Sightings

by B. J. Hollars

“Well, that’s how it should’ve happened. Most historians chalked it up as a loss for the good guys, but most of those historians are piss poor Northerners anyway so you kind of have to take what they say with a grain of . . .”

  “Dad,” Junior squinted, picking dirt from beneath his nails. “Did we really win any of those battles?”

  “Well, sure! Ever hear of a little something called The Battle of Chickamauga? Fort Pillow? Paducah and Petersburg? And then you got your Battle of Poison Spring, of course . . .”

  “So why didn’t we win the war?”

  “Christ, don’t they teach you anything in school?”

  He shrugged.

  The Confederate brushed the dirt from his pants and began pacing.

  “It’s like this,” he sighed, motioning with his hands. “The winners and losers all depend on who the hell’s telling the story. Make sense?”

  Shrugging, Junior stood, then moved toward the kitchen to refill his glass with Gatorade. Along the way, his foot clipped the WELCOME mat and “Dixie” began humming throughout the yard.

  “And just wait till your mother wraps up work on her time machine,” The Confederate called after him. “Then we’ll see who won.”

  As the summer wound down – after their talk beneath the shady oak – The Confederate found his son’s zeal for southern independence beginning to wane.

  “Want to drill?” he’d ask, and by mid-September, Junior’s shrugs had turned into no’s.

  “Well why the hell not?”

  “Homework,” he’d explain. “Ms. Henson’s sort of a bear about it.”

  The Confederate tried hard not to take the rebuffs personally. Homework was important, after all. Occasionally, he’d catch Lynda nodding at Junior’s response, as if approving his responsible decision.

  “You don’t have to encourage him, you know,” he told her one night in bed.

  “Encourage him to do what?”

  “Not to drill with me.”

  Lynda’s eyes were closed, her hands on the cool side of the pillow.

  “Honey, I just think that maybe your . . . reverence for the past hasn’t quite rubbed him the same way.”

  “Sometimes I don’t think it’s rubbed him at all.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “Cuz he figures we’re a bunch of stuffy-britches-wearing losers.”

  “Why would he think that?”

  “Well, because the britches are stuffy, for one. Plus, he thinks all we ever do is lose battles.”

  “Well, the Confederacy did lose quite a few . . .”

  “We,” he pressed, rocking her shoulder, “we lost quite a few, Lynda.”

  “I didn’t lose anything.”

  The Confederate changed the subject.

  “Anything new with the time machine?”

  “A bit.”

  “Anything I’d understand?” She shrugged.

  “That’s okay,” he nodded, tucking himself beneath the covers and flicking off the light. “Just don’t forget to carry the one, huh?”

  He kissed her cheek, and they turned quiet together.

  A moment later, he broke the silence.

  “But it’s going to work, right?” he asked. “I mean, one of these days.”

  “Sure, Charlie, one of these days.”

  “And it’s going to show us a bright future?”

  She paused, turning to face the window.

  “If I can get there first.”

  That night, The Confederate dreamed of bugles and drum lines and an entire cavalry of sneering, dust-clouded warhorses. The men atop them were painted gray, swords drawn, glistening. One of them, a ghost soldier, cantered away from the others, pulling his reins just inches from The Confederate’s dreaming face.

  “What . . . what do you want?” The Confederate mumbled in his sleep.

  The ghost soldier cleared his throat and then, quite robustly, broke into song:

  O, I wish I was in Dixie!

  Hooray! Hooray!

  In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand,

  To Live and Die in Dixie!

  He saluted – trotting off into somebody else’s dream – and in the morning, when The Confederate woke, he found himself humming the tune.

  After breakfast, father and son went into the woods just like father and son. There were no Confederates – no army grays or C.S.A. buckles or anything.

  “It’s kind of nice,” Junior admitted, revisiting a familiar complaint, “not having to wear those stuffy, old uniforms. It’s a lot cooler without the britches.”

  The Confederate stayed silent, staring down at his chicken legs lost in his rarely worn cargo shorts.

  All around them, the woods were alive with animals. Already, they’d spotted two white-tailed deer and a fox, and each time, instinctually, The Confederate lifted his arms as if attempting to fire a gun he wasn’t holding.

  “Affix bayonet?” Junior joked, and they shared a good laugh from the old days.

  That morning, they viewed nature in a different way – something to treasure, something worth preserving. They even paid notice to the mockingbirds and irises that followed them along their path. The Confederate identified all that he could – coralberry, bluebells, Virginia willows – and much to his surprise, Junior seemed enraptured by his knowledge.

  “So can you just plant them anywhere?” he asked of the wood sunflower, to which his father replied, “Well, they tend to flourish best in damp climates. Need a helluva lot of rain and sun to make it much past August . . .”

  In the dead of September, most of the flowers had already sunk their heavy heads. But The Confederate and Junior paid closest attention to the few that remained, brushing their fingertips atop the petals as if renewing them with life.

  “Noodling?” Junior suggested upon reaching the river. The Confederate was only too happy to oblige.

  Several weeks had passed since their last attempt, and while Junior had yet to receive so much as a nibble, The Confederate had felt the sinking teeth dig into his flesh on more than a few occasions.

  The Confederate lay belly down along the bank and rolled up his sleeve.

  “Shall we?”

  Junior smiled, matching his father’s motions.

  They lay there, their backs warming in sunlight, the trees gathering shadows and cooling them in the dark, dappled patches of skin.

  As they noodled, they discussed Ms. Henson’s insistence on weekly vocabulary tests, how she deemed reading, writing, and mathematics far more important than social studies.

  “But social studies is the key to everything!” The Confederate argued. “Jesus Christ! Who in their right mind would choose, actually choose, to gloss over the events that made our country what it is today? Take the War of Northern Aggression, for instance . . .”

  “I know! That’s what I told her!” Junior argued, “But she said . . .”

  In mid-sentence, the fish rose up and latched onto Junior’s arm. Junior screamed, helpless, as the gigantic golden-flecked beast dragged the boy into the river, down the river, and within moments, beneath the river, too.

  “Son!” The Confederate called, jumping to his feet. “Junior!”

  He dove into the cool current, eyes wide.

  But ten minutes later, his frantic searching yielded little: driftwood, a rusted bobber, some tangled fishing line. And twenty minutes later, when he discovered his son’s weed-wrapped body clinging to the shore – bite marks beyond the elbow – the search abruptly ended. Junior’s t-shirt ballooned the way his lungs wouldn’t, his shorts stuck tight to his knees.

  The Confederate called for help. Only his echo called back.

  They buried what they couldn’t bring back. Buried him deep, in a coffin, in the ground, in the cemetery.

  To the outside world, their grief appeared surprisingly shortlived: the result of propelling themselves headlong into their respective professional lives. Lynda’s time travel productivity increased two-fold, and when The Confederate woke in the morning,
he found the bed empty and cooling beside him. And at the end of the day, after brushing his teeth and returning once more to the bed, still, her space retained the empty shape she left him.

  Almost nightly, he heard her clomping up the stairs – sometimes in the purple dawn of the morning – her face red, her hair clumped and matted.

  Her hands were often stained chalk white from calculations, and when he asked about her findings, she’d pinch the top of her nose and close her eyes tight and say she had a terrible headache.

  “What smells like burning?” he once asked and was surprised by her reply.

  “My mind is.”

  Some nights they slept, some nights they didn’t, but each morning he’d wake to find her missing. And twenty minutes later, after coffee and toast and a goodbye shout into the basement, he too returned to work. All day long, The Confederate damned the present and prayed for the past, but always, he kept his grief silent. There was simply no time for it.

  After all, there were always dying flowers to unearth, always weeds in need of uprooting.

  The recurring dreams were too much for him. Too many gray horsemen. Too many bridles. Too many metal bits worked between the teeth of the horses’ uncooperative mouths.

  Always, he’d wake humming the same damn song, until eventually, even sleep became a luxury he could no longer seem to afford.

  So instead of sleep, he drilled.

  He drilled in the backyard in the nighttime. Drilled by the riverbed. Drilled by the trees. He drilled, kicking his feet and snapping his shoulders back, his movements amplified in shadow. Some nights, when he was brash and sleep-deprived, he stopped drilling long enough to plunge his arm into the icy heart of the river. Revenge was a word he understood and a concept he fully embraced. While the golden-flecked fish never returned – never dared a larger meal – it didn’t stop The Confederate from trying.

  “Come on, Yankee scum,” he baited, “why doncha give this arm a try?”

  The Confederate, a good soldier himself, remained steadfast and determined. And when the river offered nothing, he had no choice but to return once more to the yard, to the oak that had long since stopped growing, to the grass in need of a cut.

  When he drilled, he drilled only in his finest confederate attire – his brass buttoned grays, dark britches, the cast iron belt buckle with the C.S.A. insignia. A sword dangled from his left hip, and he carried a rusted rifle.

  “Slow march,” he huffed to himself. “Slow march.” And then, when he quickened his pace: “Quick march, soldier, quick march!”

  The sweat, even in the cool dew of midnight, drizzled down his forehead. He shuddered from the cold, from the heat, and, as he continued his drills night after night, he began to notice the way the trees lost their leaves only in the darkest hours when he alone bore witness.

  “To the front!” he demanded.

  “Change step!”

  “About face!”

  The gun felt light in his hand, and the sword, weightless.

  One night in mid-October, when Lynda saw him there, marching in moonlight, she stayed quiet. From the screen door, she watched as he ordered, “Mark time! Mark time!” again and again, his knees kicking up from the ground.

  “Mark time! Mark time! Mark time, goddamn you!”

  “Charlie,” she whispered, slipping out the screen door. “Honey, I think time is marked.” Oblivious, she stepped on the WELCOME mat, restarting the tune from his dream.

  She leapt forward, but the song repeated, electronic music blips drifting from the mat.

  “Honey . . .” she repeated, moving toward him.

  “Mark time! Mark time! Soldier, mark time!” he called, overpowering “Dixie,” searching once more for his gait beyond the music.

  “Darling . . .”

  “Mark time! About face! Mark time!”

  “Shhh . . . just stop, soldier. Just halt. Please.”

  The WELCOME mat turned quiet and so did he.

  She put her hands to his grays and said, “It’s time for you to just stop now.”

  He peered into the woods.

  “You know,” she began, picking the lint from his jacket, “you look pretty heroic in uniform.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Are you cold?”

  He shook his head no.

  “Want me to top off the canteen?”

  He held up a finger, then tilted his ear to the wind.

  “You hear that? The Yankees are coming.”

  “No, they’re all gone now. You know that.”

  He dropped his hand to his side, turned to her.

  “How’s your work? Are we there yet?”

  “Getting there.”

  “Well, march quick, soldier,” he begged. “Please march quicker.”

  “I’m trying, Charlie.”

  He reached for his canteen and drew deep from the metal container, wiping his face with his forearm.

  “How long, you think, till it’s finished?”

  She stared at him, his hands quivering against his sword.

  She could not give him the answer he deserved, the one he’d been waiting for.

  “Well, soldier,” she said, looking down at his boots, “how far are you willing to march?”

  Loose Lips Sink Ships

  I asked the Eskimo if he’d ever seen a vagina before.

  “Because I can show you,” I whispered.

  Albert Huffman, a recent arrival to Fort Wayne via Alaska, was not, in fact, an Eskimo, though I would not learn this until dinner.

  “Well? You wanna see it or not?” I asked, tapping my foot. I checked my watch. It was sixth grade recess. Mr. Kenning would blow the whistle any minute now. This vagina wouldn’t wait around forever.

  He mumbled an okay, so I motioned for him to “step into my office, soldier,” and he followed me inside the bush beside the slide. The branches hid us pretty well, dousing us in half-light, and we sat on mulch chips with our legs crossed like a couple of Indians. For a moment, the whole world smelled like pine trees.

  “Now, I’m not sure what you Eskimos have in the way of vagina,” I began, “but here in the U.S., it looks like this.” He waited, and I clapped my hands together and then split my paired hands in a V like Spock. I told him to do the same. I tilted my hands sideways and shoved my V into his V. Then, I told him to open up his palms and take a gander. He moved back some, peering in at the shadowed hole we’d created.

  “Pretty sexy, huh?”

  Albert waited a moment, then closed his palms.

  “I guess I really don’t see it.”

  “Whatdya mean you don’t see it? Whatdya think it’s supposed to look like?”

  “Well, I guess I just expected . . . more,” he shrugged, readjusting his shorts. “Since people are always talking about it and stuff.”

  “More like how, Albert?”

  “I don’t know . . . shinier, maybe. Or sparkly.”

  “Sparkly!” I laughed. “A sparkly vagina? Oh that’s rich! You Eskimos are as dumb as rocks. Did you know that?” I crouched to crawl out of the bush.

  “Alaska’s part of the United States,” he informed me, picking at a root.

  “You talking to me, Eskimo?”

  “You said,” he explained, glancing up, “that vagina in the U.S. might look different than other vagina, like the kind in Alaska. But Alaska’s part of the U.S., too.”

  “Well of course it is,” I groaned. “Jesus H. Christ.”

  When Kenning blew the whistle, I told the kid to follow me. It was lunchtime, and I informed him that there wasn’t any whale blubber for miles, and if he wanted to learn to eat the hot lunch and be normal like me, then he’d better stick close. I’d show him the way to the meatloaf.

  “I packed my own lunch,” he said, holding up a dripping brown bag. “See?”

  “Yeah, I see, alright,” I rolled my eyes. “But trust me, kid, that whale blubber’s not gonna last forever.”

  And then, later that night, I discovere
d the difference between Eskimos and Alaskans. And also, that his dad was my dad’s boss.

  “You mean to tell me that an Eskimo makes a better leg than you?” I questioned.

  Dad manufactures parts for handicapped people. Mostly shins and knees – pretty much anything from the thigh down. Since he works there, we got a pretty good discount on Mom’s leg, “quite a perk,” according to Dad.

  Our Eskimo conversation took place at dinner, as Dad fumbled with his hotdog.

  “Jackson, you have to understand that being the boss isn’t just about who makes the best leg,” he explained. “Mr. Huffman has more managerial experience. That’s why they shipped him down here. And for the record, bucko,” he added, “not all people from Alaska are Eskimos.”

  I laughed like he was joking, but then he got out the encyclopedia to prove it. I stared at a picture of a non-Eskimo Alaskan family pumping gas into a truck.

  “Well, whatever your boss is,” I grumbled, slamming the book, “his son’s sort of a dud.”

  “What do you mean?” Dad asked, but I said I wasn’t sure. Did he want me to say that stupid Albert didn’t even know what a vagina looked like?

  “Well you should be nice to him anyway,” Mom said. “Since your father works with his father. Try to make him feel welcome.”

  “Oh, I’ll make him feel welcome, all right,” I chuckled, pressing the tips of my fingers together like an evil villain.

  Dad pointed a fork at me.

  “Hey. You better, pal.”

  Grinning, I pointed a fork back.

  Dad and I ate Mom’s cooked carrots until we felt like barfing. We didn’t tell her that. We just smiled, and I said, “Mmmm,” and “Now that’s how you cook a carrot!” over and over again until Dad told me I was laying it on a little thick.

  “Honey,” Mom said to Dad midway through the meal. “You mind taking a look at the leg later? It feels a little strange.”

  “Strange how?”

  She tapped it beneath the table. “Well, I’m not sure exactly. A little off. Hollow, almost.” She was talking about her fake leg; the one God gave her after He took away the real one in a car accident back when I was just some stupid third grader.

  “After dinner,” he agreed, smiling, forking a carrot.