Johnny America

 

 


JOHNNY AMERICA

Is a little ’zine of fiction, humor, and other miscellany, published by the Moon Rabbit Drinking Club & Benevolence Society since 2003.

Photograph of Johnny America 10Photograph of Johnny America 10

Our latest zine is Johnny America # 10, a steal at three bucks from our online shop. And we have a new collection of fiction by Eli S. Evans that’ll knock your socks off: Various Stories About Specific Individuals in Particular Situations.

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Photograph of Johnny America 10Photograph of Johnny America 10

Johnny America has been bringing you fresh fiction and humor since 2003.

Our latest zine is Johnny America # 10.

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Soft as a Feath­er, Light as a Rap-Rock Board

by

Illustration of a person floating

The on­ly time I ever went to Claudia’s house for din­ner, her dad gave me a tour that end­ed in his mancave.

“This is my band,” he said, in­di­cat­ing a se­ries of pho­tographs on the wall, “at Woodstock.”

“Wood­stock ’99,” I clarified.

“Fuck you, Andy,” he said. “Where has your band played?”

“I— ” I said. I was thirteen.

“I’m sor­ry. That was rude. You’re just a child.” He fished change out of his pock­et and dropped it with a suc­ces­sion of mut­ed plinks in­to a swear jar that oc­cu­pied one en­tire cub­by of his book­shelf. “It’s just, everyone’s a crit­ic, you know?” 

“I didn’t know,” I said. I was aware, at thir­teen, of know­ing very lit­tle. I had on­ly known which Wood­stock he’d played be­cause Clau­dia was al­ways ref­er­enc­ing it, em­pha­siz­ing the year with a roll of her eyes: “He thinks he’s so cool be­cause his crap­py band played Wood­stock ’99.” Some­times, she would do a bone­less, dain­ty la­dy wrist, too, when she said it.

“Well, they are. Peo­ple are like that. I’m telling you.”

“Okay.”

He crossed his arms and stared dream­i­ly in­to the frozen wild­ness of a mosh pit as he re­flect­ed, “Was Hen­drix bet­ter than Limp Bizk­it? Was Ja­nis? We can’t know be­cause they didn’t sur­vive their fame. I did, and so did Limp Bizk­it. So, are those guys the leg­ends, or are we?”

“I thought Clau­dia said you were a cop.”

“Ex­act­ly,” her dad said, “I lived long enough to be that — un­like Jim­mie and Ja­nis. That’s what I’m try­ing to tell you.”

I nod­ded even though he wasn’t look­ing at me, even though I on­ly had a dim aware­ness of who Jim­mie or Ja­nis were. “So, you guys were, like, famous?”

Claudia’s dad sniffed and an­i­mat­ed, tak­ing me by the shoul­der and lead­ing me in­to the hall­way. “I think that’s enough of a mem­o­ry tour for now. They’ll think we aren’t com­ing back.”

‘They’ were Clau­dia, of course, her step­mom and her lit­tle half-sis­ter, Evanescence.

Typ­i­cal­ly, when we hung out, Clau­dia came to my house. On her last vis­it, though, she had looked at me and said, “Dude, you’re so lucky that it’s just you and your mom.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean that hav­ing a fam­i­ly sucks. At least, hav­ing my fam­i­ly does. Why do you think I’m al­ways over here? You have it way eas­i­er with just the two of you. None of the drama.”

“There’s dra­ma here.” For some rea­son, I felt attacked.

“Yeah, like what? You two are ba­si­cal­ly the same person.”

Just be­cause I couldn’t think of any­thing right then, she thought I’d proven her right. “We have things, Mom and me,” I as­sured her, “beefs,” and I was cer­tain it was true.

Her smile was tight and smug. “Why don’t you just come to my house next time? You’ll see.”

“What­ev­er,” I’d said, and a few days lat­er, there I was, be­ing led on a tour of her home. 

“There you boys are,” her step­mom said as we passed through the kitchen. She was dress­ing a sal­ad which I hoped she hadn’t made in my hon­or be­cause there was no chance that I was go­ing to eat a salad.

“I was just show­ing Andy around.”

“Did he show you his pho­tos from Wood­stock?” she asked me. 

“’99,” Clau­dia moaned in a drawn-out, qua­ver­ing ghost voice like it had trav­elled to our ears from be­yond the grave. Re­al­ly, it had come from the liv­ing room where she was slouched on the so­fa be­side Evanescence. 

Her dad gave her a look that im­plied that he was on­ly hold­ing his tongue be­cause I tech­ni­cal­ly qual­i­fied as company.

“Yeah, it was cool,” I told the stepmom. 

“It’s very cool,” she agreed. “Our own per­son­al rock star.”

“Rap-rock star,” Evanes­cence said. To me, this qual­i­fi­ca­tion seemed as de­mean­ing as Clau­dia point­ing out that he’d played the worst-re­gard­ed Wood­stock. Her dad must not have seen it that way, though, be­cause he on­ly smiled at her, lovingly.

At din­ner, I most­ly had sal­ad. It turned out to be the main course, a mayonnaise‑y sev­en-lay­er af­fair that was prob­a­bly as many calo­ries as ac­tu­al food. As I picked out ba­con bits and around peas, I longed to share Evanescence’s spe­cial­ty meal of frozen chick­en nuggets topped with torn squares of Amer­i­can cheese. She was cur­rent­ly scrap­ing off the lit­tle hand­ker­chiefs of cheese and chew­ing them out from un­der her fingernails. 

“So, Andy,” Claudia’s dad said, “are you in­to sports?”

Clau­dia snort­ed. “Do you re­al­ly think I’d be friends with a sports guy?”

“Let the man an­swer,” he said. “Andy?”

“Um, no. No sports.”

“See?” She was sit­ting to my right with her dad and step­mom fac­ing us. Evanes­cence oc­cu­pied the seat at the head of the table.

“Yes, dar­ling, you’re very wise. Con­grat­u­la­tions,” her dad said.

“Guys…” sang her step­mom in a gen­tle, scold­ing tone. Then, to me, she said, “You must be in­to the arts then. What kind of mu­sic do you like? Bran­don is in­to ag­gres­sive mu­sic, ob­vi­ous­ly, but I most­ly lis­ten to lighter things — Josh Groban, Michael Bublé.”

“You don’t like dad’s band, Bren­da?” Clau­dia asked. When I looked, her eye­brows were car­toon­ish­ly raised. Her fork was a pen­du­lum, dan­gled above her bowl from her clasped hands. 

“I love them, ob­vi­ous­ly. Trouser Stain was a great band, and their best songs were the ones your dad wrote.” She smiled at him, re­in­forc­ing her loy­al­ty. “I’m just most­ly a soft rock gal.”

“Bublé’s a chode. Groban too,” her dad said. “Trouser Stain was a cult fa­vorite, a cult clas­sic some peo­ple say. But you haven’t an­swered the ques­tion: what kind of mu­sic, Andy?”

“Um, I guess… I’m not that sure. I like the same kind as Claudia.”

“Clau­dia doesn’t re­al­ly lis­ten to anything.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “me too.” I forked a may­on­naise-cov­ered ba­con bit in­to my mouth and winced when it turned out to be an emp­ty pea husk.

“Andy likes TV,” Clau­dia told them. “He watch­es, like, a ton of shows.”

“Is TV the arts?” I asked her stepmom.

She squashed her face, think­ing, and then said, “Sure it is, I suppose.”

There wasn’t much con­ver­sa­tion af­ter that, at least not much that in­clud­ed me. I guess they got used to my be­ing there, and I sort of went in­vis­i­ble to them. That was fine with me be­cause it gave me a chance to ob­serve them, like a na­ture doc­u­men­tary but about a hu­man fam­i­ly that lived on the same street as me. I picked at my sal­ad and lis­tened. They talked about peo­ple from their work and made ref­er­ences that were fa­mil­iar enough to them to dis­cuss in short­hand. It was bor­ing, most­ly, ex­cept that un­der­ly­ing it all I per­ceived a tan­gi­ble un­hap­pi­ness, no dif­fer­ent than if the foun­da­tion of the home had been built with the hard, com­pressed bricks of their un­spo­ken re­sent­ments. Clau­dia ex­pressed it through snark and sass, he dad through snip­ing, and her step­mom through a pho­ny smile that grew larg­er and more un­can­ny when­ev­er the tem­per­a­ture was raised by the oth­er two. On­ly Evanes­cence seemed un­af­fect­ed, per­haps be­cause every­one treat­ed her like a lit­tle princess as far as I could tell. I con­sid­ered if Mom would ever give me that look, raise her voice that way, strug­gle so ob­vi­ous­ly to hold back some mean thing she want­ed to say to me. No, she wouldn’t, and that pissed me off be­cause it meant that Clau­dia had been right — her home­life re­al­ly was worse than mine, and that meant she had won.

When I was younger and asked about my dad, Mom would on­ly ever tell me that he had been a love-bomber, that, ear­ly on, he would smooth her hair and mar­vel out loud about how he had caught an an­gel. Her big, fi­nal line was al­ways, “And I was like an an­gel — as soon as he start­ed in on his non­sense, I up and float­ed away.”

“That was a good meal,” Claudia’s dad said af­ter toss­ing his pa­per nap­kin on­to the ta­ble, balled and bat­tle weary.

I nod­ded agree­ment and fol­lowed Claudia’s lead when she pushed her bowl to­ward the cen­ter of the ta­ble. A peek at it re­vealed that she had eat­en even less than me.

“So, Andy,” her dad said, “do you need to rush off, or can you stick around for a bit?”

“Um,” I said, look­ing to Clau­dia for guidance.

She shrugged. I opened my eyes wider, im­plor­ing her for help, and she said, “He’s ask­ing you if you want to play board games with us.” There was an iron­ic joy in her voice when she asked, “Pret­ty please, can you play board games with us, Andy?”

“I mean, sure, I guess,” I said.

“Board games are dumb,” whined Evanes­cence. There were crum­bles of cheese stuck to her low­er lip. “I want to play light as a feath­er, stiff as a board.”

“She just learned that game at a sleep­over,” the step­mom ex­plained as she cleared the table. 

“What if Andy doesn’t want to play that, ba­by?” Claudia’s dad asked the lit­tle girl. “What if his fam­i­ly is deeply re­li­gious and he thinks we’re black mag­ic heathens?”

“We’re not re­li­gious,” I said like I was de­fend­ing against an as­sault on Mom’s char­ac­ter. “I don’t know how to do it, but I’ll try.”

Evanes­cence shot up from her chair. “I can teach you. It’s very mag­i­cal.” She padded in­to the liv­ing room in socked feet, leav­ing us with the im­plic­it un­der­stand­ing that we should fol­low her.

“Are we re­al­ly do­ing this?” Clau­dia asked.

“You don’t want to? It seems like just the kind of witchy thing you would be in­to,” her dad said. This, I as­sumed, was a dig at the jet-black she had died her hair over spring break. She re­spond­ed with a sneer that be­gat an­gry eyes from her dad and a con­cerned smile from her stepmom.

“Are you guys com­ing?” Evanes­cence called from the liv­ing room.

“Just a minute, sweets,” her moth­er said. “I need to fin­ish clear­ing the table.”

“No, now!” The girl shouted.

“Save that for lat­er, hon­ey, would you?” Claudia’s dad said as he rose from the ta­ble. I wait­ed for Clau­dia to get up be­fore I pushed out my own chair.

Evanes­cence was al­ready ly­ing on her back on the liv­ing room car­pet, her legs straight and to­geth­er, her arms at her sides. “I’m the board,” she an­nounced and closed her eyes.

We’re the bored,” Clau­dia said.

“Nu-uh,” Evanes­cence said, not get­ting it.

We all got to our knees, some of us more eas­i­ly than oth­ers. I end­ed up kneel­ing be­side the lit­tle girl’s right shoul­der, an ac­ci­dent that I was hap­py about when I re­al­ized that we had to put one flat­tened hand un­der her body. Let her par­ents touch her legs or butt or what­ev­er. Clau­dia was across from me, prob­a­bly hav­ing had the same thought.

“I haven’t done this since I was a girl,” the step­mom said. “Do we need any­thing else to play?”

“Just your hands,” the girl said. “And your con­cen­tra­tion. And mu­sic. Spooky music.”

The step­mom pulled the phone from her back pock­et. “Hmm. I don’t think I have any spooky mu­sic on my playlist. How about this one? It’s more sad than spooky.” Pi­ano chords blos­somed from her phone fol­lowed by the plead­ings of a schlocky male singer.

“Manilow?” Claudia’s dad asked. “She said spooky mu­sic, not shit­ty music.”

“That’s a quar­ter for the swear jar, mis­ter,” the step­mom told him. “As soon as we’re done here.”

“This mu­sic is per­fect,” Evanes­cence said, even though it wasn’t at all spooky. She clasped her eye­lids tighter, a lit­tle smile in­di­cat­ing her thrill at be­ing the cen­ter of attention.

In re­sponse to the mu­sic, Claudia’s dad di­rect­ed a tongue-out ex­pres­sion at me like one you might in­vol­un­tar­i­ly make while be­ing pun­ished for a crime with a hangman’s noose. 

“Now, you all chant ‘light as a feath­er, stiff as a board’ and try to lift me.”

When we reached un­der­neath her, she gig­gled. Her shoul­der felt warm and bony on my palm. She smelled faint­ly of processed cheese.

Slop­pi­ly at first, and then more suc­cess­ful­ly as a cho­rus, we be­gan to chant. There was a sax­o­phone so­lo. The song re­al­ly was trash.

My arm shook in small, re­strained con­vul­sions as I tried to lift her. With­in a minute or so, the girl’s butt, propped by our group’s two strongest hands, rose a few inch­es off the ground. Her shoul­ders, with on­ly my and Claudia’s spaghet­ti arms to sup­port them, bare­ly rose at all.

“I’m do­ing it! I’m do­ing it!” Evanes­cence squealed. 

“Yeah,” Clau­dia said, with­draw­ing her hand and caus­ing the whole ma­chine to fail, send­ing the lit­tle girl heav­i­ly back on­to the car­pet, “Dad and Bren­da lift­ed you three inch­es. You weigh, like, six­ty-five pounds. Big whoop.”

“At least I don’t weigh five hun­dred pounds.” She scoot­ed out of the cen­ter of the cir­cle, in­dig­nant that her mir­a­cle had gone un­ap­pre­ci­at­ed. Clau­dia did not weigh five hun­dred pounds, nowhere near, but no one cor­rect­ed her.

“So, we’re done?” her dad asked.

“No!” the lit­tle girl said. “Every­one goes, then who­ev­er ris­es high­est wins be­cause they’re the purest of heart.”

“I may as well not even try, then,” said Claudia.

“Bren­da, get in there,” her dad said.

I felt a sud­den pan­ic. The step­mom? Bra straps and side boob and the se­duc­tive smells of un­fa­mil­iar mom lo­tions and pow­ders. A hor­ror show of my poor­ly un­der­stood longing.

The step­mom felt it too. She stut­tered about how she didn’t need to take a turn. She tried not to look at me so I wouldn’t think that my grub­by fin­gers were the is­sue, but I knew that, had she been wear­ing a bathrobe in­stead of reg­u­lar day clothes, she would have clasped it at her neck to stop me imag­in­ing her body. 

“Fine,” Claudia’s dad said. “But if you for­feit your turn, you lose mu­sic rights. Turn it off, babe.”

When she did, and the room went silent, he let out a sigh as if the sap­py mu­sic had caused a pres­sure dif­fer­en­tial that had made it im­pos­si­ble for him to breath. “Andy, you’re up, bro. Girls, switch placed with us, and get him un­der the an­kles. On­ly touch his an­kles,” he re­it­er­at­ed, nar­row­ing his eyes at Clau­dia as if she had mas­ter­mind­ed this whole evening for the chance to get a fist­ful of my bony ass.

I looked at each of them plead­ing­ly, but no one spoke up to get me out of it, so I crawled for­ward and laid down on my back. 

“We won’t be able to lift him from his an­kles,” Clau­dia protested.

“You will if he goes light as a feath­er and stiff as a board,” her dad said. “Now, for some re­al mu­sic.” He looked de­light­ed as he brought it up on his phone.

“Dad, not Trouser Stain,” Clau­dia said.

“Andy needs to hear it,” he said. “It’s a guy thing. Our au­di­ence was al­ways most­ly men. Don’t rob him of this ex­pe­ri­ence just be­cause you don’t get it. Don’t be that kind of woman.”

“And what’s that sup­posed to mean?” the step­mom asked.

“Any­thing is fine,” I said to the ceil­ing. “I don’t think we re­al­ly need music.”

“We do,” he told me. “We ab­solute­ly do. We need this mu­sic.” A rack­et of chunky gui­tars and bass and dri­ving drums filled the room. Some­one start­ed rap­ping. Claudia’s dad, I pre­sumed, from back be­fore he was her dad. It was a hor­ror show of a dif­fer­ent type.

I felt his thick hand go un­der my shoul­der. Oth­er hands fol­lowed, re­luc­tant hands, I was sure. In all my life, I had nev­er felt more like a stranger then when those un­fa­mil­iar hands were touch­ing me.

“Andy,” he said. I turned my head to­ward him. “This song is called, ‘Benji’s Dog.’ It was our sin­gle. I wrote it about this dog that my neigh­bor, Ben­ji, had when I was grow­ing up. Al­so, it’s about how we all kind of want­ed to bang Benji’s mom.”

“Bran­don!”

He winked at me like, you get it.

I smiled po­lite­ly and then squeezed my eyes tight like this game was se­ri­ous busi­ness to me and I couldn’t tol­er­ate fur­ther in­ter­rup­tion. I re­solved to keep them closed un­til the in­dig­ni­ty had ended.

The chant be­gan, led by Evanes­cence. It seemed qui­eter than be­fore, com­pet­ing, as it was, with Trouser Stain. The lyrics were filthy, and the rap­ping was bad. At one point, Claudia’s dad quit the chant and be­gan to sing along to him­self, a heresy that broke the oth­ers out of the chant too.

“Dad­dy!” Evanes­cence cried.

“Turn this off, Dad,” Clau­dia said, “For the love of all that’s holy, I’m beg­ging you.”

“Maybe now’s not the time, Bran­don,” the step­mom said.

He ig­nored them all, rap­ping along even loud­er than before.

This caused an­oth­er round of com­plaints, an over­lap­ping burst-dam of re­pressed emo­tion. It was grat­ing to hear them fight and yet some­how the per­fect ac­com­pa­ni­ment to the ag­gres­sive and an­gry back­ing track. 

“Lis­ten to this, Andy,” he said at one point, try­ing to make us a team, he and I.

I was al­ready gone, though, en­tranced by my de­sire for es­cape. My thoughts were on my bed­room and home, on Mom and the Hot Pock­ets she would have made me for din­ner. As they con­tin­ued to fight, their hands dis­ap­peared from be­neath me. Maybe they pulled them out from un­der me, or maybe I just got numb to the sen­sa­tion of them. I had gone in­vis­i­ble to them again, and they were scream­ing. Prop­er­ly ver­bal­ly spar­ring. I kept my eyes closed, the purest de­sire of my heart to be any­where else but in that liv­ing room. They called each oth­er names, said hor­ri­ble things, but on­ly dis­tant­ly, from some­where far away. I was an an­gel. I was above it all. 

I float­ed.

Filed under Fiction on October 25th, 2024

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Voic­es

by

Illustrration of a tape recorder

We de­cid­ed to make a ghost record­ing in the woods. It was my idea, though we all agreed to it.

You’ve prob­a­bly heard about stuff like this, maybe lis­tened to al­leged spec­tral voic­es on the In­ter­net. Pro­fes­sion­als— if that’s the prop­er term — go to places where they hope to cap­ture mes­sages from be­yond, set­ting up ul­tra-sen­si­tive au­dio equip­ment to do so. 

But we weren’t para­psy­chol­o­gists us­ing cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy. We were three teenage boys in a po­dunk town in Up­state New York in the sum­mer of 1979, and our equip­ment was a Re­al­is­tic CTR-43 portable cas­sette recorder. 

If you’re will­ing, come walk with me along the cor­ri­dors of mem­o­ry, and I’ll tell you of that at­tempt, and what be­came of it. 

There were three of us in this en­ter­prise: me, my old­er broth­er Mar­vin, and our neigh­bor Ronald. I was 13, Marv a year and a half old­er, and Ron 15. It was the start of sum­mer va­ca­tion, those three blessed months of free­dom: a cat­a­lyst for fun, for mis­chief, and for the weird no­tion soon to be plant­ed in my ado­les­cent mind.

Brows­ing in the town li­brary in the first week of June, I came across a vol­ume ti­tled The Di­ary and Sundry Ob­ser­va­tions of Thomas Al­va Edi­son. It needs a snap­pi­er ti­tle, I thought, gaz­ing up­on the mono­chrome pho­to of Edi­son in pro­file grac­ing the dust jacket. 

Open­ing it, I skimmed the ta­ble of con­tents: “War and Peace,” “Ed­u­ca­tion and Work,” “Man and Ma­chine.” Then the last chap­ter ti­tle caught my eye, and I felt some­thing course through me, like a tiny jolt of electricity.

VIII THE REALMS BEYOND

Life af­ter death

I bor­rowed the book, got on my bi­cy­cle, and went home. Sit­ting on my bed, I be­gan to read.

Thomas Edi­son want­ed to in­vent tech­nol­o­gy to con­tact the dead. He had a the­o­ry about mi­cro­scop­ic “life-units” which sur­vive phys­i­cal death and com­prise what we call the soul. It was vague, with no de­tails about how the de­vice would work. Still, this wasn’t the kind of stuff about Edi­son you learned in school. 

The next day, Marv and I went “ex­ca­vat­ing” with Ron. That was when the idea for the ghost record­ing hit me.

Our street and Ron’s in­ter­sect­ed on the east­ern edge of town. Each street had a dead end be­yond which were wood­land trails lead­ing to the Bat­ten Kill, flow­ing west un­til its wa­ters joined the Hud­son. With a bit of dig­ging in the woods just be­yond the end of Ron’s street, you could find emp­ty bot­tles from the turn of the cen­tu­ry: sar­sa­par­il­la, whiskey, patent med­i­cine, what have you. We trad­ed them like base­ball cards. 

So there we were, hav­ing cho­sen our re­spec­tive ex­ca­va­tion spots, search­ing with buck­ets and shov­els for bot­tles to add to our col­lec­tions. We’d lat­er wash them off with the hose in Ron’s back­yard and divvy them up.

My first find was a thin, blueish bot­tle that had once held “Ther­a­peu­tic Min­er­al Wa­ter of Sarato­ga Springs.” At least eighty years old, I thought, brush­ing the soil from it. Who­ev­er had bought and drunk this wa­ter was like­ly no longer alive. Who was it? I pic­tured a young man in a sack suit and bowler, sport­ing a han­dle­bar mus­tache, and a young la­dy in a long skirt, shirt­waist and elab­o­rate col­or­ful hat, sip­ping the min­er­al wa­ter of Sarato­ga from slen­der bot­tles. She is young and beau­ti­ful and a Tem­per­ance Union­ist, and he is court­ing her, and even though he en­joys a cold lager af­ter work, for the sake of her hand in mar­riage he will dis­avow the de­mon alcohol. 

Who bought this? What if I could talk to them and find out, like Edi­son want­ed to?

Lat­er, wash­ing dirt off the bot­tles with Ron’s gar­den hose, I said, “Guys, I’ve got an idea.”

There was rain that night, so we put off our self-ap­point­ed mis­sion un­til the next evening, agree­ing to ren­dezvous by Ron’s house at a quar­ter to mid­night and head for the en­trance to the woods.

Af­ter mak­ing sure our moth­er was asleep — our fa­ther was in Flori­da, as I re­call; he wasn’t home much — Marv and I qui­et­ly left the house and took our usu­al route to Ron’s house, squeez­ing through the cor­ner gap in the fence at the back of the yard to en­ter Ron’s property. 

Dew from the grass stirred about our feet as we walked. The fire­flies of ear­ly June, hap­py to be out among the still-damp fo­liage, float­ed like a myr­i­ad of fairies’ lanterns. I imag­ined, briefly, one of the fairies warn­ing us to go back, not to med­dle in things no mor­tal man or boy should know. I ig­nored this fan­cied ad­mo­ni­tion and trudged on be­hind my el­der broth­er. Ron was wait­ing for us by his house, sil­hou­et­ted against the street­lights. No one spoke as we ex­it­ed his front yard and pro­ceed­ed down the street.

We got to the dead end where as­phalt be­came dirt and grav­el, which in turn be­came the trail in­to the woods. The en­trance struck me as a black cav­ernous maw wait­ing to de­vour us, but I drew a lit­tle com­fort from the light of the fire­flies within.

Don’t! cried the float­ing, lantern-wield­ing fairy of my imag­i­na­tion. The for­est is wait­ing to con­sume you! To eat your soul! I sud­den­ly had to pee. I stopped walking. 

“You all right, Bruno?” Ron asked.

“Yeah. Just gonna take a whiz.”

“Sure.”

I stepped just in­side the canopy of trees and off to the right. Some­how, the pro­sa­ic act of emp­ty­ing my blad­der calmed me.

“OK,” I said, zip­ping up. 

“Did you bring it?” asked Ron.

“Right here,” I said, reach­ing back to slap my backpack.

“OK. Let’s go.”

We en­tered the woods, flash­lights on. Our des­ti­na­tion was In­di­an Rock.

I’d nev­er heard a def­i­nite leg­end of how In­di­an Rock got its name, oth­er than the ob­vi­ous al­lu­sion to in­dige­nous peo­ple. There were ru­mors that the site was haunt­ed. It was more or less what the name sug­gest­ed: a large rock jut­ting from the earth, a few yards from the riv­er bank. In the day­time we would oc­ca­sion­al­ly fish there.

When we got to the rock, I opened my back­pack and re­moved the tape recorder. There was a cas­sette in­side, 45 min­utes per side, re­wound on side A. 

Un­der the light of Ron and Marv’s flash­lights, I placed the recorder on the sur­face of In­di­an Rock and pressed the play and record but­tons simultaneously.

Plac­ing my mouth near the built-in mi­cro­phone, I asked:

“Is there any­one here who can speak to us?”

As agreed the day be­fore, we walked some dis­tance along the bank, down­riv­er, leav­ing the de­vice to record what­ev­er it could. Marv and I caught fire­flies with a cou­ple of emp­ty pick­le jars. Ron seemed to view mak­ing fire­fly lanterns as child­ish, and hadn’t brought a jar of his own.

Af­ter about an hour we went back to the rock. The cas­sette had played it­self out. I put it in my back­pack, and we went home. We agreed to meet at Ron’s house the next day to play the tape.

Ron’s par­ents were out vis­it­ing in-laws some­where, and his sis­ter was with her boyfriend at Lake George, so we had the house to our­selves. We sat in Ron’s kitchen, sip­ping glass­es of grape Kool-Aid. I re­moved the tape recorder from my back­pack and placed it on the table.

“OK, Mr. Flana­gan the younger,” said Ron. “As this was your idea, please do the honors.”

“And just in case the tape recorder is now cursed, I’d rather not touch it,” said Marv. “Just kid­ding,” he quick­ly added.

“Great,” I said. I re­wound side A, turned the vol­ume di­al all the way up, then pushed the play button.

From the speak­er came a back­ground hiss. We sat lis­ten­ing, all eyes on the ma­chine. I was tense, torn be­tween fear and anticipation. 

A sound came: a deep sigh. Then a whis­per, deep and male:

“Hear my message.”

Again, the deep sigh. The voice spoke again:

“Ron­nie Richter and the Flana­gan broth­ers are dum­b­ass dorks.” 

Muf­fled guf­faws, whis­pered mockery.

“Dorks.” 

“Geeks.”

“Freaks.” 

“Mo­rons.”

Ron pushed the stop but­ton and said, “Shit!”

“Steve Bar­rie,” I said. 

“No shit, Sherlock.”

Steven Bar­rie was the school’s star quar­ter­back, an able ath­lete and mediocre schol­ar about to start his se­nior year. His ad­mis­sion to one of the bet­ter North­east­ern col­leges on a sports schol­ar­ship was con­sid­ered more or less a done thing. That, and be­ing the son of the Su­per­in­ten­dent of Schools, made him more than a lit­tle ar­ro­gant. It was his voice and those of three friends, his en­tourage of fel­low jocks, that had mocked us. (And not for the first time. We weren’t ex­act­ly the cool kids at school.) 

“How the hell did they find out we were do­ing this?” asked Marv. “We nev­er men­tioned it to any­one.” He paused, look­ing from me to Ron and back again. “Did we?”

“Hell, no,” I said.

“Me nei­ther,” said Ron. “They must have been smok­ing weed some­where up­riv­er and spot­ted our flash­light beams. In­di­an Rock’s sup­posed to be haunt­ed. They saw the tape recorder. Not hard to fig­ure out.”

“Right,” I said. “Well…”

“Shit!” shout­ed Ron, grab­bing his head with both hands. “We’re nev­er gonna live this down!”

“Ron,” I said. “Re­lax. It’s not —”

“Re­lax! Christ, man, how am I sup­posed to re­lax? This is gonna be all over town by the end of to­day. We’re gonna of­fi­cial­ly be the freaks of the school when we go back in Sep­tem­ber. Shit! This is worse than that stu­pid sur­vey you did in the fifth grade.” I’d made a ques­tion­naire to learn what per­cent­age of stu­dents in my class be­lieved UFOs were re­al. I thought of it as a kind of so­cial ex­per­i­ment, but it didn’t go over well.

There was no calm­ing down Ron as he then be­gan rant­i­ng — al­beit in an in­di­rect way — that be­ing la­beled such an odd­i­ty would like­ly pre­vent him from ever los­ing his vir­gin­i­ty. Marv and I took the tape recorder and went home.

We drank lemon­ade in the kitchen. Our moth­er was in the liv­ing room, watch­ing an af­ter­noon re­run of The Love Boat. Marv, seem­ing­ly undis­tract­ed by Cap­tain Steuben’s ad­vice to a lovelorn pas­sen­ger, sat read­ing a col­lec­tion of sto­ries by H.P. Love­craft. (I briefly imag­ined green­ish ten­ta­cles emerg­ing from the sea to creep to­ward the good cap­tain.) The tape recorder lay on the ta­ble be­tween us. I stared at it, arms crossed, in silent turmoil.

I re­al­ized Ron was right. We would all be la­beled cer­ti­fied freaks who hunt­ed ghosts in the wee hours. The mock­ery would be in­stant, mer­ci­less, and un­re­lent­ing. Marv seemed cool­ly de­tached about the whole thing. He wore his out­sider sta­tus as a badge of honor.

I was far less equani­mous than my broth­er. Silent­ly, I be­gan for­mu­lat­ing ways to ex­act re­venge up­on Steve Bar­rie and his Ne­an­derthal un­der­lings: key­ing their cars, putting sug­ar in their gas tanks, hav­ing hard­core porn sent to their homes, in their names but ad­dressed in care of their moth­ers. Then a new thought struck me.

“We haven’t lis­tened to the rest of the tape,” I said.

“Yeah,” an­swered Marv. “Maybe a voice will say, ‘You fool, War­ren is dead!’”

“Huh? Who’s Warren?”

“It’s a line from Love­craft.” He point­ed to the book he was hold­ing. “‘The State­ment of Ran­dolph Carter.’”

“Oh.”

“You ought to read it.”

“Yeah.” 

“All right,” he said, get­ting up. “But I think The Love Boat’s go­ing to in­ter­fere with our lis­ten­ing. Let’s play it in my room.”

Marv’s room had a book­case lined with vol­umes he’d told me about, but I’d nev­er read. Not yet. Books by or about oc­cultists such as Aleis­ter Crow­ley and Eliphas Levi, fic­tion by Love­craft, Poe, and Al­ger­non Black­wood. I was the more con­ven­tion­al Flana­gan broth­er, though Marv’s in­ter­ests had be­gun to rub off on me.

“Look, this whole thing,” he said as we sat on a cou­ple of bean­bag chairs, “about us­ing tech­nol­o­gy to lis­ten to ghosts. It’s noth­ing new. You read about Edison’s idea, right?”

“Yeah.” I’d shown him the book from the library.

He got up, pulled a book from the top shelf, and hand­ed it to me. “Well, check this out.” 

The ti­tle was Elec­tron­ic Voice Phe­nom­e­na: Seek­ing the Voic­es of the Dead. It was kind of like a man­u­al, with no au­thor credited.

“Peo­ple have been try­ing this stuff for decades,” said Marv, “us­ing so­phis­ti­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy. Ul­tra-sen­si­tive au­dio equip­ment. Re­ceivers that can pick up sig­nals from any ra­dio frequency.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah, wow. And the ev­i­dence so far has been vague at best. It’s not as if a few kids with a Ra­dio Shack cas­sette recorder are go­ing to pick up mes­sages from be­yond the grave.” He had this lec­tur­ing way of speak­ing at times like this, like a 50-year-old pro­fes­sor trapped in a 14-year-old body. It was annoying.

“Then why didn’t you say any­thing about this before?” 

“Even if I had, you would’ve done it anyway.”

“Yeah, you’re right. But you seemed just as hyped about it as me and Ron.”

He shrugged. “I had my hopes, I guess.”

“So, odds are…”

“There’s noth­ing else on the tape ex­cept back­ground hiss. Un­less Bar­rie and his boys came back to in­sult us some more. I can take it if you can.”

“OK.” I pressed the play but­ton, and the tape’s hiss filled the room.

Marv passed me a thin vol­ume ti­tled Flat­land. “This is a good one,” he said, set­tling in­to the bean­bag chair to read his Love­craft. I was in no mood to read. I held the book closed, star­ing at the recorder, keep­ing my ears at­tuned to the slight­est sound from the tape.

There was noth­ing but back­ground hiss. 

That same evening, we learned that Steve Bar­rie and his three friends had been killed the night be­fore near Lake George when Steve’s car crashed head-on in­to a light pole at high speed. They’d ap­par­ent­ly been drink­ing. Word was that the para­medics had to lit­er­al­ly pick up the pieces. It hap­pened around 11:00 P.M., about an hour be­fore we’d start­ed record­ing at In­di­an Rock.

Our feel­ings were a strange mix­ture. We hat­ed Bar­rie and his bud­dies, but they were class­mates who had died a hor­ri­ble death. We al­so felt re­lieved that our mid­night mis­sion at In­di­an Rock would re­main a se­cret. And then there was the ap­par­ent ev­i­dence for life af­ter death.

The next day, the three of us sat on In­di­an Rock in the af­ter­noon sun, talk­ing it over. We agreed to tell no one. Ana­log cas­sette record­ings had no date & time dis­play. It would sim­ply be as­sumed the record­ing had been made by the liv­ing, phys­i­cal jocks at some point be­fore the car ac­ci­dent, and that we were ly­ing. I could pic­ture the be­reaved par­ents ac­cus­ing us of ex­ploit­ing the deaths of their sons for the sake of pub­lic at­ten­tion. No, thank you.

“Maybe that was the point,” said Ron. “To give us proof of a ghost au­dio, yet not re­al­ly proof.” 

“A fi­nal act of mock­ery,” said Marv.

“Those dick­heads,” said I.

Ron was pret­ty handy with elec­tron­ics. With Marv’s as­sis­tance, he took the recorder apart, took Po­laroids of every­thing, and some­how man­aged to put it all back to­geth­er so that it worked. There seemed noth­ing strange about its com­po­nents, nor the cas­sette. We de­cid­ed I should keep them, along with the pho­tos, taped up in a box in my clos­et. I was ap­point­ed Keep­er of the Para­nor­mal Tech­nol­o­gy, if that’s what it was. 

Maybe there was some­thing about In­di­an Rock that at­tract­ed Bar­rie and his friends, and any tape recorder would have worked. Or maybe it was both In­di­an Rock and the recorder, a su­per­nat­ur­al com­bi­na­tion of lo­ca­tion and equip­ment. But if that’s true, who or what made the recorder able to do what it did? 

We agreed to try again, to fig­ure out how this had hap­pened: to ex­per­i­ment by us­ing the same recorder at a dif­fer­ent lo­ca­tion, and a dif­fer­ent, more sen­si­tive recorder at In­di­an Rock. But we nev­er did, and nei­ther Marv nor Ron has men­tioned it to me since. 

I still have that sealed box, which to this day I have nev­er opened. On the rare oc­ca­sions I am re­mind­ed of it, I feel the urge to throw it in­to a blast fur­nace, or sink it to the bot­tom of the sea. And yet there is al­so the thought, un­ac­count­able, that I may need to use it again someday. 

I have no idea why. It scares me a little.

Filed under Fiction on October 18th, 2024

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—§—

A Good Boy

by

Illustration of two Pee-Wee Hermans

Up un­til Hal­loween of 1989 I was a well-be­haved kid. I’d nev­er re­al­ly left my bed­room. That’s why I felt like it was time for a change when my cousin, Kim­ber­ly, booked The Grange in Smith­field, Rhode Is­land for what she called her “Big Hal­loween Bash.” I’d nev­er at­tend­ed a par­ty, nev­er mind a bash, in my life by that point. 

I lived with my moth­er and four sib­lings in a two-sto­ry house on a dead-end road. My sib­lings had tech­ni­cal­ly been moved out for a few years, but there were dai­ly vis­its since Mom nev­er locked the door. Like­wise, Aunt Ma­bel lived in the raised ranch di­rect­ly to the left of us (if you were fac­ing the house) and her six adult chil­dren were in and out. Be­side her house was an im­me­di­ate drop of an un­spec­i­fied dis­tance but more than ten feet to a pit of grav­el and garbage. We called it The Abyss. None of us dared go near it. One night I saw my broth­er Tom­my get in­to a fight with this kid Kei­th from a few roads over. Tom­my got a hold of his col­lar, dragged him to the edge of the drop, and shoved him. I nev­er saw Kei­th again. 

Hear­ing the se­quen­tial open­ing and clos­ing of the screen door and foot­steps heav­i­ly land­ing on the stairs, reach­ing a crescen­do, I felt a pres­ence in the door­way of my room. My back had faced the door with the way I arranged my desk. Hav­ing my­self po­si­tioned in a way that the front of me faced the door caused me to feel too vulnerable. 

“Hal­loween bash tonight,” 22-year-old Kim­ber­ly said. “My big Hal­loween bash.”

For a few long mo­ments, I ig­nored her. Slow­ly, I turned around to see that she was still in my door­way, ex­cit­ed as all hell. “In The Abyss?” I asked. 

“No. The Grange,” she said. With­out a word, I turned back around; I’d been in the mid­dle of The Ado­les­cent by Dos­toyevsky, be­cause as I said, I’d been a well-be­haved kid. “Are you com­ing or not?” Kim­ber­ly was still in my door­way. Cousin Kim­ber­ly lacked aware­ness; she was the type to stand in a door­way un­til you told her to leave. “Are you com­ing or not?” She asked again, more whiny than curious. 

I re­spond­ed with a hmph, and then, with­out turn­ing back around, “Why would I go? When have I ever done any­thing?”

Si­lence. There was still an en­ti­ty lin­ger­ing around me, so I knew she hadn’t left. “There’s go­ing to be a cos­tume contest.”

For the first time in twen­ty-three years, I had re­con­sid­ered my vol­un­tary con­fine­ment to my dis­mal bed­room. Cos­tume contest. 

“It’s at The Grange,” I said in­to the phone, lean­ing against a wall in the kitchen, twirling the phone cord with my fin­ger. I’d watched my moth­er talk to her girl­friends on the phone so of­ten that I adopt­ed her man­ner­ism. On the oth­er line was my girl­friend, Amy. Tech­ni­cal­ly, she wasn’t my girl­friend; at the same time, tech­ni­cal­ly, she was. Amy was the on­ly girl I re­al­ly spent time with who wasn’t one of my sis­ters or neigh­bor­ing cousins, and by spent time I mean she was the on­ly girl who’d sit in my room in dead si­lence while I read Russ­ian lit­er­a­ture. I wasn’t an emo­tion­al­ly avail­able sort of per­son, and we’d nev­er es­tab­lished that we were to­geth­er, and come to think of it we nev­er even kissed or any­thing, but there was some­thing un­spo­ken be­tween us that we were just… together. 

“I’m go­ing to be Pee-Wee Her­man,” I said to Amy. The slid­ing door be­hind me hissed as it opened, prompt­ing one of the four res­i­dent Maine Coons to slip out in­to the fenced back­yard. Tom­my stepped in from the cold sun­set wear­ing blue jeans, a white t‑shirt, and a leather jack­et. I al­ways thought he looked like a prick. He al­ways tried to look so tough. To be fair, he was ex­treme­ly tough, and I nev­er crossed him. As he passed me, he yanked the twirled cord out from be­tween my fin­gers. I was shocked that he didn’t call me gay or a bitch for twirling the cord, which in his cave­man brain was on­ly what women did be­cause Mom did it. 

Amy let out a shrill squeal of de­light, which was not on­ly ear-pierc­ing in per­son, but was like a dog whis­tle over the phone. “I’ll be Chair­ry!” She said. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Don’t.” 

It smelled like it was go­ing to snow that night. There’s a cer­tain kind of weath­er in the North­east where the air is sharp and it brings about a sort of scent that you in­stinc­tive­ly as­so­ciate with snow. It prob­a­bly hap­pens else­where, but I’d nev­er been elsewhere. 

I pulled up on­to the lawn of The Grange in my wood­ie sta­tion wag­on with Amy be­side me. She wasn’t dressed as Chair­ry, but the girl from The Ex­or­cist, “pre-pos­ses­sion,” she said, which was just some girl in a night­gown. “I didn’t re­al­ly like all that shout­ing and lev­i­tat­ing and head ro­tat­ing,” she said, which was the whole movie.

When we got out of the wood­ie, I looked up at the deep, dark sky full of stars. From with­in The Grange I could hear var­i­ous one-hit won­ders pour­ing out of the juke­box. I tru­ly did find that the Eight­ies was the time for ob­scure groups to make a mil­lion dol­lars off of one song, then fall off the face of the earth. 

Amy pulled out a 35 mil­lime­ter Ko­dak cam­era from thin air. “This night­gown has pock­ets,” she said. “I didn’t even know when I got it! What a score!” She wound the film and looked through the viewfind­er at me. I had no time to process what was hap­pen­ing as the flash hit me like a dodge­ball. “So we’ll nev­er for­get this night,” Amy said enthusiastically. 

We head­ed for the front door and I scanned the dark­ness for a car that I could rec­og­nize. Just above the en­trance to The Grange was a ban­ner, poor­ly hang­ing. It said, “Big Hal­loween Bash In Cool Let­ters.” I imag­ined that Kim­ber­ly asked the ban­ner mak­ing peo­ple, “Can it say: Big Hal­loween Bash, in cool let­ters?” And the ban­ner mak­ing peo­ple did ex­act­ly that.

I had felt so con­fi­dent as Pee-Wee Her­man that I knew in my heart of hearts I’d win the cos­tume con­test. The ini­tial hype of Pee-Wee was over, I thought, and no­body would be dressed as him. It wouldn’t be the cos­tume that would get me to win the con­test, no; it would be my ad­mirable com­mit­ment to the char­ac­ter. I had an un­can­ny im­pres­sion of Pee-Wee Her­man un­der my belt, which had tak­en two years of de­vot­ed prac­tice to ful­ly master. 

“David!” I heard Kim­ber­ly ex­claim as my hand grasped the door han­dle of The Grange. Out of the cor­ner of my eye, a mo­tion de­tect­ing light flashed on. There was a strange fig­ure un­der it, and I felt it look­ing at me. When I glanced at Amy to my left, she was look­ing straight past me, gawk­ing at the fig­ure. Be­com­ing ter­ri­fied at the thought of what heinous beast was wait­ing for my shrieks of ter­ror, I turned to face my fate. Kim­ber­ly stood un­der the light, dressed as an in­fant. She had a white shirt on, a pink di­a­per, a bon­net, and a sash that said, “It’s A Girl!”. A paci­fi­er dan­gled on a string around her neck.

“Oh my god,” I said in a tone of dis­gust, ac­ci­den­tal but com­plete­ly gen­uine. There was nev­er re­al­ly a line I had drawn for some­one to step over in or­der for me to lose all re­spect for them un­til that mo­ment. See­ing my adult cousin dressed as an in­fant tru­ly crossed the line that nev­er ex­ist­ed be­fore that. 

“I didn’t think you were go­ing to show up,” Kim­ber­ly said, pleas­ant­ly sur­prised. “Food, drinks, and the juke­box is in­side. The re­al par­ty is out un­der the canopy, though,” she said in a mis­chie­vous tone, and gave me a wink that in­volved scrunch­ing half of her face. It was more of a bizarre spasm. Amy, Kim­ber­ly, and I stood in our re­spec­tive spots, frozen in place. Kim­ber­ly stared at us, and we stared back. So much time had passed, that the mo­tion de­tec­tion light turned off. When it turned back on, Kim­ber­ly was gone. 

The Grange served as a com­mu­ni­ty cen­ter and con­sist­ed of one long room with a small stage at the far end. There were fold-out ta­bles and chairs avail­able in the mi­nus­cule kitchen to the right of the stage. Due to his­toric preser­va­tion and a ques­tion­able town bud­get, the wood­en floor was splin­tery and most def­i­nite­ly rot­ting away. With the amount of peo­ple stand­ing around it was amaz­ing the floor didn’t cave in that very night.

Fi­nal­ly I be­gan to rec­og­nize peo­ple. “David!” They ex­claimed, like I was a cryp­tic leg­end and was spot­ted on a rare oc­ca­sion. This was par­tial­ly true; I wasn’t a leg­end, mere­ly the vil­lage cryp­tic. Usu­al­ly sport­ing a worn out, raggedy flan­nel with cor­duroy pants and de­te­ri­o­rat­ed con­verse, my peers were pleased to see me so put to­geth­er, even if it was to repli­cate Pee-Wee Her­man. That Hal­loween was the clean­est I’d ever looked. 

For a few min­utes I stood in the cen­ter of a few ac­quain­tances and strangers, do­ing my killer im­pres­sion of Pee-Wee that brought the house down every time. They laughed and ap­plaud­ed, and I felt not on­ly like a god, but that I would eas­i­ly win the cos­tume contest. 

“So, what are you, the sexy Ore­gon Trail?” This guy, Jared, asked Amy. He was smug and drunk, sway­ing back and forth, not in cos­tume at all. I saw a scar be­low his right eye. He must’ve crossed Tommy. 

“First­ly, the Ore­gon Trail was an era, not one per­son,” Amy said, “and I’m Re­gan from The Ex­or­cist. Pre-pos­ses­sion.”

“So you’re just a girl in a night­gown,” some­one dressed as the Phan­tom from The Phan­tom of the Opera said. I liked him for shar­ing my sen­ti­ment re­gard­ing Amy’s non-cos­tume, but I hat­ed him for hav­ing a cos­tume that could to­tal­ly take first place in the con­test. Every­one loves a phantom. 

Amy seemed ac­tu­al­ly both­ered by the Phantom’s ob­ser­va­tion, and she was my kind-of-girl­friend af­ter all, so I felt ob­lig­at­ed to de­fend her. “I know you are, but what am I?” I asked in Pee-Wee’s voice. The peo­ple around me hollered and laughed in the Phantom’s face. Once again, I had the high­er ground. 

“I didn’t say you were a girl in a night­gown,” the Phan­tom said, not un­der­stand­ing my shtick, but my at­ten­tion had gone to some­one else across the room. I rec­og­nized the slicked black hair, gray suit, and white loafers any­where. It’s an­oth­er god­damned Pee-Wee Herman. 

Tun­nel-vi­sioned, I marched through the crowd I’d cre­at­ed, head­ing straight to my brand new en­e­my. I ex­tend­ed my arm, firm­ly gripped Pee-Wee Two’s shoul­der, and spun him around. 

“Kei­th! You’re alive!”

The mid­night air bit at me as I stepped out of The Grange’s back door to the canopy. It was this idle, wood­en roof that was held up by beams, and un­der it was a drab con­crete rec­tan­gle with two un­kempt pic­nic ta­bles. Elec­tric­i­ty ran to it, so there were Christ­mas lights that dan­gled from un­der the roof. In­deed, it was more busy un­der the canopy, a strange mass of peo­ple hud­dled to­geth­er, clouds of smoke ris­ing up oc­ca­sion­al­ly like a nat­ur­al hot spring. 

Tom­my and his Girl­friend of the Day, What’sHerFace, came out of the back door and head­ed for the canopy. He was dressed as a nin­ja, and his girl­friend was a witch with bare­ly any clothes on. 

“That’s dis­re­spect­ful to the ac­tu­al women who were per­se­cut­ed dur­ing that era,” Amy said. Tom­my gave me the fin­ger even though I wasn’t the one who said it. He prob­a­bly knew that I was think­ing it.

The cloud of smoke trav­eled up and down, left and right with­in the crowd. Kim­ber­ly squeezed out of the crowd, her long-term boyfriend Reg­gie trail­ing be­hind her. The two of them stood in front of me and Amy in their in­fant cos­tumes. Reg­gie was Kimberly’s coun­ter­part, with a blue di­a­per, bon­net, and sash that said, “It’s A Boy!”. I al­ways thought Reg­gie was a douche, but this made all of his oth­er dis­ap­point­ing traits seem respectable. 

“Why…?” I be­gan but trailed off as Reg­gie ex­tend­ed some­thing to­wards my face. It was a mar­i­jua­na cig­a­rette. The source of the trav­el­ing smoke. 

“This is the good stuff,” said Reg­gie. He dragged out gooood and stu­u­uffff, nod­ding at the same pace as his words, eyes glossy and red. Kim­ber­ly slapped him on the shoulder.

“You know David doesn’t smoke. He’s a good boy; look at him.” 

The term good boy both­ered me for some rea­son. I felt like a crys­tal glass shat­ter­ing due to a high fre­quen­cy. In­vol­un­tar­i­ly I cringed at Kimberly’s per­spec­tive of me, es­pe­cial­ly re­al­iz­ing that this was what every­one thought. Here I was, twen­ty-three years old, Dos­toyevsky read­er, mas­ter of the hacky sack and Pee-Wee Her­man im­pres­sion, who’s nev­er even smoked a cig­a­rette. Of course I was a good boy. Every­one in earshot heard Kim­ber­ly, and at that point she was ges­tur­ing to me, so a good amount of peo­ple were star­ing. I felt like a tool. 

“Aren’t we lack­ing good boys in this so­ci­ety?” Amy of­fered in re­sponse. In no way did she sound con­fi­dent of this rhetoric. 

The mar­i­jua­na cig­a­rette was still ex­tend­ed to­wards my face, and Reg­gie was get­ting im­pa­tient. “Dude, are you tak­ing a hit or not?”

All eyes on me, sure­ly los­ing the ma­jor­i­ty vote for the con­test, I had to get the peo­ple back on my side. Plus, I was be­com­ing sus­cep­ti­ble to so­ci­etal pres­sure, and didn’t want to be viewed as a los­er for not smok­ing weed. 

“Put ‘er there,” I lame­ly said, hold­ing out my hand to ac­cept the reefer. Those who were spec­tat­ing gasped and clapped, hav­ing known me for most of our lives, and it be­ing com­mon knowl­edge that I was the epit­o­me of straight edge. Act­ing like I was aware of what I was do­ing, I slow­ly brought the joint to my mouth, and in­haled for longer than recommended. 

“Yeah,” Reg­gie said, “you don’t say put ‘er there when you want a hit of the J.” 

When I sep­a­rat­ed from the joint, I held my breath, then ex­haled. Sud­den­ly, a cough­ing fit of which the likes I’d nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced washed over me — or rather, hit me like a train. It was like who­ev­er was liv­ing in my lungs had closed the door and nailed it shut. I’m say­ing that I couldn’t breathe. While I was keeled over, try­ing to not die then and there, wheez­ing and hack­ing, I didn’t no­tice the silent dis­per­sal of my peers. I did, how­ev­er, from the cor­ner of my eye, ac­knowl­edge the head­lights shin­ing di­rect­ly on me. 

“What’s go­ing on, bud?” A man­ly man’s voice asked me. He was try­ing to be friend­ly, but when I glanced up and squint­ed, my eyes ad­just­ing to the sil­hou­ette in front of the lights, two cops were star­ing down at me. One of them shone a flash­light in­to my face like the high beams weren’t enough. “We got a noise com­plaint from some­one in the neigh­bor­hood. What d’ya got there?” The flash­light cop asked, nod­ding to the joint. Ob­vi­ous­ly he knew it was a joint. 

“Cig­a­rette,” I said, and by said I mean that I emit­ted it so weak­ly out of my mouth that I sound­ed like a dy­ing tea kettle. 

The two cops ex­changed know­ing glances. 

“It looks an aw­ful lot like a reefer,” the oth­er cop said. He was prob­a­bly in his thir­ties and had avi­a­tor sun­glass­es on de­spite it be­ing the mid­dle of the night. 

I stood up straight and flat­tened out my gray blaz­er, re­mem­ber­ing that I was still in Pee-Wee Her­man garb. “My moth­er hand rolls cig­a­rettes,” I said. If any­thing, they couldn’t blame me for trying.

Avi­a­tor Cop stepped for­ward and snatched the joint from me like it was some se­cret weapon and he was a su­pervil­lain. With my own eyes I watched him care­ful­ly in­spect the joint, bring it to his mouth, and take an elon­gat­ed drag. I turned to glance at The Grange to see every­one peer­ing out of the win­dows or stand­ing just out­side, watch­ing. No­body could be­lieve the sight be­fore us.

Avi­a­tor Cop ex­haled. “It’s mar­i­jua­na,” he said. 

Flash­light Cop nod­ded and held on­to his belt like a cow­boy. “Uh-huh. You know that smok­ing mar­i­jua­na is against the law, right?” 

“He just did it,” I said, point­ing to Avi­a­tor Cop.

“To de­ter­mine if it was drugs!” Flash­light Cop shout­ed. He stepped to­wards me and got all in my face. “You are aware that you’re a crim­i­nal now, right? How does that make you feel?” 

I’d nev­er had a stan­dard of what was man­ly and what wasn’t, and I had nev­er tried very hard to be a man, what­ev­er it meant, but this was a se­vere­ly emas­cu­lat­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. Here I was, hav­ing done noth­ing wrong in my life, now dressed ful­ly as Pee-Wee Her­man, get­ting the busi­ness from a cop in front of every­one I’ve ever known. 

“You’re in deep shit, kid! You un­der­stand?” He yelled. 

Sud­den­ly, Kim­ber­ly stormed past me and got in Flash­light Cop’s face. Mean­while, Avi­a­tor Cop ar­rest­ed me. “Don’t yell at my cousin, you freak!” She said. I won­dered what her de­f­i­n­i­tion of a freak was, and if it in­volved dress­ing as an adult in­fant. Avi­a­tor Cop shoved me in­to the back of the pad­dy wag­on, and Kim­ber­ly con­tin­ued rep­ri­mand­ing Flash­light Cop. “You can’t just go around ar­rest­ing peo­ple willy-nil­ly!” Here was my cousin Kim­ber­ly, in a di­a­per and bon­net, try­ing to tell a cop how to do his job. Yet, I felt like the jackass. 

“Shut the fuck up, Kim­ber­ly! Just shut up!” Said Tom­my. He and Kim­ber­ly hur­ried over to my win­dow as the two of­fi­cers got in. 

“We’ll get you out, David. I promise,” Kim­ber­ly said. 

“This is what you get for twirling the phone cord,” Tom­my said. “Are you gay or something?” 

That was the last thing I heard be­fore the po­lice­men drove me to the station. 

I hung on the bars of the hold­ing cell, star­ing at the door, wait­ing for Flash­light or Avi­a­tor to come in and tell me that I’m free to go be­cause I’m such a good boy. Be­hind me were oth­er week­end crim­i­nals. All of them looked much tougher than me. Prob­a­bly be­cause they didn’t get ar­rest­ed while dressed as a beloved tele­vi­sion character. 

Abrupt­ly, Amy came bar­rel­ing in, and the delin­quent men who were oth­er­wise bored on this Hal­loween night were sud­den­ly very in­ter­est­ed in my maybe girl­friend. They stood up or at least looked more alert, look­ing her up and down. 

I gri­maced at them. “She’s dressed as the girl from The Ex­or­cist, pre-pos­ses­sion.” Every last one of them avert­ed their eyes.

“I got here as soon as I could,” Amy said.

“It’s been two hours,” I said.

“Well, I had to stay for the cos­tume con­test. And your broth­er Paul had bail for me to get.”

I ig­nored the lat­ter half. “The cos­tume con­test? You were there for the re­sults?” She nod­ded. “Who won?”

“Tom­my,” she said. 

“What?” I ex­claimed, per­plexed. “He was a ninja!”

“Well, it was the most mys­te­ri­ous costume.”

Like a con­fused dog, I tilt­ed my head. “What oth­er cat­e­gories were there?”

Amy shrugged. “It was just a con­test for the most mys­te­ri­ous costume.” 

It felt like it took hours for my brain to process the in­for­ma­tion. “The con­test was themed? How the hell was I ever go­ing to win as Pee-Wee Her­man when the ob­jec­tive was to be the most mys­te­ri­ous?” I couldn’t be­lieve it. Then, some­thing struck me that made me even more per­plexed. “So why was Kim­ber­ly dressed as a baby?!” 

She shrugged, “Maybe she thinks that ba­bies are mys­te­ri­ous. I think they are. They speak gib­ber­ish, but you can tell that they mean it, and it makes me think that they have cru­cial in­for­ma­tion we don’t know about but ought to know. Like which god we’re sup­posed to be worshipping.”

I sulked. I wish I’d re­mained a good boy and didn’t give in­to peer pres­sure. I felt like I was in an af­ter school spe­cial. Amy stood there, star­ing at me. 

“If you take a pic­ture, it’ll last longer,” I said.

Silent­ly, Amy pulled her Ko­dak from her night­gown pock­et, held it up to her eye, and snapped a pho­to, the flash briefly blind­ing me again. “I should’ve been ar­rest­ed right along with you,” she said with arm­chair sym­pa­thy. And some­thing hit me: if I’d on­ly made a run for it in­to The Grange, those cops could’ve ar­rest­ed that ass­hole Kei­th, al­so dressed as Pee-Wee Her­man. I would’ve re­al­ly been a leg­end amongst my peers if I dodged Week­end Jail. I wished Kei­th had died in The Abyss af­ter all. 

“You said Paul had bail mon­ey?” I asked her. She nod­ded be­tween the specs of lin­ger­ing light in my eyes. “Do you have it?”

She pat­ted her pock­ets and slapped her fore­head. “Gosh, I for­got to stop at Paul’s house!”

De­feat­ed, I sat on the cold, wood­en bench be­side a nor­mal­ly dressed de­gen­er­ate. The de­gen­er­ate looked me up and down. “What are you in for? Be­ing a tool?” The oth­er in­sub­or­di­nates laughed. I could on­ly nod be­cause he was ex­act­ly right. 

Filed under Fiction on October 11th, 2024

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