Once lost, Now found

Chapter four

Luca

I sat on the back porch wondering how the fuck all this happened. Damn fucking hangover and damn me for drinking too much, I can't remember much of my night past my seventh whiskey, it's a blur. Yet the first thing I noticed this morning when he looked at me was his eyes. They were breathtaking. Yeah, I was waxing poetic a bit, but I’d truly never seen such a striking shade of blue. Pale and almost silver in color in the middle surrounded by a dark, stormy gray. He seemed kind enough for me to get comfortable with until my clothes dried. The garden on the other hand was very outgrown, he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who would even think of doing a bit of gardening. Maybe I could pay back his kindness and at least trim the damn grass. I scoured the garden and noticed a shed in the far corner. Maybe there's tools in there. I got up, in only my boxers at that, and wandered through the overgrowth, rose bushes in bloom and various other flowers left to their own devices. Such a waste of beautiful space. 

Even in my young youth I remembered my mother had a favourite part of the garden I was only allowed to look upon. I would sit pondering some of my days looking into her small flower patch. The remainder of our garden was my fathers. It was his, as he called it his safe haven from the stresses of work and yeah, he was a busy man. On some days when work was more stressful than others, he would take his frustrations out on me. I was just a kid, but it didn't stop him from treating me as if I was some punching bag. From the age of about six (or it could have been even younger) until just before my teenage years, my father used, or rather, abused his privileged position of trust by ‘having a bit of fun’ with me, at least twice a week. This ‘fun’ never extended much beyond masturbation and oral sex but for a little boy who, even if I do say it myself, was rather sensitive, it was bad enough. He always impressed upon me the importance of not telling anyone else, “Especially your mother. She wouldn’t understand”. Like a fool, I obeyed. How it all started, I honestly can’t remember. Most people’s first intimate experience is indelibly stamped on their memory, but not mine. I have always had sex. It has been part of my upbringing. To me, from the age of six, it was as natural as eating, walking and sleeping. I didn’t and couldn’t see anything wrong in it. It was simply a part of my childhood. Then obviously when at fifteen I had that experience with that stranger in the woods. But to me that was my real sexual experience, outside of my home. Maybe all these years of abusing myself and the others around me, was just a cover up, a cloak of disguise so I didn't have to relive my turbulent childhood. Then I ended up leaving everything behind and going out on my own, to face the world of men and that's how it's been, for so long, that I can't remember a time I felt that warm fuzzy feeling, that comfort I feel here, strange as it is I wished I never had to leave. I liked his company. He wasn't massively talkative, but then again I liked that. I always thought, people who had too much to talk about were at least trying to cover something up or compensate for something else. I met a few of those in my time. Non stop jabbering about nothing, yet everything. It would bore the shit out of me. 

"Are you okay?" I heard his soft voice. It left a warm impression on me and I very much enjoyed hearing it.

"Was just thinking I could do a bit of gardening, you know ... .for helping me out."

"You really don't need to, I can hire someone." When he said that, I thought he could hire me, I needed the money and he needed his garden tending to. Two birds with stone sort of thing.

"Hire me then. I need the cash and you need someone to do it." He has a perplexed look on his face.

"Do you know anything about gardening?" I smiled.

"Do you?" He shook his head. "Then I know more than you."

"Where will you go….after?"

"I'll just keep doing what I've been doing for a while now."

"And what's that?" He's an inquisitive one.

"Going from town to town doing odd jobs."

 "Oh." He sat down in the sun holding onto two cold glasses of maybe lemonade. "What about, erm sleeping…." I held out my hand for a glass and he happily passed it over.

"You want to know where I sleep?"

"Well, you don't have to tell me."

"I sleep wherever, shelters, doorways, even park benches. I'm used to it now, so I'm not phased anymore…." I stopped talking when that warm expression of his changed to utter shock. "Don't look so glum, it's just how it is….so, what about hiring me?"

"Well…." He paused for a moment. "Why don't you stay here, until it's done. There's a lot to do, it's more than a day's work."

"You'd let me stay for longer?"

"Well, I have another two spare rooms."

"Alright." I said, approaching him and sitting firmly opposite him. "I'll stay and payment can be a roof over my head, until I find somewhere else I can go. Deal?"

"Where will you go after?"

"Who knows ... .so, deal?"

"Fine." He said, holding out his hand. I took it and gave it a small shake. It's warm and a little sticky at the touch. Yet there was something very sad about the way he looked. Did something bad happen to him? Yet looking again at this rather large overgrown garden, it brought memories of my childhood and the times of escape. I used to go for long, solo walks in the countryside. This was my idea of heaven. I loved being alone, immersing myself in nature. I would spend hours, watching beetles and ants, birds and small animals. Luckily, I only had to walk a couple of hundred yards to find myself in unspoiled and unvisited countryside, so my love of nature could be fully satiated. When I was finally given a second hand bike, I was ecstatic. I was no longer tied to the monotonous estate that I knew so well and hated so much. My beloved rural environs could be expanded. I could huff, puff and peddle for miles along deserted roads and steep myself in new landscapes full of equally new experiences. My solitary sojourns into the surrounding sylvan byways became a drug, which numbed the hatred I felt for my family life. For the father who hated me, yet couldn't keep away from. "Thanks." He said.

"That's alright, I mean you're very trusting though. I could murder you as you sleep." I chuckled at that, but with him, it fell kind of flat. "Sorry."

"Will you murder me?" He asked, hugging up to his knees.

"No."

"That's something a murder would say." He chimed. Then smiled. 

"Then if I feel like going on a murderous rampage, I promise not to murder you." He huffed out little laugh, then lent his chin on his knees. I watched him for a while as he lost himself in thought and I lost myself thinking of him and what his story is.