1)  I SAW SOMETHING

 

Central Oklahoma, Late May 1966

 

          Bare boards showed through a thin sprinkling of flaking, white paint.  This was what I saw when I took my first close look at the empty, two-story farmhouse we were about to call our new home.

          Momma had taken her time driving up the rough, dirt drive. While she used caution on what was not much more than two rutted tracks in a wheat field, I had examined our new residence. I had been relieved to see that the roof didn't sag, nor did I see any missing shingles, and the windows I could see all had glass in them.

          I let out a big sigh. My shoulders dropped in resignation. It was hard to get excited about moving again. I was nearly thirteen years old and we had moved at least once for every year of my life.

          “It's not fair.”

          “I know it's not, honey.” Momma said. She looked up at the house then back down at me. She looked tired. Sadness dimmed her eyes while worry etched her face. She gave a slow, listless shrug of her shoulders and let out a sigh.

          Using the toe of my worn and stained canvas tennis shoe, I kicked at the hard packed dirt in the footpath where we stood. The ground was so hard and dry that I barely made more than a scuff mark in the path.

          “I don't want to move. I don’t want to leave Ricky.”

          Ricky was my best friend. We did everything together.  We went to the movies together and played little league baseball together. We even stole pop bottles from Red’s Grocery Store front porch at night so we could sell them back to him the next morning, spending the ill-gotten money on candy and comic books.

          I have known him since Momma, Dad, and I moved into the rent house next door to Ricky and his parents. I had just turned five. He was also five years old. He was an only child like me and we were like brothers. We stayed friends even after we moved away from him, moving from cheap rent house to cheaper rent house. Six months ago we had even moved back next door to Ricky. On the opposite side of him. Not the one we had lived in when I was five. Even though we moved around often, we never moved very far away; at least, not until this move.

          “I don't want to move either. But we don't have a choice,” Momma said.

          I knew we didn't have a choice. I ask why every time we move, hoping for a different answer I guess. Yet, every time we moved it was always for the same reason. Dad was stuck in a crappy job, and with his temper and drinking problem, no one else would hire him. So we would stay put until the rental owners would decide they were not going to get anymore rent out of us, then we would be asked to move out.

          Momma bent over her cupped hands in order to light one of her menthol cigarettes out of the wind. There wasn’t much wind.  I think she did it out of habit. She snapped her Zippo lighter shut then slipped it and the pack of cigarettes into her back pocket. She took a long pull on her cigarette.

          “God knows I am as tired of moving as you are,” she said, letting smoke drift out around her words. “I promise we will be able to live here a long time. The owner Joe Rearden says we can live here rent free as long as we keep up the place.”

          I looked at the peeling paint on the wood siding and the three cinder blocks that served as steps to the back door, which, as was the case for most farmhouses, served as the front door.  An upstairs window facing east, toward Momma and me, had a crack running diagonally across it. The window was so dusty I couldn't make out any details of the room behind it. Nor, could I tell if the dust was on the outside or the inside of the window. Probably both.  Johnson grass, sunflowers, gourd vines, goat head stickers, and other varieties of weeds had nearly choked all the Bermuda grass out of the yard.  Other than the narrow footpath from the gate to the door, the only place I saw bare of weeds was a red anthill a few feet from the door.  After a little, involuntary shudder, I shook my head.

          “I’m not so sure this is such a good idea.”

          “A little elbow grease and a lot of paint and this place will be like new,” Momma said.

          I started to reply when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw movement in the upstairs window.  At least, I thought I saw something. I looked at the window. Nothing.  As I started to turn back to Momma, I caught movement again along the edge of my vision.  I quickly turned back to the window.  Nothing stirred.

          “Momma, I think there’s somebody in the house.”

          “Oh no, can't be. This place has been empty for nigh on to a year now.” She said as she looked from window to window along the ground floor, trying to see through dirty glass into the rooms beyond.

          “I think I saw something, or someone, move in that window up there.”  I pointed to the only upstairs window visible from where we stood at the front gate.

          Momma looked up. She took a long puff on her cigarette while she studied the cracked glass. She let the smoke drift from her nose as she dropped the butt on the ground and stepped on it with the toe of her peach colored flip-flop.

          “Wait here, I’ll go see who’s in there,” she said. She pushed the gate open.  It protested with a dry squeak.  Momma walked hesitantly up the dirt path….

 

*           *           *           *           *

 

Central Oklahoma, Late May 2017

 

          After reading the first couple pages of my manuscript, I get out of my car. I take a long, slow look around me. I stand in the driveway where the house we moved into fifty-one years ago on that hot, late spring day had been located. The house featured in the manuscript I hold in my hand.

          I had decided to come see for myself if what a friend had told me about the old house is true. It is true. The new owner had burned the place down, cleaned up the ashes, and plowed under the cleared ground and most of the yard. It is now a part of a wheat field.

          The wheat stalks and leaves have turned to yellow with just a hint of green left in them.

          The old hay and livestock barn is still here, as is the windmill that kept the stock tank full of water.

          I look at the bullet holes in the old windmill's tail and in the spokes of its wheel.  A lot of those holes were put there by me many years ago. The windmill no longer works. It is apparent that too many years of neglect has taken its toll, which is probably a good thing since the rusted old stock tank looks as though it will no longer hold water.

          A few minutes ago, I ran into the current owner of the land. We met at the road end of the drive, he on his way out, me on my way in. After hearing that I had spent most of my childhood on this property, he was kind enough to tell me to take my time looking around. I find it is interesting how quickly fifty plus years can fade away and how vivid the memories become. Especially the memories of a summer that was destined to change a lot of lives, including mine.

          I get the ice chest out of the trunk of my car and set it down under the shade of a giant cedar tree. The tree, which once stood between the front door and thegate, is now on the edge of the wheat field. Taking a seat on the ground, I lean back against the trunk of the cedar tree, grab a beer out of the ice chest, and twist off the top. After taking a long drink, I rest my head back against the tree trunk, close my eyes, and return to those events that took place in the summer of 1966. I allow them to flood my thoughts for a few minutes.  Then, pushing aside the sea of memories, I return to reading my manuscript, picking up with Momma going to go see who is in the house.

 

*           *           *           *           *

 

          When she reached the cinder block steps, Momma pulled on the handle of the porch's screen door. The door slipped open a little at the bottom but stayed closed at the top.

          “Maybe it’s locked,” I said, standing right behind Momma. She jumped, letting go of the handle. The bottom of the screen door slammed shut.

          “Shit, Bobby, what are you doing sneaking up behind me?  I thought I told you to wait at the gate.  Are you trying to give me a damned coronary?”

          “I....” Before I could finish, a honey bee buzzed me. I swatted at it a couple of times while backing up, nearly tripping over one of the cedar tree’s roots half exposed in the dirt walkway.

          “I don’t want to wait out here alone,” I said without taking my eyes off the honeybee. The bee buzzed around me and momma a couple more times, then flew out of sight. I felt certain that as soon as I was not looking it would return and attack the back of my neck.

          “Anyway, the door’s not locked.  It’s just warped and stuck at the top.”  Momma pulled on the handle and let go of it several more times.

          Each time she let go of the handle, the top of the door would move out a little more than the previous attempt. On her next attempt, the door finally flew open, slamming against the outside of the enclosed porch.  A broken return spring hung loosely from its hook on the inside of the door.

          “Guess we’ll have to replace that spring,” Momma said.  

          We stepped into the twilight of the old porch.  A field mouse scurried across the cement floor.  It took the time to sit on its hind legs and screech at us before exiting through a hole in the wall.  An old Speed Queen wringer washing machine, encrusted with dust, sat in one corner of the porch.

          “At least we’ll be able to do laundry,” Momma said, nodding toward the washing machine. “Provided that old thing still works.”

          “Sure,” I said. I walked over and took a closer look at the hole in the wall where the mouse made its exit. The hole had teeth marks all around its opening.

          “I think we will need to stuff this with some steel wool,” I said.

          “I am pretty sure we have some somewhere,” momma said. She didn't take her eyes off the washing machine as she answered me. Momma walked over and looked down into the washer.

          “A damned snake,” she said, jerking her hands up in the air while stepping back.

          “Cool!  Where?”  I ran over and looked into the washer.  

          A light brown snake skin with small diamond patterns of darker brown stretched from the wringer down into the tub.  I grabbed the skin and lifted it out of the washer, trying not to break the thin, delicate membrane.

          “It’s just a snake’s skin, not a snake. See.” I turned toward Momma with the snake skin held out in front of me..\

          “That's a damned rattler.” Momma leaned back away from my offering.

          “Naw. It is just an old bullsnake,” I said. I pointed the tail end of the snake skin at Momma. “See, the tail comes down to a point, no rattles.”

          “I don’t care. A snake is a snake. Don’t get it near me,” Momma said, taking a step back as I took a step toward her with the snake skin. After another step back, she turned to the door that went into the house.

          The porch was an add-on and the door that went from the porch into the house had once been the outside door so it had a pane of glass in it and a hole designed for a skeleton key. Momma opened the door and we stepped up into the kitchen.  

          The back wall of the kitchen had cabinets and a sink against it.  Over the sink, a window looked toward the south. A white, gas cook stove, with the porcelain on its corners worn away to bare metal from many years of use, stood against an adjacent wall. A white Frigidaire refrigerator sat beside the stove.  Momma gave the stove and icebox a quick look.

          “Looks like someone did a good job of cleaning up in this kitchen. Not like that last place that took me a couple days to scrub all of the old grease off the stove.”

          Momma sniffed the air.

          “Don't smell any mice either. Another small blessing,” she said as she turned away from the kitchen and toward the stairs that led to the second floor.

          The living room was located just inside the doorway to our right, with what had originally been designed as the front door opening to the north side of the house.  Straight ahead of us, through an open doorway, we could see the bathroom.  

          A four-legged, white porcelain bathtub sat under a window with a western exposure.  On the right, just before the bathroom, was the staircase that went up to the second floor.

          Momma went up the enclosed flight of stairs; I was right behind her.  At the top of the stairs was a small landing with two doors, one on the left and one on the right.  The door on the left was open. We peeked in. The room was empty. It must have been twice as big as my bedroom back home. There was a window on the north and a window on the west. This was so much better than my current bedroom. It didn't have any windows. I think I will claim this as my bedroom. I really liked the idea of being able to watch the sun go down at night.

          We turned to the closed door on the right, which should go to the room where I thought I saw someone.

          Momma reached for the doorknob. Something hit the other side of the door. She shrieked and stepped backward, nearly knocking me into the other bedroom. She turned around, grabbed me by the shoulders, and pointed me toward the stairs.  I scrambled down them. She rushed down right behind me.  We didn’t stop until we were back out by the front gate.  As we stared up at the upstairs window, Dad and two of his co-workers pulled up in a couple pickups loaded with our furniture.

          “What the hell’s the matter with you two?” Dad asked through the open side window of his pickup as he pulled to a stop.  

          He stepped out of the pickup, dropped an empty beer can on the ground by the fence, then leaned back into his pickup to get another Falstaff out of the ice chest that sat on the passenger side of the seat.

          J.L. Birmingham and Marvin Falls got out of the other pickup, each holding a beer. Marvin dropped the tailgate of their pickup and took a seat while he waited on J.L. to make his way to the back of the pickup and slide up onto the tailgate. Dad says J.L. never gets in a hurry and that if his butt was on fire he would probably walk to the bathroom to dunk it in the toilet bowl instead of run.

          “There’s somebody in the house,” Momma said. She pointed to the broken window on the second floor. “In that room upstairs.”

          “Did you see them?  There’s not supposed to be anyone else here,” Dad said.

          He grabbed the church key that hung from a string tied to a handle on the ice chest, knocked some loose ice of the top of the can, then punched a couple holes in the top of his beer.

          “We didn’t see anybody, but we heard them,” Momma said.  “Didn’t we, Bobby?”

          I had stepped around behind mom when dad drove up. I didn't trust myself to be able to talk around the lump that had formed in my throat when dad got out of his pickup. I nodded.

          “I’ll go run their ass off,” Dad said.

          He took a long drink of his beer, belched, and, with beer in hand, started toward the house.

          After he tossed his and J.L.'s empty beer cans on the ground next to dad's discarded empty, Marvin walked over to Dad's truck and grabbed two beers out of the ice chest.

          “You need some help, Robert?” Marvin asked as he walked back to his truck. He handed a beer to J.L.

          Dad stopped and looked over his shoulder at Marvin.

          “Naw, I can handle it. Why don’t you two pull the trucks through the car gate and back them up to the porch on the north side of the house. We will bring everything in through there.”

          Dad, Momma, and I continued up the walk to the house.  Just before we reached the door, the sound of glass breaking stopped us in our tracks. A long, sharp sliver of glass from the upstairs window stuck into the ground. The glass shard missed us by only a couple of feet.  

          Momma and dad looked up at the upstairs window. I looked too. Nothing or no one could be seen.

          “Sumbitch,” Dad said.  

          He tossed his beer down, slammed open the screen door, and went into the house. The dry ground sucked thirstily at the foam bubbling from the Falstaff can.  Dad stomped up the stairs. He yelled at the ‘sumbitch’ on the way up, threatening to kick the fucker’s ass.  I knew Dad must be drunk because he never used the ‘f’ word around Momma when he was sober.  She hated that word, even more than she hated the ‘c’ word, whatever it was.

          Momma and I followed Dad up the stairs.  He looked into the bedroom on the left, but it was still empty.  He grabbed the doorknob on the right, turned it, and flung the door open.

          Something flew at Dad’s face. I jumped back and shrieked. Dad swatted it with his right hand.  It fluttered to the floor. Dad glanced down, then started to laugh. Momma and I looked in to see what he had knocked to the floor.  It was a sparrow, which hopped up then flew into the window's frame, bounced off, made a frantic circle around the room, then managed to fly out through the hole in the window.

          “A goddamned sparrow.  You two are scared of a little, pissy sparrow.”

          Momma didn’t say a word; she simply turned and walked down the stairs.  I stood just inside the door, looking around the room.

          “I guess this will be your room,” dad said. “Better find some cardboard for that window before another one of those scary birds gets in.”  

          Dad glared at me, shook his head, then left me in the room. That figures. I never got what I wanted. I wanted the other bedroom. I knew better than to ask dad if I could have the other room. He never changed his mind and he never cared about what I wanted or thought.

          I stepped further into the room and looked around.  A small, doorless closet just to the left of the bedroom's door gaped open. A wooden bar for hanging clothes hung under a shelf that ran the width of the closet's back wall. Nothing hung from the bar, nor was there anything left on the closet's floor. I stood on tiptoe but could not see the top of the shelf. I jumped up, grabbing a quick look at the top of the shelf. Nothing.

          I looked around the room. Three windows, one on the north, one on the east, which was the broken window, and one on the south allowed for plenty of light to fill the room, despite how dusty and dirty they were. Yet, the corner of the room to the right of the door seemed to be hidden in shadow.  

          I peered into the shadow, allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness until I could see the corner was empty.  An involuntary shiver hit me. I turned back to the broken window, which had no curtain or blind over it.  I knew something had moved across the window earlier and it was too big to be a sparrow.  I look around the room again. All three windows were shut and the bedroom door had been closed when Momma and I came up the stairs for the first time. How did a sparrow get into this bedroom that was closed up?  Someone or something had to let it in.

          A feeling that I was not alone began to come over me. Goosebumps popped up on both forearms in spite of the early summer heat.  All of a sudden, I did not want to be in this room.  I turned to leave.  Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something move in the shadow to the right of the door.  I did not take the time to look any closer.  I jumped through the door and flew down the stairs, not daring to look behind me....