Sightings

by B. J. Hollars

  As I ran I cried out, “I’m coming!” catapulting through the snowdrifts in the style of a sure-footed mountain goat. I only fell once (that mailbox came out of nowhere!), but by the time I arrived all the cameramen were already lugging their cameras by their sides. I tapped one of the camera lenses, shouting, “Testing? Is this thing on?” until one of the flannel-shirt-wearing men told me to knock it off with the tapping.

  “Or what?” I asked, smugly snapping my fingers.

  He said a word that I will not repeat here, followed by “you up.”

  Needless to say, I knocked it off with the tapping.

  Mrs. Blanket must’ve seen me, because she gave me this really funny look, like maybe she was trying to say hello or something else entirely.

  I waved to her even though we’d never formally met. I was grinning like an antelope, but then I started thinking about other people’s feelings like Sandy always says, so I started frowning like an aardvark, instead. I blew her a gentle kiss – almost – though what she probably needed was a bear hug (minus the claws).

  Then, as Mrs. Blanket retreated inside her house, I walked up to a beautiful woman in a pantsuit and grabbed her microphone and stuck it into my face, pretending it was a metal ice-cream cone.

  “Could you repeat the question?” I asked, taking a lick.

  The woman reached to retrieve the microphone, which is a poor reporting technique if you want to get the full story.

  “Yes, of course I knew Felicity Blanket,” I said, dancing away from her (in the style of the Foxtrot). “We were mutual acquaintances.”

  The camera was rolling. I could feel it in my cheeks.

  “Sir, if we could just have the . . .”

  “In fact, I remember her like she was yesterday.”

  “Sir, please . . . the microphone . . .”

  “Well, first off,” I began, boxing her out and smiling at the camera, “you have to understand that she was an above average bowler and . . . and her scooter was . . . her scooter was pink in coloration.”

  The woman looked helplessly to her cameraman, but he was too busy blowing smoke rings to make good on his promise of fucking me up.

  “And if you want to know her exact bowling score, I regret to inform you that I cannot release that information at this time. That’s confidential, and we have to respect her privacy, I think.” I nodded solemnly, adding, “Though I can report that she wore a size five bowling shoe. In fact, I can report that she wore two size five bowling shoes. Simultaneously. Thank you.”

  A few people started snapping photos, so I shielded my eyeballs with my eyelids. Still, my eyeballs sizzled and my head rang, like maybe I’d gotten locusts lodged in my ear ducts or birth canal or something. My mind said: Move your rear, Roger, before these people blind you! so that’s exactly what I did. I moved it. Side to side (in the style of the Macarena).

  Then, I began feeling awful dizzy.

  Maybe dizzy isn’t the right word for what I felt. I guess it was more like the inner lining of my stomach had thickened into some kind of rubbery material, like a worn tire or a yellow rain slicker or a . . .

  “This . . . this interview is over,” I cried.

  More flashes.

  More sizzling eyeballs.

  Locusts, everywhere, and none of them were respecting my privacy.

  I leapt the fence and the doghouses and returned home, and it is not important to the story whether or not I cried over stupid, old Felicity Blanket.

  Home is a funny thing, and while some say it’s where the heart is, for me, it’s just where we keep our Hitler painting. Which brings me to the next point on my list, my father’s Hitler painting and why it is a good example of modern art. Now, when I say “my father’s Hitler painting” what I mean is, the painting that Hitler painted – not a portrait of Hitler himself. Also, when I say “my father” I mean “my dead father” (heart cancer) which really isn’t important to the story except that he got the painting from his dead father (also heart cancer), whose name was Nathaniel Silverstein, one of the heroes of World War II. Rumor had it old Nathaniel liberated some kind of summer camp, and then he found the painting and hid it under his coat, calling it a “plunder of war.”

  Hitler was an artist, which is something a lot of people don’t know, including Felicity Blanket, most likely. In fact, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, his paintings can be found in reputable museums throughout Europe. Also, one of them can be found hanging above our microwave in the kitchen, alongside a painting I once did of a schooner.

  This fact is not mentioned anywhere in the Encyclopedia Britannica.

  Hitler’s painting has a schooner, too, only his schooner floats in the Rhine River while my schooner bobs in a swimming pool beside a teepee next to an upside-down monkey. I guess you could say me and Hitler are just a couple of schooner-painting fools.

  In case you’re wondering, the trick to painting a schooner is to work on the concave shape of the schooner’s hull. Also, maybe what I mean is the convex shape. But the good news is you don’t have to know the name of the shape in order to paint it. All you need are some brushes and some paint and a good, steady hand.

  And I’ll tell you something else – Hitler’s painting is worth a lot of money (more than mine, even!), which is funny since Hitler’s isn’t very good. Now, I’m no art critic, but in my expert opinion the brushstrokes look pretty thick, especially for watercolors. Whenever I paint with watercolors (every third Tuesday), I always try to brush the paint on as lightly as possible to avoid making the same mistakes as Hitler. But what do I know about mistakes? I’m no lawyer. And besides, everybody knows that pressing harder on the brush doesn’t necessarily make for a better painting. In fact, it can sometimes make for a worse one. A good rule of thumb is to pretend that your paintbrush is as delicate as a dove feather. Sometimes I feel sad that nobody ever bothered to tell that to Hitler.

  If you’re interested in painting schooners, consider taking some art classes at your local community college. Or if you want, you could try painting a raccoon, instead. Because I guess what I want to talk about mainly are raccoons (the third item on my list), though the Encyclopedia Britannica makes no mention as to whether or not Hitler ever tried to paint one himself. But the strange thing about raccoons is, last Thursday, on the night all the reporters began camping out on Felicity Blanket’s front lawn, I was out on the porch thinking about raccoons, and all of the sudden, out of nowhere, here comes this raccoon gallivanting just a few feet away from me. Lo and behold! The thing was about the size of a normal raccoon – yea high – and he really wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary except for gallivanting, which I guess I already mentioned. He had these tiny, annoying-looking claws and sort of stood on his hind legs staring at me, batting at the air – really teaching it a lesson. Then, he pushed himself right into our aluminum trash bin like some kind of rhinoceros or battering ram or rhinoceros with a battering ram attached to his back. Then, he just helped himself to half a hotdog bun. And here’s the crazy part: it appeared to be the very same hot dog bun that I had been eating just two days before!

  “Oh, don’t think I can’t recognize you behind that mask!” I told him, but it was like he couldn’t understand a word I was saying. Or if he did understand, he was holding his tongue, probably because his mouth was overflowing with hotdog bun.

  The funny thing about raccoons, and maybe life, generally, is that sometimes when I think about something hard enough, then that thing will just happen. Or appear. For instance, as I explained, I was thinking about raccoons and then one just came out of nowhere, gallivanting.

  Here’s another example:

  Once, I wanted an ice-cream cone, and then an ice-cream truck pulled magically to the curb.

  These sorts of things happen to me all the time, but I’m not sure if I’m the only one who can do it, or if everyone possesses this skill. Sometimes I even wonder if I’m strong enough to harness such power.

  My mind started thinking:
/>
  Roger, if all you have to do is think really hard to get something to happen, then maybe you should think really hard about Felicity Blanket coming home.

  Holy cow! My mind had come up with a pretty good idea for a change, so that’s exactly what I did. I started thinking really hard about Felicity Blanket until my head felt like it was either going to explode or implode or do nothing.

  Sometimes I wonder what Sandy would say if she knew about my power.

  Probably, she’d say, “Roger, whatever you do, don’t go using your powers for evil!”

  She brings up a good point, and I bet Hitler wishes his older sister had given him the same advice. That she had said, “Adolf, darling, don’t go using your watercolor powers for evil!”

  But what do I know? I don’t even speak German.

  All I know is, I’m not trying to will Felicity Blanket back because I’m in love with her, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s not like we’re friends with benefits, either, which would be weird because we don’t even run in the same circles.

  Most likely, I’m just some normal guy with a mind like a sieve and a super special power. But let’s keep that power a secret. The trick to harnessing a secret power is to keep quiet about it, otherwise everyone will want you dead or showing it off.

  Sandy would probably say, “Way to keep that secret, Roger! You’ve got a mind like a sieve but a mouth like a vise,” which is funny to think about because if my mind were an actual sieve, then my brain would probably just run out my nose like some glorious booger.

  That’s probably why I’m so good at keeping my secret – I loathe boogers just like all normal guys.

  But I love schooners, have I told you?

  I guess that’s about the one thing ol’ Hitler and me have in common, artistically speaking. Though, if you look closely enough at our schooners, perhaps you’ll find something else.

  Go ahead, grab your magnifying glass, I’ll wait.

  . . .

  See? Right there.

  . . .

  Look closer. It’s as clear as the Rhine River:

  We’re both one oar short of a set.

  Sightings

  It’s difficult, even now, to distinguish senior prom from the one that came before. Both years held the same mysteries: we boys staring helplessly at our cufflinks and suspenders, trying desperately to crack their secret codes. Meanwhile, the girls had their own mysteries to unravel: hair, make-up, push-up bras, time logged in the tanning beds.

  Despite all their similarities, there was at least one detail that distinguished one year from the next. Senior year, Becca Marsden – whose scent alone could cause boys’ pants to swell – chose not to attend with her recent ex, Ed Gorman (their falling out the result of a mishandled groping session). Instead, she accompanied the new student who’d lumbered into our lives a few months prior at the start of the basketball season.

  His name was Sasquatch, and he was furry, wore 26EEE-sized shoes. Measuring in at 7’9”, he’d immediately caught the eye of our basketball coach, who’d spotted him trampling through the woods behind the school Dumpster, licking grease from a yellow Big Mac wrapper. After hours of Coach’s coaxing – “Look, Kid, you’re about the only thing holding us back from a state title,” – Sasquatch eventually submitted, enrolling as a member of the senior class at Wallerton High just a few days after his recruitment.

  He didn’t have any family, so the boosters set him up the best they could, offering him an engineless Winnebago left to rust deep in the heart of an unknown wilderness. Tinted windows, a screened door – it was all that he required. Though, in truth, he also required privacy, and after a flurry of overzealous crypto-zoologists began making the “unknown wilderness” a bit more known, Sasquatch was rumored to have yoked himself with a few sturdy chains and dragged his home to a more remote location.

  Equally troublesome was Sasquatch’s brusque entrance into the competitive world of high school sports, particularly for the coaches of the teams in our division. They cited Sasquatch’s ineligibility on a variety of fronts, and when our coach fired back (“Let the kid play for Christ sake!”), he was told to provide “the kid’s” birth certificate, a DNA sample, a genus, and a species. Coach spent much of the next week working out the details of Sasquatch’s genus and species, sitting him down in the library while he leafed through the Field Guide to North American Mammals. Coach had only made it through the D’s (deer mouse, draft horse, dwarf rabbit) when local lawyer and sports activist Denny Hardaway rushed to the team’s defense, warning the Indiana High School Athletic Committee of the discrimination suit they’d have on their hands if they remained hell-bent on violating Sasquatch’s civil rights. Fearing legal retribution, the IHSAC allowed his entrance onto the basketball court, despite repeated warning of “the dangerous precedent” they were setting.

  Yet three games into the season, the only “dangerous precedent” Sasquatch seemed to have set was packing the stands well beyond the fire marshal’s liking. He’d become a sensation, making repeat appearances on the highlight reels on the 10:00 news, as well as earning the coveted cover spot of Prep Sports Weekly, silhouetted with a deflated basketball in his mouth beneath the headline: This One’s Fur Real.

  While most of the team never really got to know him outside of practice, we all agreed he seemed like a stand-up guy: never a harsh word, never cocky. When Coach cried, “Wind sprints, ladies!” Sasquatch bounded down the court in six or seven strides, occasionally slowing so as not to make the rest of us look bad. Though three years as a dedicated benchwarmer had earned me a starting spot, I hardly minded losing it to him.

  Sometimes, during the away games, I’d share a seat with him on the bus ride home, slipping ice cubes from my water bottle onto his rough and splintered tongue. Some of the other guys complained that he stunk – imagine a dead muskrat wrapped in a diaper – though after a few minutes the odor typically dissipated, or at least gave way to our own less-than-flattering scents. Sasquatch would sit silently for the entirety of the ride, just stinking and chewing ice – our combined fourteen feet folded magically into the seat. All around us, the guys blathered on and on about how much beer they were going to drink or how hard they were going to bang their girlfriends if they let them.

  “Like . . . so hard,” boasted point guard Dave Malton, slapping his palms together. “And I’m gonna drink a whole lot of beer, too.”

  Sasquatch never partook in any of those conversations. Instead, he just turned to me, mouth wide, until I slipped him a few more cubes. All he cared about was fulfilling his sacred duty: scoring thirty plus points per game, retrieving every rebound. In the beginning, it was all we cared about, too.

  After the bus dropped us off in the school parking lot, we’d congregate beside the cars, saluting the Wallerton Wildcat statue as tradition dictated. Meanwhile, somewhere mid-salute, Sasquatch would always take his leave, wandering back into his woods undetected. He’d never wave goodbye or tell us we’d played a good game – no ass pats or shoulder squeezes from our center. Instead, he’d just vanish, no sign of him except for the gently trembling trees and a final whiff of his stench.

  Throughout spring semester, I sat one row behind him in pre-calc, and while he never spoke, I’d watched him properly execute the quadratic formula on several occasions. He wasn’t the smartest student in the class, but Mr. Hernhold seemed thoroughly impressed by his work ethic and dedication, informing Coach that if the rest of his players worked half as hard on the court as Sasquatch did in the classroom, there was no doubt in his mind we’d be headed to state.

  But Hernhold’s prediction proved wrong.

  Throughout the year, our math teacher had warned us about placing too much faith in probability, and our team became living proof. Most likely, old Hernhold could’ve even taught us the mathematical formula that predicted our own demise, though he spared us the more complex equations. As far as we could tell (at least according to the stats we saw), no matter how many times we recalcul
ated, the blame of our loss always fell squarely on Sasquatch.

  Throughout the first half of our sectional final against Meadowbrook, Sasquatch served our team mightily, running up the score while crashing the backboards, growling when calls didn’t go our way. Then the momentum shifted at the start of the second half. In the third minute Sasquatch slipped on a bit of loose fur, pulling a hamstring, and as we watched him limp from the court, we realized our sectional title was slipping away with him. Returning to the bench, ice packs appeared out of nowhere, though rather than place them on his tendon, Sasquatch preferred ripping them open and munching the ice inside. Nobody told him not to. We had bigger problems.

  Coach had no choice but to replace him with me – a raw deal – but there weren’t a lot of options. My skeletal 6’1” frame simply didn’t warrant the same heart-pounding terror as a furry creature towering two feet taller, though I couldn’t blame my lackluster performance entirely on the height differential. The truth was, I missed a couple of rebounds too, ended up going two for six from the line. Tripped over my feet, made poor passes, forgot all the plays we’d spent so long perfecting. I grew tired, sloppy, got called for charging on three consecutive possessions. Where was the pick when we needed it? The point guard? Everybody seemed to be in the wrong spot at the wrong time – including the ball, which somehow managed to ricochet off my shin and into the stands.

  It was a massacre, and the only way Sasquatch could bear to watch our lead slip away was by peaking helplessly between his leathered fingers.

  Our less-than-narrow defeat was neither quick nor painless, but eventually the clock had the decency to stop ticking, the buzzer kind enough to sound.

  In the locker room, Coach rested a foot on the metal bleacher, droning on and on about how it wasn’t anyone in particular’s fault, how we “ladies” couldn’t go blaming ourselves.

  But we could. It was easy.

  And in the rare moments when we weren’t busy blaming ourselves, we were busy blaming Sasquatch’s hamstring, certain that if only the trainer’s Icy Hot/Vicks VapoRub magic cure-all could have healed him, then none of us would’ve had to witness what we had: that sulking, bewildered giant cramped in his too-tight uniform, shaking his head as Meadowbrook ran up the score.