Not long after Rick’s tenth birthday, the family made the move to the small town of McMinnville, Oregon. Evergreen International had promoted Bob to ‘Chief Pilot’, which meant he was now in charge of Evergreen International’s entire fleet of 727s. While a promotion usually seems like a good thing, for Bob it meant his beloved cockpit was replaced with a chipped wooden desk loaded with flight schedules and timesheets; not ideal for a man who thrived on adventure and pushing the limits. The only thing he was pushing now was papers.

The family purchased a two-story house on Johnson Street, with a workshop, and a decent property, although Rick was sad to leave his forest behind. But new surroundings meant new exploration, and Ricky was keen to map out the area, and plot his territory. With an apple tree, a huge maple, and a couple of large evergreens, the boys were set for things to climb, and for things to throw at each other. The main intrigue became the shopping center, just a quick climb up the maple tree, and a drop down the other side of the fence to the uninhabited grassy corner of the block, then a quick scoot across the road.

Freedom. Loaded with stores like The Gap, Payless, Safeway, McDonalds, and a Pizza Hut, the area was a treasure chest for a kid like Rick, so much to explore. Behind the shopping center, a long, paved stretch of loading docks bordered an apartment complex and some more dwellings. For a kid used to running free and unseen in a forest, this concrete jungle became a new challenge to maneuver, with the numerous streets, homes and stores providing a maze of get-away routes. Lying on the far side of the shopping complex was Highway 99, the final frontier, a raging river of cars, and at the time, the apex of his explorations.

With the bustle of the move and the pre-occupation with his new environment, the kid was in his glory, completely happy and carefree, unaware of the trouble brewing, and completely unprepared for the emotional explosion lurking in the shadows.

“Daddy’s home!”

Bob shut the front door and brushed past his oldest son.

“Can I speak to you boys in your room?”

“Maybe he brought us something Jimmy?”

Jimmy burst into a huge grin and followed his big brother like a little puppy. Both boys took a seat on the hardwood floor, while Bob took a seat on Ricky’s bed. Curious about all the commotion, Brenda leaned inside the doorway. Although still day, the beaming sun against the partially closed yellowish blinds cast an eerie orangish-glow, an almost rusty blood-red, throughout the room as if the sky outside was on fire.

“I’m leaving your Mom. We’re getting a divorce. I won’t be living at home anymore.”

Ricky didn’t understand. What did he mean he wouldn’t be living there anymore? He had to live there, he was their Dad. That’s how families worked. Ricky looked to his mother for reassurance but she was a white sheet, the wall barely supporting her defeated frame. It would have been nice if Bob had at least given her the courtesy of divulging his divorce plans before he told the boys. She’d known it’d been a possibility for a while now, but to do this to her and the boys in this way, without even giving her a chance to prepare them was unforgivable. Fucking bastard. She could feel the weight of Rick’s stare but she was helpless, and turned her eyes away.

“But you can’t leave!”

“Mom and I aren’t getting along Ricky. I’m leaving.” He rose from the bed, and walked out of the bedroom towards the front door.

Little Ricky was a blur. Everything and everyone in the room had blended into the orange glow, distorting the lines of reality. Was this really happening? Was his father, the person he loved and cherished most in the world, leaving? Life without his father, his mentor, his hero – incomprehensible. As if he’d stuck his finger in an electrical socket, his little body jolted with pain and anguish. The rusty glow intensified as he tried to make sense of the situation. His head pounding. His heart booming. His lungs ready to explode.

“NO! DADDY NO! YOU CAN’T LEAVE! PLEASE DON’T LEAVE! DADDY WE NEED YOU!”

He clung to his father’s leg, the tears uncontrollable, the high-pitched fervour of his cries wounding the air. Bob dug his hands into the little boy’s shoulders and pushed him away like he was flicking a fly on a hot summer’s night.

“This is best for everybody!”

Without another word or even a glance at his quivering son, Bob walked out the front door and out of their lives. Shattered. Helpless. Abandoned. Betrayed. Destroyed. Ricky couldn’t move. His entire body frozen in shock, stifled in pain. How could this possibly be what was best for everyone? Ricky refused to believe that. He couldn’t understand, too young to comprehend the trials of adulthood, and especially relationships. All he knew in that moment, all his ten-year-old brain could grasp was that he was no longer important to his father. He couldn’t see his father’s own unhappiness in the marriage, and he couldn’t see that he could still be a part of his father’s life. All he knew was fury, and all he felt was deception.

Jimmy and Brenda collapsed onto the floor, and the three of them huddled together, crying until there were no more tears to be cried, burying their own pain in the pain of each other.

“Don’t worry,” said Brenda. “God will protect us. God will take care of us now.” That’s all the comfort she had to offer, all that her own broken heart could muster.

But it wasn’t nearly enough to comfort the aching in the hearts of her two boys. They needed some understanding, they needed to know that their father still loved them, and that this had nothing to do with them; that sometimes adults fall out of love, and need to live apart. They needed assurance. They needed answers. They got nothing – not from their mother, and certainly not from their father. Without responsible answers or direction, Ricky would be forced to surmise his own truths, truths, whether right or wrong, that would shape his understanding of the event for the rest of his life. He needed some space, some time alone to digest the sickening feeling retching in his gut.

His limbs weighted with stress, Ricky slowly and deliberately climbed the maple tree, coming to rest in his favorite branch spilt. The leaves had just begun their colourful descent to death, spraying the hue with shades of yellow, orange, and faded red. Yesterday, Ricky would have noticed the colours, he would have examined the patterns and took glory in the beauty of the changing landscape. Today, his red, swollen eyes saw nothing but anger, his mind a tangled mess of unanswered questions and wailing thoughts.

“How could he do this? Why would he leave? Does he not love us enough to stay? To try and work things out? What was life going to be without him? Why would he abandon us like that? Am I really not that good of a son?”

The last question stung the boy hard. He took it personally. Bob leaving was a direct betrayal of the relationship between father and son. As much as he tried, the boy didn’t understand, and the more he tried to understand, the more his mind entombed his sadness into rage.

“What’s so wrong with our family that he had to leave? That he had to walk away? How dare he abandon us and destroy our family! How dare he hurt us like this and walk away!”

Rage begat rage. His troubled ten-year-old mind making assumptions and coming to conclusions, sitting all alone in a tree, as the twilight descended, both on the day, and on the life he once knew, and the happiness he once felt. By walking out of his life, Bob had lost the privilege to be Rick’s father. Simple as that. For the first time, Rick tasted the bitterness of hate. It tore through every ounce of his body, pushing out the innocence of childhood, and settled deep into his heart, slamming the door to forgiveness on the way by. The anger boiled, and the rage seethed. He had betrayed them, the very family he had raised, he had discarded like a random piece of trash. Ricked hated him for it. He hated the way his father made him love him, only to throw it all away, like it meant nothing at all. Everything in the past was examined through Rick’s muddled lenses. Had his father ever really loved him? Had all those times together just been for show? He had no way of knowing, and there was no one brave enough to be honest about their feelings to help guide his tormented soul. He hated the power his father had over him – to break him like this and shatter him. No control. He could never let it happen again. He could never allow himself to feel again. Ever. Fueled with rage, the engine of hatred mounted and spun at a delirious pace. Thoughts and emotions became jumbled, twisted and tortured under the immense pressure, his young head and his young heart unable to process the array fast enough. The pressure building. Deeper. Crushing. Hate. Overload. Explosion. Darkness. Death.

In that moment, in that tree, the world stopped. Something happened. He could feel it. Like a red-hot fire burning through every part of his brain snapping every bridge that connected emotions to rational thoughts. Instantly. Done. Severed. His mind went numb and an eerie, icy, calm eviscerated his entire soul. No sound. No wind. Just a cold empty blackness within. He had died inside. Fully. Completely. He had lost his soul. His flesh, now just a mere cover for the empty shell underneath, his body working only to keep him physically alive. The uncontrollable fire storm of rage and betrayal left his heart a boiling pot of molten lava, seething and bubbling, a volcano building deep within, protected for now by a cold vacuum of empty space.

He told himself that no one would ever be able to hurt him like that again; he’d never give anyone that kind of power. He told himself that he was dead inside, convinced himself that he could never feel again, that he could control everything that happened to him. He gave himself the power. He took that power away from his father and gave it to himself. It’s all he could think of to do. The hate for his father was as real as the deadness he felt inside. There was no forgiveness, there would be no escape. He would never hurt or shed a tear again. Nothing could phase him. He told himself he was invincible, in control of everything. He had to find his way to cope. He had to find his way to survive – and he did, in the most simple and straightforward way a child could cope. He’d just turn off the switch that made anything matter. He truly believed he had the strength and capabilities to do such a thing. At ten years old. Just turn everything off, like you’d turn off the lights.

When the soul is in darkness it doesn’t have to recognize or deal with the pain. It doesn’t mean the pain disappears or new pain doesn’t occur, it’s just easier to shove it all down deep and convince yourself that it doesn’t exist. For a ten-year old, this shit was real, and his belief that he could pull it off, and grow up without it boiling over was also real. From now on, he would live two separate lives, manoeuvering between the light and the dark like a ghost. He became ‘Ghost’, living as a shadow, a mere apparition that slid seamlessly through both worlds, just trying his best to survive the challenges, and constantly trying to understand what went wrong. But whatever he did, he would not feel. He would not feel pain; he would not feel sorrow. He would not spend another minute mourning the loss of his father. The bastard could go fuck himself. Rick didn’t care. Bob had betrayed them all. He had ruined their lives. Fuck him.