1.

As a mixture of stratus and overweight cumulus clouds bellowed vigorously across the azure sky, a slight wind too strong to be deemed a breeze rustled quietly throughout the endless field of amber grass.

            Royer slowed to catch his breath and once again measure the distance to his final destination. The cold November air set his throat on fire, making him wonder why he felt so out of shape. After all, as the starting wide receiver for Westview High, this ascent seemed insignificant compared with the rituals of fall training, which included a three-mile run before breakfast, two hours of drills, calisthenics and wind springs in full gear, and an hour of weights and sit-ups before bed.

            “I’m too in shape to be conquered by this hill. After all, I’m not climbing Mount Everest, just a goddamn hill, to reach a field I’ve never seen before but know will be there, just like I know that Man will be there waiting for me,” he said out loud with a nervous giggle, fearing that he’d finally lost it.

            Where he was going, when he started this journey, and who this Man was—these were questions he dared not ask himself. Not only did they seem inconsequential, but whenever he stated to think about any of them he would get a weird spaced out feeling like he used to get when he was younger. And he absolutely hated that feeling. It made him feel out of control, like the guys would get at the victory parties. He never would sink to their level of drunkenness, their doped-up stupors. Instead he would just sip on his one beer, usually a Coors Light, and sit in the corner and watch how stupid they acted.

            He never felt superior or more righteous than those who indulged, just different. For some reason he needed to have total command of his thoughts, and drinking too much made his mind feel like mush, as if someone had shot a needle full of Novocain into his brain.

            The two times he experimented with pot, to try and fit in with his friends, his thought patterns were so erratic, he became utterly petrified, making him wonder how anyone would enjoy that feeling of not knowing what the hell they were doing, not even knowing what they were thinking about.

            So to avoid that feeling, he ignored the gnawing questions that had plagued him since he started this journey, and continued forward.

            “I must go on, he’s waiting for me,” he repeated over and over, more to keep his mind from wandering than to stop the sharp pain that was stabbing under his ribs.

                                    2.

Although only a freshman at Westview, Royer made the varsity team the first day Coach Evans saw him at tryouts. He never thought he was picked for the mere fact that he didn’t drop one pass, and he knew there were some hard ones. He thought it had more to do with the fact that the coach could see he was a hard-driven, determined, never-let-you-down type of player. Evans would look over at Royer every now and then down on practice field two, where most of the new guys were going through various drills with Assistant Coach Johnson, and Royer could see in his eyes that he was interested. So it was no surprise when he the coach called him up to field one to run some patterns with Johnny Walker, their all-state QB, and some of the other starters.

            “What’s your name, kid?” Evans asked as Royer jogged up the hill.

            “Brown, Royer Brown,” he answered.

            “Haven’t seen you around. This your first year at Westview?”

            “Yes, sir.”

            “Well, let’s see what you can do. Did you pick up any of the patterns Coach Johnson was demonstrating?”

            “Just what he showed us, nothing too difficult yet,” Royer replied.

            “Good, go get your plays from Johnny and show me what you got.”

            The first few calls were a combination of some simple post, quick-out, and hook patterns. Royer knew he had some speed on Lenny White, the senior cornerback assigned to cover him, so he could get open fairly quickly, making his receptions look relevantly easy. But after five or six of those plays, he could sense the coach wanted to see more. He wasn’t surprised to see him call Johnny over for a sideline conference.

            “The kid’s quick and knows how to catch, but I want to see him under pressure.”

            “Whatchya got in mind?” Johnny asked.

            “Call another quick out and hit him high and hard to his left.”

            “You got it. I’m gonna put this shit-nosed frosh in his place.”

            When Johnny came back to the line he gave Royer the play. Royer could tell by the smile on Johnny’s face that he was in for some junk, but he wasn’t sure what it would be.

             Lenny looked Royer in the eye as he lined up in front of him and warned, “No way in hell you’re gonna get by me this time.”

            But when Johnny snapped the ball, Royer faked right, so good that as he was heading toward the mark he could see Lenny where he left him, a stunned look on his face. Hitting the mark wide open, Royer looked up to see the ball bulleting at a phenomenal speed over his left shoulder. With no time to react, he leapt backward as if he were doing a back flip, reached out, and caught the ball with one hand. He surprised himself more than anybody else, but he played it cool as Lenny trotted over, mouth open in shock.

            “Holy shit, man, you got Velcro for hands or what?”

            As the coach came over to help him up, Royer could see a smile on his face, and he knew he did well.

            “All right kid, that’s enough for today.” Evans held out his hand to Royer, who was still lying on his back.

            “I can do more, sir. I’ll be more ready for the next one, I promise.”

            “No, that’s it for today.” He lifted Royer's wiry frame to his feet. “Just one more thing,” Royer heard him say as he walked to the sideline.

            “Yes, sir?”

            “You better stop calling me ‘sir’ and start calling me ‘Coach’ if you‘re going to be starting on the varsity team next month, Velcro.”

            “Yes, sir…uh …Coach,” Royer exclaimed with a smile. The coach and Lenny laughed heartily, and Royer soon joined in. And from that day on Royer was known as Velcro to everybody but his mother.

3.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Royer blurted out as he approached the man.

            “No needs for apologies,” he replied. “Besides, ’twas me who was forced to beckoned you prematurely.”

            “I’m a little confused about what’s going on here. Where am I? Who are you? What’s this all about, why…” Royer stopped mid-sentence when he noticed the man’s index finger resting on puckered lips—the universal shhhh sign.

            “You need not ask what you already know,” he replied without the slightest sound of impatience in his voice.

            “Know!” Royer echoed angrily. “Right now I don’t know shit!”

            The man’s faced remained calm.

            “Why is it that you deny your special gift, little Roy?” he asked.

            “What gift?” Royer replied a little more softly. He was starting to feel foolish for reacting the way he did.

            “Your gift of knowing.”

            “I still don’t follow.”

            “You hate to be confused because it makes you feel strange, almost light-headed or high.”        

             “Yeah, I guess so.”

            “The euphoria comes from tapping into true essence of Life and knowing without a doubt everything there is to know .”

            “No it isn’t, I get weird thoughts when I feel that way.”

            “Why do you think your thoughts are weird?” the man asked.

            “Because nobody else thinks like that. Those thoughts are wrong.”

            “Does being special, or gifted with “the Know,” make it wrong?”

            “Still not following.” Royer answered, although he thought he was starting to see where this was heading.

            “The world is full of misguided religion and science to supply easy-to-understand answers and comfort those who worry about what they cannot conceive,” the man went on.

            “What?”

            “Do you believe in God, little Roy?”

            “Not exactly. And why do you keep calling me ‘little Roy’?”

            “What do you mean, not exactly?” He ignored Royer’s question.

            “Well, I believe there is a force that helps keep everything in place, but not one man or spirit controlling everyone’s life. I mean, there seems to be something responsible for why and how things happen, but I don’t want to rely on a the concept of an almighty spirit to answer all my questions.”

            “Go on,” the strange man urged.

            “It’s like paganism.”

            “Paganism?”

            “Yeah, thousands of years ago, people didn’t know why it rained, snowed, or even got hot. So they made up a god for everything, like a ‘sun god,’ ‘rain god,’ and so on. As science explained how each of these things worked, each individual god was eliminated. But now people believe in one who’s got to answer all their questions.”

            “And what questions are those?’

            “Mainly life, death, and fate. People can’t conceive of nothing happening after death, so they rely on the concepts of Heaven and Hell to help guide them through their lives and make living purposeful.”

            “And your views on life and death?” the Man asked.

            “Well, I can’t explain, because I don’t know. I don’t want to use a metaphor like a god or a heaven to justify in my own mind what’s out there because I feel I limit myself to the metaphor that I created.”

            “This is why you have ‘the Know.’”

            “I just said I don’t know, weren’t you listening?” Royer challenged.

            “I was, as always, little Roy, but it seems you need to practice listening to what you say.”

            “You mean that since I don’t know why things are and since I don’t pretend to know why things are that I do know why things are?” he asked.

            “Sort of,” the man replied. “Everyone knows the answers. Life is just about rediscovering those answers for yourself. And those who are not gifted as you prohibit themselves from the discovery.”

            “So have you rediscovered all the answers?’ Royer asked.

            “Lets just say I’m a lot closer and a little further than you are at this particular moment.”

            “What do you mean a little further?” Royer prodded.

            “It was nice getting together with you, little Roy. I look forward to our next meeting.”

            “What do you mean, are you leaving? I don’t even know your name.”

            “You can call me Arby if you wish.”

4.

“…Royer. Royer wake up. You’ll be late for school.”

            Royer opened his eyes to see his mother standing over him. The new morning light flooded her face, and he could see that the lines under her eyes and cheeks that first appeared after his father’s death three years ago were getting deeper.

            “A dream? Couldn’t be,” he muttered to himself, wondering how a dream could seem so real that he could feel pain and the cold, wet ground he sat upon.

            “What did you say, dear?”

            “Nothing.”

            “You better get a move on, champ. You slept through your alarm.”

            “OK, I’ll meet you downstairs.” He was still stewing over how real that dream was. But the more he thought about it, the more the dream faded from his memory, until finally it was only a dream again.

5.

Friday practices before a game were only an hour long—usually just half an hour of drills and a short meeting to go over strategies. Afterward it was tradition for some of the starters to meet at Frank’s for a pie and some Cokes.

            But today, Royer just couldn’t deal with going out with the guys. All day long his mind had been cluttered with a ton of thoughts ranging from that weird dream to a constant barrage of memories about his father. He wondered about the connection, and who this Arby guy was. Although he thought Arby looked a little like his father, he didn’t think he acted or sounded like him at all. He didn’t think that the dream was disguising his father, like in a soap opera when an actor leaves and instead of killing off the character they just get a new person to take his place.

            This dream was different. It never crossed his mind for a second that Arby was his father. But he couldn’t stop wondering who this man was and why he had “beckoned” him like he did.

            Royer stopped to clear his mind. He hated to think like this. It would be great to just sit back and free his mind at the “thinking spot” he had when he was eleven. He remembered the spot well. Nobody he knew ever understood why he would spend so much time there alone just thinking. Thinking about things that he couldn’t tell anybody, because nobody understood. Nobody but his father. He remembered a time once, when he couldn’t sleep, that he heard his mother and father talking in the den.

            “I just think he should be spending more time with his friends,” she said.

            “Let him be, he’s fine.”

            “It’s not normal for a young boy to spend the whole day wandering around in the mountains by himself. What the hell does he do up there anyway?”

            “He’s just thinking, philosophizing, contemplating life and its little mysteries.”

            “Philosophizing. For god’s sake, Jay, he’s only a boy. Boys his age are supposed to play with other boys, not sit by themselves and contemplate life and death. It scares me, scares me bad.”

            Roy had crept out of his room and continued eavesdropping from the top of the stairs. He could see his mother pacing back and forth. His father remained calm.

            “I think we should get him some help,” she finally said. “Someone he can talk to.”

            “A shrink? What are you talking about, Kate?” Jay exclaimed.

            “Not a shrink. Just a counselor, someone he can talk to. There’s this fellow Judy Katz told me about who’s real good with children and adolescents. He helped Bruce Jankowitz with his problems.”

            “Bruce Jankowitz is a fifteen-year-old terror. He comes from a broken home, has an alcoholic father and a mother who doesn’t care. Royer doesn’t need a quack, and if you’re just worried about someone he can talk to, he’s got us.”

            “He’s got you. You take him out every Sunday to play ball or go for a walk. And when you come home and I ask what you guys did or what you talked about all day, you just look at each other, smile, and say ‘nothing much’ or ‘the usual.’ Well, I’m tired of being excluded from this family.”

            “Oh Kate, we’re not excluding you. You just wouldn’t understand. It's guy stuff. I’m just trying to give Royer the father-son relationship that I never had.

            “Well, maybe I want a relationship with him too. He never talks to me and neither do you,” Kate snipped back.

            “What’s that supposed to mean, what are we doing right now?” he asked.

            “Talking about Royer. That you can do. But what about you? I never know what’s going on in your head. What you’re thinking about or how you feel.”

            “Oh, not this again, Kate. I told you that I can’t express my private thoughts. You would never understand.”

            “Yeah, well, you never let me try, and now you’re turning our son into a miniature you,” she cried, running off into the kitchen. Royer could hear her sobs even through the clanking of dishes and pots as she unloaded the washer.

            Royer heard her tell his father to go away a few minutes later when he went in to console her. That was the last time he ever heard them speak to each other.

6.

Royer stared up at the sky and suddenly it became clear that he needed to get back up to the spot. He hadn’t been there since the day his dad had died. The day that his father told him about borrowed dreams.

            It was a Sunday as usual. When his mother left to go to church, Royer and his father cut out to the park to throw the football. After half an hour of toss, Royer suggested they go for a walk. Jay Brown knew that whenever Royer had something on his mind, or whenever Jay wanted to share some philosophical point with his boy, there was only one place to go, and that was the clearing on top of the hill behind the park.

            They never gave a name to that spot, but it held a special place in both their hearts. It was the perfect escape, the only place where either of them could actually say what was on their minds.

            Only about eight square feet, it was completely surrounded by trees as if hidden from the rest of the world. Two petrified tree stumps stood about two feet high, naturally carved to form seats. There were never any bottles, beer caps, or litter of any kind to indicate that anyone else ever came there. Royer often felt it was if it was a magical spot that existed only for the two of them.

            When they sat down on those stumps for the last time together that first day of fall in 1996, Royer stirred up the nerve to finally ask:

            “Dad, what happens after you die…? I mean, is there life after death?”

            Jay hesitated for a moment, as if he had been waiting for Royer to ask that question and wanted to get his thoughts in order, to answer it perfectly.

            “Life is like a video store,” he finally analogized.

            “A video store?”

            “Yeah, a video store,” he chuckled, as though it didn’t sound quite as eloquent as it had in his head. “Like the biggest Blockbuster store you can imagine, filled with an endless supply of videos.”

            Royer nodded, trying not to interrupt his father’s train of thought.

            “Now, everyone is welcome to rent whatever movie they want, take it home to enjoy and maybe even learn something that it has to offer. The only stipulation is that when the movie is over, it needs to be returned.”

            “Then what?” Royer asked.

            “Well, then they can rent a new movie and do likewise or, as most people do, they can re-rent the movie they just watched.”

            “What?” Royer asked, a little perplexed. “Why would most people watch the same movie over and over?”

            “Well, some people like the movie so much that they are afraid to try a new one, fearing it won’t be as good. Other people want to see if they missed anything the first time, or first few times, they watched it. But for most peopled it is simply that they don’t know there are any other films to choose from.”

            “But I thought you said this video store is filled with an endless supply of videos?” Royer asked.

            “So it is, but they just don’t see them.”

            “Are they hidden?”

            “No, they are in plain sight.”

            “I don’t understand.” Royer wasn’t sure where his father was heading with this.

            “Close your eyes,” Jay said, sensing his son’s confusion, “and I’ll show you why.”

            “OK.” As he was closing his eyes he saw his father reach in his back pocket. A few seconds later Royer could feel his father pressing a piece of paper or a picture lightly between his forehead and the corner of his eye.

            “OK, open your eyes and tell me what you see.”

            As Royer opened his eyes he could only see blurred images of various bright colors. “I don’t know—it’s too close to my eyes to focus.”

            “Well, if you had to make a guess, what would it be?”

            “I can make out lots of colors and some blurred shapes. If I had to guess it would probably be some kind of flower arrangement,” Royer speculated.

            “Good guess,” Jay replied. “Now move your head back a bit and tell me what you see.”

            He held the picture in place as Royer moved away from it. He only needed to move his head back about four or five inches before everything came in focus and he could see that the flower he thought he was looking at was only part of the picture. It was actually his parents’ wedding picture, with his mother holding a beautiful bouquet.

            “What do you mean good guess?” Royer joked. “I missed half the picture.”

            “Now do you see my point?” Jay replied with a smile.

            “Yeah, you mean people are too close to their favorite video to know that there are others to rent.”

            “Sort of.  The only thing is that most people realize there might be other videos but don’t take the time or don’t know how to take a few steps back for the grandiose view.”

            “Can you show me how to step back?” Royer eagerly asked.

            “Sure, that’s why we’re here today, isn’t it?” he replied. “Why don’t you sit back again, son. This will take some time.”

As Royer sat, Jay picked up the football that was lying by his feet and spun it up in the air a few times, finally asking, “What’s the first thing anybody needs to know before solving a puzzle or problem?”

            “The facts,” Royer replied quickly.

            “Yes, that is important in figuring the outcome, but before you can determine the facts, what do you need to know?”

            “I guess you need to know what the problem or puzzle is,” Royer replied.

            “Right, you’re not going to get too far in solving the puzzle if you are not aware that there is one in the first place.”

            “That makes sense, but how does that relate to life and death and stepping back to see the whole picture?”

            “Well, just like the movies in the video store, if you’re not looking for a new life or even simple answers to your existing life, your chances of finding them are slim to none,” Jay answered.

            “But don’t most people at some point in their life look for those answers?”

            “Yes, I suppose that most people do…. It’s part of human nature.”

            “So what prevents those people from focusing in and finding the answers—or the new movie?”

            “A bunch of things, but mainly the habit of distractions.”

            “What do you mean the habit of distractions? What kind of distractions?”

            “Everyday things,” Jay answered.

            “Like school?”

            “Right again, only when you’re young you don’t have as many distractions. As people get older, work, family issues, bills, hobbies, and a million other things seem to occupy about one hundred and twenty percent of their working mind, so there is no time to focus on anything else.”

            “So you’re saying if people didn’t pay so much attention to the everyday details, they would be able to focus in on what life is all about.”

            “You catch on fast, little guy. Like the video store, the answers are right in front of your face; however, as with any puzzle there are always blockades you must climb over to get to them.”

            “So you just have to forget about spending so much time worrying about everyday things and concentrate on finding the answers in order to find them. Sounds fairly simple,” Royer suggested.

            “That it does; however, so does breaking any habit, such as quitting smoking, at first. The problem is that everyone is programmed from the time they are young to lead a common life. Be it a little girl playing with dolls and pretending to be a mom, or a boy playing with a toy fire truck, imagining saving the day, they incorporate everyday patterns into their play to prepare themselves for the “real world.” But in their efforts to play to society’s rules they forget to…” Jay paused. “Did you ever heat the phrase ‘Stop and smell the roses’?”

            “Of course.”

            “Well, they literally forget to stop and smell the roses and admire nature and take time to enjoy the awe of life.”

            “It sounds like you blame all this on society.”

            “Society has it own set of rules that dictates how one thinks. Like a cow in a herd that just keeps moving because that’s what all the other cows are doing, people fall into the same habits and just keep moving without wondering where they are or where they are going. Now imagine the cow that stops to wonder why he’s following the pack, and strays. He will get punished or forced back to the herd. The same thing happens to people who stray from what society dictates. They are often considered unusual and are forced to seek psychiatric help to start thinking like a normal person, or like society. If they continue their ways and start fighting the rules of ….”

7.

“Velcro….” Royer could hear the voice coming from a million miles away. “Wait up.”

            He stopped, a little dazed. He wondered how long he had been walking around in trance thinking about things he had blocked from his mind for years.

            “You OK?” Bobby asked. “You look a little out of it.”

            “I’m fine.”

            Bobby was a big guy, about six foot three, tipping the scales at over two fifty. He was Westview’s star linebacker, and although Royer hadn’t had any real friends since moving to town three years ago, Bobby came close. Bobby had been offered full scholarships to play at almost every Big Ten school in the country, but nobody ever mistook him for a scholar, and if it wasn’t for Royer stepping up to tutor Bobby in English, he would never had been able to maintain the C average required to stay on the team.

            “We missed you at Frank’s today.”

            “Sorry.” Royer was a little annoyed that Bobby had interrupted his alone time.

            “It’s OK. We didn’t do much, just talked about Joe’s ‘Apocalypse Now’ party tomorrow night after the game. You’re coming, right?”

            He was talking about was Joe Tierney’s “end of the world” party. With the end of the millennium just about a month away, it seemed to be the trend for people like Joe to throw these parties in mockery of all the religious nuts preaching the second coming of the lord. In fact, Joe’s party was the fifth or sixth that month, and one of two that night.

            “I don’t know, I’m a little tired of the theme. Besides, I think I have things to do,” Royer said solemnly.

            “You sure you’re OK?” Bobby asked again.

            “Yeah, I’m fine,” Royer repeated. “Just have some things on my mind.”

            “Well, see ya tomorrow.” As Royer started to walk away, Bobby added, “You know where I am if you need to talk.”

            “Thanks, Bobby,” Royer said, trying to make up for the way he had just talked to him. He felt bad, but it was as if Bobby had just interrupted him while he was having sex or taking a shit. He was trying to remember things about his father he hadn’t thought about in over three years, things he’d held secret to even himself since his death. But as he tried to reopen this part of his life—something he needed to do alone—along came Bobby, another distraction, just like his father was talking about that day.

            Royer went back to trying to remember what his father was saying about distractions that day. It was funny to him that three years could make such a difference, but his life was surely getting busier each year. Football, school, and hanging out with Susan seemed to take up all his time lately, never leaving him a moment for himself, to reflect on what was happening in the world. If only he had the spot back. He could always think straight there. Or was it his father that always helped him with that? Royer could feel the tears start to well as he thought about not having his father around anymore.

“I hope you’re happy in the new life you chose,” Royer said out loud, wondering if that was what his father was trying to explain that day. But how could he predict that he would be accidentally killed in a liquor store hold-up, walking in to buy a pack of cigarettes just at the wrong time.