The Lower Loft

Sweat beaded up on Jamie’s brow. His focus was strained to its limits.

“Nobody. Move. A muscle,” he said. Billy, Amos and April hovered over his shoulder, their breath held, their eyes wide. Jamie could feel the dull twisting of a cramp creeping into the muscles of his trembling thumb and forefinger. He took a deep, calming breath and committed to completing the volatile task before him.

The unmistakable crackle of a polymer bag cut through the silence. Jamie’s lips tightened as he sucked air in through his nose, his eyes clamped shut. Billy and April glared at Amos standing to their right. Amos froze, his hand halfway into a bag of Lay’s potato chips.

“Sorry,” he whispered, his expression unchanged. April turned back to Jamie. Billy let his glare linger on Amos a bit longer, just long enough to let Amos know that he was going to pay for that later.

“Go on, Jamie,” April encouraged. Jamie’s focus returned to the intricate work at hand.

“Easy, dude,” said Billy.

With a steadiness they’d all agreed only Jamie could muster, he placed the final domino.

And they all let out a collective breath.

This was no ordinary Rube Goldberg machine. The gang had spent all week designing, gathering, and assembling the chain reaction sequence. Every piece, they’d decided, had to be collected from around their houses. No buying designs off the internet or kits from Amazon. They had, however, allowed themselves to search for ideas on YouTube. Amazed with the innovative machines, their excitement had grown with each video. Only Billy made any effort to suppress his excitement; but, that was Billy.

The elaborate design covered almost every square inch of the Lower Loft in the old barn on Jamie’s family’s property. They called it the Lower Loft because it was only half of the full loft. Whether by design or by accident, Jamie never knew, the loft was split down the middle. You had to step down almost three feet from what Jamie considered the regular half to reach the other half: the Lower Loft. Their favorite loft. It just sounded cooler.

Jamie climbed into the upper loft--although, no one really called it that--to join his friends. Amos and April made some room. They stood shoulder to shoulder observing the completed project.

“Man, this is gonna be awesome,” Billy remarked, making a fist and pounding it into his other hand. Jamie and April looked on. Amos was wiping something either onto or away from his shorts. No one really wanted to know.

“Let’s do it!” Billy shouted.

“No!” Jamie cried, more enthusiastically than he had meant to. Billy’s brow furrowed as Jamie’s arm shot across April’s waist to stop Billy from doing anything, well...Billy. April looked at Jamie’s arm and then at him.

Billy snapped, “What?

But Jamie didn’t know. He just knew he wasn’t ready. “Let’s just wait until morning.”

“Why? It’s done!”

“I know, but…” Jamie looked to April for support.

“It’s just…” April said, holding Jamie’s eyes for a moment longer before turning to Billy. “It’s late. We’re tired. We should come back in the morning when we can enjoy it.”

Billy groaned and stomped toward the couch that they’d muscled into the loft last summer. “Whatever, man,” He said as he pulled a glass bottle of Mountain Dew from the cooler and a magazine from under the couch cushion. Jamie turned away as Billy reacted to the naked girl on the cover, the Rube Goldberg machine situation a distant memory.

“Well,” Amos said, shrugging his shoulders. “I gotta run anyway. Mom’s making my favorite dinner for my birthday.” He headed for the ladder.

“What’s your favorite dinner?” April asked.

Amos hesitated, only shoulders and head visible above the entrance to the loft. He looked at April, appalled that she was unaware that there was only one feasible answer.

“Cake,” he said. He shook his head and continued down the ladder.

Jamie and April turned back to the Lower Loft.

Jamie smiled at the wonder of it all. He focused on a knot in one of the pine logs that made up the far wall and let his gaze soften. In his peripheral, he saw a complicated mess of lines and objects, as if a trunk full of random things had exploded in the middle of the room and this is where they’d all landed. He focused on the machine, starting from the beginning: the rope that Billy would cut (the one condition of his participation) which would release the glass bottle dangling at the end of another string, sending it into a basketball on a wooden track, initiating a full three-minute sequence of events. The Guinness Book of World Records counted the number of steps in determining a record holder. Jamie hadn’t a clue how many steps they’d created, but the current world record Rube Goldberg lasted a full ten minutes. He was a fry cry away from a world record, but this was still quite an accomplishment.

He let his eyes travel along the track. He could almost feel the kinetic energy filling the loft, seeping through the cracks in the pine tree walls and wooden slat floors. In his mind he could see the entire mechanical dance between the ensemble of levers and pulleys; wheels and axles; inclined planes and wedges.

But that was just the potential. Made possible only by things that were.

Things. Tangible workaday things. Rulers, bike chains, duct tape and clothes pins; Hot Wheels, plumbing pipes, string, balls and an empty old movie reel; parts from a rusty old wheelchair, a broken microwave, deflated basketballs, golf balls, baseballs, and carpet. All these things, this stuff, found discarded, forgotten or abandoned in dusty attics, damp basement corners, or just behind the treeline along the gravel roads. Things just pulsing with potential. Items that had once served another purpose, or no purpose at all. But Jamie had given them a purpose. Jamie had brought them together, made them part of a whole. Something bigger. All of them had; April, Amos and even Billy.

They were part of the machine too. Jamie pondered their potential. Untapped. Unguided. His chest felt heavy and his skull vibrated at the realization.

And then there was a new energy.

An electric, exciting, overwhelming energy.

April had taken his hand.

He looked over at her; she was smiling at him.

Suddenly a whole new world of potential opened up to him.

Behind them, Billy burped.

“Alright, love birds,” he said, stashing his magazine and springing off the couch. “It’s getting late. Mom’s gonna flip if we’re too late, Apes.”

Their hands had separated at Billy’s acknowledgment. Jamie could feel heat in his face. He couldn’t stop smiling. He glanced up at April. April glanced at him.

“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

“Yeah,” she replied. “It’s awesome, Jamie.” She watched him over her shoulder as she turned toward the ladder. She gave him one more glance as she descended.

“Later, dude!” Billy called from the ground. Jamie went to the opening in the loft and looked out over them as they mounted their bikes.

“See ya,” he called. April glanced back once as the gravel popped under their tires and they disappeared behind the treeline.

Jame turned and walked back to the Lower Loft. He placed his hands on his hips and admired their work, his cheeks sore from smiling.

Potential.

Nothing was more exciting than potential.