Cake

The sun crept slowly over the horizon, like it did every morning, and cast an ever brightening glow on the emerald green lawn of 52 Terrace Rd.  The trees swayed in a light wind that spread the scent of flowers through the early June air and in through open windows.  This particular window was closed and the shades were drawn.

Johnny sat in the corner, choking on the dust and the dark.  At the first sign of the sun coming into his tomb he had pulled the heavy olive drapes shut.  The sun got him first; the dazzling light had stung his eyes and now he could not see.  This was when he normally drank from the broken water pipe in his closet and hunted for roaches in the dust, but he couldn’t see so he sat on the floor.  He blindly picked at the fraying hem on pants made from cloth that was worn through in many places.  They were dirty too, filthy with life’s necessities and too much time sitting in a dark corner.  He’d been wearing the same clothes for weeks.

The door to his room was locked tight.  First with the lock on the door knob and then the extra privacy that a wooden closet door could provide when it was hammered into place to marry the door to the wall.  The knocking and pleading had stopped last week.  Now there was nothing but creeping silence save for a cough here and there.  The windows were inexpertly set with bars made from the undercarriage of Johnny’s bed.  They helped to keep the sun out.  They kept everything from disturbing his peace.

In the corner opposite from Johnny’s favorite was a green tinged, tough as bars, half eaten birthday cake.  Happy Birthday Johnny could still be seen on the top.  Parts of the cake were so overgrown with mold that it was hard to tell if it was grass or cake.  Sixteen wax encrusted holes bordered the still visible words.  The wax was still red, still reminded Johnny how dazzling the cake had been on his birthday.  Johnny’s mom had made it for him.

He had awoke to the bright sun and smells of July and the lazy heat that forced a person out of bed to shower away a night of sweaty sleep.  A cool shower, a quick dressing and he was down the stairs where his eyes were greeted with a rainbow of balloons, friends, family and gifts.  A fine day awaited him in the living room, the best sixteenth birthday party a young man could ever ask for.

Time passed in great leaps as Johnny laughed and fooled around with friends.  Laura was there.  She was beautiful in her sequined dress that caught the wholesome light of the sun and reflected it from her.  She was making eyes at Johnny and he wasn’t making an attempt to keep his own eyes from her.  Mike was there punching balloons at people and generally causing trouble.  That’s what Johnny’s best friend did in these situations and Johnny would join him after serving the cake.  Aunt Georgia  pinched and pulled at Johnny’s cheeks, fauning over him and asking how old he was and now and how much taller he’d gotten.  Finally, the lights in the living room went off, leaving only the faintest glimmer from the slowly sinking sun streaming in through the windows.  Everyone was silent.

A glow that rivaled the setting sun oozed its way from the kitchen.  An anxious crowd of fifteen and sixteen year olds “oo’ed” and “ah’ed.”  The cake that came around the corner carried by Johnny’s mom was a confectionary work of art with a crown of flames that cast the shadows of Johnny’s future around the room.  A chorus of happy birthday was sung and as the last line fell from everyone’s lips Johnny blew out all the candles, wishing simply that this moment could go on forever.

“Mom, this cake, it’s amazing.  Chocolate with a strawberry filling and you even used peanut butter icing.  You went all out.” Johnny exclaimed before his mom could go back to the kitchen.  She turned to him and smiled.  She coughed a few times into a handkerchief she was carrying and worry crossed Johnny’s face for a few moments.

“It’s because I love you hon, and because your sixteenth birthday is a special one.  It means you’re a man now, ready to take on the responsibilities of a grown up, like taking out the garbage and doing the dishes.” She winked at Johnny’s dad who smiled and laughed and slapped Johnny on the back.

“Don’t worry Johnny that means more allowance.” Johnny’s dad laughed.

His mother slipped off to get a knife from the kitchen so Johnny could serve the cake.  The sounds of the party that had slowly begun to build were squashed by the sounds that issued forth from the kitchen, sounds that nobody ever hopes to hear at parties.  It was a fit of coughing, the crash of silverware, the breaking of plates, the thump of something heavy hitting the floor and a death rattle. 

Silence.

No laughter leapt forth from anyone’s lips in a room where mirth had just seconds ago been building to a deafening crescendo.  Not a word leaked from the corner of anyone’s mouth, they had all forgotten they were alive.  This was the silence of a ship at the bottom of the ocean, the silence of a funeral attended by no one.  July had left and the cold that now swept down the spines of all those present, chilling them into ice sculptures, was from a month not yet named, but colder than any in existence.

The color drained from everything.  The rainbow of balloons was now a monochromatic mass of slowly deflating plastic, tethered to the earth like the people of the party were rooted to where they stood.  Their faces were black and white, drained of emotion, removed from the situation, too shocked to look shocked.  Everything had frozen.  When his father had finally broken his chains and ran for the kitchen it was his scream that rang through the house and shattered the frozen party into pieces like so much broken glass.

The hospital was antiseptically clean.  A good place to die.  A good place to bring those already dead.  Johnny was both.  He had held his mother’s quickly cooling hand on the hour long car ride to the hospital knowing that the drive was nothing more than pitiable ritual and a waste of gas.  A little voice inside him, a six year old voice sniffing back tears and crying out for his mother told him that he should have buried his mother right after that last scream.  He should have gone outside, grabbed his mother’s spade and dug a hold deep enough to forget her.  The spade brought a splash of color to Johnny’s eyes that clashed sickeningly with the white of the hospital.

His mother’s garden, two years ago when she was still well enough to tend it.  Life bloomed there with such ferocity and eagerness that it demanded attention.  Johnny had been fourteen, watering the flowers and shrubs while his mother went to get the mail.  He remembered thinking that his mother was amazing.  She gave him life, cared for him, mended his clothes and still had time to cultivate the amazing colors in this garden.  She was life itself made human.  She returned with the mail, most of the color had left her face and as Johnny looked up she quickly hid an envelope in her back pocket and flashed a quick smile.  As she kneeled down and begin her work again a cough wracked her body and suddenly Johnny was aware of the vibrant red that painted the ground in front of her like liquid roses.

The doctor said that her illness finally caught up with her.  It was rare for people to die of Tuberculosis in those days, but they caught her case too late.  Johnny had never cared that she’d been sick.  She had never complained.  Johnny cursed the doctors anyway, he cursed their idiocy, he cursed their lack of action, but most of all he cursed their lack of a magic potion to revive his mother so that they could go back to his party.  His father said nothing.  His father was nothing anymore.  Where there once was a man proud and strong there now sat a man feeble, older than his years with no soul flashing amusedly behind his eyes.  Johnny took the bus home when his father showed no signs of moving.

Now his door was locked and barricaded.  Johnny smiled the benign smile of memory.  The dark room, the laughter and gossip floating around the room like a palpable dust, the singing; they all played in his head on a continuous loop.  Johnny’s vision had returned and he sat staring at the cake, eyes glazed over, waiting for the warm glow of July to ooze forward from the kitchen and cast their shadows on his life.