can’t do that. Can they, Mr. Harkin?”

“When will you be coming home?” My Father said. I just looked at him. He took a step back so he could see it all comfortably. “Your parents feel it’s dangerous to leave standing, boys.”

I ducked inside, feeling the bright burning of the sun replaced by heat smothered shade. I hit my escape hatch, a board nailed on lightly, and then stood outside. “It won’t collapse. I made it.”

He followed me around as I explained how the place had been made. The way the center beams distributed the pressure. The reason for a crossbeam here and there. “If you remove these two and take out this board, all of which you can do from outside, you can collapse the place. If you don’t it just won’t go down.”

Charles and Brad were surprised at that.

“Is it dangerous, son?”

“Not really,” I said. This was my place, I felt its design whenever I stared at it too long. Sure I had to change things when the material did not fit, but I had adapted, using everything worth putting into the mix. I showed him how the self-destruct would require shoving a certain beam first at one angle, hopping it out of a notch, and then pushing it even harder.

There was the hallway too, connecting all the rooms but distinct. It could be reached through one side of the fort. A front entrance of sorts, but one that could always be closed off in emergencies.

“They’ll still want to tear it down,” Father said. His hand pressed down on one of my shoulders. I trembled. My skin was flushed, my mind burned with anger at the thought of the fortress being taken away. My dad’s touch felt cold as an ice cube slipped into a shirt. “Not for any reason, not because they mean to hurt you, not because they’re truly right. They’ve just come to believe it’s dangerous, and once someone’s got a belief facts don’t matter much. It’s the problem with religious people. Now you understand.”

I saw Brad looking unhappy at those words. He ran back to his house. His mother was sitting there drinking lemonade. I waved to Mrs. Wild, then turned to Charles. “Get everybody’s stuff out,” I told him.

A bird was on one part of the fortress, walking across the tar paper roof. The tar paper was studded with steel tacks: even rows of metallic squares too bright to look at on the matte background.

“Okay,” I answered my Father as Charlie got out. I removed a board and dropped both supports. Then I pushed the self-destruct one way then the other. It caught, somewhere inside. I jerked and the structure suddenly needed the best of surgeons. It sagged, bones removed. Charles kicked one wall and that did the rest. It creaked and then made a satisfying crash. The bird had fluttered away to find other places to walk upon, other shiny things to study.

“Let’s go,” I said. Father looked pleased. His hand was on my shoulder again and I suppose he was proud. Yes, that would be it. Intuition etched at my senses. My eyes had begun to water from thinking about what I had just done so I closed my eyes and let his hand guide me back home.

All the way back my mind mulled over his words. “They’ll have to tear it down. Not for any reason, not because they mean to hurt you, not because they’re truly right. They’ve just come to believe it’s dangerous, and once someone’s got a belief facts don’t matter much. It’s the problem with religious people. Now you understand.”

As we passed out of the heat I expected something to be revealed. It wasn’t, not until we were in the kitchen.

I turned to face him, and then opened my eyes. He was studying me, his legacy to the world, his hope.

Do you think I’m like you, I wanted to ask. Do you think I’m going to be like you? But I stayed silent.

In his hard features I saw a blind adoring faith. A faith far older than any other.

~ The End ~

You can find more of my stories at http://mathoda.com/stories.