by Mark Boliek
Chapter 3
The day went by a lot faster than I thought. The early afternoon had slipped away and I was getting windburn from the brisk breeze blowing off the ocean.
The children, however, were eager to hear more about JT and see where this story from a lifetime past might go. It was a little bitter sweet for me because I knew how the story would end, but I didn’t want to stop so I suggested that we move our little group to the upper house from the beach so we could find relief from the chill. I promised them that I would continue to tell the story as we walked up the path and over the dunes. It was no surprise that the little ones accepted, and we started our trek.
“Can you tell us about that cool house up there we’re going to?” a little boy with blonde hair yelled out as everyone gathered themselves together and brushed off loose sand from their clothes.
“I sure can,” I answered with a big smile. “But, I’ll tell you what. If you let me keep telling you the story about JT and his friends, I promise you’ll learn everything there is to know about that big, old house up there, agree?”
All the children in the group agreed with excitement and we began our journey up the beach. I continued with the story from where I left JT. He was still lying on the floor of the horse barn on the Shorts’ farm, unconscious.
“Dreams are crazy things,” I began. “Most dreams come and go and we forget all about them the morning after. Some dreams, though, stick in our minds like glue and when we wake up, we wonder if those dreams really meant something. I can even remember after some of my more memorable dreams the visions that showed me things that might happen in the future or things from the past. Either way, they are very hard to forget. Incidentally, JT was about to have one of those dreams – and it would probably be the first of many.”
“Lights and sounds swirled through JT’s mind as he was laid out on the tidied barn floor. He tried to reach out and grab a hold of something to steady his body, but no matter how far he stretched his hands out, he felt nothing. He drifted through the kaleidoscope of colored lights, and just as he wondered how long he might be floating about, he felt an enormous hand grab him on his shoulder and he became still. The colors vanished and it was pitch black.
The hair on the back of his neck suddenly stood up when he heard a familiar but strange deep and burley voice from behind his left ear. ‘Do it.’
JT had no idea what this voice wanted him to do. He tried to ask, but no words came out of his mouth.
‘Do it,’ he heard again from behind and felt hot breath singe his ear. With some unexplained automatic reflex, he knew what to do next.
JT reached his hand out and placed his fingertips on what felt like a wooden object with carvings on it. He pushed the object, but it would not budge. He heard deep laughter behind him as though it approved of his actions, and the chuckle faded into the distance. JT then put his palm flat on the object and pushed with all of his might. A loud crack sounded and white light flooded all around him. He felt a rush of air shoot through the opening. Suddenly he woke up. He knew he had just opened some kind of door.
Gregory stood staring down at JT with his sparkling, jolly eyes. JT was not on the floor of the barn anymore. He was lying in his bed in the farmhouse.
‘You gave us quite a scare there son,’ Gregory stated, with his hand on JT’s forehead. Then Louise placed a cold rag around the back of his neck. ‘You OK? You’re sweating.’
‘I think so,’ JT whispered, still shaken from the ordeal. He then thought about Willy, the monster and what it had told him in the barn, and he wondered if it had even happened or not. Maybe it was still morning and he had not even left his room. ‘Have I been here the whole time?’
‘Nope,’ Gregory answered. ‘I found you in the barn muttering about much of nothing, passed out on the ground. I moved you up here by myself. Quite a scare indeed.’
‘I’m thir-’ JT started to say when Louise handed him a glass of water.
‘You rest now,’ she said in a comforting voice, her smile lighting the room.
JT knew that the encounter with Willy must have been real and the crazy story he told him meant something - but what? He poked his head up nervously and looked toward his night table. He saw his cane leaning against it and felt relieved. It also appeared to him in a different way now. The walking cane he tossed about and threw around seemed more valuable. His hunch that it had come from a distant world seemed much more plausible with the story of the blonde little boy.
Why, though, didn’t that monster, Willy, or whatever he came in contact with, take the cane while it had the chance - while JT was passed out? Didn’t the creature mention that he wasn’t trustworthy enough to keep it anyway?
Certainly, JT thought, if a strange kid that started to turn into some creature wanted it, there was someone, or in this case, something, else that might want to take it back as well. He definitely thought he should keep it safe.
JT ate some dinner and went to bed. He was scared and excited at the same time. The night was different as he stared out the window and watched the moonset. His quiet life on the farm was now shattered. He rolled over and, though his senses were heightened, fell asleep.”
“JT put on his favorite worn-out blue jeans and gray T-shirt. The morning, just as the night before, felt different to him. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but he thought something weird might happen this day. Maybe Willy would be coming after the cane again; this time as the hideous creature with the ferociously hot breath. Perhaps another person or thing might be coming as well. Following his own advice, he took his cane and locked it away in his bedroom closet.
He rarely walked without his cane. The pain was excruciating, but just as he wanted to keep the cane away from some mysterious beings trying to steal it, he also thought he would be safer without it.
‘Not using your cane today, dear?’ Louise asked JT as he scarfed down a fried egg. The house burst with the smell of country breakfast.
‘Nope. Don’t need it today. Feels weird, but good.’ Lying, he rubbed his knee under the table.
After he ate, Gregory grabbed his hat and asked JT if he wanted to go out and work with him in the largest field on the farm. Louise handed JT his hat before he could even agree.
Gregory called the field ‘the Ol’ 22’ because it was twenty-two acres of the toughest land to farm and manage. Gregory told JT that his grandfather never liked working that field, but that the more work you put into it, the better the crops it yielded. It seemed to work because every year the field would give them an abundance of corn and soy beans to sell that kept the farm running and allowed Gregory to put money away for JT.
Gregory’s grandfather also left a huge oak tree smack in the middle of the field because the shade provided much needed respite to a farmer working the Ol’ 22 during the long, hot summer days. Gregory had cut a dirt service road to the tree from the main road leading to the house so it would be easier to access; he wasn’t counting on the teenagers from town to use the tree as a place to gather on those long, hot summer nights, but he didn’t mind.
It was the spot where Gregory would take his then-girlfriend Louise when they were younger to look at the stars and talk about their future. He carved his and Louise’s initials in a little heart near the base of the big tree the first time they sat beneath it. Ever since, the teenagers that came there would do the same thing. In the thirty-five years of their marriage, there must have been over a thousand initials and names in hearts carved all over the trunk of the tree and Gregory liked to see the new ones; of course, his and Louise’s heart was the most special.
JT and Gregory drove two tractors to the big old tree in the middle of the Ol’ 22 to plan out the plowing of the massive field for the fall planting of soy beans.
After they parked the tractors, Gregory and JT wanted to investigate the tree to see all the new names that had been written on it for the last time that summer. School was about to start and the kids wouldn’t be back. When they walked around the tree to check it
out, the weird feelings JT had about that day bubbled in his stomach. His body tingled with excitement.
Gregory smiled his jolly smile at his and Louise’s initials, rubbing his fingers across the worn mark. He then panned his eyes up the rest of the tree. ‘What in the world is this?!’ He yelled out, and the jovial feeling he had just had turned to anger. ‘Come here JT, take a look at this!’ His smile morphed into a growl.
JT hobbled as quickly as he could to see what Gregory was excited about. He settled beside the large man and followed his thick finger, which was pointing up at the tree. JT’s jaw dropped when he saw what was written there. In twelve inch, thick black burned-out letters just beneath the canopy, it read:
I TOLD YOU, YOU FORGOT
ABOUT ME
AND I DON’T LIKE IT. MICHAEL COMES NOW.
Just as soon as JT read the note, he heard a rumble coming down the dirt service road. He jerked his head around, and in an enormous cloud of dust, a big old rusty blue car bounced its way toward him and Gregory. The car, with its worn-out white canvas roof and two big fins off the back, swerved and squeaked on top of the gravel. When it reached the end of the road, the brakes ground and the car slid to a stop. A loud backfire sounded through the field, ‘BANG!’ Quail quickly lifted from the ground with fright, scattered and then disappeared back into the overgrowth.
JT poked his head around the tree very curiously and a young, slight man stepped out of the old blue car.
‘JT, you out here?!’ the man asked, loudly coughing through the thick dust he stirred up with the car.
The young man was a little over five and a half feet tall with a red shirt on and baggy jeans. His hair was black and slicked back. The most pronounced feature about him though was the thick, brown, horn-rimmed glasses that were perched on his thin, pointed nose. Through the glasses were cavernous, hazel eyes that were bloodshot and puffy. It was obvious that the young man had had little rest.
‘Yeah?!’ JT yelled back, in a most uncertain tone. Ideas about how this man knew his name cycled through his mind. ‘I’m here!’ JT said, and limped from around the tree into the sunlight, swatting and squinting through the thick dust. ‘And you’re Michael, right?’
‘You do remember! It was just a lie! I knew it!’ The young man ran and grabbed a hold of JT with a huge hug. ‘That’s right. It’s me, Michael.’ The thin man, now out of breath, stated with a huge smile on his face, dust clouding his glasses.
JT didn’t know what to do so he hesitantly hugged Michael back. Michael was laughing and seemed very happy. JT didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but knew he had to tell this young man the truth and that he had no idea who he was.
‘Whoa, OK,’ JT said as calmly as possible, taping Michael on the shoulders with his halfhearted hug. ‘I’m sorry but I - I don’t remember you.’ JT felt adrenaline rush through his veins, but wanted to seem as calm as possible. ‘I guessed you were Michael by what’s written on that tree up there. It was just dumb luck.’ JT pointed Michael to the message burned in the tree. ‘I was hoping, since I guessed right and your name is Michael, that you could shed a little light on this.’
Michael looked at the tree and then back at JT and hung his head for a second. His brief moment of excitement changed into a hazy weariness. His face turned pink and he felt a little embarrassed now. JT didn’t remember him as he had wished. After a few moments of glancing back and forth from the burned-out letters to JT, Michael began to relax a little, knowing that at least he had found JT. He then remembered his letter to Kali and hoped she would meet them tomorrow at the diner. That is, if JT would go with him.
‘Who wrote this on the tree?’ Michael asked uncertainly, with angst in his voice.
‘Like I said, that’s what I was hoping you could tell me,’ JT remarked and looked from the ground to the height of the black letters. ‘I have a feeling, but I don’t know if he can even get up there. I got this strange visit from a little boy yester –’
Michael interrupted JT. ‘Name’s Willy I suspect?’ he asked with hesitation. He then nodded his head and looked warily out over the Ol’ 22.
‘Huh, that would be the name. You know him?’ JT asked. ‘Strange little fella. Started to turn into some kinda... somethin’....’ JT didn’t say anything else. He didn’t want to seem crazy so he kept the monster and the story about renegade Egyptians to himself.
‘That’s not the half of it,’ Michael replied and shuddered with the memory of the visit. ‘I don’t believe he managed to do that.’ He peered back up at the emblazoned letters in the tree. Michael then gazed at JT with nervous excitement, and a slightly crooked grin appeared on his face.
JT felt uncomfortable as he caught Michael’s expression.
‘Hey, my name is Gregory.’ Gregory extended his thick hand to Michael, breaking the awkward scene.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Gregory....’ JT said.
‘That’s fine boy,’ Gregory stated back. He introduced himself to Michael and walked toward one of the tractors. ‘I bet you guys have a lot to talk about. You two take your time and I’ll meet you back at the house. We can take care of this field tomorrow. We still have a couple of weeks. Plus, this note on the tree and all this talk is a little too strange for me. I’m sure you’ll figure it all out.’
At first, Gregory felt a little untrusting toward Michael, though he remained calm. He really wanted to see how this out-of-the-blue encounter would play out.
The sight of a new person in JT’s life, though shocking and uncertain to some extent, was welcome to Gregory. He wanted JT to remember as much as possible about his life before he had come to them, but he felt helpless in getting JT to recover those memories. He wasn’t sure, but no matter how perplexed he was about Michael’s arrival, he felt that it might provide a clue to the childhood JT had always craved.
Gregory only met JT briefly when he was younger. His mom started going to their church after she moved to their town a year before she died. JT came to church only once that spring and never returned. His mom only mentioned him as a good and decent son; she never told Gregory or Louise about his childhood and they never asked. Gregory felt she would have told them about her son if she wanted. The couple could never have predicted the sudden death of JT’s mom, and somehow regretted the fact that they hadn’t gotten to know JT better before; they did their best now that he was with them.
As Gregory left JT and Michael panning from the ground to the mysterious note blazed on his grandfather’s old oak tree, he couldn’t help but wonder about the strange little boy Willy - who he was and why he had entered their lives. He also suddenly had the inexplicable urge to ring Willy’s neck.
