Sightings

by B. J. Hollars

  “No rush,” Mom said, lumbering into the living room, collapsing on the couch. “We’re not going anywhere.”

  From our place at the table, Dad and I could hear the TV blaring, all those cowboy bullets zinging past one another. A few more bites, then Dad put down his fork.

  “All right. Better go check on that leg,” he said, nodding to me like a doctor on his way to surgery. I saluted as my father moved to the living room, then peeked around the corner to watch him bend to my mother’s leg, run his hands up and down the wooden shaft. From where I stood, it looked sort of stupid, like he was trying to shine a baseball bat or polish a rifle. But after awhile it started looking less stupid, like maybe he was just trying to push a little life into a dead thing.

  In science class the next day, Mr. Kenning announced that we were going to learn about the wonderful world of electricity.

  “Boooring,” I moaned, giving it two thumbs way down.

  “Jackson, would you care to explain to the class just how electricity works?” Kenning asked.

  “I thought you’d never ask,” I said, cracking my knuckles and scooting back my chair to stand. “You see, you flick a switch, and then the light bulbs start to buzz. Thank you for your attention.”

  I bowed and threw kisses to the class.

  “Nope. Care to try again?”

  “Magic?” I guessed, taking my seat.

  “Closer,” he said as he began scribbling on the chalkboard, “only there are electrons involved, and conductors.”

  “Listen,” I said, leaning forward in my desk, beginning the speech my father taught me. “You can put glasses on a pig, but it’s still gonna be a pig, only it’ll look smarter.”

  Nobody knew quite what to say to that, not even Mr. Kenning, who turned around and adjusted his own glasses as he stared at me as if trying to solve a riddle. I leaned back in my desk, arms crossed, then winked at Albert’s dumb Eskimo face.

  At recess, when I asked Albert if he wanted to try again with the vagina, he said sure, that we might as well give it a shot.

  “Until we get it right,” I demanded, leading him back inside the bush, “because practice always makes perfect. You read me?”

  We rammed our V’d hands together and took turns peering in. He peeked first, staring endlessly into a cave of darkness and mystery.

  “Quit hogging, my turn,” I said, then flipped our hands and investigated further, nodding. “Yup, there she is. Clear as day. Pretty as a peach.”

  He squinted at me.

  “How do you know that’s what they even look like?” Albert whispered.

  “Because that’s what the guys on the bus say,” I explained, exasperated. “Jesus H. Christ.” I slammed my hands down. “You just . . . you have to trust me on this one. You have to.”

  He said okay, he would.

  “Really? You trust me?”

  He shrugged.

  “Like . . . you’d trust me with your life?” He said maybe.

  “Well, maybe I’ll show you something else then,” I said. “You’re absolutely positively sure I can trust you?”

  He nodded.

  I eyed him.

  “Because loose lips sink ships, you know that?”

  “What ships?” he asked, glancing behind him. “Indiana’s landlocked.”

  I sighed, stood up from those bushes and shrugged my shoulders. I looked to Mr. Kenning who was scanning the playground from just a few feet away.

  “This one doesn’t know the first thing about World War II propaganda,” I explained to the teacher, pointing to the bush. “Why don’t we ever learn anything useful in science, like U-boats?”

  Albert said his parents always came home from work kind of late, and that it was okay if he got off the bus with me, as long as my parents didn’t mind.

  “Mind? Are you kidding?” I said. “Your dad could fire my dad. You think they’re going to say no?”

  For the entire bus ride home, I lectured him on Nazi Germany and American propaganda, though sometimes we took breaks to listen to what the older guys had to say about girls – all things I pretty much already knew.

  “Man, I would have done three kinds of nasty with Leslie if it hadn’t been for . . . well, you know,” a pimply one grinned to the others.

  I jumped up, swiveled my head to face them.

  “You mean the period, right? The period stopped you.”

  They laughed, then told me that little sixth graders shouldn’t be so concerned with periods. “But you’re talking about Leslie, right?” I said, even though I didn’t know any Leslie. I turned back around, then crouched low in the seat. I leaned over to Albert.

  “See? I told you I know this stuff.”

  When we reached our stop, we dropped our book bags over by the rain gutter, and I told him that if he was going to help me build this fort, then he had to keep the location secret from everyone else at school.

  “I don’t know how things worked back in Alaska, but it’s not like I would go around telling everyone about your secret igloo or whatever,” I explained. “So it’s the same here.” He groaned, asked me to knock it off with the Eskimo stuff. I grinned at him, snapping my teeth for no reason.

  “So? Where’s the fort?” he asked.

  I turned, wiped the smile away, then asked if he was blind.

  “No.”

  “Well do you need glasses or something? Because maybe we can get you some glasses . . .”

  There, in the woods behind my house, was a perfectly obvious pile of sticks that I’d fashioned into a fort. Maybe it wasn’t much to look at just yet, but at least all the materials were there. I figured we could put something together that would be fireproof at the least, and at most, Nazi-proof.

  We dragged some tools from the shed and started chopping and hacking at things. This was sort of my specialty.

  “No, no, you’re doing it all wrong. You got to chop like this,” I explained, splitting some sticks in two with the dull axe blade. “You really have to swing it like you hate it. Show me how much you hate it, Albert.”

  Albert must’ve hated it pretty badly because by a quarter after five, we’d already split most of the sticks and managed a good foundation.

  “This is the best part, though,” I said, unzipping my pants and pissing into a foot-tall hollowed-out log. “Albert, meet our toilet.”

  Albert wanted to try, so after I finished, he peed all over the toilet log, spraying a generous coat of urine on the bark and the leaves.

  “Pretty bad aim,” I announced, glancing at the wet wood. “Guess you’re no sharp shooter, huh, soldier?”

  “My parents don’t usually let me pee outdoors,” he admitted.

  “Oh, I get it,” I said. “Because back in Alaska your wiener would probably freeze off.”

  He said probably.

  “Tell me about it,” I agreed, returning to my axe. “You’re preaching to the choir on that one.”

  After we put the tools away and shuffled back inside, Mom introduced herself, and when Albert glanced down at her leg she joked, “My husband says it’s always best to try out your own product.” Albert stared at her like she was a robot, and I reminded him that it was just a leg and that it was nothing compared to what the Nazis did back in World War II.

  Mom changed the subject, asking what we were doing out there in the woods. I glanced at Albert and reminded him to keep his lips tight.

  “We were . . . deer hunting,” I said, then corrected. “No wait, duck hunting.”

  Ducks seemed more likely than deer.

  “Any luck?” Mom asked, reaching for the remote.

  “Naw,” I said, “they’re all really good hiders. Deer and ducks both. Okay, well, Albert has to use the bathroom before he pees his pants again,” I explained, hoping he wouldn’t crack under my mother’s intense questioning. “See ya!”

  “Nice meeting you, Albert,” she called.

  In the front drive, we shot some baskets until his dad came to pick him up. He wasn’t a ver
y good shot, but I tried to be sensitive about it, figuring he probably had to shoot baskets with snowballs back in Alaska.

  “Remember,” I said as his father’s car slowed. “Just because you’re helping me build the fort doesn’t mean you can go blabbing about it.”

  He said he knew, that I didn’t have to remind him every five seconds.

  “Well I’m counting on you, soldier,” I said, giving him a salute. He waved, and as his dad rolled down the window I said, “Hey mister, my mom thinks you make a pretty great leg.” Then I waved and smiled until my face nearly split.

  I wondered if they made fake faces, too.

  That night, after Mom and Dad interrogated me further about what we were doing in the woods, I grabbed some blank paper and watercolors and painted a picture entitled “Mesopotamia.” Basically, it was just a lot of brown huts next to one another and a purple dragon flying overhead.

  “Why ‘Mesopotamia’?” Albert asked the following day when I showed him my masterpiece.

  “You don’t know the first thing about Mesopotamia, do you?” I asked. “Jesus!”

  He shrugged and then walked off.

  It was recess again, but we didn’t make vaginas. Instead, he played soccer with some of the other guys, while a pack of loud, snarling girls clapped and cheered and told them that they had good ball control.

  Jessica Meyers, the most annoying of all, could whistle really loud by slipping two fat fingers into her mouth and kind of jerking her neck like she was choking. She was the girl who always raised her hand in class to point out something like, “Um . . . Mr. Kenning, did you know that ninety percent of the world is covered with water?” to which he would reply, “No, stupid, it’s actually closer to seventy percent.”

  I’m paraphrasing.

  Probably, I would have given in and played soccer, too, if it wasn’t for “Mesopotamia.” But I wanted to keep it safe, and there was no way I could trust one of those spectator girls to keep an eye on it while I scored all the goals. Probably, their hand sweat would ruin the paper and smear the dragon, too.

  So I rolled it up and wandered up and down the sidewalk, watching as some ants crawled back and forth from the grass to a little dirt mound by the baseball field. I wondered what they looked like under a magnifying glass, but I didn’t want to risk it in case I fried them, and also, I’d left mine at home.

  After a few minutes of ant observation, I went back to watching the soccer game because I didn’t really care about those stupid ants anyway. Instead, I cared about how those idiot boys stumbled over the ball and rolled their ankles and limped around like they’d just taken a bullet from a Nazi storm trooper. I made it my policy never to play with boys like that – the kind who didn’t know anything. They made for the worst soldiers.

  Albert was bigger than the others, and after he scored a goal – after all those dumb girls stood up and cheered for him like he was the coolest thing since alternating current – I stood to leave, waving goodbye to my ant friends, leaving them to crawl and die in Albert’s dust.

  Mom’s leg did not grow back. This was a misconception I had about the healing process back when I was some moron kid. For some reason, I was under the impression that maybe legs could grow back the way skin did. Just give it enough time to scab over and sure enough, inch by inch . . .

  Dad straightened me out pretty quickly. I remember him crying while Mom was still in the hospital, and when I told him not to worry, that surely it’d grow back, he kissed me and said it was a beautiful thought, but it was wrong to believe in miracles.

  “But it’s called Miracle-Gro for crying out loud!”

  He said that was just for plants.

  I never did understand the prosthetic completely. She didn’t sleep with it, and some nights, I’d peer in their darkened bedroom just to see its shadow loom against the wall like a sentinel.

  Once, on TBS, they were playing The Christmas Story, and when they showed that leg lamp, I turned to Mom, tapped her own leg, and said, “Hey, probably, it’d make for a pretty good lamp, huh?” She and Dad both thought this very cute at the time. Only it became less cute when, on Christmas morning, I put a shade over the top and placed it in the living room under the tree. Dad had to carry Mom in just to see it. Turned out I was the only one laughing.

  When Albert and I returned to our fort a few days later, I told him he was kind of like a prosthetic himself.

  “You know, like you’re good to have around,” I admitted, “but it’s not like I’d die without you.”

  “Okaaaaaaaay,” he said, drawing the word out for an entire breath. “I get it.”

  I looked over, then told him he’d have to stack the wood tighter, that if we wanted to stretch ripped trash bags over the top for a roof, then we’d need to get serious with the walls. And we needed to get serious to keep the rainwater out, too, which was a necessity since I’d decided to display “Mesopotamia” in the fort. I’d placed it in a temporary safe spot beside the toilet log.

  “So what’s with you playing soccer lately?” I asked, my tongue dangling from my mouth as I returned to digging the booby trap hole just beyond the entrance. “I thought you and me could hang out in that bush some more. Keep practicing until you get it right.”

  He restacked the sticks and pressed them tight like I told him, then wound some old kite string around them to hold everything steady.

  “Soccer’s more fun,” he explained. “Especially scoring goals. No offense, but all that vagina stuff was getting kind of weird and boring.”

  What would the guys in the back of the bus think if I told them that? If I said, “Hey guys, this Eskimo over here thinks vaginas are weird and boring.” Probably, we’d all have a good laugh, and then maybe we’d shove Albert’s head into his crotch until he admitted he’d made a terrible mistake, that they were the farthest thing from weird or boring, more like normal and exciting.

  The woods were quiet then, and peaceful, and I dug that hole until it was about three feet deep, and then I picked some thorns. I filled the hole with a layer of thorns, and I covered it with leaves. I’d pricked myself a few times, sure, but it felt good to know exactly what trespassers had coming to them.

  “Now don’t forget to step to the side,” I warned, dabbing a foot gently on the leaf-covered trap. “And don’t go telling anyone about this or else it’s useless. Loose lips sink . . .”

  “Shit!” Albert cried.

  “Um . . . no, it’s actually ships,” I explained, “with a -p.”

  Then I looked a bit closer to notice that he’d gotten his finger stuck between some logs, so I figured maybe he’d meant what he said.

  Since he was from Alaska, I doubted Albert was the crying type. Probably, he’d killed polar bears after school when nothing good was on television. So when I saw him curled up on the forest floor rocking like a baby, I put the shovel down and leaned over him, expecting the worst – a severed hand.

  “I’m a doctor, let me see,” I ordered, shoving one hand away from the other. I knelt on the ground beside him, my knees in the dirt, and I spread his fingers apart to examine each one individually. I held my grip on the ring finger.

  “It’s this one, isn’t it?” I guessed, touching the crooked, bloated one. He nodded, winced, peered out over the tree limbs to avoid looking at it. “Yup, just as I suspected,” I sighed.

  I extended the finger and a humming sound came from his throat, kind of like the water heater in the hallway closet.

  “Okay, let me grab the shovel,” I offered, wiping the dirt from my palms. “I think we can cut it off and still save the hand.”

  “No,” he cried. “I’m fine, really.”

  But I was already back on my feet, walking toward the shovel.

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” I assured him, reaching for the wooden handle. “One of our dads can get you a real good deal on a new one.”

  Turned out, a Band-Aid was sufficient. And some rubbing alcohol. And a squirt of Cortizone-10.

  “S
ee? I told you we could save the hand.”

  He thanked me and said I was a pretty good guy, especially since I hadn’t chopped off his hand.

  “Well I wanted to,” I began, “and I would have if it came to that.”

  He nodded.

  “Hey,” I said, pausing, “does this mean we can be friends at school tomorrow?”

  He said okay, if that’s what I wanted.

  It was, so I locked his hand in a tight grip to solidify our friendship, but that only made him scream all over again.

  Long story short, we were friends again. Allies. And for the whole next day, we walked around the playground together, and I showed him my ant friends, and he dabbed at them with his swollen finger

  “Sometimes I like to . . . kill ’em,” I lied, then surprise attacked a herd of them and just mashed down hard with my shoe. I wanted to show him I was serious, and that I’d do pretty much anything to make sure people feared me.

  “Geez, man,” he said, pulling his finger back, “you didn’t have to kill them.”

  “It was nothing,” I assured, wiping my shoe on the grass. “I swear.”

  Then stupid Jessica and some of her friends came over, and they all said hi. Every single one of them said hi. Like ten different people all saying hi. Like a machine gun.

  “Hi, hi, hi, hi, hi,” I said, and Albert offered a small wave.

  “Uh . . . can we help you with something?” I asked in a deep voice, flexing like a weightlifter. Jessica turned to Albert and handed him a note. Then, in a spray of ponytails the girls were gone, and I ran after them, clicking my tongue like how cowboys do to cattle.

  “Man, you never have a crossbow when you need one,” I sighed, then turned to Albert. “Sorry about them.”

  He uncrumpled the note.

  “What is it?” I asked. “She want to be your girlfriend or something?”

  He said yes, that’s what it was.

  “Well, trust me,” I explained, V-ing my hands. “A guy like you can do better.”

  That night, Mom and I were watching television when I realized I’d forgotten all about “Mesopotamia.” I’d left it in the woods the day Albert nearly lost his finger.