Butter

So there I was, my back pressed against the door as the chair I had lodged under the handle of the door started to creak and crack with the sounds of breakage. The doorknob squeaked as it turned and the door pulsed as though 250 pounds of angry flesh was pushing from the other side. I could feel the lock bending with each shove. I always told Mick that these doors were a bad idea; there’s nothing like a solid oak door to keep the creepy things out. Then suddenly, among the creaks, bangs, and squeaks came a new noise:

“Bong…Bong…Bong…” The old grandfather clock was chiming. “Bong…Bong…Bong…Bong…Bong..,” the clock rang.

“Eight o’clock on the dot,” I thought to myself. Suddenly all of the noises stopped. I held my position…

I remember how my kids used to torture me about how I always accused them of setting up traps, though they couldn’t even set up a tent. I never really trusted anybody except myself and sometimes I didn’t even trust myself; thank goodness for sticky-notes. Anyway…what was I saying?...Oh, that’s right.

So there I was, my back pressed against the door and suddenly…Wait…I should start from the beginning, shouldn’t I? Well, it all started back when we first moved into this house; that’s right, the one we’re living in right now. When we first moved here, there was this family of German shepherds living next door; no really, they were German and herded sheep year-round in the barn and silos behind the house. I thought it was kind of silly for them to herd sheep in the Midwest, seeing as to sheep probably don’t much like the cold, especially after they’ve been shaved, but I guess some Germans just aren’t fit to invent cars.

Anywho, they were nice folks and brought us all kinds of house-warming gifts and food that we couldn’t even pronounce the name of, but it tasted pretty good anyway. I’d say we got along as neighborly as neighbors possibly can. I never could pronounce his name correctly, I believe it was something like Dwerk Gerdenbomb or something silly like that, but I called him Mick and as time went by, our families almost grew to be one big family. My wife and his wife chatted, my kids and his kids played though his kids couldn’t speak a word of English, and my dogs played with his sheep; the sheep didn’t much appreciate the company, but my dogs were just overjoyed by the simple pleasures of running the sheep in circles.

Well, one day we went to their house to play some Spades and one of my kids came to me and told me that he had found a human skull lying around on the floor in the kids’ bedroom. I thought he was being silly and playing his little cowboys and Germans game so I shooed him away and continued my conversation with Mick. Well, then something strange happened. One of the sheep came into the house through the doggy door in the kitchen holding a human hand in its mouth, and I thought to myself “Now where in the heck would he get one of those? Them Appalachian weirdoes were arrested and sent away to some nut house in Nevada; I guess they have a lot of nuts there for them to have such a good nut-house system. You’d think all of the leftovers would be gone by now…”

So I looked over at Mick and pointed at the hand in the sheep’s mouth. He laughed loudly and said that it was one of the sheep’s toys that he had torn up. Now, I’ve seen some pretty strange dog toys, but I have never seen or smelled any animal toy so disgusting as that hand. I brushed it off and tried to ignore the disgusting thing for the rest of the night. We played spades until I was too weak to see the numbers on the cards and decided that it was a draw, since our scores were so close and none of us could stay awake too much longer. So we said our goodbyes and headed out the door.

It wasn’t until we had gotten to our front porch that I noticed one of my boys was missing.

“Oh well,” I thought to myself, “he’s probably going to stay the night at Mick’s house.” So we all went inside and went to bed. I woke up the next morning to a strange sound outside; a weird, squishing sound like when my wife tenderizes a fresh, juicy steak. I got up and dressed myself, so as not to scare away any company that might be here; it wouldn’t be the first time. I walked through the house and looked around. Everybody was gone; the kids, my wife, and even my dogs.

“Well that’s strange,” I thought as I scratched my head, “she didn’t mention an outing when we were talking last night.” I shrugged it off and started back into to the kitchen to make some breakfast when I heard the squishing sound again.

I followed the sound outside and squinted around to see what I could see. Well, I didn’t see anything but land and Mick’s house, but the sound seemed to be coming from one of Mick’s silos.
I walked over to Mick’s house and knocked on his door, hoping it wasn’t too early for him to be awake. I waited for a few minutes and Mick came to the door in his pajamas. Apparently it was a bit too early for him, but he didn’t seem too upset. He wiped his eyes and opened his screen door. I started with some small talk about the night before, but he caught on that something was wrong; those Germans really are sharp.

“Well”, I said as I looked over at the silos, “It seems my family has gone on an outing and I was wondering if maybe you overheard our wives talking about it.”

He held his head and thought for a minute, trying to ring out some of the gin that his brain had been soaking in since the night before so he could remember, but he said he didn’t recall it. It was then that I remembered what I actually came over for. I couldn’t think of an intelligent way to say it so I just said what I was thinking.

“You know, Mick” I began and stared at the largest silo, “There seems to be a squish in your silo.”

He looked at me like I was speaking something that wasn’t German or English and asked me to say it again.

I said, “Mick, your silo is making a squishing noise. I can hear it from inside my house and I was curious to know what it was.”

He raised an eyebrow as if to say “What squish? I don’t hear a squish” and walked inside to put on some jeans; thank goodness for that.

After he was half-dressed, he came outside and we started toward the silo. It was then that I remembered, once again, that my boy was at his house. I thought that after our strange bit of conversation on the porch, he could use some small talk.

“So,” I began, “how was my boy? I hope he wasn’t too much trouble.”

He looked at me sort of funny and said that he didn’t have him. I stopped. And he stopped. And right at that moment, we both looked over at the silo; we were both thinking the same thing and in fact shouted the same thing at the same time: “The Appalachians!”

We both ran to the silo and scrambled to undo the hinges that kept the door shut. We whipped open the door and looked inside and a whole silo of sheep and kids ran out all at once. Somehow, that just didn’t seem right.

I pulled up one of my boys by the shirt and asked him what was going on. He said that nothing was going on and that we shouldn’t go in there; though I knew that something was going on because ‘nothing’ doesn’t make a squishing noise. I put him down and carefully stepped through the wild animals to get through to the silo. I stepped inside and looked around, and what do you think I saw? Butter…lots and lots of butter. The boys, mine and Mick’s, were all churning butter. I wasn’t certain that I wanted to know why, so I just let it go and told the boys to keep it down.

That was quite a relief to both Mick and myself; to me because I was afraid that there had been a flaw in Nevada’s wonderful nut-house system and that my son was being eaten by the Appalachians, and to Mick because the last thing he needs is an infestation of angry Appalachians eating up his children and sheep and what-not.

We laughed off the situation and went to my house so we could all have breakfast together. We ate and chatted for a while and then I heard my wife’s car pull up. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, all of the kids ran out of the room and out to the car to greet the women and dogs. It was kind of weird that she took the dogs with her, since she always complained when I brought the dogs on outings, but things were about to get even weirder.

Some minutes passed and Mick and I were still sitting at the table alone. I looked over at Mick and just shrugged his shoulders and picked at his nails. So we waited there for another few minutes, waiting for the screen door to screech open and a herd of wild children to stampede back into the kitchen; nothing happened. So I got up and motioned for Mick to come along; he looked at me kind of startled and got up. We went over to the window that looked out over our driveway, where my truck and my wife’s pinto were parked.

“Well,” I said to Mick,”I guess they all went to your house.”

Mick nodded lightly and we moseyed out the front door and looked around to see if maybe they were sitting out in the sun chairs, drinking tea and watching the kids play in the fields; you know, woman stuff. But they weren’t anywhere to be seen. We went into his house and this amazing aroma just filled the air. It smelled like the one thing that could persuade me to do just about anything: sugar cookies.

I started to walk toward the kitchen when suddenly this barricade of kids stood lined up in from of the door.

“You can’t go in there”, they all said in unison.

"Now what could your mommas be doing that they wouldn’t want me coming in there,” I asked as I folded my arms. The children looked at each other and then up at me. I could tell when they were trying to think up an excuse; especially the littlest one, Dante, who wrinkled his nose when he got to thinking too hard.

“It’s a surprise,” one of them said.

“Ahh. Ok,” I said heading towards the main room, “I’ll be in here if you need me.” Mick looked little confused and apparently decided that following me was the best idea. So there we were again, sitting alone in a room while everybody else was off doing something else. Needless to say, I fell asleep and I assume Mick did the same.

I woke up to dark house; it was evening now and nobody had bothered to turn on some lights. I reached over and felt up the lamp to find the switch and flicked it. Mick was gone and the kitchen was dark. I guess they were all done and had left for my house. I stood up and looked around a little more; nothing seemed to be out of place except for those whispers coming from outside a screened-in window, which I thought was my conscience telling me to put toothpaste all over Mick’s face so he would wake up feeling all tingly.

Just then, there was a knock at the door. Since neither of our families bother to knock, I thought it would be a sales-person and didn’t answer it. Then the knocking started again; I still didn’t answer it. Then the doorknob began to turn and ran to the door to hold it shut. I pressed against it and slid the lock-shaft over. Then whoever it was started banging on the door so I ran over to the corner and picked up the corner chair that Mick normally used as a “time out” chair; boredom really is a cruel and unusual punishment, but that’s another story. Anyway, I grabbed the little chair and lodged it between the doorknob and the floor.

I pressed my back against the door to fortify the chair and dug the toes of my boots into to the wood of the floor. Then, from behind the door, there was the whispers again and what sounded like a thousand tiny midgets beating their fists on the door.

“The Appalachians,” I thought, “They’ve come back for my children!” As crazy as it sounds I had good reason for believing the Appalachians came back, but that’s another story for another time. Anyway, so there I was, back pressed against the wall, and then it happened.

“Bong…Bong…Bong…” The old grandfather clock was chiming. “Bong…Bong…Bong…Bong…Bong..,” the clock rang.

“Eight o’clock on the dot,” I thought to myself. Suddenly all of the noises stopped. I held my position…

Then there was a knock…

“Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock,” Each knock seemed to get louder than the last, “Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.” And then it stopped. I stayed pressed against the door.

“They’ll never take me alive,” I thought as I looked around the room for something that I might be able to use as a weapon. So then I remembered that I had left my fishing pole on the front porch; out there with those monsters.

“If I could just reach out and grab it,” I thought, “I can take them on, head to head.” I didn’t know exactly what I planned to do with the fishing pole, but I guess it’s better than nothing. So I slowly slid the lock-shaft over, and I ever so slowly turned the doorknob and cracked open the door until there was just enough room for my hand to slide through.

Then, like a flash, I whipped open the door and reached beside the doorframe for my fishing pole. I didn’t even bother to look at who was there; I just grabbed the pole and pointed it. I was ready to rumble with whoever thought they could get in Mick’s house.

And then I heard a little voice from below that said, “Happy birthday, daddy.”

I looked up and there was my wife and kids and Mick with his wife and kids; each kids holding some sort of baked treat. There were cookies, cupcakes, donuts, banana loaves and a bunch of other things that I probably couldn’t pronounce the name of.

“Oh,” I said putting my pole down, “that’s what the butter was for…”