Chapter Three

“Reach your hands out, dummy. Neither of us want you to lose your fingers to a little thing like the cold,” the young man ordered. His voice firm, though not demanding. “Who, in all honesty would be able to live with themselves if they knowingly lost their digits to being cold. All you need to do is keep warm. That’s all. That’s all it takes to keep all of your fingers and toes.”

“Why, there’s nothing wrong with losing a finger or two,” Ansel explained slowly, feeling oddly insecure about his own lacking of a full set of toes. “I’ve already lost a few toes already…” He reached out and felt the fire inch and itch the frost away from his fingertips. It felt warm. The fire was filling the room with a radiating heat that made it feel like home. Making it feel safe.

“Ansel, you liar.” The young man stuck his tongue out. “The most you ever lost was your way back from the kitchen when you were little.”

Ansel laughed and smiled is surprise, “I only did that the one time,” he pleaded with there being little conviction in his voice. “Only once. And no one ever made me forget that. How did you, hear about that anyways? I never told anyone. And the only one to tell everyone was- was-”

The young man scrunched up his face in what Ansel could only assume was confusion, further furrowing his forehead in light thought as well. “Ansel,” the young man said slowly, as if to a child or a dear friend in need of dire explanations to a simple problem, “It’s me, Ansel. Your brother.”

“Can’t be. I never had a brother.” And Ansel knew for a fact that this was the truth. Wasn’t it?

The young man poked the fire, rolling the more loose sections of the log back away from the flames, letting the fire breathe a little more openly about the hearth. The young man shook his head.

“Ansel, you’re kidding me? I’m your brother. You know that, don’t you?”

Ansel in disbelief sat watching the young man, “How could I forget my own brother? I, I, I don’t even remember your name…what was…?”

The young man grinned, his front teeth peeked out from behind his lip, gap and all. “You always were a goobery one. Ma used to say that if we didn’t wake you up in the mornings, then you’d go right ahead and forget to wake up at all. Just going right on ahead, sleeping your whole life away. Just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “You look old, Ansel. Didn’t you used to have more teeth? You have less now than when you started getting them.”

Ansel closed his mouth, ever embarrassed at the observation.

“Now,” the young man coaxed, realizing he had pointed out something he shouldn’t have, “Don’t be getting on like that. Nothing wrong with losing some bits and pieces over time. Well, I reckon, I’ve lost more things than you’ve ever had in the first place. It really isn’t that much of a big deal now, Ansel.”

“Oh yeah?”, Ansel trying to keep his voice calm and aloof asked, “Like what now?”

“Why, sure. And lots of things.” The young man scratched at his chin, rubbing the jaw as though there was not the fresh face of youth upon it, but the aged and withered face of a much older, and much more grown older man in his place. “Just last month I lost my job delivering newspapers. Old man Philips cursed me out of his store when he thought, get this now, that I was swiping from the till,” the young man nodded, decisively. “Which I did not do so.”

Ansel giggled at the grave countenance of the young man. “I forgot about that too,” before adding in a small voice that was much not like his own, “Look…I’m, I’m sorry.”

“What for now? You didn’t do anything wrong now. Did you?”

“I know who stole from the till, but they swore me not to tell anyone. That and I forgot,” Ansel mumbled, as a child caught in telling half-truths would have done. At that moment Ansel felt small, small as he had once felt as child. Many, many years ago.

“Wait! You know who it was? How’d you find that out?” The young man sat aback, aghast in disbelief at what he had heard.

“I found out,” Ansel swore, “on accident, I swears. I didn’t mean to find out, like I said they made me swear to not tell anyone or I’d be in trouble. Big trouble. They’d say that I did bad things and we’d both be in trouble. We needed the money. And with you not having a job anymore, I needed to keep mine all the tighter. You understand? I’m sorry, truly I’m sorry though. I’m so sorry that I didn’t know what to do…”

They both sat in silence for sometime, all the while watching the fireplace crackle and chirp as it burned the wood within it. Then the young man sighed and said, ever so softly, “Ansel. You are the worst at telling things straight. I’m not mad at you or anything like that. It was so long ago that it doesn’t rightly matter anymore anyways. All I’m asking is who it was and how you found out, that’s all. Now, little brother. Out with it. Please! I’m dying of my own pooling curiosity at this point. So, out with it.”

Ansel swallowed.

“It was old man Philip’s son.” He admitted. “I don’t remember what his name was. That much I remember that I do not know.”

The young man pinched the bridge of his nose and ignored the last thing Ansel had tried to say with words. “The tall one with the black hair?”

Ansel nodded.

The young man let out a slow whistle, and then leaned back. “He seemed like such a nice person too. He offered to help me look for a new job and everything. Made it seem like these things just happen for no real reason other than they sometimes just simply happen and there’s nothing anyone could have done to stop them from happening in the first place. The liar!” The young man laughed, “Not that it matters much anymore. No one read the newspapers we delivered anyways. And old man Philips has long since hired someone else, and passed away.”

“I’m sorry for not telling you, before…”

“It’s fine, Ansel. Forget about it. It’s all in the past. But, you still haven’t elaborated on how you found out. That I am still curious about. Now then, out with it already. I can see it chewing away at you. Just on the corners of your face. No, you didn’t say already! Out with it.”

“I didn’t?” Ansel asked, his eyes wide.

“No sir. Now then, it rightly feels like you’re holding out on me. What did you see, little brother.”

“Well,” Ansel started, “I saw him buying smokes after you dropped off the payments from the morning route. You had just come into the store with that little bag full of quarters and nickels, you know. Once you put it down on the counter he snuck over a minute later and grabbed some. Then he went and bought the smokes from that guy on the corner. The one that always smells like smoke and burning things,” Ansel screwed up his face, he could smell it as soon as he had described it. Even now that smell seemed to haunt him. He hadn’t thought about those or any other cigarettes in many, many years. “I was talking to Lou when I saw everything. I didn’t know he’d get you fired. I, I don’t know what I thought would happen…”

“He seen you watching and threaten then you?”

Ansel nodded.

“I see. I see. Ansel, now calm down already. You big baby! It really is quite alright already. If you had told me then, then, then I’m sure I would have done something I’d probably have ended up regretting. I didn’t like that job much as it was. Good riddance to it I say. I needed to leave there and branch off from the old man Philips anyways. Now I’m stocking groceries at the market. Way more hours and far more pay, and to boot, I don’t need to bag customer’s groceries or anything. I just put the boxes on the shelves and help the butcher wrap up the fresh cuts for the day. Really, Ansel. Stop crying. Everything is okay. I’m okay. You’re okay. Still a goof, but you’re okay too. So stop your crying.”

“Okay.”

The young man poked around at the fire, rolling the logs back and forth with a clear look in his eyes. Ansel watched as the red flames danced dimly in the young man’s brown eyes. They were the same eyes that Ansel had seen each and every time that he had ever looked into a mirror. He was embarrassed that he had forgotten his brother, that he had even existed. That he had even forgotten how they had spent their brief flash of childhood working and running around, and…

“Remember the lake?” The young man asked suddenly, breaking Ansel from his course of thought. He didn’t know where it was leading him. Though it wouldn’t have changed how he felt anyways. Not in the end.

“The lake? The one that froze over each year, right?” Ansel tried to remember, to pull the lake back into focus in his mind. It wasn’t a large lake, small by anyone’s standards. The waters of the lake frosted over each winter, dazzling the locals with a sleek coating of ice and snow that made it beautiful and perfect for skating and ice fishing. If you had the patience to sit that long in the frosty cold that was. “I remember it. Dad took us there every November. Never missed a year. Not a one!”

The young man gave a smile, a mournful smile, “Ansel. It’s okay. I remember too.”

“What’s wrong? Now you look like you’re going to cry.” Ansel felt that he had said something wrong. That his foot was in his mouth, of all the ridiculous places that he could have put it. “I didn’t upset you, did-”

“You don’t remember that either, do you?” The light around the young man’s face was covering him in what looked to be a wave disbelief. “Christ. Ansel. What do you remember? Maybe Ma was right…

“Then again, it doesn’t look like the years have been overtly kind to you, especially since those days. It was such a long time ago.” He paused in consideration of what he was saying. Then he asked, “What do you remember about that lake? Besides Dad taking us there every year.”

“Like I was saying,” Ansel explained slowly, he felt nervous, “We went there every year. Dad loved to ice fish while we went sledding down the hills around the lake. We’d bring the sleds with us while he did that. After all day we’d find him out there sitting on his stool. Rod in his hands, cooler empty of beer and full of fishes. He was really good at it too.”

“And what did Ma do, while we were there?”

“Ma? Ma never went with us. She hated the cold. Said so every chance she ever got to tell us that. Woman could never stay warm enough to enjoy going out the lake. Not once a year, not ever.”

“Ansel,” the young man leaned in close; the dancing shadows casted about from the small fire, they now added years to his visage. His face lined with years that Ansel hadn’t noticed before. Years that made him seem more filled with sadness than anything close enough to become considered joy would have been. “Why did Ma really not go with us?”

“Like I keep telling you, she hated the cold. So, she. She didn’t…couldn’t…”

“Remembering now, Ansel?”, the man asked him. “I can see it on your face, and in your eyes. It’s okay now. It was a long time ago…” His voice, patiently filled with warmth and concerned. The tone was one like a parent guiding a child through a problem of sorts. Solving an equation, one step at a time.

“Sh-e-e,” Ansel stammered out. His words fumbling out as melted snow drenches one who has come inside from the cold. A dark sense of realization danced out in his eyes, shadowed along with the reflections of the flame from the fireplace ahead of him. “She, w-w-wasn’t ali-ve-ve-ve. Was she? She’d died too…”

The man shook his head; turning back to the fire he poked at the logs again, attempting to busy himself away from their conversation. He’d leaned over and placed a fresh log on the cresting flames. He had appeared to have said too much too quickly. The sad smile on his face had grown smaller. The man broke into a small, sad smile, and asked Ansel, “Can we talk about happy things yet? I’d like that. There’s a little much sadness in the air lately. It feels like it’s hard to smile without it feeling sad.”

Ansel wiped something away from his eyes, and nodded, “I’d like that as well.” They were both silent, quietly listening to the warm crackling of the fire. “What should we talk about then?”

The man shrugged, “Anything is fine. As long as it’s something happy. I’m tired of sad things. They make me feel heavy. They make everything feel heavy, and lost

“How about your music then? Still doing that?”

“What about that now?”

“You know,” the man goaded Ansel on. “Your music. Did you ever do anything with it? I remember Gramps had one day dropped off that old guitar for you. You were so excited, couldn’t sit still for nothing going. Thought you’d get that thing attached through surgery or something. Just so you wouldn’t need to let go of it.”

Leaning back, Ansel smiled. He hadn’t thought about that particular guitar, in what would it have been now, decades?

Had it really been more than one decade, let alone even two that had passed on by since he had felt that guitars old strings digging into his fingertips? A beaten up twelve string, covered in the scars to prove the well lived life it had lived, all done before Ansel had it. That guitar owed no one anything anymore than whatever they had owed it. All of the strings along the beaten neck had been in such a terrible need of replacing when he had first seen it, each rusted and turning an orangish red color that smeared against anything that was lucky enough to have been touching them. The neck had at least three cracks that stretched along part of the length of it, each needed more attention than he knew how to give even if he had known what to do to fix it up. The peg on the bottom had been broken off somewhere along the way as well.

Ansel had loved that guitar more than anything he had ever known before. Or quite possibly anything ever since. “I didn’t get far with any of all that. Just a few local bars ever let me play. Paid me in beer and tips.”

“Still have the guitar?” The man asked, though from his smile it was safe he had already guessed at the answer.

Ansel shook his head, “No sir. Got it taken off me by a group of young people after a show. They smashed it up and into a million pieces.” His face was plastered with an odd, and rather out of place, smile.

“That’s awful! I’m so sorry, Ansel!”

“More than alright. I loved every moment with that guitar that I could squeeze out of it. Each strum had felt like a gift that I could never possibly hope to repay,” he could feel the twinge of the strings scraping against the very ends of his fingertips. The brushed on feeling his knuckles would get if he stayed up played for longer than he should have. Countless hours and days spent listening to the echoes of each note rolling inside of the body of the guitar before vibrating themselves out and into the night, just for another one to replace it and to take its place right after it had left its cradle within his arms...

The man sat in contemplation, watching the look on Ansel’s rough looking face with keen interest. He coughed lightly before asking with the most utmost bit of caution, “You never got a new one, did you? How come?”

Ansel shrugged, “Didn’t seem right, or fair to that guitar. Don’t give me that look now. I know it’s an odd thing to say. I just didn’t want to sully the good times I had with it, that’s all. It gave me more than I could ever give back to it. And it, it only felt right to move on. Almost felt like a natural stepping off point, as it were. The moment those people smashed it all apart, well, a piece of me died right along with it. I just went ahead and buried it is all.” Ansel gave a toothy grin, one that was missing more teeth than it was missing any joy, “But boy, was it a fun ride to the very end of it all. I was able to make it across the country from playing that thing. Met a lot of nice people. And, more than a few nice ladies from it too. More than a few mean ones too, actually. But you only wanted to hear nice things, so we won’t talk so much about those ones. They weren’t that nice after all. To me, or to anyone else that knew them too well.”

The man couldn’t help but to smile back at Ansel, “Sounds like a good life, Ansel. You seem to be in a better place, up here I mean,” he tapped the side of his head, “than the last time I saw you.”

Ansel racked his memory, and upon finding it barren and empty where he had attempted to search in it, he then asked, “And when was that? I don’t rightly seem to remember when that could have been.”

“The funeral.”

“Funeral? What funeral? Whose funeral? I thought you said you weren’t going to be bring up sad things anymore. I liked the just talking about things. Things that stopped mattering. I don’t have it in me to be sad forever now. I don’t think that I have that kind of time left in the old ticker as it is.”

“I know, I know what I said.” The man raised his hands up in admitted mock defeat. “But, it was a big part of who we are. For both of us. Shaped us up into who we are today. Who we ended up becoming, in the end. Plus…it was the last time I got to see you, Ansel. Before we both drifted apart and all that other series of things and happening that come from living our own lives. And with time getting in the way too for that matter.”

“I’m sorry for that,” and Ansel sincerely meant that. He’d always hated losing touch with people, didn’t matter who it was. But the man seemed to know that from the smirk he gave back at Ansel’s apology. “Anyways, what did you end up doing after this funeral that I don’t seem to remember? I only ended up playing in small bars and joints. Then just, roaming around without any real direction beneath my feet, other than forwards I mean.” Then Ansel mumbled, under his breath and to himself, “And down.”

“Me?” the man rocked and forth, showing no sign of being sad. Instead he made himself more comfortable, with his back arched and leaning against the better looking side of the couch, “I didn’t do much. Just found the love of my life, and got married once she finally said yes to that. Even had a few rugrats to call my own. Even look like me to boot,” he exhaled another ever present grin, each time Ansel couldn’t help but to mirror that smile, “I never ended up leaving that small town we were born in. Not like you did anyways. I never went any further than thirty miles from the hospital I was born in. You were a tad luckier, having been born a county over. You must think that’s a little pathetic of me. What with you, traveling, and meeting all sorts of folks and all. I never ended up leaving from where I had started from, despite my wanting to do so.”

“Not at all,” Ansel shook his head, “I always reckoned it took a strong strength of character to know what you want out of life. Let alone having the strength to hold on to it, with both hands. Otherwise you’d just let what you want slip right through your fingers and spill out and onto the floor. Where you’ll never see it again.. Seeping itself wherever you could never reach out and hold it in your hands again either.”

The man let out a long low whistle. “Well then, if that just ain’t a bunch of purty words you gots there, Ansel. I best reckon you could have been a poet if you applied some of that to paper. Using a whole load of ten dollar words in a row. Gets pretty expensive might quick there. Yes indeed, it does now abouts.”

“Shut it.”

“I’m just teasing you, little brother. That was, beautiful. That is all I meant. I see why you tried to be a musician. I bet you anything under the sun that you were great at it. No sense denying that.”

Ansel shrugged off the compliment. “I was decent. Not very good. If I was better then I’d still have the guitar with me.”

“Fair point. Must have been awful then,” the man grinned. “Again, just a joke. No need to send that chilly glare my way. Brr to that evil eye of yours, Ansel.”

They both turned and watched the fire sullenly bob around and above its small stage, masking away over the edges of the logs. They would be needing changing, and sooner rather than later.

“After our youngest was born, a little girl. My wife and I, we talked about leaving. Moving closer to the coast and finding a nice little piece of land to call our own. Somewhere we could grow old together. Nothing fancy, but a place the kids would want to come back and visit us when they had kids of their own. Didn’t happen though. Not that I’m sad about it, or anything, mind you. Just that, leaving, it never felt right for me. Like, I was always right where I needed to be.”

Ansel nodded.

“I just wish, I could have had the strength to tell you everything would be alright, in the end.”

Ansel coughed, and scratched at his neck. “Everything turned out more than alright for me. It always did. Everything always does. You just need to know where to look and it’ll get better. But, enough of this sad talking. You hungry?”

“Starving,” the man smiled again. Ansel thought he still looked sad, like he had more to say. Or that, even, he needed to have be said. Whatever it was, Ansel decided that it could wait for a few minutes longer.

“I was able to scrounge up a few things from the kitchen over there. The main thing I found is this can of beans here. And, as luck would have us. I even have two spoons we can use. That way we won’t be needing to share or anything weird like that. Should only take a few minutes to cook this out here on the fire. There we go.” Ansel set the opened can on top of the fire and waited patiently for it to heat up and start to cook.

Both men watched, and waited. Both wanting to say something, anything. Though everything felt better left unsaid, and so they watched the small can heat up instead. They took it off of the fire with a torn blanket once the juices started to bubble out of the top of the can. And after another few minutes to let it cool back down, they began to eat in further muted silence. Words weren’t really needed then. And it was nice just to know that no one in the room was really alone.

Ansel made sure to give the man the cleaner of the two spoons. He had actually lied to the man. One of the spoons was a fork, and Ansel was embarrassed by this oversight on his part. He had decided to use that for himself. The man noticed all of this and was gracious enough that he didn’t mind using the spoon all the same.

Once they had finished eating everything in the single can, and with Ansel having eaten most of it, the man asked, “How long are you going to stay in this cabin, Ansel?”

“I don’t know,” Ansel wiped a runny smear of juice from his beard with the back of his hand. “I think till the storm passed on through. I heard it would take a little while. At the earliest maybe two days.”

“Then, what are you going to do? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Ansel sighed, and stared into the fire, watching the discarded can on top of the logs he thought it over. It was a good question to throw at him after all. Fluids sizzled and steamed out as the can was cooked clean on the humble little fire. “I don’t know. Maybe head closer towards the nearest town and scrounge up more supplies. My little hiding hole, it, it caved in. I’m going to need to rebuild that once it stops being so damnably cold outside. Should clear up soon, then I can rebuild it. This time, hopefully better and stronger.”

The man huffed out a small, quick laugh. Ansel could clearly see the breath slink outwards in a thick strip of cold steam ahead of the man’s mouth and nose. The man’s eyes seemed to shine as he said, “Speaking of moving around. Remember how often we changed schools as kids? Had to be like six times or so. At least six. Boy did we really not stay in one place for too long it seemed.”

“Was it only that many?” Ansel acted surprised at the insight. You could see it in how he rubbed at his jaw, just behind his beard. “Could have sworn it was being more than that. No. No, you’re right. Every few years or so, but six sounds right. Or darn close to being right enough to just plain being right.”

“Two for each part of the school system itself.” The man coughed, rough and violently. He raised a hand to show that he was fine, “Two times in elementary, two times for middle, and two different high schools, each. Crazy we ever kept in touch with anyone. At least we had each other. We always had that going for us.”

Ansel huddled closer to himself, hugging his knees together, “I remember now. I remember what I didn’t want to remember.”

“And what’s that now, Ansel?”

The wind blew through the unseen cracks and gaps in the walls of the cabin. Dripping and burning the air with an unseen chill that crept through ones flesh and into the bones.

“I don’t want to say…”

The man leaned closer, Ansel could see his eyes more clearly now. They looked like his own, but with a few hints of green mixed into them, as if for both safe keeping and for good measure to tell them both apart. “I’m always going to be here; you know that right? Ansel. Don’t forget that. Please.”

Ansel turned away, he put his chin on his knees, and stared at the now cold fire.

“You died.” He admitted to himself. “You died, and I don’t even remember your name…” Ansel looked over to the man. But now he was alone. There was no one there, and there had never been anyone there. There hadn’t been anyone there for Ansel in a very long time. He was as alone as he had ever been.

He looked back into the fire; it had not yet gone out. Something else was going on with it.

Ansel remembered that he hadn’t even been able to start it at all, the firestarter hadn’t worked at all. He was too busy talking to himself about his dead brother. It was never actually burning. It sat as he had left it hours ago.

A dead brother who he couldn’t even remember. A dead brother that had caused Ansel to go downhill, to the point that his parents had kicked him out. Bits and fractured shards of memories played out in his head. He could hear them now. He could remember and see them both. His parents had done all that they could to survive their own grief and to take care of him. It became too much and came to a head one sad day.

Ansel didn’t blame them for what they said, or anything that they had done. Every bad thing in his life was a mixture of chance, and on him. And he knew that, even if he didn’t fully understand it. Let alone like being alone. He understood it.

Ansel wiped at his face, and tried to start the fire again. This time he used some scrap paper that had been saved up in the backpack along with all of his other things. This time he was successful in making a spark this time. A real one that he could feel, and ultimately, in a handful of minutes he succeeded in starting a small though albeit, modest fire. He held his hands inches from the flames until he could feel his hands again. It took longer than he’d have expected it to. Not that it mattered to him. There were other things in his mind then. More concerning thoughts.

“Frank? Mind talking to me? Just for a little bit?” Ansel took the radio and set it on the ground in front of him. “I’m a little scared to be, alone, right now…I was…talking to myself again. I know, I know…I shouldn’t be doing that. The nice doctor lady told me that I needed to see her again if that kept happening. They’d help me get my head on right if it happened again.”

Ansel fumbled with the dials, turning them until the small room became illuminated in static sounds, and ultimately with the jumbled up garbled voices that came out of the radio.

“…later on the top of the hour, we’ll discuss the local sports updates. But for now, the weather, with Charles Bronson. What do you have for us today, Charles?...”

“…Not a whole lot of a change for the near future. Unfortunately for all of us, not just here at station forty-three. We will all have to deal with this storm for a bit longer. The storm seems to be sitting over this area here, just past Dunestville. And as I said, it’s bad news for everybody in the area…” Static garbled the sound for a moment before cutting back into audible focus, “…the storm will continue to dump snow over the entire eastern parts of the state…than expected…are holed up anywhere and need assistance, we have a number for contacting the local authorities…”, there was a sharp intake, a hiss of uninterrupted static. Ansel adjusted the antenna until the static stopped and went away, “…but folks, I want to stress this point for everyone. If you are unable to leave your area safely, then stay indoors. The storm will pass, it’s just a matter of time and when…”

Ansel stared at the fireplace again, deep in his own thoughts. He would have to break one or both of the two chairs in the kitchen area soon. Just to keep the fire going a little bit longer. The owners of the cabin should forgive him, right? He wouldn’t have a choice after all, especially with what Frank told just finished telling him. That this storm would take a while more before it finally passed on by. They would understand, he was sure of it. They wouldn’t be mad at him. Especially if he didn’t end up freezing to death. No one wants that for anyone else. No one wants him to freeze to death…

“They would understand. Right, Frank?”, Ansel asked of the radio.

Naturally the radio did not answer him. Instead it played soft classical music at him. The broadcast had ended some minutes before.

“You’re right, Frank. I’ll worry about that in a little while. I’m…” Ansel stretched and stood back up, his body ached and popped in protest against the movements, “…really, really tired. I’m going to go take a nap. Wake me up this time if anything happens. Alright?”

Then, Ansel laid himself out on the couch, a layer of dust fell off around him and the floor, and dreamed that he wasn’t so alone anymore.

Chapter Three

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