Scarecrow Gods

by Weston Ochse

  During the day, however, the VC would patrol or sleep, and like always, the Mung would sit in front of him. It was at noon of the second day of the VC’s occupation of the village before Maxom finally caught on. He’d been stunned as he watched the Mung stare at the tiny piece of rice and, like a maggot, it undulated its way along the ground, up the pole, along his leg, up his body, only to stop, sticking to the sweat of his chin. It was on the third piece of rice, that Maxom realized the impossible. The old Mung, somehow, someway, was moving the rice with his mind. It was only after the sixth piece of rice rested tantalizing upon his chin, that Maxom screamed his frustration and shook his head, dislodging the food from their teasing perch.

  The Mung grinned toothlessly.

  And like the proverbial ant, the Mung began again.

  This time Maxom watched with a more critical eye. He’d heard stories about the people of the mountain. He’d heard they were older than the Vietnamese. That they could do things.

  Maxom concentrated on the tiny piece of white, imagining it crawling into his mouth. Sweat, beaded along his forehead and his eyes moved to slits. Nothing. He tried again, imagining a hand plucking it from his grimy chin and placing it into his mouth. Nothing.

  He tried again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And screamed with frustration.

  Maxom glared at the smiling Mung and prayed to whatever Gods would listen for a minute-long reprieve. He knew the VC would never let him go, but all he wanted was to climb down, kick the shit out of the little man and climb back up to await his death.

  He heard laughter within his mind, high-pitched and raspy. He stared and knew it was the little man. It had all been a game. Just another form of torture. First his body and then his mind. He felt like a mouse, chased down and pinned under the great paw of some cat. Release, pounce. Release, pounce. Release, pounce and toss into the air.

  Something brushed against his mind. Something soft and gentle, like the lotioned hand of his mother. He felt it touch memories, then he remembered sitting in his momma’s kitchen as a child. It was at the old scarred Formica table, the one that his father had used every Saturday for his poker games. He saw a bowl of hot buttered grits and a plate of toast, resting against a jar of blueberry preserves. His mother was busy at the sink, a towel thrown over her shoulder as she cleaned dishes, humming an old spiritual, the sounds filling the kitchen space. He reached over with child hands and lifted a spoonful of the white mush and brought it to his mouth. He tasted it, and swooned with the well-remembered flavor. His mother stopped her humming and turned.

  “Now, wasn’t that easy?”

  Maxom stared as his mother melted and morphed into the small creased Mung, wearing the same silly smile.

  Maxom realized he’d closed his eyes. As he opened them, he was pulled from the heavenly confines of his mother’s kitchen to the super-heated jungle of his hell. He glared at the little man for intruding upon his memories. For destroying a perfect moment from his childhood. For…

  …entering into his mind.

  The Mung had nodded slightly, stood and walked away, leaving Maxom to digest the meaning.

  CHAPTER 3

  Sunday—June 10th

  Chattanooga, Tennessee

  “I don’t want to go,” said Danny’s mother.

  “Come on. I want us to go to church as a family, dammit. It’s something we need to do.”

  “I just find it so—”

  “So what?” asked his father. “What else should we do, honey? Should we just hide here in the house and pretend it didn’t happen?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Reverend Chambers is counting on us being there. He has an announcement about Elaina and she—” The look of horror upon his wife’s face made him pause, “What? What’s wrong?”

  “How can you just stand there and act as if it’s not you—” She spun, crossing her arms across her chest as if the room had suddenly grown cold. Her shoulders rose and fell. She stared past her reflection in the floor-to-ceiling window, out into the night and watched the lights from the barges as they traversed the channel on the far side of the lake. “Don’t you find it just a little hypocritical? Aren’t you afraid?”

  “Afraid of what? What are you saying Rebecca?”

  “I just find it hypocritical of us to be going into a church that we’d all but turned our backs on. And now, when we have our own problem, all we can count on is the people we tried to distance ourselves from. Not only is it hypocritical, but it makes us pretty damned weak.”

  “It’s not weak to need the strength of your neighbors. It’s not weak to need help.” He stepped behind her and started to place his hands softly atop her shoulders. Before they touched, however, she lifted her arms and moved away from the window and from him.

  “Is it weak to ignore a person in need? Is it weak to not know something’s going on within your own family?”

  He stuck his hands into his rear pockets and sighed. “We’ve been through this. There was nothing we could have done. We didn’t know what was happening. Had we known, we would have done something about it. We would have put a stop to it. You know?”

  His mother spun and glared at his father who was lost in his own miasma of questions and pain.

  “I know. You think that because she’s our daughter there should have been some psychic connection,” he continued. “Some link to let us know that someone out there was…but let me tell you, and I know this from experience, if someone wants to hide something badly enough, they can hide it so well no one will ever know. They can hide it so well sometimes they don’t even know it happened to them.”

  Danny’s mother stepped forward, her right hand rising reflexively, nail-tipped fingers curled into a claw. Her face twisted into a snarl. Then as if she realized the change, her face relaxed, the lines smoothing into sadness. “I think you need to go.”

  He turned halfway, craning his neck. His eyes were half-closed and rimmed with unfallen tears.

  “What?”

  “I said I think you need to leave, John. Pack a bag. I don’t want you in this house.”

  “What are you saying?” his voice rose from a whisper.

  “I’m not saying anything,” she said, shaking her head slowly and sighing. “I’m telling you that you need to pack a bag and get out.”

  He turned and faced her, his arms out in front of him. Reflexively he opened and closed his hands. His eyes were wide. His mouth hung open. “Where’s this coming from, Allison? Why are you doing this?”

  She moved so the sofa was between them. Once again, she crossed her arms protectively. She stared at the family portrait hanging over the fireplace, the one taken two years ago. “This is coming from a mother who has just lost her daughter. This is coming from a mother who was so blind she couldn’t see what was going on inside her own house. This,” she gritted her teeth, “is coming from a woman who shouldn’t even be allowed to be called a mother. You need to give me some room, Ben.”

  He stepped towards her and she backed away. “But, honey. We should work on this together. We should . . .” She stared at him, as if he were inhuman. A long second passed as his heart sank. “You think it was me. You think it was me she wrote about in her diary.”

  She continued staring, her answer in the silence.

  “How could you think such a thing?” His voice cracked. “How could you even imagine I could be part of something so…” He shook his head, as if to remove the vision from his mind. “We need to talk about this, Rebecca.”

  She spoke, her voice tired. “I’ve said all I’m going to say on the matter, Ben. Get your things.”

  “I’m not leaving until we clear this up.”

  She sighed and shook her head. “This can’t be fixed so easily, so don’t even try. The only thing that’s going to work is time. Time, and my daughter back here where she belongs.”

  “Listen, there has to be a way.”

  “No! I will not li
sten. You can’t fix this. You’re always trying to fix things. Trying to fix other people. Maybe we can’t be fixed. Maybe we aren’t meant to be fixed. Maybe we’re just broken, dammit. All broken and there’s nothing to be done.”

  They stood there, staring off across the water of Lake Chicamaugua, each already alone.

  “If you don’t get your things and leave, Ben. I’m going to call the police.”

  “Call the police then. I’m not leaving.”

  She raised an eyebrow, one poker player to the other, each waiting for the other to fold. She clucked once, shook her head and strode towards the phone. She pressed 9-1-1. When the operator answered, she spoke, never taking her eyes from him.

  “Yes. My name is Rebecca Jenks and I live on 2893 Lake Haven Drive. My husband refuses to leave the house and I’m afraid if he stays something bad is going to happen. No ma’am, I don’t think he’s dangerous. Yes ma’am. All right ma’am. Here he is.”

  She held the receiver out to her husband. His hand shook as he took it and placed it to his ear. He nodded each time he said Yes Ma’am. It took a minute, but finally he was done. Never once had they taken their gaze from each other and as the 911 Operator changed their lives.

  “I’ll be getting my things now.”

  He handed the receiver back to his wife and walked stiffly into the bedroom.

  * * *

  Danny sat hunched in the murky shadows at the bottom of the stairs, arms tightly gripping his knees, rocking back and forth to the private rhythm of his sobs. The house was quiet now. His mother was on the back deck smoking. He could imagine her there in the darkness, the hot fiery tip of her cigarette like a firefly in the night, hovering and unattached.

  The police had come and gone, their siren shattering the night. There was something about a siren when you know it’s coming to your own home. Suddenly the sound didn’t seem as interesting as the other times. Policemen didn’t seem as cool, either, especially when they tell your father that he has to leave.

  * * *

  Paradise Valley, Arizona

  The darkness was all consuming like the nights he remembered when he’d been a child. He closed his eyes so tightly they hurt, the pain curling his lip until it trembled. But that’s what he wanted—the pain. So he kept squeezing, waiting for it to peak, then, when it was almost enough to make him cry out, he snapped open his eyes. It was a trick he’d learned that allowed him to create sparkling motes of light that swirled in his vision. But these lights, nothing more than conjured Will O’ Wisps, existed solely within him. They weren’t bright enough to lighten the darkness.

  So instead of begging for the light, instead of trying to create his own light by closing tight his eyes, instead of kneeling with his nose under the door hoping they’d forget and leave the hallway light on, he stayed quiet and still, just as she’d told him to be because he was a good little boy.

  He was his momma’s boy.

  He remembered a time when he’d been afraid of the darkness. A time where he was childish and imagined things with fangs and claws forever sneaking up behind him. His momma had explained it was the unknown he’d been afraid of, so she’d allowed him to see his room that one single time. She allowed him to knock against the walls to feel their sturdiness. She wanted him to know there was no way for the monsters to get to him. She explained to him that knowing he was protected was important.

  For there are such things as monsters, she’d said. And they were after him.

  Momma had explained that it was the walls and the locks upon the door that kept the monsters at bay—that kept him alive. She was a good momma to do what she did and she explained that to him as well. After all, there were mommas who went to work and left their children unprotected. They left doors unlocked. They left their children alone. They even had windows where the monsters could slip through. That’s why momma explained she didn’t allow him to have any windows.

  Windows were bad.

  And after he’d been allowed to touch the walls and after she’d explained to him what a good momma she was, he’d returned to his bed, watched as she’d unscrewed the light bulb, listened as she locked the door in three places and waited for the other door at the end of the short hallway to close him in.

  Noise attracted the monsters, his momma would say. You must be quiet or else they’ll get you. You mustn’t even speak. After all, monsters have very good ears.

  So to pass the time he’d bury his face into his pillow and invent friends to play with. His imagination, not clouded with images of modern culture, was a fertile world from which to create. Sometimes he’d invent children to play with. Sometimes they’d arrive unbidden and fully formed wanting to play. And then sometimes he’d be so busy playing in the great wide fields of his mind that he’d forget to breathe and pass out as the pillow smothered him.

  * * *

  Ooltewah, Tennessee

  Maxom soared through the trees, his scavenger’s body shifting, lifting on the forest vapors, each minute movement of his wings sending him over and around the hardwood. Insects and small animals retreated from his shadow as he cawed his jubilation. A squirrel danced along a treetop and chattered to him as he passed, his avian mind translating the rodent’s concern and confusion. Somehow the animals knew. Whether they felt Maxom’s presence or it was the erratic flying, he didn’t know. All he cared was that he was allowed to fly, because it was only as a bird that he felt truly free.

  Below him the boys played, laughing and leaping over fallen logs far below among the fern stands of the forest floor. The one named Eddie was in the lead, followed by Danny, their legs pistoning, elbows searching for purchase as they raced to their rocks. The afternoon had been splendid. The boys had spent hours at the lake playing games, sliding through the cool liquid as if they were made for it, challenging the fish for prominence beneath the green swells of water.

  When they’d finally become so tired they could no longer stay afloat they’d abandoned their play, and taken to the air, leaping by turn from the tall, rusted lifeguard chair. As they flung their bodies skyward, Maxom couldn’t help but be inspired by their fearlessness, envying their suburban innocence. Each boy spun at the apex of his jump, thrusting his leg out in awkward comical versions of kung fu movie stars. Bruce Lee noises shot from their mouths, cartoon multi-octave parodies of the lamented Asian great.

  Maxom had first seen one of the kung fu movies during his initial stay at the VA Hospital. A well-meaning young doctor had arrived one Saturday with an eight millimeter projector and a popcorn maker. The movie was titled Fists of Fury and showcased Bruce Lee’s true greatness as a master of the martial arts. There were two things Maxom remembered about that movie. One was the promise that Bruce’s character had made to his sister and the other was that the movie had made him cry.

  Almost from the minute the movie started, Maxom and the other truncated men in the ward were reminded of their losses as they witnessed young and old men, women and children cavorting upon the screen with spinning arms and legs in fantastical salutations to the elasticity of the human form. It seemed as if the whole world were multi-limbed acrobats whose entire lives were dedicated to the defiance of gravity.

  And it was with each kick and spinning backfist that Maxom and the others vets in the ward were reminded of their essential lacking, reminded of the impossibility of their lives, and of how they’d never be able to dance upon the wind or on the floor. The movie was halfway over before an ashen-faced young doctor turned it off and slunk away, leaving the sobs and tears of the broken men in the care of orderlies who had better things to do on a Saturday night than wipe noses and empty bedpans.

  Several years later, Maxom finally braved the movie again. By then he was firmly entrenched in his non-lifestyle and was mostly unaffected by the martial artist. He allowed himself to be carried away by the plot. The idea of the promise intrigued him. In some small way he respected the character for not fighting, for remaining aloof, and turning the other cheek. It wasn’t unt
il the necklace that Bruce Lee wore was ripped off during a fight that the greatest martial warrior of the silver screen unleashed his superior violence upon the movie extras. And to the choreographed amazement of all the bad men, Bruce, the former coward, opened a can of Asian whoop-ass still unmatched in the annals of all kung fu moviedom.

  Maxom grinned at the memory. He’d since bought the movie and watched it more than a hundred times. He was okay with the vicarious ass-kicking, but then there was the promise. Sometimes Maxom wished he could take over a human as he had the bird. Maybe even a martial artist, or just a plain person, a normal person. Just so he could walk on two legs again, use two hands. Just so he could go out in public without being called Maggot Man. It would be too easy. After all, he knew how.

  But that would never happen, could never happen. Maxom had made a promise to the old Mung to never interfere in the lives of humans, to never insinuate himself into the mind of a person. Animals were different. Their lives were ruled by instinct, not thought.

  Maxom glanced down from his perch, snapped a beetle from the branch, and watched the boys play cards among their rocks, their lives seeming so casual.

  * * *

  Sierra Vista, Arizona

  Simon pulled the Lincoln station wagon into the crowded parking lot of the Safeway. Slipping into the handicapped slot nearest the sliding double doors, he listened to the ticking of the idling engine as he fought the urge to stay in the cool confines of the interior.

  He surveyed the front of the grocery store, searching for some of his new pet projects. They never ceased to amaze him. For such a small desert town, the number of homeless seemed way out of proportion. He’d heard it was a normal thing, but other than Washington D.C., he’d never seen so many. The locals called them Dirty Birds, a nasty name mutated from the more familiar tag of Snow Birds given to Northerners who came to the Desert for the easy winters.