Do You Think This Is Strange?

by Aaron Cully Drake

“I don’t care what you want!” she screamed. “The last thing I or she or anyone needs is you smashing up someone else’s life! Now get your—”

  “Hello, Freddy,” said a voice from the hall. Linda Stiles stopped and, mouth agape, turned to look at her daughter, who was standing with her headphones in her hand. Her arms were rigid. She was trembling with excitement.

  “Hello, Saskia,” I said.

  “Did you have a good day?” she asked me as she dropped her headphones on the floor.

  Linda Stiles, eyes wide, sat back on the couch, like she had been dumped from the back of a truck.

  “I had a good day,” I said. “How was your day?”

  “I had a good day TOO!” she said and began to hop up and down. I felt a longing, a wishing for my past. A wave of emotion passed over me and I felt as if I might pass out, so I sat down.

  A moment of silence passed between the three of us.

  Silence. And then the only sounds filling the room were small squeaks as Saskia hopped up and down, and shuddered gasps from Linda Stiles as she stared at her daughter and cried.

  TIME TO GO HOME

  For a few moments, we looked at each other. Mrs. Stiles stared at her daughter, her hand to her mouth, tears streaming down her face. I was content to not say anything.

  Saskia, on the other hand, was like a cold engine on a winter morning, trying to start, trying to start.

  “Did you—” she began. She looked down, in intense concentration, looked back up. Every muscle in her body tensing and relaxing. “I had a good—”

  She looked around.

  “I said, I said, I said—”

  “It looks like rain,” I said to her.

  “Yes!” she shouted and stepped into the room, stopping at the edge of the rug.

  “I want,” she said, then stopped. Her muscles relaxed. “Say, can you show me a poem, Saskia?”

  “Can you show me a poem, Saskia?”

  Her hands came up. They started flapping. “YES!” she shouted and walked across the rug, stiff legged, barely able to contain her excitement.

  “Squeaky,” Linda Stiles called to her softly.

  Saskia gave me her poem. She pulled it in a crumpled ball from her pocket. She uncrumpled it and read it to herself. Then, satisfied, she thrust it at me.

  “HERE!” she shouted, hopping up and down. She squeaked.

  I reached for the paper; she pulled it back, holding it against her chest.

  “No, no, no, no, no, no,” she said. She balled the poem back up and presented it again. This time, I reached for it and she let me take it.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  She squeaked. Then she turned to her mother. Stopped and looked her straight in the eye. Still smiling. “Hi, Mom,” she said. And then Saskia was walking out into the hall, up the stairs, back to her bedroom.

  I looked at the wadded-up ball. The paper was faded and dry, cracked in places. It looked like it had been crumpled in a ball for years. I opened it, flattening it on the table.

  This is what the poem said.

  ONCE UPON A VERY MERRY TIME, there was a girl named Saskia.

  She was alone with nobody to play with.

  So, a chrysanthemum came over to play.

  But Saskia was still lonely.

  So, her best friend Freddy, a dog and a cat came over to play.

  There were so many friends and Saskia wasn’t lonely anymore.

  So they played and played and played and played and played.

  And they all lived happily ever after.

  by Saskia.

  age 7

  —

  I didn’t see Saskia again that night. She went to her room, and her mother wept on the couch in front of me.

  Linda Stiles dabbed at her eyes with tissue. Collecting herself, she said, “How do you and Saskia—” She shook her head.

  “Saskia is my chemistry partner,” I said. “We eat lunch together.”

  After a moment, I added, “I wrote her a poem.”

  She looked up, staring at the wall behind me. “Today is the first time she’s said anything for a decade, Freddy.” She put her tissue down. “The first time.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “How long has she been talking to you?”

  “We send text messages.”

  “Freddy,” she started, then stopped. She looked down at her hands balled up in her lap.

  “Can I take Saskia to the park now?” I asked.

  She looked up at me. “No,” she said. “You can’t. In fact, you need to go home, Freddy.”

  “I’ll go home after the park,” I said.

  “No,” she said, firmly. “You need to go home now, Freddy. You need to talk to your father.”

  “I don’t want to,” I said, and my throat was dry.

  “He needs to tell you something,” she said.

  “Yes,” I said. We stared at each other.

  “Do you know what he needs to tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does he need to tell you?”

  I paused.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  She stood up, and I stood too. We regarded each other from across the coffee table.

  “Please,” she whispered. “Please go home.”

  THE QUIET OF THE

  LIVING ROOM AT NIGHT

  The TV in the living room was blaring. The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And my father in a reclining chair. His head back, mouth open, snoring slightly. In his left hand, he still held a can of Bud Light.

  The room was otherwise dark. I sat on the sofa and stared at the wall. I watched the time tick by for an hour until the Late Movie began: it was Titanic.

  All at once I remembered a night, with my mother dancing in the living room, Celine Dion singing that her heart will go on, my father watching her with a can of Bud Light in his left hand.

  My mind split itself between the past and the present. I was there. I was here. I sat and listened to the music, as my father snored in his chair, and I watched the wall. In the corner of my eye, the memory of my mother dancing; a glass of wine in her hand, she spun about the room. At that moment, remembering my mother, the fear that had been in me all evening evaporated and I felt something I hadn’t known in my entire life.

  It embraced me like a heavy quilt. It poured over me like early spring rain. A weight lay on my shoulders, and I sat back against the couch, aware of my breath.

  Just at the edge of my vision, my father sat with his Bud Light, my mother danced, and I remembered it.

  I think I felt, for the first time,

  I felt

  I felt

  sadness.

  —

  At some point I fell asleep. I awoke with a start from a dream, my hands coming up instinctively, gasping in a gulp of air as if I had surfaced from beneath the water.

  The room was empty. The television was off. I didn’t know what time it was. I was sweating.

  It was the same dream. I was alone in the house and looking at the door, which was now ajar. This time, there were voices down a darkened hall.

  “It’s time for you to be a man,” the voice said.

  In my dream, I heard the tick-tick-ticking of a cooling engine, the hissing of metal as the rain boiled off.

  A train whistle.

  “It’s time for you to be a man, now, Son,” my mother said. “Can you do that?”

  Somewhere, a voice on a radio.

  It was 4:32.

  THE LIVING ROOM NOISE

  I opened my eyes and I was seven years old, screaming as loud as I could. I opened my eyes only briefly, then closed them again. With my hands pressed to my ears I lay on the rug, knees to my chest. The sound of my own scream was at the same time comforting and unnerving. Not sure which was winning the tug of war, I screamed louder to see if I could clarify things.

  Outside, it was raining, and thunder trembled the sky.

  Inside, by the fireplace, Mom yelled at Dad. Dad yelled back at her and th
ey tried to be louder than each other.

  I tried silence, but it didn’t work. Then I tried slapping my palms on my thighs. But they kept yelling.

  “He needs to be somewhere!” Mom shouted at Dad.

  “He needs to be right here!” Dad shouted at Mom.

  “When are you going to open your eyes!”

  “When? When? When are you going to grow up and realize you can’t do anything about him?”

  Everything was making noise. Everyone was making noise. Everything was competing for the attention of everything else. But if I screamed, I could compete for my own attention.

  And I started. I howled, dropped to the floor, and began to kick at the couch.

  That did it. The music turned off. My parents stopped yelling. Even the trolls heard me and stopped arguing.

  What the devil is that noise, they asked each other.

  Then my mother was kneeling beside me, picking me up and squeezing me against her.

  “That’s not helping,” my father said. “Let him go.”

  I screamed louder.

  “I’m not just going to let him scream,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Did you ever think that maybe you have to?”

  “No,” she said firmly. “Not once.”

  I began kicking, squirming, struggling, and she tried to hold me tighter. Her arms around me felt good, and as she squeezed tighter, things felt better. So I kept kicking, kept screaming, because it was working.

  “Dammit, Betty,” he said to her and tried to pull her arms apart. “Let him go. He needs to go to his room and calm down.”

  He pulled me away from her arms. Now things were no longer working. So I doubled my efforts.

  “Freddy,” he said sternly. “Look at me. Look at me.”

  My eyes remained clenched shut. I screamed louder as my mom and dad struggled: her, to hold me; him, to break us apart. He was stronger, and finally pulled her away. Now she began screaming, too. I opened my eyes and saw him dragging her back, as she kicked and struggled. Rage filled me. I leapt to my feet and charged him, arms swinging, a guttural howl escaping my lips. I threw myself against him, striking at every angle, slapping, thumping, kicking, trying to bite.

  “Freddy!” he pushed me away, and I charged him again. This time he pushed me away and I fell to the floor.

  “Go to your room!” he roared at me.

  I ignored him and leapt back to my feet, attacking again. One wild swing caught him square on the jaw and he winced. I saw his eyes darken, then a sweeping hand, out of nowhere, and my world exploded in stars, knocking me off my feet to the floor.

  “Freddy!” Mom shrieked and ran to me, but I rolled away, stood up, and ran, screaming, crying. I swiped at pictures on the wall, knocked over a lamp, and bolted to my room. Bursting in, I ran to Gordon’s cage. He was running on his wheel, paying me no attention, oblivious to my distress, unaware of the apocalyptic day I was now having.

  I pushed his cage as hard as I could and it flew from my desk and tumbled across the floor.

  Downstairs, the trolls were in my house, yelling at each other.

  JIM WORLEY SAYS YOU SHOULD GO

  I opened my eyes and I was seventeen, staring at Jim Worley’s bookcase. I was alone in his office. When I arrived, the door was ajar, so I walked in and stood in the middle of the room.

  A few minutes passed, as I stared at The Twentieth Century in Review, on the top shelf. Finally, I took it down and sat in the duck sauce sofa chair, turning the pages. But they offered nothing of value. Today, they were only pages. Just historical facts of no interest to me. Even the texture of the paper seemed different, of no use, of no special feeling, and my hands were tired even before they began turning the pages.

  I let the book lay open on my lap and stared down at it.

  4:32. 4:33. 4:34.

  At 4:37, Jim Worley came into the office and, seeing me, stopped.

  I continued to stare at the book, one hand still holding a page, but not turning it.

  Oh the humanity! the caption cried, and the Hindenburg burst into black-and-white flame on the page before me.

  Jim Worley placed his hand on my arm. “You know you can’t be here, Frederick,” he said calmly, but I could see that he was nervous. Just a little.

  “But I’m getting to the best part,” I said, and he closed the book. I didn’t resist, nor did I stop him from making me stand.

  “It’s time to go home,” he said.

  “I have to get notes from my chemistry partner,” I told him, and he shepherded me out of his office.

  “You don’t need them.” He glanced around. “You should be more concerned with how it looks that you’re on school grounds. You’ve been suspended. You might not be expelled, but coming around here isn’t going to help you.”

  “I don’t want to be expelled,” I said.

  “It may be too late for that.”

  I became frightened. I started to breathe rapidly.

  “Look at me, Frederick,” Jim Worley said, but I continued to hyperventilate.

  He said again, “Look at me.”

  I looked at him. He sighed and put both hands on my shoulders.

  “Go home, Freddy.”

  “A lot of people have told me that,” I said.

  He nodded. “Maybe because it’s good advice.”

  “But I don’t want to be expelled.”

  “I know,” he said sadly. “I know. Go home, Freddy.”

  But I didn’t go home. I went somewhere else.

  STALKING CHAD KENNEDY

  I do not skulk. There’s no logic in it.

  Skulking is crouching in the shadows of life. Waiting on chances, but hiding only to come out when the opportunity is clear and unambiguous.

  Someone who skulks is someone not entirely clear on their purpose. If they were clear, there would be no need to skulk. People who are clear on their purpose stride. But I don’t skulk or stride. Neither serves a purpose for me.

  It was strange, then, that I was skulking beside a hedge at the corner of Pipeline and Paddock.

  There were so many strange things about it that I could make a list:

  The day was cold and wet. I should have had the good sense to sneak about on a day that was at least cloudy with sunny breaks.

  I had never skulked before, and there was no way to tell if I was doing it correctly.

  I was waiting for Chad Kennedy.

  —

  A fourth thing that made it strange: I didn’t know why I was skulking Chad Kennedy. I never do anything without a reason. Yet I was here. On a cold wet day. Skulking Chad Kennedy.

  It wasn’t a difficult thing to do. I went to school with Chad for nine years. I knew where he lived, just like he knew where I lived. We weren’t friends, but we were aware of each other. Everyone in our class was aware of everyone else in our class. We grew up with each other. Our families attended the same concerts every year. When you go to school with the same people for nine years, you start to know where they live.

  Which makes it easier to stalk.

  —

  From a distance, I saw Chad, walking up the sidewalk. I stepped out from behind the hedge and faced him.

  At first he didn’t recognize me. Then realization came over his face like a passing cloud. He stopped.

  He wore his school colours over a blue shirt with a red tie. His left hand clutched the strap of his backpack. His right hand held the hand of his nine-year-old little sister.

  I had no idea what to say, because I had no idea why I was there.

  We stared at each other silently. The little girl’s eyes flicked between the two of us. I didn’t move.

  Chad spoke first. “Hey, Freddy,” he said.

  “Hey, Chad,” I said, because that was how you reply to people.

  I looked at his sister. “What’s your name?” I asked.

  She looked up at Chad, and he nodded to her. “Tanya,” she said.

  I nodded at her. “How do you do,” I said, but sh
e didn’t reply. I felt this conversation was going well.

  Sticking to the script.

  I regarded Chad. His hair was shorter.

  “Do you still have a concussion?” I asked him, after a few seconds.

  He shook his head. “I had headaches for a couple of weeks. They still won’t let me do any sports.”

  “It was a stochastic event, hitting your head,” I said. “It was unpredictable that it would happen exactly then, but statistically, there was a defined certainty of it happening over a number of samples.”

  Nodding slowly, he said, “I guess so.”

  “But that’s just the way it goes. Some things will never change.”

  “What do you want, Freddy?”

  I stared at him. His sister looked up at him, uncertain.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’re just gonna turn around and go back. Okay?” He put his hand on Tanya’s back and nudged her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly.

  He stopped. “What?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry I hit you.”

  He turned back to me. A slight wind began blowing from the hill. “Really?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “It was wrong. I didn’t understand the situation and reacted incorrectly. I hurt you as a result. I’m sorry.”

  He looked around. “It is what it is, right? I know I’ve been a dick to you for years.” He smiled and rubbed his jaw. “Where’d you learn to hit like that?”

  I shrugged. “My boxing coach said I have natural ability.”

  “True that,” he muttered.

  We stood, looking at each other.

  “Goodbye, Chad,” I said. “I’ll see you later.”

  He nodded back. He walked by me. “See ya, Freddy.”

  I said to him, “Be nicer to Oscar Tolstoy.”

  He laughed.

  THE DAYS AFTER SHE LEFT

  Listen: I am the person I have become because of my mother. Because that is what she would have wanted.

  She was the one person interested in my welfare solely because I was me. She never got angry. She never swore at me. She never yelled at me. She only wanted to see me become better. Better at whatever I did, whether it was crawling, walking, reading, or just setting the table. She wanted me to succeed.