At arm's length

Fiction

(Photograph courtesy of Aunt Debby)

Window cracks partially stuffed and taped. Chilly currents of air hit the top of his head. It’s midnight and the moon is full.

Rusty needs to get out of the house, but he thinks about the worst, always.

“What if I hit a patch of black ice and crash into a telephone pole, and it sets my car aflame. Then what if I try to exit and the door is jammed?”

Rusty’s inner dialogue has a way of externalizing. It doesn’t matter where or with whom. Like the time earlier in the summer when the fallout began. Rusty found himself out of the house for the first time in eleven months. He had been invited to his paternal cousin’s wedding. To be fair, it was one of the better ones he had been to in recent memory, and it even had an open bar (a cooler filled with Budweiser), a rarity in his family.

Outside the door of the town hall reception was another party altogether. As you exited the hall, there was a lineup of the groom’s friends holding signs, clutching forties and babies on their shoulders. One sign read: “Kiss me I’m a veteran,” another said “looking for work,” and at the end of the line one of the guests was panhandling. These guests came and went from the groom’s car, sniffling. One gentleman without a shirt came back holding a toddler, asking whether he had anything on his nose, in a jovial air. Rusty was horrified by the scene, and that all of these people were invited guests. He pushed his way back inside and sat back down on a chair. Rock lobster played, and now it was time to perform a medieval tradition. Rusty was coaxed to the stage where a lad half his age in a tuxedo stood before the groom, who held in his hand a wreath. They spoke in a tongue foreign to Rusty, an incantation, and the groom tossed the wreath in the direction of Rusty. If he caught the Wreath he would be the next to marry, as it turned out. Rusty backed up as the groom gently tossed the ceremonial object over his shoulder without much effort, near Rusty’s feet. He backed away to allow the youth to snatch it. The prize: an incestuous dance with a cousin, and inevitable marriage. The groom approached him, seething, “Why didn’t you catch it?” the groom asked. Rusty fell mute and went directly to the beer cooler, where he instinctively took two Budweisers. His face turned a deep crimson, and the sweat under his arms bled into the fabric. Rusty’s mind did laps. He spoke without reserve. “I’m not ever getting married!” The guests grew silent, and heads turned. “Why do I have to dance when I don’t care to?— In addition to that, the people outside are acting creepy!” Zach, the groom, walked up to Rusty, mic in hand, his zits shining and his eyes bugged out, “You got a problem with something?” he asked Rusty, whose face grew redder.

“You’re all fucking rednecks,” Rusty screamed.

Rusty felt hands on his shoulders and his body being led outside. When he got home, he fixated on the incident for three days, swearing never to go to a family function again.

****

Rusty looked out his kitchen window at the field and the abutting trees, branches weighed down by fresh snow. He made himself hot chocolate from an envelope and poured a dash of milk the way his mother used to do. Rusty had spoken to his mother earlier in the day, and it had sent him down a weird trip to his first childhood home. The only home he dreamt about, awake or during slumber. The house, like all of the childhood homes, had a door that never closed properly. A refrigerator with an icemaker that was never to be used. This was the home where the event happened. Something that hadn’t made sense until now. He closed his eyes at the window and floated into the old home, entering its abandoned rooms. It was a cold January. The 19th-century windows had frosted images swirling on the panes. He opened his eyes. Sauntering up the driveway was a tall shadow bending against the arctic air. Eyes reflected like a cat. Rusty raced to the front door to latch it shut. As he turned the latch he could see the hand of the shadow man. Rusty ran to the closet and hid behind the clothes basket. He silenced his trembling breath to listen for the shadow. When time had passed he inched the door open and walked out. The walls shook, and a whistling resonated. Rusty let out a yelp and called for his mother. He ran up the stairs, took a left and creaked open his parents’ door. The whistling sounded again. Rusty turned the light on- sitting up under the covers was his groggy mother, yawning.

“Rusty, are you okay?”

“There’s a shadow man outside the door. He’s trying to break the house down!”

“Rusty, it’s the wind—your mind is playing games with you—I’ll sing you a song,” she sang Edelweiss:

“Edelweiss, don’t you cry—

go to sleep, my baby—

Edelweiss, Edelweiss, every morning you greet me”

His mother carried him to bed and tucked him in. Rusty woke from a noise coming up the stairs. Firm heavy footsteps and labored breathing. He saw the hallway lights and multiple shadows. A gaiety in his mother’s whisper, coupled with a foreign, gravelly voice, deeper than his father’s. Then he heard the shower come on and voices rise and fall. He wanted to kill that man and his mother where they stood.

            ****

Rusty, nearing middle age, stays inside caring for his extraordinary collections. His childhood memories returned to keep him pondering. The clock read 2:34 am, a deceptive moonlight shone down, and icicles formed after the day’s thaw. He focused on the transmuted runoff and its shapes. One particularly jarring example hung down like a small arm reaching for the frozen earth. Outside, it was a calming, chilly winter. Indoors, it was as pleasant as it would be all year, the ruse of balmy summers with no reprieve. He lay awake, drifting off, recalling events in no particular order.