by DW Gillespie
“Come on,” Dad said, putting a hand on my shoulders. “When he’s like this, you just have to leave him alone.”
I glanced back, just once, and I saw that Andy wasn’t staring at the floor anymore. He was staring at the wall where the tape had exploded, studying what he had done.
Chapter Four
I went on a date a few months ago. I finally understood why they use the term “blind” date. You have to be visually challenged to agree to go on one. Calling him fat would be kind.
Now, before you start thinking I’m even more of a bitch than you already do, you have to understand the situation here. I’m no catch; I realize that. My issues, stacked one on top of the other, would cast a shadow on the Eiffel Tower. But it doesn’t change the fact that I’m still quite pretty. That’s not bragging – it just is what it is. I’ve heard it my entire life, from the age of three on. On multiple occasions, I’ve had people tell me I could be a model. Granted, those people were idiots, but it doesn’t mean their opinions were completely invalid.
My hair is black, but my eyes have always been a vibrant, cold blue. I’m too short to be a model, but not so short that it’s noticeable. I’ve tried hard to stay slim, even though I have enough of my dad in me to completely blow up if I ever stop trying. In other words, I’m used to getting looks from just about every man I meet. It’s distracting enough that I tend to keep my eyes on the ground, just to avoid the awkwardness. They see me coming and like what they see, and the reactions are as varied as the men are. Polite smiles. Curt nods. Aw-shucks glances at their shoes. Outright creepiness in the form of making my clothes vanish with their imaginations. The message, regardless, is clear: “Hello. I’m a man. May I?”
That changes when they get close, when they really see me, really see the parts I don’t want them to. All of a sudden, that nervous energy shifts, and the balance of power tilts in their favor. It sounds awful to say, but there are, quite simply, tiers that exist between the sexes, instantly recognizable categories that we all fall into like colored marbles into jars. I hate it, but I, more than most, can’t deny it. If my life had progressed differently, had I just ignored the thing that crept into my house, I feel certain that I would be in the high end of the tiers. Certainly not the top, but miles away from the bottom.
This thought occurred to me when I met my date. His name was, I dunno, Bob maybe. He certainly looked like a Bob. Thin hair, parted to minimize the damage. Beard that acted as camouflage, hiding a weak chin. Striped polo, tucked into khakis. Vanilla pudding made sentient.
We talked. We ate. He laughed. He was, simply, over the moon. Somehow, by some insane alignment of the planets, he found himself on a date with someone he shouldn’t have been on a date with. The type of girl who had no doubt shunned him for the better part of his life. The type of girl who moved in flocks in high school, running him down, making him feel small, making every ounce of fat on his body feel like a ten-pound weight. And yet there I was, sitting right in front of him, smiling, nodding along, trying to make the best of the whole thing. Regardless of how the rest of the night might go, the simple act of eating a meal with me was a victory, and he basked in it.
When it was all said and done, he drove me back to my car, which was parked in front of a grocery store – a neutral meet-up suggested by a coworker whose ass I would ream on the following Monday. As he drove, I actually fretted over how to end this whole thing, not because I liked Bob, but because I was so damn lonely. I’d made an effort to hide everything throughout the meal, keeping the worst parts of me hidden as best I could. I’d grown remarkably good at it over the years.
I considered, really considered, going home with him, if for no other reason than to lie beside another human being in bed. Then, as we made small talk, he saw it. It was my fault. I’d been careful throughout our meal. I was always so careful, but sometimes, you just mess up. You slip. Though his gaze was still focused on the road, the shock in his eyes was bright, sharp, and totally familiar. He realized, in a single instant, what I’d known since the date began. The world flipped, and the balance was thrown upside down. As he pulled into the lot and parked beside my car, he looked at me, not as an object of desire, but just an object. In a single moment, the power shifted completely to him. I was no longer his desire, just his pity, someone he could throw it to just to make me feel better.
“So,” he said, grinning, “let’s go back to my place.”
I stepped out of the car, pausing just long enough to turn back and say, “I’d rather drown in shit.”
* * *
I spent a few minutes attempting to piece the tape back together, but it was all for nothing. With a sick feeling in my stomach, I dropped the shattered bits into the trash can just as the doorbell rang. It was Ruth of course, there for the camera, foot tapping, eyes narrowed on me. I handed it over, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t notice the tape missing.
“Sallie said something about her doll.” It wasn’t quite a question, but it made me breathe a sigh of relief.
“I…uhhhh…I’m not sure where it is, Miss Renner.”
“Mrs. Renner.”
She stared at me. I stared at my feet. Neither of us spoke for an awkwardly long time. Finally, she sighed, as sharp a sound as a tire springing a leak.
“You know, she really loves that toy. It means a lot to her.” She studied me, waiting for my reaction. “I can’t imagine it means anything to you.”
I shrugged and she turned on the heel of her pristine white sneaker and she was gone.
The next day at school, Sallie wasn’t happy with me, but I told her the truth. Part of the truth at least. I didn’t think it would do any good to tell her about the…thing that took her doll, even if I desperately wanted someone else to know. I promised to keep looking for it, and that was just about all I knew to do.
I was more concerned about the Toy Thief anyway, which was how I had begun referring to the creature in my head. Whatever it was, I was equal parts horrified and mesmerized by it. So, despite my fear, I decided it would be best to try to catch it in the act once more, to regain some bit of evidence to replace what Andy had destroyed. It was, in hindsight, nine-year-old logic. There wasn’t much else I could do, but this felt like some kind of momentous secret, one that had come to me alone to explore and understand. I wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass.
I planned a stakeout for the next night. Planned might not be the right word. I might have been watching too much A-Team at the time, but this particular little adventure turned immediately into an opportunity to get equipped with whatever sort of gear I could find. As you can probably tell, I’d always been a bit of a tomboy, and any chance I got to play adventurer, I took it. There wasn’t much to speak of in the way of legitimately helpful equipment, but I began to dig into my closet all the same, clawing my way through old boxes of junk in search of anything that might help, again with nine-year-old logic applied.
I had a pocketknife, a cheap brass and wood job with a lock on the back. It was too dull to cut butter, but I still wasn’t sure exactly what I was up against, and a weapon is a weapon. I found a handful of bottle rockets, probably too old to actually fire, along with half a dozen roman candles. Powerful firearms, equivalent only to rocket launchers in the mind of a child. There was a roll of thickly threaded string, probably from a kite, that I figured I might be able to set a trap with. Batteries of all sizes, perfect for cracking open to gather the acid within. The deeper I dug, the longer the list grew, but the greatest treasures were relegated to the garage.
Cans of spray paint and old, half-working lighters, aka flamethrowers.
Garden trowels, perfect for digging spike pits in the yard.
A rusty box cutter.
And last, but certainly not least, a sledgehammer so heavy I could barely lift it.
It was a veritable arsenal of tricks, traps, and weapons, and by the time I had compiled my no
tes neatly in my unicorn Trapper Keeper, I was beginning to feel very good about my chances against whatever it was out there.
But despite all my offensive capabilities, there was really only one legitimately useful piece of equipment that I found. Tucked in the back of my closet, lost and all but forgotten, was a Polaroid camera with three pictures still left. Dad had gotten it for me two years earlier during my sudden, temporary fascination with photography. Those were different days back then, long before everything went digital, and instead of wasting a fortune on a real camera with real film, Dad settled for the cheapest Polaroid he could find.
I’m not sure how I had forgotten about the thing, especially with all the evidence plastered around the house. I had a bulletin board in my room that was wallpapered with pictures of Memphis staring at the camera, my dad smiling with a beer in his hand, and even a few of Andy, his hand held in front of the lens, clearly uninterested in having his picture taken now or ever.
Mostly, though, there were pictures of me and Sallie. A few of the stills were of other friends, the peripheral sort who drifted in and out, background players in the play that was my life, but only Sallie stood out. Little did I know how even that would change in a few short weeks, but then, everything would change, wouldn’t it? My spotty typing at work is proof of that.
The first night after seeing the Toy Thief, I attacked my goal hard. I was well intentioned in my planning, but my results left a bit to be desired. If everything hadn’t gotten so bad later, or maybe because it did get so bad, I couldn’t have helped but laugh at my attempts. I started by tying a thread to the sliding back door in long, looping knots and attaching the other end to the living room lamp. In between, I attached three empty soda cans to the string by the pull tabs. They hung limply in the center, dangling like cow udders. It was a pathetic attempt at an alarm system, but it would make at least some noise if anything touched it. Andy, who had only just begun to acknowledge my existence again, sat back and sneered.
“What is that supposed to be?”
It was Monday night, a little after nine. Just about the time that everything in the house wound down, the heartbeat at its slowest. We’d eaten leftover pizza from the night before, and Dad was in his recliner in the other room, probably dozed off. I had waited until the sun started dropping to begin enacting my plan, and by then, Andy was usually in his room, playing a game or watching TV. I hadn’t expected to even see him out here, and I let out a little yelp when he spoke from behind me.
“Nothing,” I barked.
He stared at the glass door, at the exact spot where the camera had caught everything unfolding.
“You making another bullshit movie?”
“It’s not bull,” I answered, not quite sure my father wasn’t in earshot. Andy had long given up any pretense that he didn’t cuss like a sailor. We both did of course, but I was still my daddy’s little girl. I thought I could keep that up for a few more years, use it, take advantage of it.
“Sure,” he said, turning away without another word. I considered following after him, my instinct urging me to get in his face, to be relentless, to refuse to let up until he saw that I was right. That’s what I always did. But tonight, though, tonight was different. I let him walk away without another word and went back to my work.
During my digging, I’d come across another old toy of mine, a plastic pony frozen mid-gallop, with a honey-colored coat and a white mane blown back in the breeze. Quite striking really. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember where it came from. Some well-meaning relative who had no clue that I never had and never would give a shit about horses. It did, however, serve well as my bait.
I placed it on the end table just next to the sliding door, in exactly the same spot Sallie’s doll had been. Then, on the opposite side of the room, I set up shop on the dust-covered sofa. It was old-brick red, covered with afghans as ancient as Methuselah’s balls. No one ever sat there, mainly because it was so damn uncomfortable, but when my father strolled through half an hour later, he barely even noticed.
“Have a good night, honey,” he said with a quiet peck on the top of my head. “Don’t stay up too late. School tomorrow.”
In many ways, the scent of beer mingled with aftershave had become “Daddy’s smell” during those years. He wasn’t a drunk, not in the traditional sense, but he was a drinker. More nights than not, he would “have a few,” as he liked to call it. In the years between then and now, I’ve thought a lot about my dad’s drinking. I’ve had my own brushes with addiction, things that I won’t go into here, but I’ve always come out on the winning side, able to sweep the little gremlins into a closet and slam the door shut. My tendencies, I’ve learned, are much more extreme, just like pretty much everything else about me. I get mad quicker, I laugh harder, and if a fight breaks out, I hit harder. Dad and Andy were both a smoother, quieter variety, and even though I never had a chance to ask him, I think my dad’s drinking was less about self-destruction and more about a mellow, smooth numbness. After losing my mom, I think I can understand that.
When the coast was finally clear, I finalized my supplies for the evening. First, I pulled the cushions off the couch, frowning at the mess of old gum, loose change, and bits of ancient food underneath before sneaking down the hallway to pull a sheet from the linen closet. I carefully laid the sheet down, plopped a pillow onto one end, and began to set out the rest of my gear. I decided, with some regret, that the fireworks would be a bad idea. No matter how ferocious a weapon they might prove to be, setting the house on fire could turn a win into a loss very quickly. I unfolded the pocketknife and slid it under the edge of the sofa, just in reach if I needed it. I tucked the heavy metal flashlight I’d found in my dad’s toolbox into the folds of the sheet, and I slung the strap of the Polaroid around my neck. Then I slid down into the sheet, nestling as deep as I could manage before pulling the cushions up on top of me.
It was, admittedly, very bad camouflage, but from a distance of fifteen feet or so, I might be nearly invisible if you weren’t looking for me. Through a narrow slit of cushions, I could see the back door, a gaping, empty blackness. With a few fidgety adjustments, I pulled the camera up closer to my face and peered through the eyehole. It wasn’t a great angle, but it would work.
And the waiting game began.
I listened to the music of my house. Every house has its own tune, a unique series of sounds that takes years for you to fully realize is even there. Ours was no different. The icemaker on the fridge would hum, pop, and dump a fresh load with a crunch. The water heater, long on its last leg, would hiss every so often. When the central air came on, one of the loose vents would rattle just loud enough to hear. Still I waited.
Soon, the industrial saw of Dad’s snoring began to drift in, and a few minutes later, the constant clattering hum of the mingling games and music from Andy’s room ceased. The house itself seemed to calm down, breathing with the wind outside, and the cracks and pops of the cooling frame grew silent. Never in my life up to that point had I felt more surreally and irrationally afraid. I was, after all, at the scene of the crime, a place where the unreal and mundane collided, a place where anything might happen. I huddled deeper into the musty folds of the couch to hide myself as I shuddered. There wasn’t anything to see, and even less to do, but my mind, like the minds of most children, abhorred the vacuum. The empty space filled with a thousand images, all overlaid too fast for me to even discount them as foolish, like a deck of cards being shuffled by an expert dealer.
Eyes at the door.
Footsteps on the porch.
The unmistakable sound of dripping blood.
A hand, black and skeletal, reaching down from the ceiling to pluck me up, to whisk me away to the place where toys go.
It was too much, all of it more than a nine-year-old psyche could handle. I lay there for what felt like hours, but somewhere in the haze of irrational panic, my body decided I’
d had enough. So I slept.
I awoke to a nightmare. The room, previously lit by the hanging fixture in the kitchen, had gone as black as crow feathers. My bones seemed to lock at the joints, and my heartbeat pounded in my ears like native drums. I couldn’t hear or see a thing, and I gripped the cushion in front of me as if it would somehow shield me from whatever unseen horrors lurked out in the world. In a few long-drawn-out minutes, my eyes began to slowly adjust to the blackness, a fact that only heightened the fear. Every stray shadow felt as if it were glaring at me, every breeze against the windows felt like a breath against the sliding glass door, every swaying branch became a hand grasping at the handle.
Time means nothing in moments like that. It becomes an abstract thought, something impossible to understand, like imagining what comfort feels like when you’ve dropped a soup can on your toe. If you’d asked me then how long that span of darkness lasted, I would no doubt have told you I had been on that couch for months, maybe even years. But soon, the yawning black mouth of the glass door grew pink in the back, then gray, then blue as daylight spilled in.
I never knew who it was that turned off the light. Likely Dad or Andy stumbled into the kitchen for a drink of water in the middle of the night. Either way, the hunter had come up empty-handed.
* * *
The next week passed without much worth mentioning. For a few more nights, I kept my vigil, certain the thing would return, only to turn up sore and sleep-deprived for school the next morning. Sallie was more or less despondent about her doll for the first few days, and more than once I nearly broke down and told her the truth. Once, in the bathroom stall, I practiced what I would tell her, whispering into my hand so no one else would hear me. The sound of my voice explaining what had happened, while a line of little girls pissed next to me, convinced me it wasn’t the best idea. All I had was the feeling, that bone-deep terror of watching the thing slink up the wall like a liquid shadow. I don’t quite know if I have the words now, as a grownup, to truly relay that dread, but I’m certain I didn’t have them when I was a child. If it weren’t for Andy smashing the tape, I’d at least have had someone to share the burden with, and the thought made me bristle whenever I saw him stroll into a room.