The fall semester began well organized, thanks to Brian, and wholly concerned with spiritual awareness, thanks to Trevor.
The new students and teachers noticed Trevor immediately. As they no doubt would have, whether or not Angelina and Kaya called him an angel—and whether or not Jacob and Earl, Royce and Zanz, the Jamaicans who had agreed to brave the winter, said he was blessed.
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Most mornings, Brian and Trevor ran mountain trails together. More and more now, Brian saw laser-like rays shining from behind Trevor’s shoulder blades whenever he ran ahead of him. Around each bend, through forest trees, Brian anticipated catching a glimpse of Trevor’s sacred light.
People grew excited when Trevor recognized their unique nature. Casually but without fail, he met with everyone briefly every day. He relieved anxiety. And whereas before, “everyone liked Trevor,” now everyone loved him. That is, everyone visible.
For apparently, an invisible power hated him. Flames jumped from the evening bonfire toward Trevor’s feet, and one time progressed up his leg before being extinguished. Brian suggested Trevor skip the ritual, but he couldn’t stay away from the light and heat, to say nothing of the drumming and chanting. The original Black Mountain family and Trevor’s girlfriend for the week or month formed a wall between him and the fire. Yet the highest flames shot up into the night and dropped as if targeting Trevor’s braids, which were finally long and thick enough to resemble honey-colored, herb-scented dreads.
Like everyone else attending the arts school, Trevor wanted a certified education. But he didn’t like painting or theatre, or Angelina’s bookkeeping class. What he really liked was Royce’s architecture class, where mathematics was rendered into sun-filled rooms, graceful halls, and the geodesic dome. First day of school, Trevor arrived fully up on Buckminster Fuller’s invention. But within a week, a beam had mysteriously slammed onto his neck. He stumbled over cords and dropped hammers. After a stack of solar panels toppled on his head, knocking him unconscious, just like the fallen brick and the tree branch, making it Trevor’s third concussion in three months, Royce called a meeting.
Kaya, Angelina, Brian, Zanz, and Earle listened as Royce cautioned Trevor to stay steady and keep safe. Jacob suggested that Trevor study only with him for the while: herbs, botany, and Jamaican folk remedies for warding off evil.
“Can we consult Vivi?” Trevor asked. “I’ve wanted to call her, ’pon seeing people’s inner illumination.”
“Vivi!” Earle shook his head and Zanz slammed the table.How long have you had her in mind?” Earle asked. “That’s why this is happening. Don Rufus must be vexed.”
Couldn’t Trevor see he had no right to think of Vivi? Zanz said, “You’ve gone crazy, mon.”
“Ya ,” Trevor said, “true.”
So, no more architecture; no more thought of Vivi. Jacob taught Trevor how to cultivate the various strains of ganja; what growing methods worked best with which seeds. Jacob had developed three varieties: one stimulating the imagination. Another was intended to heighten the beauty of sights and sounds. The third encouraged a dreamlike languor.
Meanwhile, the sense that Trevor was sacred, that he saw each person’s true spirit, bound the Arts Consortium into a giddy, sometimes euphoric, community. Everyone loved the jesting visionary who fronted the ragga band, Awake! But even as he uplifted each of them, they realized hell-fire nipped at Trevor’s heels.
Kaya and Angelina grew more intimate with their angel, the son neither had ever had. Saturday mornings, Trevor knocked on their bedroom door and slipped inside, holding a cup of coffee in each hand. Handing over the mugs, he pulled off his shoes and from the foot of the bed wiggled into the middle, squeezing between them. Whereupon Kaya and Angelina shifted, pulling him fully clothed under the covers where they lay naked.
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