Sightings (20 page)

“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.

“See? 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.

Had it rained recently? Was it ruined?

There are a lot of things about that painting that other people probably wouldn't understand. Like why I drew a purple dragon over the city. It's simple, really: because even though there were no purple dragons there, there were great warriors, so I figured why not give them a dragon to deal with? People usually think I'm pretty dumb until I stop and explain things to them. Then, they usually think I'm pretty smart. And also, people never know a masterpiece when they see one – I overheard Dad say this once as he stroked Mom's leg in the dark.

I stood up, slipped my shoes on, then hummed a patriotic song I didn't know the words to and began marching valiantly toward the woods.

Already, it was late fall and the leaves formed a nice cushion on the ground. Probably, I didn't have to wear shoes at all. Everything was brown and burned-smelling and crackled as I walked.

There, in the woods, I saw the last person I expected to see. Actually, I hadn't expected to see anyone because the booby trap hadn't been tripped, but there she was, dumb as ever, Jessica Meyers. She was just leaning against the wall we'd constructed from sticks.

I froze like a polar bear.

Where were our weapons? Where were our goddamn weapons?

I hid behind a few trees, watching the top half of her body squirm as she peered down at the ground, eyes wide and mouth open. I couldn't see the rest of her – just that floating t-shirt – and then, a moment later there was Albert, rising like a prince, growing from the ground.

Something suspiciously sexual was going on; I could sense it.

“A-ha!” I said, revealing myself. “You!”

Jessica bent down, tugged up her shorts, then returned to standing.

“Why the heck are her pants down?” I cried to Albert. “Someone could get rabies for crying out loud!”

“Jackson?” Albert whispered. He was scared of me. Real scared. I stomped my feet the way Dad did when the raccoons knocked over the trash cans.

“Git! Git outta here! Scat! Move on!”

“Jackson, hold up . . .”

“You're . . . you're putting glasses on a pig, Albert!” I stuttered, pointing to her. Jessica covered her face with her hands.

“Let's see those glasses, pig,” I said, clawing at her arms. “Go ahead, show 'em off, piggie!”

She ran behind Albert like he'd protect her – her heroic, fake Eskimo.

“And you,” I said, pointing a finger at him like a curse. Snot ran down my face, and I tried to suck it in. “Mr. . . . Mr. ‘I-think-va-ginas-are-weird-and-boring.' If they're so weird and boring, then what were you two doing back here? Making some kind of weird and boring hot sex?”

I stamped again, snapping, growling – like maybe I was the one with the rabies.

I waited for him to explain everything and make us friends again, but he didn't.

My chest throbbed, and I really wanted to kick things and break things and throw spears.

Where
were
all the goddamn spears?

I buckled, caught myself against a tree branch.

“Well?” I asked at last.

“Well what?”

“You tell me, soldier!”

“We were just . . .” Jessica began.

I stuffed my fingers in my ears and began humming until she shut her big, fat pig lips and ran out of the woods. Her butt looked as big as the moon. Bigger even.

Then, it was just me and the Eskimo all over again.

“Well?” I repeated. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“I don't know, Jackson,” he shrugged. “I guess . . . this is what we're supposed to be doing now.”

I rolled my eyes until I could practically see my brain.

“Says who? Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower?”

He didn't answer.

Far off, the rumble of a car going elsewhere. The sound of my sniffling.

Maybe, I considered as we stood there, we could just wait here forever. Until we grew beards and got arthritis and all our limbs peeled away. Maybe this fort could be like our new home, and those ants from school – the ones that survived, anyhow – they could move in with us. Maybe the dragon from “Mesopotamia” could even pull guard duty to make sure no idiotic girls or Nazis ever tried to breach our barrier.

I wanted to tell him all of these things, about how good we could have it if we wanted.

Instead, I just whispered, “Albert, I think you have the loosest lips of anyone.”

He nodded, said he understood, that he wouldn't return to our fort any longer.

I saluted him with one hand and gave him the middle finger with the other. I figured I owed him that much.

He turned to leave but stopped. I thought maybe the idiot's shoestring had come untied but it hadn't. Not by a long shot.

“Go away,” I ordered. “That is, unless you want a spear in your heart.”

Still, he just moved closer.

“So what? Are you going to murder me like some common polar bear?” I asked.

He shook his head no, offered me the V of his hands, waited for me to enter.

I made this robot. Everyone was making them. Mine was a vacuum cleaner with a rubber jack-o-lantern mask taped to the handle. His name was Z-Bot
2131
F, but I just called him Brady, after my dead brother. Brady, my brother, had come out cold, and then we buried him in Lindenwood Cemetery, and then, directly following, we cried. Just a few weeks later, we started going to church more and more. Then, I taped the mask to the handle.

Everyone in the neighborhood thought Brady was pretty great, and sometimes I'd wheel him around the sidewalks, and kids like Joseph Ames and Ryan Curl would come trickling from their houses to ask questions about how he worked and how I'd built him.

“Does he understand English?” Ryan asked, and I said, “Oh yeah, and a little Spanish, too.”

“Well, what does he do?” asked Joseph, and I said, “Two things. Watch.”

I wheeled my robot inside Joseph's house, and I plugged him into the wall. Then, I pretended to check invisible dials and cranks. I made some beeping sounds with my mouth and acted nervous, like he might explode or something if he wasn't properly handled. “Get back!” I cried, and I stood back myself to add to the suspense.

Joseph's cat – a tabby named Mushu – began brushing up against the side of my robot, and that's when I pressed down hard on the switch. Brady burst to life – something my brother had never done – and as the light flashed on the front panel, Mushu took off up the stairs, hissing. I grinned, guided Brady along the floor some, and we all listened to the chortle and cough of that robot hard at work. That jack-o'-lantern mask was always loose. It fell off sometimes when the tape got warm or damp or collected too many Mushu hairs. After a few minutes of my demonstration, I killed the switch, and I ran my hand over the top of the handle.