The Fantasy Years

BRANDON CARRIED A BOX of old cassettes and videos, mostly metal bands, along with pots, pans and dinnerware past a full length mirror leaning for a moment against the wall. “Whoa,” he said, shocked by the sight of his drastically shorter hair.

Carolyn giggled at Brandon’s reaction to himself. She stood in their empty new home’s entrance. The hallway was paved with glossy brown tiles from the seventies, the painted walls were textured.

“Every time I pass that mirror—“

“You don’t recognize yourself,” Carolyn said. “Do you?”

“No,” he laughed, pausing for a second from the brisk work of moving boxes. Carolyn could hardly carry anything, she was so pregnant. She could only stand and point where things should go, just as she indicated what items should be packed together back in the apartment. Brandon was hopeless with that sort of organizational skill.

“That’s what you get for cutting your hair the day before the move.”

“I guess so.”

Brandon’s friends, Shane and Rock appeared in the front door, holding an oblong box. They teetered carrying it up and over the front step of the house, inside the front door and through the front hallway.

“Thanks guys,” Carolyn said, moving out of their way.
“No problem,” Shane said, breathing through his mouth.
“This isn’t so bad. You guys don’t have nearly as much as this guy” – Rock—“does.”

“I don’t have that much,” Rock said, moving slowly behind the box. Rock wore a ratty AC/DC shirt, jeans and Vans.

“You should have seen it when I helped him move. He’s got his grandparent’s entire wardrobe and dressers and everything for a full house.”

Rock jerked his head, to clear his long hair from his eyes, while his hands were occupied. “They’re family heirlooms. I’m not throwing that shit out.”

“Did you know Rock was an antiques collector?” Shane asked, a smile growing on his face.

“Dude, I am not an antiques collector.”

“Don’t upset him, dude,” Brandon said. “He’ll drop the box.”
“Knock knock,” came another voice from the doorway.
Everyone looked back.

“Ryan?” Brandon said. “Hey.”

Ryan held two bags of Subway Sandwiches, not Oscar Mayer crap.
“I figured you guys might be hungry so I brought some hoagies and chips.”

“Come on in. Wow. Thanks.”
“Also figured you might need a hand moving. I’m not too late for the heavy lifting am I? It doesn’t count unless you pitch in on the heavy lifting.”

“Dude, don’t worry. You got here just in time,” Shane said. Rock regarded the pastor with undisguised alarm.

“Guys this is Ryan, the pastor who’s going to marry us.”
They exchanged hellos. Ryan placed the white bags on the kitchen counter. After a brief prayer of thanks lead by Ryan, “Guys, I’ve got to. This is my line of work,” they stood around chomping on the hoagies. Carolyn pulled some cold Dr. Peppers out of the fridge and poured them into plastic cups she fished out of a dented box.
Brandon filled Ryan in on the move, on what was waiting back at the apartment, on what they’d brought so far.

“This is so nice of you Ryan,” Carolyn said. “Do we owe you anything?”

“Not at all. Not at all. It’s my pleasure. I would have been here earlier but I had some morning duties I had to attend to.”

“It’s cool. This way we don’t have to stop to go get food.”

“You’re of the just-get-the-move-over school, I can see.” Ryan said with an impishness in his eyes. “So am I.”

Ryan asked Shane and Rock about themselves, where they worked. Shane told Ryan that Rock was an antiques fan which Rock denied vigorously. Then Shane turned to Brandon, “I’m going to step outside for a smoke.”

“I’m coming,” Rock said and they slid the back door open and closed it behind them. Ryan was good enough to stand with his back to the sliding door so he didn’t see the face Shane made into the glass between hits on the joint.

“So how’s it going?” Ryan asked. “This is such an exciting time for you both.”

“It is,” Carolyn said.

“God gives us great things, doesn’t he? And here you have this house, this beautiful wife,” Ryan said to Brandon, “bearing you what I’m sure will be a beautiful child.”

Outside, on the back porch Shane mimicked an air guitar, shaking his mop of wild hair.

“God certainly does,” Brandon said, sensing a wiggle of astonishment from Carolyn. Brandon continued: “We still have a lot of work to do before we’re ready. After we move in, we have to go and buy things we need for the baby.”

“That reminds me, we have a nice crib in our garage. If you’re interested, I could bring it over.”

“Oh, we couldn’t take that.”

“We’ll God has blessed us with three children. I don’t think He’ll be blessing us with anymore.” Shane rocked his head and made Satan-horn hand gestures at the window. Rock let the smoke waft past him, as if for stage effect.

Brandon knew his eyes were being drawn to his old friends, his old life, behind that glass door.
Carolyn finally giggled.

“What?” Pastor Ryan asked.
She pointed to Shane and Rock. “Beavis and Butthead here.”
And they stopped immediately, as soon as Pastor Ryan began to turn. Rock discreetly passed the doob.

“Are they smoking pot?”
Carolyn and Brandon looked at each other. Rock and Shane turned their backs to the window and sauntered to the edge of the cement patio, their backs to the glass door.

“Probably.”

“You know that’s illegal?” Ryan asked. Shane and Rock, safely contained and framed by the sliding glass door, couldn’t hear.

“Of course.”

“People forget that. Oh, but I’m not judging you. Or them. Judge not, that ye be not judged. Matthew Chapter 7 verse 1.”

“They’re good guys,” Brandon said.

“Of course they are. They’re helping you move, aren’t they? What surer sign of true friendship? Ah, but James Chapter four, verse four Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God. But this is what you’re turning away from, isn’t it?”

“Right.”

“And it’s not the friends who are bad. It’s the lifestyle.”
“Yeah. I mean not my friends. Just that lifestyle.”
“And that’s why Jesus is calling you to be by His side.”
“Yes, I hope so.”
“You just need to have faith. But I can see you’re a man of faith. And I see great things ahead for you both.”

Brandon’s heart sank, as if it was on a pulley. It sank at just the same speed as the glass door to the patio slid open. Shane and Rock’s bloodshot eyes beamed red. It wasn’t until you stopped smoking it that you saw how it looked, Brandon thought. Then, smelling a whiff of pot, said to everyone “All ready to begin?”