Green

Common Green Darner by Lottie, flickr

Darius wanted to be covered in green. Darius wanted the world to be covered in green. But when he stood on the overpass to blanket his city in the unspooled ream of green sailcloth, he looked out over the cars and road and saw the ultra-long ribbon tossing in the wind as a dark shadow below and not as the inbreaking of something new.

In his younger years, his memories had been of a grey room where his mother left him to sit in his crib, to watch as the morning gave grey the fullness of grey’s being as the light burst in. And his mother, sad in her mask-face, could only hold him briefly to feed him and change his soiled clothes.

When Darius was older, the prop man smoking behind the theater downtown would listen to obsessions about covering the world in green. Every day, Green, as he was also known, rode into town on his banana bike with the green streamers. He rode to town in green polyester. He was an eleven-year-old living in the 90s but he looked like a short, skinny dancer at the disco tech without all the polish and strut. The energy for his mission would never allow it, the passion to show the world that what it needed was something deep and mysterious, the color of the forest the first time he met his father, the first time he learned to swish a line through the air and land a fly on the surface—plop!—and hope with each new bending arch of the line, the trees and grasses would grant him magic. On that day, he scored a Rainbow. On that day, he vowed to overcome grey and sadness. On that day, he said if his mother had to care for him, he would make life a color.

When they returned to the city after fishing, his Pops gave him a bike with a banana seat and long pole at the end of which he flew a brilliant green fish that winked on one side of its face. His Pops helped him learn how to ride and drove behind him as he biked all the way home where his mother stood in the drive shaking her head, her grey face refusing sun and brilliance, her frock hanging on her like a wilted petal, her sad ponytail dripping down her back, half-released itself from its stay, giving up on its own rebellion.

“Mom, I caught a Rainbow Trout,” said Darius, striding up and hugging her waist. “Mom, I have a banana bike, look. Mom, I’m going to help people see green. Mom, we have to go to the city.” On and on and on, and she remained in the spot they had found her on the drive, shaking her head at his father, blaming him for her son’s energy, blaming him for what the father inspired in the son, the father who would then walk away and leave them alone.

But that night, Darius was not unhappy with his mother for only serving everything grey and white for dinner, no peas, no green, no life, no color. He knew she couldn’t help it.

“Mom,” he said, placing a green mittened hand on hers, “I’m here to help you. We have a special mission. It’s only me and you now. But we can do it. I love you.”

And her mask broke and she cried and Darius got up and set the remainder of her hair free from its stay and he patted it, marveling at its softness. He hadn’t known a fish and a bicycle could have such powers and he hugged her neck until she quieted.

The next day on the way to school, he pestered her to stop by a fence where an old man always sat in a wheelchair. On the other side of the road from where the man sat was a pasture where a couple of horses grazed in a field. Darius had a handkerchief to give the man. He had only ever observed the man sitting there, his mouth agape though sometimes a woman came from the white building to take him back inside. He thought the man might have something to say.

“Last night, I had a dream about an old man who was proud,” he said to the man. “He kept saying my dust, my dust and he was upset about his legs.” Darius saw now that the man couldn’t talk though his mouth was wide open. He passed the hanky onto the wool blanket covering the old man’s lap though it was summer. “I think you should have this. It will be Father’s Day soon but I can’t remember.” Then returned to his mother, still in her long housecoat, waiting to drive him to school.

Years later, he would think about the dream and wonder if he had dreamed about the old man or someone else. On the day he stood on the overpass with yards and yards of green polyester sailcloth, trying to blanket the world, he felt the man might see him from space, if that was where he was now since he had probably left earth. And he felt sorry his father would not know of his feat with this massive green sheet. And he was sorry the prop man at the theater had to move away but was glad his parting gift was what he knew Darius had wanted: a massive ream of green. And Darius prayed for his mother, that she would stay strong through their mission, that she would wear the colorful clothes from the thrift shop where he worked so she could be happy. He prayed the shadow, created by the fabric, would turn green and spread and envelop the entire world, that the world would be redeemed, that people would see and feel how happy they were. And then a violent wind lifted him, but then it also brought the two ends of the cloth together and he held tight and the fabric billowed out like a sail and he was lifted up over the highway and over the worries of the dirty, dun-colored city.