Strange Awakening by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview
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Chapter 7
When I drove back home, I noticed three cars, including the woman in black’s parked in the yellow house’s driveway. I didn’t see anyone outside. I parked, went in the house and looked for some food and drink. Though they were of short duration, my recent trips have left me tired and famished. I wolfed down a sandwich, drank a beer and put on the television.
This experience proved to be very, very interesting. The sixty year old, short, blond male host had a casual silly acceptance in his voice as he greeted and questioned the guests. The idea man for the show had to be somewhat brilliant. Instead of having expensive celebrities behaving stupidly, he had cheap regular people doing the same and even outdoing their famous counterparts in some respects. There was some type of family argument continuing on the show that seemed to have seeds somewhere in remote posterity. Though difficult to be certain the dispute apparently involved some guy’s wife and her sister.
Ostensibly, in an effort to settle the dispute, both ladies disrobed and danced around rubbing various body pats. After some consternation and conversation hubby seemed to be closer to his wife’s exposed situation, when her bleach blond brother walked in and kissed hubby’s lips. I decided to turn off the
show before someone’s mother came out to do her routine. I fell asleep.
After an infinitesimal nap, I wanted to get some fresh air and went walking in my usual direction. The sun was setting behind the hills in front of me and the temperature started to drop under the cloudless sky. I continued on until the yellow house was in view. Something had been done to it. It was standing at odd angles, as if someone had plowed a bulldozer into it or was designed by an artsy architect testing his limits.
Since no people or cars were visible, I again gawked at it pondering the intended statement. “Who cares?” was the best idea I could come up with. The shutters were now of deep brown peeling paint and the open front door was now pink and in it was standing a naked 250 pound black woman. This was too good to be true. I couldn’t tell her age, but she was unquestionably old enough. I also couldn’t remember the last time I had any female attention. With her I could make up for a lot of lost time, as she counted for five. She turned her back to me, flipping her long, straight, cranial black hair, taking away the view of her other curly black haired area. It wasn’t as long as the cranial version, but it looked like a large pie with a four inch long fringe. She bent over a bit and I saw the evening’s first moon and was it ever full. Ruining my sky watching, about one
thousand bats came pouring out of the attic window. As they dispersed the quiet was interrupted by the furious flapping of their eighteen inch long leathery wings. Some came in my direction hugging the ground. I put my left hand up to my head meaning to shield myself from the onslaught. With my forearm over my forehead I started to turn in circles attempting to view all directions of possible attack. Some flew within a foot of me making me temporarily forget about the night sky. One landed on my head making me start jumping around animatedly. He screeched and while I was using my right hand to try to dislodge him, I saw there were ten more within five feet of me, their eyes shining and the flapping of their wings increasing in intensity and sound level. Since I was concentrating on the danger, I didn’t notice that the black beauty left the house, walked over to me and said; “Don’t be afraid of a couple of bats, baby. They won’t hurt you.” My gaze went upward from her bare feet, to her knees, her thighs and then to the magnificent hairy spot. I instinctively dropped down to get a closer look, at the three chocolate tootsie rolls, two hirsute, when ten bats started to hover between the brown candy and me. I felt a bite, then two, then three, then four, ......
My torso was saved when I was awakened by the horn of Butch’s 1972 bright purple mustang, as he pulled into my driveway. I looked at the clock and saw it was one o’clock. By
the time I went out the side door, Butch was pulling some tools out of his trunk.
I called out; “Hey, Butch, you’re late.”
“Yeah, I know. It took a while to recuperate from this morning. I’ve got some more beer in here. Want one?”
“Yeah, thanks. I can use something. I’ve met the weirdest chick and I’m having dreams of another.”
“You, too.” We both laughed.
I said; “Are we talking about the same ones?”
“Probably not. They’re all weird when you really get to know them.”
“One walks around the reservoir dressed in black with high heels.”
“No, I don’t know that one, but it sounds like I might want to. I really dig the way the best areas pop out in heels.”
Attempting to be absurd, I said; “Me too. How about the naked 250 pound one next door?”
“Black long hair?” he said.
I thought; “Dreams do come true,” surprised at the shared experience, but merely said; “Yeah.”
“She’s back in town? I haven’t seen her for a good year.”
He carried some tools over to where the mailbox used to be and then walked into the woods, retrieving the mangled remains.
He silently did a pretty reasonable job of fixing it, considering the terminal condition of the mailbox.
When he was apparently through doing the best he could, leaving me with a serviceable unit, he started to carry his tools back to the car. I didn’t really want him to leave yet, so I just blurted out; “Did you ever notice strange things going on at the yellow house?”
“Yes, sir.” Butch paused a second, then added; “I’ve seen some strange things walking around over the years, but the worst have been right there.”
“Naked women running around.”
“Not that good. Naked little kids.”
“Me, too. She looked all of fifteen.”
“You were out for the geriatric set. Try ten to twelve.”
“Shit. Maybe this one was ten to twelve also. I only saw her for a few seconds from about two hundred feet. Have you told anyone?”
“Yeah,” he exclaimed, then lowered his voice; “For all the good it did. I told the cops and they just kind of smiled at me.”
“Didn’t believe you either?”
“No. Look at me. Would you? On top of that, do you know who owns the house?”
“Yeah, Joe Mason.”
“Yeah, Joe Mason. Don’t you know who he is?”
I was interested in why my neighbor was a person of note and said; “Not really.”
“He used to be the mayor of this town and now he sits on the Planning Board. He also owns the only liquor store in town.
People used to say that he ran this town along with his good buddy, Frank Melton.”
“Maybe that’s why they didn’t pay any attention to me either.”
“That’s not the only reason. Look at you. Everybody knows that you have permanent brain damage.”
“Thanks. I didn’t know how famous I was. I still know what I’ve seen.”
“Me, too. But we don’t exactly have decent credentials.”
We were silent for a few seconds. I then asked, “Do the Mason’s know you filed the police report?”
“Maybe, I don’t know.”
“Yeah, I don’t know, either, but my guess is yes.”
“This kind of shit makes me puke more than two six-packs.”
We both laughed. “Me too. I’m not sure yet, but I think I’m really a wine drinker.”
“You got any?”
“No, I just looked all over the place and I just found a couple of beers.”
“Say no more, amigo. We have got to go and stock up.”
He walked to his Mustang and put his tools in the trunk. I followed and went right to the front passenger seat. Butch flopped into the driver’s side and started to drive down my usual walking path. When we passed the yellow house I saw her again. She was putting something into or getting something out of her car and headed back to the house without looking our way.
I said, “There she is.”
“There who is?”
“The lady in black I was talking about before. Did you see her?”
“No, man. I’m having enough trouble watching the road.
Deer sometimes run across around here.”
Instead of turning at the corner he drove straight down Baptist Church Road. One or two newer colonial style houses were visible on this part of the road, but the general appearance was that of a heavily wooded stretch. For the first time I noticed that there were no street lights. When we got about two miles from the last visible house we hit another intersection, where he made a left. This road was a long straight shot with some businesses or the remnants of some businesses on the left side. A one floor yellow stuccoed restaurant was the first. It looked like it had been abandoned for some time as windows were broken, as was the glass covered
street sign naming the place “Pa**’s P*z*l*” It must have been a slingshot or BB gun target. There were some non-descript storage facilities, with no current visitors and a vet’s place, which seemed vibrant and undamaged, though it too had no signs of current visitors. The three or four remaining structures were hard to characterize further than saying they looked like flimsily made wooden structures, now so devastatingly damaged, it was anybody’s guess as to their original use. My best guess was that they were once part of a now non-existent farm.
After a few miles we made a left into a residential area, comprised of various styled houses, but they looked as if the land attendant to each was less than half an acre. Butch said;
“We’re in town.”
I noticed people trimming bushes and doing some gardening work. I asked him; “Do any of these people know us?”
“I doubt it. Where we live is kind of its own little island. People just don’t get there by chance and most all the people who live there keep to themselves.”
“Vampires,” I said laughing.
Butch gave me a funny look; “I don’t know about vampires, but I could pick out more than a few bloodsuckers.”
“Like Mason?”
“Like Mason.”
He made one more turn, or maybe it was a veer and we entered an area of active businesses of all sorts, with cars and people coming and going. He pulled into a large paved parking lot in front of a food place. We walked into the busy store.
He took a shopping cart and headed straight to the liquor aisle.
He put about six six-packs into the cart and said; “Enough?”
“No, I want some wine,” and picked out the two largest bottles of red.
Butch said; “I usually don’t take wine cause it takes me forever to get the cork out.”
“You mean you just don’t screw the top off?”
“No, man. They got a goddamn cork in there for some reason and some of them stick it in good enough to last a hundred years.”
I was considering switching my choice because I could just picture him finishing his sixth beer while I still was screwing with the cork. While I was still debating the merits with myself, a very attractive full figured woman wheeled her cart into our aisle. Butch pushed the cart near hers, bowed his head with one hand across his stomach and said, “Excuse me. Do you know where they keep the pickles, the big ones?”
She looked at him for a second and then said; “No, I don’t,” and continued pushing her cart away from him. When she got near where I was still debating the wine, she stopped to
peruse the section. I asked her; “Do you have any trouble getting the cork out?”
She wasn’t amused. She derisively said, “You must be with him,” pointing her right thumb behind her. She quickly made her choice, put it in her cart, made some kind of twisted face at me and walked briskly in the opposite direction from the two of us.
I said in a low voice, possibly imperceptible to her;
“Yeah, I’m with him.” Butch and I stood motionless and watched her ample backside, covered in tight white cotton, swing and sway to the end of the aisle and then she turned out of our view. He rushed over to me, having some difficulty controlling his laughter, stumbled right into me, apparently keeping his balance by locking one arm around my neck. He said; “Hey, hey, hey, bro, that was fun.”
I was glad he liked it. I didn’t think it was that good myself and appreciated the compliment. I looked at him and laughed, too. I said; “I’m going to go with the wine, no matter how long it takes me to get the cork out.” He was hysterical at this point and brushed against some bottles on the shelf. He quickly put his hands to the appropriate spots and prevented anything from falling on the floor. “Shit, that was almost a disaster.”
“No disaster,” I replied.
“Sure, it’s a disaster when you have to pay for booze and not get to drink it.”
I said; “Like on a date?”
He laughed again; “I’ve forgotten. I haven’t had a date in about fifty years.”
“I don’t know if it’s fifty years, but I think Taft was in office during my last one. It was a memorable event.”
“Got laid?”
“Most likely. Why else would I remember it?”
We stood silently for a few seconds, each of us wrapped up in their own thoughts. I broke the silence; “Are we ready?”
“No, man, we’ve got to get some hamburgers or something.
To stay healthy you can’t drink on an empty stomach.”
We went to the frozen food section where, he picked out a few items and put them in the cart.
I said; “Is that for me too?”
“No, get your own.”
I took a few of the same things he had chosen, when big ass turned again into our aisle. She hesitated a second when she saw us, probably considered going the other way, but continued on her path. We stared at her lower half, as she walked by and said; “If you bother me again, I’m getting the manager.”
I said; “Go ahead. I’ll tell him you’ve been following us around, trying to strike up odd conversations.”
She just continued walking, exiting the aisle, without stopping to put anything in her cart. We looked at each other and nodded. I said; “I sincerely hope that we didn’t disturb her day too much.”
“Disturb, hell. She should be happy. Now, she has some reason to differentiate today from all the others.”
He wheeled the cart to the check-out line and I said; “How are we going to split this?” He put his hands in his pants pockets, then shirt pocket and then jacket pockets and said;
“Shit, man, I must have left my wallet home or lost it. Can you....?”
I looked at him knowing he was full of shit and he looked at me like he too knew he was full of shit. I said, “I’ll take care of it, but you’re going to pay me back.”
He very seriously said, “No sweat, man,” and kept a straight face.
I paid and we drove back the way we came. He pulled into my driveway and started to carry the stuff toward one of the doors. I said; “We’re going to drink here?”
“Yeah, why not.”
“No reason, really. I guess I was just looking for a change of scenery, like going to your house.”
“My mother’s home and she’ll start up if I bring all this in.”
“Your mother? It looks like you’ve been old enough to be drinking for a few decades already.”
“Your mother is always your mother.”
I stood there silently, considering the thought and trying to remember mine.
We carried the stuff inside and put each item somewhere in the refrigerator. He put two hamburgers in the microwave, set the timer, grabbed a beer, opened it and sat down at the kitchen table. I tried to get the cork out of a wine bottle. I thought; “This is going to be as hard as I expected.”