'Skin in the Game

Addison was perched quietly in the small bedroom on the third floor of their house by a small window overlooking the side yard that was lush with trees this time of year. Everyone else was downstairs. "Look," he heard his mother say in a highly concerned tone through the otherwise silent air vent, "I don't want things. I want my dad."

"Roger's gone," Bill said, swallowing the same bitter pill of their father's passing.

"Exactly, and things can't replace that, so I don't want them."

Bill was slow to take another look through their father's Will. After he did, he broke the silence with a somber yet factual tone, "Anything he left to any one of us that we don't want is then given to that person's children."

"That's Addy!" he heard his mom exclaim, wondering what expression was on her face at that moment. There were some more somewhat muffled words exchanged between his mom and uncle that Addison couldn't discern. What he heard, he only understood a portion, being not quite ten yet. In the end, he heard his mother say, "You give the box to him, Billy. You still have your words."

֎

If it had been a scene in a movie, the character would have cried and the room would have quickly flooded from the tears. That's how Addison felt as he lowered his head. His thoughts had immediately darted to that movie-scene question, one his grandfather had asked him plenty of times. Now that his eyes were closed, he recalled more of those occasions in vivid detail.

He remembered joyfully half-jogging, half-hopping his way through the back yard for the far end where the trees to the small forest started. His grandfather, Rogers, smiling and encouraging his ideas playfully. After every ten ideas they would stop to write them down in a notebook they carried. Addison chuckled, forgetting how many pencils they had either lost or broken, but his grandfather always seemed to have one, even if only one that was broken in half.

"The tall masts of the pirate ship rocked slightly from side to side as the dry sails fluttered in the wind."

"Quick, Addy!" shouted his grandfather. "We must tighten the sails or we will never get out of the harbor and they will catch us!"

Addison remembered that day. Perhaps it was due to the notebook with the skull and cross bones being the one on top of the pile on the nearby desk now. That was his pirate adventure notebook. If he felt in the mood to be a pirate on a day when he would go out play-writing with his grandfather, that's the one he would take.

He looked at the stack of notebooks under that one and he could tell just by the color which was which. One was about friends having adventures and mishaps. It had some interesting characters on the cover. Another was yellow with a toy duck on the cover. He never much cared for it and yet, he still managed to write many goofy ideas in it, one of which his mom had done for one of his birthdays. She got that idea upon inquiring as to all the uproarious laughter she had overheard when they were writing in it.

No matter which notebook he brought to play-write, both he and his grandfather would write in it. If they were apart for a few days, one of them would invariably, and triumphantly, pass to the other any notebooks they had written in so the one who just returned could respond in kind. Addison didn't want the writing to stop, although the gallivanting around would likely need to...change.

"Wait," Addison thought to himself. "What was that new word grand-dad taught me recently?" He paused for a moment and gave his brain a mental squeeze as though it were a lemon. "Transmute. Yes, transmute."

The most poignant lesson Addison would learn with his grandfather's passing had to do with another notebook, one with a black trim and a lot of geometric shapes on the front cover. That one he used when he was in building mode, for times when they explored how tiny blocks would build systems that could do things that would appear magical without an exploration of its parts. He always rediscovered the magic of a system every time by taking a step back, though.

In that notebook, they would doodle a bit along the exterior edges of the pages, particularly in the top corners. As it progressed, they decided to turn it into a kind of map. It actually led to a place and his grandfather impressed upon him that something valuable should always be kept in that place. Something that could generate a magical wonder only certain people could see.

֎

It was Uncle Bill who was the first to ask Addison about the box bequeathed to him. Bill was the one who somehow always managed to compose himself enough to keep words at his disposal. He simply always wanted to be sure that he could give to others what he could.

Bill began by asking Addison if he felt ok with the box he had been given two days earlier. To that, Addison confessed, "Oh, it's valuable for sure, but I am not sure I can do anything with it".

Uncle Bill asked him if he wanted to exchange anything for it and the conversation proceeded to Uncle Bill offering him $20 plus some writing time together, not to mention invite him in on any designs he had for it.

That seemed fine, "But if it was valuable, then $20 probably wasn't enough," Addison thought to himself. "I want more," Addison said, very pensively.

"How much?" asked Uncle Bill.

Addison had really only start learning about bigger numbers in school and hadn't really grasped their actual meaning outside of counting. "I want more zeros," he said simply, tapping the piece of paper with '$20' written on it.

"How many more?"

For this computation, he thought of what was a lot of a good thing, but not too much, but could still last for a bit. The only anecdote he could think of was donuts. Three was a lot and you couldn't eat them all in one sitting without getting tummy troubles. But, they were still good to eat a day or two afterwards, so you could spread them out. "Three."

"Uh, ok," replied Bill, so he adjusted the figure on the paper.

Had he written '$20.000' Addison would have become irate, for he understood decimals perfectly well. With this deal, however, Addison was only too happy to oblige. He gave the black-trimmed notebook to Uncle Jack and explained how to follow the route using the doodle on each page along with a little bit of the text on each corresponding page. When Uncle Bill asked if he wanted to join in, Addison declined saying, "It would make me feel sad because I would remember too much of grand-dad". Truth be told, he simply didn't want to walk the same path yet again.

֎

Before the negotiation with Uncle Bill, Addison's sense of duty had provided him with a clear sense of action. The box he was given contained a key, which he knew from gallivanting around was for his grandfather's underground shed, the entrance to which was easily concealed as it was next to the garage. Since he neither knew what to do with it now nor did he want to lose it, he put the key in a box and put it in the special place that particular notebook would reveal. Had he been any younger, curiosity may have encouraged him to enter the underground shed for the first time, but not that day.

As Uncle Bill left the room, that strong sense of duty re-emerged and encouraged Addison to do two things. First, was to keep the key that had been entrusted to him by his grandfather. Second, replace the key with something with a magic that could only be seen by some...but perhaps not by him. So, he dashed to the special place, removed the key from the box, and replaced it with something else before sliding the box back into the special place.

֎

"They are just few balls with scribbles on it. Names for sure," Addison thought to himself, although he immediately shrugged off the thought. He didn't care much for those balls, or whose names were on them, but he knew they must be incredible somehow given the sheer pride with which his grandfather had displayed when giving them to him a year earlier. Some value was stored in those autographs, but he couldn't see it.

Uncle Bill kept them and, several years later, he found himself in dire straights. On the day before his wedding. He needed a certain kind of car to set the scene, gift to his automotive-inclined fiancee, and to actually get to the venue. Only one ball was needed to be pawned to do the trick. The remainder were passed on as heirlooms.

Two years after Bill's wedding, Addison finally saw the classic Technicolor film whose characters were prominently displayed on the cover of the notebook filled with adventures with new friends. His girlfriend couldn't let him graduate college without watching it.

Addison moved out after graduation and soon after, his parents decided to downsize. While Addison had been able to continue with his love of writing, helping during the move was his first time he used the key, which revealed a shed loaded with supplies to dazzle sophisticated guests in almost any situation. (Exclusions included beer bong frat parties and the like.) The contents of those boxes helped him create contexts for content he used, not just to jump start his career in journalism, but also to proliferate his talents by enabling situations where content flowed to him.

Later in life, Addison gazed at the wall with the highlights of all he had written over the years, reflecting back on everything he had done with the contents of those boxes. His heart was grateful with all he had experienced and written. By the time they had covered him in a white cloth, he knew what was most important.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you've really liked what you've read, please share with your friends on social media. As always, feel free to check out the other things I have written here on Vocal.

Thank you!