Christmas Trees & Monkeys (16 page)

What he saw was not his father nor some
mbolozi
from another realm, but a glimpse into a future that did not yet exist. He saw himself. A thread, unraveled between two moments of the same soul. This thought, and hope, Mabeli held close as the world he knew collapsed around him, only to rise from its ashes as something
other
than his home. Buildings challenged the jungle before them and Mabeli found himself adrift in a sea of foreigners flocking to their “new world”. As he shuffled along well-paved streets into old age, the chance of reconnecting with his past, if only for a moment, became a lifeline.

He knew what would happen as he leaned on his walking stick and rose from the bench, once again following the boys. He did so with a clarity of purpose, as in a dream, and dared not question it without the risk of missing his destination. The end of the thread.

The sidewalk began to narrow where the white boy named Mike stopped. His friend walked on a moment longer before turning and calling back. Mabeli was close enough that he should hear, but the sounds of the forest and occasional traffic were drowned by a buzzing inside his own head.

Expectation. Maybe terror. The sound of blood pulsing through his temples.

Mike stared at something just inside the tree line. The friend, a few paces ahead, stood on tip-toe to see what Mike saw. He asked, “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”

Mabeli was almost upon them.

“
It’s OK, “ said Mike in English, not to his friend but to some unseen third party. Mabeli reached the boy and stopped, perhaps too close. Mike wheeled around in surprise.

“
Hey,” he said. “What are you doing?”

Mabeli ignored the question and moved in front of him. Mike lashed out half-heartedly then muttered something under his breath about “that crazy old man from the store”. He joined his friend down the sidewalk. They stopped a safe distance away and watched with nervous curiosity.

Mabeli raised a shaking hand to his mouth and looked at the image of himself standing just inside the trees. The young boy, naked save for a single strip of cloth covering his genitals, stooped lower, a small spear raised defiantly. His ash-black skin shimmered. The old man noted without surprise that he could see the blurred outlines of the foliage behind him.

He thought,
What do I say
? then whispered, “Everything is fine,” in the old Kingwana tongue. The boy would understand nothing else. “Do you know who I am?”

The boy spoke, shouting, but no sound came forth. With an expression of slowly-dawning terror, young Mabeli dropped his spear and sank to his knees. He shouted again, and the old man knew the boy was screaming. Mabeli felt time slipping away, the thread thinning. His heart beat with renewed urgency. So many years leading to this moment. He had to concentrate, come up with the right words, knowing they would never be heard. “Mabeli,” he said, “understand this, there are some -”

A bicycle whizzed along the path between them. Mabeli gasped in surprise and stepped back. Two more followed the first, one ridden by a young white woman in a tight riding suit, long blonde hair trailing behind. The other two were dark and equally as lean. They curved around the corner and were gone, the hissing of their tires fading towards the city. The two boys snickered from their safe vantage.

The old man squinted into the foliage. Young Mabeli was gone.

Mabeli felt the cold emptiness of this loss deep in his chest. He stepped through the mongongo leaves and stood in that spot of so many years before. Mosquitoes swarmed about his face. He ignored them.

The ground was damp in the shadows. Mabeli kicked a piece of trash under a fallen leaf. The air was green and lush. For a moment, he imagined himself back home among these trees, flushing out imaginary antelope, chasing them into the nets and trying not to think about his father.

He thought of Akujay now, what details he could recall, of his mother and sister, and Kalegi. All gone. Maybe they were here again. From where Mabeli stood, all was as it used to be, green and brown under the mid-afternoon sun. The Ituri in its splendor. He heard a car race past along the jungle road, heading east towards Kinshasa. Mabeli imagined the two boys were still there, waiting for the crazy old man from the store to emerge back onto the sidewalk.

If he stepped forward, however, perhaps he could follow what was left of the thread back to the lost people of his childhood. In any case, Mabeli knew, he would be returning home. He leaned on his staff and began to walk, letting branches slap against him and fall away. The forest blurred at the edges of his vision, like it had done that fateful day so long ago. Mabeli saw it as a good sign. He continued on, deeper into the forest, leaving the world of the
Muzungu
further behind.

— — — — —

About “Bark”

The next story is another original story for this collection. I affectionately refer to this one as
Incineration in the Woods
. Dares-gone-awry are such great fodder for horror stories. Maybe some day I’ll write more and make a new collection called
Dares are Bad!

“
Bark” is probably the most graphic of any of my stories, and originally that was my intention. You may not believe it after reading this, but by the time I finished with the version of “Bark” that follows, I’d toned it down quite a lot. I also have a version that takes place during the daylight. Long story. There is a vague but deliberate secondary theme in this one which I won’t explain, except to say that the names I chose for the characters were very intentional. If you figure it out, let me know.

There’s not a whole lot else to say about this one, except maybe
Dares are Bad.

Bark

The rumors surrounding Bark were almost as big as the dog itself. Someone’s arm reportedly severed at the bicep. Human bones scattered across the doghouse floor.

The Newfoundland’s world was an oversized paddock, thirty feet by thirty feet, set back from the old woman’s nineteenth century Victorian. The surrounding chain link fence rattled in the wind that tore up the mountainside. Electric blood flowed through its veins, pumped from the small transformer half-hidden among the trees.

For the past five days the house had, by all signs, remained vacant since the old woman’s death. It stood as a looming shadow silhouetting the starlight. The yard was silent. The uncut Spring grass bent under its own weight. The woman had family, somewhere, who had been called in when she fell ill. Any attention to her property by the heirs was minimal.

At least Bark was not laying dead in his paddock, though the ground within reeked of feces. The doghouse, like its human counterpart, was a dark shadow in the middle of the pen. And it was big.

Tonight, three figures shifted among the tree shadows bordering Bark’s paddock, spirits bathed in the quicksilver light of the waxing moon. They knew they were alone on the property. There would be no witnesses.

David sat on the ground and slipped off sneakers and socks. Climbing the fence with any form of insulation was deemed “unfair.”

He took Robin Fae’s dour expression as concern. An illusion, David knew. Most likely she was worried he’d survive her dare and collect his reward. Which, of course, he would. He’d done his research.

Bark was in the dog house, asleep - or whatever coma monster dogs fell into at night. It
was
there. He heard it breathing from somewhere inside its lair. David pulled off the final sock, stood and smiled. It was a quiet, mischievous grin.

A few feet away, the fence hummed in expectation.

* * *

Robin Fae tried not to admire how good the bastard looked, and was grateful for the darkness. It masked any look of appreciation she might let slip. Early May and the guy sported nothing but a pair of jeans and white tee-shirt. New Hampshire blood ran thick. He didn’t even seem to mind the constant barrage of mosquitoes and May flies hovering around him. For her part, Robin wore an oversized LA Raiders jacket. One of the few reminders of what used to be “home” before her clan moved to North Conway a month ago. She’d be shivering until mid-summer at this rate.

The bulky jacket served another purpose - to keep herself as shapeless as possible. Not that it mattered tonight. All this guy had to do was scale the fence, touch ground, and clamber back over without being eaten. If he did that, he’d see plenty.

As if reading her thoughts, David smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll let you keep your socks on when I collect the bet.”

“
You’d be done before I had time to take them off,” she whispered. “Besides, even
if
you don’t get your dick bit off by Bark, we’re not doing it here.”

David’s shadowed face darkened further, reminding Robin why the bet might have been a mistake.

Caveman takes prize.
Caveman keeps prize.

She hoped his dick
did
get bitten off.

David’s buddy Quince hunkered down and gripped a handful of tree roots. He was always grabbing something, as if without an anchor his excess energy would toss him away in the wind.

“
OK, people,” Quince whispered. “It’s show time. Davey, give me five to work around the other side. When you hear me, move your ass. I’m cute, but I might not be little Barky’s type.” With that, he scurried through the trees, soundless, a mythical
Puck
looking for mischief in the White Mountains. He kept his flashlight low to the ground, raising it only when he stumbled into a bush or tree.

Left alone, neither of them spoke again. David knew there’d be time to get cozy later. After he did what he had to do, and if -
when
- Quince did his part.

Come on, dude
, he thought.
Keep your head straight
one
time
.

He hoped the girl didn’t notice sweat trickling down his armpit. Not because of the fence. It was the dog that worried him. He closed his eyes and pictured Robin’s elusive body wriggling beneath him. It helped keep things in perspective. Of course, he wasn’t the only member of the senior class who craved a look under those impenetrable layers of clothing, vying for a peek when she passed in the hall.

Last month, when she first walked into English Lit during yet another mind-numbing discussion of Billy Shakespeare, David found his attention wandering from its usual fixation out the window. He’d stare at the exposed nape of her neck as she followed along with the lesson, catch the faint outlines of her shoulder blade, the strap of a bra. She never looked back, and this inaction spoke volumes to him. She’d known he was staring, girls
always
knew. The Bitch enjoyed the attention, and had come up with this ludicrous dare as an excuse, a chance to say “I didn’t give in, it was just a bet.” He knew the truth. She wanted to know what David Lysander had under
his
clothes as much as he wanted to learn what lay under hers.

* * *

Quince screamed. He fell to his knees, threw his head back and howled. The sound trickled to a slow, demented laugh. He stood up and looked inside the fence, squinting as if the act would lessen the gloom beyond. Nothing.

“
Yoo-hoo. Mister Doggie - wake up!” Quince grabbed the chain link fence and rattled it. He stopped when he realized there was no shock, not a speck of electricity coursing through him.
What the -
. He remembered the Bitch’s bizarre rule and kicked off his Nikes. He tried again.

A million invisible mice ran up his arms and tried to pry open his skull. Quince jumped back, waited for the spots floating in front of him to fade. The tingling in his arms slowly subsided as his eyes traced the thin feed wires interlaced with the links.

Davey’s going to climb that
? he thought. There was too much juice —

Something big emerged from the dog house. Black fur glistened in the moonlight. Its head turned right. Davey and Robin were still out of sight, Quince hoped. The black thing sniffed, and the yard filled with a low rumbling growl. It looked to its left.

For a brief moment Quince and the dog stared at each other across the shit-cluttered paddock.

Then Bark exploded towards the fence. In the pale light its hind quarters looked too thin compared to the oversized head and chest, as if the creature was constructed of two halves of entirely different breeds of dog. But its disproportionate bulk belied its speed. Heavy paws padded on the dirt. Quince shouted as Bark slammed into the fence. The dog yelped and fell back.

Then, BARK! BARK! BARK!.

“
Shit,” Quince said. “Shut the fuck up, man!” It was a startled reaction on his part. No one would hear.

BARK! BARK!

Davey emerged from the shadows and was now walking quickly towards his side of the fence. Quince forced himself to stare only at the dog. He couldn’t warn them about the fence without blowing the whole deal.