I lost track of time as I concocted hundreds of stories. Then, I felt a great sense of calm and knew I needed to go home. I had run away for long enough. Still, with my mixed-up emotions, I didn’t want to be a disappointment to my parents. I was born with an overdeveloped sense of “should,” “have to,” and “supposed to.” I was trained to always ask for permission and approval. For anything. For way too deep into my life.
I looked up at the hill. The backside wasn’t as steep, but way longer—like a dragon’s back. As Blondie and I walked home, I didn’t know the names of the feelings then, but I was anxious and skeptical. I just thought I was nervous. What are we going back to? Is my dad home? Are my parents still fighting?
Step . . . step . . . step . . . step.
The crunch of the aspen leaves gently eased me back to reality. Or whatever this was. Wherever I was. I don’t know how long Blondie and I had been walking or how long I was in this memory. Like I said, sometimes the trail was far more about trying to leave something behind. That’s exactly how I felt.
Up ahead, I saw a house.
CHAPTER SEVEN
While American novelist Anne Parrish is browsing bookstores in Paris in the 1920s, she comes upon a book that was one of her childhood favorites: Jack Frost and Other Stories. Her husband opens it and finds the inscription: “Anne Parrish, 209 N. Weber Street, Colorado Springs.”4
I hadn’t noticed the house until we were nearly upon it. It felt vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. Obviously, I had never been here, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling. Have I been here? I swear . . . It was déjà vu. Blondie didn’t seem to feel the same way I did. She gave no indication that she had ever seen this house and eagerly sniffed everything she could. With an enthusiastic squat, she declared the flowerbed just off the front of the driveway to be hers. It takes a special kind of confidence to pee on God’s flowers.
It was classically Tuscan with thousands of perfectly placed clay roof tiles and painted in that burnt orange color that only looks right on a house like that. What is that color, anyway? It probably has some strange name on the paint swatch. I always wondered who came up with those color names. What kind of drugs were required to tell the difference between one hundred shades of yellow? Much less name them all? My version of hell would be sitting in a room full of expectant mothers trying to help them figure out what color to paint the baby’s room. “IT’S YELLOW! IT’S FUCKING YELLOW! And that? IT’S LIGHT BLUE!” What kind of a sick fuck invents one hundred shades of yellow? Sadist.
I did love Tuscan Orange, or whatever it was called. Like a perfect song, it was a color that inspired memories. Like sunset. That color was on Jess’s favorite house. Every time we’d walk by it, she’d say how much she wanted us to go to Italy. It reminded her of her childhood, when Tuscan houses lifted her out of the pain of her reality. For her, walking by Tuscan houses was kind of like me watching the cars. It was an escape. She wanted to see Tuscan Orange in Tuscany. We had plans. As I swam in the color, I got lost thinking about the long nights she and I would stay up researching all the things we were going to do together.
Oh, Jess. What was she doing now? How was she doing? I was not even completely sure how long I’d been gone. Did she remember me? Did she ever get in touch with Timmy? It is amazing what a color can do. Or a sound. A song. Or a smell. Our senses are pathways to our past. Good or bad.
I still couldn’t remember why I recognized this house. There was something about it that I just couldn’t place. I had a feeling it was going to make me crazy. Things like that always made me crazy. Four huge Italian columns supported an enormous second-story deck that covered an imposing front entrance. A rose-tree-lined Italian marble pathway led to front doors that appeared to be made from an entire forest. The landscaping around the circular drive was so perfect; it was inspiring. I didn’t know how else to describe it. I didn’t have the words. It was so beautiful in its perfection that it made me want to be a better person. The mix of reds, oranges, greens, and yellows created living canvases worthy of Van Gogh, O’Keefe, and Warhol.
Was this God’s house?
We stood in the circular driveway and noticed a handful of people scattered on the deck above us. They waved and beckoned us to come up. All smiles and laughter. Drinks in hand.
“Blondie, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Colorado anymore.”
We made our way to the front door where I hesitantly reached for the antique-looking brass knocker. I held it gently in my hand. Smooth. Cold. Inhaling deeply, I looked down at Blondie, shrugged, and banged the knocker against the door three times. The door opened. And there stood . . . Ira?
I was speechless. Just as he had been in life, Ira was one big smile in a tremendously small package. Every one of his poorly aligned, stained teeth on display in all their inglorious glory. Meeting Blondie was perhaps to be expected, but Ira? Ira was the first person from my life that I met in death? Ira? Really? Fucking Ira? I could have listed a hundred people, maybe a thousand that I would have guessed I would meet before Ira.
Don’t get me wrong. I loved Ira, but I didn’t know him all that well. And here he was greeting me at what I thought was God’s house. In this moment of absolute uncertainty, I was not sure there was anyone I’d rather see first. A perfect reminder that the magnitude of our presence in someone’s life is often less about time knowing them and more about the moments shared. We didn’t have many, but they were all real, raw, and vulnerable. Every single minute left an impression. He was laughing his ass off as though the joke was on me. Was this his house? Waaaaaait a minute? Was Ira . . . God? Seriously. That’s the question that popped into my head. Strangely, that made sense.
Ira was a living garden gnome. He was maybe five feet tall. He had a long white beard and weighed less than one of my legs. He was like Santa. If Santa were the size of his elves. His teeth made the British cringe. When he wasn’t lighting up a cigarette, he was smoking weed. If you stood next to Ira long enough, you could get a contact high. And if you didn’t get high on the weed, you got high on his amazing energy and infectious laughter. I always stood next to him for as long as I could . . . hoping to get a hit of both.
A “reformed and recovering” stockbroker, Ira gave up money and stress to become a musician. He played keyboards in local bands and filled his time as an usher for a Minor League Baseball team. Women flocked to Ira. He was everyone’s sweet, old grandfather. Their sweet, old, dirty grandfather! He could get away with anything. Say anything. Do anything. Ira would never be canceled; he was just that cute and cuddly. Yes, with the worst teeth ever. I never got over his teeth. Have I mentioned his teeth?
Before Ira died, I had wanted to produce a project with him. The idea was to sit Ira in the middle of a huge park with a “The Doctor Is In” sign hanging from the front of a desk. Ira would simply talk to people about their problems. He was the king of perspective. He could turn any problem into love. We imagined a web series simply called Ira, and I expected it, and him, to become an international sensation. There was no doubt in my mind that Ira, the series, and Ira, the man, were destined to go viral. Ira action figures were not far behind.
Ira and I had met through a mutual friend but lost touch when my relationship with that mutual friend crashed and burned in a most inexplicable, extraordinary way. It’s amazing the damage that two pig-headed mules can do when they individually dig in their collective heels. A simple misunderstanding destroying potential decades of friendship. After the relationship implosion, I felt too embarrassed to contact Ira. Still, I saw him a couple of times, and he couldn’t have been more inviting. He told me to call him. “Let’s hang out,” he had said, but I was too ashamed to ever call.
I was devastated when I found out he had died. My devastation was made worse because I only discovered his death by looking at his Facebook page. You see, I had previously hidden Ira’s posts to avoid accidentally reading something about or by my former friend. What a pathetic, emotionally stilted child I was. He had been dead for a month. I cried for a week. They say it’s important to heal rifts. They say you never know what might happen. They say. They say. They say. Fuck They. I hate They. Especially when They are right.
“Dude, is this your house?” I said with joyful tears streaming down my face.
“No, man,” Ira laughed and said with a sly smile, “you know whose house this is.” He knew what was coming next.
I pushed him away playfully. “What? What about that breakfast? You told me that you’re a fucking atheist.” I whispered the word “atheist” the way people whisper “cancer.” Technically, it was lunch, but Ira always ate breakfast. Eggs over easy on top of a pile of hash browns with a side of boiled spinach. It was an old man’s meal. He was adamant that there was no God. He was spiritual, but God? There was no chance that he was placing his beliefs into a box. Music was his God. Baseball his religion.
“I am an atheist!”
I cocked my head, and he laughed at my confusion.
“Well, don’t just stand there, come on in!”
Blondie jumped up and put her paws on his shoulders. She was taller than he was. Weighed more, too. She licked his face, and he said, “Good to see you again, Blondie!”
Again? Really? What the fuck?
I was already confused. Clearly this was not a time to be asking any questions. I followed Ira and Blondie into a massive foyer. More Italian marble. More big columns. More big everything. A spiral staircase stood before us. I swear to G— I caught myself. I swear I’ve been in this house before. And then I figured it out. Holy shit.
When I was in high school, my girlfriend’s mom was a real estate agent. To earn a few bucks, and because it was fun, I sometimes helped her with her open houses. I would get dressed up and serve non-alcoholic drinks to the looky-loos who pretended to be interested in the multimillion-dollar homes. I did this maybe thirty times. My favorite house was, well, this one.
“Ira?”
He stopped.
“Is there a hidden door just below the stairwell that leads to a private playroom?”
He smiled a kind of knowing smile that someone might give when a secret is revealed. “There is.”
I continued. “And beyond that playroom is there another door that leads to another hidden room, which is a few steps down?”
A bigger smile. “There is.”
“Is there a giant pool next to a huge lawn, both of which are surrounded by enormous hedges in the back?”
