It was the summer of oil rigs, and of sweating until names meant nothing against the clash of iron. It was the summer of the Navajo, and of ferality, and of fistfights. It was the summer of spending five hours a day in the bed of a truck, freezing or burning depending on the time of day. It was my summer. It was long, and hellish, and hot. And as you can also imagine, it was also the summer of being a tad bit over-dramatic.
There was no work that day, so my head was clear. It was my day with the children, and I had taken them to the Aztec Ruins National Monument, because this felt human. While I studied a chart that concerned that spread of forests over the course of geological time, the kids knelt to either side of me, bent on one knee filling out worksheets they’d received in the Ranger’s office. It’s amazing what you can get a kid to do on the promise of a merit badge. We’d spent almost two hours in the park looking for the answers to various questions all so they could have the honor of being promoted to “Junior Rangers.”
“Are you sure you don’t need to know what all those jugs were called in the Great Kiva?” The Great Kiva was a sacred underground chamber we had spent quite a while in. I liked it because it was cold as a witch’s tit, and it was out of the sun. I wouldn’t have regretted having to spend a few more minutes walking around it.
“No. It’s not on the list.”
“Well do you need to know anything about the spread of forests thousands of years ago?” Since we coudn’t get out of the sun, I could at least help them finish their worksheets as quickly as possible.
“No.”
I shrugged and turned back to the chart. Pictures of trees with brief descriptions were drawn off at right angles to a time-line that began some thousands of years before the birth of Christ, up to the modern age. The chart, with its conifers and deciduous leaves, was a welcome distraction. On the oil rig all I ever did was sweat, and despair.
The previous week I had collapsed from heat stroke, and spent a grueling half an hour on my hands and knees puking like a cat trying to cough up a hair ball. It was the closest I have ever come to death while an adult, yet the whole time I had been there on the ground, puking, all I had been able to think was: “I’m doing this horrible fucking job to make money to pay for college, so I can become a professional scientist. I believe now it is very possible I may die in pursuit of this goal. Which makes absolutely no fucking sense because I’ve wanted to be a writer my entire life.”
The last thing you want to believe when you’re puking your guts out and you can’t feel your hands and feet, is that everything you’re puking for is worthless. It had put me in something of an existential mood ever since. If I had too long to think I couldn’t help but get to thinking what bullshit my life had become. So I studied the chart, because I still didn’t want to face the implications of my epiphany.
“Andrew, do you want to see ‘Monster House’ tonight?” Jacob asked. We didn’t live too far from the local theater, and I had promised to take them some time during the week.
“I don’t know, Buddy. I’ll have to think about that.” Heat tends to make me rather unambitious. If he asked me at some time in the evening, I would doubtless change my mind.
My little sister rolled her eyes. “Do you have something better to do?”
“I’m sure I’ll think of something.” I hadn’t written anything significant since high school, trying to kill the urge in me so that I would spend more time focusing on things like chemistry. I hated chemistry. Nothing but a bunch of goddamn memorization if you asked me. I looked back at the time-line.
“You always say that.” Karen whined.
“That’s because I’m very clever.” I tussled her hair a bit.
For whatever reason, I never write under my own name. Maybe it’s because I generally don’t like personal attention, or because I don’t like myself. I don’t know. So I looked at the time-line, as any old name would do.
I favor pseudonyms with two initials representing a first and middle name ending with a noun for a last name. Most of my fantasy I had written under the moniker of TM Lords. I’d gotten the “TM” from the trademark symbol, and the Lords from God only knows where. I had a half a dozen other names I picked up and discarded like used matches. So I looked at the time-line. All those dates. BC leant itself immediately as it had two letters. I could figure out what they stood for at a later date if I had to. Forest however didn’t seem quite right. BC Forest? Besides, there had just been a movie made called “Finding Forrester” and it would have felt pretentious. That settled it. BC Woods. Woods had a nice low-key ring to it, as opposed to the clinical “Forest.”
Thus began my never-ending war with the pre-Christian era and the wilderness regions of British Columbia for search engine supremacy.
