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  Andy was my friend and he was hurting and even if I could do nothing about it, I could always just be there for him. Like the time he was for me with my Mom. All he had left in the world was me and Cat and Uncle Parsons, and I was determined that I’d never let him down.

  Anyway, my Dad did decide to keep the house after my mom died. I would go up there some summers and meet up with uncle Parsons and Cat and Andy for dinner. If Dad was along, he’d lure Uncle Parsons into a game of scrabble… he always loses that game, though. I guess Dad didn’t care about the results of the scrabble, or the chess. I think he went for the glass of port and the company. He still does. I guess in a way, I was family and they treated me as one and that extended to Dad as well.

  When it was time to start college, Andy came down to stay with me in Los Angeles and we did most of the College things. When he wasn’t studying (which was most of the time) then he was jogging, cycling, swimming or playing with my pinball machines. I had five by then, and had managed to get a place built behind the garage to put them in. I figured I could fit another twelve in before I’d have to build up.

  I watched him carefully, after everything that had happened to him, I kept waiting to see his ‘happy look’ so that I knew he was OK. I didn’t get to see it. His smiles were always… just smiles. That made me sad, somehow… but he was still Andy and we were still best friends. Soon enough we had got into the groove again, and we could just skirt around the deep stuff without getting bogged down and heavy.

  There were still good times, though. We were both fit, although I was beefier than he was then… and heavier, we did manage to pull the babes. They would flock around him at Frat parties and I could talk to any of them I wanted. That’s how I met Nancy, and that’s how he met June. We used to double-date through our sophomore years, Nancy and June were good friends and I was having too much fun, and building on what Nancy and I were getting on.

  What I did notice was Andy becoming more and more, well… I dunno… ‘still’, or maybe ‘cool’ is a better word. Both words are not quite right, perhaps somewhere between both. Nancy was convinced he and June were ‘The One’ for each other, but I doubted it somehow. Not that they weren’t great together and didn’t click… There was many a night I had to sleep with a pillow over my head when June stayed over, but I don’t gotta go into too much detail there… but somehow Andy wasn’t happy. I kinda convinced myself into thinking that he was happy with June, and that’s gotta be enough.

  But when you know someone most of your life, the little nagging bugs in your head that says ‘Andy isn’t happy’, just won’t go away. He didn’t give any signs to the contrary, so I left it alone… I figured that Andy is one of the smartest people I know and if there was a way to figure out what needs to be done, or how you need to get there… then he will, no matter what it takes, Andy will make it right.

  I guess I’m nearly at the end of what I got to say about the past… When you’re small your life is full of bright moments like Polaroid snaps; Me and Andy pricking our fingers after we had chased off the Dennis brothers’ gang when we were eight years old and him swearing: “No secrets, Petey… blood brothers never have secrets, no matter how bad…” or the time me and Cat and he stumbled on a deer giving birth in the forest behind the hill, just sitting still and watching while a new life came into the world on little, wobbly legs. Or the time he got that root-spike through his foot and I carried him a mile and a half back home so Uncle Parsons could pull it out over the bloody kitchen sink. Or the time I married Nancy with him standing next to me handing me her ring. Or the time we spent a whole afternoon every day for a week digging in a sand-pit looking for a little red wooden car… After writing this part, I think I figured it out: “No secrets, Petey…”

  I still got to say stuff about the present, before I’m done.

  It was Thanksgiving the week after I got the package delivered, and we were scheduled to go up to the old House. If Andy had planned his timing, it couldn’t have been better. Parsons won’t let me call him ‘uncle’ anymore, but some other things don’t change all that much. Dad was between away-shifts, so he was at home and we stopped over there first.

  We spent the afternoon romping around our garden with the kids, and then took a walk up the hill for dinner. Parsons and Dad had taken to scrabble every evening this particular week. Last week was Chess. Dad wins at Chess, Parsons wins at scrabble. That never stops them from playing. In some ways I could see Dad and Parsons kinda like Andy and me, twenty years further down the line.

  Andy was there, looking like a million bucks. There wasn’t a scrap of fat on him, and I felt self- conscious there was a bit more belly on me than there should be, as we hugged hello. He was as solid as granite with arms like bowling balls, and here I was teetering on the verge of ‘suet’. Even the salt-and-pepper look in his hair suited him. Still, I felt the old warmness in my belly whenever I saw him and he looked as happy as I’d seen him these last ten years.

  Cat was there too, also looking twenty years younger than she was, her ass as flat as a pancake even after the three boys. I noticed Nancy tugging at her blouse as Cat swirled around and handed out the punch, and I got to thinking that Nancy and I should start exercising more.

  Then it got busy, as Thanksgivings tend to be. Dinner vanished in a huge swirl of spouses, Moon Shadow, Nancy and Bobby herding kids, turkey and cranberry sauce, other friends arriving… kids fighting, kids crying, kids making up, kids laughing… more turkey. Parsons had become fond of calling the house ‘The Aviary’ over this holiday period because of all the ‘Hawks and Finches’.

  I think any large group of kids tend to break the laws of physics. Cat’s three boys with Bobby, Andy’s adopted Fabian and his own toddlers with Moon Shadow (we called them the ‘little’ Twins as opposed to their Uncles) displayed Brownian motion in a group, rather than normal movement. After desert and coffee (There is always coffee in the Finch house.) I noticed Andy wasn’t around anywhere. I checked out on the porch where the guys were sipping whiskeys, but Michel said he hadn’t seen him for awhile. I followed a hunch and climbed the steps to his old room. I never knew how many rooms the old house had, but I could always find Andy anywhere in the place when my hunches kicked in. The light was on, the door ajar. I peeked in. He was standing staring at the flickering lights through the North Window.

  “That used to be forest.” He said without turning. I never knew what sense he used, but he always knew when someone was in the room, and who it was. “Look at it now.” He sipped at his whiskey.

  “Things change, bro.” I walked over to him, panting slightly from the climb.

  “Three flights of steps? Winded?” Andy turned and grinned that huge, beautiful smile. “Yeah… um, well…” I felt myself blushing “Busy and all that… not much exercise.” “Ah!” he grinned again and turned to the South window. “At least over there’s still there.” “Acey…” I blurted “I read it!” So much for me being cool and collected, I bit my lip.

  “Ah.” His shoulders bunched as he sipped his whiskey “I was wondering what you’d think.” “I…” I cleared my throat “Why?” I sat down on the bed, let him pace.

  “I needed to write it, Petey.” Andy shrugged as he turned to face me “Of all the people I could have left for last, it just happened to be you.” Andy sighed and sat on the bed next to me and said softly, “I’m sorry, Petey. By the time I could tell you I was OK, there was so much to tell you that I just couldn’t. So I punked out and sent you the journal the shrinks said I should keep after... you know, the desert. I was writing it to me when I started out, but by the time I finished putting entries in it, I figured it’s as much everyone else’s story as mine.”

  “Oh.” I felt myself grinning “Pretty racy stuff there, sport.”

  “Heh.” Andy actually blushed “Yeah, I’m bad.”

  “No secrets, bro…” I muttered awkwardly.

  “Yup.” He nodded, the silence stretched, “Exactly that, no secrets. Not from me, and
not from anyone else, and sometimes not even from yourself.”

  “Your perfect days?” I shrugged “You keep count?”

  “Yup. Always keep one spare though, I found myself wanting one and got lots more.” He grinned and fished in his pocket “I was going to bring this down to you, here…”

  “Acey… this, it’s…” I looked down at the ruined little wooden block, half of it was still red

  “When did you find it.”

  “A while ago. I brought it back up here.” Andy shrugged, looking confused, “I guess it spent thirty years in that pit, but I did find it, eventually. It was your favourite, I recall.”

  “Not. It was your favourite.” I hugged the little wooden Ferrari, feeling my eyes mist up, “I was upset because I lost your favourite car.”

  “Nah, bro…” Andy put a hand on my shoulder “You were upset because you lost our favourite toy. What you think? That I wouldn’t play with you anymore? That we wouldn’t have anything left to do together without the toy? After all this?”

  “Uhhh… I guess…” I hung my head. He could always see right through me. “So… are we good, then?” Andy patted my shoulder gently.

  “Yeah, bro...” I nodded, wiping my nose. “We’re good.”

  “As to ‘why?’ you asked,” Andy leaned back, cupped the glass in the middle of his chest “I guess I wanted to leave a legacy, y’know, for my friends.”

  “But the software stuff, and the Lodge franchise… and the thingy that’s gonna photograph all those moons around Saturn?” I shook my head, confused

  “Those are for the kids, bro.” Andy grinned up at me “I want my friends to know me, warts an’ all.”

  “I guess.” I shrugged. “That’s… some pretty big warts, though.”

  “Hmmm… you gonna try and stand up for me? You always do.” He leaned forward and put the empty glass on the sideboard.

  “Well, maybe. I think I wrote something at the beginning.” I found myself grinning sheepishly.

  “OK, then… I guess. Anything you want.” Andy smiled that smile again. It clicked suddenly. That ‘happy look’ he used to have had grown up into that smile. I had waited ten years to see a ‘happy look’, and there it was. I had just twigged on that I had been seeing it for the last little while, but didn’t put it together. Finally I could say my friend was going to be okay, finally I knew it.

  “Just don’t change anything I put in, no matter how bad. I want the ones I love to know what they lovin’, ‘kay?”

  “Sure, Acey… I promise.” I laughed and put the little warped car next to his glass. I felt a huge weight lifted from inside me. “Least now I know what the ‘AC’ stands for…. Owwwwwww.”

  “I’ll let go the nose ONLY when you promise you’ll NEVER tell the kids what that is…” Andy chuckled behind the pinch-grip. I’d forgotten how quick he was. “Otherwise it’s the ticklin’ next, Petey-boy… until you say ‘uncle’.”

  “I PROMISE!” I laughed even though my eyes were watering “Jus’ let do by dose.” And that is all I have to say. Andy will tell you the rest.

  Part One – The First Chakra

  The first Chakra is positioned at the bottom of the spine. It is a grounding Chakra. It is represented by the colour scarlet, as well as the four-petal lotus. It represents instinct, survival and basic human potential. There is not much more I can say about it in my Journal... but I have to start somewhere, and this is as good a place as any... If I am to tell you about me, this is probably the best place to start – June 1992

  Chapter One

  I didn’t know Michel until I put in an ad on the notice board for a training Partner. He was the only one to apply because of my unusual conditions and we had been working out there together, since, three times a week for the last six months. Michel worked days and I worked nights, so the only time we could spare was between six and nine in the evening before the gym closed. This was a regular arrangement and it seemed to suit us both fine. We were both in our mid-twenties, similar strength and build and on the same intensity workout plan.

  The only other person I knew in town was my ex-girlfriend June, who I had broken up with about a month before. I had taken the break-up quite badly. She was the reason I had moved here less than a year ago, and our relationship had not survived the move or my new shifts. Still, she had moved out and she had met Michel even if briefly, and she had all of her daytime friends at work. It was easy enough to avoid her. Michel and I usually didn’t speak much during training, I grunt like a walrus when I exert myself and am embarrassed enough about it not to try and clutter my workout with small-talk. But the last three weeks, I had rattled on during the sessions because he was the only other person I knew well enough to tell anything to. Also he met her, even if briefly, so I wouldn’t seem one sided with my troubles with her. Once I had started speaking, I found myself telling him things about me that I never would have, given different circumstances.

  That Friday night, as we were finishing the heavy weights and cleaning up the barbells, the manager had approached us and told us he would pay us $50 each as they gym was going to be putting posters into the Action Bar as part of a campaign to drum up new members, and he wanted his two best bodies to represent him. I was quite flattered, and I thought it would be a good idea to advertise myself, as I was ready to start seeing someone again. Michel wasn’t quite as keen at first, but he agreed as soon as I did. We had done a lot of work on the program, and it seemed a waste to just hide it all. The guy gave us a packet with our briefs in for the photo session and told us to meet here Saturday afternoon.

  As soon as I had opened the packet, I knew I was going to need some help. The briefs were thongs with the club emblem on the front. Now, I stand in at 6’5” and I have a great body. I have green eyes, a strong jaw and am considered very handsome to boot. I have thick, spiral-curl brown hair that I wear long, but I also have it on my chest and the small of my back. I have one of those flat, square asses and have never been able to wear a thong comfortably, partly because of the hair and partly because the thongs saw into my crack. Also, I’m pretty well hung. So much so, I’ve been embarrassed about it since I was a kid.

  Michel was just over 6’3”, with dark skin and grey eyes. He had straight, short jet-black hair, and was what I would consider classically “man-beautiful”. While my body muscle is flat, square and lean, his was thick and chunky. Also, from what I could see of his body, he was as smooth as an egg. He had one of those bubble-butts that looked good in anything, and I reasoned then that he was the type to wear a thong or at least could tell me how to get comfortable in one.

  Although he was a quiet sort, I suspected him of having a wild side that few people got to see much.

  Strangely enough, we had never actually seen each other naked. Usually, after our workout, he would hit the sauna and stay to lock up while I would hit the plunge pool, shower and head off to work immediately while he was busy. I am shy like that and usually there isn’t anyone around that late, which is why I worked out this routine with Michel. This Friday was different. I had the evening off, and I really wanted to do this photo- shoot. I plucked up courage and asked him if we could clean up instead at my place, and if he could help me trim some of the hair off of the hard-to-reach places and help me sort out my thong comfort zone. I knew he worked at the mill and had every weekend free, and from what I knew of the town, there was nothing much else to do except work out or booze. I knew he was single, and did not go much for boozing, much like me.

  “Sure.” He shrugged “Why not? Put your bike on the back of my pick-up and I’ll save you the cycle.” We locked up together, still in sweaty togs and travelled across town in a few minutes to the top of the lane I lived in alone since June and I split.

  “Go and hit the showers while I find the clippers. There’s plenty water to go around.” I told him.

  I pulled a dozen beers from the garage icebox and while he showered I hauled out my electric clippers from some of the boxes I had not unpack
ed since I moved in.

  The water stopped running as I got the beers and the clippers into the living room. He strolled in with only a towel around him, still dripping wet and I showed him the old clippers.

  “Your turn.” he grinned at me as he rubbed his hair with a spare towel.

  “I reckon a number three all over the body should do it.” I said as I headed for the shower. As I took off my shirt and walked past him, he laughed “That’s a lot of shearing, buddy.”

  “Grab us a beer and I’ll meet you on the porch.” I smiled back. “Mi casa and all that.”

  It was one of those hot, sticky southern evenings and by the time I had finished showering I decided that a towel was the best bet to wear. It wasn’t like we were going to get, or even stay dry, no matter what we wore.

  I walked through to the porch past his neatly folded clothes and bundled my togs into the wash-basket. When I found him, he’d put a six-pack on ice and was sitting on the bench watching the town lights in the valley quietly.

  “Nice place you got here, Andy. Quiet.” He tossed me a can. I caught it and leaned on the post opposite him.

  “Thanks, Michel. I forgot you haven’t been around to see it.” I lit a citronella candle on the table next to the bench. His breath was cool on my bicep.

  “You keep pretty much to yourself, anyway. I didn’t know much about you until you broke up with June, and I am glad you felt you could talk about that.” Michel chugged the beer, some of it ran down the side of his mouth onto his chest. He smiled lazily and watched it pool in his navel. “So is it true you drove her crazy because you make so much noise having sex? If you made half as much noise boning her as you do in the gym, I could see her uptight pussy splitting on you.”