Gancho's Haul

Have you ever wondered why things disappear around your house, my loves? Or why, perhaps, you go into a shop and see a thing you really want but don't have enough to pay for, and then when you come back for it, it is gone? Some might chalk it up to bad luck. It’s much simpler than that. Socks, watches, t-shirts, keys, wallets, tools, pens, belts; anything small that you value and have difficulty locating, even though you keep it in the same place always, I know where they go, dear ones. Yes, I do.

I'm not saying I took them, exactly. I'm also not saying I didn't take them. I don’t care about the things themselves, dears. I care about your feelings for those things. When you understand what power that has, you may thank me for my mischief. Madness would drown you all, dears, if I didn’t do my little job. No, I am not the root of the madness, but I serve it, and when you finally understand what that madness is, you will he grateful these little things are the only toll I take.

Am I a gremlin? That is certainly one term for my kind, though it falls utterly short of the reality. I’m not a god, really. I am no demon, either. Wings! Pshaw! No, I hail from an ancient folk, more akin to goblins or the wee folk. I am no pixie or piskie or of the Sidhe. I'm far older than those frail human scapegoats, though I am partially those things and more and less and greater and smaller and more harmful and more harmless, my dears. I am not avoiding the question. I have been called an imp, and that is surprisingly suitable, if you like it.

My name? Well, they call me Gancho nowadays. Who’s “they”? Well, those who know me, of course. That was not my original name, even when they gave it to me before. It comes from the Chinese, “gwong cho,” which means ‘get me something to eat’. That's pretty close to what I do, so it stuck. No, I don't eat your stuff. I steal it is all. And when I do, it causes you a thimbleful of grief, sadness, maybe anger, maybe despair. All of those things combined, maybe? That is a delicious, intoxicating, effulgent, scintillating draft for the One for Whom I Steal. The One For Whom I Steal wants me to feed its excellency, and so I do, and I accomplish this by creating just a little chaos, just a little misery. This keeps The One For Whom I Steal just so happily inebriated. Me going out to get your lost things, that's how I got the name, but over millennia it's just become Gancho, and that's perfect for me, now. I go and get Its Excellency food that keeps it docile, contented. I cannot ever stop, because if I do, Its Excellency will sober up, and when it does, it will be angry and it will devour your sanity whole, and when The One For Whom I Stea is angry and starving, it tends to eat too much and then it expels what it eats, but then it is just pure chaos.

The times in human history where the world has been in terrible trouble—wars and calamities and catastrophes—that is Its Excellency devouring your madness and unleashing chaos. By comparison, it doesn't seem so bad to have me take a little something from you, now does it?

That's why, of late, my dears, you’re feeling the ever more powerful strain. People are more careful with their possessions. And I have a harder time taking them when you can tap a screen and see where your lost phone is. So I graduated up. I started sneaking your reason. Turns out, thinking for oneself is an even more potent liquor for the One for Whom I Steal. That keeps Its Excellency even more tipsy, though for shorter periods, and it keeps your world from erupting into chaos and, let's face it, you weren't using your reason anyway, were you, loves? And when it’s gone? We’ll soon find out, won’t we? 

It’s a fair trade. Your loss of reason is better than You-Know-Who waking up with a raging hangover, destroying everything, and driving you mad, right? That’s why Gancho’s here, my loves ...

... for now

On a Country Road

Seething, burning, stinging sunlight. The road ahead wavers in living heat. The sun bakes through boots and socks, jeans, and a tattered chambray shirt, scorching the pate, neck, shoulders, and forearms of the man who walks. Slowly, ploddingly, feeling every degree of the heat, he moves across the space. The road cuts through the wastes of corn and tobacco, and he moves upon the road, one with it, not connected to it by more than one foot at a time, and yet always there, always moving in one direction, always shambling doggedly.

It need not be the depths of brutal July. He is there in the rains of late September, when the first tinges of color strike the leaves and the verdant stalks of corn have faded to golden, rustling, papery applause at his passing. He is there on the coldest mornings, when the world is blinded white by snow and cutting winds. Cars pass. Farmers tend their fields. Trees grow and fall and sprout again from their roots. The man moves across the landscape, one step by one step, slowly, achingly, bent with weariness, always moving and yet ever there, caught between destination and departure, like Xeno’s Paradox made real.

I once saw a rattlesnake cross that road. I had a flat tire, and I pulled over into the grassy shoulder on a hot day in August, sweating already, so I could change out for a spare, and I saw the man in the distance walking toward me. He doesn’t seem to see me, and he doesn’t rush to help me. That’s okay. I can do this. 

I set out my tools, looking both ways to see if another car or truck will pass. That’s when I hear it. The buzzing, whining, rattling of a fat and ill-tempered snake as it fights across the fiery asphalt. I see the man approaching and the snake moving, and it seems to me that neither sees the other. I raise my hands and shout, but my voice falls dead in the stifling heat and humidity. It is so hot. The man does not look my way. The snake continues its slow progress. 

Off in the deep distance, a faint band of grey rises over the corn. A cooling wind kicks through the supple blades of the plants. I feel a deep desire for the cooling of the world into fall and winter. A storm seems to be building up out there on the horizon. I don’t want to be caught by a downpour. I wonder, in the back of my mind, if the man has shelter that he will find when the hail and lightning fly.

Thinking then of the snake and of the man, I step away from my truck and move toward him, once again yelling to get his attention.

 His face is a mask of faded features, blurred by the distance and the heat. The road gently undulates, snakelike, courting the heat of the day, and sending all in its path into shimmering obscurity. At one point between us, where the road dips a little, it shines and seems to fill with silver water. In the surface of that shining mirror, I see the man walking reflected in it, as if he stood by the edge of a pond. Mesmerized by this illusion, I stop, irrationally hoping to avoid getting my boots wet. My head feels heavy, slow, muzzy with the burdensome, sticky, hazy heat. I shout again, and I see that suddenly, the man is looking toward me. A tiny change in the focus of his attention; the slightest uptick of his head, and I feel his eyes on me, even from this far. The snake, I shout to him and point. The buzzing intensifies. Here is a fever dream, as my head feels wobbly and pained with the oppression. Faint, far off, a storm is building. I can hear the almost silent rumble of it. The wind kicks up again, and the corn stalks wobble. 

 The breeze brings with it a cooling, and my head clears a bit. The man is still walking toward me. He’s grown taller and clearer in the feverishness of this strange afternoon.

 When he stoops to catch up the snake, I don’t see it so much as feel it. He never misses a stride. He just bends, birdlike and in one smooth motion, betraying his apparent age, grabs the massive serpent and sends it flying over his head and into the fields. He has a moment, where he casts his head back over his shoulder to see the arcing path of its flight into the corn, and then looks forward and at me again. I see his hands. They are moving, not just in the swinging of his stride, but his fingers and palms are flashing, rigid and then straight, bent and then curved. Is he trying to show me something?

 I look about, to see if there are any others out here on this desperate road, but no one stirs. Just me, and him, and my hobbled truck. I go back, the danger averted, for now, affix my spare to the axle and place my tools back. I glance the whole time at the man, and though he never stops walking, he only gets a little closer each time. He should have been here by now, I think. He is toying with me. His hands flashing symbols, his feet clattering on the hot blacktop. He should have been here by now.

 Thunder echoes now, overhead, a great crack swells as it echoes through the canyons of cloud and light. My tire is fixed, and I’m in the cab of my truck. I have rolled up my windows in preparation for the coming hail and lightning. The man, now as a reflection in my mirror, comes walking. He walks and walks, and he is always here and never. I see him and I think of offering him a ride. He will be here soon, and I can ease his back and his tight legs and his rolling gait and give him the comfort of a truck out of the weather and offer him a ride to any place, and give him food or shelter.

 Then he is alongside. Staring, breathing, his hands on my door. I wind down the window, and I see him as he is. He is seamed and weatherbeaten, lank hair hanging in a frame of his grizzled face, set mouth, high, proud forehead, long, powerful fingers, gesturing, flexing, forming those fingers into signs and sigils that I both know and hate, understand and fear.

 He never says anything to me. He never moves, but to make those gestures of ancient, archaic magicks. He nods and I nod and then I see that he his laughing, himself in the driver’s seat of my truck, and I am on the outside and the symbols and gestures have left me. He drives off, cackling, watching me in the watery reflection of the slick, rainy mirrors of my truck. He waves and cackles, and I am here.

 And I am here, walking. On this road. Under this sky. In these fields. In the heat. In the rain. Walking. In all weather. In all moments of time. It was him, and now it is me. Walking.

 Walking.

 Walking ... forever ...

Improv Cats

“What we play is life.”

-Lois Armstrong

Wendel Jennings, Wen-Dawg to his bandmates, was not like other jazz players. He could open up, zone into the depths of the music, and he could pull you into it. I remember the first time I played with him. We were just chilling at this cat Melvin Rhodes’s place. It was out near the Kick It Club, and Melvin worked there, playing piano on weekend nights, but during the week, we’d go out there and hang at his place and drink and smoke, and soon enough, he’d sit at the keys and reel out some progressions and invite us to jam along. This was before Gus Talver joined with his kit and sticks, so it was just me, Melvin, Wendel, and this other cat they called Ricktoe. 

We were just bopping, working through something by one of Melvin’s teachers up at the college, and then Wendel, he takes out his silver sax, man, and it was so smokey, and I just knew right away that this man was on a whole different level.

You’ve heard about Paganini and how he sold his soul to the Devil to be able to play the violin like he could. Robert Johnson, down at the crossroads, too. Well, Wen-Dawg was something else besides that. His fingers moved in such a way. It was flawless. He didn’t talk much. Always wore all black and those shades; never took them off at all. He would just sit back and smoke and not say anything, and then, when Melvin would kick in at the keys, then suddenly that silver sax would come out and we’d all be blown away and I’d sit there, blowing my horn and thinking that I was going home that night and tossing it in the river and saying fuck it to music forever. How could I keep going when Wen-Dawg was here at my level and he was just doing almost magical stuff with it?

I’ve been listening to jazz music since I was a kid. Other kids from my part of town were rap or metal heads, and I mean, I listened to everything, but my Uncle Jimmy was a real hifi head, and he had a jazz collection that just about blew away anything I’ve ever seen. And I listened when he put on any records. Man, the music just spoke to me. I could feel it, sometimes hear it, even after the music had stopped. My favorite, early on, was Bird. That cat could blow. True, he was almost always high, but he could still do things with that sax no one else could. And that was what got me into wanting to play. When I was old enough to start in band, I thought that I wanted to be a sax player, but I heard that you had to start with the clarinet and graduate through the oboe up into the sax. Well, I wasn’t that patient, so I told my mom that I wanted to play the horn. She got me this old jacked horn in a green case with red velvet lining at the pawn shop, and she spent fifty or sixty bucks on it. 

I took lessons from old Mr. Kemper. I played my heart out. It was Mr. K who taught me about Miles. I listened to everything that Uncle Jimmy had by Miles, but I played and I played and I played, trying to emulate him in every way. I auditioned and suddenly, I was in the high school jazz band. It wasn’t really jazz. More big band shit, but I still played. I even convinced the band teacher to let us play So What the first track from Kind of Blue, which is only the best record Miles Davis ever made. 

After high school, though, I had to get a job, and so I only played gigs when people needed a horn player, which was getting less and less. I would still go up to the college now and then and use their studio or do some session work, but I was getting to where I thought I was never going to be like Miles, not for real. A white kid with a horn can’t play in jazz clubs. It just doesn’t happen at my level but that’s when I met Melvin, and that’s when we started hanging out.

One night—this was like three years ago, now—I was up at Melvins and we were just drinking and shooting the shit. Wen-Dawg was there, but he wasn’t saying anything like usual, but then he just says, “Look.” Just like that. “Look.” No one was used to him talking, so we all shut up.

He takes out his sax and he says, “Dig this,” and then he played. Melvin wasn’t by the keys, and my horn was in my lap. We were just hanging out, you know. And then Wen-Dawg just starts riffing on this super shiny silver sax. It wasn’t like the one we’d seen before. This one was different. It was silver, but it was also a lot of other colors, too. Like an oil slick of colors and the stuff he was playing, man, it was blowing my mind.

You know how, when a kid picks up a sax and they blow and it makes a sound like a thousand cats being skinned? Well, when this cat played, it was like a door opened and we were suddenly somewhere else. I tried to remember it. It was like a bad trip, man. I mean it. I thought someone had slipped me some acid. I saw some strange shit, and I thought for sure I was going out of my mind. But it was the music. When he stopped blowing, the visions stopped. I looked around, and everyone had the same look on their face. Pure shock. Wen-Dawg didn't say anything. He just nodded slowly and knowingly.

It was a few weeks before he brought that sax to Melvin's improv meetup again. And it was weird, man. I wanted another hit of that feeling. I wanted to see what that music showed. Melvin asked him. I even asked him. He wouldn't say anything. Finally, Melvin asked him again. He just nodded. And we got excited, like kids at Christmas.

It happened again. Here he is, just sitting there and all of us jamming and suddenly he takes out that super shiny rainbow silver sax and blows and I see visions. It pours through me like water and I cannot get enough. Just pure, perfect, amazing music.

Then one day, we get news that Wen-Dawg got a record deal and he was headed out to New York to record. Melvin called me and said Wen-Dawg wanted us to come up to his place to play before he headed out. I met up with Melvin and Ricktoe and Gus and we went out to this big old house near the river. It was behind a gate and it was huge. I mean, when I say it was a mansion, it was beyond that. And I looked at Melvin and he nodded.

So we go up there, and Wen-Dawg has this stuffed man, like a butler and he issues us into a studio and Wen-Dawg is there, man. This cat is dressed all in black, but he looks good. And I wish him congratulations and you know, he just looked at me through those black wrap arounds and then reached out a hand and shook mine and at first I thought, you know, man, that's cool, but then I had a feeling like I was a fly and he was the toad, you know?

So we set up and we just kind of warm up and Wen-Dawg takes out his shiny silver sax and he starts to blow and we fall into the beat and man, I mean it. The room opened up. It was like nothing. Nothing I have ever experienced before.

We played like that for I don't know how long. I kept wanting to take a break, but I couldn't. My ability to blow just kept coming, and my fingers and lips, man. They had this power. I swear to Miles, that's the best I've ever played. I started to feel like I really had a shot at something, and even, you know, in the back part of my mind, I even considered asking Wen-Dawg to take us along, but those visions I was having, I couldn’t even focus on it.

It was like the music was a living thing: alive and breathing and hungry, and the more we played, the more we wanted to play. I was starting to get tired and wet. This was intense, boy. And then, as if it was the first time I'd ever picked up a horn, it went out of me. My horn squeaked and squawked, and then that was it. I couldn't play. Melvin stopped, Gus, Ricktoe, and all at the same time, and then, finally, Wen-Dawg stopped. And the vision stopped. He never said nothing to us. He just had his butler take us out.

I haven't been able to play since. Not a note. Not even a note. Melvin won't say anything to me. I haven't seen Ricktoe. Gus is gone, moved. Sold his kit. Every time I try to listen to music, I just get so torn up. It sounds horrible, like screaming and bellowing. Like a whole room of tortured people. One time, my Uncle Jimmy told me this story about a guy he knew who worked up at the state hospital. It was where they kept the criminally insane and the other people who were crazies, or whatever. He used to tell this story. Someone pulled the fire alarm, and they all started hollering, and this guy went to Uncle Jimmy, who said that it sounded like what he thought hell would sound like. A bunch of people hollering and screaming, and no end to it. Well, that’s what I thought of the first time I tried to listen to a jazz record, after that night. It didn’t sound like music. It sounded like I was listening in on Hell.

I don't know what happened with that sax, man, and you'll think I'm crazy, but I think it ate my skill and any talent I had worked up. That sounds nuts, I know, but that's okay. Once I could play. I have recordings of session work, and that's me playing. But I can't play anymore, man, and I swear it. I know that Wen-Dawg stole my skills. Took all our skills with that damned sax. Now he’s famous, and I will never even be able to listen to music again.

That’s okay, man. I finally figured it out. Wen-Dawg is coming to the Upstate Jazz Festival, and I got tickets. I also got something to give to Wen-Dawg, too. It might not do me any good, but I don’t have music, so what could ever do me good again? 

Sky Light

Mel Kaplan moved into the house at 15 Cosgrove Court which was a cul-de-sac boasting four houses. Mel lived alone in what his neighbors still called The Treadlow House, because Mr. Robert Treadlow had been such an important part of that small, close-knit community. Mr. Treadlow had no children, no family, so he treated his neighbors like they were his own, and they all loved him for it. When he died, rather unexpectedly, everything had been divided, as per his carefully set will, to the other families. Jenny and Dwight Lemmonds, Rich and Tara Ford, and their three daughters, Tara, Jesse, and Sabrina, and Will and Peggy Albrecht all made out very well from Mr. Treadlow and his generosity, but because of a loophole in the legal arrangements, the house went up for sale.

Mel Kaplan, whether he understood it or not, had to live his life in the vacuum that Robert Treadlow's death created. Mel was just a regular neighbor who wanted to be on good terms with the other families. He didn't understand his new position, so, I made an effort to get to know him early and act as a buffer if I could.

I lived in the next house just outside the cul-de-sac. I didn't benefit from Robert Treadlow or his generous will. That was okay. I was happy for his neighbors. And, as far as they knew, their little hermetically sealed community within our larger neighborhood was reckoned by everyone else in Homeland Acres to be just a little too friendly and close-knit for our liking. 

The families on Cosgrove Court lived and thrived in their tiny Quebec and had learned through their leader that they didn't need us. For our part, the feeling was mutual based on aversion. We all knew something didn't feel right about the cul-de-sac and so we minded our business and they minded theirs.

I asked my wife to come with me to bring Mel a pie, welcome him, and invite him to a barbecue at our house. He gratefully agreed, and he seemed like a decent guy. For the next few months, we got to know each other pretty well. He sat in my driveway with me most Saturdays, watching the day pass, having a few beers. We got to be decent friends.

It was during this time that I gently asked him about the other neighbors in Cosgrovia, as he and I had taken to calling the cul-de-sac: the Lemmonds, the Fords, the Albrechts.

He said they were nice enough, but that he got a weird vibe from all of them. When I asked him to explain, he said he couldn't. It wasn't anything specific. Just a weird vibe.

◯

Number 15 had been built, like the other houses in Homeland Acres, in the early 1980s. It was one of three or four standard house types that the builders would use for the development, so that all the houses weren't exactly the same. Mr. Treadlow owned the first house to go up back then. He watched the other houses go up one by one and saw the people move in and out of them over the years. He remembered how things had been before Homeland Acres was there. He remembered the fields that had once been corn, tobacco, alfalfa, and owned by Harry Johnson. The rumor was that Harry Johnson went insane after the disappearance of his wife and gave everything to Robert Treadlow, but no one really knew about it. In the cul-de-sac, any mention of Harry Johnson was like a switch that cut the conversation off.

One day, several months after Mel Kaplan moved in, we were working on my old GMC truck in my driveway. Out of the blue, he asked me about the Albrechts. 

‘They part of a religious cult or something?’

I looked up from under the hood. ‘Peggy and Will? Why?’

‘Here’s why.’

He went on to tell me about the night of the rainstorm.

◯

Will Albrecht walked out in the middle of a downpour in just his boxers and undershirt. Peggy came out after him in her nightgown. It might have been midnight. It was late. 

They have a dusk-til-dawn light on the side of their house that casts a bright light across their side yard. Mel said he had to buy theatre-grade light-blocking curtains so he could sleep. Thunder woke him, and he peeked out on a whim and saw them come out. It was raining hard, and yet there they were. They walked out to the middle of their backyard and both raised their hands over their heads. A light, very bright in a solid beam maybe ten yards across the middle shone down on them from directly over their heads. Mel had to look away, the light was so bright. He heard thunder again, and when the purple spots finally vanished from his vision, Will and Peggy were gone. 

◯

He stood there, looking me directly in the face. There was no evidence of a joke or a lie in his features.

The next day, Mel went over to Will and Peggy Albrecht’s house. The car was in the driveway, and he could hear the TV blaring, but they weren’t home. He figured they were out, but he didn't see them come or go for several days. 

‘Then, last night, he said, ‘I couldn't sleep. I was plenty tired, but I just couldn't calm down. I was keyed up. Nervous as hell. On a whim, I looked down at the Albrecht’s backyard. There they were. Peggy and Will. He was in his underwear, which was soiled and filthy, and she was in her nightgown. She looked like she'd gone skidding on her backside down a mud slick.’ 

‘I went over there this morning and they were in the kitchen, chortling to one another. They invited me to join them and I went in. I was still jumpy as hell and didn't want to stay, but I did. They were in clean clothes, but their dirty clothes were piled on the back porch. I could see them through the screen door. Peggy saw me look at them and closed the door. 

‘I asked them how they'd weathered the storm, and they looked at me like I was speaking Greek.’

‘I’ve never been in their house,’ I said. ‘They always seemed reluctant to do anything with the rest of us,’ I gestured vaguely at Homeland Acres.

‘Damnedest thing. All they would talk about was the election.’

‘What election?’

‘Nixon and Agnew.’ Mel laughed. ‘But here’s the other thing and you gotta swear you won’t think I’m crazy.’

‘Shoot,’ I said.

‘The oldest Ford girl ... What’s her name?’

‘Blonde?’

‘Yeah.’ 

‘Tara.’

‘Yeah. She was dressed like a cheerleader. Pompoms and all. Well, she came over, just as I was getting ready to leave.’

‘Yeah, they treat those girls like their grandkids,’ I said.

‘They seemed to. Here’s the thing.’ He paused and waited for me to look at him again. ‘The Albrechts and the Ford girl started talking in some weird language.’

‘What, like Spanish?’

‘That's the thing. It's not like anything I have ever heard before.’

◯

A week later, Mel came over to my house and asked to come inside. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

◯

‘Dwight Lemmonds came over this afternoon.’ He said.

“How about you come over for the final barbecue of the season? It will be at the end of the month.”

Mel said Dwight Lemmonds stood on his front porch. He was smiling and gesturing to his house across the cul-de-sac. ‘You can invite your friend over there, if you want.’

‘That’s what he said?’

‘That’s what he said.’

‘Doesn’t he know my name?’

‘Apparently not. Anyway, that's not the weirdest part.’

‘What was the weirdest part?

‘He was muttering under his breath to someone I couldn't see. ◯Please go with me.’

I said I would go.

Two weeks before the barbecue in the cul-de-sac, I saw something similarly bizarre.

‘Did he really just stand there?’ Mel asked.

‘Damnedest thing I ever saw.’

‘Dwight Lemmonds is a big man. Pushing three-fifty. He tries to put it off by wearing big shirts, but it’s hard not to notice that he looks like he swallowed the prize pumpkin,’ I said.

‘That he does.’

‘Remember the other night when all the car alarms went off?’

‘How could I forget?’

‘So I look out my front window to see what the hell happened. I was thinking earthquake. It wouldn’t be the first time we had temblors or whatever around here.’

‘What did you see?’

‘Just Dwight. Nothing on. No clothes, no shoes, no nothing. Just in his all-together, jiggling like crazy and wet, like he was sweating profusely.’

‘You went up to him?

‘Yes. I thought he might be having a fit or something. I walked up to him, trying to think what to say. All I could think was why would he wander outside like that? I got close and started to ask if he was okay.’

He just smiled at me.

“The sky light had me.”

‘I was going to ask him to repeat that, but I didn't have time. He shat himself, right there in the middle of the cul-de-sac, smiling the whole time and saying, “The sky light had me.”’

◯

The barbecue was a small affair. The Albrechts were there. The Fords and their three daughters were there, and Dwight Lemmonds was there with Jenny. Everything was set up in the cul-de-sac. Mel Kaplan, I attended. My wife had to work a late shift. It was all very polite and neighborly.

In the middle of the Ford driveway was a folding table with a strange book on it. There were candles and incense around it. I waited for a chance to take a look and saw that it wasn’t one book. It appeared to be several old-fashioned composition notebooks that had been duct-taped together. On the cover, scrawled across the silver tape in black marker were the word, “The Last Will and Testament of Robert W. Treadlow”. I started to reach for it, but Tara Ford appeared suddenly and said, ‘We can show that to you another time.’

I moved hastily back to where Mel was standing, clutching a paper plate slathered with barbecue food, but he wasn’t eating. For some reason, none of the food smelled particularly good to either of us.

I looked back over at Tara, who was speaking to her eldest daughter, but both of them were looking at us. I tried to tune into what they were saying, but the words didn’t make sense. Neither blinked, though their faces didn’t betray anything but friendliness.

‘We have some fireworks to set off once it gets dark,’ Dwight Lemmonds said as the sun set. Mel and I had found some empty lawn chairs and were sitting off to one side, smiling and chatting to anyone who came by. Everyone oohed and ahhed at the announcement. ‘This will be our way of saying goodbye to summer.’ He emphasized that last bit, and the other residents of Cosgrove Court said something in unison, but neither of us knew what it was.

Soon, the high-pressure sodium vapor street light flickered on and made everything look like it was cast in copper. Dwight got everything set up with Will and Rich helping. We offered, but they told us to sit down, so we did.

We also quietly agreed that once the fireworks started, one of us would swipe the book from the Ford’s table and meet back at my garage.

◯

Robert Treadlow didn’t just remember the Johnson farm. He remembered what happened there in 1971. He remembered what happened to Harry Johnson and his wife, Effie. Robert Treadlow worked on the Johnson land as a farmhand. He’d been there and seen it the night of the Sky Light. Harry and Effie were in the yard, scattering grain to the chickens around dusk. Robert was just wrapping up to go home. It was getting dark. A blinding light shot down from the sky. It was so bright that the rest of the world went dark. Harry and Effie were there one minute and gone with the vanishing light, leaving nothing but purple bars in his vision where it had been. 

◯

Rich Ford went over to the light pole and did something to make the sodium vapor light switch off. Dwight, standing in the dim light cast by the dusk-til-dawn light on the Albrecht house, held up a beer and said, “For Robert Treadlow and The Masters.”

◯

Three days later, the dogs at the place wouldn’t stop barking. Robert Treadlow found Harry Johnson behind the barn. He was naked and filthy, as if he had been rolling in the manure pile. His eyes were hollow. He was speaking in a language that Robert had never heard. Effie was nowhere to be found. He and Sam Barstow and Ken Ford searched high and low and slowly came to the conclusion that Harry Johnson had gone insane can killed his wife. Sam and Ken agreed, but Robert Treadlow couldn’t forget the sky light.

◯

The sky was clear. In the new darkness, we could see the stars twinkling overhead. Dwight stooped and used a grill lighter to catch the fuse on a lone firework. It shot up into the sky with a whizzing whoop and then exploded into blue shards of light. There was a boom and then it felt like someone detonated hundreds of pounds of TNT right beneath us. I looked at Mel and his eyes were huge. We both got up and got out of the cul-de-sac and into the street. My ears were ringing. Mel was saying something and pointing back to the book, but I couldn’t understand him. 

Then, a bright bar of light slashed the darkened cul-de-sac into searing brightness. 

◯

It was several weeks before Harry Johnson could be made to speak coherently. He refused to eat or drink. He would mess himself frequently and would scream unknown words in the middle of the night. 

After a few visits from the doctor to give him some shots to calm him down, he became lucid but stoic. All he would say was “They took Effie apart.” 

He couldn’t or wouldn’t work. He wouldn’t go outside, but only looked out the windows at night and wailed about his Effie. The farm would soon fail, Robert Treadlow knew. He called a lawyer friend, and together they convinced Harry Johnson to sign over the farm to Robert. Three days later, Harry Johnson walked outside and across the yard to the barn. Ken and Sam, and Robert found him hanging from a beam.

Not long after that, Robert Treadlow shut the farm down and sold off the chickens, the cows, and everything else. He closed the lane to the house with a locked gate and stopped letting people on the land.

◯

‘Jesus Christ,’ Mel Kaplan gasped. His eyes were huge, and he coughed and gagged, trying hard to catch his breath.

I looked around. 

A cylinder of impossibly bright light was slamming down onto the cul-de-sac. The residents of Cosgrove Court were rising from the ground. Dwight and Jenny Lemmonds. Rich and Tara Ford. Will and Peggy Albrecht. All three Ford girls. They floated upward, their faces slack, their eyes rolled back into their heads, their clothes turning to ashes as they rose. 

In one voice, they spoke, chanting the same phrase over and over, rising into a shriek as they were lifted. The light flashed out, and there was another ground-shaking sound, like thunder. My eyes were filled with bright splotches of purple floating where the brilliant light had been. Slowly, crickets began to chirp again. 

◯

In 1982, Robert Treadlow made arrangements to sell the Johnson Farm to a developer. Part of his intention was to live in the first house they built. He signed off on plans for Homeland Acres. To outsiders, it was just the first of many such sales. A sign of the times. 

His house was in a cul-de-sac. As the other houses were built and new families moved in, Robert Treadlow started a journal. The Masters needed supplicants, after all.

◯

Mel Kaplan moved out later that week. The for-sale sign is still up, but I don’t know if he’s ever going to sell it. The police asked many questions, but we said nothing. My wife and I are looking to get out of here, too. 

Mel and I haven’t spoken since that night, but we agreed silently not to say anything about the sky light. We quietly removed any evidence that we had been at the barbecue. I also grabbed the book from the table in Ford’s driveway. It’s contents, at least the legible parts, are horrifying. I rarely go outside. They are out there, I know. The Masters, as he called them. 

Robert Treadlow and his tiny cult are gone. Their houses sit empty. Police tape flutters in the wind. No one in Homeland Acres says anything about the cul-de-sac or the families that disappeared. Traffic barriers have been put across the entrance. The homes are all sealed. 

I read at night, when I cannot sleep. The Last Will and Testament of Robert W. Treadlow is sitting on a shelf in my garage, but tomorrow, we’re taking out stuff and loading it on a truck and moving. Before we go, I’m burning some papers and trash and that book is going into the flames.

◯

 

“A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet.” 

— Patrick Rothfuss

    “Ow! Damnit!”

    Harley reached up with her left hand to rub her shoulder. 

    “Punch buggy yellow!” Chortled Bean.

    “I told you, don’t hit the driver!”

    “But that’s the game, Har.”

    “I’m gonna get cancer in my shoulder.” She rubbed the spot and then put her hand back at the ten position on the wheel.

    They were driving to see their grandma. It was supposed to take eight hours, but traffic outside of Flint Springs had brought the highway to a standstill. They were now three hours late. Harley Maddens, being the only member of the duo who could drive, was beginning to get frustrated. Bean, whose birth name was Beverly Rebecca, but who had been called Bean since she was an infant, had no license and no desire to get one. She had ‘ spatial issues, ’ she said, meaning that she was, according to Harley, a giant baby who had been spoiled her whole life and was now merely resting on the story she had been fed since she was old enough to listen.

    Bean was in early college, and she excelled at math and science even though she was just a teenager. School was all she did. She had no job, no industry at all, except to hang with her similarly socially awkward friends and talk endlessly about things that just didn’t matter to Harley.

    “How old are you?” Harley glanced in the rearview at Bean, who was sitting against the door with her legs stretched out.

    “I’m sixteen. You know that.”

    “Really?” 

    “Yes, really. Why?”

    “Because three hours ago, I told you not to sit like that. It isn’t safe.”

    “So?”

    “So, if I have to stop, you’ll be flung up here. Haven’t you ever seen the videos of the mannequins they film to show what a body can do in an accident?”

    “I trust your driving.” Bean looked back down at the fat AP chemistry book she was reading.

    “My driving isn’t at issue here. It’s other people you ought to be worried about.”

    “The statistics bear me out.”

    “What?”

    “The statistics. The likelihood of our being in an accident is slim. It would be slimmer if we had flown.”

    Harley frowned and cranked down on the steering wheel. No job, and yet, she expects to be catered to. When their grandma had taken ill, they had agreed to go to see her, but there was no money for plane tickets. They had to drive. She rolled her eyes.

    “I’m not getting into that with you again.”

    “Yeah, well ...” and then, Bean perked up. She sat up, reached forward, and punched Harley on the shoulder. “Punch buggy green,” she shouted, as a bright, venom-green Beetle passed them.

    Riverford was still about an hour and a half away when Harley finally pulled the car into a rest stop. Bean hopped out and went to the restroom. Harley stayed with the car. She walked around the old, beat-up Subaru to stretch her legs. When Bean came back and got into the back seat, Harley locked the doors and headed toward the restrooms.

    “Hey,” Bean said.

    “What?”

    “Bring back some peanut M&Ms.”

    Harley held her hand out. When no money was forthcoming, she turned and hustled toward the restroom. The days of catering to Bean were over. They could have food when they got to Grandma’s. She reached up and rubbed her shoulder. There would be a massive bruise there.

    When she came back, she noticed that her little sister had been rooting around in the back. Now, not only were several of her books piled about on the seat and floorboards, but also a small black case with the words “Bean’s Chemistry Set” printed neatly on orange masking tape on the side. What chemicals were in there, she couldn’t guess and didn’t want to know. Would they get loose and burn her seats, or chew into metal or fill the car with a sulfuric stench? She decided not to say anything. It wouldn’t do any good either way.

    Harley was so frustrated as they pulled out of the rest stop that she didn’t notice the classic Ford Bronco that followed them. She merged and settled into the slow lane, trying to keep the old Subby at around sixty-eight mph. Three car lengths behind the light blue Subaru, the Bronco moved in and closed the distance.

    Bean had finally dozed off when they were only thirty miles from their exit. In the silence and the bluish twilight of evening, Volkswagen Beetles couldn’t be seen, though Bean would doubtless have switched to ‘padiddle’, the game for pointing out cars with only one headlight with a punch to the shoulder.

    As she glanced into her rearview mirror, Harley noticed that the vehicle behind her only had one headlight. She had been so tired for this last part of their road trip that if she had noticed it before, she couldn’t remember. Now, though, she took note of how close behind them the vehicle was. There was no other traffic on the road. Why did they pass? She wondered if slowing down would get the one-eyed vehicle to pass her. She contemplated it, but eventually decided against it. She saw a sign for Riverford in the beams of her headlights. Fifteen miles.

    After a time, she noticed that one bright headlight seemed somewhat closer. She tapped the plus button on her cruise control a few times. It was dark now, and the highway was mostly empty. Maybe if she sped up, this tailgater behind her would hang back. She glanced at the speedometer. She was going just shy of seventy. The light in the rearview was even brighter now. Had they put on their brights, she wondered?

    The light sheared across her vision from the rearview and her side mirror. She tapped the speed up again to seventy-two. The light in the mirror stayed perfectly equidistant. Just a little too close for her comfort. She turned her head and glanced back into the back seat. Bean was totally asleep and completely unaware of the situation.

    Harley’s mind raced. What if this were some school kids out for a joyride and looking to mess with older drivers? She had heard of that before. Or, maybe ... she took a long, deep breath ... maybe she was just imagining things. Maybe it was just some old guy who didn’t know he had one lamp out and had hit the high beams to help him see better. Older folks had bad night vision. Maybe it was just that her beams were brighter, and he liked being able to see.

    That thought—that she might be helping—calmed her down a bit, and she let out her breath. Then she hunkered down so that the beam of light wasn’t blinding her.

    The bright, LED flash of blue lights in her rearview mirror snapped Harley out of her reveries. Her heart thundered suddenly, wondering if she was about to be pulled over. She slowed down to get back under the limit. State Troopers were the worst, she knew. No chance at a warning, and she couldn’t afford a ticket. 

    She could just make out the whine of a siren growing at the edges of her hearing. The sound and the lights set her teeth on edge. As she slowed, the vehicle behind her also slowed and moved back. She passed a sign that said RIVERFORD 8. 

    The state police cruiser pulled right up behind the vehicle behind her, and she watched with flooding relief as that vehicle slowed and pulled over. She tapped the cruise control again and settled in, enjoying the lack of bright light in her mirrors. Bean snorted in her sleep and went quiet again.

    RIVERFORD 2. The sign flashed green and white in her headlights. Almost there. She was tired ... no, exhausted. The worry about her grandmother, the frustration with Bean’s antics, the descending dark, and the padiddled car behind her had cranked up her tension quite a bit. She took a few deep breaths and then rotated her head without taking her eyes off the road. They would be there, soon. 

    When she saw the light coming up behind her, she assumed it was just another car, but as it grew in her rearview, she saw with shock that it had only one headlight. There was no sign of a police car. It hadn’t been long enough for them to have been given a ticket. Her heart sank. As the bright light regained its former close position behind her, she noticed lights flashing ahead. Bright orange signs had been set up, and there were barrels and cones by the Riverford exit. She wondered what had happened. A flashing sign with an arrow made of lightbulbs indicated that the right lane and the exit were closed, and she flipped her turn signal on and moved into the left lane. The vehicle behind her followed suit.

    Another sign by the Riverford exit flashed a message in lights: Riverford Exit detoured to Fulton Street Exit 145. 4 MILES.

    Stress washed through her. She was so tired and so close, and now they had closed the exit. The light behind her got brighter. She could see the gleam of the metal grill in the mirror. She could hear the roar of the motor seething. The entire cabin of her car was daylight bright.

    Bean sat up. “What’s going on? Are we close?”

    Harley had her teeth clenched together so tightly that she felt her jaws throbbing. “Lay back down and be quiet. Please.” To her surprise, Bean did as she was told. 

    The bump, when it happened, was not a surprise. She wondered if it was going to happen and guessed that it was coming. It wasn’t even a bump, but just the lightest tap, and it sent her car fishtailing hard, and she nearly lost control, but somehow remembered to turn into the swerve and regained control after a jarring moment. Books went skittering across the seats and floorboards. Harley’s hands were clasped at ten and two, her arms locked, her teeth clenched. She glanced back into the bright headlight beam and realized instantly that it was a mistake. Garish purple blotches filled her eyes and disoriented her for a moment, when another bump happened.

    This time, Harley was unable to keep control, and her car swerved off the road and skidded onto the grass-grown shoulder, roostertailing dirt and clumps of turf in a swerving arc. The car rocked precariously up on two wheels before slamming down. Dirt clods rained down on the windscreen. Bean had wailed and then was silenced as her awkward position in the back seat smashed her first against the ceiling and then onto the floor. A voice in Harley’s head was trying to say ‘I told you so’ to her silent sister, but when Bean failed to pop up, her heart sank. She wrenched herself around in the front seat to try to take off her seatbelt. Her whole being flooded with a profound need to get to her sister. She fought down the slick panic rising in her chest and focused on taking a deep breath.

    It was then that she realized that she couldn’t breathe. Her eyes widened with the realization, and she opened her mouth to try to suck in the needed oxygen. The panic won in that moment. It rose and swelled over her. Then, in a ratcheting gasp that burned her throat and shattered the edges of her consciousness, she sobbed in lungfuls of the air she so desperately needed. With the air returning, the need to check on Bean came back with animal clarity.

    She unclicked her seatbelt and was crawling over the seat to help Bean when her door was wrenched open and she felt two strong hands grasp her legs just above her ankles. At first, she couldn’t understand what was happening. Grunting with fury, she lunged toward the back seat to get to her sister, who she could now see was huddled in a heap on the back floorboards, covered in books and her banana-yellow suitcase. The hands grasped harder and yanked, pulling Harley down the seat and partially out of the driver's door. She clawed at the seat and headrest, but then felt herself twisted. It was then, in the garish light of one bright headlight, that Harley clocked who it was that was pulling her from the car. The tailgater.

    The dark form was strong. Its hands were like steel claws, squeezing down into her flesh. The figure was clad in black clothes and a hoodie pulled over a baseball cap. She could see the face. It looked like ... an actor? The actor who was in that movie set on the train. Then she realized that it was actually a mask. Again, her stupefied mind wanted to guess the actor, but she shook herself free of the urge.     “NO!” Her scream cracked out of her in a wail of fear and dread. She could feel the heat of her car, hear the ticking of metal contracting, and smell the scent of gas exhaust. There was something else, too. Horrible body odor. Her own? No, it was the figure’s stench. She screamed again as the shadowy figure pulled her closer and closer. He was incredibly strong, though, and she could only think to fight and kick and try to get away. 

    The figure pulled her up to her feet, though, and she suddenly knew that, somehow, her ankles had been bound. The form stooped and flipped her almost effortlessly over its shoulder. The stench was unbearable. She coughed and gagged as it swept into her nostrils. Then, she felt it turn and set off toward the truck.

    When Bean woke, she felt searing, blinding pain in her thigh exploding with every beat of her heart. She gasped and tried to grab at her leg, but her hands were prevented by some heavy object. “Unnggh,” she cried as her fingers swept about to determine what it was. It was then that she realized that she was squeezing her eyes shut and opened them. Her suitcase. Bright yellow and full of clothes, books, and other things she felt were necessary, was lying directly on her left thigh and across most of the bottom half of her body. She tried to get leverage to lift it off, but found that she was twisted in her seatbelt, which was pulling her up against the weight of the suitcase.

    Scrabbling up onto the seat, she found the click release and pushed it, but to no avail. She wriggled around to her left, swinging both arms up to the seat and getting a better grasp of the mechanism.     Centering both thumbs on the button, she jammed them down, and the seatbelt released with a hard, metallic click. She felt the belt slither along her back, and a second later, her butt hit the floorboard. She grunted with the pain as the suitcase settled against her leg, but it was less intense now. She adjusted herself, by increments, gasping with the bright pulses of agony in her leg, and managed to push her suitcase off her. She expected to see blood or mangled bone poking through the skin and muscle of her thigh, but instead, her leg looked fine in the gloom. She bent it toward herself and then straightened it again. It wasn’t broken. Now, she thought, to get out of here and find Harley.

    Harley had swooned. The stench, the pressure of the figure’s shoulder in her abdomen were too much. Now she was awake and in the backseat ... of her car? No. Not her car. Her consciousness came and then faded into muzziness. Then awareness burst forward with painful flash. Its truck. The figure’s truck. She was in the back seat of that hellish cyclops machine. She sat forward as best she could, her hands bound in front of her, a tight gag in her mouth, but she attempted to look out of the vehicle. The figure wasn’t there. The driver’s seat was empty. Twangy easy listening country was playing softly on the dashboard radio. As her vision cleared, she saw the figure moving in and out of the light of his truck’s single headlight toward her car and toward ... oh God. Oh no. 

Bean.

    The girl was limping. Her hair tousled. Her sky-blue sweater torn. As she hobbled toward the truck, she held up her hand across her face to diminish the bright beam. Harley thought maybe her sister’s arm was broken. She noted that her sweater was twisted with her arm tucked up behind her back.

    Harley wanted to yell out, to warn Bean not to come toward the truck, but the gag prevented her. The figure had disappeared, but now it was back, standing just to the side of the truck, looking over the open door at Bean. Harley felt her heart sink. The figure was huge, strong, and terrible. Bean barely weighed ninety pounds.

    The figure stepped around the door and stopped again. Harley watched as a moment of perplexity seemed to wash over it. She whimpered, and it turned its head partially in her direction. She understood that she was trying to decide what to do, that Bean was not part of the plan. As it started to move toward the girl, Harley screamed, and the figure stopped again, hesitating. Then it was in motion, going toward Bean. Harley screamed again through the gag, wriggling in her bonds, slamming back and forth against the seat so that the truck rocked. She screamed until her throat burned. The figure in the hoodie didn’t stop moving until it stood in front of Bean, completely blocking her from view. Tears streamed down Harley’s face. Bean, she thought. Oh God, no. Not Bean. She squeezed her eyes shut and screamed in helpless rage.

    The shriek, when it came, was, she thought, Bean’s howl of agony and terror. Her eyes snapped open in time to see the figure juttering, arms reaching up, scrabbling at its mask. The huge figure slammed back into the grill of its truck, and it finally managed to pull the hat and hood off, and then rip off something else, thin, like smoking gauze, and flung it away. There was another deep, guttural scream, and Harley sat forward, eyes wide, straining to see, terrified to look. From the side as it turned its head, Harley could see that it had a face, in fact, was a man, but that part of that face was smoking or melting off. Another primal scream, and then the figure fell out of sight. Bean was standing there in the high beam light, her face red, but not with fear, but what Harley recognized as rage. 

    What felt like years later, Harley lay bound in a thick blue blanket on a gurney just behind an open ambulance. Bean was sitting wrapped in her own blanket in the open doorway. A policeman in plain clothes was writing something down in a notebook. 

    Then he came over to Harley.

    “She’s your sister.”

    “Yes,” Harley said. 

    “She is quite a brave young person.”

    “She is.”

    “Do you know what happened to you tonight?”

    “I’m not sure, no.”

    The officer, whose nametag said C. Brewster, began to unfold a tale that made Harley’s head hurt. A police officer in a traffic cruiser had been shot to death in his car several miles back. When he failed to answer his radio, more police were dispatched to find him. They have location sensors on the cars, now, so it was easy to find where he was. Judging by the dashboard computer, the officer had pulled over a man called Henry Wayne Bishop. Bishop was wanted in connection with several missing persons cases, one of which had turned out to be a murder.

    Police pursued the direction of Bishop’s tire tracks and eventually came upon the scene where Harley was now. They approached and were flagged down by a skinny girl in a sky blue sweater. What they found amazed them. In front of the truck with one headlight out lay a huge man in a black jumpsuit with a hood. His face was half melted off, but they could tell that it was Bishop. 

    Based on her own explanation, after Harley was bound and in the truck, Bean woke, got herself out of the back seat, and went rummaging through the car. She found her chemistry kit and pulled out a bottle of sulfuric acid she used for her experiments. When she was close enough, she flung it in Bishop’s face and burned him severely. After he collapsed, police arrived.

    They loaded Harley into the ambulance, and Bean jumped in with her and the paramedic. The ambulance jostled over the rough grass and then got onto the highway and drove slowly toward town and the hospital.

    “You saved my life,” Harley said, tears streaming down her face. She reached for her sister’s hand. Bean took it.

    “No, science did. I was reading a science book before I went to sleep.”

    “I’m sorry about yelling at you all the time.”

    Ah, it’s alright,” Bean said, leaning in to her sister’s embrace. “We got a serial killer kidnapper tonight.” She smiled. “I don’t think I’m ever playing padiddle or punch buggy again,” Bean said.

    “You never know,” Harley replied with a smile.

    The paramedic said, “I used to have a Volkswagen Beetle.”

    The girls looked at each other, grinned, and said together, “Punch Buggy!”