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The bunks faced out toward my bedroom window and through the Star Wars curtains bought for me in the womb I could see our backyard, a patch of withered grass and shortstop scuff marks maybe ten feet wide, and through my eyes then it stretched on into our woods, and into another backyard, and out into the world. I laugh when I try to recall my first girlfriend's middle name (Marie? Probably Marie.) and fail but can remember the image and location of every open space, briar cluster, or artifact lost in those backyard woods. I can remember finding a Scooby-Doo sleeping bag wet from months of rain down that path we never took. I know where the little black girls with thousands of colored balls and ties in their hair stood to play Winnie the Pooh in our trees, and I know what part of the woods meant "sewer" when I became a Ninja Turtle in a few years. I could see these things through my window, if they weren't blocked by Leech of the Evil Horde stuck by his suction-cup face to the outside glass. That night I could see everything. I didn't think it was weird. Night noises never scared me. Big boy. "It's just the house settling." Creak. Shake. Crack. House settling. My Mom drops a glass on the kitchen floor. House settling. After a while the noises subside and I was left there alone, in the dark, and at ease. Hands behind my head like the satisfied people on TV I enjoyed my bunk beds. Even if the mattress was hard. And the space design on the mattress was a little excessive. Stars, planets, sure, but I didn't need solar flares and space stations. They still make bunk bed mattresses like that today. Visit your local Rentway. I couldn't sleep. What was wrong with me? Count sheep. Just think about sleep. It wasn't coming but I loved my bed and until the early morning the backyard would be lit up with fireflies. Fireflies. I'm from Virginia. They were "lightning bugs." As the night stayed still the lightning bugs burned out and fluttered away, free from their destiny to end up part of the little black girls' facetious and cruel jewelry. Then, darkness. Then, darkness. I rolled over to face the window directly and stared into the woods. The trees and briar looked blue. Off in the distance a log or a branch was catching the moonlight and lit up a faded but brightening white, so I stopped to watch it move. Slowly now. To watch it move. Moving. Moving toward me. Stepping. Stepping now. Stepping over the briar patch and into my backyard. He was walking toward me. He was standing just outside of my window. He was putting his palms on the window. I could see his breath. I could hear the fingertips digging in and grasping for a hold. I screamed the same scream I'd screamed in a thousand dreams. The scream where a man is chasing you and you fall, or you finally hide, and it comes out but stays inside. Your mouth opens and your lungs contract and the only sound that whispers out is the creak of my throat muscles. With no breath left inside of me I threw off the covers and seemingly fell into my parents bed, crying and pissing and trying to tell them what I'd seen. My Mother reassured me that it had just been a dream. When my Father returned from investigating he said he saw nothing. That night I slept in their bedroom recliner with my eyes wide open, and cheeks brushing red against the yellow velvet upholstery. |