RED PEPPER ANTS
by
Rick Eichhorn
I wanted it to be spicy, to help blow out my hangover. Seven cloves of garlic and six filets of anchovy, sautéing in a generous pour of first press olive oil, overpowered the crisp smell of winter. My apartment now smelled like what I imagined as a couple of topless sweaty Italian with women with hairy armpits wearing thongs sunbathing on the rock of Sardinia. I dumped in one can of peeled Roma tomatoes, which in one big whoosh brought the sizzling to a halt. As soon as it was bubbling like lava, I added a bunch of fresh oregano. Now normally I wouldn’t have wanted to add pepper so soon, but this sauce was to be a quick reduction, so I reached for the crushed red pepper in the spice cabinet to the left of my gas range. But the crushed red pepper wasn’t where it was supposed to be. Frantic, I began tearing out spices, tearing out everything in the cabinet.
I’d been seeing one or two lone ants out scouting across the counters or around floors for about the last week or so. But I didn’t realize I had a problem until I discovered my molasses jar completely covered with ants in the spice cabinet. Then there was the black stream of ants that led a trail from the jar up the white wall at the back of my cabinet to God knows where.
Meanwhile, the sauce was getting noisy. A bunch of red dots were splattering on the stove in a circular fashion around the pan. I grabbed the dish rag and wiped off the red ring, grabbed the molasses jar and threw it out the window into a snowbank (next spring I’ll pick it up), and continued pulling spices out of the cabinet while the ants also panicked. I watched three ants scurry across the counter and over an unopened letter from my mother
***
Dear Martin,
Thought I’d better write and tell you that Pookie died. We came home from dinner the other night—went with Herb and Marge to the new steak house on Brown Street—and he was waiting for us at the front door with a sad, panicked look in his eyes. He collapsed onto the slate floor and your father carried him upstairs and put him in the bean bag in your old room. He died peacefully a few minutes later while your father sat next to him and comforted him. We had prime rib and salad bar at dinner. Your dad liked his beef just fine, but mine was a little gristly. Not to mention the fact that I ordered it medium, and it came rare. Also, the potato salad had pimentos in it, and the service was spotty.
***
By now every cupboard in my kitchen was half-emptied onto the counter. Ants were bouncing all around the spice jars, bottles, and dishes like cosmic pinballs. Another red ring had formed around the sauté pan so I grabbed the dish rag again and wiped it off. Then I turned the sauce down to barely simmer. So it would be a slow reduction. So what.
You have to understand, I’m the kind of guy who always knows the state of my spices. I mean, I could be chopping vegetables at the ski lodge and somebody could ask me out-of-the-blue how much cumin I have at home and I could tell them exactly one-half jar. Or, for example, I could tell somebody that I have a bag of fresh basil but it’s two days old so by now the edges are probably turning brown. Furthermore, I never take a grocery list to the store. Which brings me to the heart of the matter: I know I had three-quarters of a jar of crushed red pepper. It’s like it just disappeared off the face of the Earth.
It’s like Pookie.
My sister found Pookie in the woods behind our house about ten years ago, when I was eight. He was a stray puppy and wild. He was deathly afraid of grown-up men, but pretty friendly toward women and children. I figured that women and children had probably been nice to him during his homeless months, but men probably threw rakes at him or something. Or maybe the women were nice to him then told their husbands to get that mangy dog out of the yard. Anyway, my sister brought him home to our house, and I fixed him a tin pie pan full of people food, and sat by him in our driveway under the basketball hoop until my mom made me go to bed. When I came out of the house the next morning, he was waiting, and he started following me everywhere.
Every day my father told me, or my sister, or anyone within earshot, that that dog better be gone when he got home from the office. And every day Pookie was still there. Pretty soon he was sleeping in a cardboard box in our garage, and as soon as my father left for work, Pookie would rush into the house. He would grab a shoe in the laundry room and run upstairs to my bedroom and drop the shoe on my head. I’d turn over and his tongue would be flapping in front of my face, and his warm breath would be my good morning. Reluctantly, my father eventually fenced in the back yard. But Pookie would never go to the bathroom in the back yard, except to pee. He had to be walked up and turned loose in the large schoolyard up the street to take his dumps. Even then he was real particular about the spot he chose. He would turn circles until he found just the right place.
Before long, my father started taking him for his walks when he got home from the office. Good exercise, he said. But my father couldn’t bring himself to call him Pookie. Not dignified, he said. My father called him Duke.
“You won’t believe what happened this evening when I took the Duke for his daily constitution,” my father said. We were sitting at the kitchen table eating meatloaf and baked potatoes. I was a freshman in high school.
“What’s that, dear?” my mom said as she dished up the coleslaw.
“Well, I was about half-way down the street when I noticed a magazine lying right there in the middle of the street. Curious, I picked up the magazine and leafed through it. Well I mean to tell you, I have never seen such filth! Nude women doing all sorts of things.”
I laugh popped out of my mouth. I pictured him looking at the magazine.
“So here I am standing in the middle of the street holding this filthy pornography,” he continued. “I certainly didn’t want the neighbors to see me holding it. And I couldn’t just casually toss it back into the street. So I rolled it up and stuck it under my coat and headed back home. Poor Duke had to go to the bathroom so bad he looked at me like I was nuts. I put the magazine in the stacks of newspapers and went ahead and took the papers over to the paper drive at church.”
All of sudden my father turned white.’
“Oh God,” he said. “I hope the magazine doesn’t slide out.”
“At least we finally got rid of those papers,” my mom said.
I busted up laughing. My parents looked at me like I was nuts.’
“I can’t believe they print filth like that. I’ve never seen anything like that. I guess Martin has cause he’s sitting there laughing.”
So all through my high school years, my father and I took turns walking Pookie up to the schoolyard. Some days we walked him one right after the other, but Pookie didn’t seem to mind. One Saturday when I was a senior, I had Pookie loose up at the school, and I ran into a friend named Ruben from high school. He came over to talk to me and Pookie attacked him. I mean like curled upper lip, evil growls, and teeth chopping. Ruben kept trying to block him with his ten speed, but Pookie managed to get through the spokes enough to break the skin on Ruben’s left leg. I felt real bad about that. I don’t think I ever properly apologized.
Finally, I gave up looking for the red pepper. I substituted a dash of cayenne and plated the pasta. I used a wide fettuccine noodle that I had boiled for an all dente seven minutes. I left everything where it was on the counters and took the pasta into the other room and ate it in front of the television and turned on “Wheel of Fortune.” I made a mental note to buy a bunch of those ant hotels. You know the kind: Ants check in but they don’t check out. I decided to turn my apartment into one big ant hotel if necessary.
***
Dear Martin,
Guess it’s time I wrote to tell you that Grandma died. I suppose there’s some peace to be found in that she lived a long, happy life. She was 87. I just can’t believe she’s gone. Your sister flew home with the kids for the funeral. First time I’d seen her since the divorce and it seemed strange. After the funeral everyone went back to Aunt Doris’ house. She had quite a spread laid out on the dining room table. Every pie known to man, I think. Blackberry, Rhubarb, Apple, Chocolate Chip, Turtle (pecans, caramel, and chocolate—delicious!), and I know I’m forgetting some. Gladys fixed a big roast and I brought a honey-baked ham. There’s a new Swedish couple in town and they opened up an elegant restaurant on the corner of Franklin and Yankee where the Old Log Coach Inn used to be. They do a real nice job. I picked the ham up there before the funeral. I had ordered it last week. I didn’t feel much like cooking.
***
After the pasta and a six-pack of Coors my hangover felt much better. So I figured some Chardonnay could only make it that much better. Watching Vanna flip those letters always makes me thirsty.
A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in the lounge after my shift. If it’s been a busy night the manager always buys me drinks even though I’m underage. Of course we’re all out here buried in the middle of the Rocky Mountains and the only law enforcement is a red-nosed guy named Ralph. A big-busted blonde was going around the room asking for a ride down the mountain, and when she came up to me, I told her I was hitch-hiking. She told me not to go away, and then she kept making her rounds, trying to find a ride. I sat there powering down scotch, watching her.
Next thing I know Ralph was driving the blonde and me down the mountain. He dropped us off at my place and we burst through my door laughing, arm-in-arm. I stuck my tongue down her throat and her legs shot up in the air then we collapsed onto the floor. We made love kicking and clawing our way into the night. I woke up throwing up in my bed. Quickly, I gathered my sheets together and ran outside stark naked and threw them into the dumpster. When I got back to my bedroom there was a dark stain on the bare mattress where the puke mut have seeped through. That immediately brought back the smell so I threw up some more, but I made it to the toilet. The blonde was nowhere to be found. Now I have an infection.
What is love anyway?
My sister fell in love when I was in the eighth grade. A year later she and her groom moved to Kansas. They bought a place on the horizon that you had to drive on dirt roads for about 15 miles to get to her home. It was close to the Colorado border and open range was the law, and in her letters she often complained about all the cows around her house. They had a baby girl there and found Jesus. They found Jesus one night, under a full moon with a shadowed landscape and a black-and-white heifer pressed up against their window with big sad eyes. They lay in bed and felt the holy spirit enter their bodies.
“Did you feel that?”
“Yes, I felt it. What was it?”
“I think it was the holy spirit.”
“I felt it.”
“So did I.”
They held hands, and the cow wandered off. Now they’re divorced. He never lived the Christian life, she told my mother. I guess being saved and being a Christian are two different things.
After I finished the wine, I went into the kitchen. As a gesture, I put back into the cabinet one jar of spice (dried mint) but decided to save the rest for later. The ants were starting to thin out, but they still seemed angry. I reached into the cupboard where I kept my liquor, glancing at the unopened letter from my mother. Outside, snowflakes the size of silver dollars began gently falling.
***
Dear Martin,
Hate to always be the bearer of bad news but knew you’d want to know that Ruben was killed. I’m enclosing some newspaper clippings. I guess he was leaving his brother’s wedding and was driving up Alexander Road when he lost control and crashed into a tree. They need to widen that road—always been so dangerous. Don’t know if I ever told you but he came over one time after you guys had been to Florida. He gave us your address. I was sure glad to see him but I felt bad because your father and I weren’t expecting company—we were just planning on grilling hamburgers. I just barely had enough ground sirloin (on sale for $1.39 a pound at Foodarama) to squeeze out three patties and then fixed a lettuce salad with iceberg, tomatoes, and carrot curls. Faked a thousand island dressing with mayonnaise, ketchup, and sweet pickles. Didn’t even have anything to offer for dessert, poor guy. Afterwards, your father and him played gin rummy and I watched Kojak. Maybe you could send his parents a sympathy card?
***
One lone full bottle of Southern Comfort was in the cabinet, nothing else. I grabbed a glass off the counter and opened the kitchen window. I scooped up a handful of fresh snow from the outside sill and stuck it in my glass and then added the booze. A Southern Comfort snow cone.
After high school graduation Ruben and I decided to go to Florida for the summer. Florida was an “18” state and it was so funny because the first thing we did was go to the supermarket and fill up our grocery cart with cases of Schlitz. Ruben kept singing, “When you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer,” just like the commercial. We found an apartment that rented by the week two blocks off the beach in Fort Lauderdale. I got a job as a busboy; Ruben landed a job as a lifeguard at the public swimming pool.
One night we went to this hot local nightclub that we had both heard about. We had this idea to find some Florida women. A tanned blonde in a straw hat and flowered skirt was dancing alone under a strobe light. With one hand on the brim of her hat and the other hand circling across her black Danskin top, she moved real slow but kept with the beat of KC and The Sunshine Band. But she was prejudiced against Ohio boys. Ruben and I drank Tequila Sunrises and then we walked home alone together. He kept kicking over the city trash cans on the sidewalk, mumbling to himself. Sometimes he got angry when he drank.
Ruben went home in August to get ready for college. I couldn’t bring myself to go home. I’d lived a long life there. That’s when I came out to Colorado. Maybe after the ski season I’ll go to California. Maybe I could eventually get a job as a sous chef in one of those big resort hotels out there.
Not that I don’t like it here. But something is missing. The people are friendly, more clean snow comes each night, and the sun shines in the clear blue sky every morning. At the center is an old mining town that’s in the process of being renovated. Some of the stores have a wood plank sidewalk in front of them but you can’t walk on it through the whole town yet because every so often the sidewalk dead ends into a muddy snowbank. There is a natural grocer, a general store, and a husband and wife that cater out of a storefront.
Last week I went to the general store, and I saw the big-busted blonde browsing through Valentine cards. She didn’t recognize me. I thought about going up to her and asking if there was anything special I should know about the infection but of course I didn’t.
I remembered it was my mother’s birthday.
The blonde walked out and I found a birthday card that had a touch a humor and wasn’t too sentimental. I signed my name on the card, addressed the envelope to my mom, and left it with the owner Charlie, because that’s where the mail is picked up. Now I’m thinking I should’ve sent something else, too. Like flowers or something.
The television is on and I’m on my fourth snow cone. My plate from dinner is still sitting on the coffee table, getting crusty. An ant is crawling over my left foot. Another ant is coming across the beige carpet. I picture an army of ants toppling my jar of red pepper and unscrewing the cap. Then I picture each ant placing one flake of pepper on its tiny back and carrying it off before coming back for the empty jar. I can see a group of them hoisting up the jar and taking it away to wherever ants go when they’re not terrorizing humans. Some other dimension, I guess.
As a nod to clean up, I grab my plate, flinging off an ant, and take it into the kitchen. I pick up my mom’s letter and stick it between my teeth. I open the dishwasher and pull out the rack. Lo and behold, right there in the silverware container is my jar of crushed red pepper. Three-quarters full. I can’t for the life of me figure out how it got there.
***
Dear Martin,
Certainly was a nice surprise that you remembered my birthday. Thanks for the card! Looked all over for a note. You know how scotch I am—can’t see sending a card without a note.
Your father took me to the new Swedish restaurant for my birthday. We both had Norwegian Salmon and it was delicious! They served it with a dill cucumber sauce and tiny new potatoes that were so creamy. Then all the waiters came singing to the table with a small round cake (chocolate) that had three (only) candles. I was so embarrassed!
Last week your father and I went to the dentist. He didn’t have any cavities but I had one small one in my front molar. Darn it! This morning I had it filled, and Dr. Baird gave my laughing gas. Never have tried it before, but I was feeling adventurous, and he said it was harmless. Wouldn’t you know it once the stuff was hooked up, and just when he was about to drill, I broke down and cried. Isn’t that the berries? Crying on laughing gas. He said that sometimes that happens but boy did I feel foolish. Hope you’ve been to the dentist. Dr. Baird asked about you.
The annual family get-together was out at Lima last week. It was a potluck, and I think everybody brought something suspended in a Jello mold. Talk about lack of coordination. But too bad you weren’t there. Know you would’ve gotten a good laugh! Your Aunt Doris—think she’s getting worse poor thing—put imported cheeses into a lime green Jello ring, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she decided it would be clever to stick carboard labels floating inside the Jello in front of each different cheese—telling what kind it was. When she noticed no one was taking any she went around carrying the Jello ring and sticking chunks of it on everyone’s plate. Think your Uncle Carl was spitting out cardboard the whole afternoon.
Let us know how you are! Your father and I love you.
THE INSIDE OUT BEAR
by
Rick Eichhorn
A tomato sun was resting against a knee-high cornfield, and my three sisters were riding their Huffy cruisers on our concrete turnaround. They were circling a blue, portable record player that was dropping stacks of 45’s. I was nestled in the middle of our large woodpile that my best friend Timmy and I had rearranged into an imaginary World War ll warship. The woodpile destroyer was docked against the thick woods that my family called the first woods, as it bordered our backyard. To us, the tall green grass of our lawn was the blue Pacific, but the log my bare foot was resting against felt more like elephant skin than heavy steel. The first fireflies began flashing, and the air smelled heavy of mosquitoes.
“There’s no bears in our woods,” Timmy said as he dug at a knot hole with a long crooked stick.
“Are you calling my dad a liar?”
“You can’t turn a bear inside out,” he said, giggling. “I asked my dad. How’s he supposed to live?”
“You’re just scared. I don’t care if you help me or not. I’m gonna find that bear and kill it dead. I’m gonna do it tonight even if I have to do it alone. If I have to, I’m going all the way to the second woods. All the way to the cemetery if I have to. I’m gonna find that bear. I’m gonna do it in the middle of the night. After they’ve all gone to bed.”
“Liar!”
He called me a liar just as he stabbed a big fat green worm on the end of his stick, and he waved it toward my face. I flinched. He roared with laughter, smashing the worm against the starboard log, and then he went in for the big squash. The worm’s red speckled spine began bursting at the seams and the yellow eyes spurted out as the green body skin gave way. Green guts started oozing slowly against the dead grey log.
“Nothing could live with its guts on the outside, you moron,” he said.
“This is a monster. You don’t know what monsters can do. Monsters don’t know when to die. You have to make positively sure that they’re dead.” I turned away from the splattered mess of the worm. “So are you gonna help or not?”
“Okay. Okay. Just shut up, you baby. But I can’t do it tonight.”
“Tomorrow, then. At two in the middle of the night. We’ll meet right here at the woodpile.”
“Sure, sure. Sure liar. I could use a good laugh.”
By now, the air was sparkling alive with fireflies and a canopy of stars was beginning to appear in the navy-blue sky. Timmy’s mother started calling. When I got up, the ground in the center of the woodpile felt smooth, damp, and cool, and the grass felt satiny as I walked toward my house. My sisters were rolling their bicycles into the garage, arguing over who would bring in the record player. Timmy ran home, past our swing set, across the neighbor’s yard.
That night I lay in my bed with my eyes wide open staring at the shadowy outlines in my room: The dresser, the curtains with the faint spirit light, the half-open closet, and the picture of Jesus on the wall. But mostly I stared at the cedar chest at the foot of my bed. When I was filled with worry, and daylight felt like an eternity away, the cedar chest seemed to turn into my grandmother’s coffin. I feared the lid would creak open and there would be my grandmother, lying out flat, just like she had been at the funeral parlor last year. I could picture her in a dress like a white nightgown: Her skin is smooth like wax, but she still looks real. Her head begins to rise up and turn toward me. She has a faint smile-like expression on her face, and she just stares at me. I am frozen for what feels like forever, and then she winks and lies back down into her cedar chest coffin.
I don’t remember the beginning of the dream, but all of a sudden I was running in the thick of the woods. At first, I was on the path, but then I wasn’t. My blue cotton pajamas kept flying away from my body and catching on branches, slowing me down. The dirt felt like frozen nails on my bare feet. I ran faster but the heavy breathing from behind was getting closer. Its footsteps were crunching louder and louder and each breath sounded as if it were in a hollow tunnel, coming through with a loud screeching moan when inhaled, a threatening grunt when exhaled. The ground under me was growing thicker, and twigs were flinging higher up my legs as I ran, all the way to my knees. My pajamas were tearing and shredding as the branches with thorns became thick and violent. Suddenly my right leg hit a short stone wall, I thought, but it was actually a dead log laid out across the forest floor. Tripped up, I flew through the air, free of the branches and twigs, gaining speed until something forced my body to turn over in midair, and I landed flat on my back with a painful thud.
There he was. A towering Inside Out Bear was standing directly above me. He paused for a moment and caught his breath. His beating heart was dangling exposed between two purplish lungs that were pumping furiously. The lungs were covered with nasty blood vessels and walnut-size tumors. A multi-colored mangled mess of gooey intestines were below that, and some of the intestine tubes had untangled and were dangling almost to the ground. Where thorns had pierced the tubes, a yellowy puss-like substance was oozing out, and it smelled worse than cat puke. Blood vessels like flesh wires were all across his body, and with each beat of the huge scabby heart, blood would spurt out from all the holes and scratches in the exposed veins, splattering all over my blue cotton pajamas. He had no hair anywhere, of course, and his head was all raw gray matter with one and a half round white eyeballs. No actual eyes, just all white with jagged veins and green-yellowish goo.
Then, he flung his huge head back and let out a deafening roar while beating his chest ferociously. Squishy noises were made each time his flesh paws pounded his exposed chest, and puss and blood flew everywhere, completely covering my blue pajamas. When he stopped beating his chest, he started taking swipes at my throat with his flesh paws, and he was getting closer and closer.
“Mom!” I screamed. “Mom!”
But the Inside Out Bear kept closing in over top of me. By now, I was drowning in goo, puss, and blood. He kept swiping at my throat and eyes. He roared closer and louder, exposing the black fur inside his mouth.
“Mom! Dad! Mom!”
“Wake up. Wake up,” I heard, as she gently nudged my shoulder. “It’s only a dream.”
My heart was racing. I felt rescued, but I was out of breath.
“Mom?”
“Ssssshhh, it’s okay. It’s just a bad dream.”
“Will you stay?” My breathing was returning to normal.
With her pink terrycloth robe still on, she sighed and crawled into my bed. She wiped the sweat off my forehead with her sleeve.
“Alright, but just tonight,” she said.
I was safe again. My heartbeat was just about back to normal.
“Mom, can we move that cedar chest out of my room?”
“What?” She rolled over and looked at me. “Why no, there’s no place else for it.”
“Can we just get rid of it then?”
“Of course not, Billy. That was your grandmother’s. It has all her things in it.”
***
Steam rose from the bowl of beef stew, and the dining room was filled with the meaty smell of gravy. The long, wide, maple wood colonial table next to the kitchen was covered with a white, lacy cloth. My father in a short-sleeved white shirt and a loosened navy-blue tie sat at the head of the table. With soft, curly brown hair and a sleeveless white shirt, my mother sat at the other end. I sat next to my mother and my oldest sister was next to me. My other two sisters sat across from me. After my father said grace, I reached for a hot Pillsbury biscuit and started buttering it. My father started talking again about what he’d been talking about since he got home from the office and kissed my mother.
“It’s just not fair,” he said to my mother. “To say I can’t promote Stan. To say I have to find a Negro for the job.”
“Maybe you can promote Stan to something else,” my mother said.
“You don’t understand,” he said, frustrated. “Stan’s worked for this company for ten years. I can’t just go out and find a Negro. Where am I going to find a Negro? Besides, they won’t have the training Stan has. How am I going to tell Stan? He deserves the job.”
“Pass the potatoes,” Mom said to my oldest sister.
“You can’t force this on people,” he said. “I don’t care what anyone says, they’re just plain different. They come from a different culture. They’re not used to our work ethic.” He paused when the bowl of succotash passed by and scooped some on to his plate, carefully placing it next to his potatoes. “They smell different.”
“My teacher told us they might start bussing them to our high school,” my middle sister said.
“Alright,” Mom said. “Enough’s enough. Let’s change the subject. This family is not prejudiced.”
“Now Barb, there you go again putting words in my mouth. I’m not prejudiced. I’m the last person on earth to be prejudiced. I’m talking about Stan, here."
For a moment, nobody talked. All that was heard was the clinking of silverware against the yellow-bordered white china. My biscuit was buttered; my gravy had its own pool in my potatoes.
“Dad, are there bears in our woods?” I asked.
“What? No,” he said. “There’s no bears around here. You’d have to go to Michigan to find bears.”
“But you told me about a bear.”
“Oh George, he’s talking about that stupid story you told them,” Mom said. She looked at me with a crooked smile and a sideways nod. “That’s not a good dinnertime story, Billy.”
“Tell the bear story,” my youngest sister said.
My father flashed a mischievous grin and asked, “You monkeys want to hear the bear story?”
“Oh, George,” Mom sighed.
He set his knife on the edge of his plate. “Well, it was a long long time ago,” he began. “Long before any of you kids were born. Your mother and I had just moved down here from Akron . We had moved from a plat with rows of houses. The woods were new to us. The woods were thick and mysterious, and at that time, there was only one other house on this street. Well, it wasn’t long before our neighbor started warning us about a great big black bear that lived in the forest.” He spread his arms as wide as they would go when he said “great big black bear.” Then he lowered his head and voice and said, “The mean ol’ bear would only come out at night and kill helpless little kittens.”
“I thought it was puppies,” my oldest sister said. “Last time it was puppies.”
“No, I distinctly remember,” my dad assured her. “I remember because your mother and I had just gotten Fluffy.”
“You brought Fluffy home,” Mom told my dad. “I didn’t want that cat.” She picked up the bowl of stew and went into the kitchen to refill it.
“So you can imagine how upset we were when we heard about that horrible bear. And here was poor little Fluffy sleeping all alone outside on the back patio. The patio closest to the forest! So naturally, I had to do something. I had to make our houses safe for kittens.” He paused and looked at each one of us, one at a time, for what seemed like several minutes.
“I know it was puppies,” my sister said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mom said, as she came back carrying a fresh bowl of stew. “It’s just a made-up story.”
“So every night I would tuck Fluffy into his little bed on the back patio. Right out there.” He pointed toward the sliding glass door in the family room. “And then every night I would sit right there next to him, all night long, protecting him while he slept.” He took the bowl of stew from my mom. “Well, one night I heard this mad rustling coming from the thick of the woods. But before I had time to even think, a great big black bear came charging out of the forest. I jumped up and with all the courage I could muster, I stood bravely in front of Fluffy, even though, truth be told, I was visibly shaking in my boots. ‘Be strong,’ I told myself. ‘Be strong.’ Well, that mean ol’ bear roared back his head and his huge bear paw with huge gnarly claws took a quick swipe at my head, tearing out all the hair on top of my head.”
“That’s why you’re bald?
“It never grew back,” he said, polishing the top of his head with his right hand. “So now I was really mad. I mean really, really mad. The bear roared again and I quickly shoved my arm down his throat. I shoved it so hard that I reached all the way down past his stomach. All the way down to the bottom of his guts. And then I took, I mean to tell you, the hardest, strongest grip I could muster. Ummmph.” He clenched both his fists and gritted his teeth. “And I yanked my hand back out and I turned that darn bear completely inside out.” My dad started laughing, at first kind of muffled but then it grew more and more infectious and pretty soon we were all laughing.
“Where was mom?”
“Asleep,” she said, laughing.
“Yes siree, that poor bear never knew what hit him,” he said, wiping tears of laughter out of his eyes. “I turned him completely inside out. He ran back into the woods faster than a jackrabbit.”
“Did he die?”
“Of course he did,” he said, looking at me. “You can’t run around inside out. I took care of that bear. He never stood a chance.”
“Did you ever find the body?”
Just then the doorbell rang. Mom stood up.
“I don’t know why you have to tell that awful story,” she said, half snickering, as she moved toward the front door. “It’s no wonder they have nightmares.”
“Who the Sam Hill could that be at dinnertime,” my dad said.
After a moment, my mother came back with a delighted and surprised look on her face. She whispered, “Quick, come with me everyone. Hurry, and be very, very quiet.”
“What is---“
“Sssshhhh!” She warned. “Just come on.”
We all tiptoed, following Mom to the front door, and there she quietly pointed out the door to the railing that ran across the edge of the front porch. There sitting majestically atop the white wood railing was a magnificent gray owl staring back at the six of us staring at him.
“Isn’t he the most beautiful creature you’ve ever seen?” Mom whispered.
“What’s he doing out when it’s still daylight?” Dad asked.
“I don’t know,” Mom said. “It’s about to get dark. He’s just early.” She paused, then added, “You don’t suppose he’s sick, do you?”
My father slowly reached his hand out and made a move toward the owl.
“Don’t, George.”
But one more step and the owl gave one last look seemingly right at me with his big round eyes and then flew off in a great silent burst of feathers and wind.
“Oh, wasn’t he simply beautiful!” Mom said.
“Did he ring the doorbell?” I asked, without thinking.
Everybody busted out laughing. I felt stupid and small as we walked back to the dinner table.
“Who did ring the bell?”
Then, halfway back to the dinner table, the doorbell rang again. And then again right after that.
“What the---?” Dad mumbled. “Just go back to the table everybody. I’ll see who it is. Eat your dinner.”
But nobody sat back down or started eating. We all just stood there. He walked out the front door. After a couple of minutes, he came back in. We all stared at him, waiting for an answer.
“Nobody’s there,” he said, gesturing a question with upturned palms,
“Maybe it was the bear,” my middle sister said with a devilish grin.
“Maybe the owl just flew in and rang the bell and then just flew back out real fast,” my oldest sister said, laughing.
“Come on, knock it off,” my dad said to my sisters. “Sit down. It’s probably one of your sweet little friends playing a joke on us,” he sarcastically said to my oldest sister.
We started eating again. But before anybody had barely gotten a forkful of potatoes, the doorbell rang again, for the fourth time. This time we all stood up and went to the door. And again, nobody was there. But while we were standing there with the door wide open, the six of us peering outside, the doorbell rang and then rang again right after that. Instinctively, my mother went to the doorbell box on the wall, and she put her ear against the wall next to the box. After listening carefully for a moment she exclaimed, “There’s a cat in here! There’s a cat inside the wall. I can hear it meowing.”
My father went over and put his ear against the wall.
“Son of a gun, I think you’re right. I can hear it too.”
Right when he said that the darn bell rang again, and they both jerked away, both holding their left ear.
“Some cat must have crawled up into our rafters and fallen down into the wall,” my father said, rubbing his ear.
“I told you to shut the garage at night,” Mom said, scornfully. “Oh, I bet it’s the Thompson’s cat. I hate that cat.”
We never did get dessert that night. My father went and got his saw and cut a section of the wall around the doorbell box. But it wasn’t the Thompson’s cat. The Thompson’s cat was far too fat to ever fall down into the wall. It was a tiny calico newborn kitten that had fallen down the wall and tripped the doorbell switch, signaling its arrival on a warm summer night. Then every time the kitten wiggled, our bell went off. My mother wrapped the baby kitten in a fresh cotton towel, and held it close against her body. She told us not to touch the kitten until we could find its mother.
Yes, as my father explained, some mother cat had crawled up into our rafters and given birth. That meant that there still might be more kittens up there, and the mother might be stranded. Worried, we all moved out to the garage and watched anxiously as my father pulled out the tall wooden step ladder. He crawled up over the rafters with a flashlight in hand and his business tie still loose around his neck. My mother stood holding the ladder with the kitten in her arm, as we waited. But my father never found anything. No more kittens; no mother cat in sight. My mother went back into the house to find a baby bottle to feed the kitten. My sisters went to get the record player and extension cord. Timmy came over, and he said he needed to talk to me.
By now, a grapefruit sun was riding atop the green treetops, and my sisters were riding atop their Huffy cruisers. They circled the blue record player that was loaded with 45’s. Timmy and I sat on the side of the woodpile, dangling our feet in what normally would have been the Pacific.
“My mom said I can’t go tonight,” he told me.
“What?! Why did you ask your mom for, you moron. You’re just chicken.”
“She just found out. I’m not chicken. There’s no bears anyway. My mom said she’s going to call your mom.”
“You fink! Go home and tell your mom that I was just kidding. Tell her it was just a joke. Go on, get out of here. I don’t want to play anymore.”
Who needed Timmy anyway? The fireflies were beginning to appear as I stomped across the back yard. My sisters were still circling the turnaround. When I walked through the garage, I picked up the flashlight that my father had left on the middle step of the ladder. I tucked it into my pants, went into the house, and walked past my father snoring in his easy chair. I grabbed the clock radio out of my sisters’ room and went into my bedroom. I got ready for bed without being told, and set the alarm for two AM. My lights were out, and I was already in bed, pretending to be asleep, when first my mom, and then my dad came in and kissed my goodnight.
“I think he had a fight with Timmy,” I heard my mom say in the hallway.
At first when the alarm went off, it startled me so much that I didn’t know where I was. Shocked at how loud the buzzing sounded, I yanked the plug out of the wall and stuck a pillow over the clock radio. I lay there for a moment, praying that it didn’t wake up anybody else. After a couple of minutes, I got up and quietly pulled a pair of pants over my pajamas, put on my tennis shoes, and pulled a gray sweatshirt over my pajama tops. I grabbed the flashlight, but didn’t turn it on.
I tiptoed down the hallway, past the bathroom, through the family room, and out the back door onto the back patio.
I stood frozen for a moment, my own breath echoing in and out of my body. I decided I wouldn’t turn the flashlight on; I would save it for emergencies only. I looked out at the yard. The black outline of the swing set stood dead still, but the three swings were creaking back and forth in the wind. The sky was clouded dark, there were no stars to find, but around the moon there was a black-and-white kaleidoscope of movement. Every time the moon burst through the clouds, a flash of white light illuminated the shadows. The woodpile looked like big black building blocks, and the woods just looked black. Then I heard an owl and wondered if it was the same owl from our porch. It hooted, then was silent as the wind blew; again it hooted, once more silent as the wind blew. Then I thought I felt the owl take flight. I looked to the black, white, and gray sky just as the moon broke free of the clouds and there were the great wide feathered wings of the owl, framed for a brief moment in the circular light. I stepped off the patio.
I walked across the backyard, past the swing set, and past the woodpile onto the path that snaked into the dark thick black woods.
I couldn’t see much forward, and I never looked back. I just kept walking, a little bit faster each time a spider web or a branch brushed across my face. Before long, I had made it through the first woods and was in Mr. Johnson’s cornfield. With the two-foot cornstalks standing at attention, I had a clear path. I started running. I ran until I was into the second woods.
My sisters often told stories about the second woods—how it was much wilder, about the civil war cemetery on the other side, and the hangman’s tree filled with long, swollen thorns. They took me there once, but I was very small, and I didn’t remember much about it. My mother yelled at them for taking me. I stepped carefully now.
The breeze seemed to be kicking up, and the air was noticeably cooler. I wanted to turn the flashlight on, but I feared that it might scare the bear away. Suddenly, I heard something rustling in the brush, then I heard it running. I gasped. But then I realized without ever seeing it that it was running away from me. That it had been scared by me. The breeze was now a wind, and it was getting stronger. I heard rumbling in the distance. I thought I felt the owl, and I hooted, but it didn’t answer me. I looked to the moon, but it was hidden by speeding clouds. Then lightening flashed.
The bright bold stroke went from the moon to the earth. At first, all the strikes were in the distance, followed by loud crashing and rumbling. I kept walking, and the path was getting tighter and more overgrown, and the lightening was closing in on me. I looked for the owl in the flashes, and I picked up my pace. The blinding bolts and the deafening crashes were at the same time now, and I was scared. I started running. Suddenly, I was out of the woods, and my leg brushed against a large rough stone. Then—wham! Dead on, I hit a short wall of stone and landed flat on my back. I turned on the flashlight and pointed it at the stone. It was a tombstone. I read the engraving:
Reader look here as you pass by,
And learn from me that you must die.
As I am now and you will be,
Prepare for death and follow me.
Right when I finished reading, a huge strike of lightning crashed down from the heavens so close to me that I thought for sure I was a goner. The sky went bright white, and I looked up and saw the hangman’s tree with branches covered in thorns that looked like nails stuck wrong side out. I thought I saw silhouettes of Confederate Soldiers with their guns pointed. I thought I saw a naked black man hanging with a thick rope around his neck from the long outstretched branch of the hangman’s’ tree. I heard my father scream.
“Billy! “Billy!”
I stood up with the flashlight on and started running toward his voice. I ran back through the second woods and screamed for my father. He screamed back.
“Billy! Billy!”
When I entered the cornfield I could see my father standing tall against the stalks of corn, getting drenched by the sudden downpour. He started running toward me. He scooped me up into his arms, and I held on so tight that a tidal wave couldn’t have torn us apart. He didn’t say a word. He ran back to the house with me in his arms, finally setting me down to catch his breath when we reached the woodpile. My mom and my sisters were huddled under an umbrella, crowded together on the back patio.
“What in God’s name were you doing out there,” he said, holding my hand, as we crossed the back yard.
“I had to look for the bear,” I told him. “I had to see for myself if it was there.”
We walked past my sisters, and my mother reached out and kissed me. My dad grabbed a towel from the bathroom and took me into my bedroom. He peeled off my clothes and went to my dresser and took out my winter pajamas, the green flannel ones. He tucked me into bed, sat down on the edge of my bed, drying himself and sometimes my head with the towel.
“There is no bear, Billy. I thought you understood. It’s just a story. It’s just for fun.”
I looked at my father and felt safe. Then I looked at the cedar chest. And then I looked at the picture of Jesus on my wall.
“Is Jesus the same thing as God?” I asked.
He thought for a moment.
“Jesus is the son of God,” he said. “Jesus is the body that God took almost two thousand years ago when he came to earth to save all the people.”
“Just where exactly is God now?”
“God is everywhere. He is always everywhere. He sees everything you do.”
“Just like Santa Claus?”
“Well…. Yes. Yes, but even bigger than Santa Claus. Hold your hand out and you can shake hands with God.”
I looked at my father, more than a little confused. But then both of us stuck our right hand out and began moving it up and down as if we were shaking the hand of a materialized spirit. And that night after my father left, I kept shaking my hand in the air, because I wanted God to know I was real friendly. In fact, I kept shaking my hand in the air every night as I went to sleep pretty much until puberty.
***
A strawberry sun was falling behind the thick green forest, and my three sisters were riding circles on their Huffy cruisers on the concrete turnaround around a blue record player that was playing the latest number one love song over and over. I sat buried in the Rocketship woodpile with my new best friend Robbie. Robbie and I had never talked about the bear in the woods, and I was beginning to believe that my father was right. There weren’t any bears in our woods, let alone an inside-out one. I was never completely convinced, however. All growing up, a part of my heart always believed that somewhere out there in the thick woods, beyond the swing set, beyond the wood pile, beyond the concrete turnaround, an Inside Out Bear was roaming. Somewhere out there an Inside Out Bear was breathlessly searching to terrorize kittens, and puppies, and little children.