Birdcage
I used to hate driving.
I didn’t like the anxiety it gave me––how I always feel like the car slowly creeping up to pass me was just going to get a funny idea and see what it’s like to run me off the road, just like the movies. Especially the big giant trucks. I hated when I realized I was driving in the wrong direction. How if I had to turn around, I could never decide which driveway to pull in and out of––no, can’t be this one, I didn’t see it soon enough, wouldn’t want to have to slow down that fast, I probably don’t want to bother them anyway. Like I expect a big empty lot with a big-ass neon sign with “DESIGNATED TURNING-AROUND SPOT” in three-inch high letters. You never know, I guess.
I always dreaded becoming a car guy. I hated hearing other people talk about cars like they’re children––I still do, really. I don’t really care to know how the dumb machine works, and I don’t want to sit around with other guys and discuss, fuck, horsepower? I don’t even know. I think, really, it makes me the pretentious and rude one because I’m judging these people just for having a cool interest that harms no one. Maybe I need to be more accepting. “Maybe I should become a car guy,” I sometimes tell myself, usually after a successful parallel park. But I think it’s still not for me. I used to hate the idea of being a car guy as much as I used to hate driving.
So I forced myself to hate driving. And I would hate driving as I sat comfortably in the front seat, with total control over where I was going. And I told myself that, yeah, I do hate driving, even if it’s kind of nice to glide down the highway like a bullet.
And for years I convinced myself that the nice feeling you get in your gut when you go far faster than evolution ever thought humans would ever go was motion sickness.
I told myself.
And no, there isn’t any subtle beauty in how these machines can be piloted so deftly at such high speeds, human after human turning the pavement into equilibrium. Flawless turns around corners perfectly choreographed by three colors and sometimes an arrow. We all speed up upon passing the orange “Road Work End” slab so coveted, synchronized in a way that humanity still has not achieved with other means. Driving really is like a dance because both are some of the few activities where our feet do more work than our hands, and neither exist if we do not take the time to master movement. Elegant machinery that asks us simply to stare forward, and in return offers us the chance to explore wherever we please. A vast array of colors swarming down the streets, different breeds of the same mechanical beast glide and turn and merge and parallel park their way from Point A to Point B. Windshields gobbling up bugs and other pests, and lick themselves clean with the grace of a tiger. Green Nissan needs to move over one lane. Black Toyota to its right speeds up while the Gray Honda behind slows down. Green Nissan fits perfectly; the only communication these metal behemoths have is a miniscule red light that’s hard to see in the daytime. Incredible. I follow my mom on Twitter and I don’t even get along with her.
Ugly. Right fellas?
I always preferred being driven around, anyway. So I could stare out the window and not get motion sickness, like I always told myself I got.
I’d stare out at a flock of birds migrating back up here for the spring, watching them all swerve back and forth as a single intelligent organism, as if every bird in that group made the exact same decision at the exact same time. I’d remember all about how we think of birds. Such a fucking cliché. Ooh, a display of beauty and unification, the absolute freedom that we humans associate with birds for some reason, but really, is it like that? Do they choose where they migrate to? What can any individual bird do if he doesn’t like where he’s going? Does the goose at the front of the “V” want to be there? Do they have an avian outlet for their emotional needs? Probably not, I thought, wishing I was a bird because I hated driving.
I’d watch them all dance around over our clunky autos and wonder to myself:
“How in the fuck do they all do that?”
And this was back when I told myself that I hated driving.
But, to be honest, I think my problem is I just didn’t like where I was driving to.
Connecticut in a Box
Connecticut is a sharp familiar smell of thick permanent black markers and musty photo albums in Iron Mountain Boxes. These white cardboard office boxes always reminded me of the classic worker who was just fired and now has to collect their desk belongings and leave the premises.
Our boxes had labels like ‘Dishes,’ ‘Evan’s Newspapers,’ and the occasional recycling and updating of ‘Francesca size 10-12’ with the new ‘Family Photo Albums.’ I became familiar with these labels while searching for nostalgia or answers in my damp basement in West Seneca, NY.
Through a five-year-old’s eyes, New Haven, Connecticut was a magical forest waiting to be explored. Running outside the sky blue porch with two sets of descending stairs, my older brother Christian and I would crouch down to study the forest ground behind our house. If we saw the leaves move, we knew a frog was there. Once I targeted the hiding frog, I would pick the little guy up and cup him with my small hands so he couldn’t escape. Christian implicitly approved, and went over to inspect our treasure. The frog probably began to panic because his world had turned into a fleshy darkness, but all we could feel were the exhilaratingly slimy legs of the frog moving around in our palms. I relaxed my hands a bit to create a little viewing space for Christian, and of course, the frog desperately saw an exit out of my hand-cage and made an attempt to hop out. He sometimes was successful at this, but then I would just catch him again. After deciding Mr. Frog had enough, I released him willingly. He hopped away as fast as his legs could take him.
Our best conquest was a snake that Christian found and put in an empty mayo jar. The next morning, though, the lid was popped and the snake was gone. Nevertheless, the snake was a benevolent capture compared to the encounter I had with a dead bees’ nest on the ground. I had unknowingly stepped on an entire fallen bee colony, and only realized so after Christian’s exclamation that there was a bee in my hair. At that moment, as if on cue, I heard a buzzzz in my ear and started screaming as I ran to the front door for safety. My mom heard my screams (and inevitable crying), but eventually she successfully calmed me down. In my defense though, how did a five-year-old’s white and pink Sketchers bring about the end of an entire empire of bees?
It was at this very opportune moment that my grandma happened to call us to ask about our lives and how we were doing. Sniffling, I held the Nokia house phone and then heard a buzz in my right ear and threw the phone across the living room. My mom was not pleased in the slightest. Plus, I had to reconstruct the plastic that flew off the phone’s back upon hitting the hardwood floor.
It was on this hardwood floor you showed me how to fold socks into each other. I was sitting criss-crossed, while you were on the couch. You held two socks in front of me, placed them together, grabbed the top of the socks and flipped the top sections inside-out, pairing them. I then practiced on my own socks, and still pair them this way today. My hands have been pairing them like this reflexively since I first learned how to, 16 years before.
Back then, breakfast was toasted peanut butter sandwiches on wheat bread, with the peanut butter turning into gooey deliciousness falling out the sides. Of course, I had to have a cold glass of milk to counteract the peanutty lava goodness. My morning ritual also consisted of exactly one episode of Scooby Doo from 8-8:30 A.M. before I had to leave for preschool with my mom.
After school, I once snuck into my oldest brother Matthew’s room and played Grand Theft Auto on his Playstation 2. His room was small and tucked away downstairs in the basement around the corner. One day, I beat him home and helped myself to turn on that M-rated game. I felt like Bandit from Smokey and the Bandit: a real rebel. Turns out, all I wanted to do was politely drive cars––but it was the rush! How did I sneak away from parental authority long enough to turn the console on? Nonetheless, steal a car and drive it properly according to Connecticut state law?
Today, I open my wooden desk and see the pink diary you gave me shaped like a clamp purse with the Powerpuff Girls on it. It was a clam of a five-year-old’s secrets, with the brightest pearl being, “I like a boy, like really like.” At the edge of your mom’s black driveway––Grandma McKernon’s in Connecticut––we tied the diary’s weightless silver metal key to a string on a balloon and let it go. We watched it float away, and I still hope it wasn’t a dream.
Connecticut was eventually placed into boxes and into my memory, as my mom googled house listings in Buffalo. She was on the phone more, and I, a sneaky spy, stealthily listened in on her private conversations. I knew things were changing.
What my memory lacks, these photos preserve and keep whole fragments of a man I knew and am beginning to know.
Ritual
The man, before he died, stopped at the liquor store every night. He was a dentist by trade, and he liked a few drinks after a day at the office, which you certainly can’t blame him for. Looking at teeth all day is about as deadly as staring at the sun, he would say, but it pays better, so you won’t see me complaining!
By some cruel twist of fate, his eyes were naturally drawn to the mouth instead of the eyes while speaking to someone; in every conversation he ever had, he found himself assessing the other person’s teeth. His wife would be telling him about their daughter’s middle-school graduation plans and he would be thinking, as always, about her slightly crooked canines, that one incisor she chipped when she was eight. He’d feel this pang of guilt deep in his belly, and the only thing that’d dull it was wine.
His purchase, every day, was identical: a ten-dollar bottle of Italian white wine. It was his one indulgence, his one joy. Not the wine––he took that like medicine. No, his joy came in the act of visiting the liquor store itself. He would walk through the door, tip the old grey flat cap he wore every day, ask how’s business tonight, folks? and someone would answer him not too bad, not too bad.
He would linger in the Italian aisle, taking his time, pretending to mull over his options. He had an arsenal of excuse mes and let’s see heres and well how about thats that would make your Grandma envious, honed over years of practice and dedication to his craft. After a sensible minute or two, he pulled the same bottle of Pinot Grigio that he always bought off the rack. He then pondered a few other aisles; South Africa always seemed interesting to him, and he’d always wanted to try Vinho Verde. Once a week––maybe, if an employee was nearby––he’d ask them about a random bottle and nod along with a warm smile as they filled him in on its tasting notes and its profile. He’d say well, thanks for your time, and then proceed to the cash register with only his usual bottle in hand.
He’d set the bottle down on the counter with a dull clunk and then smile. Holdin’ down the fort? he’d ask the cashier, usually either an older woman with horrifically cheap dentures or this wiry tall girl with a snaggletooth who worked weekends. The older woman would say hardly. The tall girl would say you know it. The dentist would chuckle either way and ask the cashier how their day was. The older woman would grunt and not say much; the tall girl would deflect and give broad answers. He had this exaggerated way of listening—leaning forward, nodding intently—that might remind you of an extremely encouraging and mildly terrifying second-grade teacher listening to a kid explain their latest fingerpainting. There was a real genuine warmth in it; the tall girl never once doubted his sincerity.
When it came time to pay, he’d plaster a bewildered look on his face and say these card readers these days, they’re all different, you know? even though he must’ve known every step by heart. He’d always mess up exactly once—he’d pull his card out early and mutter hey, sorry, I always get that wrong, it’s been a long day. This drove the older woman batty, but the tall girl found it charming, in a deeply annoying and bizarre way. After it finally went through, he would grab the bottle theatrically by the neck and say hey, if there’s no law against it or anything, I’ll skip a bag and then after a beat: well, take care, and have a blessed night.
It took three weeks before the tall girl noticed. Hey, we haven’t seen the Pinot Grigio guy in a while, right? she asked her coworker. He shrugged and said maybe he’s dead. The tall girl shook her head. C’mon, he was nice, she said. Hope he’s doing well.
Someone Else, To Someone Else
Freddy’s life began––depending on who you ask––either two days after Isabelle and Gary “Colt” Lushomm nearly tripped over each other on the altar of Our Lady of Mercy’s Cathedral on a blisteringly out-of-character hot autumn day in 1958, or nine months and one week later when the frigid, sterile hospital air slapped his dripping wet body for the first but not last time. He was promptly named after Colt’s closest army buddy, and went home four days later to a one-story house with a baby blue nursery. The driveway leading up to the house was cracked and bruised, with bits of gravel strewn all across. The outside looked quite nice, but the cars flew by so fast that the drivers hardly had time to admire the coat of tan paint that Colt had finished putting on a mere month after moving in. Father Perry, who had joined together Colt and Isabelle the year before, came by for a visit upon request and blessed the infant Freddy, who lay on his back with one hand at his side and the other mindlessly aimed for the corner of his sky blue blanket. Freddy didn’t notice Father Perry, who wore a nice black dress shirt and whose shoulder he spit up onto. He didn’t notice his own blanket, either. There was a lot Freddy didn’t notice about the world he now inhabited. His infant senses were still adapting to the wild colors and temperatures and noises, and, in some ways, he would never truly adjust. He did not understand that when he was moving from one place to another, a human being was carrying him; he did not know how to tell where each limb was when it was outside of his vision; he did not realize the breast he instinctively latched onto belonged to the same person who had carried him for nine months, a memory he had already forgotten. Freddy was a normal, healthy baby. The next Sunday, young Freddy was baptized in the name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit: his first step toward being a man of God, which Freddy would hopefully be some day.
Freddy grew slowly but surely, switching from Isabelle’s breast to baby-mash to solid food––reluctantly but elegantly. His mother played with him and exercised his limbs daily, readying him for his eventual first steps. Slowly, Freddy learned to recognize the woman in front of him as another human being, and eventually, as his mother. He became aware of where her smooth hands gripped his ankles as she stretched his feeble muscles, and he would kick back often. His father read stories to him, speaking a complex language he would one day better understand because of these stories. “Is” or “and” or “the” slowly became subconsciously defined in Freddy’s brain, as he heard them used again and again in appropriate contexts; complex words like “family” or “money” or “little man” soon followed. A very democratic process, where the sounds which proved useful in his life were kept closer to his tongue, and those which rarely resulted in a positive change were left behind and only subconsciously known. Freddy wore cloth diapers. Freddy said his first word, “baby,” at fourteen months old after hearing it said so many times––not just to him but between Mommy and Daddy, who were now expecting again. Perhaps it was not wise to have another baby so soon into Freddy’s life, but such things can hardly be planned. Freddy was moved out of his crib and into a big-boy-bed that he despised seven months later when his little sister, Nancy, came home and stole it from him. Once the switch was made, though, Freddy was able to reluctantly adjust.
For his eighth birthday, Freddy received a pellet gun from his father, wrapped in nothing but a light blue bow. He was at first confused, but quickly lit up his eyes when he realized his Daddy was beaming over him, waiting for the right reaction. After too-sour lemonade and cake (a simple chocolate with frosting), Colt took Freddy down to the nearby woods to shoot off their new pellet gun, and secretly brought along his own hunting rifle for a boy’s––or perhaps now men’s––day out. Seeing this in action, Colt was sure, would be the real birthday gift. Freddy learned how to shoot his pellet gun with help from his father, who told him the secret was not to press the trigger, but to squeeze it one slow pull so even you yourself don’t know when the gun fires. Freddy even hit the practice target once, but lost interest fairly quickly. His father didn’t want him to have any friends over for his birthday and the resentment clogged up his mind, keeping his eyes unaimed and unfocused. Seeing this, Colt mentioned the special birthday surprise he promised in the car ride there, and slipped out a barely-used Marlin Model 336, much to Freddy’s amazement. Freddy got to touch it––not the trigger of course, just the smooth-as-glass wood of the stock; no chips, no scars. ‘That’s the good that comes out of Belle not wanting this around,’ thought Colt. ‘It sure stays nice-looking.’ Freddy saw how it was loaded and cocked, heard a satisfying clunk, and wondered what it would be like to twist the rifle like that himself.
“Pay attention while I shoot,” said Colt, and Freddy stood completely hypnotized as Daddy waved him to the back of the car that the rifle had seemingly materialized out of, lowered the gun, dropped his smiling eyes to the sight, took one last glance back to Freddy to make sure he wasn’t standing too close––but also not too far away––and, finally, pulled on the trigger in an almost romantic motion. Freddy was instantly down on the ground, having expected the merely bothersome “pop” of the pellet gun to come out of his father’s gun, and he sat sobbing and holding his ears in terror at the deafening blast that rattled his bones for another ten minutes. Colt dragged him back up, afraid for a split second that the bullet had somehow ricocheted off the tree and into his poor son, but quickly turned around and told his son it was just a simple gunshot––nothing to be afraid of––and that real men never cower from gunfire. Freddy nodded, and promised he was a real man, eyes red from the tears that weren’t stopping anytime soon. His dad made him sit through two more shots just like the first. But, eventually, Colt was satisfied enough to drive the both of them back home. The tough, yet respectable father and energetic, ready-to-learn son that Colt had imagined riding home from the momentous boy’s-first-gunfire did not exist. Rather, the car was full of ghosts, simply driving itself back to a tan-coated, one-story, cracked-driveway house. Upon their return, Isabelle, a woman who always followed her intuition, wondered why Freddy was so sober. After she juiced a confession out of Colt like the lemonade she made for Freddy’s party, she took the poor boy in her arms and told him that Daddy didn’t mean it and he’d never do it again. Freddy hid the pellet gun in the backyard shed, Colt hid his back behind the desk in his study, and both were relieved when the other never brought the incident up again.
When Freddy was twelve, he scored the winning goal in a P.E. soccer game. He strutted back into the locker room to change, yanked off his shirt and shorts, and looked around the room, thirsty for any more affirming congrats from the others. But as his eyes scanned around, all he found was a hard-on in his underpants (Freddy wore Incredible Hulk underwear). Not quite understanding why it was embarrassing, but somehow aware that he needed to be, Freddy turned to face his locker in an attempt to hide it, hoping to wait it out until the room was a bit more cleared out. But he didn’t understand that nothing attracts more attention in a changing room than a boy not changing. Schoolmate Norman Linklatter saw and was happy to make a show out of Freddy, and all of David Park’s Elementary and Middle School knew by the end of sixth period. Colt found out that night at the dinner table when eleven-year-old Nancy, as talkative as her mother, let it slip out. It was the first time Colt yelled at his daughter, bellowing at her to never lie at his dinner table again, or else he’d shave her head bald and stick her out in the cold. Freddy’s relief that Dad didn’t even believe the story fell to bits at bedtime when Colt motioned Nancy out of their shared bedroom and commanded Freddy very clearly––eyes thick as a helmet––that he would never think about boys like that ever again, or Dad would kick his ass straight into hell to save Jesus the trouble. He told Freddy that no son of his would grow up to be a homo or a faggot or other words Freddy had never heard of before, and then Colt sliced the air between them into shards one last time and asked Freddy if he understood what he was just told, or if he’d rather sleep in the doghouse outside from now on. Freddy squeaked out a yes, in tears. The next day, Colt told Nancy to move all her things into the spare room, deciding that sleeping near a girl wasn’t good for his son’s natural development. Once the switch was made, though, Freddy was able to reluctantly adjust. Freddy slept alone from then on for about four years.
At sixteen, Freddy was dating Carrie Frune, who had grown up as an only child, a bit spoiled by her parents––still a reasonable girl, but she was used to getting what she wanted. She would go her whole life without telling anyone that she was deathly afraid of germs and disease. When she was seven years old, her father yelled at her for bringing several wagon-fulls of mud into the living room, an unnoticeably traumatic experience. Another time, at twelve, her science teacher showed the class some pictures of microbes he found in the school’s tap water as a way to show off the new microscopes, but all Carrie saw were shapes that looked identical to a few months prior when she pulled a loose stone up from underneath her deck and got a glimpse of a nest of insects taking advantage of the dark and moist space. Carrie was terrified of these bugs, and couldn’t force herself to drink from the drinking fountains for months. She washed her hands upwards of twenty times a day, showered twice daily since she was nine, never lent her makeup to anyone, and had become a master of finding excuses to leave a conversation upon seeing the other sneeze or cough. Her fear of disease would eventually lead her to being incredibly overprotective of her twin boys she had after marrying at 22, not allowing anyone to visit her home, forcing her husband James to shower before interacting with the twins, and sobbing uncontrollably when young Trey had a fever one night because she was convinced he would die soon. Her marriage soon crumbled, and her adulthood was rocky and terrifying until she committed suicide 26 years later, having never remarried. Her need for perfect cleanliness, spurred by seemingly inconsequential events in her childhood, drove her insane. Freddy knew none of this; he would never know any of it. In fact, all of this has no immediate relevance to our story.
What Freddy did know was that Carrie was a blonde and fair-skinned girl who had dated twice before. And Freddy, with short blond hair that complimented him, nice clothes, and what she called “a sensitive nature,” was next. Freddy wasn’t one to complain. She fulfilled his one and only girlfriend requirement: be a girl. Colt couldn’t have been happier, and badgered Freddy until he finally brought Carrie over for dinner. He practically yanked her through the doorway, shook her hand so hard her head just about hit the ceiling, and asked questions all evening long. Carrie answered them expertly. After a quick scope of the house, she complimented the family’s color TV set, asked whether there was a puppy who used that old doghouse in the backyard, and knew all the right army questions to ask Colt. The perfect high school sweetheart, Colt decided. Freddy figured she was, as far as he could tell. The pair laughed through a showing of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, went on group dates with the gang to the gazebo in Sarck’s Park, and their relationship culminated when Freddy took her to Cupid’s Ball, their high school’s spring dance. At the dance, Carrie insisted the two of them get a picture taken––“for posterity’s sake, Fred darling,” she’d argued––in front of the cheesy light blue backdrop with Cupids fluttering about with heart-tipped arrows ready to be shot into unsuspecting asses. Freddy froze at the idea of a picture. He couldn’t tell quite why, but he wanted this picture taken less than anything else in the world. He suspected it was that nothing quite admits a real relationship like a photograph of the happy couple (the walls of his own house were brimming with photos of Mom and Dad, some of himself, and some of Freddy, the long-dead army buddy who Freddy Lushomm called his namesake) and the knowledge that if this picture was taken, he would have no choice but to see himself and Carrie firsthand in the way everyone else did. He wore plaid boxers for the first time, actually. In his irrational and unscientific mind, a photo would eternalize the pair. Freddy wasn’t sure he could handle that, but if there was one thing he knew, it was that he wanted and needed this girlfriend to work. So, Freddy grinned. Freddy bore it. Freddy stood in the line with Carrie, pretended to be just as excited as her, and even asked the man with the camera to make an extra copy––“For the folks,” Freddy said.
Freddy had realized he was gay the year before, which was what prompted him to hide it with Carrie, whose desire for him made her a convenient way to force the eyes he was sure lived at every angle off of him. Freddy made sure friends saw them kiss. Sometimes, he even enjoyed the kisses. He avoided Matt Larken at all costs, the handsome boy that gave Freddy another humiliating but telling hard-on, and a short burst of pleasure that night. Freddy even helped beat up poor Larry “Fairy” Cullen, who the school bullies saw mindlessly staring at the back of Mr. Blotch’s pants and was instantly assigned the school faggot. Colt had a short talking with his son about this, telling him not to beat up the other kids. But he didn’t let Freddy leave the dinner table until he had taken a second helping of ham.
Freddy and Carrie lined up in front of what he now realized was just a sky blue bedsheet with naked angels stitched into the corners, and stalled for a second by adjusting the collar on the suit Colt had eagerly let his son borrow for the night. ‘It’s for the best,’ Freddy told himself. ‘If I don’t take a picture, everyone will know right away.’ He looked straight into the camera with a fake smile he’d long since perfected, only to hear: “Hey, kid, you don’t want to put your arm around your girl?” Freddy blinked, coyly laughed, and froze again.
“Fred darling, you better be the type of man who knows how to hold his lady!” chirped Carrie.
“I’m a man!” barked Freddy instinctively, and he swerved an arm around Carrie’s back, yanked her close, and stared at the camera to say cheese.
The 30-something standing behind the camera looked right at the happy couple and said, “You both look great. Make sure you pay attention while I shoot so I don’t have to take any more.” As the cameraman clicked the button, the horrible image of himself bending over Carrie in a bright blue bed––her body replaced by a naked Cupid, the pair in a sweaty embrace––forced itself to the front of Freddy’s mind. This was all he could take, and the contents of Freddy’s stomach lurched out of him and all over poor Carrie’s expensive dress, the one her father had bought for her brand new.
The House Next Door to Mine Was Haunted
It was the summer after Mrs. Winnie died when we heard the rusty spokes of Jack’s bike clicking towards us. He came to a halt in front of my driveway, sending his shadow sprawling over where Evan and I were playing tic-tac-toe with chalk.
“You know she’s still in there, right?” Jack said.
“Huh?” I asked with my usual eloquence. He nodded towards the house next door.
“Mrs. Winnie,” he said. “Her ghost is still in there. Sometimes I see her face in the windows.”
“Really?” Evan asked with wide eyes and hushed astonishment.
“Really,” Jack said back. And we believed him, because Jack was in eighth grade and all-knowing. We gazed up at the house as Jack and his bike clicked away, searching for a ghoulish portrait of Mrs. Winnie in the clouded windows of her former home.
We didn’t see her, but that didn’t matter. Jack’s whispered suggestion was all we needed to fear the spirit of Mrs. Winnie, who lurked in her precious house ready to haunt anyone who came too close, who hit a wiffle ball into her hydrangeas, or who left skid marks by her walkway with their bike––just like she would’ve when she was alive.
But as the house’s outside appearance atrophied over the years, so did our obsession with it. Soon we were in eighth grade, and it was our turn to know everything. So even though we walked faster by the house at night or when we were alone, we had to pretend we knew it wasn’t haunted. And that Halloween––when the barren claws of Mrs. Winnie’s elm trees were revealed––was when I knew I was too cool to go trick-or-treating.
“It’s sorta like a semi-permanent Halloween costume,” our friend Will told Evan as we were making our usual trek home from school two blocks over. Evan was outfitted with a fresh black eye––a prize he had won from Ross Andrews, an asshole in our year.
“Very funny,” Evan mumbled.
“Wish I’d seen it happen,” I said. The one day I didn’t walk to school with Evan, he gets his shit rocked. “Did he use his fist?” I asked.
“Yes, he used his fist,” Evan said, switching his violin case to his other hand in a huff of frustration.
“I didn’t think he actually ever hit people,” I admitted. I had only ever known Ross to bruise egos and question sexualities. I thought bullies who gave people black eyes only existed in movies.
“Well, obviously he does.”
“He’s never hit me before.”
“Maybe you aren’t worth the effort,” Evan said, turning his face towards me so I could see the purplish mark under his eye. It wasn’t all that impressive––enough to suggest he lost the fight, but not swollen and gross enough to be cool.
“Maybe he knows I could fuck him up,” I decided. Evan didn’t seem to feel that warranted a response.
“I heard during the basketball game against Townsend last year, he told the ref he was going to bite his tongue off,” Will told us.
“That’s, like, kinda gay,” I decided.
“I think he meant it like how you can bite someone’s tongue off as easy as a carrot.”
“That’s fingers,” said Evan.
“Huh?”
“People say you can bite fingers off as easy as carrots, not their tongue. It’s not true, though.”
“Why would the ref’s finger be in his mouth?” I asked.
“Why would his tongue be in his mouth?” said Will.
“I don’t know. I don’t play basketball.” We had reached the corner of Will’s street and ours, and Will started walking backwards in a separate direction.
“You guys are still coming to Max’s later to go trick-or-treating, right?” he asked.
“Yeah, probably.”
“He said Jessica might be there.”
“Oh. Okay,” I said. I could hear Will humming ‘Jess-i-ca’ as Evan and I continued down our street.
It wasn’t long before we were passing Mrs. Winnie’s house one the way to our own. Moss and mold dripped from rotted wood siding and roofing, and the charming picket fence that traced the yard had crumbled to jagged gray stumps. The house drooped under its own weathered age like it was crouched, hiding behind the twisted bouquet of weeds that had taken over Mrs. Winnie’s once-perfect front lawn.
The “For Sale” sign among the undergrowth was a new development. After years of our parents standing on the curb complaining about what an eyesore the place was, Mrs. Winnie’s son had finally put the place up for sale. Evan’s dad was the realtor; his stern face plastered on the bright yellow sign. My dad hypothesized that he was waiting to clean up the yard until after the probable Halloween vandalism occurred.
“I don’t want to go trick-or-treating,” I declared, thinking about my own Halloween itinerary.
“What?” Evan said. “Why not?”
“Because we’re fucking thirteen. We’re too old. And I don’t care about Jessica. I think maybe I like Mia better. Jessica smells like corn.”
“Like corn?”
“It’s hard to explain.” Mostly I liked Mia better because I hadn’t had to swear her to secrecy after I cried when she tried to kiss me on the log behind Max’s house at his birthday party two weeks before.
“Jessica already out of your league.”
“Well, she’s definitely going to be out of my league if she knows I still trick-or-treat. We’re doing something else. Something better. Besides, you don’t want to run into Ross somewhere so he can make you even uglier, right?”
“Fine.”
It turned out what we were cool enough to do was sit in my basement, like we did every single other night of the year. Evan was sprawled across the futon––the only relic of my father’s college days that my mom allowed in the house––and I sat on the carpet watching one of the less-respected Scream sequels flicker before me on the TV.
“Why wouldn’t they put on a good horror movie tonight?” I asked, flicking a wrapper across the carpet. It was all that remained from the pile of candy we had heisted from the bowl upstairs that my mom had reserved for trick-or-treaters.
“Probably because there’s no such thing,” Evan’s muffled voice answered from above me. I squinted at him over my shoulder.
“Like you would know,” I said. “You only ever watch the back of whatever you’re hiding behind.”
“Shut up,” Evan said back, whipping me in the head with the pillow he had just been using to shield his eyes. “You cried at Will’s birthday party when we watched Pirates of the Caribbean.”
“In first grade.”
“It was third grade.”
“It was second,” I said. “And I was crying because I was sick of you following me around everywhere, bitching about being allergic to the cake.”
“Whatever you say,” Evan hummed.
“God, when did Halloween get so boring?” I said with a performative flop on my back, not at all trying to change the subject.
“When you said you wouldn’t go trick-or-treating anymore. Like, an hour ago.”
“We should do something fun tonight. Something, like, scary,” I said.
“Like, kill someone?” Evan responded in monotone, uninterested.
“Wait,” I said, ignoring him. “Your dad must have the keys to Mrs. Winnie’s house, right?”
“Yeah,” Evan answered, suspicion mounting in his voice. “Why?” All he had to do was look at my
face to know the answer. “No, Caleb. No fucking way.”
Purple twilight had settled over my backyard by the time I had lured Evan out of my basement with a bombardment of insults against his masculinity. He followed several steps behind me in silent protest as we made our way towards his basement door.
“Why do we always do what you want to do?” Evan finally asked.
“Because I’m not the one who carries my violin case home from school every day,” I said back. By then we had reached his basement door. “Ok, where would he keep them?”
“This is a dumb idea.”
“Don’t be a pussy,” I said, referencing my solitary argument on the topic.
“Fine, shit. They’ll probably be on his workbench or in his office. Just––when we’re inside––shut up for once? My dad’ll be pissed if he finds us down here.”
I mimed zipping my lips and Evan rolled his eyes before opening the door and ushering me into the darkness. I went to turn on the lightswitch next to the door, but he swatted my hand away from it.
‘No,’ he mouthed, and then it was my turn to roll my eyes. He pointed toward the office door before he tiptoed towards the workbench. Apparently we were splitting up.
I made my way through the gloom in the only part of Evan’s house that was unfamiliar to me. He lived next door on the other side of Mrs. Winnie, and our houses were the same. They were mirrored, and his didn’t sport the same jungle-green paint job that my dad blamed my mom for, but they were both mid-century ranches with the same floorplan.
When we discovered this in first grade, I bribed my older sister to switch rooms with me so that Evan and I could have the same one––the one in the front corner next to the bathroom. Evan even helped my dad and me paint my room the same color as his, and we arranged our furniture in the same pattern so that our rooms were as identical as we could manage. At school, we called it ‘our room’ so that our classmates thought we lived together. Of course, once we were in middle school we’d rather piss ourselves publicly than admit we had matching bedrooms, so the concept of ‘our room’ was all but abandoned. In appearance, though, they remained the same.
I finally made it to the door and pushed it open. A single desk lamp spilled harsh yellow light against the wood-paneled walls of the tiny room. I saw a set of keys right away––they were hanging off of a hook above the desk. I grabbed them and was about to leave when I noticed something on the shelf above––a picture of a man in service uniform. I had to squint at it to see that it was Evan’s father, a stranger in his youth.
I could see the outline of another frame behind the first and I reached up and carefully removed it from the shelf. I wiped away the dust clinging to the glass so I could make out the photograph beneath––a much younger Evan sitting in front of a Christmas tree, his father in the armchair next to him, and his mother beside him with her arm around his back. It was strange to see her. I’d almost forgotten what she looked like.
“What are you doing down here?” a deep voice said from behind me. The pulse of fear that ripped through my spine spun me around, the picture still in my hands. I expected to see a figure looming in the doorway, but the door was still mostly closed behind me.
“I was just…looking for something,” I heard Evan’s voice answer. I peeked through the crack in the door to see him and his father outside.
“You’re going to mess everything up down here,” his father answered. I put the picture frame back and noticed a flashlight on the shelf next to it.
“I know, I’m sorry,” Evan said. I grabbed the flashlight off of the shelf and opened the door to announce my presence. His father turned quickly to face me.
“Caleb?” I couldn’t tell what emotion was behind his voice.
“Hi, Mr. Whelan,” I said. “We just needed a flashlight because we’re, uh…” I looked at Evan for help, but his eyes were turned towards the floor. “Because we’re looking for my dog. She got out again.”
“Oh,” he responded, with sudden good humor in his throat. “Well, good luck. Just bring that back in one piece.”
“Yes, sir,” I said as he made his way back upstairs. Once he was out of sight, I let out a dramatic sigh of relief. “Holy shit, I thought you were going to pee yourself.”
“Yeah,” Evan said quietly.
“It’s a good thing your dad likes me so much better than you,” I told him.
We crept through my darkened backyard until we reached the slanted picket fence that marked the border between my lawn and Mrs. Winnie’s. I vaulted gracelessly over it, my shirt getting caught on splintered wood. Once I was over, I looked back at Evan. When he hesitated, I tilted my head to the side with annoyance.
“I know for a fact you don’t have anything better to be doing,” I said to him. He narrowed his eyes in hollow annoyance before he began to climb over the fence. Satisfied, I turned away from him and faced the house. It oozed Halloween spirit even without the flimsy styrofoam gravestones or cotton spiderwebs that adorned the rest of the houses on the street. I clicked on my flashlight and scanned the overgrown backyard with it until Evan punched me in the shoulder.
“Idiot,” he whispered. “Don’t turn that on yet or people will see us back here.”
“Whatever,” I said, shrugging, not wanting to admit he was right. I clicked off the flashlight and began wading through the sea of crackling weeds with only the half-moon and my distant back porch light to guide me. Evan followed in my beaten foot trails.
“You know, if you were hot, you would die first in one of those stupid horror movies,” he cursed from behind. For the first time that night, we laughed. The laughter stopped, though, after a few more steps of bushwhacking brought us to the back door.
“Maybe I’ll just wait out here,” Evan said, embracing himself.
“Are you serious?”
“If my dad finds out I went in here…”
“You’re coming,” I said, putting the key labeled ‘36 Pineview’ in the lock. I twisted it, and felt the thud of the deadbolt retracting into the heavy wooden door. I hesitated. I had forgotten that I would actually be opening the door to Mrs. Winnie’s house.
“You have to turn the doorknob, too,” Evan said.
“Thanks.”
I turned the knob and the door let out a low screech as it rubbed against the floor while I pushed it open. We looked inside––complete darkness. I looked over my shoulder at Evan.
“Do I have your permission to use the flashlight now?” I asked. Evan nodded. I turned it on again and the beam revealed two sets of stairs: a short one going upwards, and another that descended into a pool of darkness in the basement.
“We are not going down there,” Evan said. For once, I agreed.
I directed my light at our alternative, and we stepped inside the house. At the top of the short flight was an oak door; I tested its handle and made sure Evan was still behind me before I opened it.
We were in the kitchen. The faded green linoleum floors were cracked and some of the white cabinets were ajar. I opened the dented fridge and was greeted by a sour fog of fermentation. “Hey, this smells like her breath,” I said to Evan. He ignored me in his trance-like procession into the next room. I followed, and without a thought, flicked the switch on the wall and almost screamed when the ceiling light blinked on.
“Wait, the fucking lights work?” I said. The room was empty with off-white walls––hardly the hell-scape I had expected. Just a room with some water damage above one window. “I can’t believe we were so scared of this place.” The version of the house I created in my head had been swallowed with the shadows as soon as the lights were turned on.
“I was never scared of this place,” Evan said softly, slapping the light off. I scoffed, as if to say ‘yeah right,’ and waited for him to defend himself. But he didn’t. He ran his hand along the barren wall next to me. “The violins are gone,” he said. It didn’t feel like he was talking to me.
“What?”
“She used to hang her old violins on the wall. She was a music teacher,” Evan said like he was somewhere else.
“Mrs. Winnie? How do you know that?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Evan whispered as he finally turned away from the wall. “We shouldn’t have come here.”
“Wait, you’ve been in here before, haven’t you? With her? And she didn’t, like, eat you or anything?”
“No, Caleb, she didn’t fucking eat me.” His voice was suddenly hard. “She wasn’t a bad person.”
“What do you mean? All she ever did was yell at us.” I was thrown off by his sudden mood shift.
“And what did you do?” he asked. He was yelling at me now. “You just made fun of her! You didn’t even stop after she died. You decided everyone had to be afraid of her. Why didn’t you ever try to see what she was really like?”
“Fuck, Evan, I don’t know––I was probably busy, like, eating grass or peeing in my bed or something. We were seven!” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand what we were fighting about.
“Sometimes you still act like you’re seven,” Evan said. He sat with his back against the wall.
“Why are you so mad at me?”
“Because you’re an idiot,” he said. It wasn’t an insult––it was logical. “Did you think about what stealing those keys could do to me, or did you just want to make fun of Mrs. Winnie more?” I knew the answer, but I didn’t say it. I sat down next to him.
“How did you know her so well?” I asked. He was silent for a while, his eyes still and forward.
“My mom,” he said finally. “She used to bring me over here for music lessons and stuff. Mrs. Winnie had a piano upstairs. And sometimes I’d stay over, too. She said I reminded her of her son.”
“You’d stay over? Why?” I asked. Evan folded his lips.
“My mom would bring me here when my dad got angry. And sometimes he’d stay angry. So I’d stay over. Until she died, obviously,” Evan told me. “Then my mom got sick. And then it was just me and him.” He stopped, his hand drifting to the side of his face, below his eye. “He just gets so mad sometimes. It can be scary.”
“Scary?”
“Yeah. But it’s not a big deal,” Evan said. He looked over at me with a closed-mouth smile that was meant to reassure me. The bruise beneath his eye was exaggerated in the shadowy room.
“You didn’t get that from Ross Andrews, did you?” I asked. Evan took a careful breath.
“No,” he said with quiet simplicity. “It’s never happened before like this, though. And he said he was sorry.”
I felt my eyes blur with the salt of tears. I hated that I was the one crying––I shouldn’t have been the one crying. I put my hand over his on the floor next to me. It didn’t feel right at all, but I kept it there.
“I’m sorry I yelled at you,” he said. I sucked the mucus up my nose.
“I’m sorry that…I could’ve got you in trouble. And that I made you go to a haunted house with me, and that I always make you do things that you don’t want to.” I paused. “You probably don’t have to say sorry for yelling at me.”
“This house isn’t haunted, Caleb.”
“I know.”
“Cal?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I sleep at your house tonight?” Evan asked. But not the way he would usually ask, like when we were up late watching a movie in my basement, or deep in the trenches of a high-stakes Monopoly game. This time he asked like he was actually afraid I would say no.
“You can whenever you want,” I said back.
And he did. Whenever he wanted he would sleep on the floor of our room; the one in the front corner next to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Except I knew then that our houses weren’t the same, because the house next door to mine was haunted––just not the one I had thought.
The Invasion
“Hyper–or hypo–reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of environment.”
Jude has to take his fingers out of his ears to grab the small blue rectangle from his nightstand. It feels smooth between his thumb and index finger. Turning it clockwise over and over helps him focus on something different. He pulls the white headphones from his pants pocket, plugs it into the tiny hole at the base of the blue rectangle, nuzzles the left earbud into his left ear, then the right into his right. Jude hits the play button hard with his thumb. He runs down the beige carpet stairs, rushes out the front door, and starts walking north east.
Jude likes how Paul, George, and Ringo shout “Help!” It makes his ears feel calmer.
Music makes Jude feel good. Jude likes how the right song can have the right words to explain how he feels inside his brain without Jude saying any words himself. The Beatles have a lot of the right songs for Jude.
Mom likes Paul the best. Dad likes George. Henry likes Ringo. Jude doesn’t have a favorite.
Jude follows the sidewalk. He is walking fast even though he doesn’t have any place to be. He does have some place he doesn’t want to be. At least until it stops.
The blue iPod was a birthday present from Mom and Dad last year. Jude remembers smiling while he slid it to the left side of the present table. It was definitely a “yes” present. Jude got to choose all the songs to put on it. These are those songs:
“Blackbird”
“All You Need Is Love”
“Eleanor Rigby”
“Help!”
“In My Life”
“The Long and Winding Road”
“Yellow Submarine”
“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”
“Let It Be”
“Hey Jude”
“Hey Jude”
“Hey Jude”
These are Jude’s favorites. Jude thinks they are all very good. “Hey Jude” is in there three times on purpose. He asked Dad to buy the song three times because it is the best one. This way, it will play three times more often than the rest. It makes sense to listen to the best the most.
Jude decides that he will go to the tree. The tree is Jude’s favorite place to go in his neighborhood. It is a weeping willow that is planted in the park at the edge of Jude’s street. It is tall, and skinny. And its branches are bendy and its leaves are just heavy enough to pull them towards the ground. Jude likes to sneak inside the branches. It is the perfect place to be by yourself.
The tree is fourteen houses away from Jude’s. He has passed five houses already. Counting the houses helps Jude to focus on something different. Jude’s feet are walking especially fast. At this rate, he will be at the tree in approximately seven minutes.
Jude is by himself. Sometimes it is not safe to be by yourself. But Jude knows where he is going and he is very good at not talking to strangers and he is staying on the sidewalk. Because of all these things, Jude thinks that this is a safe situation. The sidewalk goes a long way and is twisty in some parts. Just like the road Paul starts to sing about.
Jude especially likes the piano in this song. He pushes the volume-up button until it can’t go any higher. The iPod warns Jude:
‘Listening at a high volume for a long time may damage your hearing. Tap OK to allow the volume to be increased above safe levels.’
Jude taps OK. Jude’s favorite music is the only type of sound that feels nice inside his ears when it’s as loud as possible. The piano and horns and Paul’s voice scream into Jude’s ears. It feels good.
The rain has washed away the wild and windy night by the time Jude can see the willow tree. Jude starts running. He can feel the bottom of his sneakers pound against the concrete. By the time Jude reaches the tree, Paul is singing about the many times he’s been alone. Jude knows what that feels like.
The sun is hot and, from the running, so is Jude. The bendy branches and droopy leaves feel smooth like leather against the back of Jude’s hands. Jude likes to touch them so much that he pulls one off its branch. Just to hold. He then parts the curtain of leaves and enters the shadow under the tree. Jude lays down and stretches his arms and legs on the soft grass. He breathes in the cool air close to the ground. Jude rolls onto his side, with his face looking at the tree. He grabs his knees towards his chest, closes his eyes, and stays in this position for a long time. Jude listens to this song fade out and the new song begin. It is the best song. He lays down on his back, breathes in, and lets Paul sing to him.
Jude thinks about how Mom would sing the Beatles to him when he was little. She is the only person who likes their music more than Jude does. He remembers what it was like to be in his dark bedroom, lying down in his crib when he was a baby. Mom would slip her finger between the bars and let him hold it while she sang “Hey Jude” in a gentle whisper. Focusing on those memories helps Jude forget all the terrible noises in the world. Jude’s body feels calm, happy, and in-control.
Mom thinks “Hey Jude” is the best, too. That’s why Jude has his name. Jude knows that he is not the Jude that the Beatles sing about. But sometimes it feels like he is.
“Are you kidding? I can hear that through your headphones! Turn it down! You’re gonna go deaf!”
It is Mom. She is standing under the tree curtain. She is yelling.
“Give me that!” She is pointing to the blue rectangle. Jude sits up, removes the buds from his ears, and hands it to Mom. She snatches it quickly.
“Look at me, Jude.” She is making a serious face. Jude follows her Instruction. “I told you last time. You cannot leave the house when the smoke detector goes off. It is not a safe way to say how we are feeling. We use our words. What can you say when you hear a bad noise?”
Jude looks at the ground. Mom has asked this question before. He knows the answer. “Stop. That hurts my ears.”
“Yes.” Her voice sounds normal again. “Sometimes the smoke detector goes off. You may not like it, but you gotta learn to live with it.”
Jude uses his words. “It’s really loud. It hurts my ears.”
“I know. But you know it was an accident, right? I didn’t mean to burn dinner.”
Jude knows this, but he doesn’t care. Smoke detectors hurt his ears whether you mean to turn them on or not.
Jude watches Mom look down at the iPod clutched in her hand. Her eyes read the song that Jude was listening to. She makes a Facial Expression that could be sad or happy or sorry. Jude watches Mom twist the white earphones in her fingers. She sits down next to Jude on the ground and hands him the right earbud.
“Here,” she says. Mom puts one in her ear as Jude puts the other in his. She hits play.
They listen to the Beatles sing the last four minutes of Na Na Na, Na-Na-Na-Na, Na-Na-Na-Nas. Mom extends her finger to Jude. He wraps his hand around it. They stay like that until the song fades into perfect silence.
Mom is the first to talk.
“Hey, Jude,” she smiles. “Let’s go. Dad is ordering a pizza.”