Boondocks Fantasy

by Jean Rabe

  “I called to him, ‘Roosevelt,’ I said, ‘where are you going this late in the evening? Ain’t nothin’ that way but the graveyard.’ Roosevelt didn’t say anything or act like he had heard me. He just kept walking, and I called louder, ‘Roosevelt, where are you goin’ around that way?’ No answer from Roosevelt.” Miss Josie poured us another glass of tea before continuing.

  “It was a mystery to me why he wouldn’t say anything. I watched as he stopped and sat on a big rock that was by the path leading up to the graveyard. Old Bossie mooed, and I turned to her. And then when I looked back, Roosevelt had disappeared. Well, I couldn’t figure out where he had gone. He couldn’t have got up the hill that quick because it’s almost straight up.”

  Willard’s eyes got wide and he gestured for her to finish the story.

  “Well, sir, I got the shivers and hurried back home to get Jacob to come and bring the lantern to hold whilst I milked the cow.” She served me and Willard each a second piece of pie.

  “Now mind you, early the next morning before the mist had lifted, we looked out and saw Roosevelt Run-ions going around the hill with a pick and shovel slung across his shoulders. His head was down and he was just a bawlin’. I went out and asked him what the matter was and what he was doing around here last night. I just couldn’t contain my curiosity. Old Roosevelt looked up with his tear-stained face and sighed the saddest sigh I ever did hear. ‘I didn’t come this way last night, Josie,’ he told me. ‘I was home by the bed of my youngest boy. He died about twilight last evening and now I am going up to dig his grave.’ I shed a tear, too.”

  Willard wiped at his face as if he was going to cry.

  “Anyway, Old Roosevelt did exactly as he had done the evening before. He went on around the hill to the rock leading up to the graveyard, and there he sat and cried. Finally, he went on up the hill.

  “Well, I never did hear of the ghost of a living person, but I guess what I saw the night before was just that, a premonition maybe, and I saw it just as plain as I am looking at you right now.”

  “Tell us another one, Miss Josie.” I scooted up next to Momma and felt the warmth of her arm.

  “When I was a girl,” Miss Josie began, “I loved a young man that my paw didn’t approve of. Owen was wild, always fightin’ and causin’ trouble. We would meet by that big oak tree that still stands down the road a piece. We would talk about our future together, but I knew my paw would never allow me to marry him.”

  “Never, Miss Josie? You could never marry him?”

  She shook her head and again her hairs reminded me of cobwebs, something ethereal about the way they haloed her face.

  “My Paw didn’t approve,” she repeated. “One night Owen was out drinkin’ and gamblin’. He got into a fight with another man who pulled a gun. Well, Owen ran to get away from him. He was chased and shot dead right across the road from the oak tree we met by. I was so hurt, but finally I began to get over the loss.”

  “At least you found Jacob and later married him.” I said.

  She nodded.

  “Let her finish the story!” Willard cut in.

  “I will finish it,” she said with a touch of finality to her voice. “Some months later a bunch of us was walkin’ home from church on a night that was as black as pitch. Everybody walked to and from revival back in them days. We walked in a line all strung out across the dirt road. We walked, because nobody owned a car up in our holler. We were singin’ and havin’ a good time. But when we reached the oak tree everybody quieted down and remembered Owen dyin’ across the road in the ditch.”

  Willard speared into his second piece of pie. “What happened then, Miss Josie?”

  She sighed and hesitated a few moments, “Suddenly, a little light appeared at the ditch by the edge of the road and started creeping across right in front of our feet. We stopped to watch it, and I bet it passed about five inches in front of my toes and stopped for a few seconds then went slowly on across ’til it reached the oak tree. It shimmered there for a few seconds, and then it went out. Chills went up my back, and I wasn’t the only one cryin’. I know it was the spirit of Owen remindin’ me to not forget him, and I never have. I see him at times.”

  We pushed our empty plates away.

  “That’s all the stories for tonight, youngins,” Miss Josie said.

  Momma said it was gettin’ dark, and we needed to get home. As we walked down the road in the moonlight and came up to the old oak tree, it cast a black shadow across the road. I clung to Momma’s hand and shut my eyes till we were way past it. I didn’t want to see Owen if he decided to show up that night, and as far as I know, he never did again.

  But we did see Miss Josie. Momma kept bringing her pies and cakes that she never ate in front of us, and she kept telling us stories. It wasn’t until I was all grown up and ready to move off on my own that I learned Miss Josie was dead . . . had been dead for all the years I knew her. No wonder she never ate a bite of Momma’s desserts.

  Her grave sat up on that mountainside with all her other relatives, and several of them had such strong ties to the holler that they roamed the world too. Some of them take up residence in Miss Josie’s house from time to time, but others have their own places, all of them mingling with the living folks who traipse around the land that straddles Bear Creek.

  BEING NEIGHBORLY

  Anita Ensal

  Anita Ensal has always been intrigued by possibilities inherent in myths and legends. She likes to find both the fantastical element in the mundane and the ordinary component within the incredible. She writes in all areas of speculative fiction. Her stories have also appeared in DAW’s Love and Rockets, Eposic’s The Book of Exodi, and at Raphael’s Village (www.raphaelsvillage. com). You can read more from her at her blog, Fantastical Fiction, http://authoranitaensal.blogspot.com.

  Junior and Little Mams had lived in the city about a year before they called Big Mams and asked her to come out to have a visit with them.

  “Maybe only for a little while,” Little Mams said.

  “Maybe not,” Junior added.

  Big Mams didn’t argue. She packed her things into her 1970 Chevy pickup truck—including her two cats, Colonel Tom and Tiger, and her hound dog Barkley—and said her good-byes as she drove out of the Neighborhood.

  “You be home soon?” everyone asked her as she drove by at just a few miles an hour. “You bringing Junior and Little Mams home, too?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” she told them.

  Old Edna stopped her just before she left the town limits. “You’ll be needing this,” she said, as she handed Big Mams an old iron skillet and a basket of biscuits. “I trust you got everything else on you.”

  “I do, and thanks. I appreciate your being neighborly about this,” Big Mams added as she stowed the skillet down on the floor next to the cats’ carrier and the biscuits on the seat between herself and Barkley. “I’ll bring it back in the same shape or better.”

  “Know you will,” Old Edna said with a grin. “Lived here all our lives. I can remember when your mamma had you, and then when you had Little Mams. You’re all still our neighbors, even if you’re far away. You remind Little Mams and Junior of that.”

  “I will do,” Big Mams said. Then she gave the old Chevy some gas and headed off for the city.

  The drive was uneventful, through one small town after another, countryside flowing past. Most of these towns were bigger than the Neighborhood, but they were still small enough so everyone knew everybody else, which was as it should be. Big Mams didn’t have a lot of truck with city living. She felt it did funny things to the folks who lived there. Then again, funny things happened everywhere these days.

  She reached the outskirts of the city just after midday. The sign welcomed visitors and proclaimed the current population to be 11,202. She wondered if Junior and Little Mams were the 2. She wouldn’t have to ask how they liked living someplace with over twenty times the population they were used to—she knew. Besides, she didn’t have
a lot of truck with whining and complaining, either, so why request it?

  It took her another fifteen minutes to reach her destination. Junior and Little Mams lived at the far side of the city, where they’d said it was more like home. Big Mams wasn’t sure she agreed, but at least everyone wasn’t on top of each other in their new neighborhood.

  She looked at the houses before she got out of the truck. “Wager this was its own town, long ago.” Barkley snorted and shook his ears. “Glad you agree.”

  Junior came down the walk, looking like he’d just dropped a big weight off his shoulders. Time for closer inspection later. Right now, her family needed her attention.

  “I don’t much like our neighbors,” Little Mams admitted, once Big Mams was settled into the spare room. “More to the point, I don’t think they like us.”

  “Why not?” She didn’t argue with Little’s feelings. Never had, never would.

  “When we first got here, no one said hello. No one came over while we moved in, nothing. After a couple of months, the folks across the street came by and said howdy, and so did the widow-lady next door. After that, some of the others a few houses away would speak to us.”

  “Sounds normal for city folk,” Big Mams offered.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Junior said. “But then it got kind of strange.”

  “The widow-lady next door gave us this,” Little Mams held up a horseshoe. “She said it was ’cause this neighborhood used to be a big horse ranch.” She sounded uncertain.

  “You hang it up?” Big Mams asked.

  “Not at first,” Junior admitted. He looked a little sheepish. “But it’s the city.”

  “Best reason to hang it up,” Big Mams said, though she made sure her tone didn’t chide too much.

  “We have it over the front door now, on the inside,” Little Mams pointed to the nail. “Junior just thought you might want to look at it.”

  Big Mams examined the horseshoe. “Looks like a shoe for a horse. Made of all iron, though.” She shook her head. “What else?”

  Little Mams shot an uncertain look towards Junior. He took her hand in his and nodded. “Tell your momma, Little. It’s OK, I’m not arguing any more.”

  Little Mams gave Junior’s hand a squeeze and took a deep breath. Big Mams noted that Junior’s eyes went right to her chest and stayed there, pride and pleasure both in his expression. Big Mams felt a little worry abate—it wasn’t marital problems of any kind. That was good. But they were both scared, and that was bad, because Junior and Little Mams didn’t scare easily. No one from the Neighborhood did.

  “First,” Little Mams said, “the neighbors on the corner, on the other side of the widow-lady, their kids started acting strange. And then, the mother left with the little girl in the middle of the night. At least, that’s what the neighbors across the street said they were told happened. The boys acted more and more wild, and the father he just seemed tired and a little scared. Then they disappeared in the middle of the night, too.”

  Big Mams nodded. “Go on.”

  “People keep on leaving in the middle of the night. The moving trucks come after, but we never see the people again,” Little Mams told her. “New people move in, but we never really see them out and about, at least, not during the day. We weren’t too worried, but then the neighbors across the street left in the middle of the night, too.”

  “Seems like the way they do it here,” Big Mams offered.

  “No,” Junior said. “We were real neighbors with them. We watched their kids when they wanted to have an evening out, they’d have us over to watch the football game, we’d send over cookies, they’d send back rolls on the same plate. Just like they were folks from back home. They always told us that the other neighbors were nice but tended to keep to themselves.”

  “And,” Little Mams added, “they always said that if they moved they’d be sure to have us over or give us the address if they were going too far, so we could exchange letters and keep in touch.”

  “If only at Christmastime, that’s what they said,” Junior agreed.

  “But we’ve never heard from them since,” Little Mams said. “And Christmas has come and gone.”

  “What about the widow-lady?” Big Mams asked.

  “She has a lot of dogs,” Little Mams replied. “She’s still friendly to us. Junior helps her with heavy lifting sorts of things.”

  “How about anyone else? The neighbors on your other side?”

  “Just an older man, I think he’s a widower, but he’s older than Old Edna,” Little Mams replied. “He’s polite, always waves hello, but he rarely speaks.”

  “He doesn’t speak to a lot of folks in the neighborhood,” Junior said. “Neither does the widow-lady. They both go to work and then come straight home. I don’t see them out past their property lines much at all.”

  Big Mams looked out the front window. “I see people over in that house across the street. Thought you said those folks had moved.”

  “Oh, them,” Little Mams almost sneered.

  Big Mams was shocked by this. “What’s wrong with them?”

  Junior gave a half-hearted laugh. “They insulted us, I guess.”

  Big Mams raised her eyebrow. “Oh?”

  Little Mams sighed again, earning the same look from Junior as before. “Well, when they moved in, Junior and I decided we’d had enough of no one being neighborly around here. So, we got dressed in our good clothes and took them a plant and a card. Store bought, ’cause that’s what they do around here, from what Junior’s friends at work say.

  “We went over, and the man wouldn’t even let us in, said he had his own religion! I told him we weren’t missionaries, we were just being neighborly and wanted to say welcome. Then he said his wife was getting dressed for work. Of course we apologized for intruding, said we just wanted to introduce ourselves and welcome them. Told them it was a nice place even though the folks didn’t warm up all that quickly, but that they were all nice people. We told them we’d been good friends with the folks who’d lived in their house before and hoped it would be the same with them.” She sounded close to tears.

  “Then what?” Big Mams asked.

  “His wife never came over to thank us, never said hello, nothing,” Little Mams replied, looking down at her hands. “I used to wave and smile at them all the time, but they never waved or smiled back. They give us dirty looks. As if being neighborly was some sort of crime.”

  “It might be a crime around here,” Big Mams said quietly. She stood up. “Why didn’t you get another cat or a dog like you’d promised?”

  Junior shrugged. “We still aren’t over losing Codger. He only passed a couple of months ago.”

  “Well, that nasty tomcat did have his ways,” Big Mams acknowledged. “But I think it’s time for Colonel Tom and Tiger to have a look around.”

  The cats had been sleeping on the sofa, but at the mention of their names, they both uncurled, stretched, and then headed for the front door. Big Mams let them out and hung the horseshoe back up as well. Then she watched the cats from the front window.

  They were investigating as cats will, but they didn’t leave the property. “Who’s behind you?” Big Mams asked as she watched.

  “Just a big wash and then some undeveloped land the city’s holding onto,” Junior answered. “One of the reasons we liked it.”

  “Probably a good thing,” Big Mams said absently as she watched Colonel Tom pace back and forth along the property line. The calico cat never allowed his paws to touch the sidewalk.

  “They have a baby,” Little Mams said as she came up next to her.

  “Oh? The normal way?” Big Mams asked her.

  “Not really. She never looked pregnant. Just one day, they drove off and came back with a baby.”

  “Not a newborn baby,” Junior added. “And we never saw anyone that looked like a social worker or whatnot come by.”

  “Huh,” was all Big Mams chose to reply.

  She felt someon
e watching her and looked up from watching the cats to see a man across the street. She could tell he was younger than Junior, but he was nowhere near as impressive a specimen. Junior wasn’t the biggest man in the world, but he’d been handsome even as a little boy, and he kept himself in shape and took care to look his best, even if all he was doing was pulling weeds. This man was shorter and already balding, with a pot belly hanging over his shorts, which were all he was wearing. Well, that and an unpleasant expression.

  He was glaring at them, at the house and everyone in it, but at the cats in particular. Tiger moved next to Colonel Tom and then both cats sat down, still on the property line, facing the man across the street. She didn’t need to look at them to know they were staring him down.

  “This the rude one?” she asked Little without taking her eyes off of him.

  “Yes, that’s him. He’s always working on his front yard. It never looks all that much better though.”

  “What’s his wife look like?” Big Mams asked her.

  “She’s taller and skinnier, nice figure, really.”

  Junior snorted. “If you like women who remind you of a two-by-four, she’s a beauty, true. If you want a woman that looks like a real woman, well then, not so much.”

  Little Mams giggled and elbowed Junior in the ribs. He just laughed and picked her up in a bear hug. “She’s a lot prettier than you’d think he’d be able to get,” Little Mams said once Junior put her down. “I thought at first he must have a nice personality.”

  “Oh, he’s got something,” Big Mams said darkly. “You ever get his name?”

  “No, he never told us. He knows ours, though,” Little Mams said in a small voice.

  She sighed. “You leave home and forget all you’ve been taught?”

  “Not all,” Junior said. “Barkley’s out back, and I think he’s been talking to the widow-lady’s dogs.”

  “Good,” Big Mams said as the cats won the staring contest and the man across the street abruptly turned on his heel and stalked inside. “Well, we’ll just see what’s what.”