House

House
Jason wells
August 2, 2008

 
Chapter 1
         She was having another of those dreams. She wasn’t aware of how she knew it was a dream, as that was, in her experience, not the “norm”. However, as always she was very aware that none of it was real. In the weeks surrounding Todd’s disappearance, she had found herself in this setting practically every night, sometimes more than once per night. In fact, just last night she had been awakened by the insatiable need to pee. She had walked on wobbling legs to the bathroom adjoin the master bedroom that Todd and she had shared for eight years, and relieved herself. She returned to bed, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes and lay down. Fighting the relentless pull of sleep, a fight she knew she couldn’t win, she found herself falling helplessly back into slumber. Drifting off, she found herself thrust very suddenly right back to where the dream had left off. It was very much like she had pressed a mental pause button, did her business, and then simply resumed the narrative where she had left off before her bladder had interrupted.
         They always started the same way. She was in a room lit by a single oil lantern hanging securely by the door. It appeared to be an upstairs guestroom in a cabin of some sort. Two books lay stacked on the nightstand that flanked the modest yet inviting twin bed. She could not read their titles, but somehow she knew that they belonged. A small chest-of-drawers stood against the wall where the door let out into … something, she wasn’t sure. It was not an unpleasant room in any case. As a matter of fact, it was very much like the room where she and Todd had spent their honey-moon years ago. A quaint bed-and-breakfast in the northern reaches of Maine, within driving distance of the craggy cliffs where lighthouses dotted verdant, well maintained grounds for as far as you were willing to drive North or South. She was violently snapped back to reality when she noticed the only window that adorned this quaint room.
         The bed was placed; lovingly it almost seemed, directly under the pane. Stepping to the side of the nightstand she was able to peer through the darkening window. It appeared to be just shortly after dusk, the point where the sun was down completely, yet true darkness had yet to fall. Looking through the glass revealed little, as just outside the window, there appeared to be an almost living fog. It seemed to gather at points and then as if on the whim of the wind, it would disperse, momentarily letting in a little light, only to gathered back again as if it were trying to find a weakness in the glass that separated her from it. It swirled and writhed, as if some invisible creature flew through it, just out of sight. She didn’t however believe that this was the case as she had decided some days ago that the fog in this dream world just happened to move that way naturally, like strong winds forming tornadoes, and animals coming into season in the life she had left behind in her bedroom.
         Knowing all of this to be a dream, she remained unafraid, even in the knowledge that the dream would “take a turn for the freaky,” as Todd might have said in what seemed another life altogether. She stepped back a little ways from the window, and instead of trying to focus on the perpetually roiling fog, she refocused her eyes in a way that would allow her to see the grounds surrounding the cabin, if they ever came clear, and she knew that eventually they would.
         The sight of the man on the path leading up to the cabin somehow still managed to unnerve her. He would every night come into view, stopping mid-step, and pause to collect himself as if preparing for a formal introduction, before turning his attention to the window where she stood, growing more anxious with every passing breath. His head would slowly crane up to meet her gaze. Every instinct within her told her to run screaming in madness from this place, yet she found her gaze locked intently with his, powerless to look away – and they remained like this for many minutes.
To say that she was afraid by this point would be an overstatement. It was not fear that crept icily up her spine, but simply anxiety. She knew there was something significant to be had from this exchange, but what that might be lingered just beyond her reach, her mind only barely missing the point of it all. Her anxiety was laced with sadness at this fact, as in the same way she knew this to be a dream, she was also aware that she was missing something; something that would be lost forever to dreams if she weren’t quick enough of perception to grasp it. Trying to wrap her mind around this elusive design quickly became the focus of all her attention, even though she already knew how it would end. She had known from her first venture into this particular dream plane that recognition of whatever lingered just out of reach was not to be hers. Yet she tried.
              She tried, and tried, sorrow becoming ever more the overwhelming emotion in this one act play, clearly conceived in the sickest of minds, and brought to life by the most unfeeling of hearts. The man of the path, as she had come to know him, only stood looking at her, mist and distance blurring whatever emotion, if any, were present on his face. As she watched him, just like every other night, sorrow would fade, and that old familiar anxiety would take over. She knew that he was about to bear on into the cabin, as he had every night she had borne witness to him, yet at his first step onward, she jumped as if goosed from behind by an unseen hand.
              It was at this point, the dream became the nightmare. Fear had not overtaken her senses yet, as it simply wasn’t in the script, and she had learned that her own thoughts on matters in dreamland meant little to whom- or whatever directed this play, she was simply there. She would play the part that she was given, and no amount of running would change that simple fact.
              The man of the path slowly stepped out of the ring of fog that had dissolved to allow him his introduction, moving, she could only assume, to the front door of the cabin. She knew he was coming in, regardless of whether or not her eyes confirmed it. The tiny nebula that had provided her vision of him slowly began to disintegrate in upon itself the open air gaining substance. It was at this moment, fear was allowed into the scene. She felt again that familiar something lost to the fog, but only a tinge of sadness was allowed where fear was to become master. In this production, fear would not be upstaged.
                The downstairs door slowly creaked open. She never failed to wonder at this, as it seemed every horror movie, good or bad, was overrun with doors and gates that seemed never to have been oiled. Their creaks and moans filled the silence in the most dreadful of ways, and she had always found this fact to be funny. She wondered aloud to Todd many nights in front of their old Zenith, that the bogey-man never seemed to visit families that oiled the hinges to front gates and front doors, and without fail, they had both laughed. However, in this dreamscape, it only added to the reality that she was not in control. “That friggin’ door would have been oiled if I were.” She whispered to herself, “and Mr. Boogie man knows it.”
              The door was shut, not loudly, but loud enough so that she could rest easy, knowing her visitor had arrived and was safe from the fog inside with her. She could barely make out the rustle of shoes on hardwood. It was a gritty sound, as if he had brought in sand on his shoes, and the recognition awakened panic within her. He was here. He was coming. She heard the latch of another door giving way to him and realized for the first time – and simultaneously the tenth or twelfth time that the upstairs was separated from the rest of the house by a door, and this only intensified the feeling that her territory was being invaded.
              Her heart was racing as if she had no idea what was about to happen, but she knew – she knew too well. Yet here she was again, anxiously anticipating what was to come. The man’s footfalls were not slow, nor were they hurried, he sounded as if he was simply ascending the stairs of his family home to sit in his easy chair with a good Steven King, his pipe, and a glass of brandy. She listened to the sound of his steps, growing louder with each one until they halted in front of the door to the room that suddenly felt more like a closet.
                Her eyes immediately sought the doorknob, though in the back of her mind she knew that the threat lurked not on the other side of the door, but in the room with her – he needed no door. The knob flinched slightly as if someone had grasped it in anticipation, and just held. Seconds passed and she felt the first tear stream from her left eye. She wanted so badly to look behind her, to try the window, to escape, but knew it was impossible. Turning around was the last thing her body would allow her to do, it was not yet time, the players were not in place.
                The knob turned slightly to the left, Mr. Boogie Man had apparently decided that caution was in order, and then she heard it. Her wait for the climax of this dream production was nearing an end and her legs nearly gave way. She stood her ground however, as falling was certainly not in the script. She had a role to play, a message to receive, and the puppet master would abide no deviation from his script. He was a ruthless director, and not one for improvisation. The voice fluttered to her on the wind – no, it was as if the wind itself were speaking directly beside her ear. She stopped breathing, hoping that maybe this time if she were perfectly still, she would be allowed to just stare at the brass doorknob, waiting for nothing to happen, and awaken in her bed, the phone not ringing for a change. She knew she would not.
              A stirring of the air near her left ear effectuated her flesh to goose-pimples, and her heart to a panicked pace. She gasped in a breath involuntarily and spun on her heels, screaming on her way, and staggered backwards toward the door, tears streaming freely from her eyes, her chest heaving for air at the monstrosity between her and the window.
              He was home. Hanging limply from a contraption of wood and metal like something from medieval times, a torture rack she thought it was called, the man of the path swayed to and fro. He twitched slightly, tensing when her eyes passed over him, and she tried uselessly to keep them diverted. It was no good. His presence demanded her attention, and he was used to getting exactly what he wanted. This she knew as well as she knew herself, as well as she knew every blemish on Todd’s body, his likes, dislikes, his caressing touch.
              She stared through the blur of her tears, only making out a form, but somehow seeing every abomination inflicted on his tortured body in clear detail. She saw the cuts from his weekly blood-lettings. She somehow saw the hooks penetrating the flesh of his withered back, knew the pain of them, knew the pain he would inflict on the ones who put them there. He wore no more than a scant loin cloth which could not cover him properly, stretched as he was. His emaciated form appeared no more than a skeleton over which a thin membranous pale white skin had been stretched.  His shoulders, elbows, thighs and knees had been stretched to the point of being very obviously out of place, and she knew that even this horrible realization did little to portray the real damage done. The man had nearly been drawn and quartered, his torturer wanting him alive, but wanting him to hurt, and hurt he did.
                The moan of a thousand years worth of a thousand torments escaped the man and penetrated her deeply. She wanted to weep at his feet and at the same time, throw herself through the window and fall to her death if only she could forget that she had ever laid eyes on him. She wondered if even death could repress the vision of this one who had suffered so. Somehow she was sure that it would not. She would not be forgetting any detail of this nightmare until she had answered his demands. The thought of this was something that brought her to tears in the quiet moments back on her farm, where all was well and right, and Cooper, her basset would lay at her feet on the porch while she read the trader magazine and sipped warm tea. Far, far away that life seemed now.
              Her eyes were drawn by the inarticulate moan that escaped him so that she was staring at the spots where his eyes would have been. Over his eyes, fastened to the bone were metallic plates so that he could not see what he had become, and more importantly, who had transformed him. She knew the reason for his blinders even though she was unaware of how she knew. Large chains were connected to the outer edge of each blinder, and hung limply alongside his head, connected to the metal-work encompassing his mouth. Holes had been drilled through his upper lips, through the gums over his upper teeth and beneath his lower where large metal rings had been placed and clamped within to keep his mouth closed. His lips too had been crudely stitched, shut up forever.
                  His torturer had gone to great length to blind and mute this one, yet she knew that he would speak. She knew without doubt that he would breathe into her ear the phrase that would send her back to reality, and insure that she knew this was no mere dream. His body seemed to rock with spasms momentarily, his head twisting right and left faster than her eyes could follow and she felt his breath on her neck. The thing before her went stiff and still, yet she knew he was whispering in her ear. She braced herself for the words that sounded as if they were being forced from a corpse, its last held breath being pushed out by the coroner and felt her dinner begin to rise.
                  The expiration of his hot breath reached her nostrils and filled them with putrescence. The warm smells of decay, vomit, and human refuse filled her lungs as she fought to stay upright, knowing at the same time that she had no choice. She could now see worms poking out around the eye pieces that had long ago been fastened in place. She could feel them itching behind her own eyes as well.
                “Sara…” Its voice grated, barely a whisper. “Answer me…” it said in a breathy whisper, as it had so many times before. The command in this solitary message was clear. Suddenly the dream deviated from the norm. Instead of starting awake, choking on her own vomit, she saw a point of light forming on the right blinder of the monster she beheld. Fear gripped her anew, as she had yet to rehearse this part of the play. The man of the path seemed to unhinge his neck, and stretch it impossibly far to be near her face. Starring into her eyes, and she knew that he saw her full well, he screamed one final command: “Now!”
                  Her stomach finally released its contents as she woke gasping for breath. And with fresh tears in her eyes she heard the phone ringing from the nightstand on Todd’s side of the bed, the last utterance of the Boogie Man still echoing in her ears.
…
              Sara now wept openly and uncontrollably. This had happened almost every single night for two weeks, and every single morning she would wake up puking and sobbing but with no plans to answer the phone no matter what. It was all just a little too real she had decided, and she would rather not ever know who was calling. The Man had obviously realized this, and made sure she realized that he wasn’t joking, he wasn’t even asking, he meant for her to take his call, and take it this morning.
                She quickly cleaned her face on her already ruined sheets and scrambled to her feet. She reached out to the nightstand to keep from falling, her legs still threatening to give out even though the worst of it was over for today, or so she hoped. She staggered to the phone and reached out to grab it quickly before the call went to voicemail, she knew the Boogie Man didn’t leave messages. He wanted the genuine article, and last night he had made sure he would have it.
                Sara gripped the phone in a trembling hand and brought it slowly to her ear. She had decided if The Man’s voice greeted her, she would surely lose her mind. She had always thought that she had a high threshold for pain, but this was simply more than could be asked of anyone. She stilled herself and could only manage a whispered “Yes.”
                  “Good girl,” came the corpse-like response and she felt her constitution waver. Tears welled up anew, coursing down her cheeks and she was sure that this was it. Her mother would visit and find her lying in the fetal position, soiled, and mumbling incoherently and it would be off to the funny farm for her.
                “Seraphim?”
                  She gasped. Sure that her mind was playing tricks on her. There was only one person who called her by that name. “Todd!” She nearly screamed into the phone her tears stopping at once. “Todd please, is that you. Honey we’ve looked everywhere, my God where are you and what’s happening?”
                  “Todd?”
                  “Todd, please,” and the tears began again.
                  A familiar voice reclaimed his spot in the conversation, and in a raspy whisper said, “419 Stablebrook Lane, help us…” The line went dead.








Chapter 2
                Ted had never been one for long romantic walks on the beach, but he begrudgingly had to admit, if only to himself, that there was something to be said for sap. Sunrise was only about twenty minutes off, and he could imagine no place he would rather be than here, with the sand between his toes, and Carla by his side. Considering the previous week he had been dragged through at the precinct, he nearly dreaded the thought of it all ending. They stood together silently, listening to the waves crash along the coastline, sipping coffee, nothing more.
                Their honeymoon had been filled to the brim with shops, fishing, the boardwalk, restaurants, and all of the other money-burning activities that came with a trip to Myrtle Beach. Ted was happy that they were spending their last day simply enjoying one another’s company, misplaced from the bustle of town, and all that came with it.
                He found a spot near the water and spread their towels. “This work for you, honey,” Ted asked smiling.
              “I think that’s just about perfect.” Carla said.
              She stepped up beside him, putting her arm around his waist, and smiled up at him. Her green eyes bore into him in a way that only they could, assuring him that anywhere would be fine as long as he was laying beside her. He bent slightly, kissing her forehead, his finger tracing the path of her spine from her red bikini top, to the matching bottom.
                Their gazes returned to the Atlantic as the dorsal fin of a shark, maybe a dolphin broke the water about fifty yards off shore. “That doesn’t look good.” Ted remarked, pointing out to the blemish on the horizon.
                “Just an early riser, like us,” Carla remarked, her smile brightening somewhat. “He must be looking for breakfast, which reminds me. That coffee hut on the boardwalk was just about to start serving breakfast, fancy a bagel?”
                Ted’s stomach answered for him and Carla laughed. “I’ll be back in a few, stay put.”
                “As if I’d be going anywhere,” He said, matching her smile.
                As Carla walked toward the boardwalk, Ted’s attention was once again drawn to the fin breaking the water a little closer now. There trip had been more than pleasant, it was almost perfect, but all week there had been something begging for his attention, especially at night, while he lay in bed waiting for sleep. He just couldn’t put his finger on what exactly this “something” was. He had forgotten about it this morning until the shark had popped in to say “hi, how ya doin’?” - and it was a shark, of that he was sure.
                A small crab skittered across the sand just out of reach of his toes and Ted chuckled to himself. “You old fool; you don’t need this right now. Work is waiting right where you left it and don’t worry, the honeymoon’s almost over.”
                As if hearing his thoughts, the shark vanished from sight, as the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon.

…

         They returned to their hotel room at about a quarter after five in the evening, the sun still a few hours from setting. Carla had talked Ted into swimming in the ocean for about an hour, and as their swimming had quickly become playing, then kissing, touching, and fondling, Ted had suggested heading to a more private location before the police came to remind them of South Carolina’s indecency laws. She had quickly agreed, nearly panting, and they fled the beach as if something were chasing them from the water.
         Their room was on the third floor of the Hilton, and Carla had insisted that they use the stairs all week. Ted watched her heart-shaped bottom flex and bounce as she jogged up the stairs ahead of him, his body reacting accordingly, he hoped that no one was in the hall as they would no doubt wander what he was smuggling in the front of his swimming trunks. Carla’s auburn hair hung in wet clumps almost to the small of her back, completely covering her bikini top, and nearly brushing the strap of her practically non-existent bottom. The curve of her back flexed left and right as she climbed, her tanned buttocks flexing in time.
         Ted was suddenly very aware of his heart-beat throbbing behind the string of his trunks and new that their room would see no more of her naked body, and the stair-well would soon be inappropriate for anyone under eighteen.
         He took the stairs two at a time, catching her quickly by the arm, and spinning her to face him. Her eyes feigned surprise, very sarcastically, and he couldn’t help but smile.
         “I guess you know what you’re doing to me my dear.” Ted said in his sternest “chief-of-police” voice.
         Carla’s very convincing imitation of Scarlett O’Hara answered, “Why suh, whatever do you mean?” a mischievous smile slowly parting her pouting lips.
         Ted could take no more. He grabbed her butt firmly, her legs obediently wrapping around his waist. He climbed the last two stairs to the landing between the second and third floor, pressing her back to the corner, her legs still around him, and kissed her so fiercely that for a moment he was afraid he may have hurt her. Her squeal of surprise quickly turned to something more closely related to longing, then passion, and then something deeper as his hands found the string holding her top in place.
         Clothes fell away, the sighing sounds of pleasure giving way to moans of passion, and eventually even baser grunts of lust as each of them seemed to be trying to devour the other. Carla’s naked bronzed body responded perfectly to every caress of Ted’s hands, which Ted had never known to move with such expertise. Her small round breasts seemed almost made to fit his large hands, her body moving, sometimes writhing, in perfect harmony against his own as the made love between floors of the Hilton.
                   The precise details of their fornication in the Hilton stair-well are a little blurry when Ted thinks back to it years later. He’s at least pretty sure that a door upstairs was opened and then quickly closed no less than twice during the hour they rolled around in a naked, sweating heap, a camera’s flash following one visit. He was even surer that if “blinded-by-passion” stair-way-sex ever made its way to the Olympic Games, their amateur photographer would find a place for his picture on the greatest Wheaties box of all time. He was absolutely positive that their love-making that afternoon, was the moment they would spend the rest of their lives trying, most likely in vain, to reproduce in their bedroom, and, Ted was sure, many other less respectable locations.
 







Chapter 3
         I sat at my writing desk, bills and other such junk spread all the way to where the desk met the wall, my Toshiba Satellite before me. Microsoft Word 2007 pulled up and the cursor blinking, no, taunting me, silently pointing and laughing. The page hadn’t changed in three days, which is to say, my name was at the top-left, and the date, top-right. My fingers were resting on the home-keys, just like every other good boy learned in his seventh-grade typing class, but for some reason, they were powerless to move.
         “A simple letter, you traitors,” I mumbled at my paralytic hands. “That’s all I’m asking.”
         I laughed at myself suddenly and without warning. When you’re reduced to begging your hands to right a letter to your Mom, you’ve finally made it. You are King of Krazytown, Emperor of Eccentricityville, and Lord of Looneyland. Laughing even harder, I moved the curser to the last letter of my name, pressed and held backspace, and watched Jeremiah Cavanaugh Jr. back its way off the screen, (“a little too formal for letters to Mom anyway,” I thought), and replaced it with my newly appointed title, Lord of Looneyland.
         That was it though. No words would come. How did you tell the woman who raised you and tirelessly built your character while neglecting her own that you were moving four-hundred miles away. The woman who had been the backbone of your family when things were tough, who had assured you that no matter what happened, as long as you were together no wrong could befall you.
         “You’ll never do it,” the cursor mocked in my head. “You had a hard enough time moving thirty miles away momma’s boy, I’ll just sit here and blink patiently while you let that sink in. See ya’ tomorrow!” it would laugh. I wondered at the possibility of just printing what I had, stuffing it in an envelope, and sending it along its merry way. Mom had always been something of a conspiracy theorist, not to mention a hypochondriac and a shameless drama queen, the first and last being two “conditions” my father and I had shared many a laugh over – lovingly of course, and I could see her opening the letter, her eyes growing wide, and calling for my Dad.
         “Jerry, come quick, something’s wrong. This isn’t right. I just opened a letter and all it says is Lord of Looneyland, what’s going on?” she would ask, holding the page out for him to see, out of breath and neatly worked into a frenzy.
         Dad would cock his left eyebrow and screw his mouth into a perplexed countenance and say, “Okay” sounding more like “Oooookaaaay” rising in pitch near the end. He would then promptly return to work on whatever he had been doing, perfectly content giving it not another thought.
         “Daggonit, Jerry!” Mom would yell, anger replacing anxiety. “Only a crazy would write something like this, and I have no idea why they would send it to me! Who have you made mad now, and how long before they’re sneaking in a window to murder us in our sleep? Could you at least tell me that? I’d like a little warning if I’m to be raped and murdered in the near future!”
         At this point, Dad would lose it, “Why, ya gonna put on some perfume, dab a little on ‘yer no-no places, shave a nifty little design in ‘yer patch for ‘im to look at while he’s havin’ his way with ya?” followed by guffaws of laughter. Gasping, he would add: “Maybe you ought to shave ‘The police are on their way’ down there just in case.” He would then laugh himself to threshold of a minor heart-attack, and laugh even harder as he watched Mom go red in the face, trying not to laugh herself.
         “Poor Mom, the stifled voice of reason,” I chuckled to myself, loving her and Dad even more than I had a moment ago. She would no doubt finish the conversation, most especially if I were within earshot, with a comment such as: “Well you can bet your little blue pill you won’t be admiring the art work down south for a long time buster!” She just loves getting a rise out of me, and nothing will do it like images of your Dad anywhere near the art work down south.
         An involuntary shudder escaped me, the kind that only “parent-sex” can induce, a parent-sex-seizure if you will, and I decided that the letter to my Mom could go fly a kite; and would just have to wait one more day. I decided that a walk along the Sandpit was exactly what the doctor ordered for clearing a disturbed mind. I closed the lid to my laptop, curser still laughing at me, and pushed away from my desk.
         My fantastical vision of my parents, the two people that I loved most in the world, put me in especially high spirits this morning. I caught myself singing quietly “While my Guitar Gently Weeps” by the Beatles. While their version of the classic was great, it was George Harrison with Eric Clapton that I was hearing in my head. Clapton really knocked that one out of the park. Later, maybe my mental DJ would slap on some “Cocaine”, maybe a little “Lay Down Sally,” or maybe he’d just put Slow Hand to sleep and surprise me with some Barenaked Ladies. Oh yeah, If I had a million dollars, If I had a million dollars, I would buy you some art, A  Picasso or a Garfunkel. Now if those ain’t some killer lyrics, I don’t know what is.
         I grabbed for my flannel on the way out the front door of my home, my lodge on the lake, which was really more of a cabin on a pond, but it suited me perfectly. The air was warm, but the wind had a bite as it does more often than not mid-autumn in Northeastern Kentucky. The leaves had changed their colors, giving a life to the forests they created, painted so beautifully, that they themselves testified to the existence of The Living God. I remembered an old preacher saying that God’s favorite colors must be blue and green. While in the height of the summer I would most definitely agree, but when fall arrived fully, there was no doubt that His color preference was much more expansive. Growing up here, you would think I’d be used to this, but it never fails to give me pause looking for the first time each year upon the freshly coated canvas of the Master.
         I threw my flannel over my shoulder; I wanted to enjoy some of the briskness of the day, and started my march toward the Oldtown water tower and the gravel lot that it occupied which sloped down to the Sandpit. In my childhood, this place was, and still is, the only fishin’ hole worth leavin’ the fireplace for. While there are many other lakes and ponds in my neck of the woods, even the river for that matter, which will produce more fish, none of them can manifest the nostalgia, or youth that the Sandpit always returns to me. It was here that I caught my first bluegill, and my Dad learned you have to give very precise instructions to an eager boy of five.
         “Alright son,” Jerry Sr. had said, “you watch yer’ bobber there, and when it goes under the water, pull back as hard as you can on the pole.” I found myself laughing as I walked, replaying the memory of that poor fish, who only wanted to be left alone, flying through the air with the greatest of ease, touching-down in the weeds behind us.
         “Poor little dude was just hungry,” my Dad would later laugh with my Mom, his chest swelled out with pride. “Bet he didn’t know he was gonna get schooled in aerodynamics a la Little Jerry U.” He would double over laughing, pounding his knee, and Mom and I would laugh along, Mom with a sympathetic glance for me, and I, because my big ‘ol Dad thought it was funny, and as far as I was concerned, that meant it was.
         When Dad would finally near recovery, Mom would add: “They say a fish only has a nineteen second memory, but I’m a-bettin’ that little guy has nightmares for a week,” and we would all lose it again.
         I stepped off the paved road and onto the gravel lot that emptied itself over the hill, into not much more than a cart path that ran about one-hundred-fifty feet to the backwaters. Looking up I saw the Oldtown water tower, once functional many years ago, now more of a painters canvas than anything, and remembered spray-painting J.C. + A.M. in big blue letters while I was in junior-high. Arlene Masterson had been the quiet girl who few could actually say they were friends with, but no one really disliked. She was pretty, and she talked to me, so that was enough. I had kissed her, what a twelve year old boy calls kissing anyway, my first kiss, at the top of that tower as if the act would twine our destinies together forever. When Dad found out about this little adventure, about the same time he found my experimental pack of cigs, Basic full flavors, there had been no laughter – Quite the opposite.
         Looking up and remembering, I laughed in spite of myself, remembering Dad and his tell-tale puffed out chest that said in quiet under-tones, “That’s my boy, just a few more steps and you’ll be a man sure an’ true.” I knew even when he was yelling at me, trying to add weight to his words so I would listen; all the while he was remembering his childhood, his road to manhood. Many a sore bottom paved that twisting road, and maybe, just maybe, mine was made just a little less sore than his had been.
         Standing in the gravel lot, I peered across the street and saw Adkins Bait Shop, “Live Bait Sold Here,” plastered to the window even now, ten years after it had closed. It had been a family ice-cream shop a few years before it had been converted by Old Man Adkins, (who, thinking back now was only forty years old, what a geezer), but I barely remembered it. I could only remember the sweet taste of a zebra cone after a hot day of fishing lessons from dear ‘ol Dad, or maybe even T-ball practice back in the days when cigs were for adults, girls had cooties, and fish could fly.

…

         The walk to the water’s edge was quite a bit more difficult than I had expected. I was glad to have my trusty old flannel with me as the briars had all but taken over the path. Kids seldom came here anymore unless they’ve been to the bootlegger’s and are getting drunk or even stoned, not since the invention of digital cable, DVD’s and video games. Not since family values had been replaced by the digital babysitter. It was much simpler when I was a kid. You had channels three, eight, eleven and thirteen to choose from if it wasn’t raining, or you just said “screw this” and got out of the house. Yet the fish somehow managed to survive without them, finding food on their own, no longer fed by boys trying to make their Dad’s proud, their buddies jealous, or their girlfriends horny. As any good hillbilly knows, a good night’s fishing can go a long ways towards getting you laid.
         The path wound down, until you came to the backwaters, and then it went right, deeper into the woods; left, which ran along the bottom side of a slope that a suburb rested quietly upon; and straight ahead, which was always the direction I went, the path continued out onto a badly eroded, but wide enough peninsula. “The Peninsula,” as my buddies and I had known it for most of our lives, was about twelve feet wide at its base, and tapered slowly to a point about one-hundred feet from where the path split. About two-hundred yards directly ahead of the point an island had been formed where geese and ducks would spend their summers hatching their eggs and bathing not far from them. This backwater had earned its name because when highways had finally made their way to Greenup County, sand was taken by the truck-loads and then the river was allowed to invade and overtake the holes that the mining had left behind.
         I emerged from the path that was now a thicket to find The Peninsula as it always had been: a few small trees along its sides, some grassy patches here and there, but mostly hard packed dirt. I walked to the tip and sat upon the half-buried drum that had served as a stool to many a boy and man, buried not so far that you had any trouble standing to set your hook. Looking out to where the island was, it seemed very lonely. No fowl were there today, most of them flying south a month ago, and the lone tree, I had always thought of a banzai tree when I looked at it, bore no leaves, and looked as frail as thousand-year-old parchment. I considered throwing caution to the wind and walking out to it, for if you knew where to step, you would never sink below your waist the entire two-hundred yard trek. Two giant pits had been dug, one to the right the other to the left, and a third, smaller one just behind the one on the right. So walking the ridge between the two greater pits could be done, if you didn’t mind sinking up to your calves in algae.
         Looking down at my Chucks, red All-Stars, I decided that I would just stay put. I thumped a camel from my pack and lit it with the Zippo my Dad had given me on my twentieth birthday – ten years ago, I was surprised to realize. He finally understood that he had put me over his knee one too few times to kick my smoking habit, and decided that it was too late now. If you cain’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I closed my eyes and took a long drag, enjoying the sensation of the biting wind fighting the warming sun for control of my face. The air was crisp and somehow more clean than usual, and I found myself feeling as if I was on the brink of a major breakthrough, as if an epiphany lies just at the tips of my fingers. You know that feeling you get when you’ve worried about bills and all of the other crap that comes with being grown up for just a little too long, and suddenly you wake up one day and decide it’s all your fault, but you have the power to fix it, the answer lies just around the corner. I was feeling this to my bones, and there was something exhilarating about it. I stood, drained my bladder in the same spot I had a thousand times before, gave a half-cocked salute the Mr. Banzai tree, and started back towards the path. I had a letter to write.