Oakfall

photo by Ingrid Pakats

CW: This piece alludes to childhood sexual abuse.

I loved my friend’s new bike the moment he rolled it out of his garage. He told me, my uncle says this is the best-made bike in the world, and I believed him. He pedaled down the driveway, slipping under the broken shade of palm trees. I felt the delicate draw of his friendship, so I pulled my heavy bike from the lawn.

When I caught up to him, his front wheel shot up a pebble that cracked against a mailbox. Over his shoulder: Wanna go somewhere? He didn’t wait for me to answer.

I followed him through our Tampa suburb, down circles, courts, and drives named Mallard, Indigo, and Emerald. We rode sloshing up onto the sidewalk and receding back into the street. We reached our hands out to brush the hot gloss of parked cars as tufts of hair flapped toward the sky and our necks glistened with sweat.

We rode through sunset and kept pedaling into the dark. Eventually, he brought me to a house on the edge of things. It was tall and blue, hemmed in on three sides by dark and charmless woods. A gate clicked shut behind me in the moonlight shade of an oak tree. We dropped our bikes in the grass. Mine on top of his.

Boys, how was the ride? said a man in blue shorts, smiling and holding a tray with two paper Dixie Cups. He was standing on a low patio next to two padded lounge chairs. A glass door behind him slid open and another man stepped out. He nodded as if to acknowledge his own arrival. Our bikes sank into the overgrown lawn.

My friend had stepped up onto the patio and was now sitting on one of the lounge chairs with the men standing by his side. All three of them were looking at me. I looked down at my pigeon-toed feet, unable to speak. I had failed, somehow, and everyone knew it. I was too quiet, not friendly enough. They’d send me away. Weird kid, one of the men would say as I pedaled home in the dark by myself. If I left now, my friend would never ride bikes with me again.

We’re all friends here, one of the men said while patting the empty patio chair. Why don’t we just relax and have fun for a while?

My friend nodded that it was okay. Acorns crunching beneath my feet, I stepped onto the deck and sat down on the empty chair. I smiled and felt trapped.

The man with the tray of drinks handed me a cup filled with bright red liquid. He nodded. The other man nodded. My friend tipped back his cup. I didn’t want to disappoint my friend or these men, so I said thanks and drank it all. The woods beyond the fence lurched an inch in our direction. I’d barely breathed out before I felt a thousand warm nickels slide down my forehead and over my eyes. They ran down my chest, into my legs, down to my feet.

The men asked me to lie down on the padded lounge chair. We brought it out just for you.

I wanted to leave, but my limbs buzzed with lethargy. They lifted my legs up onto the chair and guided me into a reclined position. I wished that the chair would float up over the winding neighborhood streets and straight to my own backyard where my mom and grandfather would be on our porch, listening to frogs calling out their evening croaks.

As the two men stood over me, I noticed a bird looking down from the branches above. It may have seen me, then it flew away.


A year later, I stood in the hot shade by our neighborhood pool. I was fully clothed and hiding from the smell of chlorine and the sound of wet feet on cement. My mom asked why I wasn’t swimming. What are you ashamed of? You have a beautiful body. The only thing worse than knowing my body was repulsive was that she would lie to me about it.

Do you want to go home? she asked. What do you need?

And then my attention was drawn to the nearby woods. A large insect buzzed and darted between branches. I followed it.

Beyond the pool, I passed hidden furrows of rusty, undulating chain link fences, hot and green with overgrowth. Then came the strong-smelling reddish-brown secretion of memories from abandoned tree forts. Further still and I found myself waist deep in the green lion’s manes of tall bushes and milkweed.

Deep in the woods, I came across an oak tree that had fallen into a little stream. I laid down on its trunk and closed my eyes. On the back of my eyelids I saw that tall blue house. The house was a beast with yellow eyes. The woods surrounding it filled with shudders and teeth. I felt fear and shame and pleasure, all wound into a single burly thread that felt like the hideous outline of my body. A sliver of night spread across my chest as my body went numb.

Unable to sit up, I opened my ears and listened for frogs. But they were tucked into pockets of cool mud where the midday sun couldn’t reach them. So I focused on the silence. The absence of sensation. My arms drooped and swung from the log.

Then my body slipped from the tree trunk and I let it fall. I sank down into the mud where decaying wood and slippery stones weighed on me. And from this amphibian depth, I thought I could hear the earth buzz, hum, and whisper.