I was halfway up the stairs when I heard her scream at the top of her lungs.
“I hate this house!”
*****
Weeks passed uneventfully.
Eli traipsed about, having forgotten the whole “shoe incident”, harboring no ill will toward Valerie. In fact, as the days progressed, his temperament mirrored my mother’s. He seemed most happy when he was at home, cavorting about the house or in one of the various yards. There were technically three – the front, the back and the side yard, which was dominated by the deck, though there was still enough room for a six-year-old to find adventure.
On one such occasion, I’d come home from school and found him searching the environs beneath the deck with the scrutiny of an archeologist on the ebb of a monumental find. He was crab-walking, hunched even more than that deformed man of Notre Dame, his eyes inspecting every square of the ground before him.
“What’cha doin’?” I had asked. I’d been looking for him for nearly fifteen minutes. It was time for him to bathe – or so my mom had instructed – and I was chosen to be the bearer of bad tidings.
“Hunting for treasure,” he said distractedly. An exasperated shrug followed, telling me I should’ve known what he was doing by mere observation.
The little scamp!
“What makes you think there’s treasure down here?” I had to ask. It was too intriguing. I was curious to hear his answer. Eli oftimes had doozies that sent me laughing aloud for hours.
“Because, Jerry, she told me there was treasure down here,” was his succinct reply.
I frowned. I had not expected that. I tilted my head to one side. “What she? Who are you talking about, Elijah?”
“The lady… She told me it was a game.” He continued to gaze around the support-posts, poke his fingers through age-old cobwebs. “I like games.”
I watched him for a few moments longer, not entirely at ease with what he had said. He was way too focused, like he was consumed by the idea “she” had planted in his mind. Eli kept on, edging around the concrete piles in the ground, shoving dirt and leaves and sand this way and that.
I recalled what our mother had said, shaking myself from my brother’s odd behavior. “Mom said it’s time for you to take a bath.”
Eli huffed through pinched lips, making them vibrate loudly. “Tell her I’ll take one later. I’m busy.”
I chuffed. “Naw, man, you tell her. You’re on your own now that I’ve told you what she wants.” I made to leave.
Behind me, Elijah clicked the roof of his mouth. “Alright, alright, I’m coming.”
“Thought you’d see the light,” I muttered not turning back, though I heard his small footfalls following.
None of us like facing my mother’s wrath. Not one of us.
It was quite some time before I truly understood what was transpiring with my little brother that late afternoon. Whether or not he ever found the “treasure” I never knew either. Though I’d seen him on the side yard many times, he never mentioned it to me again.
Valerie stayed in her room for the most part, watching MTV or some ridiculous sitcom that was more annoying than funny. She was no doubt lying low, trying to stay out from underfoot.
My mom had already employed a landscaper by then and Julio, our gardener, a had started the week before, so the square acre about the house was beginning to look less like the foothills of Kilimanjaro and more like a normal, suburban patch typical of Highland Park.
I had to admit, there was a small part of me that really hated to see the jungle at 1052 Lincoln Drive disappear, because it was a place where imagination could run amok. But, as the new, manicured version began to take root, I couldn’t disagree with the notion that I liked it as well. Seeing the rolling lawn beyond the Birds-of-Paradise and the long-stemmed, Naked Ladies was amazing. It was a perfect place for Eli to play. It was screened from the street below by the hulking Lantana bush and, though it was canted with a slight incline, it was entirely safe. I could see many a good time for him out there in the front yard.
I was happy.
I remember it was a Sunday when those assessments of our new home were skipping across my consciousness. I was at my desk, pondering what I’d do next. I’d been half-thinking of my surroundings and half-recalling I’d been rolling around on my bed with Myra less than an hour prior. I was distracted, clearly.
She’d come over after breakfast, full with smiles and kindness for my family. We had dallied about for a time before my mom suggested I show her all of the improvements we’d done to the place since we moved in. It wasn’t like Myra hadn’t been here before. She’d come over more than a few times once we’d began dating. I think my mother was being polite.
So, I showed her about the grounds.
She made it seem like she was impressed, but kept alluding to seeing the “improvements” in my bedroom. That’s always been the thing with Myra. Even when she was trying to be subtle, she did so with the delicacy of a nuclear bomb.
I got the hint and took her upstairs.
It wasn’t long before we found ourselves entangled upon the bed, making out furiously like teenagers typically do. There were no lingering touches or fluttering kisses, only lips smashed against smashed lips, our mutual ardor near searing, our young loins burning with a desire we both feared, but wanted to quench. I think we both knew there would be a time when the need to brush against those flames would outweigh any misgivings we might’ve had in our minds. We were already flirting with it.
With thoughts of her pert breasts filling my hand and my mouth, I heard the thump of someone’s foot upon the top step of the stairs leading from the attic. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but by the third, then the fourth, then the fifth step, a thought struck me…
Who’d gone up into the attic?
I hadn’t heard anyone walked past the threshold of my room. Anyone wishing to attain the third level of the house would have to pass by my room to do so. And, why would someone go up there in the first place? With the house being as large as it was, only those items we’d use maybe once a year were stored up there – Halloween and Christmas decorations, old papers and pictures, our baby clothes and such items my mom was intent on keeping for all of time. There was nothing of immediate importance up there. Who could it be?
I heard the ninth, the tenth, the eleventh…
There was really no reason for someone to go up there… unless, Eli had…
He better not have! I thought. The attic wasn’t a good place for someone his age to play. It wasn’t safe for little kids. Eli could get hurt up there! He could fall down in the dark, scrape himself silly on a rusted nail… The list went on and on in my head.
…The twelfth, the thirteenth, the fourteenth… sounded.
I was sure going to let him have a piece of my mind when he walked past the door of my room on his way toward his. The attic stairs ended just outside the portal of my domain. I knew there were only nineteen stairs, having made the trip up there, over and over, when we’d moved in, so I got up from my desk and turned to face the door.
…The seventeenth, the eighteenth, the nineteenth…
I made ready to speak. Elijah wouldn’t be playing up there any time soon, if I had something to day about it.
I waited.
…The twentieth, the twenty-first, the twenty-second…
What the fuck? was the thought. I rushed toward the hallway, thinking my little brother was messing around on the bottom stairs, knowing I was going to berate him for playing where he shouldn’t be playing.
“Elijah, you had better not -.”
There was no need to continue speaking.
There was no one there.
I heard the twenty-third step, my eyes noting the near-imperceptible bend of the wooden plank. I knew how a step would give when weight was applied to it and that was precisely what I was seeing. Someone was standing upon the lowest stair.
Only, no one was there.
The way to the attic
was clear.
I took an investigative stride forward, my brow furled in consternation. What was going on?
There came a creak. The wood flexed again. The weight had disappeared.
~~~~~~~<<< ᴥ >>>~~~~~~~
Chapter Four: A Growing Sense
Within a month, things around the house began to turn evermore strange. Two incidents occurred within a week of Halloween 1986, days apart. A third happened two weeks later, leaving us wondering about our decision to live atop the hill on Lincoln Drive. Had it been a good idea after all?
The first two weren’t really “single” events in the true sense of the word. Rather, they were more like on-going acts. When I say they happened, I mean they began to happen around that time, but I also mean they never stopped until events came to a head more than a year later. But alas, I am jumping ahead… far, far ahead.
One night, a Friday, after being out with my girl and some friends, I walked through the front door, read the “good-night” note my mother had left for me on the dining table, turned off the light and made my way up to my room. I was worn out. The excitement and energy we’d exuded in Old Town Pasadena had been epic. Dinner and a movie with three other couples had been hellacious, a thousand laughs, lots of food and snacks, and one heck of a good time.
I walked into my room, shut the door quietly, not wanting to wake-up Elijah, who could sometimes hear the vibrations of such things through the walls. As light-footed as possible, I made for the shower.
When I came out with just a towel wrapped around me, I was scared shitless to see a figure standing in the doorway. I yelped, almost dropping the only item covering my privates.
Then, it spoke.
I was relieved.
“Jerry, why did you leave all the lights on downstairs?”
It was my mother.
“What?” I inquired, cinching the towel more securely about my waist. “I turned off the dining room light and made sure everything was locked up tight.”
“Then how come every single light is blazing like the Fourth of July right now?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I was taking a shower.”
She sighed. “In the future, can you make sure to turn them off for me, ok?”
I scowled, but she couldn’t see it in the semi-dark of the room. I felt much like my little brother had a while back when Valerie had falsely accused him of stealing her beloved boots.
“Jerry?” There was that tone again.
“Ok, mom, no problem.”
She left without another word. She must’ve been tired.
The following morning at breakfast Valerie asked, “Which one of you inconsiderate family members kept turning on the lights last night? I had to turn them off twice.”
“When?” asked my mother.
“I don’t know, once around three-thirty and the other around four-twenty.”
My mother and I shared a concerned look. Our mini-confrontation had occurred hours before the times Valerie had indicated.
“That’s so weird,” she commented.
“What’s ‘weird’?” asked my sister.
“Well, I had to turn off the lights about an hour and a half before that,” replied my Mom.
“And, that was after I had turned off the overhead in the dining room when I got home,” I interjected, not about to waste the opportunity to explain that I’d done my part when I returned the night before.
Eli was watching the older members of his family, his head jerking to and fro like a parakeet as he tried to keep up with the conversation.
My mother shrugged. “It’s sort of spooky, don’t you think?”
Valerie rudely blew air between her lips. “You’re the one that wanted to live here.” Her brusque tone wasn’t lost on my mom.
She stared at her daughter from the corner of her eye, obviously contemplating whether or not she should give her a good tongue-lashing.
The silence droned.
Elijah frowned, and then brightened like a Roman candle in the night sky. “I think the house is awesome!”
Valerie reached out to muss his hair, which he easily avoided by blocking her offensive hand with one of his own. “You would think that, you weirdo.”
“I’m not a weirdo. You are,” shot back Elijah, wrinkling his face at her.
Above them, I couldn’t help but notice the look of concern on my mother’s face. These odd happenings had got her thinking.
Three days later, the day before Halloween, was when the dishes began to rattle in the sink. Anything we didn’t get around to washing the night before, rattle periodically throughout the night.
I think it was a message. Hey, clean up over here, will ya? But I was never completely certain and this is no more than pure speculation on my part. And yet, it sure as hell felt that way when I’d being lying in bed, on the cusp of a dream, and I’d hear the damned cookware clinking and clanking against one another all the way down the hall, around the corner, down the stairs, through the back porch, from the kitchen. Someone had to be saying, “Yo, get your shit together and clean this shit up.”
Then, the lights would come on.
And I’m not talking they’d turn on abruptly like you’d see in the movies as if some magical electricity had “crossed-over” and was now capable of turning on the lights. No, this was different. One by one, every wall-switch was thrown, every nob upon each lamp was twisted. The lights came to life as if someone were walking about the front room brightening the way as they went.
Invariably, either my Mom or Valerie would have to climb from the warmth of their covers and undo what seemed to be occurring all on its’ own.
I would sometimes hear their disgruntled mutterings and heavy feet as they shuffled about, darkening the downstairs once again.
After a while, it was apparent to us that washing everything before we went to bed was easier than getting up, time after time, to turn off the lights. It was simple, if the kitchen was clean – nothing happened.
You see?
“…clean this shit up!”
*****
In the middle of November, Myra and I finally went there.
Well, almost.
We had, over the course of our relationship, reached the point where making out wasn’t enough. We’d petted heavily, satisfied one another every which way possible without intercourse and had hit a sexual wall we wanted to batter down like there was no tomorrow.
Not really sure who’s idea it was first, we’d come to the conclusion it was finally time we had sex.
So, we picked a day where neither of us had much to do at school, waited until after Homeroom and ditched during nutrition. We walked the mile and a half to my house, excited, antsy, the world sparkling like living crystal everywhere we looked. We were in love. We were ecstatic. And, we were going to lose our virginity, together!
As it turned out, though we had plenty of time, were never rushed or interrupted, we didn’t quite finish the act. Simply, Myra had been too small. Not that I’m some Mandingo straight from the wilds or anything remotely like that. I’m saying she was small for a woman. I really didn’t understand what had happened at the time. I only had a notion it would take a few more times before we’d get things working well in that department.
We weren’t put off or embarrassed. Myra and I were never that way with one another. For the most part, all of these years later, we’re still fairly honest with our feelings. Yes, if you haven’t guessed by now, though we began our sexual exploits when we were teenagers, we did in fact marry. After meeting, there was really never anyone else for us. I counted myself lucky, and I hope she feels the same.
She must’ve, right? She’s still here trying to read over my shoulder as I write this.
Now, she’s pulling my ear, telling me not to put this in the book.
Too bad, babe! You shouldn’t be peaking in the first place.
So, we finished one another orally, sated, but still curious if we could figure the whole sex-thing out wit
h a second try. We laughed about it, holding each other tight, loving the feeling of our naked bodies against each other. We talked as we fondled, expressed our dreams, touching, luxuriating in the sensations of others’ body. We kissed and caressed until late in the afternoon, content to stay nude and enjoy the moment to the fullest.
Finally, Myra got up and said she had to go.
I asked her if she needed for me to walk her home, but she said no. Her friend Feline was going to pick her up, so it would look like she’d spent time at her house, instead of mine.
“I don’t want my mom to get the impression I was out all day getting boned,” she had said playfully, even though that wasn’t quite true.
When she stooped to pick up her clothes, we were surprised when we couldn’t find her panties. We searched everywhere in my room. When Feline had honked for the fourth time, we were still looking.
Exasperated, Myra left holding down her min-skirt, hoping she wasn’t going to flash the neighbors, as she made her way down to her friends’ car.
I watched her leave from the kitchen windows, sad over her having to leave and also a little sad we were no longer kids anymore. Something had changed within us both. Though not fully consummated, the intent had been there. I’d been poised before the gates so to speak, but her physiological “smallness” had made that impossibility.
I’m not a boy anymore, I remember thinking just as my mother came up behind me and hugged me tight.
It never even entered my mind that she wasn’t due home for a few more hours. She still had to stop and pick up Eli from his afterschool program before she would drive home. In fact, Valerie wasn’t even due home for another half hour.
The embrace had been so warm and loving. It was precisely the way my mother hugged me from behind, which she did from time to time. She would do it when I wasn’t expecting it, but when she was feeling her love for me in her heart. I know this, because I was always able to feel her emotions from her body traveling into the back of mine.
The Birth of Bane Page 5