If You Go Down to the Woods

by Seth C. Adams

  He even took a step towards me.

  And that’s what started it.

  Dad grabbed Mr. Templeton—inches taller and many tens of pounds heavier—and spun the bigger man back around to face him.

  “You don’t go near my son,” Dad said, and he was as cool as Mr. Templeton, only not disinterested or bored at all. He was very interested, and beneath his calm exterior, very mad. “You don’t even talk to him.”

  Looking down at Dad, then looking to the side to see the hand clasping his shoulder, Mr. Templeton smiled a beast’s smile. I saw those yellowed teeth again, stained and worn like ancient tombstones. Then his eyes rolled back to Dad, and the smile grew.

  “Take your hand off me,” he said to Dad, grinning in such a way that you knew he wanted exactly the opposite. He didn’t want Dad to take his hand off of him at all. He wanted Dad to leave it there, so he could take it off himself.

  “Get off my property,” Dad said, leaving his hand right where it was.

  “Tell me where my son is.”

  “Fuck you.”

  The fist came like a piston, so fast that I hardly saw it, nearly as fast as I’d ever seen Dad move, and Dad moved like an eel. I never thought such a large man could move so fast, and I wanted to shout out to warn Dad. But the motion was faster than my ability to form the words and I was stuck like Mom and Sarah, unable to do anything but watch.

  Which was fine, because Dad wasn’t there when the fist arrived.

  He’d somehow moved behind Bobby’s dad, came up and under the arm, hooked the larger man in some variation of a half nelson, lifted, swung with his hips, and Mr. Templeton went through the air, over my dad’s back, and slammed the ground like a falling tree. A grunt issued from the bigger man as his back struck the ground and the air tried to whoosh out of him, but the next moment he was back on his feet and facing Dad as if he’d done nothing but tripped and stumbled.

  “You’re dead, little man,” Mr. Templeton said and took a strong stance, his legs spread and his knees bent. He lifted his large, meat-slab fists like a boxer, bounced a few times on the balls of his feet, and started throwing punches.

  If possible, and if my eyes could be trusted since I hadn’t seen much the first time, Fat Bobby’s dad moved even faster this time around. The punches actually buzzed through the air like large insects flapping wings.

  Dad batted the first couple away with ease.

  Mr. Templeton moved in closer, quickly.

  Dad batted a few others away, tried a swift kick at the bigger man’s legs. He may as well have tried kicking a redwood. The sound of Dad’s leg hitting the other man’s was like meat hitting brick. If there was any effect on Mr. Templeton, he hid it well. In fact he smiled.

  Dad must have been as surprised as we were. I knew he’d kicked with his all and had expected the larger man to go down again. When he didn’t, Dad paused, and that was when the next punch caught him square in the head. He stumbled backwards. Mr. Templeton rushed in close, bent low, and threw some body shots. The pounding on Dad’s sides and stomach sounded like hammer blows.

  He took them, and he still stood, but his face scrunched up in pain.

  This close in, Dad brought up a few quick knees, striking the other man in the thighs and ribs and abdomen. More grunts and gasps from Mr. Templeton, but he kept swinging, at the body, the head, switching back and forth with a steady rhythm.

  Dad had his arms down, and took most of the punches on the forearms, protecting his ribs. It was like two machines pounding each other, both fueled and fired, and it was impossible to tell which was getting the worst of it.

  Mom was at the steps of the porch, the screen door open, wanting to come running down and do something. She knew better than to get in the middle of such flailing, though, and could only watch.

  Sarah and I knew to stay away as well.

  But there was one other, and his low and menacing growl let me know he was ready, just waiting for the word. I hesitated a moment, not knowing what my dad would want me to do. Dad wasn’t getting the worst of the exchange, but he wasn’t giving any more either. I honestly didn’t know what would happen if it continued.

  Who would be standing.

  And who would fall.

  Somehow, unlike my dad, I didn’t think Mr. Templeton would be satisfied with a fall. He wouldn’t stop until my dad was a sack of pulp and broken bones.

  That’s what decided it.

  I gave the word.

  “Bandit! Go!”

  And like a bullet, he did.

  In one bound my dog flew over the short brick wall dividing the driveway and yard. His feet landed on the grass with cushioned thumps. Two strides to cover the distance, and then he leapt into the air and I thought: Wow, he flies! and I wouldn’t have been surprised to see my dog sprout wings and flutter about the yard. His jump carried him into the center of Mr. Templeton’s back, right between the shoulder blades. Dad had the presence of mind to see Bandit’s approach, while still keeping his eyes on the other man, and when the dog struck he stepped aside and Bandit’s weight and impact sent dog and man tumbling to the ground.

  A flurry of teeth.

  Strands of spit flying.

  The speckled red points of blood raining down on the marble garden stones and walkway.

  Bandit snapped and his jaws clacked, and cloth and skin alike tore under his assault. Mr. Templeton, at first surprised by this attack, then sobered by his own blood, quickly recovered and started pounding at Bandit’s head and body with his fists, while trying to keep his forearms between my dog’s teeth and his own face. I watched fist after fist slam into Bandit’s head, his face, his body, and finally I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran and jumped the low dividing wall much as Bandit had done. I landed in the yard and kept running.

  “Dad! He’s going to kill him!”

  I screamed in pain and misery, with a fear deeper than what I’d felt when it had been my dad that had been taking the beating. Such is the irrationality, and beauty, of the love between dogs and boys.

  Mom, somehow down the stairs of the porch without me seeing her, intercepted me, bear-hugged me, carried me away. I struggled, but somehow she held me in arms of iron, and I remember thinking: Who did I get my strength from?

  I watched from within my mom’s arms, my dog and Mr. Templeton going at it, and there were a few more blows to Bandit’s head, each one a blow to my heart. Then Dad was there again, and he hauled Bandit off by the collar, dragged him a few feet away, told him to “Stay!” and he did, muzzle pink-smeared with blood, man’s or his own I didn’t know. Probably both.

  Dad walked back towards Mr. Templeton. Shirt soaked in blood, the big man tried to stand. He was still smiling, and I thought: He must be the devil. Strings of spit and blood hanging from his mouth; clothes ripped, arms ripped; and he was still smiling.

  He made it to one knee before Dad’s kick to the ribs sent him sprawling again.

  Dad knelt over him and threw a few punches to the side of the head and between the eyes, and then Mr. Templeton was still. Dad checked the man’s pulse. Leaned in close to his mouth to hear the breathing.

  He turned and nodded to Mom.

  “Call the police,” he said through his puffy and swollen face, and then Mom let go of me and went back in the house. “And an ambulance,” Dad added after giving the prostrate bigger man another once over.

  Free of her, I charged across the yard to my dog, kneeling and hugging him, squeezing him close, and in pain he looked wobbly and slightly delirious, and I knew my embrace must only be adding to his discomfort. But he endured it, my dog, my friend, my brother, smiling his wide smile and his long tongue hanging out, guardian of his family, proud and smiling.

  4.

  Can you guess who the responding officer was? Yup, God was taking a nice big shit on me that day, and the arrival of Sheriff Glover in his black-and-white made me want to roll myself up in a big wad of toilet tissue and flush myself away.

  The fat man got out of his
car as haughty as can be, this kind of wry smile on his face and the blue and red of the siren flashing casting a glow on it that made the smile seem demented. Which it probably would have seemed anyway without the dramatic lighting. An ambulance had arrived first and the drivers had taken it upon themselves to restrain and wheel Mr. Templeton away, and so it was just us and the round and smiling sheriff.

  All of us were on the porch, making this sort of semicircle around Dad and Bandit, each with cold compresses to their respective faces; Dad applying his own, me pressing the cold bundle to Bandit. We watched the sheriff waddle towards us and climb the porch, the wooden stairs creaking under his weight.

  He gave me a not so subtle glance before he spoke, and I know it was so I could get a nice long look at the fading cuts and bruises on his face. It was his way of saying: I haven’t forgotten.

  “Well,” he said, looking squarely at Dad now, “it looks like you folks are just all kinds of trouble. And not even here a month.” He made a tsk-tsk sound by clicking his tongue. “Not the best way to meet neighbors.”

  The sheriff grinned like this was a triumph.

  I felt proud then for pelting another human being with rocks, and wondered if that was a sin and if I was going to burn for it.

  “I told your dispatcher what happened,” Mom said, a hand on Dad’s shoulder.

  “Yes, yes,” Sheriff Glover said, nearly cutting her off. “Mr. Templeton has been a bad boy. That doesn’t answer the reason why he was here, though,” he said, and now looked at me again. “Have you seen his son around?”

  I looked to Mom and Dad first, but they said nothing, and I knew this time around I wasn’t going to receive any pardons. I was expected to answer the sheriff. Feeling trapped, with no time to think of a good lie, I told the truth. I felt like I was betraying Bobby. Knew beyond any doubt what was in store for him when he and his dad were reunited.

  “Last time I saw him he was heading to the Connolly yard.”

  I wondered if Fat Bobby would look as bad as Dad next time I saw him. Inwardly, I shrunk and cringed, knowing I’d turned my friend over to a beating that could have been, if not avoided, at least delayed.

  The sheriff nodded, and I knew what was playing in his mind, or at least an approximation, and it involved a lot of “niggers” and “coons” and “junglebunnies” with maybe a “spearchucker” or two thrown in for good measure.

  “That man beats his son,” Mom said. Her tone revealed she knew she was talking to a wall for all the good it would do, but it was something that had to be said and so she said it.

  “That’s a serious accusation,” Sheriff Glover said. Then added: “And none of my concern anyway.”

  “This isn’t fifty years ago,” Dad said. “A man shouldn’t get away with hitting his kid.”

  “Neither is this California,” the sheriff retorted, drawing the word out like it was distasteful and made his mouth bitter. “Where any kid can sue his parents for getting a spanking.”

  “I have a feeling Mr. Templeton isn’t the only one that hits his kid,” I said, knowing I shouldn’t have but unable to stop myself.

  The stare the sheriff turned my way said he’d heard that and marked it, and the tally against me was growing. Payment would come, it promised. I believed him, and said nothing else.

  “Inside,” Mom said sharply, and, tail tucked between my legs, Bandit following me, I turned and went inside. I didn’t go far, though, and turned back to creep to the side of the door to listen.

  “Be assured Mr. Templeton won’t be coming back on your property,” Sheriff Glover said. “But I’d suggest that you folks don’t stray too far from it yourselves, except for business and essentials that is, for awhile.”

  “You threatening us?” Mom asked.

  “No, ma’am,” he replied, and I was certain he had given one of his mocking tips of the hat with the “ma’am” there. “I’m just saying you folks aren’t none too popular right now, and in a town this small even turds like Templeton have got friends, and those friends are your enemies now, I reckon.”

  With that I heard the porch creak and moan in torment as the sheriff turned and headed back down. I wondered if the Earth’s plates were realigning under his weight, or if he was affecting the planet’s axis of rotation and we’d be thrown into another ice age or something.

  Then I thought of that look he’d given me, and things weren’t so funny anymore. I wondered if they ever would be again, or if this was what awaited me all the rest of my days.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1.

  The day after the incident in our front yard, and the resultant confrontation with the sheriff afterwards, wasn’t much better than the day itself. Dad stayed home from work, nursing his injuries and taking it easy. I wanted to go to the Connolly’s to see if Bobby was okay, but Dad wanted me to stay home and I stewed in anxiety and fear for my friend. I tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate on the words on the pages. Running about the yard with Bandit, who wasn’t as badly hurt as he’d initially seemed, was distracting only for a while.

  The ambulance had rolled away with Mr. Templeton strapped in the back, only half conscious at best, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t the type of man to stay bedridden in a hospital, pitying himself, for very long. At some point, Fat Bobby and Tara had left the Connolly yard yesterday, and that meant they had gone home. And if Bobby was home when his dad got out of the hospital, things weren’t going to be pretty.

  “Dad,” I said for the umpteenth time, plopping myself on the recliner next to the sofa, where he was lying with his head on a pillow and a compress on his head. “We’ve got to check on Bobby. You know what his dad’s going to do.”

  “It’s none of our business,” Dad said.

  His face wasn’t as puffy as yesterday, but still purple and blue in places. If he’d been a lot smaller and wore white underoos, he could have passed for a Smurf.

  “But it’s our fault. His dad’s angry with me for keeping Bobby from home all the time, and now he’s angry with you for kicking his ass. He’s going to take it out on Bobby.”

  “I said it’s none of our business,” he repeated. His eyes closed against the pain throbbing throughout his body, and his mouth was set thinly, teeth grinding. I knew not to press him any further. He recognized my distress even through his own, however, no doubt sympathized with it, and so added a belated: “Don’t worry, son. As big an ass as Sheriff Glover is, he’s now on notice about Bobby’s family situation. To keep the peace between us and Mr. Templeton, he’s going to want to keep tabs on him and his son.”

  Not fully satisfied with that answer, but knowing I wouldn’t get anymore out of him, I went upstairs, where I found my sister standing in the restroom at the end of the hall. Sarah stood in the open doorway, watching me, and I knew she’d been listening. She wore a tan dress with the skirt down to her knees. Her hair was done up again like I’d seen it awhile back when she’d been getting ready for her date and I’d made fun of her, the sandal missiles launched at my head in retaliation.

  For some reason she was still allowed to go out and that bothered me. Mom said it was because she was older, but just over two years didn’t seem so much older to me, not enough to warrant her being treated special and me like a baby.

  “Don’t worry about your friend,” Sarah said with genuine concern.

  I was reminded of the night of the fair. How after coming home she’d come into my room and given me a hug. Standing there framed in the light and white of the restroom, I had to admit that my sister wasn’t all that bad looking, and I thought of the days when maybe Tara would be spending time in the bathroom, putting on nice dresses and trying to look great for me.

  “I’m sure he’ll be okay,” Sarah added.

  I nodded but I couldn’t fool myself. I knew Bobby was in for it, and it was my fault. Every punch or slap or kick or belt swing delivered to him when next he saw his father may as well have been delivered by my hands. It was that cut and dry to me.

&nb
sp; But then I got to what was really on my mind, what Bobby needed to be okay for, and what I needed to get out of the house for.

  “How am I going to get out tonight?” I asked.

  Leaning out of the bathroom doorway, peering down the hall and towards the stairs as if to make sure no one was creeping up behind us, Sarah motioned me closer with a wave of her hand. Grabbing me by the arm, she pulled me into the restroom and swung the door so that it was only open a crack, enough to give us some privacy but also so that we could see and hear if either of our parents came trudging up the stairs.

  “I’ll get you out,” she whispered.

  “How?” I asked, keeping my voice low too.

  “I’ll have Barry pull up around ten o’clock.”

  Barry was the name of the guy that she’d ditched my parents for at the fair, as I’d learned in the days following. His name was seemingly one of the more frequent and important words in her vocabulary now. At breakfast and at dinner and all times between, it was Barry this and Barry that, so that you’d think Barry must have been an ayatollah or king or something, and not just some guy with a hard-on for my sister.

  “You be in bed by then so Mom and Dad don’t think to look in on you, but then go out the window and wait for us. I’ll come walking in, then pretend like I’ve forgotten something at the theater or restaurant, and you get in the car while I have Mom and Dad busy. I’ll have Barry drive us out to meet the others.”

  “Will that buy us enough time? Mom and Dad will wonder where you are if we’re not back soon!”

  She gave me a scowl and a sigh that spoke volumes, like she was a frustrated special education instructor explaining things to an especially mentally handicapped student. That was me, the Dunce of Retards.

  “Then I’ll say we decided to stop by his house first so I could meet his parents! Don’t worry! Dad will swallow anything I say, hook, line and sinker!”

  I mulled this over, peeking out the crack in the door now and then to make sure the hallway was still clear. I thought her plan just might work, but then I was suspicious why she was going out of her way to help me. I told her this, making my tone accusatorial like Perry Mason, pointing at her and wagging my finger in her face. She slapped my hand away and gave me a scowl, but I repeated my question again anyways.