twenty-something

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Six

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He was six when his father built the tree house. During the sweltering month of July, young Ollie spent his days with his pregnant mother -- at the local pool, the air-conditioned supermarket, or at the doctor's office -- and his evenings and weekends in the woods with his father. Ollie would play and pretend to help while his dad worked away up in the tree.

Ollie wandered off one day, not far from the construction site. He played under the willow trees, which formed a wall between their back yard and the woods. He played with sticks and rocks, and sang to himself.

He was poking around with a stick, exploring, when he discovered the thing under the tree.

The beast, with mangy fur and beady eyes, starred up at him. A blank stare. The squirrel was covered in blood and still. Ollie knew it was dead.

He dropped his stick and ran back towards the tree house.

"Dad!" Ollie cried up to him. "Dad! There's a -- a thing, in the willows!"

"A thing?"

"A dead thing. A squirrel."

His father came down from the tree and scooped the boy up into his lap.

"Dead things can't hurt you, Ollie. It's just a squirrel. It probably died -- probably died for a reason."

The boy asked questions, about the squirrel, about death. David did his best to answer. As soon as his father stopped talking and took him off his lap, Ollie began to whimper some more. He couldn't help it. "Can we bury it, dad?"

"Come on, Ollie," his father said. Ollie tried to remember the voice as angry or frustrated. But he knew, as always, it was calm and firm. "It's just a dead squirrel. Toughen up, OK? Be a True North."

True North. He'd heard the expression countless times in his youth, and it always made him giggle. The words had a silly sound when strung together, and their meaning eluded him. He didn't know what a True North was, aside from being the name of his grandfather's fishing boat. He knew it had some deep, serious meaning, a proud meaning held dear by all the men in the North family. But Ollie always knew, before and after he was six years old, that he never was, nor never could be, a True North.

He stopped crying as soon as his father used that dreaded phrase. He pulled the bottom of his t-shirt up, wiped his eyes and nose, watching his father climb back up into the tree. He examined his father's face, clenched and sweaty, as he pounded nails into the fort.

It was in that moment that he decided - for his grandpa, his father, and his unborn little brother - to name his tree house "True North."