by Francis CoCo
Chapter 10
The three of us were in Max’s New Yorker, on our way to Deerhedge. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We’d had lunch at Diego’s Mexican restaurant and everyone was feeling pretty terrific. As we rode into Deerhedge we talked about various things- the radio was on and Max had it tuned to a seventies station. I had been a child in the seventies, born in 1978. I didn’t remember as much of the 70’s as I did the 80’s, which is where my crucial child development took place, but I did remember bits and pieces of it. Some people found it hard to believe that I could remember being a toddler but I did. I even had a very clear memory of sitting in my crib, at about nine months old, playing with a puzzle. It was one of those puzzles for babies- only four or five large, chunky pieces to the puzzle and each piece with a peg attached to pull it out or put it in place. There was a fireman, a policeman, a doctor. I guess I was about eight or nine months old then, and I can remember playing with it in my crib. I also have a very clear memory of falling out of that same crib at about that same time. It might have even been the same day. Mostly I remember my parent’s from that time. I guess because, when you’re a kid, you see your parents differently. They’re so huge- in your eyes. So, when I think of the seventies and early eighties, I think of them- most notably my father, in awful blue jean cutouts and boat shoes- and my mother – with her blonde winged hair and bell bottoms and her love of disco music and her Virginia Slim’s and her love of all things macrame. I remember my grandmother’s old trailer that sat just off the road – the lonely desolate road that would, by the mid 80’s be one of the busiest streets in our town once the enormous three level shopping mall was built there, but, was then, just an expanse of grass and dirt and trees. Queen, the band, is probably what I associate most with that time- with being a child in the late 70’s, early 80’s. I loved Queen. Positively died for Queen. Which is odd, I suppose, for a five year old girl. But, I had their record and the popular, We Are The Champions played constantly on the radio but, I loved the lesser known song, even more, Don’t Try Suicide, that was my favorite. I didn’t even know what suicide was but that song was tops, for me. I used to go around the house singing, Don’t try suicide, Nobody’s worth it, Don’t try suicide, Nobody cares, Don’t try suicide, You’re just gonna hate it … Nobody gives a dammmnnnn…. And then, while I was thinking about Freddy Mercury, another odd memory from my childhood flashed- me, sitting in my Doctor’s office at five- Dr. Lavecchia- He was my Pediatrician and I had horrible asthma. I remembered how he used to sit and smoke cigarettes in his office, while he was talking to my mother about me. Smoking in an office, with a patient who suffered from asthma! The irony! Ah, the 70’s and the early 80’s- smoking in offices, hospitals, restaurants, - my God, how things had changed.
So, we were on a drive, on a glorious, sunny day- listening to 70’s songs on the radio- Max driving- Angela up front beside him and me, in the back seat- thinking of Queen- thinking of my grandmother- who had passed a long time ago (when I was twelve) it was awful, but, I could hardly even remember her face anymore, when I thought about her. “Sailing” by Christopher Cross was playing. We were all quiet- listening as this song played on the car radio.
Well, it's not far down to paradise, at least it's not for me
And if the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility
Oh, the canvas can do miracles, just you wait and see.
Believe me.
I was looking out the window- at the trees and the hills and valleys and the farms and the cows grazing in the fields and then I realized that Angela was sniffling – I turned from the window and looked and saw that she was crying.
I leaned forward and put my hand on her shoulder, “What’s wrong?” I said as she wiped her eyes and kept her head down.
“Oh my God, Angela,” Max said, looking from the road to glance at her in the seat beside him, “why are you crying?”
She didn’t say anything for the longest time and Max and I didn’t say anything either- we just let her cry for a minute and then, again, I asked her why she was crying.
She wiped at her face and glanced back at me, “I called my dad,” she said, “I found him.”
“You did? Did you speak to him?”
“No,” she said flatly, “he’s dead.”
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I said, squeezing her shoulder.
“You didn’t know? When did he pass?” said Max. He was driving but at the same time, turning to look at her. He looked back to the road.
“My aunt, his sister, didn’t know either. I guess they also had had a falling out or something… and…”
She stopped talking and stared out the window.
“It’s okay,” I said, “I’m sorry.”
“I just can’t believe he didn’t call me. He’d had cancer- he’d been dying, it’s not like it happened suddenly- he’d been dying for two years- He had all that time to make it right,” she said quietly, so quiet I almost couldn’t make out what she was saying, “all this time he could have called me and at least… at least said goodbye – at least tried to fix things- but he didn’t. He didn’t even try to get in touch with me.”
Again, I told her how sorry I was. I wanted to tell her that maybe he was too embarrassed to call. Maybe he was ashamed of himself- scared of what she might say to him- but, I thought it best to not say anything and so I didn’t. We rode the rest of the way in silence and I didn’t think she was going to say anything else about it, but just as we pulled up to the curb and parked, outside a record store in Deerhedge and Max killed the engine, Angela looked back at me and said, “He had bone cancer. He was dying and he knew it. He could have picked up the phone but he didn’t. So, you know what? I’m glad he’s dead. At least now, when I wake up in the mornings, I won’t think about him anymore. At least now, when I wake up- instead of thinking that he’s out there ignoring my existence- at least now, when I think of him, I’ll know that he’s dead. That he’s not out there at all. He’s nowhere, anymore.”
She got out and slammed the door and I sat, looking at her- at the side of her face- which, strangely, looked relaxed - almost relieved - and I realized that she meant what she said. And for her sake, I was glad he’d died, too. I hoped his death gave her peace. I hoped that he would, at least, be able to give her that. I felt horrible for Angela but I didn’t feel horrible for her father. That was a fucked up thing to do to your child and that was a terrible thing he’d done to her. Good riddance, is how I felt as far as he was concerned.
_____
That night, we were all staying at Max’s house and at about three in the morning, I awoke to hear something crying, howling, outside. I was in the guest bedroom. Max and Angela were in his bedroom down the hall. They had this weird thing going- they slept together but there were absolutely no strings attached. They weren’t a couple, they stayed as much of friends as Max and I were, and yet, they slept together. And so, they were in his room and I was in the guest bedroom.
The cries got louder.
I sat up and turned on the lamp beside my bed and sat still and listened. It started again, loud, wailing so loud.
I was about to get out of bed and go wake Max but just then, he came bursting into my bedroom and turned on the overhead light.
“You hear it?” he said, “that’s him!”
“The dog?” I said, excitedly, “are you sure?”
I got out of bed and grabbed my robe from the back of the door and followed Max into the hallway where we met Angela. Max was wearing his red and white pin striped robe and he reached into his pocket and took out his pack of cigarettes.
“That’s the dog?” Angela said, looking up at Max. He took a few steps to stand at the small window at the end of the hallway and looked out. The hallway was dark, lit only by the crack of light coming through the guest bedroom door and the window. Max stuck a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. We all stood quiet, listening. Max had one hand on the small table in front of the window, leaning forward, the othe
r hand held his cigarette inches from his face. He was looking out the window and Angela and I were standing a few feet behind him. He quietly dragged on his cigarette and stared out the window and kept his eyes locked on the edge of the forest. We were all very quiet and stood very still.
After a minute, the cries began again. It was baying so loud- the entire neighborhood had to have heard it. Angela stood behind Max. She put her forehead against his back and closed her eyes and said, “Oh my God… what is that?”
Max stared out the window, he smoked and said nothing, he just stood listening. The ash from his cigarette fell onto the floor. I stood beside him and looked out. I didn’t see anything - just the line of trees that lined the back yard. The front of Max’s house sat facing the other homes in the neighborhood but the back of the house faced the edge of the forest and it was thick with trees.
I turned and looked at Max, “Are you sure that’s the dog?”
“I heard him baying a few nights ago just like this and I saw him, he came out of the woods.”
I turned back and stared at the edge of the forest. The trees were lit by the moonlight; white and dark. I was thinking maybe it was only a wild dog- possibly even, a rabid dog, even though Max never claimed to see it so much as growl. The way Max described it- the dog was menacing but he had never even claimed to see the dog showing teeth. He hadn’t said it snarled or growled or any of the things you would expect from a dog you were scared of. It had barked and the bark had seemed to upset him but I think more than anything, it was the dog himself. It was just the presence of it that scared him. And judging from the cries I was listening to, I couldn’t say I blamed him.
Just then, Hef, Max’s cat, came into the hallway. He got low to the ground and his ears went back and he started to growl- a low, guttural growl. Max looked over his shoulder and said, “Go back in the bedroom buddy, go back...” and then he turned back around to face the window.
When Max’s cigarette had burned down to nothing but the filter, he turned and walked into the bathroom that sat in the middle of the hallway and tossed the cigarette into the toilet. The toilet flushed and he came back out into the hall. Hef was still low to the ground with his ears back. He began to hiss at the window and Max scooped him up and carefully dropped him in the bedroom and shut the door. Hef continued to growl from behind the closed door.
Angela and I were still standing at the window. The cries had stopped and everything was silent. We stood there for almost ten minutes. There wasn’t a peep. I figured that whatever it was had gone away and I was about to turn and go back to bed but right then, something dark stepped out of the woods.
Angela gasped and took a step back away from the window. Max, still a few feet away, in the hall, said, “What is it? Do you see him?”
The dog was black and big- very big. In fact, at first, in the dark and just going by the size of him, he looked like a calf. His hair was mangy and matted, it almost looked like he had dreadlocks. He probably did have dreadlocks. I couldn’t even say what kind of dog he was, I guess you might say he was a mutt but I didn’t know of any mutt that got that big. The dog stared at me. A cold, hard stare and I knew what Max meant, when he said the face almost seemed human. I got it. It was the way it looked at you. It wasn’t normal. The dog stood just outside the line of trees, so still.
Max, quietly, took a few steps to stand beside me at the window. Angela had taken a few steps back and was standing in the middle of the hallway, right outside the bathroom door. Her arm was out and her her hand was pressed against the wall, almost as if she needed help standing.
Neither me or Max said a word, we just stared at this very black, very big and very menacing dog as he looked back at us like he could eat us alive. After a few minutes, the dog turned and walked back into the woods.
Chapter 11
“Paige, can you come to Max’s? And can you hurry?”
“Sure,” I said, talking low into the phone, “what’s up? Is anything the matter?”
“Just hurry and get over here,” Angela said and hung up. She’d called me on my cell. I was at the Shop n’ Save, picking up a few items. It was a Sunday. I glanced down into my red basket: Coffee, sugar, two Lean Cuisines. Shit. She’d said to hurry and the line (the only line as there was only one register open in the small grocery store) had five or six people in it already. The last two people in line had carts full of groceries.
“God-bless-it,” I mumbled, stepping away so no one could see me and sitting my basket down in the aisle. I didn’t have time to go and put everything back where it went. I laid my basket down on the ground and hurried out of the store.
When I got to Max’s house, Angela met me on the porch as I walked up.
“What’s going on?” I said. She grabbed me by the sleeve of my sweater and pulled me into the living room. Max was sitting on the ottoman, his head in his hands. He looked up.
“What’s going on?” I said again.
“Paige, Look at this, look!”
Angela held out a tiny piece of what looked like plastic. Very small, about the size of a pea- actually a bit smaller than a pea. I took it from her and held it between my thumb and index finger. I held it up to the light. It didn’t look like much of anything. I put it in the palm of my other hand. It was so light in my hand, lighter than plastic. It felt like air.
“What is this?”
“What do you think it is?” she said. They both looked at me. Whatever it was was gray with little lines on it. The lines were etched in green. It looked like a tiny chip off a child’s toy- something completely insignificant.
“It looks like a chip off a child’s toy,” I said, handing it back to her, “Why? What is it?”
“That just came out of Max’s hand,” she said.
Max nodded and held up his hand. There was a small red mark in the middle of his palm.
He said, “Yeah, I could feel it- I felt something, I knew there was something there and I cut a slit and as soon as I did, this edge just poked out of my hand, the corner…and Angela pulled it out, Angela just pulled that out with the tweezers...”
“Can I see it again?” I said, holding out my hand.
Angela handed it to me and I took a closer look. I flipped it over. On the other side there was nothing- it was smooth. I looked again at the lines. There were four lines and then a half of, what looked like, a circle. That was where it broke off, in the middle of the circle, so I couldn’t be sure.
“Hold on,” Angela said, looking to Max, “I have a lock box, in the trunk of my car, it has a key… I think we should put it in there and lock it up so we don’t lose it then we need to get in touch with someone, have someone look at it.”
“No!” Max said, standing up and taking the piece of whatever it was, from me.
“We’re not having anyone look at this and we’re not telling anyone about it either,” he said, “I am not about to sound like a lunatic.”
“Calm down,” Angela snapped, “it was just a suggestion. Fine, we don’t have to do anything with it.”
“You’re not thinking about telling anyone about all of this, are you?” said Max. He looked at me. I held my palms up and said, “Don’t worry about me, I haven’t said a word to anyone. Not one word.”
I didn’t mention that I’d told my sister. But it didn’t matter, she wouldn’t say a word to anyone anyway.
Angela crossed her arms and stared at him. After a minute she said, “I haven’t either and I won’t but… Max, that came out of you. Someone put it there. Don’t you want to find out what it is?”
“Who the fuck is going to tell us that?” he snapped, “do you honestly think there’s anyone that we could take this to who could give us a real explanation as to what it is? Seriously?”
“Well, what about, like, you know, UFO investigators?”
“Oh my God, you cannot be serious, those guys are a bunch of quacks, they don’t know anything. Plus, this doesn’t have anything to do with UFO’s.”
�
�What are you talking about? Those red lights in the sky?”
“We’re not sure what those were. Who said UFO?”
“We need to call someone, maybe we should call a UFO investigator, they research this stuff, they’ll know!”
Max lit a cigarette. He set the piece of plastic down on the coffee table, inside a little candy dish and began to pace back and forth across the living room.
“Those guys don’t know shit,” he said with a laugh, “Angela, you are so naive. They might talk about this shit and research it but if they ever came face to face with some real alien technology or the kind of stuff that’s going on with us, I can guarantee you they wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with it. And I am not about to give them fodder for their books and their conferences or whatever it is they do.”
Angela looked to me. I sat down on the couch.
“Yeah, Angela, he might be right. This has gotten really out there. First of all, I don’t exactly think that anyone at this point would believe us and if they did, I’m not so sure they could help us. Not those UFO guys anyway- maybe if there were some Professor somewhere who investigated this type of thing- maybe something like that- but, I think Max is right, going to one of these so-called investigators would be a waste of time and would probably do more harm than good. Also, you have to remember, this is a small town, word can get around quick- we shouldn’t tell anyone, anything, in all honesty.”
“Well, what are we going to do?” she said, looking positively lost.
“What we’ve been doing,” said Max.
“Which is?”
“Dealing with it- handling it the best we can. Not getting anyone else involved. We’ll figure all of this out ourselves.”
Max took a step towards the coffee table, picked up the piece of whatever it was and held it up to the light. He looked at it for a long time and then he put it back in the candy dish.
