Wait Until Twilight

by Sang Pak

  When I get home, it feels real good. It feels like I’ve infiltrated enemy lines and come back alive. I spend the rest of the day building a model F-16 airplane I got at the store last week. It’s very relaxing sitting there at my desk gluing those pieces together. A nice breeze comes in through the window where the sun shines in. I started making models after watching my big brother, Jim, putting together some model ships and cars back when I was in middle school. He was about to start junior high. He’s four years older than me, so at first he didn’t trust me and I had to get my own models. But when I got older, he let me help him do bigger, more elaborate ones. After Jim left for college he used to come home on the weekends. Mom would do his laundry, and he’d sit around eating and watching television like when we were little kids. I visited him a few times, too. The West Georgian is less than an hour away, so it wasn’t a big deal. But that was before Mom died. Since then he’s hardly ever around and never calls, so it’s almost like we don’t know him. I must have seen him a total of two times since the funeral. Both times he didn’t say a word about Mom, even though he was the last to see her before she stopped talking. He hardly even said a word to me. Just, “Hey, what’s up?” Come to think of it, since Mom died it’s like my family disappeared. She was the centerpiece of it all. She was always the one there holding it all in one piece. Once she was gone there was nothing to hold the spokes together. We all spanned out. Jim stopped coming home. I stayed in my room most of the time, and Dad buried himself in work. We just went our own ways for a while and didn’t really speak for days on end. Dad and I just recently started talking like normal again, but Jim’s still far away. It’s almost like he died, too. I miss him just as much as I miss Mom. Maybe even more because he’s still alive.

  I take a break while letting some of the glue dry. In the meantime I make a big batch of spaghetti for lunch so Dad can have some for dinner. I wash it down with a glass of mango juice.

  It isn’t until late in the afternoon that I completely finish building the F-16, which I place on the windowsill to dry out completely. The paint and glue smell good, but I know if I stay in there I’ll get a headache, so I go outside.

  I’M SITTING ON THE FRONT steps thinking about those deformed babies again, picturing them in my mind like it’ll help me understand something, when I feel this vibration come through my body. But it doesn’t make me sick or cold in the guts. In fact, the whole neighborhood is shaking. It’s the booming sound of a huge bass speaker. I can hear them coming from a mile away. David’s Cavalier convertible has a speaker system that shakes the window frames of houses when it passes by. David pulls up with Will up front and Brad in the back. I hooked David up with Will and Brad a few years ago. Since then we hang out whenever we can, even though I’m probably a little closer to David than they are. “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go!” says Will.

  “Go where?” I say.

  “Party.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on, it’s Friday. We’re not going until you get in.” David turns up the bass even louder. The ground shakes beneath me. It feels like the apocalypse.

  “Okay, okay! Just wait a goddamn minute!” I say.

  I go to my room and throw on a new T-shirt. I smell my still freshly glued plane and admire its shiny newness once more before locking up the house and hopping in the backseat with Brad. We take off down the road with the bass speaker creating a vibration that goes up my gut through my neck up to the top of my head.

  THE PARTY WE’RE GOING TO is way out in the country. David’s heard about it through a friend of a friend who’s way older than all of us. So we’re thinking we’re going to a college party out in the woods. The West Georgian College was known more for partying than its academics, anyhow. David heads due south in the general direction of Underwood.

  “Why’re we going this way?” I ask him nervously.

  “Do you know any other way?” he says. We end up going way past Underwood, farther south out into the country. I’m talking red dirt roads surrounded by thick jungle-like woods. We go on like this for a while until these cars and motorcycles parked along the side of the road turn up.

  “I think this is it,” David says. We slowly back the car up and park. In the distance we can hear loud heavy-metal music coming out of the woods.

  “Are you sure this is it?” asks Brad.

  “This has got to be it. I mean, it sounds like a party, doesn’t it?” says David. “And there’s only one way to find out.” It takes a good long walk to reach the clearing, and when we get there it’s full of old people, not college old, but middle-aged old. Some of the old guys are wearing uniforms almost like the ones Boy Scouts wear, some of the others like Hells Angels. It’s a weird mix, but they all look pretty tough. And a lot of them are watching us intently. On a makeshift stage is a band playing that loud heavy metal we heard from a distance. The main singer has this greasy blond mullet and beard. I will say this, he has a kind of charisma that makes watching him strum his guitar and sing entertaining. The guy is chock-full of attitude. I’m not into heavy metal but the band sounds okay at first. Then it starts sounding terrible when the three backup singers start screaming in unison. I mean, it sounds like they’re singing a completely different song. The lead singer takes this time to pump his fist at the crowd, which hollers back at him. As his eyes move over the crowd he seems to stop at me and then points almost right at me for a second, screaming this line, “Blood for blood! Sin for sin! The circle of life comes round again!” before kicking back into the song. I want to leave right then and there.

  “Man, look at all these old bastards,” says Brad.

  “I think we should go.”

  “Me, too,” says Will, who’s looking around suspiciously.

  One old bearded guy in a black leather vest and sunglasses comes up behind us and puts his arms around our shoulders. “Hey fellas, what brings you way out here?” he says.

  “Uh, heard about this from a friend,” says David.

  “A friend, huh? What kind of friend would send you guys out here?” He smiles and pats us on the shoulders.

  “We should probably be getting back,” says Brad.

  “Noooo, noooo, stay awhile. I was just kidding. We’re gonna have some fun.”

  We’re given beers in clear plastic cups, which we politely accept. Everyone’s drinking beer and smoking. We try to sneak away, but that same guy keeps stopping us and gently encourages us to stay. In the middle of a song with the guitars driving and the music really loud, the singer starts jumping around. He gets so worked up that he takes his shirt off and puts on a blue cap that he pulls from his back pocket. A mosh pit is forming at the front of the stage. Meanwhile, the singer’s running around in circles with that cap on backward. I recognize that cap. It’s the cap on the guy who drove by Mrs. Greenan’s house when I fell asleep on her front porch. In fact, I’m sure of it. It comes back to me, how it felt like someone was strangling the life out of me, those cold hands around my neck. I was just waiting to see those babies, then something like that happens. And it feels like it’s happening again right there in the field. I can feel the gripping sensation around my throat. All the while that singer’s getting more and more agitated. He gets to shaking and flailing his arms about like he’s having a fit. He falls back and starts squirming around, almost like he’s imitating those babies. Watching him makes the choking feeling worse. I put my hands to my neck, but there’s nothing there, just my own hands. Everyone else is enjoying the show. The mosh pit is swarming. Even David and the guys seem intrigued by this guy’s onstage antics. I’m the only one freaking out, and it’s getting to where I’m feeling dizzy and everything’s spinning out of control. Then the song finally climaxes and the singer dives off the stage into the crowd, where he disappears into the sea of overflowing bodies. The song ends, and the pressure around my neck goes away. I start to look for where the singer went, but the old guy standing by us grips my shoulder.

  “Where do you think you
’re going?” He points to the stage where a man sporting a huge beard, I mean Old Testament, Moses, ZZ Top huge, with a bandanna gets on the microphone. “It’s time for the singing contest,” he announces. “Each group must choose an ambassador and send them up to the stage to sing a song of their choice.” A runner comes around with pieces of paper and a pencil stub for each group.

  “Write down a song, Samuel,” says Will.

  “Why me?”

  “C’mon just write something.”

  “Don’t worry, we’re not gonna get picked. Just write one.”

  I go ahead and write down “Lift Me Up.” A runner comes by and picks up all the papers and takes them up to the stage, where the emcee starts flipping through them.

  “If he calls on us, I’m running,” I say.

  “Okay, we’ll all run,” says Brad.

  The emcee calls out, “ Lift Me Up!’ Who’s the lucky man? Come on up and represent your group.”

  For a split second I think, Samuel, you can do it. You can go up there and sing. I try to pump myself up, but that moment of silly inspiration lasts about one second at the thought of that pointing finger and the voice singing, “Blood for blood!”

  “You guys ready?” I whisper. We all nod, then sprint toward the road with our youthful legs pumping away. Some hands reach out for us along the way, but when we reach the road the only thing following us is their raucous laughter. We keep running all the way to the car and get out of there as fast as we can turn the Cavalier around.

  Down the road a ways we pass a black man walking with a big wooden crate on his shoulders. “Let’s give that guy a lift,” I say.

  “What?” says David.

  “Those guys back there are nuts. If some of those guys are around, who knows?” adds Will.

  “He’s obviously not one of those guys.”

  “Never pick up hitchhikers,” says Brad.

  “He’s not hitchhiking. Look at the size of that crate. You could fit a black bear in that thing. C’mon.”

  “If something happens, it’s your fault,” he says. We stop and go back.

  “Where you goin’?” David asks as we drive alongside the old-timer.

  The black man watches us suspiciously with his tired-looking red eyes. His shirt is open, revealing a bony black chest. “To ma house,” he says.

  “You know about those crazy bastards having a party back there?”

  “I heard somethin’ goin’ on. None o’ ma bidness.”

  “You shouldn’t be walking around out here right now. Get in, we’ll give you a ride to wherever you’re going.”

  “It’s okay, they don’t bother me none.”

  “That thing looks heavy. Come on,” I say. “We just wanna help.”

  He looks at us like we were crazy. I’m surprised he finally accepts. That box must have been pretty damn heavy. He puts the crate in the trunk and gets in the back with Brad and me. He smells like sweat and fish.

  “You gotta helluva system in here, boy,” he says.

  “Yeah, I got friends that work at a car stereo shop.”

  “Good to have friends,” he says.

  He navigates us to a little house, half of which is covered in wisteria vines. When we pull up, a black lady comes out with four barefoot children behind her. It turns out that the crate he’s carrying is filled with fresh fish. He’s having a fish fry to commemorate the recent passing of his father.

  “How’s about some fresh fried fish?” he asks us, taking the box out of the trunk. We look at one another and know none of us want to stay, so we respectfully decline. He asks us to wait and goes inside. He and his woman go in, but the four children stand there watching us shyly, curiously. They look nice, healthy, normal as can be. And I think this is the way it should be. Not like Mrs. Greenan’s ungodly babies. The old guy comes out with a little mason jar half full of what looks like water. He holds it up. “You boys ever tasted mountain dew?” he asks.

  “All the time,” says David.

  “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout on sodie pop.” He opens the jar and the smell of alcohol attacks our noses like hornets.

  “Holy shit. What is that?” asks David.

  “Mountain dew. The real mountain dew. Now, remember Barry when you’re drinkin’. Have fun, boys.”

  We take the jar and head back into town. Helping that old-timer makes me feel a little less crappy about coming all the way out to the country to get harassed by a bunch of scary old perverts.

  Brad’s first to spot the host of colorful moving lights coming from the Kmart parking lot. It’s one of those traveling fairs that pass through town once a year. Even from a distance we can see the Ferris wheel and tea cups twisting and turning. I haven’t been to one of those since I was kid, but we all want to go tonight. We pull into the parking lot, and Will immediately takes out the mason jar and has a drink. His face turns into a disgusted grimace like he sucked on a lemon.

  “How is it?” I ask.

  “Here, see for yourself,” he says.

  I take a drink and it burns a trail all the way down to my stomach, bringing tears to my eyes. “Man, that’s terrible,” I say.

  “Whoooeee! Skizzet!” says Brad after he drinks.

  After a minute or two I feel it smoldering in my stomach. Strangely enough, it feels good, and I want more. It’s just the taste that’s the problem. Will and Brad go to buy some fountain drinks while David and I wait in the car. David takes another sip.

  “Give me that,” I say. It tastes just as bad as before. They come back with four orange soda fountain drinks, which we spike with the mountain dew. The soda does a good job of masking the horrible taste, and it goes down a little easier. We take our drinks into the park and buy a bunch of tickets for rides and games. The place is packed mostly with kids and their families, but there are some high school and college kids, too.

  The line for the Ferris wheel isn’t too long, and it looks like fun. Brad and David think it looks gay for two guys to get on together, but Will and I don’t care. We give a couple tickets to the operator and get seated. The big wheel moves up each time a person is seated until Will and I are a quarter of the way to the top. Then after a moment we lurch forward, and the whole thing moans and groans as we start turning down and then come back up to the top, where we get a view of the whole town.

  “Look,” I say, and point at David and Brad down below. We give them our middle fingers, and they start cheering us on. The turning of the wheel and the drinking, the crazy circus music, the lights of the town, my friends’ happy faces, the stars in the sky all go to my head. It feels like I might split open. After the ride’s over Brad and David give it a twirl, not even caring if it looks gay.

  We play all the games: shooting little metal ducks, throwing little rings onto Coke bottles, doing the strength test with the hammer, all of them. Then the guys want to get on the spinning cups, but just looking at those things spinning around makes me queasy. So I go for some water while they ride the whirling dishware. Along the way I pass by the funhouse, where a hawker is yelling, “Come one, come all, into the funhouse of amazements and horrors, ghouls and angels, through the labyrinth of mirrors and freaks…” The line’s empty and I have some tickets left in my pocket, so I step up and give the old scummy-looking carnie a ticket and go in with my spiked orange soda drink in hand. I follow a black painted corridor until I get to a black door, which I walk through and find an array of strange body parts floating in large bottles of formaldehyde. Snakes, a heart, a brain, kidney, even a head, which I don’t think is real. There’s a whole corridor full of them placed on black swathed podiums of different heights. I look at them all slowly, because I’m the only one in there. One of the bottles contains a deformed fetus. It’s got two big heads, one growing out of the other like it’s trying to escape from its brother. It looks so real. It could just as well be one of Mrs. Greenan’s alien babies floating in there. Dead. Stillborn. Not even a chance. But those alien babies are still alive, breathing, squirming aro
und. Squirming like that singer on stage having a fit. That singer is the freak. What a creepy bastard. He belongs in the jar. I move to the end of the jars, where there’s another black door. The next chamber is an assortment of cheesy relics. A little crusty-looking mummy in a coffin sits on a table. A skeleton with angelic-looking wings hangs on the wall next to a skeleton with horns. A stuffed two-headed calf and a stuffed one-eyed pig stand in a little corral full of hay. I stop a moment, taking a close look at the angel skeleton while sipping my orange drink. There’s no one around, so I touch the left wing to see if it might be real. I pinch the bone, expecting it to be brittle like plaster of Paris, but what happens is the entire wing breaks off with a snap and falls to the floor and splits into three pieces. I think I hear someone in the previous chamber where the pickled weirdness was. “Crap,” I say, and go through the next door. I freeze for a moment because there’s a guy looking straight at me in the flashing corridor. Flashing because there’s a bright-as-hell strobe light blinking in there, making everything look all herky-jerky, and like it’s not real. When I turn to run, so does he, in that kind of broken, discontinuous way strobe lights make things look, and I realize it’s me. It’s a mirror that leads into a labyrinth of more mirrors. I hear the door begin to open at the back of the other end so I run into the maze and start making random turns, right and then left. I feel like a laboratory rat in a bad dream. It’s hard enough to get my bearings with those mirrors making everything look like there’s more depth than there really is in there, but the strobe light makes it even harder to tell where the hell I’m going. I have to keep my hand on the cold mirrors so I don’t run straight into them. I get caught in a dead end and backtrack a couple turns and keep going until I stop at a strange sight. My blinking reflection is all twisted up into a two-foot-tall ball and my misshapen face a bug-eyed mask of something stupid and hateful. It’s one of those distorted mirrors that bend your reflection. I step back, and my shape changes into a coiled-up snake and then back to the two-foot-tall thing. An ever-changing warping of reality, like nothing is normal, at least not for long. While I’m staring at myself, a twisted figure steps in behind me, right over my shoulder. I turn around to look behind me, but it’s just another reflection on a mirror about five feet away. At least I think it’s a reflection. It looks like a face smiling at me, but I can’t tell for sure, what with the lights and the distorted mirror and the distance. But if it was a reflection, then how the hell is it still over my shoulder? It should be in front of me now that I’m turned around. I turn back to the front and then back again. I tell myself it’s just my imagination playing tricks on me, but my heart starts to get real busy. I can feel it pounding against my rib cage. I throw my orange fountain drink at it. The cup almost looks like it’s moving in slow motion because of the lights, like a stop-motion animation reel, and it splashes open against a mirror. It’s just a reflection for sure, but that shapeless face is still there over my shoulder. “Fuck it,” I say to myself. I take off running. There’re a dozen of my reflections running alongside me in all the mirrors, but I don’t see that other figure. I keep running anyway until I reach the last black door and I’m outside on the other end of the funhouse standing on black pavement. I’m back in the real world, where people are walking around having fun at this traveling carnival. The sounds of carnival music, the smells of popcorn and hot dogs, it all floods back in.