Window in the Earth Trilogy

by Fish, Matthew

  “Mornin‘, Christopher!” Bones exclaimed, dragging a seat out from under from the kitchen table, which was quite a feat since he held a spatula in one hand, and the other covered in a comical pink oven mitt that had white jalapeño pepper-themed embroidery on it.

  “Morning…,” Christopher answered, taken aback a little by the situation. Here was Grandpa Bones, cigarette dangling from his mouth, trying to juggle all these different morning chores that he was obviously not accustomed to doing. It was not that Christopher did not appreciate the attempt; he was actually impressed a little. “Is James up yet?” he added, glancing at the half-eaten meal of scrambled eggs, sausage, and bacon across the table.

  “Yeah, he was up earlier. He ate a bit and then just kinda took off,” Bones answered, almost dropping the skillet filled with the eggs he was attempting to scramble in the process. “I think he just wanted to kinda explore the area on his own. I let him go; figured it might be good for him.”

  “Did he say anything?” Christopher asked, reaching for a glass of water.

  “Say anything?” Bones asked back, pulling a plate out from the shelf and placing it before Christopher.

  “Yeah, you know, about what’s going on?”

  “Oh, about that…,” Bones said as he laid out the breakfast on the table. It was a fairly nice spread, especially from one who was so obviously out of practice. There was some bacon, not all of it was burnt, and eggs with a few black specks of the pan here and there, sausage that looked and smelled peculiarly like regular hamburger, yet was caringly shaped into the appropriate appearance that one would normally expect from sausage. “I didn’t really do much askin‘—it was more of the usuals.”

  “‘The usuals’?”

  “Yeah, you know, how did you sleep, how do you feel, how was the room—the usuals,” Bones said while he sat and assembled a plate of his breakfast creations. “His answer was, ‘Fine.’”

  “To which question?” Christopher asked, poking at the hamburger sausage. It was a little greasy, but not so bad taste-wise.

  “Oh, all three,” Bones answered. “Sorry, I probably should have pressed him more. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “It’s okay; sometimes I don’t know what to say to him either. Lately, at least,” Christopher said. He finished up the partly burned bacon. “I wish he would have waited though; I would have liked to go exploring around too.”

  “No big problem there, then. After you meet the dogs I’ll show you around a bit.” Bones pushed his plate aside and poured a fair amount of whiskey into his tall glass of orange juice. “When James gets back, maybe we can take the truck out, and I’ll show you some more of the local sights.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” Christopher said, his words emerging as a whisper. His eyes were fixed on the glass of orange juice that had just been spiked with whiskey. It wasn’t uncommon for him to see people drink; his parents used to have a few during nights out at the movies and such. It was just how the thought of Bones getting behind the wheel after a drink brought back memories of how his parents had been killed. “If you’re going to take the truck….”

  “Right,” Bones whispered in reply. His lips and cheeks sagged, and he lowered his widened eyes in grim realization. It was like that brownie you were eating really being dog shit, and someone had just told you the end of the world was right around the corner, he thought with a sigh. “I’m so sorry,” Bones said, pushing the glass aside. “I wasn’t thinking, you know, it’s just…”

  “No, it’s okay; it’s just that…I don’t think we should drive,” Christopher quickly added, trying to put words together when he wasn’t even sure exactly what he was trying to say. “I don’t mind that you drink. Just…maybe we shouldn’t take the truck out.”

  “You’re very right!” Bones said, attempting to steer the conversation in a more desirable direction. He felt so embarrassed about it—honestly, he felt downright awful. It was just one of those morning things he did every now and again; after all, before the kids got here he didn’t have much company, or even that much of a daily agenda. “I promise, never on days when we are driving.”

  “Thanks,” Christopher said with a smile. He was glad that Bones agreed, although Christopher felt a bit out of place at having to tell Bones how he should act; however, getting his opinion out did make Christopher feel a lot better. He was even a little proud of himself. When he was younger he hardly ever expressed his opinion about things; he was always the quiet one who would sit back and just keep his thoughts to himself. He kind of let others go on ahead with their views and opinions, since it never seemed very important, at least until now.

  After breakfast, Bones opened a door in the corner of kitchen that led outside. “Well, here’s the rest of the family,” Bones said as he led Christopher around the house where the dog cage was located. The cage itself was quite spacious and surprisingly clean and well-kept, save for the occasional stray leaf or branch that managed its way into the cage. It was lined with potted plants that looked very well-cared for. The cage was attached to part of a large shed which appeared to be the real home of the dogs, and that the cage was merely for when they felt like being outdoors.

  “Where are they?” Christopher asked. The cage was empty.

  “Poppy! Kate!” Bones shouted with his hands cupped around his mouth, yet there was no reply, and the dogs simply did not show. “Poppy! Kate!” Bones shouted, louder and more urgently this time, only getting the same result. “Can’t you whistle?”

  “Yeah,” Christopher answered, puzzled. “Can’t everyone?”

  “I can’t,” Bones admitted as he shook his head. “Sometimes they only come when you whistle for them; it’s something they learned from Cat.”

  “Cat?” Christopher asked, though he had a pretty good idea who exactly Bones had meant—he just wanted to be sure.

  “Cat, Catharine: your grandmother.”

  “That’s who I thought you meant. Anyway, how do you call them since they only want to come to someone whistling?” Christopher asked. He was slightly amused that Bones was unable to whistle; he had believed that everyone in the whole world possessed at least a limited ability to do it.

  “I don’t. Sometimes they just don’t listen, and so sometimes I don’t bother trying,” Bones answered matter-of-factly. “So, go ahead, give us a whistle then.”

  Christopher chuckled for a moment as he knelt down, placed a hand to his mouth and belted out a loud, undulating whistle.

  Within a few seconds two very large dusty red dogs bounded through the opening in the shed. They were much larger than Christopher had imagined that they would be: they were very strong, sturdy-looking dogs. Their ears drooped down as they sniffed frantically about, very aware that they were in the presence of someone new.

  Christopher was overjoyed at the sight of the two hounds. He placed a hand into the cage and the pair began licking his hand repeatedly. “Which one is Kate, and which one Poppy?” he asked.

  “Well…” Bones scratched at his chin. “If I remember right, the one with the red collar is Kate, and the one with the black collar is Poppy. Honestly, it’s so hard to tell—they are sisters, you know—and they look pretty much just alike.”

  “I thought Poppy was a boys’ name, though,” Christopher said. He petted Kate through the cage as Poppy continued to lick wildly at his hand.

  “Yeah well, we thought we were getting a boy-’n‘-girl sort of deal, but I guess there was some kind of misunderstanding.” Bones placed a hand on Poppy’s head. “They’ve been great, though—great old dogs to have around. I believe they’ll be eleven this year. That’s like fifty or so in dog years, I guesstimate.”

  “Yeah, they’re great dogs,” Christopher said. He continued to pet Kate and Poppy through the cage, his hands sopping wet with dog slobber—but that bothered him very little. He had wanted dogs as far back as he could remember, and since this was to be his new home, it was almost as if he had finally gotten his wish. “I’ve always wanted do
gs. I mean, I’ve really, really always wanted to have dogs.”

  “I’m glad. So, that means you won’t mind helping me take care of them then, eh?” Bones said with a deep chuckle. “Besides, it’s good to have someone around here that can whistle decently.”

  “I’d be happy to!”

  “Great, it’s decided then.” Bones fished through his pockets, pulling out a ring of keys. “Later on we’ll take ’em for a walk, but right now let’s go ahead and take the truck out and I’ll show you a couple of the sights around here, okay?”

  “What if James comes back?” Christopher asked, excited to get out for a bit, yet still worried with what was going on with James.

  “Well, I’m hopin‘ we’ll run into him somewhere. I imagine that he’ll stick to the road around here at least,” Bones said, nodding his head toward the driveway. “Let’s get out there.”

  Grandpa Bones pulled back the dirty tarpaulin covering his old white Ford truck, leaving Christopher to puzzle over why the truck was even covered up to begin with. Whatever foul fate that could have befallen the truck, if left unprotected, had already come and passed long ago. The paint was peeling, filthy and gray in some parts and just plain rusted red, brown, and orange in others. It was colorful in a cloudy-fall-day kind of way. The front window had a few hairline cracks and the upholstery bore numerous cigarette burns on its stained surface, which could have, at one time, been soft and comfortable. Christopher climbed in, noting that the inside smelled like a nursing home, or a hospital, mixed in with a little bit of gasoline and cigarette smoke. It took Grandpa Bones quite a few turns of the key to start the engine, and a few more to start it up again after it sputtered and died shortly after. Once the truck got going, things seemed even worse. Once on a weekend vacation to the Science Center in Saint Louis, Christopher had gotten the chance to stand on a platform designed to simulate the different stages of an earthquake. He would have to guess the vibrations coming from the truck’s engine would’ve been completely off the charts.

  “Do you get many radio stations out here?” he asked, hoping to listen to something other than the obvious death throes of the truck’s sputtering engine.

  “Not many. Then again, none, due to the fact that the truck radio’s been busted,” Bones said as he backed the truck out of the driveway. “Got an emergency weather radio in the back, though, but it’s only good for the weather reports. Not much else.”

  They made their way down the road; it was then that the isolation really set in for Christopher. On both sides of the street, as far as he could see, were simply long stretches of wood: large, confined spaces of trees where the sunlight cut through the canopies and dappled the earth below. It really, truly was so much different than Bloomington. He had visited places like this before, but it looked so much more different, so much more impressive now that it was to be his new home. It was like he was no longer just a tourist in a pretty new place, but a new resident in a whole new world.

  “We’re really out here, aren’t we?” he asked, suspecting that the answer was very much so.

  “Yeah, pretty much.” Bones had his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “There are a few places around our place though. Let me see…there are the Scolts, a nice old couple like less than a mile from us. They pretty much keep to themselves though, not really much going on with them, ever. A little uptight, even.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Yeah,” Bones said, chuckling. “Then probably about a mile out is Ms. Leiter. She lives out there with her daughter, Kylie, should be about your age, I think. Ms. Leiter—Janice is her first name—she and her daughter come over every now and again. They play with the dogs, borrow some of my tools. Janice’s husband, he ran out on them some time before. Left a mess and just disappeared.”

  “That’s horrible about the dad, although that’s pretty cool there’s someone my age around here,” Christopher said, a little uplifted at the fact. It didn’t hurt the situation at all that the kid that was his age was a girl. Hopefully she was attractive, and interesting.

  “Yeah, plus she’s a girl, right?” Bones said with a sly little smile. “Let me see. Then there is Jack Olen, and Bill something-or-other. They’ve got a cabin about a mile and some change away. I think they mainly just use it for hunting or something or another. They are a couple of ass bandits, not that there’s anything wrong with that though.”

  “‘Ass bandits’?” Christopher asked with a hearty laugh. It seemed like something that should be spoken more out in the schoolyard by his friends and not his grandfather.

  “Yeah, ass bandits—nicest guys though. This one time, it was dark and stormin‘ like all hell, and Poppy had managed to break loose of her cage. I was worried, you know, but I’m not built like I was, say ten, twenty years ago, so I’m out there in the worst god-forsaken downpour ever. Lightning flashing, thunder booming all around…made me think I was back on the battlefield. I’m out there with this junk-made Wal-Mart flashlight, made in, like, China out of five cents’ worth of some kind of plastic substitute, or whatever, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Anyway…” —Bones paused for a moment to catch his breath— “…so I’m out there in the woods trudging in mud coming up to my ass, and I slip on the root of a tree, twistin‘ my damn ankle. I’m like three hundred feet or so from home, and in no condition to get back home. Well, it turns out that Jack Olen had found Poppy barking outside his house just moments before I fell on my ass, and was out there in the storm, well on his way to bringing her on back to me. So he helped me back home and returned Poppy. Nicest man I ever met.”

  “That’s amazing,” Christopher said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean the timing—that’s just amazing—and to go out in the storm like that, I’ve never heard of anyone ever doing anything nicer.”

  “Yep, nicest ass bandit I will ever meet,” Bones said with a deep, throaty laugh. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t.”

  Christopher struggled to contain his sudden need to laugh. It was moments, just like this, that made him happy again. There was a time when Christopher thought that he might never be happy again, never really get a chance to laugh at anything again. He was glad that he was wrong about that. He wished so much that James was here to enjoy this with him—this was exactly James’ kind of humor, and besides, it would be nice to see him happy again. He turned to Bones. “Where do you think James went to?”

  “Oh, I saw him take a left from the house,” Bones said. He lit up a cigarette with the car lighter and rolled the window down. “Really, the only place that you can get to around here going that way is the general store. It’s about two miles or so away, so I wonder if he’d got that far or not, I’d suspected we might run into him along the way. Yeah, anyway, about the area…this whole area is called Pine Hallow. It’s not got a whole lot of people livin‘ in it, and we are all pretty much spread out. The general store is mostly an overpriced grocery and bait ’n‘ tackle shop, set up mainly for some of the vacationers who come down this way to get to Wakanta Lake.”

  “Oh, the lake!” Christopher exclaimed, remembering that he had wanted to ask if that was a lake he had seen off in the distance from his room.

  “Yeah, we’ll go up there ’n‘ go fishin‘ soon,” Bones said. “There really ain’t no hotel or any place like that to stay around here, so the people who travel down here are more the outdoorsy camper type, and thusly stay out of our area. Which is a good thing, ’cause sometimes crowded can be…well…crowded.”

  “Where do we go if we need something? To the general store?” Christopher asked, thinking for a moment on exactly what he would do for entertainment around here. Bones didn’t mention anything about a theater or bowling alley, or even a mall that he could hang out at.

  “Well, if it’s something small we need, that’ll probably be it. Usually about once a week I’ll head out to Springfield. It’s about an hour or so drive, but I usually stock up on whatever.” Bones tossed his unfinished cigarette out the driver side
window. “If you need anything just let me know in advance, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, here we are, and it looks like James already made it,” Bones said as he steered the truck into the store’s tiny parking lot.

  Christopher hopped out of the truck when Bones finished parking it, making his way around the vehicle’s bulk and running to the store. He was surprised to see James sitting on an old dirty brown bench under the building entrance’s archway, looking tired and drinking a can of Coke. The really surprising part, though, was that he was not alone. Sitting next to James was a girl who looked to be about the same age. This must be Kylie, Christopher thought. And what a good thing, too. Kylie wasn’t just pretty; she surely exceeded any picture he had composed in his mind. She had medium-length, dark, almost black hair, piercing blue eyes and very tan skin that seemed to embody summer itself. He had seen lots of pretty girls at school, but in his opinion, they were rather stuck up-looking, or just not his type. Christopher wasn’t aware that he was staring, but everyone around him was very much aware of his gawking, including Kylie.